-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Alicia Barnes, The Forms of Informal Empire: Britain, Latin America, and Nineteenth-Century Literature, Journal of Victorian Culture, Volume 26, Issue 4, October 2021, Pages 611–613, https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcab050
Close - Share Icon Share
Extract
The Forms of Informal Empire argues that, throughout the nineteenth century, the agents of British informal empire sought to resolve a paradox in the eyes of onlookers: that Latin America is both free and not free. According to the British imagination, Latin America after Spanish independence and under British influence, was ‘a symbol of freedom, a standard-bearer of anti-colonial liberation’ (p. 9). Jessie Reeder’s excellently written and thorough book thus makes a vital contribution to the ever-expanding field of empire studies. By using a range of authors from both sides of the Atlantic, Reeder is able to demonstrate just how pervasive and complex the concept of informal empire in Latin America was. This book is about the idea of informal empire and how that idea manifested itself within the frames of ‘master forms that organized nineteenth-century thought’ (p. 4). Reeder addresses the paradox of informal empire as it was experienced in Latin America. Briefly, that paradox was a nation’s necessarily simultaneous status as independent and colonized: a concurrence that allowed British informal empire to exist.
