Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History

Hansen, Peter H.
Ornamentalism and Orientalism: Virtual Empires and the Politics of Knowledge
Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History - Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2002

The Johns Hopkins University Press

Peter H. Hansen | Ornamentalism and Orientalism: Virtual Empires and the Politics of Knowledge | Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 3:1 Ornamentalism and Orientalism: Virtual Empires and the Politics of Knowledge Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 3:1 | © 2002 Peter H. Hansen Ornamentalism and Orientalism: Virtual Empires and the Politics of Knowledge Peter H. Hansen Worcester Polytechnic Institute David Cannadine might be surprised to learn that he has written a curiously post-modern book. This is not really as odd as it sounds. Of course, Ornamentalism is so readable and easily digestible that it might be mistaken for post-prandial rather than post-modern. And, of course, Cannadine contends that rank and status were more important to the British Empire than race, a category given undue prominence, he believes, by "post-modern" literary scholars. Cannadine aims to correct the excesses of "American" scholars who see the production of derogatory racial stereotypes as constituting a "hegemonic imperial project." Cannadine confesses that he does not know what an imperial project is, and doubts that one ever existed. (pp. 197-8) Yet, almost in spite of himself, Cannadine argues that the British Empire existed to promote what must surely be called a hegemonic imperial project: to order into a unified hierarchy all the subjects of the British Empire across the globe -- imperialism as ornamentalism. Ornamentalism surveys the efforts to...