Defoe and Colonialism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23440697 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Markman Ellis (0000-0002-5918-855X, Queen Mary University of London, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Pages | 524-543 |
| Publication date | 2023-12-18 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Oxford Handbook of Daniel Defoe (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198827177.013.27 |
| OpenAlex | W4389887431 |
| ISBN | 9780198827177 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 2 |
Daniel Defoe defended colonial endeavour throughout his writing career, including in his periodical journalism and his surveys of global trade. In his outlook, colonialism serves a commercial purpose and yields profits for promoters and their countries, but it also organizes the world into hierarchies of civilization and barbarism. The defence and promotion of colonial projects preoccupied Defoe in his non-fiction writing, particularly in tracts and essays, such as those he wrote at the time of the formation of the South Sea Company in 1711. His prose fictions and novels, especially Robinson Crusoe (1719) and A New Voyage Round the World (1724), constitute significant thought experiments in colonial foundation, plantation management, settlement practice, and labour management, including slavery. The chapter demonstrates that Defoe was a mercantilist and a gold bug, an apologist of trade, a philosopher of colonialism, and an imagineer of imperialism.
Archaeology · Art · Barbarism · Civilization · Colonialism · Economics · Journalism · Literature · Media studies · Mercantilism · Political science · Settlement (finance) · Sociology · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · History · Law
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |