European Encounters

For review see: J.W. Schulte Nordholt, in Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis, jrg. 107, nr. 4 (1994); p. 591-592.

This book reminds us of Europe's multi-faceted history of expulsions, flight, and labour migration and the extent to which European history since 1945 is a history of migration. While immigration and ethnic plurality have often been divisive issues, encounters between Europeans and newcomers have also played an important part in the development of a European identity. The authors analyze questions of individual and collective identities, political responses to migration, and the way in which migrants and migratory movements have been represented, both by migrants themselves and their respective host societies. The book's distinctive multi-disciplinary and international approach brings together experts from several fields including history, sociology, anthropology and political science. ’European Encounters’ will serve as an invaluable tool for students of contemporary European history, migration, and ethnic identities.

This wide-ranging collection explores the formation, structure, and maintenance of boundaries and frontiers in settler colonies. Looking at cross-cultural interactions in the settler colonies of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and America. the contributors illuminate the formation of new boundaries and the interaction between settler societies and indigenous groups.

"These timely reconsiderations of European Travel writing from the 1930s reassert the oppositional primacy of subjective translations and disavow hermetic notions that travel should or even can be divorced from socio-political or cultural contexts." - Journeys "Cultural Encounters offers a rich, varied and yet impressively coherent collection of essays on the meanings and practices of travel writing in 1930s Europe. Carefully building on theoretical interest in travel writing of recent years, the essays follow written journeys to Graham Greene's Liberia and Lorca's Cuba, to Fascist Italy's Greece and France's Indochina, and many more. Throughout, texts and authors are shown to be alive with hybrid constructions of self and of ideological, national and colonial identity. What is more, the book provides compelling reasons for seeing 1930s travel writing as being of particular fascination, lying on a cusp between the Depression, totalitarianism, colonialism and modernism, and the seeds of mass tourism, post-colonialism and globalization." - Re-reading German literature since 1945, Robert Gordon, Cambridge University The 1930s were one of the most important decades in defining the history of the twentieth century. It saw the rise of right-wing nationalism, the challenge to established democracies and the full force of imperialist aggression. Cultural Encounters makes an important contribution to our understanding of the ideological and cultural forces which were active in defining notions of national identity in the 1930s. By examining the work of writers and journalists from a range of European countries who used the medium of travel writing to articulate perceptions of their own and other cultures, the book gives a comprehensive account of the complex intellectual climate of the 1930s.

A narration of dramas played out from 1578 to 2000 in Tierra del Fuego by the native Yamana, Darwin, explorers, sealers, whalers and missionaries.

Among the tremendous changes affecting Europe in recent decades, those concerning political frontiers have been some of the most significant. International borders are being opened in some regions while being redefined or reinforced in others. The social relationships of those living in these borderland regions are also changing fundamentally. This volume investigates, from a local, ground-up perspective, what is happening at some of these border encounters: face-to-face interactions and relations of compliance and confrontation, where people are bargaining, exchanging goods and information, and maneuvering beyond state boundaries. Anthropological case studies from a number of European borderlands shed light on the questions of how, and to what extent, the border context influences the changing interactions and social relationships between people at a political frontier.

This book presents a case study of Europe's impact on an old and distinctive non-European civilisation. Part One deals with the elements in Europe's strength, technological, political and intellectual. It also uses Wallerstein's world-systems perspective to give an economic dimension to this picture of the new world of Europe, and then looks at the important question of the changing place of the Dutch in the new economic order from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century. This is followed by a brief account of the history of the Dutch East-India Company in Java, and its political effects. Part Two deals with the nature of the Javanese ancien regime, both in court and in provincial circles, with a focus on society and civilisation, rather than those staples of Javanese historiography to date, political events and economic statistics. Part Three deals with the overall pattern set by the VOC's changing economic imperatives and with the impact of the successive tides of capitalism on three regional societies of Java. Part Four deals with intellectual shifts that took place in this period, and argues that these shifts were less conservative than the socio-economic ones described in Part Three and, though more fragile and vulnerable, were crucial for the future. The conclusion attempts to show the significance of these developments for modern Indonesia and the way in which some of the dynamics begun in this period are being played out in the contemporary world.

A history and analysis of European colonizers’ relationship with and literary depiction of the aborigines of the Lesser Antilles. Philip Boucher analyzes the images—and the realities—of European relations with the people known as Island Caribs during the first three centuries after Columbus. Based on literary sources, travelers’ observations, and missionary accounts, as well as on French and English colonial archives and administrative correspondence, Cannibal Encounters offers a vivid portrait of a troubled chapter in the history of European-Amerindian relations. Winner of the French Colonial Historical Society’s Alf Andrew Heggoy Book Prize “A strong contribution to our understanding of the interplay not only between France and Britain in the struggle for the Antilles but also between the colonizers and the indigenous people fighting to maintain their independence from both European powers.” —American Historical Review “Welcome evidence that historians are willing to rewrite the history of the colonial era in the Caribbean with a clearer eye to the part the indigenous population played.” —Peter Hulme, William and Mary Quarterly “Boucher’s research is thorough and his contribution to the historiography of the Caribbean and of colonialism is valuable.” —Ethan Casey, Magill Book Reviews “An intelligent, well-informed discussion of French and English contacts with Island Caribs in the West Indies from the pre-colonial era until the end of the Seven Years War.” —Kenneth Morgan, English Historical Review “A new and important contribution to the efforts of historians and anthropologists to understand the history of the Caribs.” —Jalil Sued-Badillo, Journal of American History “A lucid and terse examination of direct interactions between Island Caribs and Europeans in the Lesser Antilles, and the indirect influence of literary images of Island Caribs (and other Native Americans) on the emergence of Western philosophical traditions.” —William F. Keegan, Journal of Interdisciplinary History “No one has mined the French National Archives to this extent on this topic. Boucher renders valuable information accessible to English readers.” —Robert A. Myers, Alfred University