The Global Indies: British Imperial Culture and the Reshaping of the World, 1756-1815

A study of British imperialism’s imaginative geography, exploring the pairing of India and the Atlantic, from literature to colonial policy

In this lively book, Ashley Cohen reveals how eighteenth-century Britons saw the empire-not as separate Atlantic and Indian spheres but as an interconnected Indies. Crisscrossing the hemispheres, Cohen traces global histories of race, slavery, and class. She also locates empire’s presence at home, in metropolitan scenes of fashionable sociability. Combining literary studies and new imperial history, Cohen demonstrates how the imaginative geography of the Indies shaped the culture of British imperialism, which then changed the shape of the world.