Empire of Progress, The: West Africans, Indians, and Britons at the British Empire Exhibition, 1924-25 (Electronic book text)

Though scholars have devoted considerable attention to connections between British domestic culture and imperial expansion, the twentieth century - in particular, the imperial culture of the interwar years - has been relatively neglected, even though propaganda on imperial themes reached a fever pitch after the First World War, culminating in the 1924-25 British Empire Exhibition. The Exhibition was the largest such public event in the nation's history to that point, and it heralded a turning point in the history of British imperialism. Situated as it was at the intersection of empire, national identity, and popular culture, it embodied ongoing conflicts over the future direction of imperialism. This much-needed study of the British Empire Exhibition helps to correct an historiographical imbalance by illustrating durable, persistent connections between empire and domestic society in Britain during the interwar years, bridging the era of Victorian dominance and the new 'liberal' discourses of 'progress' and colonial 'development' that emerged in the 1920s.