The Island Race: Englishness, Empire and Gender in the Eighteenth Century

by Kathleen Wilson

Book Overview

Rooted in a period of vigorous exploration and colonialism, The Island Race: Englishness, empire and gender in the eighteenth century is an innovative study of the issues of nation, gender and identity. Wilson bases her analysis on a wide range of case studies drawn both from Britain and across the Atlantic and Pacific worlds.

Creating a colourful and original colonial landscape, she considers topics such as:

* sodomy
* theatre
*...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415158966
• ISBN13: 9780415158961
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 298 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Civilization in Scare Quotes

I have to respond to the poster who had a problem with my use of "scare quotes" around civilization and used me as evidence that eighteenth-century historical discussions were in a sorry state. I used quotes because the dictionary definition of "civilization" is "those who have reached a high level of social organization". If the reader is familiar with eighteenth-century sources, he or she would know that I was putting it in quotes to make the point that I was not agreeing with the dominant eighteenth-century Western European view that their "civilization" was superior to the "savagery" of non-whites. I don't know why using quotes to distance myself from that view is controversial unless this reader is denying high levels of social advancement to the highly sophisticated social structures of non-Europeans of the eighteenth-century. Anyone remotely familiar with the intellectual history of the past twenty years would know that there is agreement among historians that "civilization" is a subjected, loaded, and constructed term meaning different things to different people and usually employed in the service of imperialism e.g., the war w/ Iraq is a "a clash of civilizations": Some reviewers are clearly more interested in their own ideological agenda than making any real comments about Wilson's work, and although I've taken the time to engage with their dubious comments, I have to say that the real star remains the book, which was widely acclaimed as the most innovative work being done about the eighteenth-century at the present time, despite the reader's assertion that its importance has been exaggerated. Furthermore, it IS a beautifully written book, which is a subjective opinion, despite what the reader authoritatively and patronizingly asserted about its "workmanlike" prose. I hardly think that anyone having actually read the book could possibly call this "workmanlike": (p. 168) The scandalous woman, rebel and outcast, had nevertheless achieved success by eighteenth-century standards, within the territorial and imaginative space of the British West Indies. Her mobility and survival depended upon the ebbs and flows of the Atlantic interculture, where reputation was a commodity, opportunism a virtue and self-fashioning a necessity, a transculture whose inventions, practices and identities did not begin and end at national borders." How does that measure up to the utilitarian, boring, prosaic implications of calling Wilson's writing "workmanlike" prose? I suggest further posts actually talk about the book's issues, and I apologize that I didn't, but I felt compelled to respond to some of the comments going around.

Important Contribution

I must take issue with the reviewer from "Marseilles" regarding his or her accusation that the "Island Race" is more about twenty-first century political correctness than eighteenth-century history. Should the reviewer have actually read the book, or the sources the work consulted, or be at all well-versed in eighteenth-century history, he or she would know that one does not have to superimpose questions about gender, sexuality, or identity on eighteenth-century texts. In fact, as Wilson has masterfully demonstrated, these preoccupations were central to eighteenth-century thinkers. If you read extensively from period sources, you will see that citizens of Britain in the 18th century were quite worried about how their expanding Empire would impact British Idenity and the ways in which race, gender, sexuality played a part in their self-definition as bastions of "civilization" and "order" over chaos and unrestrained sexuality. This isn't something Wilson invented to be "trendy". Rather, she's at the forefront of a revolution in history whereby these questions, so important to people of the time period she examined and yet dismissed as trivial by historians of the nineteenth and twentieth century, become crucial to our understanding of what national identity meant to ordinary people-then and now. I think it's important people who really want to understand history keep that in mind.

Britons beyond Britain

This is a perfect complement to L. Colley's BRITONS! Wilson adds a great deal to our understanding of British identity in these crucial years. By looking to the edges and images of empire she is able to show how Britishness was created and defined far from the island of Great Britain. This book is beautifully written and forcefully argued and was extremely popular with my students last year. The idea that Captain Cook, the Theatre, or the navy are politically correct is silly. Perhaps including women in an account of the 1700s is just too modern for some.

Brilliant History

I have to disagree with the author of the other review. Kathleen Wilson's book is a superb addition to the history of British imperialism, nationality, and gender. To call the historicity "trendy" is to overlook the massive archival research that Prof. Wilson did. It is a wonderful enquiry that shows the changes wrought by modernity and the eighteenth century. Further, the book is beautifully written with careful, non-jargony prose. Her work, along with Linda Colley, Colin Kidd, and others, has blown the lid off of old notions of nationhood and empire.