This pioneering 2006 volume addresses the question of how Britain's empire was lived through everyday practices - in church and chapel, by readers at home, as embodied in sexualities or forms of citizenship, as narrated in histories - from the eighteenth century to the present. Leading historians explore the imperial experience and legacy for those located, physically or imaginatively, 'at home,' from the impact of empire on constructions of womanhood, masculinity and class to its influence in shaping literature, sexuality, visual culture, consumption and history-writing. They assess how people thought imperially, not in the sense of political affiliations for or against empire, but simply assuming it was there, part of the given world that had made them who they were. They also show how empire became a contentious focus of attention at certain moments and in particular ways. This will be essential reading for scholars and students of modern Britain and its empire.

Catherine Hall is Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural History at University College London. Her previous publications include, with Keith McClelland and Jane Rendall, Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform Act of 1867 (2000) and Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830-1867 (2002).

Sonya Rose is Emerita Professor of History, Sociology and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her recent publications include Which People's War? National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain, 1939-45 (2003), and, as a co-editor with Kathleen Canning, Gender, Citizenship and Subjectivity (2004).