1 Introduction
-
Richard Scully
Abstract
This introduction makes a case for the importance of cartoons, caricature, and satirical art as sources for the study of imperialism. As well as charting the scholarly development of ‘comics studies’ and its emergence as a respectable undertaking in its own right, the editors of Comic empires examine the thematic linkages between the different chapters of the volume. Victorian-age critics – such as John Ruskin – did much to bestow respectability on the cartoon as a form of art, and pointed to the imperial-themed work of John Leech and Sir John Tenniel at Punch as the epitome of the art. But Punch is only part of a larger movement that took empire and its discontents as the main subject matter for cartoon comment, from the eighteenth century prints of Hogarth, Gillray, and Rowlandson, through to the satirical weeklies of France, the United States, and elsewhere in the nineteenth century, and the mass circulation daily newspapers that appeared the world over in the twentieth century.
Abstract
This introduction makes a case for the importance of cartoons, caricature, and satirical art as sources for the study of imperialism. As well as charting the scholarly development of ‘comics studies’ and its emergence as a respectable undertaking in its own right, the editors of Comic empires examine the thematic linkages between the different chapters of the volume. Victorian-age critics – such as John Ruskin – did much to bestow respectability on the cartoon as a form of art, and pointed to the imperial-themed work of John Leech and Sir John Tenniel at Punch as the epitome of the art. But Punch is only part of a larger movement that took empire and its discontents as the main subject matter for cartoon comment, from the eighteenth century prints of Hogarth, Gillray, and Rowlandson, through to the satirical weeklies of France, the United States, and elsewhere in the nineteenth century, and the mass circulation daily newspapers that appeared the world over in the twentieth century.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of contributors xvi
- Acknowledgements xxi
- 1 Introduction 1
-
PART I: High imperialism and colonialism
- 2 Courting the colonies 31
- 3 ‘Master Jonathan’ in Cuba 66
- 4 ‘The international Siamese twins’ 92
- 5 ‘“Every dog” (no distinction of color) “has his day”’ 134
-
PART II: The critique of empire and the context of decolonisation
- 6 The making of harmony and war, from New Year Prints to propaganda cartoons during China’s Second Sino-Japanese War 161
- 7 David Low and India 192
- 8 Between imagined and ‘real’ 216
- 9 The iconography of decolonisation in the cartoons of the Suez Crisis, 1956 242
- 10 Punch and the Cyprus emergency, 1955–1959 277
-
PART III: Ambiguities of empire
- 11 Outrage and imperialism, confusion and indifference 305
- 12 Ambiguities in the fight waged by the socialist satirical review Der Wahre Jacob against militarism and imperialism 334
- 13 The ‘confounded socialists’ and the ‘Commonwealth Co-operative Society’ 362
- 14 Australian cartoonists at the end of empire 393
- Index 426
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of contributors xvi
- Acknowledgements xxi
- 1 Introduction 1
-
PART I: High imperialism and colonialism
- 2 Courting the colonies 31
- 3 ‘Master Jonathan’ in Cuba 66
- 4 ‘The international Siamese twins’ 92
- 5 ‘“Every dog” (no distinction of color) “has his day”’ 134
-
PART II: The critique of empire and the context of decolonisation
- 6 The making of harmony and war, from New Year Prints to propaganda cartoons during China’s Second Sino-Japanese War 161
- 7 David Low and India 192
- 8 Between imagined and ‘real’ 216
- 9 The iconography of decolonisation in the cartoons of the Suez Crisis, 1956 242
- 10 Punch and the Cyprus emergency, 1955–1959 277
-
PART III: Ambiguities of empire
- 11 Outrage and imperialism, confusion and indifference 305
- 12 Ambiguities in the fight waged by the socialist satirical review Der Wahre Jacob against militarism and imperialism 334
- 13 The ‘confounded socialists’ and the ‘Commonwealth Co-operative Society’ 362
- 14 Australian cartoonists at the end of empire 393
- Index 426
