Masculinity and the New Imperialism: Rewriting Manhood in British Popular Literature, 1870-1914

This study examines the revision of manly ideals in relation to an ideological upheaval of New Imperialism. Analyzing such popular genres as lost world novels, school stories, and early science fiction, it charts the decline of mid-century ideals of manly self-control and the rise of new dreams of gamesmanship and frank brutality. It also reveals the dependence of imperial masculinity on real and imagined exchanges between men of different nations and races, so that visions of hybrid masculinities and honorable rivalries energized Britain's sense of its New Imperialist destiny. [WorldCat]