Imperial Boredom

Monotony and the British Empire

Jeffrey A. Auerbach

Challenges the long-held view that the era British Empire was marked by excitment
Uses a wealth of source materials, such as diaries, letters, memoirs, and travelogues, to build an image of what life in the British Empire was really like
Features over sixty contemporary images

Imperial Boredom

Monotony and the British Empire

Jeffrey A. Auerbach

Description

Imperial Boredom offers a radical reconsideration of the British Empire during its heyday in the nineteenth century. Challenging the long-established view that the Empire was about adventure and excitement, with heroic men and intrepid women eagerly spreading commerce and civilization around the globe, this thoroughly researched, engagingly written, and lavishly illustrated account suggests instead that boredom was central to the experience of Empire.

This volume looks at what it was actually like to sail to Australia, to serve as a soldier in South Africa, or to accompany a colonial official to the hill stations of India, and agrues that for numerous men and women, from governors to convicts, explorers to tourists, the Victorian Empire was dull and disappointing. Drawing on diaries, letters, memoirs, and travelogues, it demonstrates that all across the empire, men and women found the landscapes monotonous, the physical and psychological distance from home debilitating, the routines of everyday life wearisome, and their work unfulfilling. Ocean voyages were tedious; colonial rule was bureaucratic; warfare was infrequent; economic opportunity was limited; and indigenous people were largely invisible. The seventeenth-century Empire may have been about wonder and marvel, but the Victorian Empire was a far less exciting project.

Imperial Boredom

Monotony and the British Empire

Jeffrey A. Auerbach

Imperial Boredom

Monotony and the British Empire

Jeffrey A. Auerbach

Author Information

Jeffrey A. Auerbach, Professor of History, California State University, Northridge

Jeffrey Auerbach received his BA from Oberlin College (1987) and his PhD from Yale University (1995). The recipient of numerous fellowships, his first book The Great Exhibition of 1851, was heralded as 'an exemplary piece of cultural history' (David Vincent, American Historical Review). Since then his research and writing has focused on the British Empire; he contributed an essay entitled 'Art and Empire' to the Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume V. He was also the founding world history editor for History Compass, en e-journal for history, and has served as a consultant for the History Channel and the BBC.

Imperial Boredom

Monotony and the British Empire

Jeffrey A. Auerbach

Reviews and Awards

"Auerbach builds his case on a remarkable compilation of primary visual and textual materials ... what the book does offer, beyond interesting examples from archives around the world, is an approach that remains unusual in imperial history, moving away from the "spoked wheel" understanding of colonial influence." - Elleke Boehmer, Times Literary Supplement

"Imperial Boredom calls attention to the potent combination of imperial nostalgia and propaganda. A timely study of imperial subjectivity, it is much to Auerbach's credit that a book on boredom is one of the most readable scholarly monographs I have encountered in recent years." - Andrew Griffiths, Open University, Victorian Studies

"stimulating and thought-provoking ... provides a novel and illuminating lens through which to examine the mind-set of men and women working and living in empire" - Andrew Hillier, Reviews in History

"Jeffrey A. Auerbach takes boredom to a new level in this fascinating study." - Joanna Lewis, Times Higher Education

"Auerbach succeeds in capturing the texture of everyday imperialist life as few historians have." - Erik Linstrum, History Today

"Auerbach's research ... is filled with a surprising amount of zingers ... a rich contribution to colonial history." - Josh Gaybert-Doyon, Hong Kong Review of Books

"Rich new book ... Auerbach writes in a clear and polished style. He is sensitive in his readings of the many dozen of manuscript diaries and letters of various bored imperial officers" - Padriac Scanlon, The New Inquiry

Imperial Boredom

Monotony and the British Empire

Jeffrey A. Auerbach

From Our Blog

How boring was life in the British Empire?

For centuries, the British Empire has been portrayed as a place of adventure and excitement. Novels and films, from Robinson Crusoe to Lawrence of Arabia, romanticized the empire. Yet in 1896, after only one month in India, twenty-one year old Winston Churchill declared Britain's largest and most important colony 'dull and interesting.'

Posted on March 17, 2019

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