Faces of Perfect Ebony by Catherine Molineux
Though blacks were not often seen on the streets of seventeenth-century London, they were already capturing the British imagination. In her exploration of this emerging black presence, Molineux assembles evidence ranging from shop signs, tea trays, trading cards, board games, and playing cards to song ballads and William Hogarths graphic satires.
Offers an important and original analysis of local and popular representations of empire in BritainIt is the first account to present a sustained analysis of how images of white mastery and black servitude were mobilized to help Britons think about themselves in a metropolitan context. This book will make a major contribution to British imperial history, Atlantic history and culture, the history of racialization and slavery, and the histories of art and visual culture. -- K. Dian Kriz, Brown University
A vivid and arrestingly original book. Molineux's innovative work shows us that the story of black life in imperial Britain survived in the most unlikely of sources: in contemporary print, iconography and theatre, in shop signs, trade cards, and ephemera of all kinds. Her persuasive argument, allied to the richness of her evidence, illuminates not only eighteenth-century Britain, but provides a discerning insight into the broader world of Atlantic history in the long century before abolition. What had once seemed a curiosity is now revealed, via Molineux's forensic and literary skills, as a multilayered portrait of cultural change during the long century of Britain's Atlantic empire. -- James Walvin, University of York
An exemplary work that takes the study of the visual cultures of slavery in bold new directions. By turning her delicate skills of interpretation to anything and everything that Britain's colonial ambition generated, Molineux has inaugurated what may be a tidal change in early slavery studies. She deserves our gratitude for having produced a brilliant piece of detective work which redefines our notions of racial encounter. Faces of Perfect Ebony is a book we should all read, digest, and read again, if we hope to understand the bizarre ways in which the white gaze appropriated and unfortunately still appropriates the black body. -- Marcus Wood, University of Sussex
Focusing on the period of Britain's greatest engagement in the Atlantic slave trade (ca. 1680-1807), Molineux taps on material culture and popular literature to reveal the presence of Africans in Enlightenment Britain. In doing so, she extends further into the past the growing body of scholarship emphasizing the imperial metropole as a significant contact zone between Britain and its tropical empire. She also highlights slavery's existence in the UK and correlation with racial "othering." While Britain's black population remained small, its presence exerted significant influence in British culture, from the use of images of Africans on shop signs and household commodities to the role of black subjects in performance and art. Most important is Molineux's exploration of British society's ambivalence toward people of African descent. This ambivalence enabled the simultaneous drawing of contrasts and similarities between whites and blacks in the UK, the latter feeding abolitionist sentiment. Based on exhaustive research, this book skillfully employs cultural critique to illuminate the empire's influence on British society. -- A. M. Wainwright * Choice *
A vivid and arrestingly original book. Molineux's innovative work shows us that the story of black life in imperial Britain survived in the most unlikely of sources: in contemporary print, iconography and theatre, in shop signs, trade cards, and ephemera of all kinds. Her persuasive argument, allied to the richness of her evidence, illuminates not only eighteenth-century Britain, but provides a discerning insight into the broader world of Atlantic history in the long century before abolition. What had once seemed a curiosity is now revealed, via Molineux's forensic and literary skills, as a multilayered portrait of cultural change during the long century of Britain's Atlantic empire. -- James Walvin, University of York
An exemplary work that takes the study of the visual cultures of slavery in bold new directions. By turning her delicate skills of interpretation to anything and everything that Britain's colonial ambition generated, Molineux has inaugurated what may be a tidal change in early slavery studies. She deserves our gratitude for having produced a brilliant piece of detective work which redefines our notions of racial encounter. Faces of Perfect Ebony is a book we should all read, digest, and read again, if we hope to understand the bizarre ways in which the white gaze appropriated and unfortunately still appropriates the black body. -- Marcus Wood, University of Sussex
Focusing on the period of Britain's greatest engagement in the Atlantic slave trade (ca. 1680-1807), Molineux taps on material culture and popular literature to reveal the presence of Africans in Enlightenment Britain. In doing so, she extends further into the past the growing body of scholarship emphasizing the imperial metropole as a significant contact zone between Britain and its tropical empire. She also highlights slavery's existence in the UK and correlation with racial "othering." While Britain's black population remained small, its presence exerted significant influence in British culture, from the use of images of Africans on shop signs and household commodities to the role of black subjects in performance and art. Most important is Molineux's exploration of British society's ambivalence toward people of African descent. This ambivalence enabled the simultaneous drawing of contrasts and similarities between whites and blacks in the UK, the latter feeding abolitionist sentiment. Based on exhaustive research, this book skillfully employs cultural critique to illuminate the empire's influence on British society. -- A. M. Wainwright * Choice *
Catherine Molineux is Assistant Professor of History at Vanderbilt University.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780674050082 |
| ISBN 10 | 0674050088 |
| Title | Faces of Perfect Ebony |
| Author | Catherine Molineux |
| Series | Harvard Historical Studies |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Harvard University Press |
| Year published | 2012-01-02 |
| Number of pages | 374 |
| Prizes | Nominated for James A. Rawley Prize in Atlantic History 2012, Nominated for Morris D. Forkosch Prize 2012, Nominated for George L. Mosse Prize 2012, Nominated for Wesley-Logan Prize 2012, Nominated for American Society for 18th-Century Studies Louis Gotschalk Prize 2013, Nominated for Berkshire Conference of Women Historians First Book Prize 2012, Nominated for Frederick Douglass Book Prize 2013, Nominated for John Ben Snow Foundation Prize 2013, Nominated for Leo Gershoy Award 2012, Nominated for Herbert Baxter Adams Prize 2012 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |