Beyond Frontiers: ‘Curzonic’ order, frontier expansion and the 1907 Romanes lecture

George Curzon’s 1907 Romanes lecture, delivered soon after his tenure as Viceroy of India, articulated a vision of geopolitical order at a moment of British imperial decline. Curzon, however, argued that he lived at a historical zenith of frontier competition characterised by British India’s land power and complex frontiers. He invoked ancient precedents to assert the inevitability of modern imperial expansion, obscuring the specific geopolitical and historical material conditions of India’s colonialised frontier spaces. Nonetheless, the lecture illustrates how India’s ‘walling’ proceeded through the projection of the Government of India’s border power and through imperialist ‘protection’, client rule and commerce.