This chapter traces the social history of deviance amongst Europeans in colonial Kenya. In order to contain deviance within manageable bounds, it argues, a practical project of social control was combined with a discursive neutralisation of what might otherwise bring colonial rule into disre¬pute. Combining attention to cultural production with analysis of social control mechanisms reveals the salience of gender and class in the protection of a salutary white settler identity. The chapter approaches critically Kenya’s outstanding reputation as a place of colonial eccentricity. It reconstructs that reputation within a narrative that highlights the changing nature of colonial society through a history of the treatment – by state and society – of deviants themselves.

This chapter considers metropolitan attitudes and ideas about Africa and empire to which officials were exposed, both via formal training, and British culture more broadly. Such training was marked by a lack of specificity and an unwillingness on the part of those being trained to engage with the material. Nevertheless, that officials were exposed to imprecise ideas does not mean that officials registered in such ideas an irreconcilable tension between universalistic reform and a relativistic conservation of an African status quo. Officials learnt to love the empire without learning how.

This chapter presents an overview of domestic management in Britain, providing the background against which to set practices empire-wide. It discusses the aspects of food, not only the ingredients and their preparation, but also a broad range of activities involving labour input, costings and presentation. The chapter explores the genteel women's part in the practices associated with food sourcing, preparation and presentation and thereby the meanings food had for that group of homemakers. Wherever in the colonies the eating habits of British homemakers are analysed, the bulk of the evidence suggests that meat was always the 'primary element' in the meal. Inevitably the dishes served to accompany meats varied widely across the Empire. Food practices as cultural markers acquired such a convincing aura precisely because of the form and manner of the women's performance.

This chapter examines the relationship between social justice, security and peace. The authors note significant internal heterogeneity in India and Europe, despite the statebuilding efforts in India and standardization processes in Europe. The authors give an overview of five sets of ideas which have linked social justice and peace. All five sets of ideas are showing that if social justice is taken seriously then social harmony will be preserved and at the same time tensions will be reduced, together with chances for conflict. However, they find that peace accords have a tendency to emphasize security rather than welfare. This is because international interventions are usually led by leading actors from the global north who are guided by neoliberal agenda. They usually underplay social aspects of the state and emphasise its security aspect. This is one of the reasons why priority is given to security over social justice, when sequencing of activities in the intervention. The authors give an example of reforms in Georgia which led to drastic undermining of state in terms of social provision. They conclude that international attempts which focus on social justice are much fewer in numbers than those which address security issues.

A lack of concern about child-life, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) warned, could be the first indication of an empire sinking into decline. Child rescue, as an imperial endeavour, involved the transportation of ideas as well as children, establishing new norms for both the definition and the solution of the problems of child abuse and neglect across Britain and the colonies. Rescued children, in this discourse, were transformed from a liability to a resource. Race was deployed by advocates of emigration in both the sending and receiving countries. Maria Rye's shock points to the justification offered for child migration programmes: the contribution they made to the salvation of the race. The magazines of the child rescue organisations circulated across the empire, and subscription lists show a readiness of British settlers abroad to support the work at 'home'.

Sir Cyril Radcliffe's loyalty to British interests is key to understanding his work in 1947. The party leaders, both Congress and Muslim League, fundamentally misunderstood this aspect of Radcliffe's position. Radcliffe endeavoured to divide territory fairly, according to religious demographics, but other factors played a role as well. In attempting to buffer Amritsar and in allowing Mountbatten to persuade him that the Ferozepur salient would cause more trouble than it was worth, he demonstrated a concern for geopolitical matters. In an address to the Pakistani nation at the end of August 1947, Muhammad Ali Jinnah lamented the fact that the Radcliffe decision 'may not be a judicial but political award'. Jawaharlal Nehru apparently remained convinced of the value of legal experience, although he came to regret the structure of the boundary commission. Nehru recognized that the boundary commission's format had, worked against real South Asian influence, at least in Punjab.

The mood in Mandalay changed abruptly in December 1941. The bricolage of fear, cynicism and nervous anticipation gave way to blind panic. Europeans were leaving Mandalay in droves, but Chapman insisted that the Methodist missionaries should stay and 'carry on as normal'. Meanwhile, Mandalay was heaving. 'Hundreds or thousands' of refugees had trekked in from Lower Burma. Chapman urged Burmese Christians to escape 'to distant villages' while they had the chance. Mandalay was bombed on 19 February 1942. Chapman tried to keep track of all the missionary families. Rangoon was already in the hands of the military authorities. Government offices, banks and commercial firms had been evacuated to Mandalay and Maymyo. Methodist missionaries played distinguished roles in the evacuation, although fact and fiction sometimes became confused in the chaos. The missionaries were demoralised and exhausted as they assembled in Calcutta between March and May 1942.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the history of one particular mission station in the under-studied north-east region of India with alternative readings of the interactions between missionary, indigenous peoples and other British imperial agents. It explores the arrival of Welsh missionaries in India in 1841. The book also explores the origins of their Calvinistic Methodist denomination in the eighteenth century, their split from the London Missionary Society (LMS) as an assertion of Welsh identity. It focuses on the voyage to India and their arrival in the Khasi hills at a time when earlier missionaries from Serampore had already wielded some influence. The book provides the work of the first generation of missionaries in relation to language translation, education, proselytism and negotiation with native polity. It examines the scandals of mission.

This chapter describes the Bank Junction in the inter-war period and considers the rebuilding of the Bank of England by Sir Herbert Baker. By the 1920s Baker had a distinguished record as an architect in the service of empire. The question of rebuilding the Bank of England was first actively considered during the First World War. Once commissioned, Baker worked quickly to prepare his report, presenting it to the Rebuilding Committee. Baker's reports indicates, the rebuilding of the Bank required particular sensitivity to issues of conservation, historical continuity, public taste and opinion. For Baker, the architectural problem was maintaining the unity of the expanded building while preserving as much of Sir John Soane's work as possible. Baker, in giving architectural expression to the new Bank, was working within an imperial vision drawn from the Pax Britannica, the gold-sterling standard and the unquestioned imperial supremacy of the long nineteenth-century.

The Merchant of Venice abounds in allusions to the myth of the Golden Fleece, unlike the rest of the canon where key terms associated with the myth are rarely mentioned explicitly. The myth circulated widely in sixteenth-century Europe. This chapter analyses the significance of the Golden Fleece myth as a subtext of The Merchant of Venice. It contends that its contribution to the dramatic texture and spatial mapping of the play extends well beyond Ovidian and Senecan interactions. The Golden Fleece myth and biblical parables are brought together in an intricate network of ovine images that radiates through the whole play, inviting audiences to revisit initial, male-induced representations of the play's three female figures, Portia, Nerissa and Jessica. The Venetian Jasons are the product of myth and its reconfigurations, which are interwoven historically and contemporaneously.