EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
A History of the World since 1300
Jeremy Adelman, Princeton University
 |
C O U R S E L E C T U R E Cook and Clive: Discoverers, Collectors and Conquerors of the Enlightenment Notes taken on August 27, 2014 by Edward Tanguay |
•
the 18th century brought about a blurring of the relationships between collecting and conquest
•
Robert Clive
•
as Captain Cook was an icon of discovery, Robert Clive was an icon of discovery in its relationship with conquest, particularly in Bengal
•
rose up through the ranks of the East-India Company
•
Battle of Plassey (1757)
•
decisive victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies
•
ushered in the process of the slow by inexorable conquest of Bengal
•
began the process of territorial acquisition
•
in the early modern era, the use of large scale fighting forces wasn't just something that was monopolized by the state
•
the state could franchise this type of operation out to joint-stock companies
•
Clive became the governor of Bengal
•
the blurring of the line of state and private companies
•
a company man becoming the governor of a private colony, i.e. a possession acquired by the East India Company
•
Bengal, the richest state in India, is not a possession of a European company
•
motives in the pattern of conquest of regimes and the defeat of Mughal empires
•
money
•
collecting
•
new relationships with local aristocrats
•
relationships involved gift-giving
•
paintings
•
jewelry
•
silk
•
information
•
Clive accumulated these "gifts"
•
refashioned himself as a great aristocrat
•
Clive and Cook
•
belonged to a group of people who, in the 18th century, repositioned themselves in the Old World by venturing out into the New World
•
collectors of information and artifacts and products from the world
•
expanded commerce and contacts
•
produced books
•
supported science
•
initiated discoverbooks
•
helped create a world of intellectual ferment that we call The Enlightenment
•
The Enlightenment
•
an attempt to understand the world without reducing its meaning to divine inspiration
•
fathom and figure out the natural and objective laws of the universe
•
see the world as a totality which is subject to the same rules no matter where you are
•
the belief that we can systematize our knowledge into books and circulate them
•
the goal was not just to develop ideas about the world, but to spread them
•
Enlightenment, "to cast light", i.e. to spread objective knowledge of the natural world into the dark areas where there had hitherto been little objective knowledge of the world