Ideal for adoption in introductory and upper-level classes in European and world history, this book provides a concise narrative account of the rise and fall of British imperialism. Focusing on the transition from informal to formal empire which broadened and intensified Britain's relations with Asia and Africa, Timothy Parsons describes the establishment of extensive colonies and protectorates in Egypt, India, China, and the Ottoman Empire. Parsons explores the cultural, political, economic, and social implications of British authority in these areas and he describes the various ways in which subject peoples contested and adapted to the expansion of the British Crown. This book is an excellent introduction to the subject of imperialism, and will be extremely useful for those studying this history of Britain, Africa, the Middle East, India, and the Far East.

Conceived by General Sir Robert Baden-Powell as a way to reduce class tensions in Edwardian Britain, scouting evolved into an international youth movement. It offered a vision of romantic outdoor life as a cure for disruption caused by industrialization and urbanization. Scouting’s global spread was due to its success in attaching itself to institutions of authority. As a result, scouting has become embroiled in controversies in the civil rights struggle in the American South, in nationalist resistance movements in India, and in the contemporary American debate over gay rights. In Race, Resistance, and the Boy Scout Movement in British Colonial Africa, Timothy Parsons uses scouting as an analytical tool to explore the tensions in colonial society. Introduced by British officials to strengthen their rule, the movement targeted the students, juvenile delinquents, and urban migrants who threatened the social stability of the regime. Yet Africans themselves used scouting to claim the rights of full imperial citizenship. They invoked the Fourth Scout Law, which declared that a scout was a brother to every other scout, to challenge racial discrimination. Parsons shows that African scouting was both an instrument of colonial authority and a subversive challenge to the legitimacy of the British Empire. His study of African scouting demonstrates the implications and far-reaching consequences of colonial authority in all its guises.

This book provides a new concept framework for understanding the factors that lead soldiers to challenge civil authority in developing nations. By exploring the causes and effects of the 1964 East African army mutinies, it provides novel insights into the nature of institutional violence, aggression, and military unrest in former colonial societies. The study integrates history and the social sciences by using detailed empirical data on the soldiers' protests in Tanganyika, Uganda, and Kenya. The roots of the 1964 army mutinies in Tanganyika, Uganda, and Kenya were firmly rooted in the colonial past when economic and strategic necessity forced the former British territorial governments to rely on Africans for defense and internal security. As the only group in colonial society with access to weapons and military training, the African soldiery was a potential threat to the security of British rule. Colonial authorities maintained control over African soldiers by balancing the significant rewards of military service with social isolation, harsh discipline, and close political surveillance. After independence, civilian pay levels out-paced army wages, thereby tarnishing the prestige of military service. As compensation, veteran African soldiers expected commissions and improved terms of service when the new governments Africanized the civil service. They grew increasingly upset when African politicians proved unwilling and unable to meet their demands. Yet the creation of new democratic societies removed most of the restrictive regulations that had disciplined colonial African soldiers. Lacking the financial resources and military expertise to create new armies, the independent African governments had to retain the basic structure and character of the inherited armies. Soldiers in Tanganyika, Uganda, and Kenya mutinied in rapid succession during the last week of January 1964 because their governments could no longer maintain the delicate balance of coercion and concessions that had kept the colonial soldiery in check. The East African mutinies demonstrate that the propensity of an African army to challenge civil authority was directly tied to its degree of integration into postcolonial society.

Why did East Africans in the King's African Rifles serve a foreign power? By examining the military experiences of African soldiers, the author reveals the tensions and contradictions of British colonial rule.

This book provides a concise overview of the British Empire from its origins in the early nineteenth century, to its climax at mid-century, to its denouement on the eve of World War I. Considering the impact of imperial rule, Parsons explores themes of cross-cultural, social, ...

Why do empires rise and why do they fall? To answer this question, Timothy Parsons casts his gaze across seven historical moments - from ancient Rome to Muslim Spain, from Britain's "new" imperialism in Kenya, to the Third Reich. From these very different examples, he draws out common features about empires' evolutions, their self-justifying myths, and the reasons for their inevitable decline.

At its peak, the British Empire spanned the world and linked diverse populations in a vast network of exchange that spread people, wealth, commodities, cultures, and ideas around the globe. By the turn of the twentieth century, this empire, which made Britain one of the premier global superpowers, appeared invincible and eternal. This compelling book reveals, however, that it was actually remarkably fragile. Reconciling the humanitarian ideals of liberal British democracy with the inherent authoritarianism of imperial rule required the men and women who ran the empire to portray their non-Western subjects as backward and in need of the civilizing benefits of British rule. However, their lack of administrative manpower and financial resources meant that they had to recruit cooperative local allies to actually govern their colonies. Timothy H. Parsons provides vivid detail of the experiences of subject peoples to explain how this became increasingly difficult and finally impossible after World War II as Africans, Asians, Arabs, and West Indians rejected the imperial notion that they were inferior and refused to be ruled by foreigners. Yet he also shows that the transformation of the British colonies into nation-states was not just a transfer of political power. The new postcolonial societies blended British political, economic, and social institutions with local norms and values in the new nations, while mass migration to Britain from the non-Western parts of the Commonwealth created a much more diverse and plural metropolitan society. This book tells the dramatic story of how the British Empire and its demise accelerated and strengthened globalization by creating webs of commerce, migration, and cultural exchange that linked Britons and their former subjects in new ways and produced blended transnational cultures that were British in origin but no longer British in character or style.

At its peak, the British Empire spanned the world and linked diverse populations in a vast network of exchange that spread people, wealth, commodities, cultures, and ideas around the globe. By the turn of the twentieth century, this empire, which made Britain one of the premier global superpowers, appeared invincible and eternal. This compelling book reveals, however, that it was actually remarkably fragile. Reconciling the humanitarian ideals of liberal British democracy with the inherent authoritarianism of imperial rule required the men and women who ran the empire to portray their non-Western subjects as backward and in need of the civilizing benefits of British rule. However, their lack of administrative manpower and financial resources meant that they had to recruit cooperative local allies to actually govern their colonies. Timothy H. Parsons provides vivid detail of the experiences of subject peoples to explain how this became increasingly difficult and finally impossible after World War II as Afr

TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 39: Recommended Guidelines for the Collection and Use of Geospatially Referenced Data for Airfield Pavement Management offers recommended guidelines for the collection and use of geospatially referenced data for airfield pavement management. The guidelines provide a data schema, data collection methods, data quality requirements, and other relevant information required for developing specifications and standards for integrating geospatial data into pavement management systems. Appendixes A through C to ACRP Report 39 are available online. Titles of the appendixes are as follows: Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire; Appendix B: Questionnaire Responses; Appendix C: Pavement Management Systems Software Data Elements.

In this text, Timothy Parsons gives a sweeping account of the evolution of empire from its origins in ancient Rome to its most recent 20th-century embodiment. He explains what constitutes an empire and offers suggestions about what empires of the past can tell us about our own historical moment.