ABSTRACT

Expeditionary journeys have shaped our world, but the expedition as a cultural form is rarely scrutinized. This book is the first major investigation of the conventions and social practices embedded in team-based exploration. In probing the politics of expedition making, this volume is itself a pioneering journey through the cultures of empire. With contributions from established and emerging scholars, Expedition into Empire plots the rise and transformation of expeditionary journeys from the eighteenth century until the present. Conceived as a series of spotlights on imperial travel and colonial expansion, it roves widely: from the metropolitan centers to the ends of the earth. This collection is both rigorous and accessible, containing lively case studies from writers long immersed in exploration, travel literature, and the dynamics of cross-cultural encounter.

chapter 1|24 pages

What Is an Expedition?

An Introduction

chapter 2|26 pages

What Is an Explorer?

chapter 3|14 pages

Settler Colonial Expeditions

chapter 4|23 pages

The Expedition as a Cultural Form

On the Structure of Exploratory Journeys as Revealed by the Australian Explorations of Ludwig Leichhardt

chapter 5|20 pages

The Theatre of Contact

Aborigines and Exploring Expeditions

chapter 6|19 pages

Expeditions, Encounters, and the Praxis of Seaborne Ethnography

The French Voyages of La Pérouse and Freycinet

chapter 7|21 pages

Armchair Expeditionaries

Voyages Into the French Musée de la Marine, 1828–78

chapter 8|23 pages

On Slippery Ice

Discovery, Imperium, and the Austro-Hungarian North Polar Expedition (1872–4)

chapter 9|23 pages

A Polar Drama

The Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911–14

chapter 10|20 pages

The 1928 MacRobertson Round Australia Expedition

Colonial Adventuring in the Twentieth Century

chapter 11|19 pages

The Expedition's Afterlives

Echoes of Empire in Travel to Asia