Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xfwgj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-02T02:51:01.038Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conrad and the American Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

Debra Candreva
Debra Candreva
Affiliation:
Wellesley College. E-mail:dcandrev@wellesley.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Joseph Conrad offers some of the most notoriously contested writing on imperialism in nineteenth-century literature. In this article, I use two of his stories (“An Outpost of Progress” and Heart of Darkness) to argue that his critique of imperialism is as relevant today as it was in his own time.

Conrad's critique of imperialism is twofold. First and most simply, he condemns it as an economically exploitative endeavor. Second, and more importantly, he rejects the “idealistic” claim often invoked to justify imperialism as the bearer of progress, enlightenment, and other supposedly universal liberal values. This second critique causes Conrad the most difficulty, largely because his rejection of idealism is only partial. I argue that the most controversial aspects of his work are manifestations of a philosophical struggle between universalistic idealism on the one hand, and relativistic skepticism on the other. In this, Conrad contends with a problem that historically has challenged both liberalism and its conservative critics alike. Moreover, it continues to challenge both perspectives today, particularly in the debate over so-called American imperialism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , June 2009 , pp. 317 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achebe, Chinua. 1988. An image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness.” In Heart of Darkness, ed. Kimbrough, Robert, 3rd ed.New York: W. W. Norton and Co.Google Scholar
Adams, David. 2003. Colonial Odysseys: Empire and Epic in the Modernist Novel. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. 2006. Cosmopolitanism. New York: W. W. Norton and Co.Google Scholar
Aristotle. 1961. The Poetics. Trans. Butcher, S. H.. New York: Hill & Wang.Google Scholar
Aristotle. 1995. The Politics. Trans. Barker, Ernest. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Beinart, Peter. 2004. Of little faith. The New Republic 230 (15): 6.Google Scholar
Beinart, Peter. 2007. A different country. The New Republic 236 (10/11): 6.Google Scholar
Berlin, Isaiah. 1990. The Crooked Timber of Humanity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Boot, Max. 2003. Neither new nor nefarious: The liberal empire strikes back. Current History 102 (667): 361–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Browning, Don, ed. 2006. Universalism vs. Relativism: Making Moral Judgments in a Changing, Pluralistic and Threatening World. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Burke, Edmund. 1991. The Writing and Speeches of Edmund Burke. Ed. Marshall, P. J.. Vol. 6, The Launching of the Hastings Impeachment, 1786–1788. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Burke, Edmund. 2004. Reflections on the Revolution in France. Ed. O'Brien, Conor Cruise. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Bush, George W. 2002. “National Security Strategy.” Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html.Google Scholar
Bush, George W. 2005. “Inaugural Address.” The Federal News Service, Inc. (January 20) Accessed through http://0-web.lexis-nexis.com.luna.wellesley.edu/universe/printdocGoogle Scholar
Conrad, Joseph. 1914. The Art of Writing. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co.Google Scholar
Conrad, Joseph. 1924. A Personal Record. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co.Google Scholar
Conrad, Joseph. 1968. Lord Jim. Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Moser, T. C.. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Conrad, Joseph. 1990. Heart of Darkness. Ed. Applebaum, Stanley. Mineola, NY: Dover, Press.Google Scholar
Conrad, Joseph. 2002. Heart of Darkness and Other Tales. Ed. Watts, Cedric. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Conrad, Joseph. 2003. The Shadow-Line. Ed. Hawthorn, Jeremy. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Conrad, Joseph. 2004. Notes on Life and Letters. Ed. Stape, J. H.. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cooper, Frederick. 2003/2004. Modernizing colonialism and the limits of empire. Items and Issues 4 (4): 1–9.Google Scholar
Cowen, Tyler. 2002. Creative Destruction: How Globalization is Changing the World's Cultures. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cumings, Bruce. 2003. Is America an imperial power? Current History 102 (667): 355–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, Niall. 2002. Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Niall. 2005. Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Fernando, Lloyd. 1976. “Conrad's Eastern Expatriates: A New Version of His Outcasts.” PMLA 91 (1): 78–90.Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley. 2001. “Condemnation without Absolutes.” New York Times, October 15.Google Scholar
Fleishman, Avrom. 1967. Conrad's Politics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Fraser, Matthew. 2005. Weapons of Mass Distraction. New York: St. Martin's.Google Scholar
Fukuyama, Francis. 2004. Neoconservative moment. National Interest 76 (Summer): 57–68.Google Scholar
Fukuyama, Francis. 2006a. “After Neoconservatism.” New York Times Magazine, February 19, 62.Google Scholar
Fukuyama, Francis. 2006b. America at the Crossroads. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Hamner, Robert. 2001. The engima of arrival in “An Outpost of Progress.” Conradiana 33 (3): 171–87.Google Scholar
Hanson, Victor Davis. 2007. Armies for democracy—Past, present and future. The American Spectator 40 (6): 32–41.Google Scholar
Hardt, Michael, and Negri, Antonio. 2000. Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hawkins, Hunt. 1979. Conrad's critique of imperialism in “Heart of Darkness.” PMLA 94 (2): 286–99.Google Scholar
Hilson, J. C., and Timms, D.. 1990. Conrad's “An Outpost of Progress,” or, The evil spirit of civilization. In Joseph Conrad: Third World Perspectives, ed. Hamner, Robert. Washington, DC: Three Continents Press.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. 1994 [1651]. Leviathan. Ed. Curley, Edwin. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Hobson, J. A. 1965. Imperialism: A Study. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Hobson, Robert. 1979. A textual history of Conrad's “An Outpost of Progress.” Conradiana 11 (2): 143–63.Google Scholar
Hochschild, Adam. 1998. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. New York: Mariner Books.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel. 2005. The great American myth. Maclean's 118 (7): 40–41.Google Scholar
Ignatieff, Michael. 2003a. “The American Empire: The Burden.” New York Times Magazine, January 5, 22.Google Scholar
Ignatieff, Michael. 2003b. Empire Lite: Nation-Building in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Ignatieff, Michael. 2007. “Getting Iraq Wrong: What the War Has Taught Me about Political Judgment.” New York Times Magazine. August 5, 27–29.Google Scholar
Isaac, Jeffrey. 2007. What John Dewey learned: A contemporary reflection on intellectual responsibility. Hedgehog Review 9 (1): 17–32.Google Scholar
Johnson, A.J.M. 1996. Into Africa: “The black savages and the white slaves” in Joseph Conrad's “An Outpost of Progress.” English Language Notes 33 (4): 62–72.Google Scholar
Johnson, Chalmers. 2004. Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic. New York: Metropolitan/Owl Books.Google Scholar
Kessler, Glenn. 2007. “A Foreign Policy in Two Words.” Washington Post, June 8, A17.Google Scholar
Kirby, John S. 2001. Shadows on the cave wall: Platonic imagery in Lord Jim. Interpretation 28 (3): 219–43.Google Scholar
Knapp Hay, Eloise 1963. The Political Novels of Joseph Conrad. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mehta, Uday. 1992. Liberalism & Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mill, J. S. 1962. Essays on Politics and Culture. Ed. Himmelfarb, Gertrude. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Mill, J. S. 2000. On Liberty and Other Writings. Ed. Collini, Stefan. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Naipaul, V. S. 1990. Conrad's darkness. In Joseph Conrad: Third World Perspectives, ed. Hamner, Robert. Washington, DC: Three Continents Press.Google Scholar
Nye, Joseph. 2004. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. New York: Public Affairs.Google Scholar
Nye, Joseph. 2007. “American Foreign Policy After Iraq.” Chronicle of Higher Education 53 (47): B6.Google Scholar
Oakeshott, Michael. 1991. Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays. Indianapolis: Liberty Press.Google Scholar
Pagden, Anthony. 2004. “The Problems of Superpower.” LA Times, November 14, M1.Google Scholar
Parry, Benita. 1983. Conrad and Imperialism: Ideological Boundaries and Visionary Frontiers. London: Macmillan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, John G. 1998. The opaque and the clear: The white fog incident in Conrad's “Heart of Darkness.” Studies in Short Fiction 35 (4): 373–88.Google Scholar
Peters, John G. 2006. The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitts, Jennifer. 2005. A Turn to Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1987. The Basic Political Writings. Trans. Cress, Donald A.. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Said, Edward. 1966. Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Said, Edward. 1993. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Spegele, Roger D. 1972. Fiction as political theory: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. British Journal of Political Science 2 (3): 319–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tolley, A. T. 1966. Conrad's favorite short story. Studies in Short Fiction 3: 314–20.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 2005. Arguing About War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Watt, Ian. 1979. Conrad in the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar