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Informal Empire in Latin America: Culture, Commerce and Capital

ISBN: 978-1-405-17932-4

April 2008

Wiley-Blackwell

288 pages

Description
An interdisciplinary interrogation of the concept of British ‘informal empire’ in Latin America.
  • Builds upon recent advances in the historiography of imperialism and studies of the nineteenth-century modern world, most obviously the work of Ann Stoler, Catherine Hall and C.A. Bayly
  • Combines a comparative perspective with the juxtaposition of political economy, cultural history, gendered and postcolonial approaches
  • By proposing and debating alternative explanatory models, the book breathes new life into the flagging concept of ‘informal empire’
  • Illuminates the study of British imperialism, from which Latin America is usually conspicuous only by its absence, and provides a broad and sound basis for interpreting the complex processes of nation-building and state-formation in Latin America
  • Includes essays by scholars who have been shaping the debate for several decades, alongside work by a younger generation of researchers keen to re-conceptualise and re-assess the roles of commerce and culture in shaping informal empire
About the Author
Matthew Brown is a Lecturer in Latin American Studies at the University of Bristol. He is the author of Adventuring through Spanish Colonies: Simón Bolívar, Foreign Mercenaries and the Birth of New Nations (2006).
Features

  • An interdisciplinary interrogation of the concept of British ‘informal empire’ in Latin America
  • Builds upon recent advances in the historiography of imperialism and studies of the nineteenth-century modern world, most obviously the work of Ann Stoler, Catherine Hall and C.A. Bayly
  • Combines a comparative perspective with the juxtaposition of political economy, cultural history, gendered and postcolonial approaches
  • By proposing and debating alternative explanatory models, the book breathes new life into the flagging concept of ‘informal empire’
  • Illuminates the study of British imperialism, from which Latin America is usually conspicuous only by its absence, and provides a broad and sound basis for interpreting the complex processes of nation-building and state-formation in Latin America
  • Includes essays by scholars who have been shaping the debate for several decades, alongside work by a younger generation of researchers keen to re-conceptualise and re-assess the roles of commerce and culture in shaping informal empire