When Hegemony Fails: British Imperialism in India and Brazil from the Nineteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries

Abstract

This paper argues that empires in the age of nations are beset by cultural contradictions that undermine attempts to create a cohesive social bloc able to achieve hegemonic rule. The proposition is tested through an examination of the British Empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, more specifically, its formal colonial rule in India and its informal role in Brazil. The consequences of this rule, it is argued, are the routine use of violence to instill a healthy terror in the subject population and political alliances that are unable to refashion themselves in keeping with the new class structures engendered by capitalist development.