The Inner Life of Empires

by Rothschild, Emma

• ISBN13: 9780691148953
• ISBN10: 0691148953
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-05-09
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

They were abolitionists, speculators, slave owners, government officials, and occasional politicians. They were observers of the anxieties and dramas of empire. And they were from one family.The Inner Life of Empirestells the intimate history of the Johnstones--four sisters and seven brothers who lived in Scotland and around the globe in the fast-changing eighteenth century. Piecing together their voyages, marriages, debts, and lawsuits, and examining their ideas, sentiments, and values, renowned historian Emma Rothschild illuminates a tumultuous period that created the modern economy, the British Empire, and the philosophical Enlightenment. One of the sisters joined a rebel army, was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle, and escaped in disguise in 1746. Her younger brother was a close friend of Adam Smith and David Hume. Another brother was fluent in Persian and Bengali, and married to a celebrated poet. He was the owner of a slave known only as "Bell or Belinda," who journeyed from Calcutta to Virginia, was accused in Scotland of infanticide, and was the last person judged to be a slave by a court in the British isles. In Grenada, India, Jamaica, and Florida, the Johnstones embodied the connections between European, American, and Asian empires. Their family history offers insights into a time when distinctions between the public and private, home and overseas, and slavery and servitude were in constant flux. Based on multiple archives, documents, and letters,The Inner Life of Empireslooks at one family's complex story to describe the origins of the modern political, economic, and intellectual world.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Ideas and Sentiments	p. 1
Setting Out	p. 11
The Four Sisters and Seven Brothers	p. 15
Difficult Circumstances	p. 23
Tragic News from the Indias	p. 29
The Frontiers of Empire in the West	p. 34
Small Congratulatory Elephants	p. 45
Coming Home	p. 59
The Finances of the Family	p. 60
The Politics of the East and West Indies	p. 68
The Arts and Sciences of Enlightenment	p. 76
The Ruins of the Indies	p. 80
Intran Bell alias Belinda	p. 87
Joseph Knight	p. 91
Ending and Loss	p. 97
The Detritus of Empire	p. 99
The James Johnstones	p. 105
Indian Yellow Satin	p. 109
The Treasurer	p. 112
Distant Destinies	p. 116
Economic Lives	p. 121
Possible Empires	p. 125
What Is the State?	p. 131
What Was, and What Was Not Law	p. 137
A Society of Persons	p. 141
A Moderate Empire	p. 146
Economic Theories	p. 148
Experiences of Empire	p. 154
Slavery in the British Empire	p. 154
ôThis Age of Informationö	p. 170
Family Histories	p. 185
Connections of Things	p. 197
Intimate Lives	p. 202
What Is Enlightenment?	p. 210
The Sect of Philosophers	p. 211
The Milieux of Enlightenment: Books and Booksellers	p. 220
Legal Information	p. 224
Clerks and Clerics	p. 231
The Milieux of Political Thought	p. 239
The Atmosphere of Society	p. 247
The Enlightenment of the Johnstones	p. 252
The Coexistence of Enlightenment and Oppression	p. 258
Histories of Sentiments	p. 263
The Eye of the Mind	p. 263
The History of the Human Mind	p. 266
Family Secrets	p. 270
The Discontinuity of Size and Scenes	p. 277
The Incompleteness of Information	p. 279
Other People	p. 284
The Johnstones and the Mind	p. 285
Intran Bell alias Belinda	p. 291
Other People	p. 299
Acknowledgments	p. 303
Appendix	p. 307
Abbreviations	p. 309
Notes	p. 311
Maps	p. 463
Index	p. 469
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