The Adam Smith Problem in the Ibis Trilogy: Self-Interest, Empathy, and Hermeneutic Irony

Sneharika Roy

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Chapter 11 The Adam Smith Problem in the Ibis Trilogy

Self-Interest, Empathy, and Hermeneutic Irony

In: Amitav Ghoshâs Culture Chromosome

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Sneharika Roy

Sneharika Roy
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 189â205

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004360341_013

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Abstract

Adam Smithâs Wealth of Nations (1776) is the central locus of ideological conflict in the Ibis trilogy, but its role has received no sustained scholarly attention. Amitav Ghosh writes against the doctrine of free trade as envisaged by colonialists, but not against trade itself. This essay argues that the Ibis trilogy offers a critique not of Smithâs ideas, which the author may even share, but of their colonial distortions through a transcultural, humanist expansion of their scope. In a neat epistemological reversal, Ghoshâs fiction recovers the original Smith to counter the misappropriated Smith of the colonial fictions that reduce his political economy to the invisible hand.

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Amitav Ghoshâs Culture Chromosome

Anthropology, Epistemology, Ethics, Space

Series:Â Cross/Cultures, Volume: 216

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004360341

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 28 Oct 2021

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Chapter 11 The Adam Smith Problem in the Ibis Trilogy

Self-Interest, Empathy, and Hermeneutic Irony

Abstract

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Amitav Ghoshâs Culture Chromosome

Anthropology, Epistemology, Ethics, Space

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Amitav Ghoshâs Culture Chromosome