Racism, Imperialism, and the Traveler's Gaze in Eighteenth-Century England

Abstract

These creative acts compose, within a historical period, a specific community: a community visible in the structure of feeling and demonstrable, above all, in fundamental choices of form.I had become convinced … that the most penetrating analysis would always be of forms, specifically literary forms, where changes of viewpoint, changes of known and knowable relationships, changes of possible and actual resolutions, could be directly demonstrated, as forms of literary organization, and then, just because they involved more than individual solutions, could be reasonably related to a real social history. [Raymond Williams]In the waning years of the seventeenth century Sir William Petty, F.R.S., a talented statistician, champion of trade and commerce, and “projector” of schemes for national betterment, drew up a plan to cope with what he, at least, saw as a major problem. Petty had observed that there were large numbers of English youth from respectable families who had not the leisure, money, nor opportunity to travel to foreign countries. He was concerned that these worthy young men would miss the chance to develop the expansive faculty of mind and commercial acumen that foreign travel provided and national progress demanded. The crux of his scheme was that these youths would repair to London, where they would encounter businessmen around the Royal Exchange “who have fresh concerne & correspondance with all parts of the knowne world & with all the Commodityes growing or made within the same.”

Scenic tourism on the northeastern borderland: Lake Memphremagog's steamboat excursions and resort hotels, 1850–1900

“…110 But it did also play an important role on the largely Quebec shores of scenic Lake Memphremagog where, inspired by the literature published by genteel British travelers beginning in the eighteenth century, tourism promoters emphasized the picturesque and sublime views as a means of convincing potential customers that they would not simply be consumers engaging in a leisure activity but 'sensitive lovers of scenery.' 111 In addition to the convivial atmosphere aboard its steamers and in its resort hotels, selling features for Lake Memphremagog were its fresh air, clear cool water, and relative freedom from black flies and mosquitoes. Furthermore, even though the people of the Eastern Townships had become -broadly speaking -more culturally conservative than their New England neighbours, American tourists were given the impression that the lake was essentially an extension of the United States, with the border referred to in the tourist guides as the 'imaginary line.'…”

Economía de la carne: Una lectura de Theory of Moral Sentiments de Adam Smith

“…3 See Ronald L. Meek (1976;2000). 4 For the context of this process see Margaret Hunt (1993). 5 Kleer (1995); Clarke (2007).…”

Gender, Sexuality and the Formation of Racial Identities in the Eighteenth‐Century Anglo‐Caribbean World

“…36 New consumption patterns and improved literacy rates paved the way for a more educated middle class with an insatiable taste for colonial commodities, especially tea and sugar, as well as visual images and secular forms of literature associated with Britain's overseas territories and trading partners. 37 Emerging from within an imperial culture fully supported by colonial slavery, yet increasingly apprehensive about its implications for British national identity, texts by John Singleton, Edward Long and J. B. Moreton, among others, explored how the system of slavery intersected with Creole gender norms and sexual proclivities to influence the development of a West Indian racial order that had far-reaching implications.…”