In Princeton, last June 16th, the English historian Lawrence Stone died. In Cambridge, a few days later on June 19th, his colleague Ronald Robinson died. Both are amongst the most influential historians of our times. Both introduced new ideas and insights, which revolutionised our perception of certain aspects of the past.

Until recently, when it ceased to be an important pastime, scholars engaged in debate over the motives behind, and the nature of, European imperial enterprise in the colonial territories of Africa. Opinion was divided between those who stressed the altruistic goals and the positive impact of the European ‘civilising’ mission in Africa and others who highlighted the ulterior motives behind, and the uncomplimentary features of, colonial rule. One issue in contention as far as British imperialism was concerned, was the policy of ‘free trade’ in the colonies. It was held by some that Britain operated the ‘imperialism of Free Trade’, that is, it hid under the espousal of that policy in order to acquire colonies and to gain advantage over its rivals in the contest for colonial trade. On the other hand, much was made of Britain's ‘open door’ policy in its colonies as contrasted with the French, for example, who were for the most part protectionists. Yet, as a number of studies have shown, the British were no less protectionist given certain circumstances, and this case study provides further examples of this tendency in inter-war Nigeria. To place the discussion in a proper context, we shall clarify the nature of the fiscal system in British colonies, for this was the linchpin of the administration and the key to understanding economic policy.

Our essay will critically survey and attempt to offer an overall interpretation of a growing volume of publications by historians who have attempted to evaluate the costs and benefits for Europe's domestic economies flowing from some five centuries of involvement with empires overseas. That involvement began with the conquest of Ceuta by the Portuguese in 1417 and passed through two epochs: 1417-1825 and 1825-1974. After a first conjuncture marked by the French Revolution, a quarter of a century of global warfare and movements for independence in Southern America, Britain emerged as the hegemonic imperial power in Europe. Its major rivals for commerce and dominion in Africa, Asia and the Americas (Portugal, Spain, France and Holland) ceded control over parts of their possessions overseas to Britain or (in the cases of Spain and Portugal), lost sovereignty over their colonies in Latin America.

Over the 1750s and 1760s, the East India Company became the principal ruler of Bengal. This rise to power was initially achieved by a limited use of military force combined with the clever manipulation of local politics and discontent in Bengal court circles provoked by the young and incautious Nawab Siraj-ud-daula. The Nawaby's army was defeated at Plassey after his most important generals conspired with the British against him. The British concluded a very advantageous treaty with his successor, Mir Jafar, who became increasingly dependent on their goodwill.

The Nigerian liquor trade provoked fierce debate: was it advancing development or fashioning an economy based on the unproductive consumption of alcohol? The liquor trade was caught between two prevailing colonial perspectives on African economic development: the Darwinian-based principle that Western civilisation had a duty to protect Africans from all bad external influences, and the civilise-through-trade concept seeking to modernise Africans by exploiting colonies to their fullest potential. Humanitarian concerns and economic interests were entangled. Positive views of the liquor trade claimed its necessity in developing the Nigerian economy. Some admitted that the trade formed a necessary evil, but did not fail to emphasise its role as a transitional currency, promoter of cash-crops-forexport, and a desirable commodity among those with money to spend. Merchants saw commerce as a great civilising agent, with the liquor trade as its most important constituent. On the other hand, liquor trade critics used the temperance equation to further their cause: drinking alcohol was bad, abstinence was good. Arguing that the imposition of ‘a Rum and Gin Civilization’ would be ‘a hydra that devours the natives’, halting useful commerce and hindering economic development, they agitated for Prohibition and a complete restructuring of the colonial economy along alcoholfree lines.

The demography of the free and forced migrations to the New World was dramatically different. Between 1500 and 1800 about three million Europeans migrated to the New World resulting in a resident population of about 13.5 million ex-Europeans around 1800. During the same three centuries about nine million African slaves were brought to the New World resulting in a population of only six million ex-Africans.

In the historical context of colonial Indonesia, Coolie as a way of designating labour has been associated primarily with indentured, migrant, plantation workers in the so-called Outer Islands, principally Sumatra, where coolies from Java and southern China were the mainstay of the workforce on the island's tobacco, rubber and palm oil ‘estates’ from the 1880s through to the end of the colonial era more than half a century later.

The historiography of the late colonial era has had a love-hate relationship with the colonial state. In the early years of post-colonial independence, much history was written to record and celebrate the achievements of ‘nation-building’. The founding fathers of independence had defeated the colonial state in their struggle against its oppressions. The old state, now under new management, but with the same boundaries, language and (usually) administrative structure, had become a nation, with an undisputed claim to the loyalty of its former colonial subjects. The task of the historian was to show how a national identity had emerged ineluctably from the bundle of districts cellotaped together by colonialism into a dependency, and how it had been mobilised to throw off colonial rule and create a sovereign nation. Subsequently, as this version of the recent colonial past was undermined by the difficulties and divisions of the independent present, and, in some cases, by disillusionment with its ruling elite, the focus shifted towards the sources of popular resistance in the colonial period. In this ‘subaltern’ history, the emphasis was upon uncovering rural struggles, local solidarities, and ‘hidden’ communities of belief that colonial rulers had ignored, or suppressed but which had played a key part in destroying the legitimacy and exercise of their power. The implication here was that the colonial state was an alien coercive force whose continuation into the post-colonial era (even with a change of crew) had frustrated social justice and the achievement of an authentic post-colonial identity.

Just before the end of the first decade of the eighteenth century a Brazilian Jesuit priest went through the streets of Lisbon announcing the invention of a flying apparatus, which used the rudimentary techniques of the first airship.