The Round Table Movement and the Fall of the ‘Second’ British Empire (1909-1919)

In spite of the general phobia of federalism, there is a strong federalist trend within British political culture. In three very different historical contexts, federalism inspired the action of political movements such as the Imperial Federation League, the Round Table and the Federal Union. Indeed, it was regarded as the solution to problems arising from the first signs of the possible collapse of Great Britain and its Empire.The Round Table Movement played a particularly interesting role in this regard, attempting to reverse the rapid and inexorable decline of the British Empire. It was a political organisation with roots in all the major peripheries of the Empire and almost unlimited financial resources. This volume discusses the strategies and means employed by the group in order to maintain the British Empire’s global prominence. The book’s main argument is that we did not have a British century - the nineteenth - and an American century - the twentieth - but, rather, four centuries of Anglo-Saxon supremacy, which witnessed the affirmation of the national principle - expression of the Continental political tradition - and its overcoming through its opposite, the federal principle, the expression of the insular political tradition.