Geographies of an Imperial Power: The British World, 1688–1815 PDF
Preview Geographies of an Imperial Power: The British World, 1688–1815
GEOGRAPHIES OF AN IMPERIAL POWER J E R E MY B L AC K GEOGRAPH I ES OF AN I M PERIAL POWER The British World, 1688–1815 Indiana University Press This book is a publication of The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the Indiana University Press American National Standard for Infor- Office of Scholarly Publishing mation Sciences—Permanence of Paper Herman B Wells Library 350 for Printed Library Materials, ANSI 1320 East 10th Street Z39.48–1992. Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA Manufactured in the United States of iupress.indiana.edu America © 2018 by Jeremy Black Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress. All rights reserved ISBN 978-0-253-03157-0 (cloth) No part of this book may be reproduced ISBN 978-0-253-03158-7 (paperback) or utilized in any form or by any means, ISBN 978-0-253-03159-4 (ebook) electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any 1 2 3 4 5 23 22 21 20 19 18 information storage and retrieval sys- tem, without permission in writing from the publisher. For David Starkey CONTENTS Preface ix List of Abbreviations xvii 1. Accumulating Knowledge 1 2. The Spatial Matrix of Military and Political Power 43 3. Territorialization and the Mapping of Authority 77 4. The Public Sphere 99 5. The Debate on Tourism, Religion, and Culture 152 6. Responding to Novelty 169 7. Responding to the Transoceanic World 190 8. Responding to Coal and Commerce 226 9. Geographies in Retrospect 245 10. Conclusions 264 Selected Further Reading 277 Index 281 PREFACE Geography, power, world—each is a potent word. What they repre- sented were closely related in the eighteenth century and should be linked in order to offer an account of key developments then. These developments, moreover, are still relevant today, as modern states struggle to understand the contemporary world and to reconcile ideologies, interests, and geopoli- tics in a world that is globalized. Similarly, as the eighteenth-century world had to adjust to its own possibilities and tensions of globalization, albeit a very different globalization to that of the twenty-first century. Interest in eighteenth-century Britain in developments across the world reflected an awareness of the globalization of that period, and an attempt to adapt to, and mold, this world was central to the geographical awareness of the period. Furthermore, as both experience and perception, geography in the eighteenth century meant even more than it does today, as subsequent technologies of travel that have helped overcome distance, both in reality and in symbolic terms, notably air travel, were still in the future and an aspect of fantasy. In practice, however, geography and geopolitics remain highly significant today, and there has been a recent revival in writing about geopolitics.1 This book will probe power in the eighteenth-century British world, its understanding and use, by looking at the spatial character and under- standing of this power and of the related power relationships. To adopt a useful modern distinction, this will be done both for hard power, in the ix
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