The birth of the modern world as told through the remarkable story of one eighteenth-century familyThey 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 family's complex story to describe the origins of the modern political, economic, and intellectual world.

Introduction: Ideas and Sentiments 1Chapter One::Setting Out 11The Four Sisters and Seven Brothers 15Difficult Circumstances 23Tragic News from the Indias 29The Frontiers of Empire in the West 34 Small Congratulatory Elephants 45Chapter Two: Coming Home 59The Finances of the Family 60The Politics of the East and West Indies 68The Arts and Sciences of Enlightenment 76The Ruins of the Indies 80Intran Bell alias Belinda 87Joseph Knight 91
Chapter Three:: Ending and Loss 97The Detritus of Empire 99 The James Johnstones 105Indian Yellow Satin 109The Treasurer 112Distant Destinies 116
Chapter Four:Economic Lives 121Possible Empires 125What Is the State? 131What Was, and What Was Not Law 137A Society of Persons 141A Moderate Empire 146Economic Theories 148
Chapter Five: Experiences of Empire 154Slavery in the British Empire 154"This Age of Information" 170Family Histories 185Connections of Things 197Intimate Lives 202
Chapter Six: What Is Enlightenment? 210The Sect of Philosophers 211The Milieux of Enlightenment: Books and Booksellers 220Legal Information 224Clerks and Clerics 231The Milieux of Political Thought 239The Atmosphere of Society 247The Enlightenment of the Johnstones 252The Coexistence of Enlightenment and Oppression 258
Chapter Seven: Histories of Sentiments 263The Eye of the Mind 263The History of the Human Mind 266Family Secrets 270The Discontinuity of Size and Scenes 277The Incompleteness of Information 279
Chapter Eight:: Other People 284The Johnstones and the Mind 285Intran Bell alias Belinda 29Other People 299
Acknowledgments 303Appendix 307Abbreviations 309Notes 311Maps 463Index 469