The International History Review
ISSN: 0707-5332 (Print) 1949-6540 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rinh20
Empire and Globalisation: from ‘High Imperialism’
to Decolonisation
Martin Thomas & Andrew Thompson
To cite this article: Martin Thomas & Andrew Thompson (2014) Empire and Globalisation:
from ‘High Imperialism’ to Decolonisation, The International History Review, 36:1, 142-170, DOI:
10.1080/07075332.2013.828643
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2013.828643
Published online: 10 Dec 2013.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 44972
View related articles
View Crossmark data
Citing articles: 20 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rinh20
,The International History Review, 2014
Vol. 36, No. 1, 142–170, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2013.828643
Empire and Globalisation: from ‘High Imperialism’ to Decolonisation
Martin Thomas and Andrew Thompson*
Reviewing the expansion and ultimate demise of the British and French empires,
this article takes a long view of globalisation as an integral part of Europe’s
recent imperial past. The authors’ argument is that these empires were not simply
a global phenomenon. Rather, the processes that built and destroyed them
were more actively ‘globalising’. In this context, they argue that the rise and fall
of the two pre-eminent overseas empires had several globalising effects. These
globalising effects include distinct patterns of migration and communication,
critical shifts in the movement of goods and capital, new forms of transnational
connection, changing conceptualisations of community and individual rights, and
discrete forms of violence and conflict that outlasted the ‘formal’ end of empires.
Keywords: empire; imperialism; globalisation; globalising; migration; rights;
decolonisation
Aspirations to empire have been a constant of human history. Much of our global
past was forged in the crucible of the great ethno-cultural entities that we call
empires, whether Asian, European, or American. Indeed, the extraordinary empires
carved out by the Manchus, the Mughals, and the Ottomans, as well as the Spanish,
the Dutch, the British, and the French, profoundly altered the way in which those
who inhabited the lands over which these powers ruled envisioned their societies,
gauged political possibilities, and marked out trade routes.1 Empires, upon which
the sun did always eventually set, have thus been a central feature of our modern
globalised world. This article looks broadly at Europe’s empires, with a particular
focus on the British and French. It argues that globalisation very much has a past as
well as a present. Notwithstanding the fact that the relationship between empire and
globalisation is probably the most widely debated aspect of that past, there have in
fact been very few attempts to put the century from 1870 to 1970, encompassing the
eras of pre-war ‘high imperialism’, inter-war ‘de-globalisation’, and post-war
decolonisation into a single, overarching narrative. Our aim is to do so by exploring
over the 100 years in question the continuities and discontinuities in the globalising
forces of empire.
Globalisation, a process commonly understood to have pulled different regions
of the world together, did not suddenly disappear during the decades of decolonisa-
tion. Rather, we suggest that it began to work differently. The transnational net-
works, cross-cultural borrowings, and observed precedents that sustained the forces
of anti-colonial nationalism, insurgency, and popular protest were themselves global-
ising factors even if they paved the way for an alternative, late-twentieth century
*Corresponding author. Email:
Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis
, The International History Review 143
construction of globalisation. According to this alternative conception of globalisa-
tion, a society’s freedom to make its way in the global marketplace was contingent
upon its prior ability to exert its independence, and closer international integration
was thus largely the product of the interplay of different national policies.2 Paradoxi-
cally, therefore, the ultimate break-up of European empires can in some ways be con-
sidered less disruptive of the overall process of globalisation than the close-knit crises
of the inter-war era.
As a result of these crises, the inter-war years marked a hiatus between what we
call the ‘integrative’ and ‘disintegrative’ phases of imperial globalisation. Yet, at the
same time, they were also a bridge between them. It seems incontrovertible that
the rise of ethnocentric nationalism and the retreat into regional economic blocs, so
much a feature of the 1920s and 1930s, signified a new era of ‘de-globalisation’,
rolling back the integration of capital and commodity markets, and curtailing the
movements of population, witnessed in previous years. That said, alongside the
greater culturally and racially based insularity of the inter-war era, and its shift from
imperial conceptions of citizenship to new nationalising visions of empire, there were
still countervailing forces at work. The consolidation of new international regulatory
agencies promoting universal conceptions of minority and civic rights, and the emer-
gence of new strains of anti-colonial nationalism, each anticipated the transition
from a world of empires that upheld sharp distinctions between citizens and subjects
to the decolonised international system of the late twentieth century. The forms of
integration envisaged after 1945 were, in theory at least, predicated upon more open
and less stratified ideas of social relations, which is why they proved incompatible
with the forms of globalisation that had characterised the heyday of imperial rule.
Here was globalisation harnessed not only to the formal dismantlement of imperial
systems of rule but to replace the social and political hierarchies that had helped to
sustain them.3
By adopting this broader focus, we seek to bring together global interpretations of
the processes of empire-building, anti-colonial rebellion, and imperial withdrawal all
of which transcended national borders and, taken together, spanned a century of
European global imperialisms. More than that, we seek to show the ways in which
the different eras of imperial globalisation overlapped and intersected, each successive
phase leaving an imprint upon its successor. Finally, we argue that all of the above
offers us a better appreciation of ‘contemporary’ globalisation - globalisation as it is
experienced today - in particular, in terms of how its key drivers, such as the interna-
tional flows of people, capital, and goods (as well as its actual and potential conflicts
over migration, markets, and rights) can clearly be seen not only to have occurred
within, but also to have been significantly shaped by, the matrices of empire.
Such, then, is our purpose. It is necessary to begin with a definition of the concept
of globalisation. Talk of a ‘global society’, ‘global economy’, ‘global governance’,
‘global warming’, and ‘the global war against terror’ is now commonplace.4
‘Globalisation’ has conveyed a sense of ‘living in an age of transformation or
unprecedented change’.5 Thus, while the specific issue of quantifiable economic
integration - as measured, for example, by the convergence of real wages across
countries - remains integral to our understanding of globalisation, it is clear that, to
scholars in both the humanities and the social sciences, the concept speaks more
widely, not only to the physical compression of the world, but also to the realm of
perception and the imagination: ‘an intensification in the consciousness of the world
as a whole’.6
ISSN: 0707-5332 (Print) 1949-6540 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rinh20
Empire and Globalisation: from ‘High Imperialism’
to Decolonisation
Martin Thomas & Andrew Thompson
To cite this article: Martin Thomas & Andrew Thompson (2014) Empire and Globalisation:
from ‘High Imperialism’ to Decolonisation, The International History Review, 36:1, 142-170, DOI:
10.1080/07075332.2013.828643
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2013.828643
Published online: 10 Dec 2013.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 44972
View related articles
View Crossmark data
Citing articles: 20 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rinh20
,The International History Review, 2014
Vol. 36, No. 1, 142–170, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2013.828643
Empire and Globalisation: from ‘High Imperialism’ to Decolonisation
Martin Thomas and Andrew Thompson*
Reviewing the expansion and ultimate demise of the British and French empires,
this article takes a long view of globalisation as an integral part of Europe’s
recent imperial past. The authors’ argument is that these empires were not simply
a global phenomenon. Rather, the processes that built and destroyed them
were more actively ‘globalising’. In this context, they argue that the rise and fall
of the two pre-eminent overseas empires had several globalising effects. These
globalising effects include distinct patterns of migration and communication,
critical shifts in the movement of goods and capital, new forms of transnational
connection, changing conceptualisations of community and individual rights, and
discrete forms of violence and conflict that outlasted the ‘formal’ end of empires.
Keywords: empire; imperialism; globalisation; globalising; migration; rights;
decolonisation
Aspirations to empire have been a constant of human history. Much of our global
past was forged in the crucible of the great ethno-cultural entities that we call
empires, whether Asian, European, or American. Indeed, the extraordinary empires
carved out by the Manchus, the Mughals, and the Ottomans, as well as the Spanish,
the Dutch, the British, and the French, profoundly altered the way in which those
who inhabited the lands over which these powers ruled envisioned their societies,
gauged political possibilities, and marked out trade routes.1 Empires, upon which
the sun did always eventually set, have thus been a central feature of our modern
globalised world. This article looks broadly at Europe’s empires, with a particular
focus on the British and French. It argues that globalisation very much has a past as
well as a present. Notwithstanding the fact that the relationship between empire and
globalisation is probably the most widely debated aspect of that past, there have in
fact been very few attempts to put the century from 1870 to 1970, encompassing the
eras of pre-war ‘high imperialism’, inter-war ‘de-globalisation’, and post-war
decolonisation into a single, overarching narrative. Our aim is to do so by exploring
over the 100 years in question the continuities and discontinuities in the globalising
forces of empire.
Globalisation, a process commonly understood to have pulled different regions
of the world together, did not suddenly disappear during the decades of decolonisa-
tion. Rather, we suggest that it began to work differently. The transnational net-
works, cross-cultural borrowings, and observed precedents that sustained the forces
of anti-colonial nationalism, insurgency, and popular protest were themselves global-
ising factors even if they paved the way for an alternative, late-twentieth century
*Corresponding author. Email:
Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis
, The International History Review 143
construction of globalisation. According to this alternative conception of globalisa-
tion, a society’s freedom to make its way in the global marketplace was contingent
upon its prior ability to exert its independence, and closer international integration
was thus largely the product of the interplay of different national policies.2 Paradoxi-
cally, therefore, the ultimate break-up of European empires can in some ways be con-
sidered less disruptive of the overall process of globalisation than the close-knit crises
of the inter-war era.
As a result of these crises, the inter-war years marked a hiatus between what we
call the ‘integrative’ and ‘disintegrative’ phases of imperial globalisation. Yet, at the
same time, they were also a bridge between them. It seems incontrovertible that
the rise of ethnocentric nationalism and the retreat into regional economic blocs, so
much a feature of the 1920s and 1930s, signified a new era of ‘de-globalisation’,
rolling back the integration of capital and commodity markets, and curtailing the
movements of population, witnessed in previous years. That said, alongside the
greater culturally and racially based insularity of the inter-war era, and its shift from
imperial conceptions of citizenship to new nationalising visions of empire, there were
still countervailing forces at work. The consolidation of new international regulatory
agencies promoting universal conceptions of minority and civic rights, and the emer-
gence of new strains of anti-colonial nationalism, each anticipated the transition
from a world of empires that upheld sharp distinctions between citizens and subjects
to the decolonised international system of the late twentieth century. The forms of
integration envisaged after 1945 were, in theory at least, predicated upon more open
and less stratified ideas of social relations, which is why they proved incompatible
with the forms of globalisation that had characterised the heyday of imperial rule.
Here was globalisation harnessed not only to the formal dismantlement of imperial
systems of rule but to replace the social and political hierarchies that had helped to
sustain them.3
By adopting this broader focus, we seek to bring together global interpretations of
the processes of empire-building, anti-colonial rebellion, and imperial withdrawal all
of which transcended national borders and, taken together, spanned a century of
European global imperialisms. More than that, we seek to show the ways in which
the different eras of imperial globalisation overlapped and intersected, each successive
phase leaving an imprint upon its successor. Finally, we argue that all of the above
offers us a better appreciation of ‘contemporary’ globalisation - globalisation as it is
experienced today - in particular, in terms of how its key drivers, such as the interna-
tional flows of people, capital, and goods (as well as its actual and potential conflicts
over migration, markets, and rights) can clearly be seen not only to have occurred
within, but also to have been significantly shaped by, the matrices of empire.
Such, then, is our purpose. It is necessary to begin with a definition of the concept
of globalisation. Talk of a ‘global society’, ‘global economy’, ‘global governance’,
‘global warming’, and ‘the global war against terror’ is now commonplace.4
‘Globalisation’ has conveyed a sense of ‘living in an age of transformation or
unprecedented change’.5 Thus, while the specific issue of quantifiable economic
integration - as measured, for example, by the convergence of real wages across
countries - remains integral to our understanding of globalisation, it is clear that, to
scholars in both the humanities and the social sciences, the concept speaks more
widely, not only to the physical compression of the world, but also to the realm of
perception and the imagination: ‘an intensification in the consciousness of the world
as a whole’.6
