David Richards here examines historical anthropological discourse - specifically writings about and depictions of 'savage' peoples by conquering races - as a form of textual practice. He analyses various kinds of 'naturalistic' representations, both artistic and literary, of colonised cultures, revealing the ways in which such representations betray their own subject-positions and fail - from our modern perspective - to act as the objective 'mirrors on nature' that they might originally have purported to be. Masks of Difference provides original and informative readings of individual sites of colonisation, including Florida (1564–91), and Scotland (1814), together with extended surveys; what emerges is a composite picture of anthropological representation as a textual genre in its own right, embracing literature, literary theory, and colonial/postcolonial studies.
- ISBN13 9780521479721
- Publish Date 2 March 1995 (first published 24 February 1995)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 27 September 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Cambridge University Press
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 364
- Language English