3 Review(s)

This text investigates the historical practice of producing stereotyped and spectacularized representations of colonized peoples at the great exhibitions and in colonial photography generally. By comparing the images produced in Britain and France with those produced in North America, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific, China and Japan, the author proposes that different representations of colonized peoples between the imperial centres and colonies were the result of different social and political agendas. Furthermore, by focusing on images that were connected to anthropology, dying race theory, travel, tourism and portraiture, Maxwell proposes that while some photographs were directed at naturalizing the precept of colonialism others were used to criticize it and to empower indigenous subjects. Written from a postcolonial perspective, a pursuing an interdisciplinary approach, the text should be of interest to scholars, students and researchers intent on knowing more about the images of racial and cultural difference that shaped our immediate past.