Secondary Sources - Essay Example

Secondary sources analysis paper Outline Introduction 2. The relationship between ‘collecting’ and post colonialism 3. Usage of Alternative Sources to Illuminate the Historical Processes Explored in the Course 4. Conclusion Secondary Sources Analysis Paper Introduction The book to be analysed in this assignment is Edge of Empire by Maya Jasanoff. This is an imaginative book, which uncovers the unusual tales of collectors who lived in the British Empire frontiers of Egypt and India.1 The frontiers were tracing their exploits to record the intimate history of imperialism. The author of the book delves into the grand tales of exploitation, power and resistance to colonialism. It was researched and written on four continents. The title edge of empire portrays a world lived by people who loved each other, mingled and identified each other as brothers and sisters. The book demonstrates how the traces of this world remain topical and tangible up to date.2 The book has been written using a provocative, persuasive, and innovative history work to support its thesis. The relationship between ‘collecting’ and post colonialism This study is going to construct a relationship between Jasanoff’s main argument of ‘collecting’ as a way of encountering East and West and post colonialism, which is one of the theme discussed in class. The book has called into the question of postcolonial evaluation by adopting a stereotypical view of Europeans in their relationship with Asians and Africans. Jasanoff goes further to argue against extremes of postcolonial scholarships. For instance, Jasanoff explains, “the imperial project was not a simple play out but the history of collecting reveals the complexities of empire; it shows how power and culture intersected in tangled, contingent, sometimes self-contradictory ways. Instead of seeing “collecting” as a manifestation of imperial power, I see the British Empire itself as a kind of collection: pieced together and gaining definition over time, shaped by a range of circumstances, accidents, and intentions. (p. 23).3 Jasanoff has demonstrated how every generation concerning itself with British Empire history has sought to reassess it based on the dynamic attitudes and circumstances. Today, emphasis is laid on ‘otherness’ and fusion as well border multiculturalism to favor a benign recollection of the past according to Jasanoff. Jasanoff stumbled a new look of the empire be accident. She was studying European collectors in India and Egypt who bought or plundered the artifacts of the ancient cultures that they came across and transported them to Europe.4 In the course of her esoteric study, she realized the ill-tutored mania of the imperial collectors as a metaphor that led to the formation of the Empire. This encompassed the haphazard acquisition of territories that founded the lineaments of a distinct imperial pattern with a hindsight benefit. This course also illustrates how colonialists exploited their colonies leaving behind a permanent mark which is portrayed today through post colonialism like the rich remaining rich and the poor remaining poor. Jasanoff’s collectors were fully possessed of passion to accumulate from other cultures. Their bizarre collections had an underlying purpose. Since they came from uncertain shallow rooted origins, they were refashioning their look to reform themselves in their adopted nations with a different social status.5 Jasanoff has illustrated this idea by highlighting how Britain acquired distant territories to change and reinvent the empire, the ambitions, and the attitudes of the imperial homeland. This demonstration produces a riveting original work by Jasanoff, which gives a fresh dimension to the reader’s understanding of how the British Empire was created and expanded.6 The author demonstrates a sheer excitement through her narration of the unusual extraordinary figure that came as a result of Europe principalities to work within the embryonic imperial system. The title “edge of empire” contains a threefold purpose. It portrays the distant geographic frontier of Egypt and India to the frontier of a certain imperial time as well as to the peripheral nature of the author’s chosen participants. In addition, the work contains three overlapping topics, which are knitted together in a clever and tenuous way. First, collectors of 18th century India are portrayed and the post-Napoleonic Egypt. Second the inter-related British interventions in countries during the France conflict after French revolution is highlighted.7 Jasanoff’s work has opened the lives and collections of three rich friends who are associated with Indian rulers of the 18th century. The friends are Polier; a Swiss engineer from Lausanne, Lucknow, and Robert Clive. Laussane and Clive fought endlessly till Clive became a rich trader who devoted his free time to collect manuscripts in Sanskrit both Arabic and Persian.8 His friend Claude ended up a collector in Lucknow after migrating to India from Lille French as an officer. He ended up a collector because of the European 18th century collectivism, which assembled books, paintings, natural history specimen and coins with an intention of stealing from other cultures. Benoît de Boigne who was a solder of fortune collected guns, swords and daggers.9 Jasanoff has intertwined her chronicles to illustrate the nawabs that were served and became renowned collectors afterwards and the Indians who were staid in the empire of the 19th century. She has reminded the readers of her work the vulnerable collections as the gate pass to imperial territories acquisition. The book has discussed the Anglo-French wars of the 1790s in depth.10 This is during the seizure of Egypt as the key to India by Napoleon as well the British overthrowing of the pro-French Maratha kingdom. These conflicts are the revolutionary-Napoleonic wars, which led to the introduction of territorial era. It as well endows the British with a heightened sense of imperial purpose. For instance, Jasanoff describes them as conflicts of the "revolutionary-Napoleonic wars".11 The effects of post wars like enmity have been discussed in this course as well. Usage of Alternative Sources to Illuminate the Historical Processes Explored in the Course Jasanoff has used alternative sources in her work to illuminate the historical processes, which are explored in this course. She has focused on ‘collecting’ as a way of encountering the East and the West.12 Her work is innovative and investigative of various museum catalogs, government records, collected artifacts and diaries among others. Her analysis of the territories acquisition is very unique and original. She has begun with the acquisition of Bengal of the British East India Company before following the careers of the collectors, and how the Raj emerged. Her approach shifts chronologically as she approaches the 1800 to start focusing on the wars of Britain and France to Egypt.13 Jasanoff decided to change the geographic focus to assert that the British imperial expansion was never a project, but a strategic response to France’s rivalry. This is the reason why Jasanoff moves between Egypt and India in her work. She has demonstrated historical evidence if this claim from the involvement of François Dupleixs in the 1740’s Hyderabad to the invasion of Egypt by Napoleon in 1798. Jasanoff’s most agents were bureaucracies or imperial armies whose primary mission of collecting was curiosity instead of imperial expansions. These were enlightened children whose motives were intellectual and aesthetic. Jasanoff used such aesthetic evidence from the family of Bengal the conqueror, Edward the governor of madras and son of Robert Clive among others. These men were devoted to the collection of material culture; hence they were a good target for evidence required by Jasanoff to complete her work. For instance, four men were led by Lady Henrietta Clive to undertake a majestic trip to the Southern India in 1800 where they collected weapons, fauna, flora and porcelain among other material cultures.14 Jasanoff has analyzed this episode in an instructive way, instead of emphasizing power disparities she has put more emphasis on the personal aspect. For instance, the collection of Lady Clive reflects her class as an aristocratic member and the political position she holds in the society being a governor’s wife. Lady Clive’s gender became the province of women of the time after her collection of fauna and flora. Her gender reflects her recent family history to date. Jasanoff has laid more emphasis on personal perspective rather than political to enable her shift the focus to Egypt, which is regarded to be the famous archaeological site looted by the British. She has explained the rivalry between Bernardino Drovetti, the French vice-consul and Henry Salt, the British consul in Egypt. The author explains, "For Henry Salt, collecting antiquities was to be a way of attaining social prominence in Britain; for Drovetti, it was a means to money, power, and influence in a France he had never seen" (234). According to Jasanoff, Henry collected antiquities to attain social prominence in Britain while Drovetti collected antiquities to get money, power and influence in France.15 This course emphasize on the need to complement primary data with secondary data in researches for the sake of validity and reliability. Jasanoff has used Napoleon and Clive as great appropriators of foreign artifacts to accomplish her work, especially in the final section of the book dealing with the Anglo-French rivalry due to the acquisition of Egypt from Pharaoh. The story of individuals who were responsible for the creation of the great Egyptian galleries at the Louvre and the British Museum has been a success through the use of two great appropriators. For instance, Jasanoff illustrates, The Egyptian collections were effectively the first public collection to arrive at the British Museum, acquired by the nation, for the nation. (p. 404). 16 The collections of Napoleon were set at Cairo by the French capitulation in 1801. He highlights how the British claimed the great monuments for London like Rosetta stone that had been prepared by the French for removal to Paris. Conclusion She concludes her work by emphasizing the necessity of humanity realizing successful international relationships17. Despite the positive appraisals given to Jasanoff’s work, she has been criticized of having a restricted timescale, having a narrow focus directed toward the super rich among others. Despite all, Edge of Empire by Maya Jasanoff remains a wonderful, original and innovative work molded into a convincing story. The British Empire is transformed and it will never look the same. Bibliography Jasanoff Maya. Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture, and Conquest in the East, 1750-1850. New York: Vintage, 2006. Read More