Ebook: Imperial Co-operation and Transfer, 1870–1930: Empires and Encounters

Conflict and competition between imperial powers has long been a feature of global history, but their co-operation has largely been a peripheral concern. Imperial Co-operation and Transfer, 1870–1930 redresses this imbalance, providing a coherent conceptual framework for the study of inter-imperial collaboration and arguing that it deserves an equally prominent position in the field.
Using a variety of examples from across Asia, Europe and Africa, this book demonstrates the ways in which empires have shared and exchanged their knowledge about imperial governance, including military strategy, religious influence and political surveillance. It asks how, when and where these partnerships took place, and who initiated them.
Not only does this book fill an empirical gap in the study of imperial history, it traces ideas of empire from their conception in imperial contact zones to their implementation in specific contexts. As such, this is an important study for imperial and global historians of all specialisms.
For several decades empires have been a central topic of international research. The attempts to grasp both the unique character of every single empire and their functional similarities are legion, and most studies are concerned and struggle with a comprehensive definition of exercising imperial power. Yet the term empire does not only refer to the formation of hierarchical global power structures but also comprises the coexistence of different power practices and the manifestation of specific regimes of rule within imperial realms. As the contributions argue, this coexistence of different imperial formations was also significantly characterized by cooperation, inasmuch as, for example, scientific conferences, diplomatic relations or strategic exchange of practices represented fields of mutual willingness to learn from each other. The book and its contributions focus on inter-imperial encounters, highlights the conception of governance that originated in imperial contact zones, traces its circulation as well as implementations within specific political, social and cultural frameworks and finally investigates the permeability of boundaries, cross-border exchanges by identifiable actors, the networks and channels in which these transgressions occurred as well as the effects they produced.