The '''official mind''' is the ideas, perceptions, and intentions of those policy-makers who had a bearing on British imperial policies. The policy maker is a politician or civil servant who had influence over imperial policy.<ref name= "Heinlein p. 7">{{harvnb|Heinlein|2002|p=7}}</ref>
The official mind is extensively written about in Ronald Robinson's extraordinarily influential work, ''Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism'', was co-authored with John Gallagher and Alice Denny and first published in 1961.<ref name= "Robinson-Gallagher-Denny p. ">{{harvnb|Robinson|Gallagher|Denny|1961| p=}}</ref> Historian John Darwin states that while the "local habitation" of the official mind is in Whitehall "its real field of operations lay in those diplomatic-strategic spheres where official control was greatest. In imperial terms that chiefly meant the Mediterranean and Near East."<ref name= "Darwin p. 622">{{harvnb|Darwin|1997|p=622}}</ref>
==Bibliography== ;Notes {{reflist|2}} ;References *{{cite journal |last=Darwin|first= John |date=June 1997|title=Imperialism and the Victorians: The Dynamics of Territorial Expansion|journal= The English Historical Review|volume= 112|issue= 447 |pages= 614–642 |jstor=576347|publisher=Oxford University Press|issn=1477-4534 |doi=10.1093/ehr/cxii.447.614|doi-access=free}} *{{cite book |last=Heinlein|first=Frank | title = British government policy and decolonisation, 1945-1963: scrutinising the official mind|edition=2002|year=2002| publisher = Routledge| isbn= 978-0-7146-5220-7}} <small>- Total pages: 337 </small> *{{cite book |last=Robinson|first=Ronald Edward| author-link = Ronald Robinson|last3=Denny|first3=Alice |last2=Gallagher|first2=John | title =Africa and the Victorians: the official mind of imperialism|edition=1961|year=1961| publisher = Macmillan}} <small>- Total pages: 491 </small>
Category:Civil services Category:Public administration Category:Imperialism