"Almost a separate race": Racial thought and the idea of europe in british encyclopedias and histories, 1771-1830

Modern Intellectual History

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 3-29

  Stock, Paul ^a  

^a LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 79958143462     PISSN: 14792443     EISSN: 14792451     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S1479244311000035     Document Type: Review

References (131)

1. For anthologies of such specialist works from this period see H. F. Augstein, ed., Race: The Origins of an Idea (Bristol, 1996);
2. Emanuel Chudwuki Eze, ed., Race and Enlightenment: A Reader (Oxford, 1997);
3. Peter Kitson and Debbie Lee, eds., Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation: Writings in the British Romantic Period, vol. 8, Theories of Race, ed. Peter Kitson (London, 1999)
4. Nicholas Hudson, "From 'Nation' to 'Race': The Origin of Racial Classification in Eighteenth-Century Thought", Eighteenth-Century Studies 29/3 (1996), 247.
5. Kathleen Wilson, The Island Race: Englishness, Empire and Gender in the Eighteenth Century (London and New York, 2003), 11-12, 55.
6. Roxann Wheeler, The Complexion of Race: Categories of Difference in Eighteenth-Century British Culture (Philadelphia, 2000), 7, 9-10.
7. George Stocking argues that race did not commonly designate "physical entities unchanged since the beginning of recorded time" until after the publication of Robert Knox's The Races of Men (1850).
8. See his Victorian Anthropology (New York, 1987), 65.
9. Colin Kidd, British Identities before Nationalism: Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Atlantic World, 1600-1800 (Cambridge, 1999), 34, 287.
10. Kidd draws upon the definitions of "ethnick" in the Glossographia (1656)
11. and Samuel Johnson's Dictionary (1755), though the word meant "pagan" as early as the 1470s.
12. See Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1989), "ethnic", sense 1.
13. Wilson, The Island Race, 6-8.
14. Ania Loomba and Jonathan Burton, Introduction, in idem, eds., Race in Early Modern England: A Documentary Companion (New York, 2007), 8, 22-3.
15. Wheeler, The Complexion of Race, 2-5, 22-4
16. Elizabeth Colwill, "Sex, Savagery and Slavery in the Shaping of the French Body Politic", in Sara E. Melzer and Kathryn Norberg, eds., From the Royal to the Republican Body: Incorporating the Political in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century France (Berkeley, 1998), 204.
17. Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, De l'esprit des loix, nouvelle edition, avec les dernieres corrections & illustrations de l'auteur, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1750), 2: 245, 254.
18. For further analysis see Ivan Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West (Washington, DC, 1996), 187-90, 200-2.
19. See Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller and Harold Stone (Cambridge, 1987), 537.
20. Montesquieu, De l'esprit des loix, 1: 343.
21. The translation is from Spirit of the Laws, trans. Cohler, Miller and Stone, 250.
22. Related debates have not entirely disappeared. Recent discussions about the origins of Homo sapiens encompass the "out-of-Africa" theory, which postulates that modern humans evolved in Africa and spread from there, and the "multiregional" theory, which suggests that the species evolved simultaneously in many locations across the world. See Roger Lewin, Bones of Contention: Controversies in the Search for Human Origins, 2nd edn (Chicago, 1997), 323-35.
23. For an English tabulation of Linné's human varieties see Jonathan Marks, "Systematics in Anthropology", in G. A. Clark and C. M. Willermet, eds., Conceptual Issues in Modern Human Origins Research (New York, 1997), 46-7.
24. Linné's Latin terms can be seen in Systema Naturae, 13th edn, 3 vols. (Vienna, 1767), 1: 29.
25. Nancy Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain, 1800-1960 (London, 1982), xviii.
26. Henry Louis Gates Jr, "Critical Remarks", in David Theo Goldberg, ed., Anatomy of Racism (Minneapolis, 1990), 319-21.
27. See also Hudson, "From 'Nation' to 'Race'", 258.
28. Buffon, Histoire naturelle (1749), in Oeuvres Complètes de Buffon, 5 vols., ed. M. Richard (Paris, 1837-8), 2: 646-7, 607. The translations are mine.
29. Buffon, Oeuvres, 2: 621-4.
30. David Bindman, Ape to Apollo: Aesthetics and the Idea of Race in the Eighteenth Century (London, 2002), 12, 20.
31. Kitson, Theories of Race, 141
32. J. F. Blumenbach, The Anthropological Treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, trans. and ed. Thomas Bendyshe (London, 1865), 99-100.
33. This quotation is from the second edition of De generis (1781).
34. For Blumenbach's five human varieties (Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American and Malay) see Anthropological Treatises, 264-6.
35. For the continuing use of the word "Caucasian", especially by immigration services, see Hannaford, Race, 207.
36. H. F. Augstein, "From the Land of the Bible to the Caucasus and Beyond: The Shifting Ideas of the Geographical Origins of Humankind", in Waltraud Erst and Bernard Harris, eds., Race, Science and Medicine, 1700-1960 (New York and London, 1999), 64.
37. Londa Schiebinger, Nature's Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science, rev. edn (New Brunswick, 2004), 118-19.
38. William Lawrence, "On theca uses of the Varieties of the Human Species", in idem, Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man, 3rd edn (London, 1823), 431.
39. Maupertuis, Venus physique, contenant deux dissertations, l'une sur l'origine des hommes et des animaux; et l'autre sur l'origine des noirs (La Haye, 1746), 144-5.
40. The translation is from idem, The Earthly Venus, trans. Simone Brangier Boas, introduction by George Boas (New York, 1966), 80.
41. Maupertuis, Venus, 149.
42. Lawrence, "On the Causes", 434-7.
43. James Cowles Prichard, Researches into the Physical History of Man (London, 1813), 231-3, 206-9, 236, 209.
44. See Wheeler, Complexion of Race, 295-6.
45. For more on the importance of aesthetics in Prichard's ideas see Schiebinger, Nature's Body, 133-4.
46. Henry Home, Lord Kames, "Preliminary Discourse, Concerning the Origin of Men and of Languages", in idem, Sketches of the History of Man, 2nd edn. 4 vols. (London, 1778), 1: 3-26, 72-9.
47. Edward Long, The History of Jamaica, 3 vols. (London, 1774), 2: 356, 374-5, 353.
48. John Bigland, An Historical Display of the Effects of Physical and Moral Causes on the Character and Circumstances of Nations (London, 1816), 75-80, 90-6.
49. Charles White, An Account of the Regular Gradation in Man, and in Difference Animals and Vegetables; and from the Former to the Latter (London, 1799), 55, 83.
50. For more details about White see Bindman, Ape to Apollo, 214-19.
51. Anonymous review, "An Account of the Regular Gradation in Man and in different Animals and Vegetables, and from the former to the latter. By Charles White, 1799", Monthly Review (new series) (1800), 360-64.
52. For discussions of empire and race see Wheeler, The Complexion of Race, 10-14;
53. Colwill, "Sex, Savagery and Slavery", esp. 207;
54. Frank Kafter, ed., introduction to Notable Encyclopaedias of the Late Eighteenth Century: Eleven Successors of the Encyclopédie, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 315 (Oxford, 1994), 1-2.
55. Kafker, "William Smellie's Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica" and idem, "The influence of the Encyclopédie on the Eighteenth-Century Encyclopaedic Tradition", both in Notable Encyclopaedias, 155-7, 395.
56. Richard Yeo, Encyclopaedic Visions: Scientific Dictionaries and Enlightenment Culture (Cambridge, 2001), 158-9, 163-6, xiii, 51.
57. Kafter, "William Smellie's Edition", 148;
58. William St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (Cambridge, 2004), 193-6. There were twenty shillings in a pound, and twelve pence in a shilling.
59. Yeo, Encyclopaedic Visions, 51;
60. David Allan, A Nation of Readers: The Lending Library in Georgian England (London, 2008), 194
61. For more on reading societies and lending libraries, see also St Clair, The Reading Nation, 235-67.
62. Identifying encyclopedic source material is extremely difficult because articles rarely employ references. I have, however, investigated every occasion when an article on "Europe" mentions a work or an authority by name. These materials often name other influences not acknowledged directly by encyclopedias. The Encyclopaedia Londinesis (1810-24), for example, cites John Pinkerton's Modern Geography (1802)
63. which in turn draws upon the anonymous Complete System of Geography (1747)
64. Fenning and Collyer's NewSystemof Geography (1765-6)
65. and Middleton's Newand Complete Systemof Geography (1777).
66. See Encyclopaedia Londinensis, 24 vols. (London, 1810-24), 7: 83;
67. John Pinkerton, Modern Geography, 2 vols. (London, 1802), 2: 782.
68. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2nd edn, 10 vols. (Edinburgh, 1777-84), 4: 2860.
69. The English Encyclopaedia, 10 vols. (London, 1802), 3: 351.
70. Silvia Sebastiani, "Race as a Construction of the Other: 'Native Americans' and 'Negroes' in the Eighteenth-Century Editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica", in Bo Stråth, ed., Europe and the Other, Europe as the Other (Brussels, 2000), 224.
71. The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, 18 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1808-30), 9: 238.
72. Augstein, "From the Land of the Bible", 66;
73. Daniel Drioxhe, La linguistique et l'appel de l'histoire (1600-1800) (Geneva, 1978), 86-7;
74. Maurice Olender, "Europe, or How to Escape Babel", History and Theory 33/4 (1994), 17.
75. The Modern Encyclopaedia, 10 vols. (London, [1816-20?]), 5: 77.
76. Encyclopaedia Edinensis, 6 vols. (Edinburgh, 1816-27), 3: 433.
77. Complete System of Geography, 2 vols. (London, 1747), 1: 1.
78. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 4th edn, 20 vols. (Edinburgh, 1801-9), 8: 350-1.
79. CharlesMiddleton, A New and Complete System of Geography, 2 vols. (London, 1777), 1: ii.
80. According to Roberto Dainotto, the "Arabist theory" (the idea that "European" civilization originated in Asia) became more prevalent from the 1770s onwards. See Dainotto, Europe (in Theory) (London, 2007), 6, 130-2.
81. Middleton, System of Geography, 2: 3.
82. A Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, 2 vols. (London, 1806-7), 1: 349.
83. Supplement to the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 6 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1824), 4: 181.
84. This theory appears in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 4th edn;
85. The Cyclopaedia; or Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences and Literature, 39 vols. (London, 1802-19);
86. Encyclopaedia Londinensis, 24 vols. (London, 1810-24).
87. For details of Pinkerton's life see Sarah Couper, "Pinkerton, John (pseuds. Robert Heron, H. Bennet) (1758-1826)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), available at www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/ 22301, accessed 21 February 2009.
88. Pinkerton, Modern Geography, 1: 8.
89. Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary; Encyclopaedia Londinensis;
90. and The Oxford Encyclopaedia, 7 vols. (Oxford, 1828-31).
91. Droixhe, La linguistique, 86-88.
92. See also Kidd, British Identities, 9-11.
93. Pinkerton, A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths, Being an Introduction to the Ancient and Modern History of Europe (London, 1787), 17-18.
94. Pinkerton, Dissertation, vii, 33-4.
95. Pinkerton, Dissertation, iii. Pinkerton specifically mentions Tacitus, Isidore of Seville, Jordanes and Bede.
96. James William Johnson, "The Scythian: His Rise and Fall", Journal of the History of Ideas 20/2 (1959), 250-55.
97. Johnson, "The Scythian", 255;
98. MartinThom, Republics, Nations and Tribes (London, 1995), 218-20.
99. Thom draws upon Eduard Norden's Die Germanische Urgeschichte in Tacitus Germania (1920) to suggest that these resemblances were perhaps the consequence of generic conventions in classical ethnographic writing, rather than an attempt to posit direct descent from the Scythians to the Germans.
100. Olender, "Europe, orHow to Escape Babel", 12;
101. idem, De l'origine du language aux langues du monde (Tübingen, 1987), 73-4.
102. idem, "Ethnicity on the British AtlanticWorld, 1688-1830", in Kathleen Wilson, ed., ANew ImperialHistory: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660-1840 (Cambridge, 2004), 275.
103. Kitson, Romanticism, Race and Colonial Encounter (New York, 2007), 153.
104. Kitson cites Cornelius de Pauw's Philosophical Dissertations on the Egyptians and Chinese (1795)
105. and John Barrow's Travels in China (1804).
106. [Pinkerton], "An Essay on the Origin of Scottish Poetry", in Ancient Scottish Poems, Never Before in Print, 2 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1786), 1: xxii-xxxvii.
107. Kidd, "Race, Theology and Revival: Scots Philology and Its Contexts in the Age of Pinkerton and Jamieson", Scottish Studies Review 3/2 (2002), 22.
108. Pinkerton, "Essay", xxiv-xxvi;
109. idem, Dissertation, 186, 33.
110. Gerald Newman, The Rise of English Nationalism: A Cultural History 1740-1830, rev. edn (London, 1997), 115;
111. Robert Mayhew, Enlightenment Geography: The Political Languages of BritishGeography, 1650-1850 (New York, 2000), 188-9;
112. idem, "BritishGeography'sRepublic of Letters: Mapping an Imagined Community, 1600-1800, Journal of the History of Ideas 65/2 (2004), 261-73.
113. D. Fenning and J. Collyer, A New System of Geography; or, A General Description of the World, 2 vols. (London, 1765-6), 2: 495.
114. Complete System (1747), 1: 2, 596; 2: 68.
115. Steven Roger Fischer, A History of Language (London, 1999), 35, 53-4, 60.
116. See also Sir William Jones, "On the Origins and Families of Nations, delivered to the Asiatick Society, 23 February 1792", in idem, Discourses, 2 vols. (London, 1821), 2: 1-35.
117. Newman, The Rise of English Nationalism, 115-16.
118. H. F. Augstein, James Cowles Prichard's Anthropology: Remaking the Science of Man in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain (Amsterdam and Atlanta, 1999), 170-73.
119. [J. G. Lockhart], "The Germanic Origin of the Latin Language and the Roman People
120. by Ernst Jäkel", Quarterly Review 46 (1831-2), 336-9.
121. Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, 9: 239.
122. Complete System (1747), 1: 1;
123. Middleton, New and Complete System, 2: 5;
124. William Guthrie, A New System of Modern Geography, 5th edn (London, 1792), 60.
125. The London Encyclopaedia, 22 vols. (London, 1826-9), 8: 677.
126. Augstein, Prichard's Anthropology, xv.
127. MauriceOlender, The Languages of Paradise: Race, Religion and Philology in theNineteenth- Century, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA, 1992), 5.
128. [Etienne Bonnet de Condillac], Essai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1746), 2: 197, 221. My translation.
129. Olender, The Languages of Paradise, 15-16, 57-63;
130. idem, "Europe, or How to Escape Babel", 5-9, 22-4.
131. Thom, Republics, Nations and Tribes, 224-7, 266.