Travellers' Tales: Narratives of Home and Displacement

by George Robertson

Book Overview

First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415070163
• ISBN13: 9780415070164
• Release Date: October 1994
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 270 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

soap as a symbol of British imperialism

The book brings in a complex mixture of associations with the concept of identity and travel. Where here travel means not just a physical displacement from another crucial concept of home, but also a change in identity. Thus we see refugees and their experiences. Refugees from apartheid South Africa, who had to flee to other African countries, or to Britain. You must check out a hilarious chapter on soap in the British Empire. I kid you not. There are reproductions of ads from the 1890s that depict soap, white naturally, as part of a civilising, imperialistic mission. McClintock gives an incisive analysis of that era, using soap and the surviving ads as eloquent testimonials to the not-very subliminal memes circulating amongst the British.