Gender and Empire

Book excerpt: One of the first single-authored books to survey the role of sex and gender in the 'new imperial history', Gender and Empire covers the whole British Empire, demonstrating connections and comparisons between the white-settler colonies, and the colonies of exploitation and rule. Through key topics and episodes across a broad range of British Empire history, Angela Woollacott examines how gender ideologies and practices affected women and men, and structured imperial politics and culture. Woollacott integrates twenty years of scholarship, providing fresh insights and interpretation using feminist and postcolonial approaches. Fiction and other vivid primary sources present the voices of historical subjects, enlivening discussions of central topics and debates in imperial and colonial history. The circulation of imperial culture and colonial subjects along with conceptions of gender and race reveals the integrated nature of British colonialism from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Authoritative and approachable, this is essential reading for students of world history, imperial history and gender relations.