How do we understand the continued ascendancy of British cultural institutions in Africa long after the end of empire? Caroline Ritter's Imperial Encore: The Cultural Project of the Late British Empire responds to this question by mapping the role of cultural institutions in spreading British liberal values in Africa across the twentieth century. Focusing on British cultural diplomacy as mediated by the British Council, British publishers, and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in Africa between the 1930s and the 1980s, Ritter demonstrates how Britain used culture to navigate the political turbulence of the interwar period, the loss of imperial territory, decolonization, and the Cold War. Fragments of this story have been told elsewhere,Footnote ¹ but three things set Imperial Encore apart: its exploration of the three cultural institutions alongside each other; its perceptive mapping of these agencies’ funding patterns; and its meticulous tracking of their responses to policy shifts. Drawing on Kenyan, British, and Ghanaian national archives, publishers’ archives, the BBC archives, as well as special collections, Imperial Encore makes a valuable intervention in ongoing debates on the afterlives of empire.Footnote ² Ritter's book is topical at this juncture in global history, as the aftershocks of Brexit overlap with new waves of decolonization debates.

The book is organized in two parts, focusing on the cultural institutions’ trajectories in the late imperial and early postindependence periods, respectively. Ritter shows that the British Council, BBC, and British publishers entered Africa from the1930s with modest ambitions, largely directed at white colonial audiences, but adjusted to shifting political winds with remarkable agility. The imperial encore of the title references the fate of British liberal imperialism and its cultural arbiters at independence: ‘it remained to be seen whether the performers were about to end and exit gracefully or would turn to another sheet of music and find a way to play on’ (185). Thanks to the ingenuity of individuals like Dick Troughton and Brian Vale at the British Council, and James Currey at Heinemann publishers, the cultural agencies found a way to play on, under the elastic rubric of education and development. They repackaged British culture, pivoting from a narrow view of who or what was or could be ‘British’ to imagine instead ‘an inclusive culture that could be embraced, molded and used by diverse groups of people’ (187). They thus reinvented British cultural imperialism as global Britishness, consolidating Britain's prestige and influence in a fast-changing world. This reinvention had its detractors though: for former British Council staff such as Audrey Lambert, Peter Elborn, and Trevor Rutter, this was a regrettable move that sacrificed the Council's commitment to British arts, traditions, and political values in exchange for expedience.

Imperial Encore describes cultural agencies’ delicate maneuvering around the British government, colonial authorities, and later, postcolonial governments’ competing interests, in a dynamic global political climate. For instance, imperial and colonial priorities in broadcasting differed. Colonial governments understood broadcasting as a tool of development, education, and control, with little regard for the ‘liberal vision that initially propelled British imperial broadcasting’ (79). These dynamics persisted postindependence: new African governments in Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria redirected broadcasting infrastructures away from the BBC's treasured values of freedom of speech and critical debate, even as African writers critiqued British publishers’ gatekeeping of literary production. Yet, Ritter maintains, all three agencies retained hegemony, and in fact drew legitimacy from these contestations: ‘British publishers absorbed and commodified their loudest critics by continuing to publish them’ while African audiences continued to listen, despite having other options, which ‘reinforced British broadcasters’ view of their product as a universally valued commodity’ (188).

In Ritter's study, the English language emerges as the central triumph of British cultural imperialism by becoming both dynamically global and perpetually British. Ritter describes how the three institutions’ attitudes morphed from a parochial view of English as a marker of British culture and civilization to a pragmatic packaging of English as a commodity that yielded commercial and political rewards for Britain. This commodification was made possible with the blessings and financial support of the United States, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ford Foundation. But the story of English's triumph told by Imperial Encore stops short of acknowledging what watered English's roots in Africa: colonial violence and the West's victory in the Cold War. Combined, these factors strengthened Britain's grip on Africa by tethering former colonies to Britain through English. Even countries like Tanzania, which had initially rejected English, reverted to it as the official language post-Ujamaa. At the same time, Ritter's treatment of the Cold War — as a bracketed bridge between the two parts of the book indexed by the Suez Crisis — downplays how Cold War pressures lent culture relevance as a political tool across the period under study, and not just in the mid-1950s. Relatedly, some engagement with how distinctions between settler and administrative colonies impacted these agencies’ work — and by extension, their entrenchment of English — would have been illuminating.

But Imperial Encore is vocal about patterns of government funding allocations to these cultural agencies, which corresponded with policy shifts as the political climate changed. For much of the period studied, the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund and the Overseas Development apparatus prioritized political returns on investment. Treasury funded the BBC's African service with an eye to the broadcaster's capacity to sway hard-to-reach audiences, along with the spin off benefits of publicity for British industries (111). Far from being a smooth partnership though, the BBC had to push back against both metropolitan and colonial government interference with their programming, countering that its influence stemmed from its perceived objectivity (112). To varying degrees, all three institutions sought to promote a lively public sphere in line with late imperial liberal ethos that emphasized ‘the unrestricted circulation of knowledge, encouragement of creativity, and critical debate’ (185).

British personnel emerge as important characters in Ritter's cultural history. While policy frameworks were decisive at each turn, Imperial Encore shows that the individuals serving at these agencies shaped policy implementation. Ritter offers missionary publisher Charles Granston Richards for a rich case study: Richards moved from a Christian publishing outfit, to the state-sponsored East African Literature Bureau, to the commercial Oxford University Press, at each stop forging lasting links between these three spheres; firm in his conviction about the civilizing power of books as vehicles of British imperial values. Similarly, the British Council adapted to Britain's shifting priorities under different leaders, variously projecting itself as a cultural relations organization, an aid agency, and a business selling services.

By modeling a method for studying institutional histories and the role of cultural paradigms in shaping political outcomes, Imperial Encore opens up generative lines of inquiry for historians of empire, historians of Africa, and cultural historians alike. Ritter's book is beautifully perceptive and a delight to read.