Britain's European Mediterranean : language, religion and politics in Lord Strickland's Malta (1927-1930)

Abstract

To the extent that imperialism and nationalism in the European Mediterranean may be said to have been inter-dependent (by consequence if not by design), two of the issues that stand out in today's hegemony debate are those of North and South, of centre and periphery. British occupation of three southern European 'outposts of Empire'-Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus-rendered this manifest, in varying degrees. How did the clash between assimilation [or uniformity] and resistance [or autonomy] influence people's language, nationality and self-identity in the all-important 'periphery'? How did cultural politics signalled from the metropolis spill over international relations, as the respective Great Powers present in the Mediterranean sought to frenchify, to anglicize or to italianize? [excerpt]