This book tracks across history and cultures the ways in which writers have imagined cyclones, hurricanes, and typhoons, collectively understood as "tropical weather." Historically, literature has drawn upon the natural world for its store of symbolic language and technical device, making use of violent storms in the form of plot, drama, trope, and image in order to highlight their relationship to the political, social, and psychological realms of human affairs. Charting this relationship through writers such as Joseph Conrad, Herman Melville, Gisele Pineau, and other writers from places like Australia, Japan, Mauritius, the Caribbean, and the Philippines, this ground-breaking collection of essays illuminates the specificities of the ways local, national, and regional communities have made sense and even relied upon the literary to endure the devastation caused by deadly tropical weather.

No family better represents the overlapping roles of administrator and scientist in the British empire than the Roths. Descended from a Hungarian emigrant to Australia, two generations of Roths served the empire on four continents and, at the same time, produced ethnographic, archaeological, and linguistic studies that form the basis for much modern research. This volume assesses the often-conflicting roles and contributions of the Roths as government servants and anthropologists. Most of the volume deals with Walter E. Roth, who developed foundational studies of both the Australian Aborigines-considered to be among the first systematic ethnographies anywhere-and South American tribes while serving as Chief Protector of Aborigines in Queensland and later medical officer, magistrate, museum curator and indigenous relations officer in British Guyana. Henry Ling Roth's contributions to the anthropology of Tasmania, Benin, Sarawak, and New Zealand are also enumerated, as are the publications and administrative activities of the succeeding generation of Roths. This volume serves the reader as a family biography, a slice of the English colonial history, and an important introduction to the history of anthropology.

No family better represents the overlapping roles of administrator and scientist in the British empire than the Roths. Descended from a Hungarian emigrant to Australia, two generations of Roths served the empire on four continents and, at the same time, produced ethnographic, archaeological, and linguistic studies that form the basis for much modern research. This volume assesses the often-conflicting roles and contributions of the Roths as government servants and anthropologists. Most of the volume deals with Walter E. Roth, who developed foundational studies of both the Australian Aborigines-considered to be among the first systematic ethnographies anywhere-and South American tribes while serving as Chief Protector of Aborigines in Queensland and later medical officer, magistrate, museum curator and indigenous relations officer in British Guyana. Henry Ling Roth's contributions to the anthropology of Tasmania, Benin, Sarawak, and New Zealand are also enumerated, as are the publications and administrative activities of the succeeding generation of Roths. This volume serves the reader as a family biography, a slice of the English colonial history, and an important introduction to the history of anthropology.

This book tracks across history and cultures the ways in which writers have imagined cyclones, hurricanes, and typhoons, collectively understood as "tropical weather." Historically, literature has drawn upon the natural world for its store of symbolic language and technical device, making use of violent storms in the form of plot, drama, trope, and image in order to highlight their relationship to the political, social, and psychological realms of human affairs. Charting this relationship through writers such as Joseph Conrad, Herman Melville, Gisele Pineau, and other writers from places like Australia, Japan, Mauritius, the Caribbean, and the Philippines, this ground-breaking collection of essays illuminates the specificities of the ways local, national, and regional communities have made sense and even relied upon the literary to endure the devastation caused by deadly tropical weather.

The British Empire drew on the talents of many remarkable figures, whose lives reveal a wonderfully rich involvement with the crucial issues of the period. In many cases they left a legacy of travel writing, novels, biography and ethnography which made important contributions to our knowledge of other cultures."Writing, Travel and Empire" explores the lives and writings of eight such figures, including Sir George Grey, Gertrude Bell, Sir Hugh Clifford, and Roger Casement. All travelled the Empire - from Grey, the renowned colonial governor who undertook dangerous journeys to the interior of Australia, to Tom Harrisson, the emaciated polymath, war hero and Arctic explorer, whose time in the New Hebrides embraced both cannibalistic rituals and a meeting with film legend Douglas Fairbanks Sr, who sought Harrisson out for a Hollywood feature about savage life.All saw themselves as writers, despite their very different approaches and interests, and each was writing against a backdrop of the impending disappearance of indigenous cultures around the world. Writing from the margins of what was shortly to become the more formalised discipline of anthropology, their work yields interesting insights into both the issues of empire and the ways in which academic disciplines define the boundaries of their subject. Embracing themes such as gender and travel, racial science, the globalisation of 'native management' and the internal colonies, and with a geographical coverage that extends from South America to Russia via Africa and the South Seas, "Writing Travel and Empire" will engage all those with an interest in cultural geography, anthropology, history, postcolonial studies, biography and travel writing.

The British Empire drew on the talents of many remarkable figures, whose lives reveal a wonderfully rich involvement with the crucial issues of the period. In many cases they left a legacy of travel writing, novels, biography and ethnography which made important contributions to our knowledge of other cultures."Writing, Travel and Empire" explores the lives and writings of eight such figures, including Sir George Grey, Gertrude Bell, Sir Hugh Clifford, and Roger Casement. All travelled the Empire - from Grey, the renowned colonial governor who undertook dangerous journeys to the interior of Australia, to Tom Harrisson, the emaciated polymath, war hero and Arctic explorer, whose time in the New Hebrides embraced both cannibalistic rituals and a meeting with film legend Douglas Fairbanks Sr, who sought Harrisson out for a Hollywood feature about savage life.All saw themselves as writers, despite their very different approaches and interests, and each was writing against a backdrop of the impending disappearance of indigenous cultures around the world. Writing from the margins of what was shortly to become the more formalised discipline of anthropology, their work yields interesting insights into both the issues of empire and the ways in which academic disciplines define the boundaries of their subject. Embracing themes such as gender and travel, racial science, the globalisation of 'native management' and the internal colonies, and with a geographical coverage that extends from South America to Russia via Africa and the South Seas, "Writing Travel and Empire" will engage all those with an interest in cultural geography, anthropology, history, postcolonial studies, biography and travel writing.