England's Internal Colonies

In England's Internal Colonies , Netzloff examines how the literature and discursive practices of English colonialism emerged as an extension of internal colonialist ventures in regions of England, Scotland and Ireland. Netzloff argues that England's internal and overseas colonies were linked together as a result of a perceived crisis concerning the social position of England's labouring poor, an expanding underclass which found itself at the centre of both the anxieties and aspirations of colonial projects. Through an analysis of texts by Shakespeare, Jonson, Heywood, Speed and others, Netzloff discusses the interconnections between class and colonialism in relation to such topics as piracy, vagrancy, colonial labour practices, mercantilism and early modern capitalism, the status of gypsies, and the colonization of the Anglo-Scottish Borders and Ulster.

• Britain
• capitalism
• colonialism
• colonization
• England
• English literature
• Great Britain
• history
• history of literature
• Imperialism
• literature
• modern history
• Scotland
• William Shakespeare
• British and Irish Literature

"England's Internal Colonies provides a valuable study of the impact of England's colonial ventures in the Mediterranean and the atlantic on what Netzloff defines as 'the internal colonialism' within Britain and Ireland. The balance between the chapters, the firm grounding in the Marxist critique of imperialism, and a challenging theory of 'nationhood' make this book important for both literary scholars and early modern historians. It is to Netzloff's credit that England's Internal Colonies succeeds in balancing careful historical research with literary analysis: the fascinating examination of The Tempest is a case in point." - Nabil Matar, Florida Institute of Technology

"In England's Internal Colonies, Mark Netzloff employs an imaginative and original approach to problems of fundamental historical importance in the early modern period. With an impressive and deft command of historical scholarship, and a similarly broad immersion in a range of primary sources, including archival materials, ballads, plays, maps, and a variety of prose tracts, Netzloff demonstrates the connections between internal and external events, shedding light on the process and nature of overseas expansion and colonization in these formative decades by embedding external events within a shifting national context. England's Internal Colonies represents an extraordinary accomplishment." - Alison Games, Department of History, Georgetown University

MARK NETZLOFF is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

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