Imperialisms Historical and Literary Investigations, 1500-1900

Filling a major gap in historical, literary, and post-colonial scholarship, Imperialisms examines early identity statements and nuances of dominance of the world's major imperialisms in various theatres of competition. Developed in collaboration with leading scholars in the field, this book balances historical essays and case studies, and encourages investigations of conversant and competing imperialisms, their practices, and their rhetoric of self-justification. Europe, India, the New World, Africa, and the Far East are among the imperialisms and their sites featured here, and which are analyzed in relation to intersecting debates on politics, religion, literature, nationalism, commerce, conversion, and race. Valuable for preliminary or advanced studies, Imperialisms provides multiple points of entry into and guidelines for a conversation both current and vigorous.

Balachandra Rajan, Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, has written six books on Milton, Yeats, Eliot, the unfinished poem, and the representation of India in imperial discourse. He has also published two novels. Professor Rajan is an Honored Scholar of the Milton Society and a fellow and medallist of the Royal Society of Canada.

Elizabeth Sauer, Professor of English, holds a Chancellor's Research Chair at Brock University, Canada. She has authored Barbarous Dissonance and Images of Voice in Milton's Epics (1996) and recently completed a monograph on early modern textual communities. She has co-edited multiple volumes on creative agonistics, print culture, women's literary history, religion and literature, and early imperialisms, including Milton and the Imperial Vision, with Balachandra Rajan (1999), winner of the Milton Society of America Irene Samuel Memorial Award.

Imperialisms: Early Modern to Pre-Modernist--Balachandra Rajan and Elizabeth Sauer * Part I: Early Modern European Imperialisms: Literary Representations * "The Ship comes Well-Laden": Court Politics, Colonialism, and Cuckoldry in Gil Vicente's Auto da India--Shankar Raman * Learning from Spain: The Case of the Irish Moriscos--Barbara Fuchs * "Those People far surpass us": Gulliver, the Japanese, and the Dutch--Robert Markley * Part II: Early Modern Europeans on India * Civilization and the Problem of Race: Portuguese and Italian Travel Narratives to India--Dorothy Figueira * England in Moghul India: Historicizing Cultural Difference and its Discontents--Paul Stevens * The British and the Dutch in India (1750-1799)--Florence D'Souza * Part III: Early Imperialisms: East and West * Empire as Composite: The Ottoman Polity and the Typology of Dominion--Daniel Goffman and Christopher Stroop * The Maliki Imperialism of Ahmad al-Mansur: The Moroccan Invasion of Sudan, 1591--Nabil I. Matar * Colonial Benedictions: Worldly Catholics and Secular Priests in French Indochina--Patricia Pelley * A Note on "Further India"--Balachandra Rajan * Part IV: English and French Imperialisms: 18th and 19th Centuries * "English" and French Imperial Designs in Canada and in a Larger Context--Jonathan Hart * Displacement and Anxiety: Empire and Opera--Linda Hutcheon and Michael Hutcheon * Part V: German Imperial Philosophies and Practices * Inventing the Orient: Discursive Alliances of the Philosopher, Historian, and Fiction Writer--Kamakshi P.Murti * The Colonial Pedagogy of Imperial Germany: Self-Denial in the Interest of the Nation--Sabine Wilke * Afterword: From Empire to Federation--Anthony Pagden * Notes on Contributors