Duke University Press - Archives of Empire

Subjects
History > World History, Literature and Literary Studies > Literary Criticism, Postcolonial and Colonial Studies

A rich collection of primary materials, the multivolume Archives of Empire provides a documentary history of nineteenth-century British imperialism from the Indian subcontinent to the Suez Canal to southernmost Africa. Barbara Harlow and Mia Carter have carefully selected a diverse range of texts that track the debates over imperialism in the ranks of the military, the corridors of political power, the lobbies of missionary organizations, the halls of royal geographic and ethnographic societies, the boardrooms of trading companies, the editorial offices of major newspapers, and far-flung parts of the empire itself. Focusing on a particular region and historical period, each volume in Archives of Empire is organized into sections preceded by brief introductions. Documents including mercantile company charters, parliamentary records, explorers’ accounts, and political cartoons are complemented by timelines, maps, and bibligraphies. Unique resources for teachers and students, these books reveal the complexities of nineteenth-century colonialism and emphasize its enduring relevance to the “global markets” of the twenty-first century.

Tracing the beginnings of the British colonial enterprise in South Asia and the Middle East, From the Company to the Canal brings together key texts from the era of the privately owned British East India Company through the crises that led to the company’s takeover by the Crown in 1858. It ends with the momentous opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Government proclamations, military reports, and newspaper articles are included here alongside pieces by Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Benjamin Disraeli, and many others. A number of documents chronicle arguments between mercantilists and free trade advocates over the competing interests of the nation and the East India Company. Others provide accounts of imperial crises—including the trial of Warren Hastings, the Indian Rebellion (Sepoy Mutiny), and the Arabi Uprising—that highlight the human, political, and economic costs of imperial domination and control.

“It is hard not to get excited over the wealth o f material provided by The East India Company to the Suez Canal (vol. 1) and The Scramble for Africa (vol. 2), which will prove invaluable for both pedagogical and scholarly use.” — Jeanne Dubino , Nineteenth Century Studies

"Archives of Empire will undoubtedly stand as one of the best documentary collections in its field for some time."
— Daniel P. Becker, Itinerario

"[A]n ideal reference for short primary sources to supplement textbook or other readings. . . . [A]n extremely valuable teaching resource for faculty, and it should be read in combination with the other three volumes of the series in order to gain a more complete understanding of the ways in which political and cultural discourse produced and reproduced empire in Victorian Britain." — Brian Caton , The Journal of Asian Studies

"[T]his is easily the richest single collection of primary source materials on British imperialism available in print. . . . The first two volumes of Archives of Empire supply us with a rich selection of source material on British imperialism in India and Africa, and when reinforced by the final two volumes, the completed project will provide an unrivaled resource to students of empire. And by its very existence this "reader" will stand as a monument to the remarkable efflorescence of interest in imperial and colonial studies in recent years." — Dane Kennedy, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History

"This valuable collection of documents from and about the British Empire will prove useful to students and scholars." — Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"This volume offers much to the scholar seeking to gain a sense of the period he or she may be embarking upon as a first step to further research. To the general reader it is an invaluable book, well organised and signposted, showing, through the use of raw primary sources, just what was written by contemporaries without the embellishment of the many later interpretative works that have already been written on this period." — Tim Allender, Asian Studies Review

"Volume I provides a rich, sometimes eclectic mix of documents. . . . Archives of Empire promises to be a rich resource for scholars of British imperialism, of the impact of European colonialism, and of the role of empire in British political and popular culture. . . . [T]he first two volumes in the series offer a stimulating introduction to contemporary scholarship in imperial history and post-colonial theory." — Martin Thomas , History

"With selections ranging from company charters, missionary tracts, satirical cartoons, legislative records, to literary accounts, these anthologies present a fascinating glimpse of the many sides of imperialism." — Heidi Hanrahan , English Literature in Transition 1880-1920

“Archives of Empire offers a valuable and original intervention in contemporary studies of imperialism, providing a rich array of source material pertaining to the imperial project and the wide-ranging grounds for its critique.” — Anne McClintock, author of Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest

"Archives of Empire is a substantial and valuable project containing a generous sampling of key primary texts for understanding both the crucial events in and the debates around British imperialism in the nineteenth century.” — David Lloyd, coeditor of The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital