Between Worlds: Voyagers to Britain 1700-1850 by Jos Hackforth-Jones

by Jocelyn Hackforth-Jones

'A chronicle of mutual discoveries in which individuals and culturesare changed by the repercussions of connection.' Ekow Eshun From the seventeenth century, largely as a result of British colonial expansion, non-European visitors to England caused widespread frissons of excitement, interest and curiosity in social circles across the capital. This book examines the complexities and ambiguities of encounters between these visitors and their British contemporaries over 150 years. These visitors from former British colonies, including North America, the South Pacific, India and Africa; their reasons for coming and their reception in Britain were as diverse as their backgrounds. Their stories, their impressions and the impact they had on British society are examined here for the first time. The book brings to life the fascinating accounts of a small but diverse group of fourteen individuals, including the 'Four Indian Kings' from Canada and Mai from the South Pacific, Raja Rammonhun Roy fr

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[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the catalog for an exhibition of portraits, and is heavily illustrated with reproductions of contemporary portraits and documents. Short well-cited biographical essays on each of nine individuals tell the stories of diplomats, exiles and one woman exhibited as a curiosity, Sara Baartman. Despite the traditional European caricature of the obtuse disruptive "savage" visitor to "civilized" nations, these people demonstrated a strong awareness of their outsider status and image in European society. Many cultivated local manners and dress to a high degree, married into British society, published books and befriended the nobility but all remained outsiders, navigating between cultures and governments in the changing world of the British Empire.