Synopses & Reviews
In this important volume, Herman Lebovics, a preeminent cultural historian of France, develops a historical argument with striking contemporary relevance: empire abroad inevitably undermines democracy at home. These essays, which Lebovics wrote over the past decade, demonstrate the impressive intellectual range of his work. Focusing primarily on France and to a lesser extent on the United Kingdom, he shows how empire and its repercussions have pervadedandmdash;and corrodedandmdash;Western cultural, intellectual, and social life from the mid-nineteenth century to the present.
Some essays explore why modern Western democratic societies needed colonialism. Among these is an examination of the seventeenth-century philosopher John Lockeandrsquo;s prescient conclusion that liberalism could only control democratic forces with the promise of greater wealth enabled by empire. In other essays Lebovics considers the relation between overseas rule and domestic life. Discussing George Orwellandrsquo;s tale andldquo;Shooting an Elephantandrdquo; and the careers of two colonial officers (one British and one French), he contemplates the ruinous authoritarianism that develops among the administrators of empire. Lebovics considers Pierre Bourdieuandrsquo;s thinking about how colonialism affected metropolitan French life, and he reflects on the split between sociology and ethnology, which was partly based on a desire among intellectuals to think one way about metropolitan populations and another about colonial subjects. Turning to the arts, Lebovics traces how modernists used the colonial andldquo;exoticandrdquo; to escape the politicized and contested modernity of the urban West. Imperialism and the Corruption of Democracies is a compelling case for cultural history as a key tool for understanding the injurious effects of imperialism and its present-day manifestations within globalization.
Review
andldquo;Herman Lebovics is one of the leading American cultural historians of France and a rare native of our shores whose work has been translated into French. People on both sides of the Atlantic will want to read these extremely interesting essays.andrdquo;andmdash;Edward Berenson, Director of the Institute of French Studies, New York University
Review
andldquo;[T]his volume is an important collection from a prominent historian that contributes to the critical history of imperialism. . . . [I]t is a useful and significant book. Lebovics provides several sophisticated ways in which we can see the inter-related history of the colonies and the metropole. His approach is wide ranging, linking cultural developments to specific political moments and economic processes.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Claims that liberalism tends to produce empires and empire kills or corrupts democracy in metropolitan "home" countries, using examples from British, French, and American imperial histories.
About the Author
Herman Lebovics is Professor of History at Stony Brook University. He is the author of Bringing the Empire Back Home: France in the Global Age, also published by Duke University Press; Mona Lisaandrsquo;s Escort: Andrandeacute; Malraux and the Reinvention of French Culture; and True France: The Wars Over Cultural Identity, 1900andndash;1945.
Table of Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xix
1. Not the Right Stuff: Shrinking Colonial Administrators 1
2. Pierre Bourdieuandrsquo;s Own Cultural Revolution 22
3. Jean Renoirandrsquo;s Voyage of Discovery: From the Shores of the Mediterranean to the Banks of the Ganges 34
4. Franceandrsquo;s Black Venus 60
5. John Locke, Imperialism, and the First Stage of Capitalism 87
6. Why, Suddenly, are the Americans Doing Cultural History 100
Afterword 113
Notes 121
Selected Works of American Cultural History Writing 155
Index 159