Unravelled Dreams

Silk and the Atlantic World, 1500-1840

Inbunden, Engelska, 2020

474 kr

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Beskrivning

One of the greatest hopes and expectations that accompanied American colonialism - from its earliest incarnation - was that Atlantic settlers would be able to locate new sources of raw silk, with which to satiate the boundless desire for luxurious fabrics in European markets. However, in spite of the great upheavals and achievements of Atlantic plantation, this ambition would never be fulfilled. By taking the commercial failure of silk seriously and examining numerous experiments across New Spain, New France, British North America and the early United States, Ben Marsh reveals new insights into aspiration, labour, environment, and economy in these societies. Each devised its own dreams and plans of cultivation, framed by the particularities of cultures and landscapes. Writ large, these dreams would unravel one by one: the attempts to introduce silkworms across the Atlantic world ultimately constituted a step too far, marking out the limits of Europeans' seemingly unbounded power.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2020-04-23
Mått:162 x 236 x 29 mm
Vikt:960 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:500
Förlag:Cambridge University Press
ISBN:9781108418287

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Mer om författaren

Ben Marsh is Reader in History at the University of Kent, Canterbury. He is the author of the award-winning Georgia's Frontier Women: Female Fortunes in a Southern Colony (2007) and Understanding and Teaching the Age of Revolutions (2017), and has published widely on early and revolutionary American history. His research on silk has featured in several exhibitions, including Enlightened Princesses: Britain and Europe, 1700-1820 (Yale Center for British Art and Historical Royal Palaces, 2017), and won the UK Textile Society's Natalie Rothstein Memorial Prize (2013).

Recensioner i media

'Written with verve and wit, Marsh's strikingly original commodity study reshapes our understanding of the Atlantic World. Marsh masterfully employs both macro and micro history to detail the importance of silk making efforts – and its failures – to colony, empire, and nation building. Sophisticated yet accessible, Unravelled Dreams is a magisterial must read.' Zara Anishanslin, author of Portrait of a Woman in Silk

Innehållsförteckning

List of figures; List of colour plates; List of maps; List of tables; Acknowledgements; 1. Prologue; Part I. Emergence: 2. Spain and New Spain; 3. England and Virginia; 4. France and New France; Part II. Persistence; 5. Persistence; 6. Lower South: South Carolina and Georgia; 7. New England; Part III. Convergence; 8. Convergence; 9. Pennsylvania and sericultural revolution; 10. Silk production in the wake of revolution; 11. Epilogue; Selected bibliography; Index.