Edge of Empire: Conquest and Collecting in the East 1750–1850
Описание книги
Talented historian Maya Jasonoff offers an alternative history of the British Empire. It is not about conquest – but rather a collection of startling and fascinating personal accounts of cross-cultural exchange from those who found themselves on the edges of Empire.A Palladian mansion filled with Western art in the centre of old Calcutta, the Mughal Emperor’s letters in an archive in the French Alps, the names of Italian adventurers scratched into the walls of Egyptian temples: in this imaginative book, Maya Jasanoff delves into the stories behind artefacts like these to uncover the lives of collectors in India and Egypt who lived on the frontiers of European empire. ‘Edge of Empire’ traces their exploits to tell an intimate history of imperialism.Written and researched on four continents, ‘Edge of Empire’ tells a story about the making of European empires, ones that break away from the grand narratives of power, exploitation, and resistance, to delve into the personal dimensions of imperialism. She asks what people brought to imperial frontiers and what they took away, and what motives drove them, whether ambition, opportunism, curiosity or greed. This rich and compelling book enters a world where people lived, loved and died, and identified with each other across cultures much more than our prejudices about ‘Empire’ might suggest.
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Maya Jasanoff. Edge of Empire: Conquest and Collecting in the East 1750–1850
MAYA JASANOFF. EDGE OF EMPIRE
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION. A World of Empires, an Empire of the World
CHAPTER ONE Conquests. I. War of the World
II. Trade to Conquest
III. Clive of India, Clive of Britain
IV. Empire Unmasked
CHAPTER TWO Crossings. I. Beyond the Frontier
II. Chameleon Capital
III. Orientalists?
IV. Connoisseurs?
CHAPTER THREE Compromises. I. Going Un-Native
II. Settling
III. Staying On
IV. Legacies
CHAPTER FOUR Invading Egypt. I. A New War, a New Empire
II. Westward Bound
III. Empire by Design
IV. Abdallah Bonaparte
CHAPTER FIVE Seizing Seringapatam. I. Citizen Tipu
II. L’Alliance Française
III. A Dangerous Liaison
IV. The Fall, and After
CHAPTER SIX The Objects of Victory. I. Trophies
II. A Tropical Grand Tour
III. From Kaveri to Nile
CHAPTER SEVEN Rivals. I. Expansion Under Cover
II. War and Piece
III. Personal and Political
IV. An Amateur Abroad
CHAPTER EIGHT Removals. I. The Partisans
II. The Patriot
III. A Clash of Reinventions
IV. Gentlemen and Capitalists
CHAPTER NINE Recoveries. I. The Two Egypts
II. France Redux
III. Preservers and Destroyers
IV. Collecting Back
CONCLUSION. Collecting an Empire
Acknowledgments
Note on Sources
About the Author
Notes
Index
Praise
Copyright
About the Publisher
Отрывок из книги
Conquest and Collecting in the East1750-1850
London, New York, Toronto and Sydney
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18Michael Edwardes, Plassey: The Founding of an Empire (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1969), p. 65; Linda Colley, Captives: Britain, Empire, and the World 1600-1850 (London: Jonathan Cape, 2002), pp. 255-56. The sensationalism was started by one of the survivors, John Zephaniah Holwell, A Genuine Narrative of the deplorable deaths of the English gentlemen, and others, who were suffocated in the Black-Hole in Fort-William, at Calcutta… (London, 1758). Holwell gives the—undoubtedly exaggerated—figure of 23 survivors, from a group of 146.
19Orme, II, pp. 127-35.
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