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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Victorians and Africa: A Reconsideration of the Occupation of Egypt, 1882 |
Author: | Hopkins, A.G. |
Year: | 1986 |
Periodical: | The Journal of African History |
Volume: | 27 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 363-391 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Egypt Great Britain |
Subjects: | colonial conquest colonialism History and Exploration |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/181140 |
Abstract: | This article offers a reassessment of Britain's decision to occupy Egypt in 1882. Research published since 1961 does not support the view put forward by Robinson and Gallagher in their book 'Africa and the Victorians', that Britain intervened reluctantly to safeguard the Suez canal in response to disorder in Egypt, or that she was led on by French initiatives. Moreover, the decision to occupy Egypt did not have the effect claimed by Robinson and Gallagher of precipitating the scramble for West and East Africa. It is argued instead that the causes of intervention lay in the metropole rather than on the periphery. British interests in Egypt were both important and expanding, and they were upheld by Conservative and Liberal governments in the period following the khedive's declaration of bankruptcy in 1876. This conclusion makes the Egyptian case less important in understanding the scramble for tropical Africa but more important in understanding late nineteenth-century imperialism. Notes. |