The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World, Jasanoff Maya

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017
One of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2017

A visionary exploration of the life and times of Joseph Conrad, his turbulent age of globalization and our own, from one of the most exciting young historians writing today

Migration, terrorism, the tensions between global capitalism and nationalism, and a communications revolution: these forces shaped Joseph Conrads destiny at the dawn of the twentieth century. In this brilliant new interpretation of one of the great voices in modern literature, Maya Jasanoff reveals Conrad as a prophet of globalization. As an immigrant from Poland to England, and in travels from Malaya to Congo to the Caribbean, Conrad navigated an interconnected world, and captured it in a literary oeuvre of extraordinary depth. His life story delivers a history of globalization from the inside out, and reflects powerfully on the aspirations and challenges of the modern world.

Joseph Conrad was born J zef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in 1857, to Polish parents in the Russian Empire. At sixteen he left the landlocked heart of Europe to become a sailor, and for the next twenty years travelled the worlds oceans before settling permanently in England as an author. He saw the surging, competitive new imperialism that planted a flag in almost every populated part of the globe. He got a close look, too, at the places beyond the end of telegraph cables and mail-boat lines, and the hypocrisy of the wests most cherished ideals.