The Location of Culture (Routledge Classics)

Book Description

Terry Eagleton once wrote in the Guardian, 'Few post-colonial writers can rival Homi Bhabha in his exhilarated sense of alternative possibilities'. In rethinking questions of identity, social agency and national affiliation, Bhabha provides a working, if controversial, theory of cultural hybridity, one that goes far beyond previous attempts by others. A scholar who writes and teaches about South Asian literature and contemporary art with incredible virtuosity, he discusses writers as diverse as Morrison, Gordimer, and Conrad. In The Location of Culture, Bhabha uses concepts such as mimicry, interstice, hybridity, and liminality to argue that cultural production is always most productive where it is most ambivalent. Speaking in a voice that combines intellectual ease with the belief that theory itself can contribute to practical political change, Bhabha has become one of the leading post-colonial theorists of this era.

Customer Reviews:

Even The Little People Are Free .......2007-06-04

Bhabha writes dense, pretentious prose, which is commonplace now among the humanists who feel inferior to scientists, but he does have something to say. This little book does two things: it is in the end a celebration of literature (and not of theory for its own sake) and it defends the little brown people, such as Indians, against the claim of others, such as Edward Said, that whites oppressed them by denying them a voice. Bhabha argues in effect that the oppression created a new voice that subverted the oppressors. Bhabha has little patience for the sob-sister school of academic discourse which seeks out victims of racism. This is a sustained critique of liberal academic bad faith.

The enunciatory present.......2006-02-16

In The Location of Culture, Bhabha argues for a fundamental realignment of the methodology of cultural analysis away from ontology toward the "performative" and "enunciatory present" (p.178). Such a shift, he claims, provides a basis for the negotiation of cultural difference rather than its automatic repression or negation in the face of irreconcilable oppositions. Bhabha's emphasis on the enunciative production of meaning places the emphasis of critical inquiry on issues of representation or signification, thereby producing "a temporality that makes it possible to conceive of the articulation of antagonistic or contradictory elements" (p.25).

This argument represents a critical attack on the Western production of binary oppositions, traditionally defined in terms of centre and margin, civilised and savage, enlightened and ignorant. Bhabha questions the easy recourse to consolidated dualisms by repudiating fixed and authentic centres of truth, suggesting that cultures interact, transgress and transform each other in a much more complex manner than typical binary oppositions allow.

According to him, hybridity and linguistic multivocality have the potential to intervene and dislocate the process of domination through the re-interpretation and re-deployment of received discourse, thus re-focusing critical attention towards the "agonistic space" (181) which exists on the borders of difference, along the edges of alterity, where cultures meet. Bhabha celebrates cultural heterogeneity and the subversive effects of hybridisation.

I'd rather stick my hand in a blender than read this again.......2004-05-26

The fact that this book is influential is generally beyond argument. What astonishes me, however, is that so many people had the endurance to sit through the horrific writing; the author's style is obnoxious in the extreme. The first paragraph, for example, notes that the question of culture is the "trope of our times," characterized by "a tenebrous sense of survival." These concepts are not mind-bending. An everday, or as Homi would say, "colloquial" vocabularly would sufficiently articulate his thesis, yet he seems hellbent on packing his work with obscure language like he needs show off or prove something. Again, his ideas are influential, but he makes reading them as painful as possible.

Mimicry, Mockery, Menace.......2003-01-21

Ambivalence is a key term in Bhabha's Location of Culture. Accordingly, Bhabha's prose might be considered poetry or gibberish, but certainly not scholarship. There is no thesis, no argument, no evidence. That is not to say that Bhabha wouldn't be capable of such writing. Every once in a while, the reader can catch a glimpse of Bhabha's Other: the lucid thinker of post-colonialism. In order to compensate for the lack of clarity, structure and, yes, basic congruity between subjects, verbs and objects, Bhabha enacts the thoughts he fails to express. Indeed, his text is a performance of itself. Take, for instance, his chapter on mimicry. Whatever intelligent thoughts other scholars have derived from this concept, you will not find them in Bhabha's book. But he indeed shows you what he means, as he goes through the motions of scholarship. First, he makes a number of general statements that sound like a thesis. Then he puts a in a few convoluted sentence structures that make no sense-grammatically or otherwise. And finally he slams in a quote or two to prove a point-what point doesn't matter, for he did not make one in the first place. As a reader you will have to decide whether his work is a mimicry (in his definition "almost but not quite") of scholarship or its menace (according to Bhabha, 'not at all but still a little'). About one thing, though, he leaves no ambivalence: he "quite simply mocks its power to be a model." Harvard volunteered to be the evidence.

Even though this is one of the most highly regarded ..........2003-01-11

...theory books of the 1990s, its fame and reputation seem overblown. None of the other reviews posted here have really stated what Bhabha tries to accomplish in "The Location of Culture," so I'll give it a crack, even though I'm no expert on postcolonial theory.

To save you all some time, many of Bhabha's key points are made in the first two pages of his book. For instance: "In-between spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood--singular or communal--that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society" (p. 1-2). Elsewhere, in-betweenness is easily the key concept in the book, as well as the notion of HYBRIDITY. The reason the modernist model of Colonialism is doomed to fail is not only because it needs the Other (the colonized) to validate its own supremacy (and to fulfill its desires), but also because it engages in what Bhabha refers to as "contra-modernity": modernity in "colonial conditions where its imposition is itself the denial of historical freedom, civic autonomy and the 'ethical' choice of refashioning" (p. 241). Bhabha finds that by examining the borderlines between Colonial power and Colonial oppression, a truer history of global populations can be obtained. In one of the finer passages in the book, Bhabha examines a scene from Salman Rushdie's controversial 1988 novel "The Satanic Verses" and descibes how the postcolonial body--shaped by an outside nationalist culture--is representative of the colonizer, yet the colonizers "can never let the national history look at itself narcissistically in the eye" (p. 168).

Now let me preface my explanation by saying this is what I THINK Bhabha is getting at. It's not that his prose is "confusing," as other reviewers have stated here--although it is exceedingly "academic" (and there is nothing wrong with that, in and of itself)--but it is mired in the theoryspeak of the West that Bhabha seems so insistent upon de-centralizing. Bhabha uses the theories of the European male elite with so much blind faith that it easily undermines much of what he is trying to accomplish. Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Sigmund Freud and Jacques Derrida are all over this book. These "founders of discourse" (as Foucault called Marx and Freud--and could posthumously call himself given his exhaltation in the academy after his death in 1984) represent an alternate (i.e. "left") critical practice, yet completely dominate Western discussions of theory in literary circles. Is not Bhabha, an Indian scholar, colonized by these minds?

Also, Bhabha's insistence upon in-betweenness at times really seems to undermine his (apparent) intentions. He seems, on the one hand, to claim that it is precisely through in-betweenness that the oppressors dominate the oppressed. Yet, it also seems that this in-betweenness gives the oppressed the opportunity to resist the oppressors. We seem to be back at step zero. Is anything really being said here?

He should have followed better the example of Frantz Fanon, who appears early and often as a primary source in "The Location of Culture." Fanon was surely no stranger to the Western tradition, but was able to write in a critical-poetical-personal style that was accessible to non-academics, a style that had real fire. Bhabha, with all his emphasis on the work of postcolonial theory--which, in his words, seeks to "revise those nationalist or 'nativist' pedagogies that set up the relation of Third World and First World in a binary structure of opposition" (p. 173)--continually relies on the concept of "doubling" (likely a Lacanian theory) as well as his notion of in-betweenness (or liminality, as he calls it) in such a manner that no distinct point of view really emerges. The theoryspeak seems to subsume any important observations he might be willing to make.

Book Description

Imperial Leather chronicles the dangerous liaisons between gender, race and class that shaped British imperialism and its bloody dismantling. Spanning the century between Victorian Britain and the current struggle for power in South Africa, the book takes up the complex relationships between race and sexuality, fetishism and money, gender and violence, domesticity and the imperial market, and the gendering of nationalism within the zones of imperial and anti-imperial power.

Anne McClintock explores the sexualizing of the terra incognita, the imperial myth of the empty lands, the dirt fetish and the "civilizing mission", sexuality and labor, advertising and commodity racism, the Victorian invention of the idle woman, feminism and racial difference, and anti-apartheid culture in the current transformation of national power.

Using feminist, post-colonial, psychoanalytic and socialist theories, Imperial Leather argues that the categories of gender, race and class do not exist inisolation, but emerge in intimate relation to one another. Drawing on diverse cultural forms--novels, advertising, diaries, poetry oral history, and mass commodity spectacle--the book examines imperialism not only as a poetics of ambivalence, but as a politics of violence. Rejecting traditional binaries of self/other, man/woman, colonizer/colonized, Anne McClintock calls instead for a more informed and complex understanding of catgories of social power and identity.

Customer Reviews:

It was fascinating!.......2003-08-20

I don't agree with the reviewer for Library Journal because I found McClintock's book thorough and solid. She situates the book in a very clever way in the myriad of "isms" and scholarly debates on post-colonialism. She argues that one cannot talk about colonialism without at the same time investigate how gender,race, sexuality, class etc, has shaped the colonial discourse and discussion.
I would recommend this book to people interested in feminist, gender, postcolonial studies but also to anyone who wants a more indepth and creative analysis of the current debate on postcolonialism and gender.

Average customer rating:

Inflame's, Enlighten's and is Highly Controversial
A book intended to deflect attention from Arab racism
Promote Mutual Understanding Through Text
A fine reference
Universally true, but only applied selectively

Culture and Imperialism
Edward W. Said
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0679750541
Release Date: 1994-05-31

Amazon.com

Edward Said makes one of the strongest cases ever for the aphorism, "the pen is mightier than the sword." This is a brilliant work of literary criticism that essentially becomes political science. Culture and Imperialism demonstrates that Western imperialism's most effective tools for dominating other cultures have been literary in nature as much as political and economic. He traces the themes of 19th- and 20th-century Western fiction and contemporary mass media as weapons of conquest and also brilliantly analyzes the rise of oppositional indigenous voices in the literatures of the "colonies." Said would argue that it's no mere coincidence that it was a Victorian Englishman, Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton, who coined the phrase "the pen is mightier . . ." Very highly recommended for anyone who wants to understand how cultures are dominated by words, as well as how cultures can be liberated by resuscitating old voices or creating new voices for new times.

Book Description

A landmark work from the intellectually auspicious author of Orientalism that explores the long-overlooked connections between the Western imperial endeavor and the culture that both reflected and reinforced it. "Said is a brilliant . . . scholar, aesthete and political activist."--Washington Post Book World.

Customer Reviews:

Inflame's, Enlighten's and is Highly Controversial.......2005-11-13

Prof Terry Tucker, Senior Doctrine Developer Saudi Arabian NG Modernization Program;
This book is heavy, scholarly and controversial. The author explores culture, nationalism and imperialism through the prism of literature. You will need to be very open minded when you read this and in some cases you will find yourself both enlightened and yet disgusted. Set this aside and think about what the author conveys from the position of an "Arab_American".
As an American working in the Middle East I have found this book extremely helpful. This book will not be an easy weekend read. You will need to plan on taking some time to think about this book and digest what the author presents. If your highly patriotic or nationalistic in your inclination, you will definately need to set aside some extra time to get over the emotional impact that this book may have on you

A book intended to deflect attention from Arab racism.......2005-05-02

This book is essentially about how culture is used to promote the interest of stronger, imperial powers. Said condemns intellectuals in the West who in his eyes are "agents of exploitation". Yet Said himself is an agent of racism.

A Pan Arabist, he always supported Arab unity and "Islam" at the expense of non-Arab and non-Moslem peoples. Said directs and manipulates the Western taste for self criticim, and all that does is deflect the world's attention from Arab and Moslem attrocities committed against Christians, Kurds, Jews, Israelis, Coptic Christians, non-Arab Sudanese, etc.

Thus, reading Said, you would never realize that Sadam Hussein's poisoning of the Kurds has never been condemned by one Arab intellectual or leader. This is because a racist prevalent attitude in the Arab mind is that the entire Middle East should be Arab. This also explains the attitude towards Israel, a country that is predominantly non-Moslem and speaks a Middle Eastern language other than Arabic.

The pity is that Said himself is a Christian, yet he never spoke on behalf of Coptic Christians in Egypt, or the right of Christians to practice their faith in Saudi Arabia and probably other places in the Arab World. He is facilitating the overall aim of PanArab Nationalists by distracting the West from what is happening in the Arab world.

For a better understanding of relations between the West and Islam, I recommend books by Bernard Lewis, such as "The Moslem Discovery of Europe" and the "Jews of Islam". I also recommend books by the Egyptian scholar and Jewish refugee Yael Bat Yeor, such as "The Dhimmi".

Promote Mutual Understanding Through Text .......2004-09-13

This book is highly recommended to understand the fact that imperalism goes beyond the political and economic domination. Imperialism stayed in the most subtle way, in the culture. Said clearly described that the reaction toward imperialism is mutual: from the Western side, the prejudice and biased and the supremacy-feeling, which unfortunately still existed today; and from the "other side", also prejudice and to the extreme side, anti-Western.

Readers who knows Said's background well will understand that Edward Said had a long commitment in building understanding between the "West" and the other,and contrast to some of the reviewers' accuses that "he forgive terrorism". Not at all. Said opposed terrorism. He was very much concern about the idea of " to valued mutuale experience in order to understand the imperialism in a whole", and I think that is the main idea of the book.

A fine reference.......2004-05-30

Edward W.Said's Culture and Imperialism explores seemingly difficult areas of postcolonial discourse with consummate ease, carefully and clearly definining terms and writing an utterly convincing piece. As with all of his texts, Culture and Imperialism's main strength is in the conviction of the writer as he puts forward his claims. An invaluable tool for those approaching Postcolonialism, Culture and Imperialism is quite possibly the most illuminating piece of writing I have considered. A fine text, and one of immeasurable usefulness.

Universally true, but only applied selectively.......2003-12-06

It is hard to evaluate this book.

Said has done a magnificent job of cateloguing the various ways that European authors, principally British and French, have acquiesced in, reinforced or justified imperialism.

The trouble is that this is almost universally true of most literature for most times and places for most of human history.

Historically, literature has been the product of a literate class, with both the education and leisure to write.

These have almost always occured at the hearts of power structures or nexus, such as kingdoms or empires, commanding both the resources, human and material, and the traditions and information out of which literature has usually, if not always, been composed (Said himself addresses the traditional origins of literature, quoting Elliot).

Homer wrote at the heart of a Hellenic colonial community; the Hebrew bible was composed of court records and redacted in the imperial Babylon that permitted the Jewish exiles to restore their state; the New Testament was composed or redacted, chiefly in Alexandria and Rome and, along with most Patristic literature assumes the right of Rome to rule and often censures the Jews for their rebelliousness; the Quran is the pamphlet for Jihad, the conquest of unbelievers by believers or Arab Islamic imperialism, itself modelled on the Israelite conquest of Canaan.

Said undermines his otherwise excellent thesis by making s qualitative distinction between modern European Christian and postChristian empires, and those that preceded them, by they Arab or Turkish Islamic, classical pagan or Christian.

I think this a little problematical.

Surely the difference between modern and ancient imperialism is one of degree, not kind?

Surely the urge to acquire land and resources, human and material, by force is, in at least some sense, common to all?

Historically, the literature produced in all these structures, has reflected their imperial situation.

Human nature has rarely refused the benefits that empire accrues, and this is as true for the ancient Athenian tragedians and comics as for Austen or Dickens.

The Arabian nights assumes imperial power structures (Scheherezade is a queen, for heaven's sake!).

The mercantile adventures of Sinbad the sailor assume a right to sail and trade in a wider Islamic empire: surely Dombey and Son, whom Said singles out for this assumption, are not alone in this.

Similarly, Aristotle's Politics assume and justify an inherent Hellenic right to rule the world and, as the traditional tutor of Alexander the great, Aristotle could be said to have played his part in establishing the 'legitimacy' of the Hellenistic empire (including, ultimately, the province of Syria Palaestina, the origin of Said's native 'Palestine').

Indeed, some of Aristotle's arguments later appear in Islamic literature.

Said leaves himself open to the charge of applying a universal principle in a highly selective and partisan manner.

To pursue his own agenda, Pro Palestinian Arab and culturally Islamic, he has criticised modern European literature but left the culture of, say, imperial Islam unscathed.

His work is undoubtedly worth reading as a catelogue of the many evils of modern European empires committed against subject non Europeans.

It is also, as far as I am any judge, a comprehensive survey of postimperial and postcolonial indigenous literary and historiographical responses to empire and its ravages.

Said's partisanship is understandable.

Book Description

People around the world are confused and concerned. Is it a sign of strength or of weakness that the US has suddenly shifted from a politics of consensus to one of coercion on the world stage? What was really at stake in the war on Iraq? Was it all about oil and, if not, what else was involved? What role has a sagging economy played in pushing the US into foreign adventurism and what difference does it make that neo-conservatives rather than neo-liberals are now in power? What exactly is the relationship between US militarism abroad and domestic politics? These are the questions taken up in this compelling and original book. Closely argued but clearly written, 'The New Imperialism' builds a conceptual framework to expose the underlying forces at work behind these momentous shifts in US policies and politics. The compulsions behind the projection of US power on the world as a 'new imperialism' are here, for the first time, laid bare for all to see. This new paperback edition contains an Afterword written to coincide with the result of the 2004 American presidental election.

Customer Reviews:

Provocative.......2006-05-23

Picking up on a few key theoretical points not included in other reviews. Harvey is pressing an academic point within the broad Marxian tradition-- a point which also has broad practical consequences for confronting imperialism's latest incarnation. A central contention is that the capitalist world has been experiencing a crisis of overaccumulation since about 1973, as evidenced by a lack of opportunities for profitable investment (for which, by the way, he offers no statistical data, but which is not at issue here). Growth prior to the 1973 watershed, he argues, was driven by expanded reproduction with the US exercising hegemonic authority as a result of its WWII reorganization of old European colonialism. However, for various reasons (chiefly Vietnam era inflation) this regime broke down. At that point, he argues, the much-marginalized neo-liberal thinking of von Mises and von Hayek began to get a sympathetic hearing and commenced its long march through the institutions of the capitalist world. This new strategy utilizes neo-liberal measures, such as trade and finance liberalization (IMF, World Bank, GATT, et al.) to force open hitherto closed or regulated foreign markets, thereby helping to employ surplus capital. A related tool is to force devaluation upon a target economy, enabling foreign investors to buy cheaply and improve opportunity for increased profit margins. Thus, in broad outline, a new form of imperialism has arisen, one that remains similar to its classic colonial predecessor in that it still seeks to relieve accumulation problems at home by shifting profitability problems abroad, sometimes forcibly so.

Harvey descibes this new imperialism as accumulation by dispossession, a controversial description since dispossession in classic Marxist thinking is supposed to be restricted to the primitive forms of accumulation of times gone by. Still, the evidence is considerable given the wave of privatization of formerly public assets (water and education, in particular) in many parts of the world, (think also of recent attacks on Social Security). Indeed, these institutional measures inside and outside the US, do in fact resemble the classic "enclosues" of capital's earlier, more primitive stage. Recent attacks on formerly state-sponsored economies such as Yugoslavia's and Iraq's amount to further cases in point. But, again, this revived dispossession need not depend on military invasion; the subtler form attacks through the avenues of capital markets and state-sponsored privatization. Though the current period is dominated by dispossession, Harvey points out that accumulation by reproduction still continues. In fact, he asserts, the two are `organically' related and `dialectically' connected, for which however he offers scant elaboration.

The practical upshot of imperialism by dispossession is to force a shift in anti-imperialist thinking away from the familiar strategies that challenged the pre-1973 expanded reproduction regime. That earlier response stressed organizing the proletariat into a political force in order to seize state power in behalf of socialist principles. Movements outside that exclusive strategy were considered secondary at best, and counter-revolutionary at worst. Though this effort failed in its primary task, the author points out that it's hard to conceive of Europe's social democracies or America's New Deal as taking place without the single-minded drive of communist party politics. However, these methods are now clearly inadequate for confronting neo-liberalism and its capacity to bypass both organized labor and state power (consider neo-liberalism's sabotage of France's Mitterand in his effort to deepen socialist programs in the 1980's). Instead, current forms of resistance are much more diverse and localized, as evidenced by Mexico's Zapatista movement or Bolivian resistance to water privatization schemes. If there's a central rallying cry among these diverse groups, it's opposition to `globalization', at least in neo-liberal form. Generally, the central challenge facing anti-imperialists, as Harvey sees it, is to combine the wisdom of former strategies with the developing modes of today-- a not inconsiderable task, to say the least.

All in all, this is a stimulating read. There is much to digest, especially in grappling with the theoretical aspects. It's important to point out that Harvey approaches the topic as a critical observer and not as an economist, a fact which some may count as a fault since many of the conclusions rest on economic data. Still and all, the work remains an important prism for examining current trends.

American Empire on a New Course?.......2005-12-08

Excellent book...

D. Harvey places in context the recent developments in US foreign policy. He wrote this book before April 2003 yet, he could still easily see through the smoke screen arguments of WMD, democracy!

Concerning Iraq, Harvey argued that the main goal of USA was regime change and to establish a client state there to control the oil reserves & routes of Middle East. He reminds the US had plans set up for a conflict with Iraq much before the first Gulf War.

Harvey notes the existence of a US empire was long recognized by leftists long ago. It was only after 9/11 when the conservatives started also to recognize this empire and in fact argued for the benefits of one. During Clinton years, this American empire was more like the old Ottoman Empire, a tolerant one with light footprints. Now, it is more like the hard-pressing Roman Empire, trying to change cultures wholesale, not satisfied with only the consent of governments. Most Americans don't understand this, but the pressure by USA in less developed countries in fact causes only resentment and anger there.

He also speculates the war may be a method to distract Americans from rebelling against the government because of deteriorating conditions in economy.

Overall, it is an easy short read containing substantial arguments.

Right on the money, though tough reading........2005-07-08

In the last thirty years or so, there has been a growing body of thought and literature in the world that America is the next Empire, maybe not in the Roman mold, but surely as powerful as the old English empire. Contributions to this train of thought have come from numerous corners; peace activists protesting the Vietnam War, anti-globalization groups protesting US corporations, French farmers protesting McDonalds, Muslim scholars and clerics throughout the world, and isolationists within American politics. These groups and their arguments have tended to emphasize the how of empire; how America came to empire, how it is an Empire, and of course, how we will fall like other Empires. This book tries to give a why, and does so from the oldest of corners opposing the American Way: socialism, and the writings of Marx and his followers. As such, it does an impressive job within a very short number of pages.

To be brief, this book proposes several points. First, America has gradually turned into an empire over the last fifty years. As evidence, the author points to the dozens of military bases the US has around the world. American now has more military installations in more places than any other nation that has ever existed. Many of these bases are located in countries that are not democratic; i.e. the citizens of these countries did not vote to invite America's military in. The only possible conclusions are that the local government stays in power through America's support (financial or otherwise), or are outright puppet governments.

Second, this is not an empire built on the control of land and the founding of colonies in say the English mold, but instead is an empire built on opening up consumer markets for American corporations and controlling non-renewable natural resources such as oil, again for domestic consumption. The first part of this argument is self-evident; America has no colonies in the most literal sense and our ambassadors in most countries are holed-up in concrete fortresses instead of prancing around like local kings of the hill. The second part of this argument is also as self-evident, to those whose eyes and ears are open. Specifically, America's aid, money, attention and soldiers often end up in places that are either important trade posts (Suez and Panama Canals), have oilfields (the entire Middle East), or have a large business community which we do business with (Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Germany).

Third, America has made this transformation to the ignorance of most of its citizens, but to the alarm and suspicion of almost everyone else. This is probably the most important point of this book. Pull over any American on the street, give her a map of the world and ask her to point out all the countries which have been militarily attacked (bombed, invaded, occupied, etc...) by the US since 1900 (excluding the two World Wars). She should answer Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and might recall North Korea, Somalia and Serbia. She will probably leave out Haiti, Cuba, Panama, Philippines, Libya and Mexico, and will surely be unawares of Russia (US troops invaded during the Russian Revolution), Cambodia (secret bombings ordered by Nixon during the Vietnam War) and China (prior to World War II). No other nation in the history of the world has intruded upon the soil of so many other countries as has the USA. If this does not qualify America as an empire, than nothing can.

Fourth, this growth of empire has been fueled by the same historical reasons and processes that fueled the growth of the British Empire, the Nazis, the Roman Empire, and other great empires. War serves as a way to divert the public attention from domestic troubles; usually economic. To be exact, the fruits and costs of war alleviate various economic pressures that could doom a nation's leadership if otherwise left to fester. The centuries prior to England's Age of Empire was marked by a stratification of English society. Most of the livable land in England passed into the ownership of a small, wealthy minority. You were either born into it or outside of it. Those born into it were not going to give up wealth to their less privileged brethren, so colonial expansion provided a way by which those born outside of it could achieve wealth and status in life. Population growth was relieved by sending people off to other lands. The poor benefited because emigration kept the labor pool small, thereby keeping up wages. The rich benefited because English colonies provided an outlet for their produced goods, and a source of natural resources (e.g. tea from India) and cheap labor (cotton from the American south). Similarly, war and the resulting influence of other countries economic and political policies help the US economy grow.

Fifth, all of this is not unexpected. The path America has taken was described over a century ago by Karl Marx and his followers as the path all capitalist countries take. After the end of the Cold War, intellectuals the world over concluded that Marxist thought was over; relegated to the trash heap of history. Actually, the historical processes described my Marx have played themselves out numerous times in the 20th century.

Sixth, the current Bush administration marks a watershed in the history of America, akin to the rule of Augustus in Rome. Specifically, the latter's rule marked the official transition from Roman Republic to Roman Empire. The Bush administration, with either the consent or ignorance of the American electorate, have quickly exited the numerous treaties it had bound itself to in the previous five decades, has openly called out enemies to oppose, and has invaded two countries (so far). As such, the span from 2001 - 2008 is when America, in the eyes of others, has decided to transform from world leader to world bully, akin to the transition from Roman Republic to Roman Empire.

Seventh, like all empires, America clothes its actions abroad (i.e. foreign policy) in morals and ethics, but they are mostly driven by self-interest. The author does not argue this point fully, primarily because it is elaborated elsewhere. This keeps the page count down, but reduces the impact and persuasiveness of the book. In response to the other (incredibly ignorant) review for this book, I will take up this argument here.

a. In World War II, the US declared war on the Nazis ONLY AFTER they declared war on the US. If the US was such a high-minded nation as the other review implies, America would have declared war on Germany the moment Nazi troops entered Poland. Related to this, millions of Jews tried to flee Europe during the 1930's and 1940's. Many of them tried to enter the US. The US rejected most of them and only allowed in those with political connections, those with money, and those with training in quantum physics, nuclear physics, weapons technology (Einstein, Oppenheimer, etc...), and others that could help US science and technology. If the US was such a moral nation, it would have allowed in all the Jews. We, America, defeated the Nazis because they declared war on us, and posed a mortal threat to us. This is no different and no better than one street gang eliminating another street gang that steps on its turf.
b. During the Cold War, the US intervened militarily in other countries to prevent the spread of communism. This was often and usually done without the explicit consent of the populations of the host countries. Vietnam is a prime example. Throughout the 1960s, the US military frequently held secret, mock elections in villages throughout South Vietnam. The Communist candidates nearly always won, even when the US-backed candidates had more funding and resources to bribe the electorate. Why? Because the Communist candidates offered what the people wanted. This is why there was never an election in South Vietnam during the US occupation. America did not care about what the South Vietnamese wanted; we only cared about what we wanted.
c. During the Cold War, the US provided aid to other countries that publicly supported the fight against communism. An example is South Africa. As long as the white government publicly opposed communism, the US government and US corporations turned a blind eye towards apartheid. It was only the civil rights movement, and especially black activists that brought this to a halt in the 1980s.

These and other experiences in countries around the world prove beyond a doubt that America did not care about liberty, justice, freedom and democracy in other countries, but only that they oppose communists. The question then begs as to why America was so interested in opposing communism. This leads to the last point argued in this book. Every empire needs an opposite; Greece had Persia, Rome had Carthage, the English had first the Spanish and then later Napoleon. We had communists. Communists are bad for business because they believe in communal, non-transferable rights to everything, which is anathema to the concept of individual, transferable ownership of anything, the basis of capitalism and business. Who runs America? Not civil rights leaders like Caeser Chavez or Martin Luther King Jr. Not progressive politicians like Eugene Debs or Ralph Nader. No, America is run by businessmen (current and ex) and those who cater to business interests. It was Robert McNamara, JFK and others connected to the business world who led America and its naïve president LBJ into Vietnam, not those who were fighting for freedom and liberty like MLK Jr. or Malcolm X.

In all, this is a great book to read, though the text is tough and hard to work through.

Pure lies.......2005-06-20

Let us examine the argument herein:
1) The U.S is an empire
2) U.S interests conspire to dominate the world bank, the IMF and the U.N to push american interests.

Let us see how this was done. In 1941 when the Nazis had overun all of Europe and the Japanese tried to take over Asia, America dared to be an evil imperialist by opposing Nazism, after all Nazism was actually 'anti-colonial'.

When the Russians took over Eastern Europe and ensalved their own people and those of 15 other nations America dared to stand up for its imperial interests and defend Europe and the world. Instead America should have done nothing and let the world all end up like North Korea so that every nation can end up like cambodia where 1/3 of the population is killed and 1/3 put in a Gulag.

In the 2000s when Militant Islam went on a rampage in Europe, in Nigeria, the Phillipines, Indonesia, Thailand, Sudan, Israel and India, slaughtering innocents, America dared to retaliate when 3000 of its citizens were killed.

This is the empire of America. The WTO and IMF bail out starving nations, helps build dams and infrastructure and that is bad. Yes America is an empire and if these are the sins America is accused of then America must keep going full steam ahead, and keep opposing religious fundamentalism, Nazism and th enslavement of the world.

Seth J. Frantzman

Conquests and Cultures: An International History

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Big-picture history
several topics in one book
Conquests and Cultures
Stings have no venom.
Brilliant, Succinct, Germane!

Conquests and Cultures: An International History
Thomas Sowell
Manufacturer: Basic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0465013996

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Another tour de force by one of America's leading public intellectuals. Conquests and Cultures continues in the tradition of Sowell's superb books, Race and Culture and Migrations and Cultures. The series attempts to understand the meaning of cultural differences, including how these differences have influenced the economic and social fates of civilizations, nations, and ethnic groups. This particular installment focuses on how military conquest both destroys culture and spreads it by examining the histories of the English, the Africans, the Slavs, and the indigenous people of the New World. Sowell rejects the cultural relativism that is currently so fashionable in the universities and forthrightly believes that some cultures--understood as "the working machinery of everyday life"--are clearly superior to others. He marshals a massive amount of scholarly material to support his ideas, and capably turns this mountain of data into straightforward prose. --John J.Miller

Book Description

Sowell, in Conquests and Cultures, helps explain the role of cultural evolution and warfare in shaping the destinies of the world's civilizations.

Customer Reviews:

Big-picture history.......2007-01-17

CaC is a series of case-studies looking at the interplay between (as the title indicates) conquest and cultural evolution. I enjoy "big-picture" history but, because the author tries to cover so many examples, the analysis seems to be just a touch shallow. Of course, CaC was probably intended as an overview to demonstrate a larger dynamic.

The most interesting section is the discussion of African slavery. I hadn't realized what a relatively small part the European powers played in the over-all slave-trade. I thought the treatment was fair--neither Euro-bashing nor revisionist.

The other topics were a little more familiar and not quite as interesting. (As I mentioned, the treatment not especially thorough. I flipped through a few parts.) Overall, CaC is pretty good--not great--but worth the time to read for the novice or amateur historian (especially if you're not familiar with the "Annales" school of history to which Sowell is obviously indebted).

several topics in one book.......2006-12-07

This book has several threads that interact.
One is that the geography of a country has a strong effect on its history. The western hemisphere did not have beasts of burden until Europeans arrived and therefore stayed in a primitive culture. England had iron ore near coal and both near the seacoast which provided cheap transportation.
Another thread is that some cultures learn from contact with other cultures and some do not. Scotland was invaded by England and when the English left Scotland outclassed the English in engineering and medicine even thought they were behind in the beginning. Earlier the Romans invaded England and improved conditions. When the Romans left the English retrograded for centuries.
Another thread is that human nature is the same all over the earth. All nations have dominated other nations and mistreated them.

Conquests and Cultures.......2006-03-18

This book demonstrates quite clearly the growth and economic betterment of the people in underdeveloped countries through assistance from the Western Hemisphere world. The legacies of education, nutrition and economic growth and exchange of cultural knowledge brought about even by conquering armies is quite a surprise.
I especially liked the contrast between the desperate situation of the Irish during the various famines and wars with the English as compared to the relative security of the black population in the Southern United States during the periodof slavery.
The book makes a strong statement for the value of sharing technologies and opportunities between and amongst countries for their own betterment rather than merely rapiing the land of the conquered to satisfy the conquerer.

Stings have no venom........2004-04-08

Despite their best efforts, those who reviewed this book negatively or dismissed it as "been there, done that" expose that either their own preconceived notions ran afoul with Sowell's book. Or, their sacred cows were stripped down to expose the cheap hamburger of ideas.
As usual Sowell writes another well-crafted, researched, and documented book. He makes NO conclusions but rather, lets his reader form their own conclusions.
As evidenced by the fact that none of the so called "Politically Incorrect" panel shows NEVER invited Sowell on because no one on the left can counter Sowell's ease of analysis and myth-shattering and that includes lofty lefties like Hitchens, Chomsky, Schlesinger, and Cockburn...so goes the list of those who rail at the idea of a free-thinking minority having the audacity to stray from the Liberal Plantation (Not that Sowell was ever on the plantation in the first place).

A good measured read with plenty to challenge the reader (who doesn't wear idealogical blinders). A good book to add to your library.

Brilliant, Succinct, Germane!.......2003-12-28

It's always delightful to read cogent, well-thought-out and carefully written books. This is no exception, as Dr. Sowell continues to apply a broad education and extensive experience to derive insights that, once made, are startlingly clear and obvious.

Unlike several of the prior reviewers, who seem to feel that their unworkable personal ideology or limited ability to think actually have relevance in a review, I read this book to gain information and insights supported by impeccable research from an intelligent source. It may offend those with little or no education or experience, because it does not run along the same track as their favorite hobby horse(s), but then, reality and truth rarely do. (i.e., if you don't like accurate statistics, nor agree with a sequenced and relevant protrayal of factual information, don't read this book. It might upset any sense of "oughta be this way", or "I wanna believe X -- in contrast to actual events").

Dr. Sowell's insistence on his statements having a factual basis and extensive examples to support his conclusions can be daunting, nonetheless, as with any exercise (mental or physical, for that matter), the more effort you put into something, the greater the result.

Book Description

What do George W. Bush, Wal-Mart, Halliburton, gangsta rap, and SUVs have in common? They're all among the hundred ways in which America is screwing up the world. The country that was responsible for many, if not most, of the twentieth century's most important scientific and technological advancements now demonizes its scientists and thinkers in the twenty-first, while dumbing down its youth with anti-Darwin/pro-"Intelligent Design" propaganda. The longtime paragon of personal freedoms now supports torture and illegal wiretapping—spreading its principles and policies at gunpoint while ruthlessly bombing the world with Big Macs and Mickey Mouse ears.

At once serious-minded and satirical, John Tirman's 100 Ways America Is Screwing Up the World is an insightful, unabashed, entertaining, and distressing look at where we've gone terribly wrong—from the destruction of the environment to the promotion of abhorrent personal health and eating habits to the "wussification" of the free press—an alternately admonishing and amusing call to arms for patriotic Blue America.

Customer Reviews:

Quite informative.......2007-02-11

I've read most of this book and I've enjoyed what I have read. The points John Tirman makes are valid ones and I think a lot of people should read this book.

The chapters are, necessarily short, and Mr. Tirman gets to the point quickly and concisely.

For those interested in combatting Americanism, this book is a good place to start.

An encyclopedic rundown of the American disease........2006-11-02

Any well-read person knows all that is between the covers of this book. Having said that however, because of its brevity and concise topics, this marvelous compendium of 21st century uniquely American disease symptoms qualifies as an extremely useful source book for the new millennium.

All of the familiar suspects are here: Las Vegas #85, consumerism #45, Reaganism #8 & #17, Wall Mart #10, etc, etc, etc. Obviously the reader will have thoughts about what was left out and what should not be there at all. The inclusion of SUVs #28 will no doubt cause as much outcry in America as was caused here when our former Prime Minister publically catigated these monsters some months ago for the same reasoms. Tirman was diplomatic enough not to even mention the engine driving many of his 100-the the onerous American style of capitalism or the Free Market or free enterprise, or whatever moniker the beast hides under. Virtually everyone of Tirman's 100 disease symptoms was mothered by this one evil-at least as it exists in the American variety.

Every evil in his book can be traced to a rampant market driven curse; there is too much of everything from bad Hollywood glamour #90 or gun stalls selling AK47s #37 to virtually anyone that wants one. Only days ago, Brazil voted down a proposition to curb gun sales. Why, because the National Rifleman's Association mounted a major campaign against the legislation-an American organization influncing political events in another country. Foreign interference like that would not be tolerated in Kansas or probably anywhere else in America.

This book brings all the problems together; if you read a newspaper and ever wonder how most of the world's problems started, get yourself this wonderful book and educate yourself. It will be money and time well spent.

Needed by those who want to be in the know.......2006-10-16

The author sweeps across a very broad panorama of forces that cause America to damage both itself and others. Many of the topics covered are not (readily) found elsewhere, such as the limitations of NY Times and Washington Post reporting, the making of pre-adolescent girls into sex objects, and the highly questionable mushrooming of graduate schools. The book's format leads to succinct, understandable writing that repeatedly hits nails on the head and takes dead aim at the sick dysfunctionality wrought by George Bush and company. It also covers America's ideals, which are alive and well, even if eclipsed or in instances sabotaged by the destructive forces previously cited -- and are worth working to regain. Overall, well, and nicely, done.

Screwing Down the Screw-Ups.......2006-09-05

This book, rather obviously, synopsizes the major flaws with, from, and metastasizing within American politics (primarily), culture, and society at large.

I agree with about 98% of what the author has to say. I just appreciated that so many of the hypocrisies and flaws erupting within American society that bother me are shared by Mr. Tirman and the reasons why one should be bothered are raised as concerns above being trivial and petty. (Love the Paris Hilton and celebrity worship entry).

Mr. Tirman wants to come off as objective, or at least apolitical, but his liberal leanings become more pronounced, and more painfully obvious as his list progresses. This in and of itself is not problematic, it's his occassional assertions that he is not swaying to far to the liberal side (or simply falling prey to conservative bashing ) which seem all the more ridiculous.

Otherwise, he comes off as rather fair and reasonable. Although, I can't agree with him that no-smoking laws in the US (and now creeping through Europe) are diminishing rights (especially coming from someone so adverse to wonton pollution and selfish acts that harm others-which is what smoking is.)

I really didn't like his glossing over of the immigration issue that is now confronting America. He, in elitist and ivory tower flair, dismisses illegal immigration as spats with people vying for jobs as car wash jockies and maids. For a man so concerned with the "global south" to reduce illegal immigration to this is a shame. He never delves into the exploitation of these illegal immigrants by the agribusinesses, the Wal-Marts, and the profit seeking at all cost conglomerates that suck them up and spit them out that he spends 90% of his time railing against. He doesn't believe (or at least doesn't lead us to believe that he does) that this period of unheralded illegal immigration has its roots in profiteering at the expense of not only the migrants, but the working class and middle class for the benefit of the few, the wealthy, and powerful. He laments poverty in America, education, healthcare, and the prison system, but never acknowledges the role of illegal immigration in all of this (depressed wages for Americans and migrants fueled by illegal immigration, overburden on public schools, etc..).
If he doesn't care about the low wage jobs (the only ones being created now in America) being handed over to the exploited migrants, what will he think of the spreading impoverishment of the domestic working class that is resulting?

Then there is his unsubstantiated, no, make that conjecture regarding Scots-Irish(?) and military loyalty. (I think he must have been talking to an uncredited Jim Webb).

Finally, (me being petty) this guy has it out for SUVs, and mostly the SUVs of jingoistic troop supporters with their yellow ribbon decals. I also have witnessed this correlation. Fine, but don't expose your disdain as a phobia by constantly referring to it to almost the point of being irrational.

Overall, Mr. Tirman presents the reasons, the facts, and the history behind the screw-ups he documents succintly and utterly.
Other than that, it's nice knowing that such an intellectual and open-minded person is bothered by the same things.

Ughhh... Paris Hilton???
We're doomed!

A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 16601840

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A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 16601840

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521007968

Book Description

While other histories of the British empire have focused on administration, politics and policy, this collection of essays examines the cultural impact of empire on British and colonial people's sense of self, as well as on their social relations in the eighteenth century. The contributions by leading scholars analyze the ways in which theater, sociability, artistic and literary production, history, slavery and identity were affected by Britain's contacts with America, India, Africa and the South Pacific.

Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World

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A Multi-disciplinary Treatment of the Exclusionary "Other"

Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World

Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520206053

Book Description

Starting with the premise that Europe was made by its imperial projects as much as colonial encounters were shaped by events and conflicts in Europe, the contributors to Tensions of Empire investigate metropolitan-colonial relationships from a new perspective. The fifteen essays demonstrate various ways in which "civilizing missions" in both metropolis and colony provided new sites for clarifying a bourgeois order. Focusing on the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, they show how new definitions of modernity and welfare were developed and how new discourses and practices of inclusion and exclusion were contested and worked out. The contributors argue that colonial studies can no longer be confined to the units of analysis on which it once relied; instead of being the study of "the colonized," it must account for the shifting political terrain on which the very categories of colonized and colonizer have been shaped and patterned at different times.

Customer Reviews:

A Multi-disciplinary Treatment of the Exclusionary "Other".......2005-01-14

In this collection of essays, Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler have attempted to shed light on an often overlooked aspect of European imperialism; the colonized. Specifically, the authors contend it is that gray area "between the public institutions of the colonial state and the intimate reaches of people's lives that seemed to us to demand more attention." Realizing the diversity of the European colonial experience, the authors wanted to examine whether or not there exists a correlation between the archival histories of the major European imperial powers-Germany, France, Great Britain and the Netherlands. Incorporating what some historians have referred to as "the holy trinity"-gender, race and class-Cooper and Stoler have collected an assemblage of scholarship that takes a look at the indigenous experience, or as the title suggests, tensions that existed within the exclusionary "Other" and their culture of colonization. In keeping with the French Annalist, Marxist tradition of social-economic historiography that had grown popular in the 1960's and 1970's, the essays not only reinforce the evils of capitalistic exploitation, but also incorporate to a large extent, the field of anthropology to the blurred genres of interdisciplinary scholarship. In a sense, the articles read like anthropological field studies in an historical setting. For example, in "Le Bebe en Brousse: European Women, African Birth Spacing, and Colonial Intervention in Breast Feeding in the Belgian Congo" (pp. 287-321), Nancy Rose Hunt, examines the affect colonial institutions had upon a natural birth control method common in many underdeveloped countries, prolonged breast feeding, or birth spacing. Birth spacing and the ethnographic cocoon in which it rests are usually the work of anthropologists not historians. But as we can see from Ms Hunt's argument, the combination of cultural and political studies makes for an interesting blend of social history. In a similar essay titled: "Sexual Affronts and Racial Frontiers: European Identities and the Cultural Politics of Exclusion in Colonial Southeast Asia" (pp.198-237), Ann Stoler examines the problem of colonial and indigenous union-"mixed bloods"-and the affects this relationship between inclusionary impulses and exclusionary practices has on French and Dutch nationalism. Here again, as her subtitle suggests, the blending of culture and politics, usually the stuff of varying floors of a Humanities building, has come together in a compatible marriage. This book might not appeal to those accustomed to the standard fair of colonial history. The editor's long and winded introduction does not fully prepare the reader for the interesting essays that follow. Had the editors added a conclusion tying the confusing section headings together, and concisely formulated their opening, the finished product would have been more easily digestible. Ending on a positive note, the lengthy bibliography at the end of each article provides the reader with ample fodder for further inquiry. Perhaps destined to never fine a home on an undergraduate syllabus, this work is, noneheless, a significant contribution to the interdisciplinary paradigm that has taken hold of the historical profession.

Gender, Race, and the Writing of Empire: Public Discourse and the Boer War (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture)

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Definately worth the money!

Gender, Race, and the Writing of Empire: Public Discourse and the Boer War (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture)
Paula M. Krebs
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

This book looks at the ways Victorian ideas about gender and race supported British imperialism at the turn of the century. It examines the Boer War of 1899-1902 through the war writings of literary figures such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Olive Schreiner, H. Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling, and also through newspapers, propaganda, and other forms of public debate in print. Paula M. Krebs' analysis of the part played by ideas about gender and race in public discourse makes a significant new contribution to the study of British imperialism.

Customer Reviews:

Definately worth the money!.......1999-03-25

I am not really a person of literature but this book I thought was really worth the time and money.

Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865-1915

Average customer rating:

Most intriguing, but incomplete..
essential reading for students of imperialism
The kind of scholarship that makes me sad.

Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865-1915
Antoinette Burton
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0807844713

Book Description

In this study of British middle-class feminism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Antoinette Burton explores an important but neglected historical dimension of the relationship between feminism and imperialism. Demonstrating how feminists in the United Kingdom appropriated imperialistic ideology and rhetoric to justify their own right to equality, she reveals a variety of feminisms grounded in notions of moral and racial superiority.

According to Burton, Victorian and Edwardian feminists such as Josephine Butler, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, and Mary Carpenter believed that the native women of colonial India constituted a special 'white woman's burden.' Although there were a number of prominent Indian women in Britain as well as in India working toward some of the same goals of equality, British feminists relied on images of an enslaved and primitive 'Oriental womanhood' in need of liberation at the hands of their emancipated British 'sisters.' Burton argues that this unquestioning acceptance of Britain's imperial status and of Anglo-Saxon racial superiority created a set of imperial feminist ideologies, the legacy of which must be recognized and understood by contemporary feminists.

Customer Reviews:

Most intriguing, but incomplete.........2007-03-19

Normally, I start with praise for the book, but I feel that I have to get something stated right out front - the book was not quite what I expected. It was a fantastic book, with great research used to back up the author's thesis, but the name is somewhat misleading - I thought that when the author said "Imperial Culture", she would be referring to culture throughout the British Empire, or at least in several different countries. Unfortunately, she focuses almost exclusively on India and Turkey (which really isn't even a British colony).

After I accepted the fact that the author was going to focus on India & Indian women, I found that I really enjoyed the book. The author's premise is that British feminists impacted Imperial culture through their actions. Her theories are well defended, and use great primary source material (such as contemporary journals and pamphlets, along with written documents from the participants).

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in British Feminism, Indian women in Victorian & Edwardian era Imperial Britain, or one looking for an understanding of how female suffragettes in Britain really pushed their case for female emancipation.

essential reading for students of imperialism.......2001-06-15

The first customer review of this book (by a reader in Atlanta) is completely off. It was obviously written by someone with an ax to grind, but it is not representative of Burton's work. Burdens of History is a nuanced and thoughtful examination of the role of British women both in relation to their efforts to secure the vote, but also (for lack of a better word) their "complicity" in the imperial project.

This is not a matter of anachronistically applying 20th c. liberal ideas to a 19th c. imperial context. Only someone who skimmed the book could think this.

This is a wonderful book which has rightfully earned Burton wide-spread respect throughout the field of British imperial history.

The kind of scholarship that makes me sad........2000-09-03

This is the sort of book that says, "Oh, those naughty people a century ago! They were so unenlightened, compared to us." A hundred years ago, there were these horrible women called "suffragists," you see--sure, they wanted votes for WHITE women, but all the time they had all sorts of horrible, imperialistic stereotypes about people who weren't white! If only they'd had modern academics to keep them in line!

The scholarship here is often as disappointing as the conclusions are predictable. Burton will take an analysis of a single journal and make it do duty for the whole of a movement. Literary-critical types (and I am one myself) shouldn't delude themselves into thinking they're writing history.

This kind of academic book makes me say to myself, "Maybe it's not such a bad thing that academic publishing is dying." Sigh.

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