Cart
Free US shipping over $10
Proud to be B-Corp

China and the Victorian Imagination Ross G. Forman (University of Warwick)

China and the Victorian Imagination By Ross G. Forman (University of Warwick)

China and the Victorian Imagination by Ross G. Forman (University of Warwick)


Summary

Studies of the literature of the British imperialism too often focus on India to the exclusion of other areas. This book redresses the balance by demonstrating how integral China and the Chinese were to the British imagination and to globalization, literature, aesthetics and popular culture from the 1840s to 1911.

China and the Victorian Imagination Summary

China and the Victorian Imagination: Empires Entwined by Ross G. Forman (University of Warwick)

What happens to our understanding of 'orientalism' and imperialism when we consider British-Chinese relations during the nineteenth century, rather than focusing on India, Africa or the Caribbean? This book explores China's centrality to British imperial aspirations and literary production, underscoring the heterogeneous, interconnected nature of Britain's formal and informal empire. To British eyes, China promised unlimited economic possibilities, but also posed an ominous threat to global hegemony. Surveying anglophone literary production about China across high and low cultures, as well as across time, space and genres, this book demonstrates how important location was to the production, circulation and reception of received ideas about China and the Chinese. In this account, treaty ports matter more than opium. Ross G. Forman challenges our preconceptions about British imperialism, reconceptualizes anglophone literary production in the global and local contexts, and excavates the little-known Victorian history so germane to contemporary debates about China's 'rise'.

China and the Victorian Imagination Reviews

'... an immensely valuable and rewarding piece of scholarship.' Mia Chen, Review 19
'Ross Forman's China and the Victorian Imagination compellingly exposes China's critical role in Britain's imperial self-fashioning ... What Forman does exceptionally well - and what is perhaps the most important work of his book - is his careful but firm revision of a concept of Orientalism that has proven increasingly outdated and faulty.' Shanyn Fiske, Journal of British Studies

About Ross G. Forman (University of Warwick)

Ross Forman is Associate Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick.

Table of Contents

Introduction: topsy-turvy Britain and China; 1. The manners and customs of the modern Chinese: narrating China through the treaty ports; 2. Projecting from Possession Point: James Dalziel's chronicles of Hong Kong; 3. Peking plots: representing the Boxer Rebellion of 1900; 4. Britain 'knit and nationalised': Asian invasion novels in Britain, 1898-1914; 5. Staging the celestial; 6. A cockney Chinatown: the literature of Limehouse, London; Conclusion: no rest for the West.

Additional information

NLS9781316600993
9781316600993
1316600998
China and the Victorian Imagination: Empires Entwined by Ross G. Forman (University of Warwick)
New
Paperback
Cambridge University Press
2016-01-21
318
Joint winner of Sonya Rudikoff Prize, Northeast Victorian Studies Association 2013
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a new book - be the first to read this copy. With untouched pages and a perfect binding, your brand new copy is ready to be opened for the first time

Customer Reviews - China and the Victorian Imagination