Army, Empire and Film

Marking the sixtieth anniversary of the premiere of Zulu, starring Stanley Baker and Michael Caine, this volume brings together contributions from leading military historians to analyse changing depictions of the British Army and its role in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century colonial conflict in the cinema of empire. The first comprehensive study of the British Empire in film for over 20 years, the book’s focus on feature films rather than documentaries sets it apart from other scholarly treatments.Chapters explore early re-enactments in the silent era, classic Hollywood and British imperial adventure in the 1930s such as Charge of the Light Brigade, Gunga Din, and Korda’s The Four Feathers, before moving on to the beginnings of more nuanced treatments in the 1960s such as Zulu and Khartoum amid increasing decolonisation, and then to contemporary post-imperial cinematic critiques in Afrikaner, Hindi and Maori-language films.  A comprehensive filmography is included, with over 200 cinema and television films relating to the British Army’s role in colonial conflicts prior to 1939.The book will be valuable to students and lecturers in film studies, military history, imperial history and cultural history, as well as a wider audience interested in military history and cinema.

Professor Ian Beckett FRHist S, FSAHR, is Honorary Professor of Military History at the University of Kent, having retired from teaching there in 2015. His books include A British Profession of Arms: The Politics of Command in the Late Victorian Army (2018), and British Military Panoramas: Battle in the Round, 1800–1914 (2022).