Scottish Internationalisms at the 1938 Empire Exhibition: Between Britain, Europe, and Empire

Abstract

The 1938 British Empire Exhibition held in Glasgow was the last of its kind, a spectacular event that celebrated the British Empire and sought to bring global attention to Scotland. The exhibition was a celebration of empire at a time when anti-imperial movements were growing in strength across the globe, and a hopeful expression of peaceful world unity at a time when war seemed increasingly inevitable. This essay considers the ambivalences at the heart of this exhibition through readings of various literary responses to it in contemporary journals, the popular press, and ephemera. It argues for the particular significance of the location for the exhibition, positing the 1938 British Empire Exhibition as a cultural event that suggests Scotland’s complex negotiation of various international networks and identities as well as its ambivalent place in Britain, Europe. Glasgow, 1938 becomes a significant place and time to view the emergence of modern Britain.