Interpreting Colonialism (review)

Of the eighteen studies in this volume, five are of direct interest to students of French culture and history, while others provide interesting points of comparison. They are grouped, sometimes arbitrarily, into four sections: 'Representations', 'Mercantilism', 'Religion and ideology' and 'Slavery'. The catch-all title of the collection has to be understood in conjunction with the full series title: Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, for while Mark Hinchman's fascinating study of 'The travelling portrait: women and representation in eighteenth-century Senegal' draws extensively on nineteenth-century material (notably David Boilat's Esquisses sénégalaises of 1853 — not 1840 as stated on p. 52, and omitted from the 'List of works cited') and another deals with Lord Amherst's embassy to China of 1816–17 (China — a colony?), the eighteenth century remains the central focus. Any student of French expecting, under the volume's title, to find material relating to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries may initially be disappointed but will rapidly appreciate that his or her view is enriched by taking the earlier period of colonization into account. Likewise, students of postcolonialism will find much to interest them in the cultural relativism widely investigated here. The most stimulating contributions in turn take cognizance of postcolonial discourses, an outstanding example being 'Prolégomènes à un anti-colonialisme futur: Histoire des deux Indes et Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville de Diderot' by Fabienne-Sophie Chauderlot (alone in not having her academic base listed on the inside flap of the cover). Oliver Berghof presents 'Tahiti, 1767–1777: the view from the shore', a study rich in information complementary to the more familiar Diderot and indeed fleshing out what Segalen (unmentioned here) retraces in Les Immémoriaux. Lynn Festa revisits more familiar territory in 'Tropes and chains: figures of exchange in eighteenth-century depictions of the slave trade'; Driss Aïssaoui deals with 'L'Image de l'Autre dans le Journal de voyage de Robert Challe'; while Ruth Hill, focusing mainly on Spanish usage in 'Casta as culture and the sociedad de castas as literature', makes valuable lexicographical observations, drawing on other languages including French, on the semantic development of the word and concept 'métis'. The editors spend most of their three-page introduction listing the studies and summarising their focus. Their interdisciplinary variety is certainly a virtue, but the claimed 'remarkable cohesion' is less than apparent to this reader. Had the editors argued their case more fully, it might have been clearer. As it is, there is evidence of a hands-off approach, with proof-reading more slipshod than this imprint would lead one to expect, significant errors, inconsistencies and omissions in the List of works cited and the Index (of names alone, whereas a full index would have been an invaluable resource), and the plan of a slave ship reproduced twice. The twenty-one illustrations are not indeed listed. Although the title-page of Anthony Benezet's Some Historical Account of Guinea . . . appears in facsimile, its author's name is traduced elsewhere as Bezenet and Benzenet (the latter crucially in the bibliography and index). Such features mar an otherwise salutary multidisciplinary and multicultural excursion into territory often ignored by students of the métropole, as if the colonies did not have a major impact on the very nature of the European centres.