I just finished reading Ghosts of Empire by Kwasi Kwarteng and it was great and interesting book, one which I learned a lot from. I am incredibly interested in imperialism across the globe and the time period in general. What other great books or even documentaries are out there for me?
A hard question, but here are some starting points:
A survey I would recommend is Trevor Getz and Heather Streets-Salter, Modern Imperialism and Colonialism: A Global History
Now, a couple of readings showing the development of the field over time within the academy from largely materialistic readings to more cultural ones:
-Mommsen, Wolfgang J., Theories of Imperialism (an excellent survey of important texts before the 1980s, especially economic-oriented Marxist scholarship)
Robinson, Ronald and John Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism (political in orientation)
Cain, P. and A. Hopkins, “Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Expansion Overseas II: New Imperialism, 1850-1945”, The Economic History Review, 40, 1, (1987), 1-26. (or read their enormous book, which costs about $200)
Dumett, Raymond, Ed., Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism (Critiques of Cain and Hopkins collected)
Cooper, Frederick and Laura-Ann Stoler, eds., Tensions of Empire (excellent anthology surrounding the cultural turn)
Lindqvist, Sven, Exterminate all the Brutes
Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism
Pierce and Rao, Discipline and the Other body (Foucaultian in approach)
J.P. Daughton, An Empire Divided (great text on French colonialism specifically)
Now some technology-oriented texts:
Daniel R. Headrick, “The Tools of Imperialism: Technology and the Expansion of European Colonial Empires in the Nineteenth Century”, The Journal of Modern History, 51, 1979, 231-263.
Robert Kubicek, “Empire and Technological Change”, in the Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol III: The Nineteenth Century, edited by Andrew Porter, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 247-269.
Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men
Headrick, David R., The Tools of Empire : Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century
Some more texts oriented towards metropolitan cultures and their colonial manifestations:
MacKenzie, John M. Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880-1960.
Catherine Hall, Civilizing Subjects
Conklin, Alice, A Mission to Civilize
Gender is a very important viewpoint for understanding empire. Some significant texts in this regard:
Clancy-Smith, Julia, and Gouda, eds., Domesticating Empire
Antoinette Cooper, Bodies in Contact
Sinha, Mrinalini. "Gender and Imperialism: Colonial Policy and the Ideology of Moral Imperialism in Late Nineteenth- Century Bengal.", in Changing Men: New directions in Research on Men and Masculinity, edited by Michael S. Kimmel.
Stoler, Ann Laura. "Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Gender, Race, and Morality in Colonial Asia." in Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era, edited and by Micaela di Leonardo.
The following is a good list, but Edward Said's Orientalism belongs there as well.