{"id":818,"date":"2022-10-26T16:13:52","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T16:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/?p=818"},"modified":"2022-10-26T16:13:52","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T16:13:52","slug":"the-truth-is-duller-than-fiction-theories-of-tropicality-in-the-perception-of-india-in-the-1800s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/2022\/10\/the-truth-is-duller-than-fiction-theories-of-tropicality-in-the-perception-of-india-in-the-1800s\/","title":{"rendered":"The Truth is Duller than Fiction? Theories of Tropicality in the Perception of India in the 1800s"},"content":{"rendered":"

The history of \u2018Tropicality\u2019 is a long one, with the first writings dating back to Hippocrates, the \u2018father of medicine\u2019. In his Airs, Waters, Places<\/em>, he outlines the climatic differences in Asian and the supposedly corresponding racial characteristics. Just as Galenic theories on humours were to dominate medicine until well into the early modern period, these perceived links between climate and character were held as fact in Britain and Europe throughout the 18th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup> centuries, and used to justify colonial expansion and control.<\/p>\n

These theories are naturally now considered untenable to the modern reader. This does not mean that reading them is not without worth, not least because of the massive contradictions that they contain, and more so that this appears to be completely disregarded within them.<\/p>\n

To take one of the greatest examples, look to Montesquieu\u2019s The Spirit of the Laws<\/em>, specifically his ideas on the climate of Asia. His argument was that the \u2018strength\u2019 of Europe vs the \u2018weakness\u2019 of Asia could be entirely explained by Europe\u2019s temperate climate compared to Asia\u2019s lack of a temperate zone, whereby \u201cthe places situated in a very cold climate there are immediately adjacent to those that are in a very warm climate\u201d, and so \u201cthe brave and active warrior peoples are immediately adjacent to effeminate, lazy and timid peoples; therefore, one must be the conquered and the other the conqueror.\u201d1<\/a><\/sup> He explains his reasoning as the fact that Asia had been \u2018subjugated\u2019 13 times compared to Europe\u2019s 4, which he gives as Roman, Barbarian, Charlemagne, and Norman2<\/a><\/sup> He then gives the determining factor of Europe\u2019s relative peace and stability as the broadness of the temperate zone, in that while there is a huge difference in temperature between the northern- and southernmost reaches of Europe, the climatic change is so gradual that \u201cthere is not a noticeable difference between them.\u201d3<\/a><\/sup>. As such, “the strong face the strong”, and so one ‘race’ is unable to subjugate the other4<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n

This contradiction of temperature and racial characteristics can be further seen in later accounts of the Tropics, particularly with regards to India. In taking writers such as Hippocrates and Montesquieu as undoubted fact, the perception of Asia and India was that of a single and relatively unchanging climate. David Arnold then takes this further in his work Tropics and the Traveling Gaze: India, Landscape and Science, 1800- 1856 <\/em>by showing how the perception of the Tropics was then muddled even further through the growth of popular fiction. This led to the creation of what he terms \u201ca single impression of colour, light, exuberance, and elegance.\u201d5<\/a><\/sup> Arnold shows that when faced with the reality of India and Asia\u2019s hugely varied climate and areas of seemingly dull, barren plains instead of the rich, Edenic visions made popular through stories such as the Arabian Nights<\/em>, travellers could find themselves becoming weary and despondent. In particular, he gives the example of Victor Jacquemont, a French naturalist who travelled to India to study botany. Arnold argues that Jacquemont\u2019s previous visits to Haiti, where his brother was a businessman (and possible plantation owner), had given him an idealised view of the Tropics which he then expected to see replicated in India. He was then \u201cbitterly disappointed\u201d to find out that this was not the case.<\/p>\n

Rather than admit his own shortcomings or attempt to view India with a more benevolent eye, Jacquemont followed in the same tradition as Hippocrates and Montesquieu. He concluded that \u201cthe fault is not in myself: it lies with the things themselves, with the country.\u201d6<\/a><\/sup> Whether this was any consolation to him seems doubtful, but in this at least he was following in the footsteps of his predecessors, and those that followed after him kept his words in mind themselves, just as many travellers no doubt do the same today.<\/p>\n

  1. Charles de Secondat Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws <\/em>ed. Anne<\/em> M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller and Harold Samuel Stone, (Cambridge, 1989), pg. 280 [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  2. ibid, pg. 281. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  3. Ibid, pg. 280 [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  4. ibid. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  5. David Arnold, Tropics and the Traveling Gaze: India, Landscape and Science, 1800- 1856<\/em>, (Washington, 2006), pg. 112. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  6. ibid, pg. 132. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The history of \u2018Tropicality\u2019 is a long one, with the first writings dating back to Hippocrates, the \u2018father of medicine\u2019. In his Airs, Waters, Places, he outlines the climatic differences in Asian and the supposedly corresponding racial characteristics. Just as Galenic theories on humours were to dominate medicine until well into the early modern period, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[92,91,93],"class_list":["post-818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-asia","tag-india","tag-tropicality"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":820,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions\/820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spatialhistory.net\/cities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}