A History Of Knowledge

What The Modern Age Knew

Chapter 4: The British Empire

Piero Scaruffi (2004) www.scaruffi.com

Edited and revised by Chris Hastings (2013)

“An eye for an eye

makes the whole world

blind”

- Mahatma Gandhi "The size of the lie is a

definite factor

in causing it to be

believed”

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

“We are not shooting

enough professors”

- Lenin’s telegram

"Pacifism is objectively

pro-Fascist.”

- George Orwell, 1942

“What good fortune for

governments that the

people do not think”

- Adolf Hitler

Part 1: The Age Of World Wars

British Empire

Sole superpower after end of Austrian and Ottoman empires, French humiliation, Russian Revolution, and Great Depression in USA

58 countries (36 million square kms), 400 million people

2

British Empire

3

British Empire

Britain and its dominions "equal in status" and "freely associated" in Commonwealth of Nations (1926)

Britannia the pacifier

British Empire

4

British Empire

Britain replaces alliance with Japan with alliance with USA (1922)

Cinema, radio, and gramophone promote values of British Empire (royal ceremonies, military parades, speeches, mythology)

British Empire

5

Britannia Pacificatrix (1919) Brittania Pacificatrix (1919)

Sigismund Goetze’s mural decoration at Foreign Office in London

Britain shakes hands with America, wearing cap of Liberty and holding scales of Justice

Britannia Pacificatrix (1919) Brittania Pacificatrix (1919)

Italy carries 'fasces' emblem of Roman Law

France holds sword to 'Scrap of Paper' and broken Crucifix

Britannia Pacificatrix (1919) Brittania Pacificatrix (1919)

Japan carries wild cherry-blossom

Russia in mourning at extreme left

To right, colonies: South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Arabia

Britannia Pacificatrix (1919) Brittania Pacificatrix (1919)

9

British Empire Exhibition (1924) British Empire Exhibit (1924)

10

British Empire Exhibit Poster (1936) Exhibit Poster (1936)

11

British Empire

No longer benevolent empire after Indian, Irish, and Boer insurrections

Anti-imperialist movement (Orwell, 77% of Britons in 1939)

Influence of USA (liberal) and Soviet (socialist) rhetoric

British Empire

12

British Empire

Political experiment

Very few British administrators control huge populations (1,200 British administrators and 1,000 cops for whole of Africa)

British Empire

13

British Empire

Britain controls local elites through customized administrative systems

Symbol of racial/class discrimination: Club that limits “gentlemanliness” to British men

British Empire

14

British Empire

Balance of power in Far East shifting towards Japan

Britain’s inability to stop Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) shows Mediterranean is no longer controlled by Britain

British Empire

15

British Empire

Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia (1935) shows Africans that Britain is impotent

Munich conference (1938) shows Europe that Britain is impotent

British Empire

16

British Empire

Fragile pretension to still be global empire

“Colonel Blimp” syndrome: Character over competence

British Empire

This is a chapter in Piero Scaruffi’s “A

History Of Knowledge:”

http://www.scaruffi.com/know

http://www.scaruffi.com/know