The Alchemy of Empire: Abject Materials and the Technologies of Colonialism by Rajani Sudan

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Alchemy of Empire: Abject Materials and the Technologies of Colonialism by Rajani Sudan Nicole Lobdell (bio) Rajani Sudan, The Alchemy of Empire: Abject Materials and the Technologies of Colonialism. New York: Fordham University Press, 2016, 223 pp. $25.00 paper. In her second book, The Alchemy of Empire, Rajani Sudan examines a series of materials, interrogating them as cultural objects and as vehicles for imperialist ideologies. At the crux of her study is alchemy and the language of alchemy that, Sudan reveals, colors the writings, both literary and nonliterary, of the long eighteenth century. The "alchemy of empire" invokes metaphors of transformation. Sudan demonstrates how valueless, abject materials, such as mud, and materials that only appeared abject to Westerners, such as Indian technê, were transformed into valuable substances and, more importantly, valuable knowledge that Western ideologies appropriated as their own. She imagines the alchemy of empire as "an alchemical sublimation of base material . . . from solidity into an abstract truth claim" (p. 5) and from "alien forms of knowledge [technê] . . . into marvels" (p. 15). This study contributes to the continuing postcolonial dismantling of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western hegemony in the fields of science and technology, including the fallacious belief that Western Enlightenment is preeminent, or, as Sudan shrewdly asserts, that "Reason has become the reason for Western domination" (p. 28). She links the perceived Western hegemony in science and technology with Britain's need to supplement its limited natural resources with foreign materials, substances, and technologies. The metaphor of foreign materials in British bodies could take many forms, as Sudan shows, such as the use of Indian lime in British mortar and the introduction of smallpox matter into British blood. In many ways, including some unexpected ones, Sudan demonstrates how the introduction of foreign abject materials from India transformed the British Empire. The Alchemy of Empire is a compact study. Focusing on a relatively small number of small and transportable objects—mud, mortar, ice, smallpox matter, "plaisters," and paper—Sudan considers these materials within the global scale of British imperialism. The interest in object theory and material culture studies of the last decade has led to a number of corresponding studies that connect imperialism and material culture. To set this study apart, however, Sudan emphasizes substances as "technologies of colonialism and empire" and, more importantly, "understand[ing] the work these substances do in the production of imperial ideology" (p. 7; emphasis in original). She reads substances as materials, each with its own particular use and purpose, and as vehicles for imperialist ideologies. Her approach encourages a reader to envision how small and relatively insignificant things can affect transnational change. For example, she considers the nutmegs collected and gifted by Elihu Yale, President of Fort St. George and servant of the British East India Company, to Cotton Mather to support his college, later renamed Yale College in recognition of Yale's gift. Yale's gift meant financial stability for the struggling college, and several of the materials Sudan includes in her study achieve similar ends. In "Mortar and the Making of Madras," a detailed discussion of mortar reveals the disturbing instability of British mortar in Indian weather, serving as a larger metaphor for the control of British colonies in India. Sudan makes evident that the integration of Indian technê into the design of British buildings in India is imperative, but British buildings built with local materials and technê makes British offices and housing visually indistinguishable from those of the Madras locals. The Indian mortar creates space and separation while simultaneously forming a connective link between the British and the people of Madras. Like mortar, ice, another unstable substance, gives the illusion of control over the environment. In her compelling discussion of ice, Sudan considers the alchemy of ice, chiefly noting its power to transform the Indian climate to one decidedly cooler and, therefore, more English. Such technology is akin to alchemy, turning a base material into something more useful and valuable. Perceived as a coldly stoic people from a [End Page 109] colder climate, the British desired not only ideological control but also climate control. Unable to remake India with their Western technologies (mortar and ice), the British...