[citation needed] However, MacKenzie’s followers have mounted a vigorous fight-back, not least in the many books in the Manchester University Press ‘Studies in Imperialism’ series dealing with the cultural history of empire, which he established and edited from 1984 to 2012.
[citation needed] Cross-disciplinary work has appeared across the full spectrum of cultural phenomena, examining aspects of sex and gender, law, science, the environment, language and literature, migration, patriotic societies and much else.
His wider ideas on environmental history were set out in the Thomas Callander Memorial Lectures at the University of Aberdeen in 1995,[6] and helped to open up a major field to which many other scholars have contributed.
[citation needed] He once again entered the realm of controversy with his critique of Edward Said's Orientalism,[7] published in 1995, which was badly received by post-Saidians and post-colonialists, although many of his early publications pioneered their later work.
[citation needed] Said's strict binarism and concentration on concepts of the 'other' were countered by MacKenzie's insistence that Orientalism could, in certain circumstances, involve constructive cross-cultural influences, notably in the arts.
His 1991 professorial inaugural lecture ‘Scotland and the British Empire’[9] was well received and opened up new fields for him, including various aspects of work on the Scottish Diaspora.
This led to his book The Scots in South Africa (with Nigel R. Dalziel) of 2007 (while associated with to the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at Aberdeen University) and a number of edited works.
The contributions from seventeen international scholars 'make crystal clear why the interpretational shifts initiated by MacKenzie’s work are of lasting importance’ (Martin Thomas, University of Exeter UK).
This analysis illuminated the complexities of class and the racial dimensions of empire, and further insights were gleaned from the manner in which aspects of the built environment have been adopted and adapted for a post-colonial world.
As these were dispersed across the world through the agency of British representatives, emigrants and travellers, facilitated by the rapid growth of print, photography, film, and radio, imperialists imagined this new global culture would cement the unity of the empire.
He has also been an editor of major reference works, including Peoples, Nations and Cultures (2005) and the four-volume Encyclopaedia of Empire (2016), and has contributed many articles and reviews to journals as well as chapters in books.
He also contributed to the catalogue accompanying the exhibition 'Inspired by the East: how the Islamic world influenced Western art', held at the British Museum, London, in 2019.