God, Gulliver, and Genocide: Barbarism and the European Imagination, 1492-1945We are obsessed with "barbarians." They are the "not us," who don't speak our language, or "any language," whom we despise, fear, invade and kill; for whom we feel compassion, or admiration, and an intense sexual interest; whose innocence or vigor we aspire to, and who have an extraordinary influence on the comportment, and even modes of dress, of our civilized metropolitan lives; whom we often outdo in the barbarism we impute to them; and whose suspected resemblance to us haunts our introspections and imaginings. This book looks afresh at how we have confronted the idea of "barbarism," in ourselves and others, from the conquest of the Americas to the Nazi Holocaust, through the voices of many writers, including Montaigne, Swift and Shaw. |
Contents
Gulliver Female | 92 |
An AngloIrish Theme? | 183 |
Kingdom from Spenser to Joyce | 232 |
Copyright | |
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African America Amerindian analogy Anglo-Irish Baartman beggars Blainville Breton Brobdingnag cannibal cannibales Casas castration century Chapter cited context Cuvier discourse eating Encyclopédie English Essais ethnic European example extermination Extrait d'observations fantasy female fiction Genesis genocidal Giving Badges groups Gulliver Gulliver's Travels hanging breasts Helots Histoire mémorable History Hottentot Venus Houyhnhnmland Houyhnhnms human idea Indians Ireland Irish J. M. Coetzee Jews Jonathan Swift killing later Léry Lestringant Letters literal London Major Barbara Modest Proposal monkeys Montaigne Montaigne's Nations natives Nazi Negro niggers Noah Noah's Oxford Paris passage Ploss poem poor poverty Proposal for Giving punishment punitive race racial reported Sade satirical savage savage Nations says Scythians seems sense sexual Shaw Shaw's social species Spenser steatopygic story suggested Swift Swiftian Thevet tion trans Tupinamba Undershaft Voyage Wilde Wilde's William woman women World writings Yahoos York