Description
Book SynopsisDevelops an historical argument with contemporary relevance - Empire abroad inevitably undermines democracy at home. Focusing on France and to a lesser extent on the United Kingdom, this title shows how empire and the post-colony have pervaded - and corroded - Western cultural, intellectual, and social life from the mid-19th century onwards.
Trade Review“Herman Lebovics is one of the leading American cultural historians of France and a rare native of our shores whose work has been translated into French. People on both sides of the Atlantic will want to read these extremely interesting essays.”—Edward Berenson, Director of the Institute of French Studies, New York University
“[T]his volume is an important collection from a prominent historian that contributes to the critical history of imperialism. . . . [I]t is a useful and significant book. Lebovics provides several sophisticated ways in which we can see the inter-related history of the colonies and the metropole. His approach is wide ranging, linking cultural developments to specific political moments and economic processes.” -- Michael G. Vann * Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History *
Table of ContentsPreface ix
Acknowledgments xix
1. Not the Right Stuff: Shrinking Colonial Administrators 1
2. Pierre Bourdieu’s Own Cultural Revolution 22
3. Jean Renoir’s Voyage of Discovery: From the Shores of the Mediterranean to the Banks of the Ganges 34
4. France’s Black Venus 60
5. John Locke, Imperialism, and the First Stage of Capitalism 87
6. Why, Suddenly, are the Americans Doing Cultural History 100
Afterword 113
Notes 121
Selected Works of American Cultural History Writing 155
Index 159
