The relations of Great Britain and its Dominions significantly influenced the development of the British Empire in the late 19th and the first third of the 20th century. The mutual attitude to the constitutional issues that Dominion and British leaders have continually discussed at Colonial and Imperial Conferences respectively was one of the main aspects forming the links between the mother country and the autonomous overseas territories. This volume therefore focuses on the key period when the importance of the Dominions not only increased within the Empire itself, but also in the sphere of the international relations, and the Dominions gained the opportunity to influence the forming of the Imperial foreign policy. During the first third of the 20th century, the British Empire gradually transformed into the British Commonwealth of Nations, in which the importance of Dominions excelled. The work is based on the study of unreleased sources from British archives, a large number of published documents and extensive relevant literature.

Using government records, private letters and diaries and contemporary media sources, this book examines the key themes affecting the relationship between Britain and the Dominions during the Second World War, the Empire's last great conflict. It asks why this political and military coalition was ultimately successful in overcoming the challenge of the Axis powers but, in the process, proved unable to preserve itself. Although these changes were inevitable the manner of the evolution was sometimes painful, as Britain's wartime economic decline left its political position exposed in a changing post-war international system.

The first comprehensive examination and comparison of the indigenous peoples of the five British dominions during the First World War.

Fifty some years after an American Revolution which did not occur, a prosperous UnitedStates of British America is staggered to learn Parliament in London is considering a billto emancipate all the Empire's slaves within seven years. How does the Dominion reactas a whole? How does the slaveholding American South react? Can Governor-GeneralAndrew Jackson and the Dominion government maintain order? And how does theEmpire's enemies react to the prospect of unrest in North America? The prosperous British Empire dominion called the United States of British America isrocked when the Duke of Wellington arrives unexpectedly to announce that Parliament isputting the finishing touches on emancipation legislation scheduled to free all slaves heldin the Empire---including the American South---in seven years. Governor-General Andrew Jackson is maneuvering to keep the crisis from explodingwhen an unthinkable act convinces John C. Calhoun that he can save the "peculiarinstitution"...and cement the South's weakening grip on Dominion political power.Meanwhile, Gen. Winfield Scott worries about his ability to maintain Dominionauthority---in Quebec as well as Dixie---should half his professional officers "go South."Will London's decision to abolish slavery boomerang when the Empire's enemies---Russia and France---attempt to play the crisis to their own advantages? And what ofthat Czarist army now occupying Syria...and threatening to march on the Imperialpossessions in India? A colorful cast of historical characters, including Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, JeffersonDavis, Robert E. Lee, Zachary Taylor and Martin Van Buren in Georgetown, D.C.collaborate and conspire with and against Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston in Londonand Czar Nicholas I in St. Petersburg.They are joined by vivid fictional characters including a brash young Army intelligenceaide, a tough British diplomat, a Georgetown bureaucrat with a gift for amorousespionage and a diabolical Russian secret agent. As well as their ladies: a politically-awakening Southern belle, a wealthy (and lusty) plantation widow, a frail but iron-willedRussian countess and a disreputable tavern/brothel owner. And an imposing former slave-turned-minister/freedom smuggler.As the political crisis threatens to explode into civil war, one man may hold the key: adisgraced former USBA Vice Governor-General (and shadowy New York political boss)... Aaron Burr.

From the 1920s until the outbreak of the Second World War, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand filled British shop windows, newspaper columns, and cinema screens with “British to the core” Canadian apples, “British to the backbone” New Zealand lamb, and “All British” Australian butter. In remarkable yet forgotten advertising campaigns, prime ministers, touring cricketers, “lady demonstrators,” and even boxing kangaroos were pressed into service to sell more Dominion produce to British shoppers. But as they sold apples and butter, these campaigns also sold a Dominion-styled British identity. Selling Britishness explores the role of commodity marketing in creating Britishness. Dominion settlers considered themselves British and marketed their commodities accordingly. Meanwhile, ambitious Dominion advertising agencies set up shop in London to bring British goods, like Ovaltine, back to the dominions and persuade their fellow citizens to buy British. Conventionally nationalist narratives have posited the growth of independent national identities during the interwar period, though some have suggested imperial sentiment endured. Felicity Barnes takes a new approach, arguing that far from shaking off or relying on any lasting sense of Britishness, Dominion marketing produced it. Selling Britishness shows that when constructing Britishness, advertisers employed imperial hierarchies of race, class, and gender. Consumption worked to bolster colonialism, and advertising extended imperial power into the everyday. Drawing on extensive new archives, Selling Britishness explores a shared British identity constructed by marketers and advertisers during advertising’s golden age.

Rediscovering the British World is one part of an ongoing attempt to approach British Imperial history from a different viewpoint, placing the colonies of settlement at the centre. Editors Phillip Buckner and Douglas Francis have included nineteen essays from expert scholars in the field, which cover a broad range of cultural, social, and intellectual topics in British imperial history from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. The essays focus on the history of Britain and the Empire, with considerable emphasis on the self-governing dominions of Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. They attempt to show the centrality of the Empire in the history of the nations created by the British diaspora overseas, while at the same time calling into question the extent of the existence of a "British World." The goal is not to wax nostalgic, but rather to re-examine the complex phenomenon of this far-reaching empire and to shed light on the ways in which it has shaped our world. With contributions by: James Belich Frank Bongiorno Bettina Bradbury Patrick H. Brennan Phillip Buckner Elizabeth Elbourne R. Douglas Francis Jeffrey Grey Catherine Hall John Lambert Douglas Lorimer David Lowe Stuart Macintyre Adele Perry Paul Pickering Satadru Sen R. Scott Sheffield Paul Ward Stuart Ward Wendy Webster