The Alchemy of Empire

Abject Materials and the Technologies of Colonialism

Rajani Sudan

Pages: 232

Fordham University Press
Fordham University Press

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Paperback / softback
ISBN: 9780823270682
Published: 01 June 2016
$25.00
Hardback
ISBN: 9780823270675
Published: 01 June 2016
$85.00
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ISBN: 9780823270699
Published: 01 June 2016
$27.99

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The Alchemy of Empire unravels the non-European origins of Enlightenment science. Focusing on the abject materials of empire-building, this study traces the genealogies of substances like mud, mortar, ice, and paper, as well as forms of knowledge like inoculation. Showing how East India Company employees deployed the paradigm of alchemy in order to make sense of the new worlds they confronted, Rajani Sudan argues that the Enlightenment was born largely out of Europe’s (and Britain’s) sense of insecurity and inferiority in the early modern world. Plumbing the depths of the imperial archive, Sudan uncovers the history of the British Enlightenment in the literary artifacts of the long eighteenth century, from the correspondence of the East India Company and the papers of the Royal Society to the poetry of Alexander Pope and the novels of Jane Austen.

“An intriguing book that brings together an array of literary and non-literary texts dealing with eighteenth-century British response to South Asian techne. Sudan is a significant voice in global eighteenth-century studies as well as a leading critic of Anglo-Indian Relations.”

- —Robert Markley
Rajani Sudan is Associate Professor of English at Southern Methodist University.