Britannia Rules the Wastes: Britain and the Arid World, 1900-1960

大不列颠统治荒地：英国和干旱世界，1900-1960 年

• 批准号: AH/M010716/1
• 负责人: Robert Fletcher
• 金额: $ 22.02万
• 依托单位: University of Warwick
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2015 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FM010716%2F1
• 关键词: Britannia; Rules; Wastes; Britain; Arid

This project explores the ways in which the histories of Britain, its empire and the world's desert environments became entwined in the twentieth-century. The British Empire is often seen as a quintessentially maritime power, with widespread recognition of the place of maritime geographies in British political identity. Historians have also tended to emphasise the scaling-down of Britain's global commitments in the twentieth-century, rather than a deepening interest in 'marginal' places and peoples. Across the Great Arid Zone of the Old World, however, and in many of the deserts of the New, Britain launched myriad attempts to promote settlement, control nomads, develop communications, transform landscapes, establish military bases, extract mineral resources, wage war and conduct nuclear tests. This project examines how Britain's imperial and transnational connections left their mark on the great belt of deserts that girdled the empire and the globe, from the shores of the Atlantic to the Manchurian steppe. Since the fall of the Mongols, few empires have dominated as much of the world's arid zone as did the British in the twentieth century. Yet the effect of this on how that empire functioned, and on British society and culture itself, has never been explored.In recent years, scholars have embarked on the development of 'a new historiography of large areas'. The revival of imperial, transnational and global history has drawn attention to the persistent dynamics of large-scale regional configurations, and nowhere has the potential of this methodology been better demonstrated than in our new histories of the sea. And yet, while the 'maritime turn' has recovered a number of Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean worlds, many other environments - such as mountains, deserts and steppes - are only beginning to be explored in this way. This project fuses together the modern histories of imperialism, nomadic societies and the world's desert environments to reposition these 'marginal' zones as sites of history in themselves. It argues for the continued relevance of the Eurasian Arid Zone to the modern history of the states around it, and reveals how specific environmental configurations could disrupt the political and economic frameworks of empire. This project is designed to engage with the emerging agenda of recovering world regions and to lead it in new directions. Its findings will be disseminated through two new research articles prepared during the award period and submitted to The Journal of Global History and Twentieth-Century British History: these form the foundation of a future monograph on Britain and the Arid World. The research will be discussed with the public at public lectures at the Natural History Museum and the Royal Geographical Society, and an exhibition at the latter; with academics from a variety of disciplines at an accompanying research workshop; and with scholars, government and non-governmental organisations in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Central Asia through an international and interdisciplinary network of scholars and practitioners engaging with the shared histories and futures of the world's desert environments. This project offers a fresh understanding of the geography, chronology and ideologies shaping British imperialism by examining Britain's relationship with the arid world in all its dimensions: political, economic, environmental and cultural. It builds on my existing work on British imperialism in the interwar Syrian Desert, but enables me to undertake a substantially more ambitious interrogation of the relationship between the 'British World' and the Arid World in the twentieth-century. In the process, it aims to advance a new research agenda, demonstrating by example how some of the insights of the 'maritime turn' can be applied to other environments, and urging a new appreciation of deserts and 'wastes' as enduring political, social and cultural arenas.

该项目探讨了英国，帝国和世界沙漠环境的历史在20世纪纠缠在一起的方式。大英帝国通常被视为典型的海上力量，并广泛认识到海上地理位置在英国政治身份中的地位。历史学家还倾向于强调英国在20世纪的全球承诺的扩大，而不是对“边际”地点和人民的兴趣加深。然而，在旧世界的大干旱地区，在新的许多沙漠中，英国的许多沙漠都发起了无数的尝试，以促进定居点，控制游牧民族，发展通讯，改变景观，建立军事基地，提取矿产资源，工资战争和进行核测试。该项目探讨了英国的帝国和跨国联系如何在束缚帝国和地球的巨大沙漠中，从大西洋的海岸到满洲的草原。自从蒙古人沦陷以来，很少有帝国像20世纪的英国人一样占据世界干旱地区。然而，这对帝国如何运作以及对英国社会和文化本身的运作的影响从未被探索过。近年来，学者们开始发展“新的大区域史学”。帝国，跨国和全球历史的复兴引起了人们对大规模区域配置的持续动态的关注，并且在我们的新海洋历史中，没有任何能力可以更好地证明这种方法。然而，尽管“海洋转弯”已经恢复了许多大西洋，太平洋和印度洋世界，但许多其他环境（例如山区，沙漠和草原）才开始以这种方式进行探索。该项目将帝国主义，游牧社会和世界沙漠环境的现代历史融合在一起，以将这些“边缘”区域重新定位为本身的历史场所。它主张欧亚干旱地区与周围国家的现代历史的持续相关性，并揭示了特定的环境配置如何破坏帝国的政治和经济框架。该项目旨在参与恢复世界地区并领导新方向的新兴议程。它的发现将通过在奖项期间编写的两份新研究文章进行传播，并提交《全球历史杂志》和20世纪的英国历史：这些是对英国和干旱世界的未来专着的基础。该研究将在自然历史博物馆和皇家地理学会的公开演讲上与公众讨论，并在后者的展览中讨论。在随附的研究研讨会上，来自各种学科的学者；与学者，欧洲，北美，中东和中亚的政府和非政府组织通过国际和跨学科的学者和从业人员的网络，与世界沙漠环境的共同历史和未来相关。该项目通过研究英国与干旱世界的所有方面的关系：政治，经济，环境和文化，对塑造英国帝国主义的地理，年表和意识形态提供了新的了解。它建立在我现有在战争叙利亚沙漠中的英国帝国主义方面的工作，但使我能够对20世纪“英国世界”与干旱世界之间的关系进行更雄心勃勃的询问。在此过程中，它旨在推进新的研究议程，以典范“海上转弯”的某些见解如何应用于其他环境，并敦促对沙漠和“废物”作为持久的政治，社会和文化领域的新良好。

项目成果

Colonialism, Photography and War

殖民主义、摄影与战争

• 发表时间: 2017
• 作者: Fletcher, RSG

The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire

牛津帝国终结手册

• 发表时间: 2017
• 作者: Fletcher, R.S.G.