From: "Frank Conlon" <conlon@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
To: <H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 3:17 AM
Subject: H-ASIA: REVIEW H-Net Review Publication: 'Untangling Ireland's
Imperial Webb'
> H-ASIA
> March 8, 2011
>
> Book Review (orig pub. H-Albion) by Timothy McMahon of Jennifer
> Regan-Lefebvre. _Cosmopolitan Nationalism in the Victorian
> Empire: Ireland, India and the Politics of Alfred Webb_.
>
> (x-post H-Review)
> ************************************************************************
> From: H-Net Staff <revhelp@mail.h-net.msu.edu>
>
> Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre. Cosmopolitan Nationalism in the Victorian
> Empire: Ireland, India and the Politics of Alfred Webb. Houndmills,
> Basingstoke, Hampshire Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. xiii + 229 pp.
> $74.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-230-22085-0.
>
> Reviewed by Timothy McMahon
> Published on H-Albion (March, 2011)
> Commissioned by Nicholas M. Wolf
>
> Untangling Ireland's Imperial Webb
>
> In _Cosmopolitan Nationalism in the Victorian Empire: Ireland, India,
> and the Politics of Alfred Webb_, Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre engages
> several historiographies at once--the nature of nationalism, the
> internal dynamics of the Home Rule movement, the importance of
> personal connections to achieving political ends, the
> interrelationships of constituent parts of the British Empire, and
> the place of Ireland in the wider world. While the final two of
> these may strike some as redundant, they are, in fact, distinct
> though related issues. The empire was, as Regan-Lefebvre
> demonstrates, one conduit through which at least some Irish men and
> women understood their place in the world and sought to influence
> world developments, but it was not the only one such conduit.
>
> The author builds her study around a single person's career--that of
> Alfred Webb (1834-1908), long known as an important, if eccentric,
> member of the Irish Home Rule movement. A Dublin Quaker and printer,
> Webb came from a family of committed social activists--his parents,
> R. D. and Hannah, were acquaintances of Daniel O'Connell as well as
> of the American abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick
> Douglass. R. D., in particular, helped to make his son aware of
> reformist currents through opposition not only to slavery and
> discrimination, but also to various policies of the United Kingdom,
> including the expansion of the opium trade in China.
>
> The younger Webb also experienced empire first-hand when, as a teen,
> his family sent him to Australia to improve his health. On his
> return trip home, he worked as a ship hand. As an adult, he picked
> up the family mantle, succeeding to his father's printing business
> and maintaining his own affective networks and interests that
> addressed issues such as women's rights and Home Rule. During his
> days as a member of parliament, he moved from Dublin to London and
> his contacts included Irish nationalist politicians, British
> Liberals, and figures from throughout the empire, especially South
> Asian elites, often meeting them through his membership in the
> National Liberal Club. At the apex of his political career, he
> served for a year as president of the Indian National Congress,
> traveling to the annual convention held at Madras in December 1894.
>
> As part of the Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies series,
> the book contributes to several ongoing scholarly discussions. Like
> Leela Gandhi, Regan-Lefebvre is interested in the part played by
> cross-cultural relationships in shaping nationalist understanding.[1]
>
> Ultimately she sees Webb as a civic nationalist, that is, one whose
> concept of national belonging was based on adherence to political
> ideas rather than on blood or ethnicity. As such, in spite of Webb's
> interest in the Gaelic revival, Regan-Lefebvre contends that Webb's
> nationalism ran counter to the impulses of those like D. P. Moran
> whose work profoundly influenced early twentieth-century Ireland.
> Such a conclusion, offered all too briefly in her summary chapter,
> calls for greater scrutiny. The Moranite strain of Irish-Irelandism
> was merely one of many in play during Webb's later years, and Webb's
> very interest in Gaelicism--as well as his public criticism of
> elements within that movement--testify to the diversity of the early
> revival era. Regan-Lefebvre devotes attention more profitably to the
> coming together of Irish and South Asian activists in late Victorian
> London; therefore, her study of Webb fits well within the burgeoning
> literature on colonial encounters at the imperial center that
> scholars such as Antoinette Burton have done much to promote.[2]
>
> Further, those interested in Home Rule will find material on the
> practical challenges behind the Irish party's formation and
> restructuring that will augment the recent works of Alvin Jackson and
> Patrick Maume, as well as the more classic studies of Conor Cruise
> O'Brien and F. S. L. Lyons.[3] Because Webb and his close friend J.
> F. X. O'Brien were integral but often behind-the-scenes figures in
> keeping the party (or its factions) functioning, Regan-Lefebvre's
> attention to their efforts is most welcome.
>
> While the book roughly follows the chronological arc of Webb's life,
> it is organized thematically, with Regan-Lefebvre cleverly addressing
> issues when they took precedence for her subject. Of course, such
> authorial license is necessarily arbitrary: few of us actually focus
> only on a single element of our lives or worldviews at any given
> time. Still, this analytical choice allows readers or instructors to
> hone in on those chapters of the book relevant to their work, whether
> it would be Victorian social activism, the Home Rule cause from the
> time of Isaac Butt to the divided post-Parnell era, or the
> cross-pollination of nationalist ideas in the imperial metropolis.
>
> Sensitive and prone to public displays of emotion, Webb was ripe for
> parody and in the end for sharp handling by the grasping Timothy
> Healy, whose attention drove him to resign from active politics after
> his return from India. Little wonder that Webb was given to
> intermittent bouts of depression (or perhaps exhaustion), during
> which he would temporarily withdraw from his various causes only to
> return when energy and invitation bestirred him to action. As
> _Cosmopolitan Nationalism_ makes abundantly clear, however, such
> retreats were both strategic and emotionally necessary, and allowed
> Webb to remain a determined activist in domestic and imperial affairs
> to the end of his days.
>
> Notes
>
> [1]. Leela Gandhi, _Affective Communities: Anticolonial Thought,
> Fin-de-Siecle Radicalism, and the Politics of Friendship_ (Durham:
> Duke University Press, 2006).
>
> [2]. In particular, see Antoinette Burton, _At the Heart of the
> Empire: Indians and the Colonial Encounter in Late-Victorian Britain_
> (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
>
> [3]. Titles on Home Rule are voluminous. These four represent good
> introductions to the party and movement: Alvin Jackson, Home _Rule:
> An Irish History, 1800-2000_ (New York: Oxford University Press,
> 2003); Patrick Maume, _The Long Gestation: Irish Nationalist Life,
> 1891-1918_ (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1999); Conor Cruise O'Brien,
> _Parnell and His Party, 1880-90_ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957); and
> F. S. L. Lyons, _The Irish Parliamentary Party, 1890-1910_ (Westport,
> CT: Greenwood Press, 1975, c. 1951). Numerous biographies of figures
> such as Charles Stewart Parnell, John Dillon, Isaac Butt, and Timothy
> Healy are also useful for comparison. See especially F. S. L. Lyons,
> _Charles Stewart Parnell_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977),
> _John Dillon: A Biography_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
> 1968); Terence De Vere White, _The Road of Excess_ (Dublin: Browne
> and Nolan, Ltd., 1946); and Frank Callanan, _T. M. Healy_ (Cork: Cork
> University Press, 1996).
>
> Citation: Timothy McMahon. Review of Regan-Lefebvre, Jennifer,
> _Cosmopolitan Nationalism in the Victorian Empire: Ireland, India and
> the Politics of Alfred Webb_. H-Albion, H-Net Reviews. March, 2011.
> URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31587
>
> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
> Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States
> License.
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