The Imperial Archive: Knowledge and the Fantasy of EmpireNineteenth-century Britain could be seen as the first information society in history—for the simple reason that it accumulated knowledge from the far-flung corners of its empire faster than it could easily digest it. The British Empire presented a vast administrative challenge; by meeting that challenge through maps and surveys, censuses and statistics, Victorian administrators developed a new symbiosis of knowledge and power. The narratives of the late nineteenth century are full of fantasies about an empire united not by force or civil control but by information. In The Imperial Archive, Thomas Richards analyzes the ways in which the Victorian organization of knowledge was enlisted into the service of the British Empire, as fields like biology, geography and geology began to function almost as extensions of British intelligence. Richards argues that the techniques invented for managing this information explosion established an enduring axis between knowledge and the state and also suggested a powerful new direction for the novel. He illustrates his argument by careful reference to a variety of institutions—above all the growth of the museum—and texts, including works by Rudyard Kipling, Erskine Childers, H.G. Wells and Bram Stoker. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Alice armies Aronnax become Britain British Empire British Museum called central Childers colonial world comprehensive knowledge construction Conway Crystal World culture Darwin Davies and Carruthers dominant Dracula economic process energy England entropic process entropy epistemology fantasy fiction force function geography German global Gravity's Rainbow heat High Lama Hilton human idea ideology imagined imperial archive India Survey invasion narrative invasion novel James Clerk Maxwell Kipling Kipling's knowl late Victorian logic logistics London Lost Horizon matter Maxwell demon mechanical military modern monsters morphology motion movement mutation myth Nemo nomadic Norbert Wiener organization paranoia Paul Virilio political Ponderevo positive knowledge problem produce Pynchon representation Riddle Ruskin Sands sense Shangri-La space statistical Stoker's structure T.E. Lawrence takes territory theory thermodynamics Thousand Plateaus Tibet Tibetan tion Tono-Bungay transformed utopian archive Van Helsing Victorian thermodynamics Wells's White Visitation York