British Empire

Topic description and stories

Britain's first colonial anthropology experiment revealed

12 Jun 2021

A new exhibition at MAA examines the pioneering ethnographic archive assembled by Britain’s first colonial anthropologist, Cambridge alumnus...

Pride and prejudice at high altitude

23 Jan 2020

Tensions between foreign climbers and Sherpas began over 200 years ago, a new study suggests

A glimpse of India

26 Oct 2015

Kevin Greenbank, archivist at the Centre of South Asian Studies, explores the ways in which the home movie offers fascinating insights into the lives...

Pilgrims at the Masjid al-Haram on Hajj in 2008

Package tour to Mecca? How the Hajj became an essential part of the British calendar

21 Sep 2015

This week, millions of Muslims make the annual pilgrimage to Mecca known as the Hajj. A new study reveals how, in the age of Empire, the spiritual...

Detail from a list of the names, ages and prices of slaves bought by British plantation owner William Philip Perrin from John Broomfield in 1796.

Price of Britain’s Slave Trade revealed

13 Aug 2015

Letters and papers revealing in detail how human beings were priced for sale during the 18th century Transatlantic Slave Trade have been made...

Detail from the cover image of “The English and Their History”.

Stability, unity and nonchalance: What does it mean to be English?

06 Nov 2014

An epic new history of England offers some eye-catching conclusions on Englishness – suggesting, among other things, that a “remarkable” level of...

Indian Parliament building (designed by British architect Edwin Lutyens) in 1944, Credit: Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge

How the Westminster parliamentary system was exported around the world

02 Dec 2013

As an expert in constitutional law, Sir Ivor Jennings played a pivotal role in the establishment of states emerging from British rule in the mid-20th...

Leaflet dropped on Malayan insurgents, urging them to come forward with a Bren gun and receive a $1,000 reward., Credit: Credit: UK Department of Information.

PsyWar during the Malayan Emergency

26 Feb 2013

As part of the Intelligence seminars run by the Faculty of History, Thomas J. Maguire examines how psychological warfare contributed to Britain's...

History’s bitter pill

27 May 2010

The British Empire presided over innumerable atrocities and acts of appalling cruelty, but what use is acknowledging those injustices when they are...