We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
'The riddle of the frontier': Winston Churchill, the Malakand Field Force and the rhetoric of imperial expansion.
- Authors
Toye, Richard
- Abstract
Historians have frequently identified the young Winston Churchill as an opponent of the so-called ‘forward policy’, which involved the expansion of British control in the north-west frontier region of India.Yet careful reading of his war journalism reveals that he was strongly in favour of the policy, which he attempted to vindicate in his first book. Contemporary reviews reveal that this was recognized at the time. Later scholars have been misled, however, by Churchill’s rhetorical stance, which has brought them to overplay the extent of his (genuine) doubts about how British frontier policy was conducted. Churchill consciously chose a ‘circuitous’ method of defending the forward policy, the continuation of which he presented as unavoidable in the light of decisions taken earlier. His intervention in this heated controversy casts light on the oblique strategies that late Victorian imperial expansionists used to advance their case.
- Subjects
INDIA; UNITED Kingdom; ASIA; CHURCHILL, Winston, Sir, 1874-1965; BRITISH occupation of India, 1765-1947; BRITISH colonies; ADMINISTRATION of British colonies; HISTORY of imperialism; HISTORIANS; MASS media &; international relations; POLITICAL attitudes; HISTORY
- Publication
Historical Research, 2011, Vol 84, Issue 225, p493
- ISSN
0950-3471
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1468-2281.2010.00557.x