Cultures of Empire

This reader collects together articles by key historians, literary critics and anthropologists on the cultures of colonialism in the British Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. A substantial introduction by Catherine Hall discusses approaches to the history of empire and establishes a narrative frame through which to read the essays which follow. The volume is divided into three sections: theoretical, emphasizing concepts and approaches; the colonisers "at home", focusing on how empire was lived in Britain; and "away" - the attempt to construct new cultures through which the colonisers defined themselves and others in varied colonial sites. Two essays on 18th-century Britain and the postcolonial Caribbean highlight the postcolonial challenge to the conventional temporal boundaries of empire. The contributors include Joanna de Groot, Nancy Leys Stephan, Gyan Prakash, John Barrell, Nicholas Thomas and Patricia Hayes.