{"product_id":"monsters-and-revolutionaries-franoise-vergs-9780822322948","title":"Monsters and Revolutionaries: Colonial Family Romance and Metissage","description":"In \u003ci\u003eMonsters and Revolutionaries\u003c\/i\u003e Fran輟ise Verg鑚 analyzes the complex relationship between the colonizer and colonized on the Indian Ocean island of R騏nion. Through novels, iconography, and texts from various disciplines including law, medicine, and psychology, Verg鑚 constructs a political and cultural history of the island's relations with France. Woven throughout is Verg鑚's own family history, which is intimately tied to the history of R騏nion itself.\u003cbr\u003eOriginally settled by sugar plantation owners and their Indian and African slaves following a seventeenth-century French colonial decree, R騏nion abolished slavery in 1848. Because plantation owners continued to import workers from India, Africa, Asia, and Madagascar, the island was defined as a place based on mixed heritages, or \u003ci\u003em騁issage\u003c\/i\u003e. Verg鑚 reads the relationship between France and the residents of R騏nion as a family romance: France is the seemingly protective mother, \u003ci\u003eLa M鑽e-Patrie, \u003c\/i\u003e while the people of R騏nion are seen and see themselves as France's children. Arguing that the central dynamic in the colonial family romance is that of debt and dependence, Verges explains how the republican ideals of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment are seen as gifts to R騏nion that can never be repaid. This dynamic is complicated by the presence of \u003ci\u003em騁issage\u003c\/i\u003e, a source of anxiety to the colonizer in its refutation of the \"purity\" of racial bloodlines. For Verg鑚, the island's history of slavery is the key to understanding \u003ci\u003em騁issage\u003c\/i\u003e, the politics of assimilation, constructions of masculinity, and emancipatory discourses on R騏nion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Fran輟ise Verg鑚\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0822322943\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780822322948\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Duke University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/11\/1999\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 416\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.46lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.97h x 5.85w x 1.22d","brand":"Fran輟ise Verg鑚","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43926526886143,"sku":"9780822322948","price":30.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/products\/img_0f837e36-b8c1-4944-a865-2067f004c692.jpg?v=1681083558","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/monsters-and-revolutionaries-franoise-vergs-9780822322948","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}