Empire and Identity

Download or read book Empire and Identity written by Stephen H. Gregg and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2005-10-16 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology of primary material brings together literary and non-literary texts from the 18th century focusing on issues including commerce and colonialism. Britons' sense of identity in the 18th century see-sawed between embattled vulnerability and unassailable supremacy. Empire was crucial in shaping this, but contact with other peoples often threw into sharp relief or transformed this sense of identity. This book will be an essential resource for those studying this period; it traces these shifts in mood and the impact of imperial encounters in a variety of material, including poems, plays, speeches, letters, and accounts of travel, exploration and captivity.