Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T05:48:10.287Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Crowning Chapter of Geography: The Royal Scottish Geographical Society and the Scramble for Africa 1884-18931

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2011

J. J. V. Kuitenbrouwer
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Scramble for Africa between the European powers at the end of the nineteenth century has always struck people as quite an extraordinary process. It has played an important role in the debate about European overseas expansion, and still does. This article is about the discussion surrounding the partition of Africa which took place within a geographical society in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century, the Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS). In those days, as the expansion reached its zenith, the question of how the British Empire should be organised was one of the most important political issues. The debate about imperialism continued after Africa had been partitioned, and the nature of the debate changed in the light of two World Wars and the era of decolonisation. As time went by, scholars who mainly focused on the economic and political motivations for European overseas expansion dominated the imperialism debate. The role that groups such as geographical societies played became obscured as their ideas were seen as outdated. In recent years there has been a growing interest in the ways societies like the RSGS contributed to the metropolitan culture of imperialism.

Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , July 2004 , pp. 135 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

National Library of Scotland: Bruce Papers, Ace. 11777, 1858–1893.Google Scholar
Archive of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society: Council Minutes, 1884–1893.Google Scholar
Scottish Geographical Magazine (hereafter SGM) 1-10 (1885–1894).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The London Gazette, 26 November 1889.Google Scholar
Bruce, Alexander L., The Cape to Cairo, or Britain's Sphere of Influence in Africa (Edinburgh, 1893).Google Scholar
Bell, Morag, Butlin, Robin A. and Hefferman, Michael eds, Geography and Imperialism, 1820-1940 (Manchester, 1995).Google Scholar
Driver, Felix, Geography Militant. Cultures of Exploration and Empire (Oxford, 2001).Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence eds, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983).Google Scholar
Holmes, Timothy, Journey to Livingstone. Exploration of an Imperial Myth (Edinburgh, 1993).Google Scholar
Jeal, Tim, Livingstone (London, 1973).Google Scholar
Macfie, Alexander L., Orientalism: A Reader (Edinburgh, 2000).Google Scholar
MacKenzie, John M., Propaganda and Empire. The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880-1960 (Manchester, 1986).Google Scholar
MacKenzie, John M., ed., Imperialism and popular culture (Manchester, 1986).Google Scholar
MacKenzie, John M., ed., Imperialism and the Natural World (Manchester, 1990).Google Scholar
MacKenzie, John M., Orientalism. History, Theory and the Arts (Manchester, 1995).Google Scholar
MacKenzie, John M., ed., David Livingstone and the Victorian Encounter with Africa (London, 1996).Google Scholar
Porter, Andrew, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire. Volume III: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1999).Google Scholar
Said, Edward W., Orientalism. Western conceptions of the Orient (New York, 1978, London, 1995).Google Scholar
Said, Edward W., Culture and Imperialism (New York, 1993).Google Scholar
Winks, Robin, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire V: Historiography (Oxford, 1999).Google Scholar
‘Obituary Mr. Arthur Silva White’, SGM 48 (1932), 357.Google Scholar
Bell, Morag, Butlin, Robin A. and Hefferman, Michael, ‘Introduction. Geography and Imperialism, 1820-1940’, in Morag, Geography and Imperialism, 1–4.Google Scholar
Bartholomew, John George, ‘Obituary. Alexander Low Bruce’, SGM 10 (1894), 25–26.Google Scholar
Bartholomew, John George, ‘Mrs. Livingstone Bruce and the Scottish Geographical Society’, SGM 28 (1912), 312–314.Google Scholar
Bridges, Roy C., ‘The Foundation and Early Years of the Aberdeen Branch of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society’, SGM 101 (1985), 77–84.Google Scholar
De Prins, Bart, ‘Het Failliet van Said?! Postkoloniale Verkenningen in de Periferie van de Histo-rische Methodologie’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 113 (2000), 540–556.Google Scholar
Flint, John E., ‘Britain and the Scramble for Africa’, in Freeman, T.W., ‘The Scottish Geographical Magazine, its First Thirty Years’, SGM 92 (1976), 92–100.Google Scholar
Heffernan, Michael, ‘The Spoils of War: The Société Géographique de Paris and the French Empire, 1914-1919’, in Bell, Geography and Imperialism, 221–264.Google Scholar
Lochhead, Elspeth N., ‘Scotland as the Cradle of Modern Academic Geography in Britain’, SGM 97 (1981), 98–109.Google Scholar
Lochhead, Elspeth N., ‘The Royal Scottish Geographical Society: The Setting and Sources for its Success’, SGM 99 (1984), 69–80.Google Scholar
Mackenzie, John M., ‘Edward Said and the Historians’, Nineteenth Century Contexts: An Interdisciplinary Journal 18 (1994), 9–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackenzie, John M., ‘The Provincial Geographical Societies in Britain’, in Bell, Geography and Imperialism, 93–124.Google Scholar
Mackenzie, John M., ‘David Livingstone and the Worldly After-Life: Imperialism and Nationalism in Africa’, in Mackenzie, David Livingstone, 201–220.Google Scholar
Mackenzie, John M., ‘Empire and Metropolitan Cultures’, in Porter, Andrew ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire. Volume III: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1999), 270–293.Google Scholar
Mackinder, H.J., ‘The physical Basis of Political Geography’, SGM 6 (1890), 78–84.Google Scholar
Mill, Hugh Robert, ‘Recollections of the Society's Early Years’, SGM 50 (1934), 269–280.Google Scholar
Mill, Hugh Robert, ‘The Relations between Commerce and Geography (Introductory Lecture to the Class of Industrial and Commercial Geography in the Herriot-Watt College)’, SCM 3 (1887), 626–638.Google Scholar
Newbigin, Marion, ‘Editorial. The Royal Scottish Geographical Society: the First Fifty Ysars’, SGM 50 (1934), 257–269.Google Scholar
Schneider, William, ‘Geographical Reform and Municipal Imperialism in France 1870-80’, in MacKenzie, John M. ed., Imperialism and the Natural World (Manchester, 1990), 90–118.Google Scholar
Stanley, Henry Morton, ‘Central Africa and the Congo Basin. Inaugural Address Scottish Geographical Society’, SGM 1 (1885), 1–17.Google Scholar
Van der Velde, Paul, ‘The Royal Dutch Geographical Society and the Dutch East Indies, 1873-1914: from Colonial Lobby to Colonial Hobby’, in Bell, Morag, et al., eds, Geography and Imperialism, 80–92.Google Scholar