From a variety of historically grounded perspectives, After the Imperial Turn assesses the fate of the nation as a subject of disciplinary inquiry. In light of the turn toward scholarship focused on imperialism and postcolonialism, this provocative collection investigates whether the nation remains central, adequate, or even possible as an analytical category for studying history. These twenty essays, primarily by historians, exemplify cultural approaches to histories of nationalism and imperialism even as they critically examine the implications of such approaches.
While most of the contributors discuss British imperialism and its repercussions, the volume also includes, as counterpoints, essays on the history and historiography of France, Germany, Spain, and the United States. Whether looking at the history of the passport or the teaching of history from a postnational perspective, this collection explores such vexed issues as how historians might resist the seduction of national narratives, what-if anything-might replace the nation's hegemony, and how even history-writing that interrogates the idea of the nation remains ideologically and methodologically indebted to national narratives. Placing nation-based studies in international and interdisciplinary contexts, After the Imperial Turn points toward ways of writing history and analyzing culture attentive both to the inadequacies and endurance of the nation as an organizing rubric.

Contributors. Tony Ballantyne, Antoinette Burton, Ann Curthoys, Augusto Espiritu, Karen Fang, Ian Christopher Fletcher, Robert Gregg, Terri Hasseler, Clement Hawes, Douglas M. Haynes, Kristin Hoganson, Paula Krebs, Lara Kriegel, Radhika Viyas Mongia, Susan Pennybacker, John Plotz, Christopher Schmidt-Nowara, Heather Streets, Hsu-Ming Teo, Stuart Ward, Lora Wildenthal, Gary Wilder

Essays in this collection assess "the nation" as a subject of disciplinary inquiry, considering both its enduring relevance and its inadequacy as an analytical category for studying history, literature, and culture

About the Author

Antoinette Burton is Catherine C. and Bruce A. Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies, Department of History, University of Illinois. Among her books are Dwelling in the Archive: Women Writing House, Home, and History in Late Colonial India and At the Heart of the Empire: Indians and the Colonial Encounter in Late-Victorian Britain.

Reviews
"After the Imperial Turn is an important collection of essays marking the 'coming of age' of 'new imperial history.' One of its great strengths is its range-from the big picture to the local study, from the pedagogic to the institutional, from the British exemplar to a number of comparative perspectives, from the U.S. to the Caribbean and Hong Kong. This is an essential read for aspiring young historians."-Catherine Hall, author of Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830-1867
"This is a timely intervention in the conversation on the nation sparked by critiques of the imperial foundations of modern nations and disciplines. It both assesses the fruits of the 'imperial turn' in scholarship and charts new directions on how to think and teach in the aftermath of the critiques of the nation. Incorporating perspectives from a range of disciplines and locations, the essays offer challenging reflections on the historicity of the present."-Gyan Prakash, editor of After Colonialism: Imperial Histories and Postcolonial Displacements



Book Information
ISBN 9780822331421
Author Antoinette Burton
Format Paperback
Page Count 384
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 612g