Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

Supporting your high street Find out how »
Messy Beginnings : Postcoloniality and Early American Studies, Paperback / softback Book

Messy Beginnings : Postcoloniality and Early American Studies Paperback / softback

Edited by Malini Johar Schueller, Edward Watts

Paperback / softback

Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks

Description

When exploring the links between America and postcolonialism, scholars tend to think either in terms of contemporary multiculturalism, or of imperialism since 1898.  This narrow view has left more than the two prior centuries of colonizing literary and political culture unexamined. Messy Beginnings challenges the idea of early America’s immunity from issues of imperialism, that its history is not as “clean” as European colonialism.  By addressing  the literature ranging from the diaries of American women missionaries in the Middle East to the work of Benjamin Franklin and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and through appraisals of key postcolonial theorists such as Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha, the contributors to this volume explore the applicability of their models to early American culture.  Messy Beginnings argues against the simple concept that the colonization of what became the United States was a confrontation between European culture and the “other.”  Contributors examine the formation of America through the messy or unstable negotiations of the idea of “nation.” The essays forcefully show that the development of  “Americanness” was a raced and classed phenomenon, achieved through a complex series of violent encounters, legal maneuvers, and political compromises.   The complexity of early American colonization, where there was not one coherent “nation” to conquer, contradicts the simple label of imperialism used in other lands. The unique approach of Messy Beginnings will reshape both pre-conceived notions of postcolonialism, and how postcolonialists think about the development of the American nation.

Information

Save 2%

£32.00

£31.15

Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
Add to Basket
Sign in to add to wishlist
 
Free Home Delivery

on all orders

 
Pick up orders

from local bookshops

Information