Before the Empire of English offers a broad re-examination of Eighteenth-century British literary culture, centred around issues of language, nationalism, and p

'This book convincingly challenges both the extremely short historical memory of most postcolonial work and the all-too-insularly English world still conjured b

Technologies of Empire looks at the ways in which writers of the long eighteenth century treat writing and imagination as technologies that can produce rather t

Argues that eighteenth-century literature defined itself as 'English' and 'modern' by engaging with debates about Chinese history and culture.

This book offers a radical new theory of the role of poetry in the rise of cultural nationalism. With equal attention to England, Scotland, and Wales, the book