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  • Imperial Co-Histories: National Identities and the British and Colonial Press
  • Lynn Zastoupil (bio)
Imperial Co-Histories: National Identities and the British and Colonial Press, edited by Julie F. Codell; pp. 328. Madison and Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London: Associated University Presses, 2003, $57.50, £42.50.

This volume directs our attention to an underappreciated subject ripe with fascinating possibilities: print media as a paper trail documenting the circulation of people, ideas, and technologies during the Age of Empire. That this circulation produced linked stories ("co-histories") in metropole and colony is editor Julie F. Codell's main point, one that resonates with recent publications by Catherine Hall (Civilising Subjects, 2002) and Peter van der Veer (Imperial Encounters, 2001). Whether the contributors here all speak to Codell's point is doubtful: several essays do hit close to the mark, while others are simply full of isolated insights that readers of Victorian Studies will appreciate. [End Page 153]

Codell divides her collection into two parts. The first, she claims, "examines the press's intervention to align native identity with British imperial authority and domination" (22). Alex Nalbach's essay does no such thing, exploring instead the transnational politics of telegraphic news agencies in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States in the decades leading up to the First World War. Deepali Dewan's contribution, however, does justice to Codell's claim by examining the illustrated Journal of Indian Art and Industry as a colonial attempt to define and preserve Indian artistic traditions. Dewan argues that this attempt was linked to the British Arts and Crafts movement, but fails to engage the work of others who have addressed this subject, such as Thomas Metcalf (An Imperial Vision, 1989). Michael Hancher's essay briefly considers how The Imperial Gazetteer recycled colonial images of coolies, the caste system, and "nautch girls" in ways supportive of the imperial project. David Finkelstein's account of Blackwood's Magazine in the waning decades of the nineteenth century may not say much about aligning native identities, but it does bring home why the concept of co-histories is important. Not only did this journal come to represent conservative establishment views on the Empire, but its founding editorial family had deep roots in Indian colonial service. Carefully cultivating a readership among colonial officials and expatriates, Blackwood's took pains to promote that group's interests. What exactly such conscientious tending had to do with the publication of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899) and Lord Jim (1899– 1900), as well as literary works by other authors, is, alas, but hinted at here.

Missing from part one of this volume is any essay on the use of print media by the colonized. All of the essays here address western, mostly European, journalistic ventures where, perhaps, the fashioning of native identities was the norm. But the objects of empire were not always passive victims. A thriving indigenous press scene was present in Calcutta, for example, from the 1820s onwards. It would have been helpful to consider as well what positions Indian editors took on matters such as local and imperial identities, the responsibilities of British rule, and the nature of the media.

Fortunately, Codell provides a partial remedy for this in the second part of Imperial Co-Histories, where the attention shifts to tensions in the representation of empire. Codell's own essay, "The Empire Writes Back," deftly explores contributions by R. C. Dutt, Jamal-al-Din al-Afghani, Cornelia Sorabji, Rafiüddin Ahmad, and other western- educated elites to such prominent journals as The Nineteenth Century, The Westminster Review, and The Contemporary Review. She cogently demonstrates how these well-educated, highly assimilated Indians sought to provincialize British assumptions and open up imperial debates to Indian voices. Reminding British audiences of their status as "native experts," they openly criticized bad policies, raised the specter of revolt if this criticism was ignored, and attempted to add nuance and complexity to British perceptions of native character. What impact their contributions had on late-Victorian reading audiences, one hopes, will be the subject of a follow-up essay.

Also valuable in part two is Aled Jones's essay on...

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