Country houses and the British Empire, 1700–1930

Stephanie Barczewski

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781526106643
  9780719096228
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526117533
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

Country houses and the British empire, 1700–1930 assesses the economic and cultural links between country houses and the Empire between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Using sources from over fifty British and Irish archives, it enables readers to better understand the impact of the empire upon the British metropolis by showing both the geographical variations and its different cultural manifestations. Barczewski offers a rare scholarly analysis of the history of country houses that goes beyond an architectural or biographical study, and recognises their importance as the physical embodiments of imperial wealth and reflectors of imperial cultural influences. In so doing, she restores them to their true place of centrality in British culture over the last three centuries, and provides fresh insights into the role of the Empire in the British metropolis.

Table of contents

• Front matter
• Contents
• List of figures, charts and map
• List of tables
• General editor’s introduction
• Preface and acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction: British country houses and empire, 1700–1930
• Colonial merchants
• Indian nabobs
• West Indian planters
• Military and naval officers and other categories of imperial estate purchasers
• The impact of imperial wealth on British landed estates
• The cultural display of empire in country houses
• The discourse of commodities
• The discourse of cosmopolitanism
• The discourse of conquest
• The discourse of collecting
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Select bibliography
• Index