The Lords of Human Kind: European Attitudes to Other Cultures in the Imperial Age

by KIERNAN V. G.

• ISBN13: 9781897959237
• ISBN10: 1897959230
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-03-01
• Publisher: Interlink Pub Group Inc

Summary

When European explorers went out into the world to open up trade routes and establish colonies, they brought back much more than silks and spices, cotton and tea. Inevitably, they came into contact with the peoples of other parts of the world and formed views of them, occasionally admiring, more often hostile or contemptuous.
Using a stunning array of sources - missionaries' memoirs, the letters of diplomats' wives, explorers' diaries and the work of writers as diverse as Voltaire, Thackeray, Oliver Goldsmith and, of course, Kipling - Victor Kiernan teases out the full range of European attitudes to other peoples. Erudite, ironic and global in its scope, The Lords of Human Kind has been a major influence on a generation of historians and cultural critics and is a landmark in the history of Eurocentrism. The legacy of colonial attitudes to other cultures is, of course, an integral part of the modern world, and the history of their formation is one which cannot be ignored.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface to the Serif Edition
Introduction
The Oldest Europe and its Neighbours	p. 1
The Late Middle Ages: Contraction and Expansion	p. 8
The Shape of Modern Europe	p. 12
Europe and the World: The Seventeenth-Century Interval	p. 16
The Eighteenth-Century Outlook	p. 20
The Nineteenth Century: World Domination	p. 23
India
Conquest and the Spoils	p. 33
Impulses of Reform	p. 37
British Isolation: Splendid or Perilous?	p. 43
The Mutiny and its Effects	p. 47
Rebuilding an Alien Power	p. 53
Missionaries and Indian Religion	p. 64
Imperfect Sympathies	p. 70
Other Colonies in Asia
The British in Ceylon	p. 79
The British in Burma	p. 81
The British in Malaya	p. 85
The Netherlands East Indies	p. 91
French Indochina	p. 95
Russia in Asia	p. 101
The Islamic World
Turkey	p. 112
Tourists in the Near East	p. 119
Egypt and North Africa	p. 122
Persia	p. 126
The Oriental Scene: Despotism, Hubble-Bubble, Harem	p. 135
Christianity and Islam	p. 143
The Far East
China: An Illusion Fading	p. 152
Celestial Empire and Foreign Barbarian	p. 155
Foreign Residents in China	p. 161
Estimates of the Chinese Character	p. 165
Growth of Chinese Xenophobia	p. 171
The Yellow Peril	p. 177
Korea, Tibet, Siam	p. 179
The Opening of Japan	p. 181
Western Opinions of the Japanese	p. 187
Africa
Africans in Europe	p. 203
Africans in the Americas	p. 205
The Slave Trade and its Suppression	p. 210
Europeans in Western Africa	p. 214
Europeans in Eastern Africa	p. 221
Southern Africa: the Conflict of Races	p. 229
Belgians and Germans	p. 235
White Settlers	p. 238
The 'Child-Races' and their Reaction	p. 242
The South Seas
Free Love on Tahiti	p. 255
Decorum on the Lewchew Islands	p. 260
White Savages and Brown in the Pacific	p. 263
Missionary Influence and Western Rule	p. 267
New Zealand and the Maoris	p. 273
Australia and the Aborigines	p. 276
Latin America
Independence: White Man and Indian	p. 286
Imitation Europe or New World?	p. 294
Spanish America through European Eyes	p. 302
Brazil and the Democracy of Races	p. 308
Decadence and the Dictators	p. 312
Conclusion	p. 325
Index	p. 339
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.