Dear /r/AskHistorians,
Hello! This is a junior history major here. I'm looking for where the popular phrase "bringing the empire home" comes from. I know that it must feature in at least a thousand article, book and chapter titles and captions. You'd think that that level of ubiquity would make it an easy question, but I've had no luck so far.
I'd like to use the idea as a device for understanding 18th century London history for a paper that I'm writing, but I'd like to know the provenance of the phrase first.
Thank you all in advance!
Hi - we as mods have approved this thread, because while this is a homework question, it is asking for clarification or resources, rather than the answer itself, which is fine according to our rules. This policy is further explained in this Rules Roundtable thread and this META Thread.
As a result, we'd also like to remind potential answerers to follow our rules on homework - please make sure that your answers focus appropriately on clarifications and detailing the resources that OP could be using.
Additionally, while users may be able to help you out with specifics relating to your question, we also have plenty of information on /r/AskHistorians on how to find and understand good sources in general. For instance, please check out our six-part series, "Finding and Understanding Sources", which has a wealth of information that may be useful for finding and understanding information for your essay.