Images of Power

The value of books of essays emerges clearly in these two volumes. Each is tightly focused, well presented, and a valuable addition to the literature. The Raynal volume, based on a conference held in Cambridge in 2010, is linked to the new critical edition of the work with which he is most closely associated: the Histoire Philosophique des deux Indes (1770), a best-seller and a major example of a world history. Often reprinted and translated into many languages, its readers included leading figures across the Western world.

The twenty-one chapters of the volume cover a range of topics and approaches. The most instructive are those on the intellectual network of the age. Raynal’s contribution involved the creation of an international network of correspondents and informants, a system that Daniel Gordon compares with modern practices. Other mechanisms in the production and dissemination of the work included Raynal’s translations, his self-promotion through European travel, and his role in founding prize essay competitions at various provincial academies. For the editors, their volume is shaped by the preoccupations and principles of the new imperial and global historiographies and by the new interests and insights regarding eighteenth-century sociability. Transnational exchange emerges as significant, as do the entangled networks of eighteenth-century intellectual sociability, trade, and colonial interaction.

Among the most important contributions is Ida Pugliese’s valuable comparison of Raynal’s negative image of Spain with William Robertson’s more nuanced version. Jennifer Tsien discusses the impact on American opinion, notably that of Jefferson, of Raynal’s critique of the Louisiana colony. Peter Jimack uses the discussion of the apparently idyllic idleness offered by the coconut tree in the Moluccas to focus on the energy required for trade, an energy that Raynal presented in both a positive and a negative light. Christian Donath sees Raynal as offering not an attack on imperialism, but an alternative vision that envisages imperialism without coercion: in short, a form of “soft” imperialism. Sylvana Tomaselli focuses on the role of the emotions in Raynal’s understanding of peoples. The latter’s treatments of Sweden and of the United Provinces are ably handled by Fredrik Thomasson and Reinier Salverda, respectively. Philippe Barthelet assesses the hostile response of Joseph de Maistre and Georges Dulac alongside the positive one of Louis Médard.

The Ramsey and Russell volume argues for the enduring significance of war in the formation of British Enlightenment and Romantic culture. The range and interdisciplinary nature of this collection make it particularly impressive: this is a world of writers, painters, re-enactors, and museums. Thomas Ford’s ability to link Wilkie, Clausewitz, and Turner in an account of war’s medium is especially interesting, while Philip Shaw also brings Clausewitz and Turner together. Simon Bainbridge discusses the remarkable popularity of the re-enacted contest with Napoleon. Deidre Coleman looks at the cultural elision in France of the radical potential of the Haitian revolution. Neil Ramsey uses the example of the Naval and Military Library and Museum, established in 1832, to suggest the fundamental tensions involved in constituting a modern military science, as fighting is presented as existing at the intersection of the technological and the archaic, the military being at once the epitome of progress and a reminder of ancient, violent roots. The overall quality of this volume also is very high, but there is room for greater specificity in the treatment of the topic and, in particular, of a stronger refraction of Enlightenment and Romantic culture through the prisms of conjuncture and contingency.