Colonialism's Culture:
Anthropology, Travel, and Government
Nicholas Thomas

Paper | 1994 | $28.95
288 pp. | 6 x 9 | 12 halftones

Shopping Cart | Endorsements | Table of Contents

In a wide-ranging account of the development of ideas about human difference, Nicholas Thomas challenges reigning theories that portray colonialism as monolithic in character, purpose, and efficacy throughout the world. Taking issue with such writers as Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Gayatri Spivak, Thomas describes colonialism not so much as a discourse but a project--a project in which the interactions among colonizing and colonized people are far more variable and reveal greater ambivalence than generally imagined. In addition to his review of current literature in cultural studies, the author provides extended reflections on photographs, colonial novels, exhibits of indigenous art, ethnographic films, and recent Hollywood films in order to reveal how deep and pervasive is colonialism's culture for colonizer and colonized.

Thomas proposes that historicized, ethnographic explorations of the colonial experience are the most fruitful approaches to understanding colonialism's continued effects. He draws on travel, anthropology, and government as vehicles that gave nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Europeans exposure to colonized populations and provided a language through which to discuss them. The author reveals colonialism to be a complex ongoing cultural process--one in which dominated populations are represented in ways that play upon and legitimize racial and cultural differences. A provocative book for specialists, Colonialism's Culture can also serve as a stimulating introduction for students across the social sciences and humanities interested in this multifaceted field of inquiry.

Endorsement:

"An exciting, highly unsettling book that attempts to challenge reigning theories and theorists on the matter of colonialism."--David Hanlon, University of Hawaii

Table of Contents:

List of illustrations
Preface
Introduction
1. From Present to Past: the Politics of Colonial Studies 11
2. Culture and Rule: Theories of Colonial Discourse 33
3. From Past to Present: Colonial Epochs, Agents, and Locations 66
4. Colonial Governmentality and Colonial Conversion 105
5. Imperial Triumph, Settler Failure 143
6. The Primitivist and the Postcolonial 170
Notes 196
Notes to Plates 231
Index 235

Subject Areas:

• Anthropology
• Postcolonial Studies

Cloth: For sale only in the United States, Canada, and the Philippines
Paper: For sale only in the United States, Canada, and the Philippines

Shopping Cart:

For customers in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Australia
Paper: $28.95 ISBN13: 978-0-691-03731-8

Prices subject to change without notice

File created: 7/1/2008

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