Rethinking Race, Nation and Empire: Charles Dickens, Slavery, and the American Civil War
Rethinking Race, Nation and Empire: Charles Dickens, Slavery, and the American Civil War considers how the writings of Charles Dickens are shaped by—and contribute to—Victorian discourses of race, nation, and empire in the middle of the nineteenth century. The “discursive roots of modern racism lie in British, European, and colonial writings,” writes Patrick Brantlinger. But often unacknowledged is the “extent to which racism informed virtually all aspects of Romantic and Victorian culture” (Taming Cannibals 6-7).