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Imperial Federation Map 1886
“Commonwealth historian Linda Colley, commenting on an Imperial Federation map depicting the extent of the British Empire in 1886, noted that the globe is depicted using the Mercator projection, centered on the Greenwich meridian. The effect of the image, she argued, is to conceal the territorial fragility of British imperialism by underlining its global reach. Thus, the viewer neglects the small territory of islands that the world-dominating United Kingdom consists of. … The vast stretches of pink are presented as connected and homogeneous, though different parts of the empire were dealt with separately and held with different levels of power.”
From Painting the World Pink, an article by Charlotte Johnson, posted in the Manchester Historian on 14 May 2013
In this special Commonwealth Day online seminar, an expert panel will examine why the royal family has played such an important part in the history and evolution of the Commonwealth and will discuss what its future role might be as the UK government attempts to chart the future of ‘Global Britain’. Why has the ‘British’ monarchy proved so durable? What advantages has the close association between monarchy and Commonwealth brought, and what have been the drawbacks and the dangers?
It’s the second biggest inter-country organisation about after the United Nations, with a third of people in the world living in it. How much do you know about the organisation and what it does?