The Partition of Africa
| Date | 01 June 1962 |
| Published date | 01 June 1962 |
| Author | A. P. Thornton |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206201700209 |
| Subject Matter | Review Article |
Review
Article
The
Partition
of
Africa
A.
P.
Thornton*
This long,
closely-argued,
and
well-written
booki
re-partitions
Africa, looking
at
that
continent
and
its
fate
from
the
standpoint
of
the
late-Victorian
generation
of
British statesmen
and
permanent
civil
servants.
The
authors,
on
completing
their
detailed
survey
of
every
step
taken
and
of
every
reason
given,
reach
the
conclusion
that
the
motives
of
these
men
had
nothing to
do
with
intoxications
over
palm
and pine,
with Empire
for
Empire's
sake:
their
territorial
claims
in
Africa were
"little
more
than
by-products
of
an
enforced
search
for
better
security
in
the Mediterranean
and
the
East."
What factors
enforced
this
search,
however,
are
not
so closely
analysed,
and
the fact
that
commitments
in
Africa
weakened
the
British
imperial
position
more
than
they strengthened
it
is
scarcely
analysed
at
all
-
and
this
despite
the
indignant
chorus
to
that
very
effect,
well
described
by
the
authors,
which
arose
from
Liberal
benches
in
Parlia-
ment
whose occupants
objected
to
'gasconading'
on
principle.
Britain,
which
in
the
previous
generation
had
not
needed
the
flag
to protect
its
far-flung
spheres
of influence,
now
found
out
that
the
times
had
changed,
and
that
the other
European
powers
were
determined
to
enter
into
strong
competition
for
places
in
the
sun.
But
why
they
were
so
determined,
and
just
why
the
times
had
changed
so,
needs
a
severer
examination
than
the
authors
seem inclined
to
give
it,
if
a
reader
is
fully
to
accept
their
acerb
doctrine
that
the
"so-called
age
of
imperial-
ism"
(p.
76)
did
not in
fact
exist,
but
has
somehow been
conjured
up
by
inattentive
predecessors.
Victorian
statesmen
pursued
policies
that
both
Pitt
and
Palmerston
would
have
recognised
and
approved,
policies
that
promoted
"British
interests",
that
elusive
yet
durable
concept.
What made
them
veer
off
on
so
different
a
tack?
A
summary
of
what
these
interests
were,
or
at
any
rate
were
assumed
to
be,
in
the
last
quarter
of
the
nineteenth
century,
and
in
what
ways
they
compared
*
Department
of
History,
University
of
Toronto.
1
Africa
and
the
Victorians.
By
Ronald
Robinson
and
John
Gallagher,
with
Alice
Denny.
1960.
(London:
Toronto:
Macmillan.
491
pp.
$9.50.)
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