{"product_id":"the-atlantic-republic-of-letters-knowledge-and-colonialism-in-the-age-of-franklin-hardcover","title":"The Atlantic Republic of Letters: Knowledge and Colonialism in the Age of Franklin - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eDiego Pirillo\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePlaces Benjamin Franklin's Philadelphia in the context of a broader Atlantic intellectual world and investigates the entanglement among books, knowledge, and colonialism\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic Republic of Letters\u003c\/i\u003e offers an alternative intellectual history of early America. Focusing on Benjamin Franklin's Philadelphia, the book frames Euro-American colonialism as an intellectual enterprise, which was established not only through military and economic means but also through books, ideas, and cultural institutions. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThrough research in dozens of archives and rare book libraries, Diego Pirillo brings together two interconnected histories. First, he recovers the place of British America in the cosmopolitan world of the Republic of Letters, studying the communication system that facilitated the transatlantic circulation of knowledge. Second, he shows that knowledge was weaponized in the effort to survey and control North America. While fashioning themselves as independent and cosmopolitan scholars, Franklin and his associates, including James and Martha Logan, Isaac Norris II, Pierre Eugène Du Simitière, and Jane Colden, among others, were in fact deeply tied to political power and tailored their ideas to the needs of their patrons. They served as agents of empire and helped to devise and put into practice the colonial project. Not only were books, libraries, and cultural institutions funded by the wealth created by the slave trade and the expropriation of Indigenous land, but, as Pirillo argues, the very taxonomies and classification systems that Euro-American scholars devised directly shaped the colonial enterprise. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn this respect, \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic Republic of Letters\u003c\/i\u003e illuminates the relationship among books, intellectuals, and colonial governance, and explores the ways in which knowledge circulated and shaped conquest.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eDiego Pirillo is Professor of Italian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of \u003ci\u003eThe Refugee-Diplomat: Venice, England and the Reformation\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 344\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.94 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e May 05, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52057195053357,"sku":"9781512829310","price":66.13,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0938\/3185\/6429\/files\/the-atlantic-republic-of-letters-knowledge-and-colonialism-in-the-age-of-franklin-hardcover-9859458.webp?v=1780168807","url":"https:\/\/ishookbooks.com\/products\/the-atlantic-republic-of-letters-knowledge-and-colonialism-in-the-age-of-franklin-hardcover","provider":"iShook Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}