Fiction of Imperialism (Writing Past Colonialism Series)

The Fiction of Imperialism attempts to promote dialogue between international relations and postcolonialism. It addresses the value of fiction to an inderstanding of the imperial relationship between the West and Asia and Africa. A wide range of fiction and crisicism is examined as it pertains to colonialism, the North/South engagement and contemporary Third World politics. The book begins by contrasting the treatment of cross-cultural relations in political studies and literary texts. It then examines the personal as a metaphor for the political in fiction depicting the imperial connection between Britain and India.

"Encyclopedia of the Literature of Empire" surveys the world's greatest literature about empires and imperialism, written by citizens of these empires and the colonized people who lived under their rule. More than 200 A-to-Z entries examine authors, classic works, themes, and concepts, all related to particular empires in history or the general topics of imperialism and colonialism. These concepts are increasingly important to literary studies today, and this new book will be a welcome addition for high school and college students interested in this literary movement.

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.

This scrupulously researched compendium provides a remarkable history of the period 1800 to 1914. But what makes the period, and therefore this book, especially vital is that the period of European imperialism 1800-1914 was so significant in shaping global politics in the twentieth century and even up to today.

Unlike most encyclopedias this volume has a brilliantly conceived unifying theme about the struggle for territory in Europe and beyond for over a hundred years. Carl Cavanagh Hodge is an excellent editor. He has brought together sixty scholars to define, describe and explain over 800 topics of imperialism. Hodge's excellent introductory synthesis of the period from 1800 to 1914 binds together the disparate subjects. He then indexes the book in such as way as to allow the reader to examine the historical entries from the point of view of concepts, treaties, alliances, geographical regions and countries, battles, institutions, leaders, statesmen, conflicts and wars.