The Order of Destruction
Monoculture in Colonial Caribbean Literature, c. 1640-1800
This book studies sugarcane monoculture, the dominant form of cultivation in the colonial Caribbean, in the later 1600s and 1700s up to the Haitian Revolution. Researching travel literature, plantation manuals, Georgic poetry, letters, and political proclamations, this book interprets texts by Richard Ligon, Henry Drax, James Grainger, Janet Schaw, and Toussaint Louverture.As the first extended investigation into its topic, this book reads colonial Caribbean monoculture as the conjunction of racial capitalism and agrarian capitalism in the tropics. Its eco-Marxist perspective highlights the dual exploitation of the soil and of enslaved agricultural producers under the plantation regime, thereby extending Marxist analysis to the early colonial Caribbean. By focussing on textual form (in literary and non-literary texts alike), this study discloses the bearing of monoculture on contemporary writers’ thoughts. In the process, it emphasizes the significance of a literary tradition that, despite its ideological importance, is frequently neglected in (postcolonial) literary studies and the environmental humanities.Located at a crossroads of disciplines and perspectives, this study will be of interest to literary critics and historians working in the early Americas, to students and scholars of agriculture, colonialism, and (racial) capitalism, to those working in the environmental humanities, and to Marxist academics. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of language and literature, post-colonial studies, cultural studies, diaspora studies, and the Global South studies.
This book studies sugarcane monoculture, the dominant form of cultivation in the colonial Caribbean, in the later 1600s and 1700s up to the Haitian Revolution.
| Autor: | Wilke, Heinrich |
|---|---|
| ISBN: | 9781032514161 |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Produktart: | Gebunden |
| Verlag: | Taylor and Francis |
| Veröffentlicht: | 19.06.2024 |
| Untertitel: | Monoculture in Colonial Caribbean Literature, c. 1640-1800 |
| Schlagworte: | Caribbean islands Caribbean literature Cultural Studies LITERARY CRITICISM / Caribbean & Latin American LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / General Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800 Regional / International studies Regional Studies SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social SOCIAL SCIENCE / Regional Studies |
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