Conscripts of Modernity: The Tragedy of Colonial Enlightenment
- ISBN-10
- 0822386186
- ISBN-13
- 9780822386186
- Category
- Political Science
- Pages
- 290
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2004-11-12
- Publisher
- Duke University Press
- Author
- David Scott
Description
At this stalled and disillusioned juncture in postcolonial history—when many anticolonial utopias have withered into a morass of exhaustion, corruption, and authoritarianism—David Scott argues the need to reconceptualize the past in order to reimagine a more usable future. He describes how, prior to independence, anticolonialists narrated the transition from colonialism to postcolonialism as romance—as a story of overcoming and vindication, of salvation and redemption. Scott contends that postcolonial scholarship assumes the same trajectory, and that this imposes conceptual limitations. He suggests that tragedy may be a more useful narrative frame than romance. In tragedy, the future does not appear as an uninterrupted movement forward, but instead as a slow and sometimes reversible series of ups and downs. Scott explores the political and epistemological implications of how the past is conceived in relation to the present and future through a reconsideration of C. L. R. James’s masterpiece of anticolonial history, The Black Jacobins, first published in 1938. In that book, James told the story of Toussaint L’Ouverture and the making of the Haitian Revolution as one of romantic vindication. In the second edition, published in the United States in 1963, James inserted new material suggesting that that story might usefully be told as tragedy. Scott uses James’s recasting of The Black Jacobins to compare the relative yields of romance and tragedy. In an epilogue, he juxtaposes James’s thinking about tragedy, history, and revolution with Hannah Arendt’s in On Revolution. He contrasts their uses of tragedy as a means of situating the past in relation to the present in order to derive a politics for a possible future.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2004-12-03
- 279 pages
- Paperback
- Duke University Press
Similar books
-
Digital Cities: The Internet and the Geography of Opportunity
By Karen Mossberger, Caroline J. Tolbert, William W. FrankoTimberlake, Jeffrey M., AaronJ. Howell, and Amanda Staight. 2011. “Trends in the Suburbaniza— tion of Racial/ Ethnic Groups in U.S. Metropolitan Areas, ...
-
TVA and the Tellico Dam, 1936-1979: A Bureaucratic Crisis in Post-industrial America
By William Bruce Wheeler, Michael J. McDonaldFor example , on January 12 , 1972 , the newly - formed Timberlake Advising Boardcomposed of people from TVA , Boeing , various state agencies , and local ...
-
Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History
By Andrew Robertson, Michael A. Morrison, William G. ShadeIn 1816, Margaret married John Timberlake, a ship's purser in the U.S. Navy, but her conduct continued to be criticized. According to local gossip, ...
-
Drug Control Policy: Essays in Historical and Comparative Perspective
By William O. WalkerClark, Deliver Us From Evil, 218-23; Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 5-15, 28, 32-45; Timberlake, Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, ...
-
Economic Politics in the United States: The Costs and Risks of Democracy
By William R. KeechNor was it to actasa centralized depository, an officeof discountfor commercialbanks, ora lender of last resort” (Timberlake 1978, p. 4).
-
Milton Friedman
By William RugerRichard Timberlake likewise thought Friedman was a “scintillating teacher” (Timberlake 1999, 22). Finally, Becker noted that “no course had anywhere near ...
-
The Libertarian Illusion: Ideology, Public Policy and the Assault on the Common Good
By William E. HudsonIdeology, Public Policy and the Assault on the Common Good William E. Hudson ... 191 Timberlake, Justin, 88 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 26 Townsend, Francis, ...
-
Taxing Choice: The Predatory Politics of Fiscal Discrimination
By William Shughart IIKrauss, Melvyn B., and Edward P. Lazear, eds. 1991. Searching for Alternatives: Drug-Control ... Paul, Randolph E. 1954. ... Timberlake, James, H. 1963.
-
A Short History of American Industrial Policies
By William R. NesterRichard H. Timberlake, The Origins of Central Banking in the United States ... Industrial Policy, and Rational Ignorance,” in Claude E. Barfield and William ...
-
The Boiling Point
By Todd WerdebaughIt 's like when someone judges you that way, and I know it 's because I 'm ... the one 's they judge and criticize have to deal with the pain they cause?