The following is a guide to finding more detail on the themes covered, and on the many additional formats and styles which individuals, companies and governments have used when ‘Selling Empire’. In particular, it includes links to websites, including some where you can find more EMB posters, and clips from Empire Marketing Board (EMB) films. The last section provides a full list of books referred to in these lectures, as well as suggestions for additional reading.
Debates and reviews
Films
- British Film Institute: information on classic films (clips only via a registered institution, but a good range of Empire Marketing Board film clips including less well known short films on British subjects)
- Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire
- This includes some films directly relating to the online articles above, for example from the EMB
- A silent film on the Wembley Empire Exhibition in 1924
- A District Officer in Bengal, responsible for 3 million people,
- The National Archives, including a clip of London Can Take It!
Websites
Empire
- The British Monarchy and the Commonwealth
- The Commonwealth
- The Commonwealth Secretariat
- The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
- La Francophonie (english version of the site is also available)
The Empire Marketing Board and its posters
- Manchester City Art Galleries
- The MacDonald Gill Project at the University of Brighton – on the life of the Highways of Empire artist
Empire and its legacies
The Open University's Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies:
- Working Papers on Africa and Asia historical to contemporary
- Working Papers on Commodities and Empire
Books and articles
Anthony, Scott. Public Relations and the Making of Modern Britain: Stephen Tallents and the Birth of a Progressive Media Profession (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013).
- Anthony, Scott. ‘Imperialism and Internationalism: The British Documentary Movement and the Legacy of the Empire Marketing Board’, in Lee Grieveson and Colin McCabe (ed.), Empire and Film London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 135-150.
- Barnes, Felicity. ‘Bringing Another Empire Alive? The Empire Marketing Board and the Construction of Dominion Identity, 1926–33’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 42:1 (2013), pp. 61-85,
- de Bromhead, alan; Alan Fernihough; Markus Lampe; Kevin O’Rourke; Kevin Hjortshøj, ‘When Britain Turned Inward: the impact of Interwar British Protection’, American Economic Review, 2019, Vol.109 (2), pp. 325-352.
Buck, Tim. ‘Imagining Imperial Modernity in British Colonial West Africa: Gerald Spencer Pryse’s Work for the Empire Marketing Board’. Art History 38, no. 5 (Nov. 2015), pp. 940-963.
Chafer, Tony (ed.), Promoting the Colonial Idea: Propaganda and Visions of Empire in France (Palgrave, 2009). A collection that suggests the French empire was presented as helping to cement a new patriotism, and perhaps helped to cast a veneer over regional if not ideological cracks in the national fabric.
- Connelly, Mark. ‘ “Jungles to-day are Gold Mines Tomorrow”: Depictions of Africa and Africans in Empire Marketing Board Posters, 1926-1933’, Blog, October 2021.
- Constantine, Stephen. Buy and Build: The Advertising Posters of the Empire Marketing board (London: HMSO, 1986). Constantine’s is the best available academic study of the EMB, and contains lavish full page illustrations of the posters.
- Faulkner, Simon, and Anandi Ramamurthy (eds.), Visual Culture and Decolonisation in Britain (Ashgate, 2006).
- Grieveson, Lee and Colin MacCabe (eds), Empire and Film (2011), and Film and the End of Empire (2011).
- Haggard, H. Rider, King Solomon’s Mines (1885). A classic empire yarn, set in southern Africa
- Henty, G.A. More than a hundred historical novels featuring heroes just out of school, but propelled into action in and beyond empire, such as The Dash for Khartoum (1892).
Higgin, David, and Brian Varian (April 2019), ‘The Empire Marketing Board: Britain’s failed attempt at soft trade policy’, VOXEU (Centre for Policy Research), https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/empire-marketing-board-1926-33-britains-failed-attempt-soft-trade-policy. Drawing on their ‘Britain’s Empire Marketing Board and the failure of soft trade, 1926-1933’, in European Review of Economic History, 25, pp. 780-805
- Horton, Melanie. Empire Marketing Board Posters (Manchester: Scala, 2010). A small booklet that followed the Manchester City Art Galleries exhibition of EMB posters.
- Jackson, Ashley, Mad Dogs and Englishmen 1850-1945: A Grand Tour of the British Empire at its Height (Quercus, 2009). Though only one chapter (pp. 214-23) is specifically on marketing, this book is a lavishly illustrated general guide to empire, with a wide range of visual representations from maps to board games.
- Mackenzie, John M. (ed.). Propaganda and Empire: the manipulation of British Public Opinion 1880-1960 (Manchester University Press, 1984). Mackenzie was one of the earliest proponents of the study of empire culture, and the idea that it permeated Victorian life. Manchester University Press published a series of related books from 1984 onwards.
- Porter, Bernard. The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society and Culture in Britain (Oxford University Press, 2004). Porter argued that, placed in context, imperial references are not always as predominant as Mackenzie and many books in the Macneshter series might imply.
- Rotter, Andrew, ‘Empire of the Senses: How Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Touching Shaped Imperial Encounters' – H-Diplo review
- Stuart Ward (ed.), British culture and the end of empire (Manchester, 2001).
- Tallents, Sir Stephen, The Projection of England (1932), a classic short pamphlet pushing the idea of Britain as a brand that should be focused on recognizable icons and characteristics.
- Philip Taylor, The Projection of Britain: British Overseas Publicity and Propaganda, 1919-39 (Cambridge: 2007).
Wallace, Brian. ‘ “All England was present at that siege”: Imperial Defences and Island Stories in British Culture’, History Workshop Journal, 93 (Spring 2022), pp. 159-185.
- West, Emma. ‘Modern Institutions and the Civilizing Mission’, M/m (Modernism/Modernity),Vol. 5, Cycle 2, August 2020: https://doi.org/10.26597/mod.0159
Selling Empire collection
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Selling Empire: Introduction
Read now to access more details of Selling Empire: IntroductionGet an overview of our 'Selling Empire' articles, which explore the selling and marketing of the British Empire.
Level: 1 Introductory
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Selling Empire: Exhibitions
Read now to access more details of Selling Empire: ExhibitionsTrace how Empire changed from being a bit-player in the 1851 Great Exhibition, to the main focus of the 1924-5 Wembley Empire Exhibition.
Level: 1 Introductory
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Selling Empire: The Empire Marketing Board
Read now to access more details of Selling Empire: The Empire Marketing BoardExplore the origins and role of one iconic Empire marketing institution – the Empire Marketing Board (EMB) was founded in May 1926 to encourage Empire trade, and given committees for research, marketing, and publicity.
Level: 1 Introductory
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Selling Empire: Posters
Read now to access more details of Selling Empire: PostersExplore the Empire Marketing Board’s posters in more detail, starting with the Highways of Empire poster.
Level: 1 Introductory
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Selling Empire: Film
Read now to access more details of Selling Empire: FilmRead about how Empire Marketing Board filmmakers were given enormous scope to experiment and explore how this allowed them to progress from cheaply shot shorts on British topics to innovative films such as Song of Ceylon.
Level: 1 Introductory
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Selling Empire: Epilogue – the slow death of heroism?
Read now to access more details of Selling Empire: Epilogue – the slow death of heroism?This article traces the change from optimism over the Commonwealth and over Britain as a jet-age great power in the 1940s-50s, towards comedy and cynicism over empire by the 1960s. Starting with the Empire and Commonwealth Annuals of the early postwar years, it ends with Carry on Up the Khyber and the Flashman novels.
Level: 1 Introductory
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