Royals on Tour : Politics, Pageantry and Colonialism

Travel by European and ‘native’ monarchs and other royals between Europe, Asia and Africa developed as a new form of personal and international politics in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The pageantry and politics of royal tours during the age of empire provides great insight into modern monarchy, colonialism and transnational cultural encounters. -- .

Royals on Tour explores visits by European monarchs and princes to colonies, and by indigenous royals to Europe in the 1800s and early 1900s with case studies of travel by royals from Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Japan, the Dutch East Indies and French Indochina. Such tours projected imperial dominion and asserted the status of non-European dynasties. The celebrity of royals, the increased facility of travel, and the interest of public and press made tours key encounters between Europeans and non-Europeans. The reception visitors received illustrate the dynamics of empire and international relations. Ceremonies, speeches and meetings formed part of the popular culture of empire and monarchy. Mixed in with pageantry and protocol were profound questions about the role of monarchs, imperial governance, relationships between metropolitan and overseas elites, and evolving expressions of nationalism. -- .