Introduction: Motions and Means

After briefly sketching the development of steam power in Europe, the Introduction depicts three remarkable scenes inaugurating steam power in British Bengal. I next offer an account of Romantic figures fascinated by steam. We then turn to Calcutta, where anglophone writers were relentlessly projecting utopian or dystopian futures powered by steam. The Bengal Annual for 1835 includes two such works, Henry Hurry Goodeve’s “1980” and Henry Meredith Parker’s “The Junction of the Oceans. [A Tale of the Year 2074.].” These works represent distinct perspectives within the prevalent liberal imperialism of the period. The Introduction closes by presenting the structure and main argument of the subsequent chapters. After focusing on a Romantic strain of thought according to which steam technology represents an anti-utilitarian humanization of nature, the Pivot will place within and against that frame the uneven and divergent ways in which writers in British India map a constellation of liberal imperialist values on to their hopes and fears concerning a future powered by steam.