Jeffrey Auerbach: running the British empire was boring
True, at its height, the British empire produced magnificent heaps of wealth and power. But according to the historian Jeffrey Auerbach, the empire also generated staggering amounts of boredom.
In a copiously documented report in the journal Common Knowledge, Auerbach writes: "Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, British imperial administrators at all levels were bored by their experience travelling and working in the service of king or queen and country. Yet in the public mind, the British empire was thrilling - full of novelty, danger and adventure, as explorers, missionaries and settlers sailed the globe in search of new lands, potential converts and untold riches."
Auerbach is an assistant professor of history at California State University, Northridge. His interests are not limited to boredom. He has published on many other subjects, among them "The Homogenisation of Empire", "The Monotony of Empire", and, inspirationally titled, "The Impossibility of Artistic Escape"....
Auerbach complains that, for generations, "Scholars have by and large perpetuated (a) glamorous view of the empire, portraying imperial men either as heroic adventurers who charted new lands and carried 'the white man's burden' to the farthest reaches of the planet, or as aggressors who imposed culturally bound norms and values on indigenous peoples and their ways of life."
He says he did his research by "reading against the grain of published memoirs and travel logs" and by digging into the unspectacular mutterings of private diaries and letters. His task was the more difficult, he argues, because "if people felt bored before the mid-18th century, they did not know it." This view of boredom, he points out, was persuasively developed by Patricia Meyer Spacks, whose 304-page book Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind, titillated thrill-starved scholars in 1995.
Auerbach is himself writing a book. It's about imperial boredom. He will need to expand considerably upon his current study, which is 23 pages long and includes only 76 footnotes....
In a copiously documented report in the journal Common Knowledge, Auerbach writes: "Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, British imperial administrators at all levels were bored by their experience travelling and working in the service of king or queen and country. Yet in the public mind, the British empire was thrilling - full of novelty, danger and adventure, as explorers, missionaries and settlers sailed the globe in search of new lands, potential converts and untold riches."
Auerbach is an assistant professor of history at California State University, Northridge. His interests are not limited to boredom. He has published on many other subjects, among them "The Homogenisation of Empire", "The Monotony of Empire", and, inspirationally titled, "The Impossibility of Artistic Escape"....
Auerbach complains that, for generations, "Scholars have by and large perpetuated (a) glamorous view of the empire, portraying imperial men either as heroic adventurers who charted new lands and carried 'the white man's burden' to the farthest reaches of the planet, or as aggressors who imposed culturally bound norms and values on indigenous peoples and their ways of life."
He says he did his research by "reading against the grain of published memoirs and travel logs" and by digging into the unspectacular mutterings of private diaries and letters. His task was the more difficult, he argues, because "if people felt bored before the mid-18th century, they did not know it." This view of boredom, he points out, was persuasively developed by Patricia Meyer Spacks, whose 304-page book Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind, titillated thrill-starved scholars in 1995.
Auerbach is himself writing a book. It's about imperial boredom. He will need to expand considerably upon his current study, which is 23 pages long and includes only 76 footnotes....