Liberalism and empire : a study in nineteenth-century British liberal thought
"We take liberalism to be a set of ideas committed to political rights and self-determination, yet it also served to justify an empire built on political domination. Uday Mehta argues that imperialism, far from contradicting liberal tenets, in fact stemmed from liberal assumptions about reason and historical progress. Confronted with unfamiliar cultures such as India, British liberals could only see them as backward or infantile. In this, liberals manifested a narrow conception of human experience and ways of being in the world
History
xii, 237 pages ; 24 cm
9780226518817, 9780226518824, 0226518817, 0226518825
40073853
Introduction
Strategies: liberal conventions and imperial exclusions
Progress, civilization, and consent
Liberalism, empire, and territory
Edmund Burke on the perils of the empire
Experience and unfamiliarity