Description: This is the first emotional history of the British Empire. Joanna Lewis explores how David Livingstone's death tied together British imperialism and Victorian humanitarianism and inserted it into popular culture. Sacrifice and death; Superman like heroism; the devotion of Africans; the cruelty of Arab slavery; and the sufferings of the 'ordinary man', generated waves of sentimental feeling. These powerful myths, images and feelings incubated down the generations - through grand ceremonies, further exploration, humanitarianism, Christian teaching, narratives of masculine endeavour and heroic biography - inspiring colonial rule in Africa, white settler pioneers, missionaries and Africans. Empire of Sentiment demonstrates how this central African story shaped Britain's romantic perception of itself as a humane power overseas when the colonial reality fell far short. Through sentimental humanitarianism, Livingstone helped sustain a British Empire in Africa that remained profoundly Victorian, polyphonic and ideological; whilst always understood at home as proudly liberal on race.
Brief description: Joanna Lewis is an Associate Professor in the Department of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science, having previously studied at the University of Cambridge after winning a Thomas and Elizabeth Williams Scholarship for students with a first class degree, and first-generation to attend university. Her research is focused on British imperial history in Africa where she has lived and worked periodically for over twenty years. Other lecturing posts include Cambridge, Durham and The School of Oriental and African Studies. In 2013 she organised the only international conference to be held in Africa bringing together British and US specialists with African historians, debating colonial rule and its aftermath.
Review Quotes: 'Lewis (international history, London School of Economics) situates the 1873 death of missionary David Livingstone in the context of moral imperialism and the impending division of Africa into European spheres of influence. Recommended.' S. L. Smith, Choice