Protectorate Cyprus: British Imperial Power before WWI

by Gail Dallas Hook

Overview

A strategic outpost in the Eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus was vital to British imperial ambitions in the East as the Ottoman Empire grew increasingly fragile in the nineteenth century. Here, Gail Dallas Hook describes the British occupation of Cyprus from 1878 to 1914, during which British government, science, and capital investment were installed alongside a new British colonial community, building 'British Cyprus' long before the island became a formal part of the British Empire. Protectorate Cyprus further demonstrates how the British attempted to bring 'good government' to Cyprus yet failed to resolve the issues of Muslim and Greek Orthodox divisions. It is a unique representation of Britain's 'informal empire' before World War I that has been little studied. Protectorate Cyprus is a crucial addition to the history of the British Empire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780857738974
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	02/17/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Gail Ruth Hook completed her PhD in British and Imperial History at the University of Texas where she was supervised by Wm. Roger Louis. She is teaching at George Mason University.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
INTRODUCTION

THEME I: “a duty to protect and improve”
Chapter One: British informal influence in Ottoman Cyprus
Strategy and the “good government” argument
British consuls in Cyprus before 1878
Chapter Two: Britons and Cyprus in 1878
Cyprus in the British imagination
Photographers
Visions of wealth
Cyprus and the British Museum
Chapter Three: The beginnings of British Cyprus
Sir Garnet Wolseley, first High Commissioner of Cyprus
Wolseley's men
Chapter Four: The foundations of “good government”
Representative government and the court system
The reform of the Zaptiehs
Public works and the problem of the tribute
Imperial maps and land tenure
Chapter Five: Governing the plural society
Defining the plural society on Cyprus
The plural society after 1878
Politics in Turkish and Greek schools

THEME II: “A RICH REWARD TO CAPITALISTS AND LABOUR”
Chapter Six: Revenue for the Empire
Commerce and trade before 1878
The colonies as Imperial resource: Commerce and trade after 1878
The Cyprus wine trade
Chapter Seven: Sanitation, reforestation, and colonial science
Sanitation and the problem of disease
The problems of locusts and goats
Reforestation and the botanical experts
Chapter Eight: Cyprus as Imperial Estate
Cyprus development and Colonial Office cooperation
Walter Sendall and Cyprus development

THEME III: THE MANTLE OF BRITISHNESS
Chapter Nine: Britishness in Cyprus
Britishness in Ottoman Cyprus
British women in Cyprus
Religion, missions, and social progress

Editorial Reviews

To come

From the Publisher