The late Victorian and Edwardian officer class viewed hunting and big game hunting in particular, as a sound preparation for imperial warfare. For the imperial officer in the making, the ‘blooding’ hunting ritual was a visible ‘hallmark’ of stirling martial masculinity. Sir Henry Newbolt, the period poet of subaltern self-sacrifice, typically considered hunting as essential for the creation of a ‘masculine sporting spirit’ necessary for the consolidation and extension of the empire. Hunting was seen as a manifestation of Darwinian masculinity that maintained a pre-ordained hierarchical order of superordinate and subordinate breeds. Militarism, Hunting, Imperialism examines these ideas under the following five sections: martial imperialism: the self-sacrificial subaltern ‘blooding’ the middle class martial male the imperial officer, hunting and war martial masculinity proclaimed and consolidated martial masculinity adapted and adjusted. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

The figure of the white hunter sahib proudly standing over the carcass of a tiger with a gun in hand is one of the most powerful and enduring images of the empire. This book examines the colonial politics that allowed British imperialists to indulge in such grand posturing as the rulers and protectors of indigenous populations. This work studies the history of hunting and conservation in colonial India during the high imperial decades of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At this time, not only did hunting serve as a metaphor for colonial rule signifying the virile sportsmanship of the British hunter, but it also enabled vital everyday governance through the embodiment of the figure of the officer–hunter–administrator. Using archival material and published sources, the author examines hunting and wildlife conservation from various social and ethnic perspectives, and also in different geographical contexts, extending our understanding of the link between shikar and governance.

This work studies the history of imperial hunting and conservation in colonial India from the end of the eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century. It analyses early colonial hunting during the Company period going on to survey, in depth, different aspects of hunting during the high imperial decades. Based on original, printed, and secondary sources, it examines hunting at various social and ethnic levels, and also in different geographical contexts.In doing so, the author covers vast ground, including about the rituals, the variety of prey, the hierarchies of animals shot and hunted, the technology of firearms, the forms of hunting on horseback, and the introduction of hunting with hounds.

A compelling history of British imperial culture, showing how it was adopted and subverted by colonial subjects around the world As the British Empire expanded across the globe, it exported more than troops and goods. In every colony, imperial delegates dispersed British cultural forms. Facilitated by the rapid growth of print, photography, film, and radio, imperialists imagined this new global culture would cement the unity of the empire. But this remarkably wide-ranging spread of ideas had unintended and surprising results. In this groundbreaking history, John M. MacKenzie examines the importance of culture in British imperialism. MacKenzie describes how colonized peoples were quick to observe British culture--and adapted elements to their own ends, subverting British expectations and eventually beating them at their own game. As indigenous communities integrated their own cultures with the British imports, the empire itself was increasingly undermined. From the extraordinary spread of cricket and horse racing to statues and ceremonies, MacKenzie presents an engaging imperial history--one with profound implications for global culture in the present day.

This study assesses the significance of the hunting cult as a major element of the imperial experience in Africa and Asia. Through a study of the game laws and the beginnings of conservation in the 19th and early-20th centuries, the author demonstrates the racial inequalities which existed between Europeans and indigenous hunters. Africans were denied access to game, and the development of game reserves and national parks accelerated this process. Indigenous hunters in Africa and India were turned into "poachers" and only Europeans were permitted to hunt. In India, the hunting of animals became the chief recreation of military officers and civilian officials, a source of display and symbolic dominance of the environment. Imperial hunting fed the natural history craze of the day, and many hunters collected trophies and specimens for private and public collections as well as contributing to hunting literature. Adopting a radical approach to issues of conservation, this book links the hunting cult in Africa and India to the development of conservation, and consolidates widely-scattered material on the importance of hunting to the economics and nutrition of African societies.