Travel Writing and Empire

Download or read book Travel Writing and Empire written by Steven H. Clark and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Travel writing has become central to postcolonial studies and literary criticism. This is a comprehensive introduction to the genre, to its dynamics of power and representation, and the degree to which it has promoted ideologies of empire. It combines evaluations of the main models of analysis (new historicism, travelling theory and postcolonial studies) with specific studies showing how travel writing has been linked with a history of violent incursion from Columbus' reports from the New World onwards. The contributors discuss the travel writing of people such as Bruce Chatwin, Bill Bryson, Redmond O'Hanlon and Jonathan Raban. They resist the temptation to think in terms of a simple monolithic Eurocentrism and offer readings of texts produced before, during and after periods of imperial ascendency.