Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600-1850 - Hardcover

Colley, Linda

3.81

269 ratings by Goodreads

9780224059251: Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600-1850

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224059254 ISBN 13: 9780224059251

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 2002

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Linda Colley's first book since the immensely successful and critically acclaimed Britons will explore the individual experiences of some of the many British people - captives or renegades - who, voluntarily or involuntarily, lived throughout the Empire during a period of 250 years. This unique and original book provides an alternative history of the British Empire and a brilliant new take on the whole imperial adventure. Many Britons - taken as slaves, imprisoned, or, by their own choice, long-term residents in the outposts of Empire - left written records of their motives and experiences. Linda Colley examines this rich and relatively unexplored material, vividly recreating individual lives and personalities. Her book travels from one of Britain's earliest colonies, Tangier, to other parts of Africa, and North America to India and beyond. She shows us the world through the eyes of the individuals who inhabited it while illuminating many central issues, such as national identity, attitudes towards race, and the power or impotence of Empire. (2002-02-18)

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Review:

Linda Colley's Captives: Britain, Empire and the World, 1600-1850 looks at the history of British imperialism from an entirely novel perspective. Instead of concentrating on the familiar tales of those who got away with empire--emigrants, fortune-hunters, generals, missionaries and statesmen--she focuses on the narratives of those British men, women and children who were captured.

Colley points out that whether in the Islamic Mediterranean, tribal North America, or the Mughal states of India, the British overseas were always vulnerable to the mighty powers of other European and non-European empires. Many were taken prisoner, some sold into slavery and not a few literally went native--taking on the language, costume and religion of their captors.

Colley, author of the widely-read and hugely influential Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837, has discovered and recounts some hundred or so of these stories, many of them accompanied by sketches and illustrations. She uses this fascinating material not only to highlight the adaptive and cross-cultural manner in which the British interacted with other empires and peoples, but also to reflect on how, when and why the British were able to transcend their small island status and become an enduring global power.

Beautifully written and handsomely produced, Captives should be read with care. It is a most profound, original and erudite study of the British empire, with implications for how we think about race relations, Islam and the West, and the global reach of modern day America. --Miles Taylor

Review:

"One of the most exciting and original historians of her generation" (William Dalrymple Guardian)

"Brilliantly corrective, unpeeling the received view that the British Empire was a display of strength, confidence and inevitability" (Julian Barnes Times Literary Supplement)

"A sort of White Teeth version of early imperial history...a completely original intelligence" (Roy Foster Financial Times)

"A brilliantly illuminating study by one of Britain's most distinguished and adventurous historians" (Richard Gott New Statesman)

"The best non-fiction of my year" (Melvyn Bragg)

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