Empires of the Imagination
Politics, War, and the Arts in the British World, 1750-1850
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
Between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, Britain evolved from a substantial international power yet relative artistic backwater into a global superpower and a leading cultural force in Europe. In this original and wide-ranging book, Hoock illuminates the manifold ways in which the culture of power and the power of culture were interwoven in this period of dramatic change.
Britons invested artistic and imaginative effort to come to terms with the loss of the American colonies; to sustain the generation-long fight against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France; and to assert and legitimate their growing empire in India. Demonstrating how Britain fought international culture wars over prize antiquities from the Mediterranean and Near East, the book explores how Britons appropriated ancient cultures from the Mediterranean, the Near East, and India, and casts a fresh eye on iconic objects such as the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon Marbles.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hoock, an associate professor in British history and founding director of the 18th Century Worlds Centre at the University of Liverpool, provides a thorough examination of Britain as a world power in this dense yet accessible anthology of that country's reign. From 1750 to 1850, Britain built an empire that was much more than a military achievement. It absorbed and collected the cultures of America, Egypt, the Middle East, and India. The loss of the American colonies stimulated the need for didactic art and, as England perfected culture building, they employed not only grand ceremony (such as Coronation Day), but also painting, writing, sculpture, music, and architecture to create a unique civilization. Official monuments, such as those to Trafalgar and Waterloo, raised armies by fostering patriotism and emulation. At the same time, the British began "collecting" treasures, not only to prevent their acquisition by other European powers, but to also increase national pride, preserve antiquities, and corroborate the Bible. Hoock clearly shows the culture of power and the power of that culture in this amazingly-detailed scholarly work.
