{"product_id":"the-inner-life-of-empires-an-eighteenthcentury-history-9780691148953","title":"The Inner Life of Empires: An Eighteenth-Century History","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe birth of the modern world as told through the remarkable story of one eighteenth-century family  They were abolitionists  speculators  slave owners  government officials  and occasional politicians. They were observers of the anxieties and dramas of empire. And they were from one family. The Inner Life of Empires tells the intimate history of the Johnstones--four sisters and seven brothers who lived in Scotland and around the globe in the fast-changing eighteenth century. Piecing together their voyages  marriages  debts  and lawsuits  and examining their ideas  sentiments  and values  renowned historian Emma Rothschild illuminates a tumultuous period that created the modern economy  the British Empire  and the philosophical Enlightenment.  One of the sisters joined a rebel army  was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle  and escaped in disguise in 1746. Her younger brother was a close friend of Adam Smith and David Hume. Another brother was fluent in Persian and Bengali  and married to a celebrated poet. He was the owner of a slave known only as \"Bell or Belinda \" who journeyed from Calcutta to Virginia  was accused in Scotland of infanticide  and was the last person judged to be a slave by a court in the British isles. In Grenada  India  Jamaica  and Florida  the Johnstones embodied the connections between European  American  and Asian empires. Their family history offers insights into a time when distinctions between the public and private  home and overseas  and slavery and servitude were in constant flux.  Based on multiple archives  documents  and letters  The Inner Life of Empires looks at one familys complex story to describe the origins of the modern political  economic  and intellectual world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45953309540405,"sku":"ByrdShop_0691148953","price":22.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780691148953.jpg?v=1788184737","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-inner-life-of-empires-an-eighteenthcentury-history-9780691148953","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}