The Island Race: Englishness, Empire and Gender in the Eighteenth Century

Rooted in a period of vigorous exploration and colonialism, The Island Race: Englishness, empire and gender in the eighteenth century is an innovative study of the issues of nation, gender and identity. Wilson bases her analysis on a wide range of case studies drawn both from Britain and across the Atlantic and Pacific worlds. Creating a colourful and original colonial landscape, she considers topics such as: sodomy theatre masculinity the symbolism of Britannia the role of women in war Wilson shows the far-reaching implications that colonial power and expansion had upon the English people's sense of self, and argues that the vaunted singularity of English culture was in fact constituted by the bodies, practices and exchanges of peoples across the globe. Theoretically rigorous and highly readable, The Island Race will become a seminal text for understanding the pressing issues that it confronts.

About the Author

Kathleen Wilson is Associate Professor of History at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She has written widely on empire and the politics of culture in eighteenth-century Britain, including The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England 1715-1785, winner of the 1995 Whitfield Prize for British History, Royal Historical Society, and the 1996 John Ben Snow Prize of the North American Conference on British Studies.