The Stillbirth of Capital

by Ahmed, Siraj

• ISBN13: 9780804775236
• ISBN10: 0804775230
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-12-14
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

This book targets one of the humanities' most widely held premises: namely, that the European Enlightenment laid the groundwork for modern imperialism. It argues instead that the Enlightenment's vision of empire calls our own historical and theoretical paradigms into question. While eighteenth-century British India has not received nearly the same attention as nineteenth- and twentieth-century empires, it is the place where colonial rule and Enlightenment reason first became entwined. The Stillbirth of Capitalmakes its case by examining every work about British India written by a major author from 1670 to 1815, a period that coincides not only with the Enlightenment but also with the institution of a global economy. Such authors as Dryden, Defoe, Voltaire, Sterne, Smith, Bentham, Burke, Sheridan, and Scott locate modernity's roots not in the birth of capital but rather in the collusion of sovereign power and corporate wealth to finance the unfathomable costs of modern war. Ahmed reveals the pertinence of eighteenth-century writing to our own moment of danger, when the military alliance of hegemonic states and private corporations has become even more far-reaching than it was in centuries past.

Author Biography

Siraj Ahmed is Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Lehman College, City University of New York.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction: The Enlightenment and Colonial India	p. 1
Commerce(1670-1760)
Sovereignty and Monopoly: Dryden's Amboyna	p. 25
Conversion and Piracy: Defoe's Captain Singleton	p. 51
CONQUEST (176O-I790)
Sentiment and Debt: Sterne's Bramine's Journal and Foote's Nabob	p. 77
Free Trade and Famine: The Wealth of Nations and Bentham's "Essay"	p. 106
Nation and Addiction: Burke's and Sheridan's Speeches in the Hastings Impeachment	p. 134
PROGRESS (1790-1815)
Orientalism and the Permanent Fix of War: Voltaire contra Sir William Jones	p. 161
History, Anachronism, Violence: Morgan's Missionary and Scott's Guy Mannering	p. 189
Notes	p. 223
Bibliography	p. 251
Index	p. 281
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