Captives: The Story Of Britain's Pursuit Of Empire And How Its Soldiers And Civilians Were Held Captive By The Dream Of Global Supremacy
by LINDA COLLEY /
2003 / English / EPUB
8.6 MB Download
Britain’s pursuit of empire seems an inexorable march across
continents toward its ultimate—if temporary-—global hegemony. But,
as Linda Colley shows in this masterfully written book, Britain’s
overseas enterprises were always constrained by its own limitations
in size, population, and armed forces, and by divisions among its
subjects-—constraints and deficiencies that could make the dream of
empire an ordeal even for its makers. Drawing on a wealth of
captivity narratives by men and women of different social and
ethnic backgrounds from the early seventeenth century to the
Victorian era, Colley chronicles the complicated dynamic between
invader and invaded.
Britain’s pursuit of empire seems an inexorable march across
continents toward its ultimate—if temporary-—global hegemony. But,
as Linda Colley shows in this masterfully written book, Britain’s
overseas enterprises were always constrained by its own limitations
in size, population, and armed forces, and by divisions among its
subjects-—constraints and deficiencies that could make the dream of
empire an ordeal even for its makers. Drawing on a wealth of
captivity narratives by men and women of different social and
ethnic backgrounds from the early seventeenth century to the
Victorian era, Colley chronicles the complicated dynamic between
invader and invaded.
Here are the stories of Sarah Shade, who was married to a
succession of British military officers, attacked by tigers, and
imprisoned by Indian ruler Tipu Sultan; Joseph Pitts, a white slave
in Algiers from 1678 to 1693 and author of the first authentic—and
very complimentary—English account of the pilgrimage to Mecca; and
Florentia Sale, a captive in the Kabul insurrection of 1841 who
used her time in confinement as an opportunity to interview
military men for her memoir. There were also those who crossed the
cultural divide and switched identities, like the Irishman George
Thomas, a mercenary fighter for Indian rulers and failed dictator,
and those who crossed but made it back, like John Rutherfurd, the
onetime Chippewa warrior and Scot.
Here are the stories of Sarah Shade, who was married to a
succession of British military officers, attacked by tigers, and
imprisoned by Indian ruler Tipu Sultan; Joseph Pitts, a white slave
in Algiers from 1678 to 1693 and author of the first authentic—and
very complimentary—English account of the pilgrimage to Mecca; and
Florentia Sale, a captive in the Kabul insurrection of 1841 who
used her time in confinement as an opportunity to interview
military men for her memoir. There were also those who crossed the
cultural divide and switched identities, like the Irishman George
Thomas, a mercenary fighter for Indian rulers and failed dictator,
and those who crossed but made it back, like John Rutherfurd, the
onetime Chippewa warrior and Scot.
Colley uses these extraordinary tales to trace the changing
boundaries of Britan’s pursuit of empire and its shifting attitudes
toward Islam, slavery, race, and American revolutionaries.
Colley uses these extraordinary tales to trace the changing
boundaries of Britan’s pursuit of empire and its shifting attitudes
toward Islam, slavery, race, and American revolutionaries.
Hailed by
Hailed byThe Financial Times
The Financial Times as a “White Teeth version of
imperial history,”
as a “White Teeth version of
imperial history,”Captives
Captives is at once an
is at once an
original chronicle and a prescient meditation on the meaning of
empire.
original chronicle and a prescient meditation on the meaning of
empire.
