UMass Amherst Historian and Assistant Professor Asheesh Kapur Siddique’s first book, The Archive of Empire: Knowledge, Conquest, and the Making of the Early Modern British World, is out now with Yale University Press. The book examines how modern data-driven government originated in the creation and use of administrative archives in the British Empire. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the British relied upon networks of information to govern, expand and reconstruct their Empire. These years of data collection created expansive archives and established norms but how could British government archives be effective in understanding cultures and languages other than their own? By examining the British Empire’s data collection in the Americas and South Asia, the relationship between power and information comes into clearer view.
“This brilliant, erudite, and pathbreaking study of imperial information management shows that the Enlightenment of knowledge was a powerful force that worked to free the mind, but was also a potent tool of repression,” notes Jacob Soll, author of Free Market: The History of an Idea. “Siddique has emerged as one of the most brilliant scholars of his generation, and this book is essential to understanding our own challenges with information, public discourse, and the state and their origins in the colonial enterprise. Anyone interested in the history of economics, politics, and the often bewildering modern age must read Siddique’s masterwork.” —Jacob Soll, author of Free Market: The History of an Idea
The Archive of Empire is available directly from Yale University Press and from booksellers everywhere.
Please join us at Amherst Books on October 8th from 6-7pm for a book party in celebration of Professor Siddique’s new work.
More information about the book party.