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Wounded pride and petty jealousies: private lives and public diplomacy in Second World War Cairo
This chapter offers a case study of the affective registers of British imperial policy during the Second World War. It examines how the conduct of war and diplomacy by Sir Miles Lampson, British Ambassador in Cairo, was shaped by his emotional dispositions, in particular his domestic obligations and attachments, his insecure pride, and his susceptibility to jealousy and resentment. It locates Lampson’s personal negotiation between private feeling and public action in the broader context of the heightened emotional registers of wartime Egypt, where it became virtually impossible to quarantine intimate desires, especially romantic and sexual longings, within the private sphere. More critically, it also demonstrates how broader anxieties about Britain’s waning global hegemony during the Second World War were manifested in the various forms of psychological projection, displacement and compulsion exhibited by Lampson, and also in the Ambassador’s recourse in his statecraft to gossip and rumour.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Publisher
Proceedings of the British Academy, OUPVolume
227Pages
288.0Book title
Total war: an emotional historyPlace of publication
KetteringISBN
9780197266663Department affiliated with
- History Publications
Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Editors
Lucy Noakes, Claudia Siebrecht, Claire LanghamerLegacy Posted Date
2019-06-24First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2019-06-24Usage metrics
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