ABSTRACT
In a decolonised world the empire no longer strikes back, but there is a sense in which it lives on after its demise. The present generation, the first in Britain for some 300 years to survey a world w ithout prom inent imperial landmarks, has seen a remarkable increase o f interest in the empire, as witness the formidably impressive volume of historical research published since the 1950s and the growth o f public nostalgia for a world we have lost and, in some respects, may never have had. Given that the explosion o f research can intimidate as well as aid further scholarship and that the imperial content o f novels and television programmes may be approaching saturation level, the appearance o f yet another book on British imperialism needs an explicit justification beyond that provided by the enduring importance o f the subject itself. In the case o f a general work, such as this one, good cause can be shown either by updating previous surveys or by venturing a new interpretation. It is difficult to say which is the m ore hazardous enterprise: the former threatens to bury the surveyor alive under an avalanche o f specialised research w hich descends faster than it can be moved; the latter offers the prospect o f ordeal by public exposure, a fate reserved for those w ho suppose that they have something new to say on a topic which, being so vast, has absorbed novelties from m ore ingenious minds in the course o f the past century.
