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An Empire of Air and Water: Uncolonizable Space in the British Imagination, 1750-1850

An Empire of Air and Water: Uncolonizable Space in the British Imagination, 1750-1850

HistorySociology
Pages
304
Published
2015
Language
English

Synopsis

This academic work explores how uncolonizable planetary spaces like the poles, oceans, and atmosphere shaped the British imperial imagination between 1750 and 1850. It examines how British authors, including Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Dickens, depicted these 'atopias' in their literature. The book reveals how these literary representations reflected evolving attitudes toward the British Empire's expansion and literature's role within it, shedding light on the construction of British identity during a period of global change.

Prose complexity
10/10

Vibe

InformativeIntellectualThought-ProvokingComplex
Dark Academia

Genres

History Sociology

About the author

S
Siobhan Carroll

Siobhan Carroll, born in Vancouver in 1980, is a Canadian writer and professor of English at the University of Delaware, where she has taught since 2008 after earning her PhD at Indiana University Bloomington. She specializes in British literature of 1750-1850 and environmental humanities. Her nonfiction study An Empire of Air and Water: Uncolonizable Space in the British Imagination, 1750-1850 examines how the era imagined the poles, oceans, and atmosphere as spaces resistant to imperial contro...