Royals on tour: Politics, pageantry and colonialism

Royals on Tour explores visits by European monarchs and other members of royal families to overseas colonies, and by indigenous royals from the colonies to Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It presents case studies of travel by royals from Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium to the overseas possessions (and, in some cases, potential possessions) of their countries, and of visits to Europe by royals from Japan, the Dutch East Indies and French Indochina. It shows how these tours served to project imperial dominion but also to assert the status of non-European dynasties. The celebrity of royal figures, the increased ease of travel with new means of transport such as railways, steamships and aeroplanes, and the avid interest of both the public and the press in these visits make such royal tours key points of encounter between Europeans and non-Europeans, and between colonial masters and the subjects in their possessions. The promotion or criticism of tours and the receptions the visitors received illustrate the often fractious dynamics of empire and international relations. The colourful processions, the anthems and decorations, the speeches and itineraries, official meetings and informal activities formed part of the popular culture of empire and of monarchy. The volume argues that mixed in with the pageantry and protocol were profound questions about the role of monarchs, the practice of imperial governance, the relationships between metropolitan and overseas elites, and evolving expressions of nationalism.