Most of the attention on British Imperialism1 has justifiably focused on its treatment of the nineteenth century.

Given the breadth and scope of the study, the authors had to condense the period of the postwar empire onto a few pages.² As for the period after 1945 as a whole, the original two-volume edition has found some wider resonance among writers onto British political and current affairs,³ and has been acknowledged in a survey essay of the City of London.⁴ From among those isolated critical essays of the volumes extending into the post- 1945 period, one has dealt with a region neglected in the study, namely Malaya,⁵ while another has approached the argument from the per­spective of Britain's economic performance.⁶ Both have therefore not engaged with the argument in its overall political dimension of linking society, politics and policy in the context of Britain's overseas and imperial relations.

In focusing on the period between 1945 and the early 1960s, when Britain eventually withdrew from most of its colonial empire, this essay will discuss the concept of 'gentlemanly capitalism', as employed as the backbone of Cain and Hopkins's study of imperialism.⁷ Elsewhere, I have offered a broad appreciation of their volumes,⁸ and a detailed argument about the politics of Britain's external economic and impe­rial relations unrelated to 'gentlemanly imperialism'.⁹ In the following, I will sketch Cain and Hopkins's conception of 'gentlemanly imperial­ism', and provide a critical assessment of its applicability to the period, before engaging with historical and methodological aspects of their argument. The conclusions will raise, albeit briefly and tentatively, some broader conceptual issues of research on British imperial relations after 1945.