Edge of Empire: Conquest and Collecting in the East, 1750-1850Talented young historian Maya Jasanoff tells an alternative history of the British Empire, one that brings us the very personal stories of those British people who found themselves on the edges of Empire. Instead of a story of 'conquest', she brings us startling and fascinating stories of cross-cultural exchange.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, one that breaks 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 a lot more than our prejudices about 'Empire' might suggest. |
Contents
A World of Empires an Empire of the World | 3 |
CONQUESTS | 17 |
CROSSINGS | 45 |
Copyright | |
21 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
Alexandria Anglo-French Antoine Polier Arabic aristocrat army Asaf ud-Daula Awadh battle Belzoni Bengal Benoît de Boigne Bernardino Drovetti Boigne's Britain Britain and France British Empire British imperial British Museum Britons Burton Cairo Calcutta Cambridge century Champollion Claude Martin collection collectors colonies command conquest consul cultural Delhi Description de l'Égypte Drovetti East India Company Edward Egyptian antiquities English Europe European expansion Fonds de Boigne France friends Haidar Henry Salt Hindu June king l'Égypte later letter lived Llewellyn-Jones London Lord Lucknow manuscripts military Mountnorris Mughal Muhammad Muslim Mysore Napoleon nawab Nile numbers obelisk objects officers OIOC Oriental Ottoman Oxford paintings palace Papers Paris pasha Persian Plassey political quoted Richard Wellesley Robert Clive Robert Hay rulers Salt's savants sepoys Seringapatam Seven Years War soldiers temple Tiger tion Tipu Sultan Tipu's tomb traveled troops University Press Valentia victory vols William wrote young