The notion of ""empire"" has been at the forefront of world politics for over a century. Bernard Porter's landmark work traces the critical response to the British imperial project in the years leading up to World War I. Imperial adventures, including the intervention in Egypt and the Anglo-Boer War. Long regarded as the classic account, the author has now added a substantial new Introduction. He demonstrates the power and influence of major critics such as J.A. Hobson -- the acknowledged creator of the ""capitalist theory"" of imperialism -- E.D. Morel and Mary Kingsley and of organizations...

The British have long boasted of their tradition of asylum for political refugees, but never with more justification than in the nineteenth century, when the legal toleration which was accorded them in Britain was nearly absolute. Not only were fugitives of all political complexions allowed into Britain, but there was for most of the century no possible way - no law on the statute book - by which they could be kept out. This, and the licence which was allowed them to agitate and conspire were greatly resented by the governments from which they had fled, and regretted only a little less by...