Desire and contradiction - Daniel Bivona

Analyzing literary and historical texts, this book examines the relationship between representations of imperial issues and the domestic social and cultural questions which are enmeshed with them in Victorian Britain.;After tracing Disraeli's preoccupation with finding a place for the middle and working classes within the English polity to its roots in a fundamentally "imperial" ideological project, the author examines the cultural foundations of "play" and games in Victorian society and literature, aiming to assert that the "game of empire" constitutes a surreptitious discourse on questions of race and cultural imperialism.;He then considers the post-Darwinian literary impact of evolutionary anthropology on the work of three late-century writers - Haggard, Conrad and Hardy - who are beset by the problem of the relationship between the "primitive" and the "civilized". The author concludes by raising the question of British capitalism's implication in the game of empire building. The book suggests that Victorian England's preoccupation with the aliem other had an important impact on the shaping of its cultural politics, and that the debate on the empire was often carried on in contexts seemingly remote from the imperial field.