Our Abdiel: The British Press and the Lionization of 'Chinese' Gordon‪.‬

Press coverage surrounding the 1886 death of Charles 'Chinese' Gordon in Khartoum, Sudan, provides an exemplary instance of the functioning of imperial discourse. Surprisingly, Gordon's lionization as a charismatic imperial leader emerged from lacunae in reporting and as a response to international criticism rather than as justification for his intervention. As British resistance to a fundamentalist uprising in the Sudan weakened and failed, previously diverse representations of British imperial activity became more unified. After his death, Gordon was nostalgically celebrated as an anomalous representative of a heroic imperial past. At the same time, within a generalizable press consensus about the meaning of the events at Khartoum, inchoate critiques of imperial ideology nonetheless emerged. **********