Few historical subjects have generated such intense and sustained interest in recent decades as Britain's imperial past. What accounts for this preoccupation? Why has it gained such purchase on the historical imagination? How has it endured even as its subject slips further into the past?In seeking to answer these questions, the proposed volume brings together some of the leading figures in the field, historians of different generations, different nationalities, different methodological and theoretical perspectives and different ideological persuasions. Each addresses the relationship between their personal development as historians of empire and the larger forces and events that helped to shape their careers. The result is a book that investigates the connections between the past and the present, the private and the public, the professional practices of historians and the political environments within which they take shape. This intellectual genealogy of the recent historiography of empire will be of great value to anyone studying or researching in the field of imperial history.

Notes on ContributorsIntroduction1. From Empire to India and Back: a Career in History - Thomas Metcalf (University of California at Berkeley, USA)2. Seven Pivots Toward Empire - Wiliam Roger Louis (University of Texas, Austin, USA)3. Empire from Above and from Below - John MacKenzie (University of Lancaster, UK)4. Empire and Class: The Making of a History Boy - Richard N. Price (University of Maryland, USA)5. Inside/Outside: A Non-Native Caribbeanist's Journey - Bridget Brereton (University of the West Indies, Trinidad)6. With and Against the Grain - Catherine Hall (University College London, UK)7. In and Out of Empire: Old Labels and New Histories - Marilyn Lake (Melbourne University, Australia)8. An Education in Empire - Dane Kennedy (The George Washington University, USA)9. A Child of Decolonisation - Philippa Levine (University of Texas, Austin, USA)10. From South Asian Studies to Global History: Searching for Asian Perspectives - Shigeru Akita (University of Osaka, Japan)11. Crooked Lines and Zigzags: From the Neocolonial to the Colonial - Mrinalini Sinha (University of Michigan, USA)12. Some Intimacies of Anglo-American Empire - Antoinette Burton (University of Illinois, USA)13. Homes and Native Lands: Settler Colonialism, National Frames, and the Remaking of History - Adele Perry (University of Manitoba, Canada)14. Empire Made Me - Clare Anderson (University of Leicester, UK)15. Paths to the Past - Tony Ballantyne (University of Otago, New Zealand)16. Conversations with Caroline - Caroline Bressey (University College London, UK)17. Dis-Oriented in a Post-Imperial World - Jonathan Saha (Bristol University, UK)BibliographyIndex