Early public libraries and colonial citizenship in the British Southern hemisphere / Lara Atkin, Sarah Comyn, Porscha Fermanis, Nathan Garvey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Atkin, Lara, author.

Comyn, Sarah, author.

Fermanis, Porscha, 1975- author.

Garvey, Nathan, author.

Series:

New directions in book history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Public libraries--Commonwealth countries--History--19th century.

Public libraries.

Public libraries--Southern Hemisphere--History--19th century.

Public libraries--Social aspects--Commonwealth countries--History--19th century.

Public libraries--Social aspects--Southern Hemisphere--History--19th century.

Books and reading--Social aspects--Commonwealth countries--History--19th century.

Books and reading.

Books and reading--Social aspects--Southern Hemisphere--History--19th century.

Citizenship.

Imperialism.

Books and reading--Social aspects.

Public libraries--Social aspects.

History.

Commonwealth countries.

Southern Hemisphere.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xv, 159 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 21 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

Summary:

This open access Pivot book is a comparative study of six early colonial public libraries in nineteenth-century Australia, South Africa, and Southeast Asia. Drawing on networked conceptualisations of empire, transnational frameworks, and ?new imperial history? paradigms that privilege imbricated colonial and metropolitan ?intercultures?, it looks at the neglected role of public libraries in shaping a programme of Anglophone civic education, scientific knowledge creation, and modernisation in the British southern hemisphere. The book?s six chapters analyse institutional models and precedents, reading publics and types, book holdings and catalogues, and regional scientific networks in order to demonstrate the significance of these libraries for the construction of colonial identity, citizenship, and national self-government as well as charting their influence in shaping perceptions of social class, gender, and race. Using primary source material from the recently completed ?Book Catalogues of the Colonial Southern Hemisphere? digital archive, the book argues that public libraries played a formative role in colonial public discourse, contributing to broader debates on imperial citizenship and nation-statehood across different geographic, cultural, and linguistic borders.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

9783030204259

3030204251

OCLC:

1109894596

Publisher Number:

99981672325