On Enlightenment’s margins: geography, imperialism and mapping in Central Asia, c.1798–c.1838
Abstract This paper examines the nature of British geographical work in Central Asia (Persia and Afghanistan) in a period when Britain was concerned about a region which lay between Europe and Enlightenment on the one hand, and her Indian colonies, the uncertainties of Asia and the imperial designs of France and Russia on the other. The paper explores the connections between geography, diplomacy and colonial knowledge and demonstrates how the mapping and geographical study of Central Asia was a central feature of British colonial ambitions and of Enlightenment conceptual reasoning. In illuminating the ways in which ‘ancient’ and ‘modern’ geography was at work in this politically core yet geographically ‘marginal’ space, the paper highlights the complexities intrinsic to the making of geography and of empire in a region until now neglected in modern historical geography.