From White to Western: “Racial Decline” and the Idea of the West in Britain, 1890–1930

Drawing on British works of imperial and social commentary, this article shows how a literature of white crisis emerged between 1890–1930. It was a literature that, whilst claiming to defend and affirm white identity, in fact exposed the limits of whiteness as a form of social solidarity. It is shown how these studies drew together a variety of challenges deemed to be facing the white race and, more specifically, how they exhibited a contradictory desire to defend white racial community whilst attacking “the masses”. The idea of the West, developing alongside, within and in the wake of this crisis literature, provided a less racially reductive but not necessarily less socially exclusive identity.