Informal Empire in Latin America
Culture, Commerce and Capital
Bulletin of Latin American Research Book Series
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
Acknowledgements.
About the Cover Images.
Contributor Biographies.
Introduction (Matthew Brown, University of Bristol).
1. Rethinking British Informal Empire in Latin America
(Especially Argentina) (Alan Knight, St. Antony's College,
Oxford).
2. The British in Argentina: From Informal Empire to
Postcolonialism (David Rock, University of California).
3. Commercial Christianity: The British and Foreign Bible
Society's Interest in Spanish America, 1805-1830 (Karen
Racine, University of Guelph).
4. Britain, the Argentine and Informal Empire: Rethinking the
Role of Railway Companies (Colin M. Lewis, London School of
Economics and Political Science).
5. Finance, Ambition and Romanticism in the River Plate,
1880-1892 (Charles Jones, University of Cambridge).
6. Appropriating the 'Unattainable': The British
Travel Experience in Patagonia (Fernanda Peñaloza, University
of Manchester).
7. 'Weapons of the Weak?' Colombia and Foreign
Powers in the Nineteenth Century (Malcolm Deas, St. Antony's
College, Oxford).
8. 'Literature Can Be Our Teacher': Reading Informal
Empire in El inglés de los güesos (Jennifer L. French,
Williams College, USA).
9. The Artful Seductions of Informal Empire (Louise Guenther,
Universidade Federale de Minas Gerais, Brazil).
10. Afterword: Informal Empire: Past, Present and Future (Andrew
Thompson, University of Leeds).
References.
Index.
University of Bristol. He is the author of Adventuring through
Spanish Colonies: Simón Bolívar, Foreign Mercenaries and
the Birth of New Nations (2006).
