Wars of Empire in Cartoons

At the beginning of the Victorian era it seemed that the sun would never set on the vast British Empire which spanned the globe. However, the 'Pax Britannica' was not all that it seemed and the forces of Her Imperial Majesty were frequently called upon to fend off aggressor nations and quell rebellions in Britain's many colonies. Cartoons, as Winston Churchill once said, are 'a very good way of learning history' and throughout this period- which began long before the invention of television, DVD.s, webcasts and other pictorial news media-they had considerable impact on the public at large.

During the Crimean War when the Thin Red Line held fast, the Light Brigade charged and nurse Florence Nightingale was the 'Lady with the Lamp', it was the artists of Punch who drew their own satirical versions of events. And who could take Tsar Nicholas of Russia, President Kruger of the Transvaal or the Mad Mahdi and the Fuzzy-Wuzzies of the Sudan at all seriously when the cartoonists of Fun, Judy, Moonshine, Vanity Fair and others cocked a snook at all they held dear and cast them down beneath Britannia's flashing sword and John Bull's might boot?

However, Britain's enemies also had a wealth of talent labouring to counteract imperial propaganda and there were frequent, often vicious attacks on Queen Victoria and her generals, admirals and politicians. Many of these were printed in colour in French and German satirical magazines such as Simplicissimus, Kladderadatsch, Le Rire and Le Grelot and during the Boer War, L'Assiette au Beurre even devoted an entire issue to attack British concentration camps in South Africa.

Wars of Empire in Cartoons is divided into chapters covering the main conflicts of the second half of the 19th century and the opening years of the reign of Edward VII, focusing in particular on the Crimean War, The Indian Mutiny, the Opium Wars with China, and the Ashanti and Zulu Wars, the conflicts in Afghanistan, Egypt and the Sudan, and the Boer War.

Hardback with dustcover over laminated boards. Halftitle. Title. Contents. Preface. Introduction. 160 pages text with supporting images, illustrations, some colour plates, data and information.

Fine.