Colonial officers and gentlemen: the British Empire and the globalization of ‘tradition’

This article asks why simplistic accounts of the British Empire as a modernizing force have been so popular in recent years. It contends that, aside from the obvious ideological appeal of these views to some, academic literature has found it difficult to offer a powerful rebuttal. This article argues that in order to do so we need to think more comparatively about the British Empire as a system, and to restore attention to imperial agency. However, this is not best achieved through a traditional study of high politics, but by bringing cultural historical approaches to the study of Britain’s lower imperial cadre. The second half of the article offers a preliminary analysis of the attitudes of local colonial officers. It argues that, contrary to the arguments of neo-imperialist popular historians, this group was hostile to modernization, and in many cases was determined to maintain or restore what they regarded as a traditional order.