Empire Theatres and the Empire: The Popular Geographical Imagination in the Age of Empire

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Abstract
The role of the emerging mass media in informing popular attitudes towards imperialism in late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain is explored through a case study of music hall. It is argued that, in contrast to practices adopted in other media, music hall songs and sketches contributed little to the nurturing of an imperialist popular imagination. I take issue with the assertion first made by J A Hobson in The Psychology of Jingoism that music halls promoted militarist and imperialist activities and fostered a popular chauvinism. I also suggest that although music hall songs and sketches purveyed images of racial difference they did not contribute to the discourse of racial supremacy upon which the moral justification of British imperialism rested. Rather, the halls celebrated the emergence of a culture of consumption that transcended social and ethnic boundaries and confronted the dominant ascetic value system of the Victorian bourgeoisie.

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