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 Content
Introduction: British country houses and empire, 1700–1930
1. Colonial merchants
2. Indian nabobs
3. West Indian planters
4. Military and naval officers and other categories of imperial estate purchasers
5. The impact of imperial wealth on British landed estates
6. The cultural display of empire in country houses
7. The discourse of commodities
8. The discourse of cosmopolitanism
9. The discourse of conquest
10. The discourse of collecting
Conclusion
Appendices
Select bibliography
Index
About the author
Stephanie Barczewski is Professor of Modern British History at Clemson University
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