Many have told of the East India Company’s extraordinary excesses in eighteenth-century India; of the plunder that made its directors fabulously wealthy and able to buy British land and titles; but this is only a fraction of the story. When one of these men—Warren Hastings—was put on trial by Edmund Burke; it brought the Company’s exploits to the attention of the public. Through the trial and after; the British government transformed public understanding of the Company’s corrupt actions by creating an image of a vulnerable India that needed British assistance. Intrusive behavior was recast as a civilizing mission. In this fascinating; and devastating; account of the scandal that laid the foundation of the British Empire; Nicholas Dirks explains how this substitution of imperial authority for Company rule helped erase the dirty origins of empire and justify the British presence in India. The Scandal of Empire reveals that the conquests and exploitations of the East India Company were critical to England’s development in the eighteenth century and beyond. We see how mercantile trade was inextricably linked with imperial venture and scandalous excess and how these three things provided the ideological basis for far-flung British expansion. In this powerfully written and trenchant critique; Dirks shows how the empire projected its own scandalous behavior onto India itself. By returning to the moment when the scandal of empire became acceptable we gain a new understanding of the modern culture of the colonizer and the colonized and the manifold implications for Britain; India; and the world.
#585662 in Books 2002-11-29Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 .99 x 5.82 x 8.44l; 1.03 #File Name: 0674008936272 pages
Review
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Incredibly interesting book--some very sad storiesBy R. A BurtThis is an extremely well-written and well-researched account of black New York in the nineteenth century; concentrating mostly on theater. Especially fascinating to me is the story of Shakespearean black actor James Hewlett and his [ublished responses to an English actor who had tuaght Hewlett Shakespeare and later mocked his performances on stage in England. The book got a rave review in the New Republic from Christine Stansell. I highly recommend this book.7 of 18 people found the following review helpful. Impressive research marred by P.C. agendaBy krebsmanI bought this book because I have an interest in the artistic life of early America. A book about a black American actor in the 1830s sounded like my kind of book. I must give author White credit for the outstanding research he has done. The biographical data on the life of James Hewlett is very scanty. It must be difficult to write a book on a subject when the actual evidence is virtually nonexistent. Alas; White has filled in the gaps with a lot of assumptions and wishful thinking. He takes the tack that Hewlett was a great actor denied his place in the pantheon of American artists because of Americans' innate racism. Because white audiences laughed at Hewlett's mangling of Shakespeare; White labels them racists. (But would not I get laughs if I recited Shakespeare with a Brooklyn or a West Texas accent? Would not audiences laugh if I said in a dialect; "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of NEW York"? No doubt they would also laugh if I substituted the phrase "brass candlesticks" for the word "basilisks.") Later in the book; when comparing Hewlett with the far more successful black actor Ira Aldredge; he admits that Hewlett was barely literate and lacked the training that Aldredge had received. The impression I get from the actual evidence is that Hewlett's ambition exceeded his abilities. But White finds racism lurking everywhere and attributes all of Hewlett's misfortunes to it. Among the farfetched assertions is that one Jewish newspaperman; Mordecai Noah consciously created an offensive stereotype of blacks. I personally do not see how one man could CREATE a stereotype. White also characterizes New Yorkers' reaction to the uncivilized behavior of the newly freed slaves as racism; when it seems to me that it was only a natural reaction to bad manners; regardless of the color of the perpetrators. White makes outrageous statements throughout the book; using as supporting evidence still more unsubstantiated opinion and unsupported speculation. White apparently does not know the difference between active racism and an unconscious lack of political correctness. The book is also poorly edited and liberally peppered with sentence fragments. There ought to be a book on the artistic life of African Americans in the early years of the republic; but this book can only offer a frustrating glimpse into that world.
