Sex and Security in the Place of Nature

Sex and Security in the Place of Nature examines how British writers in the nineteenth century developed theories of sexuality that responded to militarized responses to the environment. The book focuses on three different (though related) modalities of imperial militarism: the informal empire that Britain sought in its dealings with China; the merging of the Kingdom of Ireland with the Kingdom of Great Britain following the 1800 Acts of Union; and India under both East India Company rule and direct rule of the British Crown. The book suggests that militarism was key to the development of the three adult figures that Foucault famously identifies as the central nodes of nineteenth-century sciencia sexualis: the Malthusian couple, the hysterical woman, and the perverse adult. It argues that land management—agriculture especially—becomes a potent means of both shepherding and masking the movement of military and economic ambition into theories of sexuality.