``Gandhi,'' the Academy Award-winning film, paid tribute to an extraordinary leader and his role in the tumultuous birth of Indian democracy. ``The Jewel in the Crown,'' the splendid television drama based on Paul Scott's remarkable ``Raj Quartet,'' provided a scrupulously fair-minded view of the last days of the British Raj. Recently, however, imperialism - British imperialism, especially - has become an item of nostalgia, as television, film, and books have directed our attention to a past that, for better or worse, seems beyond recovery.įirst, it was India. As imperialism waned, ``imperialist'' became a term of denunciation among nations. Once, in some circles at least, to call someone an imperialist was a compliment. From clarion call to epithet of abuse to object of nostalgia, the idea of imperialism has had a checkered history.
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