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the types of interdisciplinary collaborations which are created here. It opens morequestions about the ways in which urban and imperial identities are formed and therelationships between historical past and present in the projection of the modern. Italso demands that we continue to look at methodologies and the conceptual frameworkswhich we use for historical analysis. Imperial Cities is, perhaps, too orthodox in itscritical methods; its range of theoretical sources too limited and unvarying. It does,however, indicate the ways in which we may continue investigating the historicalformations of urban space, at the same time as questioning our own critical practices.

Birkbeck College, University of London L N

doi:10.1006/jhge.2001.0345, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

J S, London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis (London and New Haven:Yale University Press, 1999. Pp. ix+336. £19.95 hardback)

On 19 May 1900 vast crowds of Londoners congregated in the streets of the city tocelebrate the relief of Mafeking. As the news of the escape of Major-General Baden-Powell and his men from the besieging Boers reached the city, there was a gigantic andlargely spontaneous demonstration of popular patriotism. Queen Victoria recorded inher diary that “the people are quite mad with delight and London is said to beindescribable”. On 3 July 1900 the London Stock Exchange crashed on news that theempress of China had given official support to the Boxer rebels fighting the internationalforces led by British troops. The effects were particularly severe on small investors,many of whom had joined a recent speculative dash for Pekin Syndicate shares. On 23July 1900 the first Pan-African Conference opened at Westminster Town Hall. Theconference was organized by the Africa Association, and was attended by delegatesfrom Abyssinia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, the United States, Canada andthe West Indies. The conference’s published proclamation opened with W.E.B. DuBois’s famous claim that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of thecolour line”. On 24 September 1900 the Conservative government dissolved Parliament,calling an early general election, to take advantage of the popular mood followingBritish victories in the Boer War over the summer. What was to become known as theKhaki election was marked by a dirty campaign, and nowhere was it dirtier than inLondon. The Conservative Party consistently played the imperial card, warning that avote for the Liberals or the Independent Labour Party was a vote for the Boers. On 2October 1900, the Conservatives won the election with an almost unchanged majority.

These various events, and many others taking place during the year of 1900, werenot of course coincidental. In urban history, the epithet ‘Imperial London’ has longbeen used for the late-Victorian and Edwardian metropolis. But too often this has beenthe end of consideration of the connections between city and empire. Jonathan Schneer’sLondon 1900 is the first book-length study of London that has the influences ofimperialism as its central concern, fully exploring the nature of “the greatest imperialmetropolis of modern times” (p. 12). To do this, Schneer uses the year 1900 as a cross-sectional moment in London’s imperial history. This makes for a brilliantly diverseportrait of the city. Rather than a singular theoretical focus, Schneer’s claim is that theidentity of the imperial city “takes a good deal of unravelling”, and that it was “fluid,subtle, and the object of contestation” (p. 13). In the first section of the book, Schneertravels between different sites in the city—the docks, the City, the zoo, the music-halls—showing how each was shaped profoundly by its position in the web of economic,

2001 Academic Press

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social, political and cultural relations formed by the British Empire. The second section,on “alternative imperial Londons” examines the role of those who were either supposedlymarginal to imperialism, or were actively questioning and criticizing its nature. HereSchneer considers first the role of elite women in the political world of high imperialism,moving onto a discussion of London’s radical and Celtic fringe. He then examines therole and position of the Asian Liberal Member of Parliament Dadabhai Naoroji, themoving force in the British Committee of the Indian National Congress, beforediscussing the development of the Pan-African movement in London. A discussion ofthe Khaki election acts as a kind of coda for the book. The election, Schneer claims,“illuminated the connections between urban life and empire, casting a searchlight overthe megalopolis at the centre of the British Empire” (p.229).

Schneer’s concentration on the city in a single year gives the book great strength asa significant contribution to popular and academic history. Although the introductorychapter includes a brief review of theoretical work on the influence of imperialism onBritain, London 1900 is not really a direct theoretical contribution to what can bedescribed as the postcolonial reinterpretation of metropolitan culture and society.Neither is it a conventional narrative of the rise and fall of the imperial city. What wefind here instead is a number of detailed case studies, focusing on particular places,groups and networks, always with a strong sense not just of their interconnections, butalso of their juxtapositions and contradictions within a single city. The achievement ofthe book is therefore to take much of the intellectual force of the postcolonialreinterpretation of metropolitan history to a wider audience. Unlike many jargon-encrusted narratives on the postcolonial condition, this is a clearly written and engagingaccount, that shows that the nature of London in 1900 was intimately bound-up withits position in Empire, and that the notion of ‘race’ was central to the ways in whichimperial citizens understood themselves and others. As an accessible means of provokingdebate about the different dimensions of the imperial experience London 1900 hasconsiderable merits as a teaching text.

A book of this breadth is, perhaps understandably, somewhat uneven. Schneer’s pastwork as labour historian shows in the fine chapter on the Docks, which were “acrossroads of people, things, and attitudes, a nexus of empire. And they were a nexusof imperialisms” (p.39). Schneer succeeds in showing how conventional class-basedhistories of the Docks and the East End have ignored or severely underplayed theimportance of their economic and ideological connections with the empire. This tightlyfocused study is strongly suggestive of ways in which labour history could be rewritten,not just in the nexus of empire, but in other places and at other times. By contrast,the chapter on women in the imperial capital is rather limited and disappointing,concentrating on two society hostesses—Lady Dorothy Nevill and Lady Londonderry—and two journalists—Fiona Shaw and Mary Kingsley. While the discussion of Kingsley’sposition within London is a useful addition to the growing mountain of work on thetraveller, this is a missed opportunity to consider the broader dimensions of imperialfemininity beyond the elite circles of politics and the press. There are also somesurprising absences, most notably the lack of a sustained analysis of the Mafekingcelebrations themselves. These were significant not only as the largest ever demonstrationof popular imperial sentiment, but also for the active involvement of the institutionsof the City, and for the nature of reactions to raw and rude imperialism on the streetsof London. More generally, the focus on the year 1900, while having the advantage ofhighlighting the simultaneity of different imperialisms in the city, also means that thisis necessarily a partial account of the metropolis even in the age of high imperialism.The year was not marked by large-scale state ceremonial events (as in 1897 and 1901)nor by a major imperial exhibition. The events of the Boer War are pivotal to Schneer’saccount of the city and its culture. This is a bit like judging social and political attitudes

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in late-twentieth-century Britain through a study of popular responses to the FalklandsWar in 1982—it is certainly revealing about undercurrents of xenophobia and racism,but is hardly a full picture of the age. A similar study set a couple of years later wouldreveal a more troubled and ambiguous understanding of empire in its capital. Perhapsthen, the most significant achievement of the book is as a model and inspiration forfurther intensive empirical studies of cities and imperialism, which move beyondparticular studies of individual monuments or exhibitions. Reading London 1900 mademe eager to explore how these connections and juxtapositions had changed by, say,1924 or 1948, or to think about parallels and contrasts with other imperial cities,perhaps Paris or Brussels, Liverpool or Marseilles.

Royal Holloway, University of London D G

doi:10.1006/jhge.2001.0346, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

G A and B J. S with I A et al., Chaos andGovernance in the Modern World System, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,1999. Pp. 320. $22.95 paperback)

To the extent that ‘total history’ survives in contemporary social science/history it doesso largely under the banner of world systems theory. This does not require subscribingto every last detail of Immanuel Wallerstein’s original scheme, but it does involvepaying careful attention to the periodic transformations in the global distribution ofpower that Wallerstein has associated with the economic long-cycles and politicalhegemonic transitions of the modern world economy. A critical question concerns howfar a given approach can depart from an orthodoxy before it is truly something else.The labelling practices of contemporary history and social science depend very muchon allocating theoretical frameworks to relatively clearly defined categories. Yet, oftenthe most innovative and interesting writing tests the boundaries of conventionalcategorization rather than simply reproducing its core attributes. Consider all of thework that, while Marxist in inspiration, remains indifferent or even hostile to literalexegesis from the master’s basic texts. The present work is of this character, situatedclosely to Wallerstein’s approach by its terminology and general theoretical frame ofreference but also pushing the intellectual boundaries that the master has established.This volume represents the most sophisticated attempt yet made to move the worldsystems framework away from its dependence upon a structural model of change inwhich state-based elites compete for international primacy by cornering territorialmarkets in resources, labour, and investment opportunities, towards a historical varyingaccount of various agents (states, firms, etc.) whose actions not only reproduce but atcrucial moments also transform the very system in which they are competing. Con-sequently, the authors identify four points of controversy about the making of themodern world political economy: the changing balance of power between specific‘leading states’; the changing balance of power between states and business organizations;the shifting power of ‘subordinate group’; and the changing balance of power betweenWestern and non-Western civilizations. The overarching theme is that of ‘hegemonictransition’, understood not only in the classic sense of a change in the identity of thedominant state (Britain, the United States, China etc.) but also in the sense of a widersystemic change emanating from the specific social characteristics of the dominant statethat when imposed all around change the rules of global competition.

2001 Academic Press