As a result of colonization, many varieties of English now exist around the world. Originally published in 2005, Legacies of Colonial English brings together a team of internationally renowned scholars to discuss the role of British dialects in both the genesis and subsequent history of postcolonial Englishes. Considering the input of Scottish, English and Irish dialects, they closely examine a wide range of Englishes - including those in North and South America, South Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand - and explain why many of them still reflect non-standard British usage from the distant past. Complete with a checklist of dialect features, a detailed glossary and set of general references on the topic of postcolonial Englishes, this book will be an invaluable source to scholars and students of English language and linguistics, particularly those interested in sociolinguistics, historical linguistics and dialectology.

Colonial Legacies in Chicana/o Literature and Culture exposes the ways in which colonialism is expressed in the literary and cultural production of the U.S. Southwest, a region that has experienced at least two distinct colonial periods since the sixteenth century. Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez traces how Spanish colonial texts reflect the motivation for colonial domination. She argues that layers of U.S. colonialism complicate how Chicana/o literary scholars think about Chicana/o literary and cultural production. She brings into view the experiences of Chicana/o communities that have long-standing ties to the U.S. Southwest but whose cultural heritage is tied through colonialism to multiple nations, including Spain, Mexico, and the United States. While the legacies of Chicana/o literature simultaneously uphold and challenge colonial constructs, the metaphor of the kaleidoscope makes visible the rupturing of these colonial fragments via political and social urgencies. This book challenges readers to consider the possibilities of shifting our perspectives to reflect on stories told and untold and to advocate for the inclusion of fragmented and peripheral pieces within the kaleidoscope for more complex understandings of individual and collective subjectivities. This book is intended for readers interested in how colonial legacies are performed in the U.S. Southwest, particularly in the context of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. Readers will relate to the book’s personal narrative thread that provides a path to understanding fragmented identities.

As a result of colonisation, many varieties of English now exist around the world. Legacies of Colonial English explores the role of British dialects in both the genesis and subsequent history of postcolonial Englishes, and how it came about that many still reflect non-standard British usage from the distant past.

It is well known that Taiwan and South Korea, both former Japanese colonies, achieved rapid growth and industrialization after 1960. The performance of former European and American colonies (Malaysia, Singapore, Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, and the Philippines) has been less impressive. Some scholars have attributed the difference to better infrastructure and greater access to education in Japan’s colonies. Anne Booth examines and critiques such arguments in this ambitious comparative study of economic development in East and Southeast Asia from the beginning of the twentieth century until the 1960s. Booth takes an in-depth look at the nature and consequences of colonial policies for a wide range of factors, including the growth of export-oriented agriculture and the development of manufacturing industry. She evaluates the impact of colonial policies on the growth and diversification of the market economy and on the welfare of indigenous populations. Indicators such as educational enrollments, infant mortality rates, and crude death rates are used to compare living standards across East and Southeast Asia in the 1930s. Her analysis of the impact that Japan’s Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere and later invasion and conquest had on the region and the living standards of its people leads to a discussion of the painful and protracted transition to independence following Japan’s defeat. Throughout Booth emphasizes the great variety of economic and social policies pursued by the various colonial governments and the diversity of outcomes. Lucidly and accessibly written, Colonial Legacies offers a balanced and elegantly nuanced exploration of a complex historical reality. It will be a lasting contribution to scholarship on the modern economic history of East and Southeast Asia and of special interest to those concerned with the dynamics of development and the history of colonial regimes.

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, Dresden Technical University (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Watching the English, language: English, abstract: At its height in the late 19th and early 20th century, the British empire included territories on all continents and comprised about one quarter of the world’s population and area. The way England became a world power is one of the biggest success stories in world history. The British Empire was the biggest empire ever, bar none. How an archipelago of rainy islands off the northwest coast of Europe came to rule the world is one of the fundamental questions not just of British but of world history. How did Britain manage to overcome the imperial giants of the 16th and 17th century, namely Portugal and Spain, establishing their own colonies and dependencies all over the world within the following three centuries? What were the ideas and intentions behind colonizing and conquering the world? Furthermore, it is interesting to find out what caused the dismantling of the Empire in the second half of the 20th century within just three decades, after three centuries of ruling vast parts of the globe. Finally, it will be astonishing to find out, what the British Empire has left behind for the modern world. At first, one might think of team sports like soccer, cricket or rugby, which were indeed brought to all parts of the globe by the Empire. Nevertheless, the colonial legacy of the British Empire is not only confined to sports. It can be found in many fields of life like economy, politics, architecture and food. Nor is it always a good legacy. The British Empire was also responsible for various present-day conflicts and it will be found out, how those conflicts came into being and what they are like.

Colonialism and Its Legacy brings together essays by leading scholars in both the fields of political theory and the history of political thought about European colonialism and its legacies, and postcolonial social and political theory. The essays explore the ways in which European colonial projects structured and shaped much of modern political theory, how concepts from political philosophy affected and were realized in colonial and imperial practice, and how we can understand the intellectual and social world left behind by a half-millennium of European empires. The volume ranges from the beginning of modernity to the present day, examining colonialism and colonial legacies in India, Africa, Latin America, and North America.

This revelatory history of the legacy of the British empire and its unintended consequences marks the brilliant literary debut of a young historian and politician

Britain yesterday; America today. The reality of being top dog is that everybody hates you. In this provocative book, noted historian and commentator Jeremy Black shows how criticisms of the legacy of the British Empire are, in part, criticisms of the reality of American power today. He emphasizes the prominence of imperial rule in history and in the world today, and the selective way in which certain countries are castigated. Imperial Legacies is a wide-ranging and vigorous assault on political correctness, its language, misuse of the past, and grasping of both present and future.

Colonial rule distorts a colony’s economy and its society, and British rule was no exception. British policies led to a stratified American colonial society with slaves on the bottom and white settlers on top. The divided society functioned through laws that imposed rules and defined roles of the respective races. This occurred in other colonies too, often leading to strife that continues today. Especially since World War II the United States seems finally to have been able to remove many laws and practices that had created barriers between races in the divided society. Appeals to legitimacy, such as by abolitionists and the Civil Rights Movement, were essential to change laws from support of the divided society to instruments for disestablishing it. Thanks to the rule of law – another important British legacy -- the U.S. is much farther along than many former colonies in making progress. By highlighting the history of the interplay of two fundamental concepts, the divided society and the rule of law, and briefly contrasting the experiences of other former colonies, this book shows how the United States has made significant long-term progress, although incomplete, and ways for this to continue today.