Ornamentalism - David Cannadine

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About David Cannadine

Ornamentalism

How the British Saw Their Empire

» David Cannadine

Penguin
Paperback : 07 Feb 2002

£9.99

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Synopsis

The British Empire has generally been seen as a racist empire (most influentially in Edward Said's Orientalism). While not wholly denying this, Cannadine, in this funny, often horrifying book, suggests a different dynamic. The British rulers were motivated not by race but by class - they loathed Indians or Africans no more or less than they loathed the great majority of Englishmen, dreaming of an empire based on deference and feudalism. The often farcical gap between these views and reality make Ornamentalism both highly enjoyable and extremely provocative for anyone wishing to understand how the British Empire really worked.

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Critic Review:

"Like everything that Cannadine writes ... Ornamentalism is vigorous, stimulating and bursting with ideas...should be read by anyone who is interested in politics and society in the British Empire or quirks in the British attitude to class."
Philip Ziegler

"No historian exceeds him in wit, acuity or fluency; few are his equal in scholarship or sensitivity to evidence or language, which he formulates with finesse and utters with candour."
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

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Interview

David Cannadine picks apart the complex relationship between Britain and Empire and the legacy it has left.

How would you define Ornamentalism?
Ornamentalism is a vision of empire based on the notion of social hierarchy in Britain, which is exported to, and analogised back from, the Empire overseas, and which is articulated, made real and brought alive by extravagant displays of the ceremonial, and by the general delight in dressing up.

What would surprise most readers about the central thrust of the book?
That the British Empire was as much about race as about class, and that in certain contexts and circumstances, the British were more admiring of those in the Empire with dark skins than of those who were white.

In the book you point out that the British Empire was an enormously dynamic and varied organism. Do you think that ornamentalist views and the limits of that view were important in its downfall?
A delight in hierarchy, and a preference for the countryside over the town, meant the Empire was increasingly vulnerable to middle-class, urban-based colonial nationalism in the decades after the Second World War.

Looking at contemporary Britain do you think we still fall prey to ornamentalism?
Our post-imperial ceremonials are less splendid than they were, and our clothing is generally less elaborate than in the heyday of empire; but many Britons still like dressing up.