Constituent elements and underpinnings
First, put in the simplest terms for the sake of analysis, British Imperialism advances a continuity thesis on a socioeconomic formation in Britain, which begins in the nineteenth century and stretches into the post-1945 period.10 The period after 1945 attracts the authors' attention because they argue that one can identify similar impulses in Britain's overseas relations as in earlier periods of British imperial expansion, namely influences of crucial financial relationships connected to a 'gentlemanly capitalist' elite in Britain.
The authors, therefore, aim to establish the continuing relevance of their argument beyond the period for which it was developed. The study (and Hopkins separately in an article published after the first edition of the books) advances another, more specific continuity argument, albeit less emphatically, with regard to the 1950s and 1960s, namely that British policy attempted to maintain some informal control over the colonies after their independence.11 Conceptually, this argument resembles earlier historical interpretations of a continuity between informal and formal empire in Britain's imperial relations, albeit inversed and transplanted into the mid-twentieth century.12Second, the study analyzes the impulses rather than the effects of imperial rule (as indeed do the classical theories of imperialism). Impulses are apparently defined in terms of the general underlying motivations of policymakers as representatives of a socioeconomic group which is identified as the extension of a 'gentlemanly capitalist' stratum of British society.13 Incidentally, it is also assumed that these impulses, portrayed as synonymous with the importance of the City of London in the British polity, continue to be relevant to British external relations at least until the Thatcher period, irrespective of the existence of a colonial empire.14 In this context, the argument is mainly about policy impulses. The structural aspect, well developed for the late nineteenth century, takes second stage in the twentieth century.
However, there is some ambiguity as to whether the study is intended to offer an argument about Britain's postwar imperial policy per se, or simply emphasizes influences of the particular nineteenth-century legacy of the British state related to foreign relations, since the narrative also summarizes changes in Britain's global economic relations and policies. In principle, one could conceive of an argument which structurally relates society to state and empire, simply as one about the characteristics of the British polity and the ensuing implications for Britain's external relations rather than as one about British policy in particular regions and periods.15Third, the incorporation of the postwar period in a study of imperialism is an exception. Hitherto, research of the empire during this period has been conducted within the framework of essentially self-contained studies of decolonization. Research published within the paradigm of the dependency school advances a more or less explicit argument about an imperial design. But this research sharply contrasts with Cain and Hopkins's conception of imperialism, which focuses on impulses in the centre and makes no claims about welfare benefits or the exploitation or underdevelopment of the periphery in a territorial north-south divide as is the case of dependency studies.
A critique of 'gentlemanly imperialism' and its assumptions with regard to the 1940s and 1950s requires to clarify what Cain and Hopkins's continuity thesis precisely means, what it implies, and how it relates to imperialism as they define it. This raises questions about the claim, scope and explanatory power of their argument. The second continuity thesis simply raises questions about the historical evidence. But before turning to this critique, I should set the scene from the perspective of my own research.