This book analyzes how Britons celebrated and critiqued their empire during the short eighteenth century, from about 1730 to 1790. It focuses on the emergence of an early awareness of the undesirable effects of British colonialism on both overseas Britons and subaltern people in the British Empire, whether in India, the Americas, Africa, or Ireland.

This book analyzes how Britons celebrated and critiqued their empire during the short eighteenth century, from about 1730 to 1790.

This anthology of primary material brings together literary and non-literary texts from the 18th century focusing on issues including commerce and colonialism. Britons' sense of identity in the 18th century see-sawed between embattled vulnerability and unassailable supremacy. Empire was crucial in shaping this, but contact with other peoples often threw into sharp relief or transformed this sense of identity. This book will be an essential resource for those studying this period; it traces these shifts in mood and the impact of imperial encounters in a variety of material, including poems, plays, speeches, letters, and accounts of travel, exploration and captivity.

The Oxford History of the British Empire is a major new assessment of the Empire in the light of recent scholarship and the progressive opening of historical records.

Publisher description

Rooted in a period of vigorous exploration and colonialism, The Island Race: Englishness, empire and gender in the eighteenth century is an innovative study of the issues of nation, gender and identity. Wilson bases her analysis on a wide range of case studies drawn both from Britain and across the Atlantic and Pacific worlds. Creating a colourful and original colonial landscape, she considers topics such as: * sodomy * theatre * masculinity * the symbolism of Britannia * the role of women in war. Wilson shows the far-reaching implications that colonial power and expansion had upon the English people's sense of self, and argues that the vaunted singularity of English culture was in fact constituted by the bodies, practices and exchanges of peoples across the globe. Theoretically rigorous and highly readable, The Island Race will become a seminal text for understanding the pressing issues that it confronts.