| Wendy
Webster's Englishness and Empire: 1939-1965 is an attempt to address
the lack of scholarship on the impact of decolonization and the loss of
world prestige on metropolitan British culture and society. She argues
that the impact of this was registered throughout British society. This
loss of a global role was of profound importance to the British because
it forced them to question their role in the world, their role in history,
and their role at home. She makes good use of media archives, focusing
particular attention on films, but also includes elements of radio, newspapers,
and, for both the Coronation and Churchill's funeral, television. As a
somewhat new medium in the period being discussed, television's influence
was felt through the modernity of the format and in what was being viewed.
Live television allowed 20 million Britains to view the Coronation simultaneously,
with an additional 150 to 200 million viewers worldwide. (6)
The
book was organized into three main narratives: the people's empire, which
encompassed a wartime depiction of empire that attempted to pull the peoples
of the empire together across race, gender, and class differences; the
siege narrative, a post-World War II depiction of empire as attacking
or threatening the metropolis; and the late 1950's-early 1960's story
of British masculinity as being as its peak during World War II, a story
that reached its apex with Churchill's funeral in 1965. Women and non-whites
are discussed in the first two narratives, while the third is defined
in opposition to standard notions of them.
This
book was written for a scholarly audience, but the language is accessible
to a more general population. With its focus on popular culture, especially
film, this book could be of interest to film enthusiasts as well as social
historians. Webster introduces the subject of each chapter with an illustrative
example from popular culture and ends each chapter with a tie-in to the
following chapter's theme. The narratives are discussed in relation to
major events in British history—World War II, the Coronation, the
Colonial Wars, and Churchill's funeral. Chapter two is about the people's
empire, a depiction of solidarity within the empire. Chapter three, the
post-war period, sees the people's empire and people's victory replaced
by a hero's (i.e. white man's) victory. The following chapter, "Coronation,"
sees the youthful Queen Elizabeth II come to the throne. She is the symbol
of the new imperial identity, the Commonwealth, a "multi-racial community
of equal nations." (118) The problems of the "Colonial Wars" and "Immigration"
as described in chapters 5 and 6 are united by the central theme of the
fear of attack. The final chapter deals mostly with the masculine culture
of the time with a focus on Churchill's legacy. Finally, the Epilogue
centers on the impact of empire on the Falklands War of 1982.
The
people's empire was a necessary and vital part of the British war effort.
The term itself is an attempt to explain the unification of peoples across
the empire without regard to race or country. Webster bases the term on
the more common "people's war." It implies that the empire belonged to
all of its citizens. In 1940, Britain stood alone in Europe, but as a
Punch cartoon made clear, they were alone with 500 million people.
(44) In the poster "Together," designed to advertise the imperial war
effort, the empire's people were depicted with white Britons in the front
(Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and South Africans) with Indians
and black Africans marching at the rear. Although a hierarchy was clearly
evident, there was an attempt at inclusiveness. This depiction is clearly
a propaganda piece, but the empire was in fact crucial to British victory.
The colonial armies were a source of labor and manpower. The war made
the differences between members of the empire less significant in comparison
to the possible outcome.
One
of the more tantalizing ideas discussed in this book is the idea of the
siege narrative. The 1950's saw a shift away from the people's empire.
"Diverse peoples were no longer united against a common enemy. Instead
a racial community of Britons was under siege in empire. (124) White Britons
saw themselves as threatened throughout the empire during the colonial
wars and the period of decolonization. The increase in immigration to
Britain, especially by non-white peoples from former imperial dominions,
was both a corollary and a cause of this. Just as empire no longer seemed
a "safe" place, now neither did "home."
There
are two features lacking in this volume: there is no discussion of Cold
War visions of British identity and there are no pictures. Although the
title indicates the book will only cover the period 1939-1965, the lack
of a discussion about Cold War era perceptions of British identity was
disappointing. The lack of images to accompany the text is a major drawback.
The visual medium is the focus of the discussion and, without examples
of posters or stills from movies, some of the force of the argument is
lost. The most compelling arguments were the ones that used examples with
which most readers would be visually familiar, while the inclusion of
relatively obscure movies as examples made a truism of the saying a picture
is worth a thousand words.
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