Book Description
Studies in colonialist and exploration discourse have identified the enormous significance of travel writing as an ideological apparatus of Empire. The study of travel writing has, however, remained either naively celebratory or dismissive, treating texts as symptoms of imperial ideologies. Imperial Eyes looks at European travel and exploration writing, in connection with European economic and political expansion since 1700. It is both a study in genre and a critique of ideology. Pratt examines how travel books by Europeans create the domestic subject of European Imperialism.


About the Author
Mary Louise Pratt is Professor of Spanish, Portuguese, and Comparative Literature at Stanford University.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Studies in colonialist and exploration discourse have identified the enormous significance of travel writing as an ideological apparatus of Empire. The study of travel writing has, however, remained either naively celebratory or dismissive, treating texts as symptoms of

imperial ideologies. Imperial Eyes looks at European travel and exploration writing, in connection with European economic and political expansion since 1700. It is both a study in genre and a critique of ideology. Pratt examines how travel books by Europeans create the domestic subject

of European Imperialism.