Insularity and Empire in the Late Nineteenth Century

Abstract

‘Insularity is such a fundamental determinant of British history that it is surprising how little attention historians have paid to it.’¹ Since Keith Robbins wrote this in the early 1990s, a number of authors have explored this theme, most notably Kathleen Wilson in The Island Race: Englishness, Empire and Gender in the Eighteenth Century.² Yet as far as the late Victorian and Edwardian periods are concerned, Robbins’s statement still essentially holds true: there is no in-depth study that would explore the politics and culture of insularity in late-nineteenth-century Britain.³ This seems surprising when we consider how closely bound up ideas of nationhood and belonging were with island discourses during this time. Insularity was a key concept in late-nineteenth-century British self-understanding. Indeed, it would not go too far to claim that the Victorians and Edwardians were busy constructing their nation ‘as an island’.⁴