TY - JOUR
T1 - Rules of thumb
T2 - British history and ‘imperial culture’ in nineteenth- and twentieth-century britain
AU - Burton, Antoinette
PY - 1994/12
Y1 - 1994/12
N2 - This paper examines the traditions of both British imperial and British domestic historiography and calls for a re-mapping of both so that the so-called separate spheres of ‘home’ and ‘away’ may be brought back into the same fields of debate. Its central claim is that imperial ideology and its effects were not phenomena ‘out there’. Empire was not a singular place; nor did ‘home’ exist in isolation from it. In spite of the polarization, which has been characteristic of their historiographies, their relationship was dialectic rather than dichotomous. These insights, while derived in part from new trends inside British history itself, owe both their theoretical rigor and their self-avowedly political concerns to post-colonial and feminist historiographical work, which together insist on the desacralization of ‘Britain’ proper.
AB - This paper examines the traditions of both British imperial and British domestic historiography and calls for a re-mapping of both so that the so-called separate spheres of ‘home’ and ‘away’ may be brought back into the same fields of debate. Its central claim is that imperial ideology and its effects were not phenomena ‘out there’. Empire was not a singular place; nor did ‘home’ exist in isolation from it. In spite of the polarization, which has been characteristic of their historiographies, their relationship was dialectic rather than dichotomous. These insights, while derived in part from new trends inside British history itself, owe both their theoretical rigor and their self-avowedly political concerns to post-colonial and feminist historiographical work, which together insist on the desacralization of ‘Britain’ proper.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84954943308&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84954943308&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/09612029400200064
DO - 10.1080/09612029400200064
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84954943308
SN - 0961-2025
VL - 3
SP - 483
EP - 504
JO - Women's History Review
JF - Women's History Review
IS - 4
ER -