Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism

by Ronald Edward Robinson, John Andrew Gallagher

Book by Ronald Robinson, John Gallagher, Alice Denny

Genres: History, Africa, 19th Century, British Literature, European History

Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

Reviews

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many readers of Africa and the Victorians have tended to view the book as little more than a textbook-like chronology of the British scramble for Africa. But the true significance of the book is to expand the highly influential theory of British expansion that the authors originally articulated in "The Imperialism of Free Trade," an article which first appeared in the Economic History Review in 1953.

The main argument of the book holds that British expansion in Africa occurred when crises on the periphery led the British government to intervene in defense of Britain's economic and strategic interests. Robinson and Gallagher argue that official thinking during the period of expansion after 1870 represents an essential continuity with the earlier mid-Victorian era, which was characterized by a belief in the benefits of free trade, and by a conviction that British informal influence would secure these economic benefits at the lowest possible cost for the British government. British leaders throughout the nineteenth century thus held the conviction that the government was responsible to intervene in imperial matters only when it was necessary to safeguard the empire of free trade.

Expansion in Africa therefore presents a paradox: it remained the continent of least importance to British trade. For Robinson and Gallagher, the answer lies in the prominence accorded to India by British ministers, who rightfully recognized the subcontinent as the linchpin of the Empire. India attracted one-fifth of British trade and overseas investment. It provided for a self-financing Army. It held the key to power in the East.

According to this interpretation, the imperial "scramble for Africa" after 1882 occurred not as a result of British ministers pursuing economic or commercial interests on the continent, but rather to defend Britain's strategic routes to India from local revolts and from increasing European rivalry. The British occupation of Egypt in 1882 became the decisive event in the imperial revolution in Africa, because it disrupted the European balance of power and set off a scramble. In Egypt and the Nile Valley, the British responded to Mediterranean instability and local revolts by occupying the territories crucial to the protection of the Suez Canal. In southern Africa, the British responded to the growing political preeminence of the gold-rich Transvaal republic by first attempting to cut it off from foreign support, and eventually by pushing the Dutch republic to the brink of war over the issue of British imperial influence on the Cape sea route to India. According to Robinson and Gallagher, there exists little evidence for public demand for empire in Britain, and even less evidence for a direct economic link between British ministers and colonial economic interests. In each of these instances, British motivations for imperial expansion in Africa traced to strategic interests, centered on India and its trade, in response to crises on the "periphery."

The main weakness of this otherwise magnificent account lies in its reliance on "the official mind" - the statements recorded by British ministers in official documents. This methodological approach supports Robinson and Gallagher's attempt to create a unified theory of British imperialism, but it assumes that the rationale articulated by British ministers in official documents necessarily corresponded with the true motives for expansion -- a shortcoming that later books, especially Cain and Hopkins's British Imperialism, 1688-2000, have made more obvious.

In its time (1961), the book was a valuable corrective to the commonly held view of empire, which assumed that British expansion was driven by the search for markets (an influence mainly of J.A. Hobson and Marxist theory). Africa and the Victorians' emphasis on the "periphery" also anticipated the growing influence of "area studies" and post-colonial scholarship, both of which, in different ways, emphasize the "agency" and importance of the non-Western world in shaping imperial outcomes.

Nearly fifty years later, this book is still considered one of the most important contributions to British imperial history ever written.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the classic book on the British annexation of Africa and although dated still provides some of the best analysis. The book explores the reasons for the partitions of Africa and the course of empire there. It primarily focuses on the last 30 years but does cover the build up to that point. From Cecil Rhodes to the French in Sudan all the crises are explored. The one hard part with this book is that there is little explanation of the British home situation. You are told that Ireland is the focus at times and the various governments but no detail is spared about those governments so to truly appreciate it you need a good background in British politics. Nonetheless if you are trying to understand how Africa developed into what it is today or the course of British Empire there this is an essential book to read.
This book will lead you to surprising conclusions about imperialism in Africa. The most amazing part is the British reluctance to take part in the classical imperialist model and focus instead on the proliferation of free trade. In the end fervent African nationalism forced a course of classical imperialism that provoked events like the Boer War. These were generally very reluctantly entered into and the British public back home had little stomach for these conflicts. When exploring them the reader may find the Oxford History of the British Empire a useful companion to fill in more details on various events.

[Philip]

The cover of Africa and the Victorians portrays two rows of Englishmen, presumably the Cabinet or Members of Parliament, seated in front of a large, wooden desk, poring over documents scattered about the chamber. They look intellectually spent. One man, standing off to the side, holds a thick stack of papers and his hat; he just addressed his colleagues. He could represent the book’s authors, Ronald Robinson, John Gallagher, and Alice Denny, and the seated gentlemen, clearly with a lot of thinking left to do, are the their associates in academia. The authors have presented their new theory on the Scramble for Africa; the historians, examining the reams of archived documents presented in evidence, are digesting it.

For the theory is radical and the research fastidious: Robinson and Gallagher need a book to untangle their ideas, which left a mark on the study of history that remains indelible today. They propose that geostrategic considerations, not economic ones, drove the European powers into the Scramble, which occurred in the late Victorian era. By occupying Egypt in 1882 and engaging the Transvaal settlers in South Africa in the First Boer War in 1881, Britain sparked the Scramble.

Immediately, the thesis draws skepticism, for did not Britain engage in Egypt and south Africa for economic reasons? Were an ascendant Germany and a sore France prompted into empire only to counterbalance Britain, or would they have grasped at Africa in any case? The authors, limiting themselves to British archival evidence, point out that Britain’s Victorian-era governments acted to protect vital links to India, the Suez Canal and the Cape. Nationalist movements threatened the passageways, which were formerly under the passive, “informal” dominion of the Empire. Britain’s very reluctance to resort to costly conquest and occupation allowed the national movements to flourish, thereby paradoxically pulling Britain into these forms of command. The authors emphasize time and again that the “official mind” of the Cabinet saw little economic gain to be won in the dark continent, at least not until gold was discovered in the south.

Robinson, Gallagher, and Denny have written Africa and the Victorians with the density of a textbook, but none of the orthodoxy. They hew resolutely to their thesis, even when it stretches credulity. Still, the book makes for excellent reading for new students of late African empire, provided they follow it with a selection of critical analyses.