Colonial Desire

<p>The language of contemporary cultural theory shows remarkable similarities with the patterns of thought which characterised Victorian racial theory. Far from being marked by a separation from the racialised thinking of the past <em>Colonial Desire</em> shows we are operating <em>in complicity</em> with historical ways of viewing 'the other' both sexually and racially.<br><br><em>Colonial Desire</em> is a controversial and bracing study of the history of Englishness and 'culture'. Robert Young argues that the theories advanced today about post-colonialism and ethnicity are disturbingly close to the colonial discourse of the nineteenth century. 'Englishness' Young argues has been less fixed and stable than uncertain fissured with difference and a desire for otherness.</p>