In the years between 1790 and 1830, over one hundred and fifty million people were brought under British imperial control. During those same years, one of the most momentous outbursts of British literary and artistic production took place in romanticism, announcing the arrival of a whole new age, a new world of social and individual traumas and possibilities. The starting point of the research project that resulted in this book was an intuitive assumption that these events were somehow related to each other; what Irealized by the end was that an adequate understanding of either event requires an understanding of both – at one and the same time – if it is not to be seriously flawed.

Romanticism cannot be understood properly without reference to modern imperialism and modern capitalism: perhaps this seems clear enough. Modern imperialism and modern capitalism cannot be properly understood without reference to romanticism: this may not seem quite so clear at all.