Silencing the ‘bristling Blimps’: Reflections on Insurgent Empire

Priya Gopal’s Insurgent Empire is an outstanding piece of anti-imperialist literature and a fine contribution to the field of ‘reparative history’. This essay suggests its brilliantly conceived underlying thesis about the ‘dialectical and dialogical’ relationship between ‘anti-colonial resistance and British dissent’ could be profitably applied further in three further directions. Firstly, the thesis could be applied to the longue durée of the British Empire, particularly from the sixteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century; secondly, Gopal’s method should be considered by scholars of other European empires, which would then facilitate further comparative studies with respect to metropolitan dissent and anti-colonial resistance; and thirdly the thesis could be placed in dialogue with labour and socialist history to examine more concretely the relationship between empire, race and class in British history.