This book is not an easy read for it requires a polymath of the same calibre as the author to fully comprehend its many strands. In many ways it is an attack on the silo approach to academic study and a plea for more interdisciplinary work. Neither the title nor subtitle prepare the reader for what this book is about. The book defies easy description because the subject is so diverse even though the time period is restricted to the years between 1850 and 1870 and the location is largely London. This book is not parochial in terms of space or time. London is treated as the emerging global city it was to become, as its interaction with countries around the world is a central feature of the book. Though immersed in Victorian science, finance, politics, and society, the perspective is from the present to the past rather than any attempt to explain what was happening in its own terms. This is not a narrative but a dissection in which the entrails are laid out for all to see and the connections between them traced. However, that is where the book is at its weakest. Is the whole body being dissected or only a fragment? Are the connections being traced the most important rather than being only weak links and false trails? Only by reading the whole book can readers reach their own conclusions. Having done so I remain unconvinced by the central thesis, despite the efforts of the author to produce a convincing case through intellectual arguments, archival research, and extensive reading.
What is that central thesis? I was well into the book before it became clear to me what it was about. In one part the book is an account of the beginnings of the study of anthropology. This coincided with the work of Darwin and ideas about the evolution of mankind, informed as it was by the increasing knowledge about different societies that was increasingly available in the mid nineteenth century. This eventually resulted in the establishment of the Anthropological Institute, in 1871, which involved a number of prominent individuals from London's financial world. In another part the book is an account of the speculative fever that gripped Britain in the 1860s, which involved loans to foreign governments located in countries about which little was known, and projects to build railways across lands that had been little explored. Finally, another part relates to Britain as a world power as it furthered the boundaries of its Empire, though the focus is mainly on places that were never to be formally ruled by Britain, like Nicaragua and Abyssinia. What connects these disparate parts is the work of anthropologists. As is noted on a number of occasions, “There were just too many anthropologists around for this to be coincidental” (p. 193).
A three-way relationship is postulated among Anthropology, Finance, and Empire in which they continually interacted, feeding of each other and helping shape the policies followed by the British government. A constant theme of the book is the “tangled history of capitalism and anthropology” (p. 263). This is explored through a focus on particular individuals and the activities they were involved in, whether those involved scientific dispute, military expeditions, foreign government finance, or railway projects. Among the individuals to feature prominently were the likes of George Earl Church, an American soldier and engineer; Bedford Pim, a British naval captain; Hyde Clark, an engineer and company secretary; George Joachim Goschen, a banker and politician; John Lubbock, later Lord Avebury, another banker and politician; and Augustus Lane Fox, who became Augustus Pit Rivers, one of the founders of modern anthropology. It is through these people that the case is made for the inextricable links between anthropology and finance and the way it drove the extension of British power in the mid nineteenth century, whether financially or militarily.
In this respect the book resembles the theories expressed by J. A. Hobson, who saw the activities of financiers as the taproot of late nineteenth century Imperialism, and the later work by Cain and Hopkins, who focus on the role played by gentleman capitalists throughout the history of the British Empire. Though the ideas of Hobson are not addressed those of Cain and Hopkins are, but the conclusion reached in this book is that the financiers involved at the time should be classed as “rogues” not gentlemen. It was through the social forum provided by the likes of the Anthropological Society that the financiers, scientists, and politicians met and interacted, formulating the schemes that projected British power onto the world. With the technology of the time to aid it, especially the railway, the global possibilities open to Britain appeared limitless, for all that required was finance, and the London Stock Exchange could mobilise that in abundance.
Persuasive as these arguments are, and the detailed evidence provided, what the book lacks is the final proof that anthropology was the nexus, which bound all these disparate elements together. What the reader needs to know, for example, is what proportion of the membership of the various anthropological bodies were members of the London Stock Exchange, and how many of those members were also anthropologists. A few carefully chosen examples of both does not constitute proof that anthropology was the dominant influence on brokers and bankers who, in turn, dominated the development of that subject. Even if that was shown to be the case a convincing argument needs to be put forward in terms of causality. Were finance and anthropology simply common travellers driven by the spirit of inquiry and enterprise found in Victorian Britain? Following any evidence of direct association, the direction of influence needs to be established. Did financiers seek out anthropology and use its knowledge and science for their own ends or did anthropologists bring their emerging subject to the attention of financiers hoping to profit as a result? A careful study of this book produces mixed messages even from the case studies presented. For that reason, this is a book that needs to be judged against not only what is in it but also what is left out.
