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Enlightened Colonialism

Civilization Narratives and Imperial Politics in the Age of Reason

Palgrave Macmillan

Editors:

  • Expands the debate on whether Enlightenment provided the cultural and intellectual origins of modern colonialism by exploring political and social practices
  • Brings together studies about the overseas empires of Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal as well as the continental empires of Russia and Austria
  • Explores the interaction and assimilationism between European, indigenous, creole, and mix-raced elites

Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies (CIPCSS)

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
  2. Introduction

    • Damien Tricoire
    Pages 1-22
  3. The Invention of the Enlightenment and the Return of Assimilationist Policy

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 23-23

About this book

This book further qualifies the postcolonial thesis and shows its limits. To reach these goals, it links text analysis and political history on a global comparative scale. Focusing on imperial agents, their narratives of progress, and their political aims and strategies, it asks whether Enlightenment gave birth to a new colonialism between 1760 and 1820.

Has Enlightenment provided the cultural and intellectual origins of modern colonialism? For decades, historians of political thought, philosophy, and literature have debated this question. On one side, many postcolonial authors believe that enlightened rationalism helped delegitimize non-European cultures. On the other side, some historians of ideas and literature are willing to defend at least some eighteenth-century philosophers whom they consider to have been “anti-colonialists”. Surprisingly enough, both sides have focused on literary and philosophical texts, but have rarely taken political and social practice into account.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Philosophische Fakultät I, Martin Luther Universität , Halle, Germany

    Damien Tricoire

About the editor

Damien Tricoire is Assistant Professor at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. He has published the following monographs: Mit Gott rechnen (2013; translated into French as La Vierge et le Roi, 2017), Falsche Freunde (2015, criticizing narratives of Enlightenment history). He has just completed a monograph on the topic “The Colonial Dream: Knowledge, Enlightenment, and the French-Malagasy Early Modern Encounters”.

Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access