The birth of the modern world as told through the remarkable story of one eighteenth-century family
They were abolitionists, speculators, slave owners, government officials, and occasional politicians. They were observers of the anxieties and dramas of empire. And they were from one family. The Inner Life of Empires tells the intimate history of the Johnstones—four sisters and seven brothers who lived in Scotland and around the globe in the fast-changing eighteenth century. Piecing together their voyages, marriages, debts, and lawsuits, and examining their ideas, sentiments, and values, renowned historian Emma Rothschild illuminates a tumultuous period that created the modern economy, the British Empire, and the philosophical Enlightenment.
One of the sisters joined a rebel army, was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle, and escaped in disguise in 1746. Her younger brother was a close friend of Adam Smith and David Hume. Another brother was fluent in Persian and Bengali, and married to a celebrated poet. He was the owner of a slave known only as "Bell or Belinda," who journeyed from Calcutta to Virginia, was accused in Scotland of infanticide, and was the last person judged to be a slave by a court in the British isles. In Grenada, India, Jamaica, and Florida, the Johnstones embodied the connections between European, American, and Asian empires. Their family history offers insights into a time when distinctions between the public and private, home and overseas, and slavery and servitude were in constant flux.
Based on multiple archives, documents, and letters, The Inner Life of Empires looks at one family's complex story to describe the origins of the modern political, economic, and intellectual world.
Emma Rothschild is the Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History and director of the Joint Center for History and Economics at Harvard University, and a fellow of Magdalene College, University of Cambridge. She is the author of Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Ideas and Sentiments 1Chapter One::Setting Out 11The Four Sisters and Seven Brothers 15Difficult Circumstances 23Tragic News from the Indias 29The Frontiers of Empire in the West 34 Small Congratulatory Elephants 45 Chapter Two: Coming Home 59The Finances of the Family 60The Politics of the East and West Indies 68The Arts and Sciences of Enlightenment 76The Ruins of the Indies 80Intran Bell alias Belinda 87Joseph Knight 91 Chapter Three:: Ending and Loss 97The Detritus of Empire 99 The James Johnstones 105Indian Yellow Satin 109The Treasurer 112Distant Destinies 116 Chapter Four:Economic Lives 121Possible Empires 125What Is the State? 131What Was, and What Was Not Law 137A Society of Persons 141A Moderate Empire 146Economic Theories 148 Chapter Five: Experiences of Empire 154Slavery in the British Empire 154“This Age of Information” 170Family Histories 185Connections of Things 197Intimate Lives 202 Chapter Six: What Is Enlightenment? 210The Sect of Philosophers 211The Milieux of Enlightenment: Books and Booksellers 220Legal Information 224Clerks and Clerics 231The Milieux of Political Thought 239The Atmosphere of Society 247The Enlightenment of the Johnstones 252The Coexistence of Enlightenment and Oppression 258 Chapter Seven: Histories of Sentiments 263The Eye of the Mind 263The History of the Human Mind 266Family Secrets 270The Discontinuity of Size and Scenes 277The Incompleteness of Information 279 Chapter Eight:: Other People 284The Johnstones and the Mind 285Intran Bell alias Belinda 29Other People 299 Acknowledgments 303Appendix 307Abbreviations 309Notes 311Maps 463Index 469
"Tracing the lives of a single Scottish family whose eleven siblings roamed the globe to seek their fortunes, Emma Rothschild has explored the great elements of the eighteenth-century world: empire, politics, slavery, warfare, and Enlightenment thought and sensibility. An extraordinary book, weaving back and forth between microhistory and the greater world, it is based on archival research on three continents, written with literary grace, and inspired by a sensitive historical imagination."—Bernard Bailyn, Adams University Professor, emeritus, Harvard University"Emma Rothschild presents a fascinating view of the ties of family, patronage, and business which linked the emerging British power across the world in the eighteenth century. Her book provides a valuable context for our contemporary discussions of globalization."—C. A. Bayly, University of Cambridge"This remarkable book is both a moving evocation of an extended family's intimate experience of empire and Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, and a powerful meditation on the work of historical writing in the post-Enlightenment, postimperial present. Profound and strikingly original, this book will become a classic."—Robert Travers, Cornell University"This is an important and original book. Based on a wealth of archival research—much of which has been neglected by previous historians—The Inner Life of Empires looks at the Johnstone family to explore issues of British imperialism. It makes a critical intervention in the history of intimacy and interiority, and poses a series of challenges to concepts of the public and private. A wonderful read."—Margot Finn, Warwick University
