An economy of colour : visual culture and the Atlantic world, 1660-1830

This study analyses visual culture in the context of British and French colonial activity in the North Atlantic from 1660-1830.

It is a response to a noticeable omission in art history and cultural studies, which have largely ignored the diverse and important body of visual imagery relating to colonialism, Atlantic slavery and the development of racial ideology. This collection demonstrates that the visualization of individuals, communities, social types, fictive characters, artefacts and landscapes, played a highly significant role in both the European representation and self-representation of the peoples and places of the Atlantic colonial world.

Consequently, it reasserts the primacy of visual culture as an active participant in forming this complex and fluid "imagined community". Drawing contributions from an international group of leading scholars, this volume should prove invaluable to students of art history, particularly those interested in race and culture.