The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad and the Globalizing World

Author(s): Maya Jasanoff

Biographies & Memoirs

Martin's Pick


"Enlightening, compassionate, superb" --John Le Carre



A visionary exploration of the life and times of Joseph Conrad, his turbulent age of globalization and our own, from one of the most exciting young historians writing today


Migration, terrorism, the tensions between global capitalism and nationalism, and a communications revolution: these forces shaped Joseph Conrad's destiny at the dawn of the twentieth century. In this brilliant new interpretation of one of the great voices in modern literature, Maya Jasanoff reveals Conrad as a prophet of globalization. As an immigrant from Poland to England, and in travels from Malaya to Congo to the Caribbean, Conrad navigated an interconnected world, and captured it in a literary oeuvre of extraordinary depth. His life story delivers a history of globalization from the inside out, and reflects powerfully on the aspirations and challenges of the modern world.


Joseph Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in 1857, to Polish parents in the Russian Empire. At sixteen he left the landlocked heart of Europe to become a sailor, and for the next twenty years travelled the world's oceans before settling permanently in England as an author. He saw the surging, competitive "new imperialism" that planted a flag in almost every populated part of the globe. He got a close look, too, at the places "beyond the end of telegraph cables and mail-boat lines," and the hypocrisy of the west's most cherished ideals. In a compelling blend of history, biography, and travelogue, Maya Jasanoff follows Conrad's routes and the stories of his four greatest works--The Secret Agent, Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, and Nostromo. Genre-bending, intellectually thrilling, and deeply humane, The Dawn Watch embarks on a spell-binding expedition into the dark heart of Conrad's world--and through it to our own.

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Product Information

Maya Jasanoff is Coolidge Professor of history at Harvard University. In 2017 she won the Windham-Campbell Prize for Non-Fiction.

General Fields

  • : 9780007553723
  • : HarperCollins Publishers Limited
  • : Harper Element
  • : October 2018
  • : 198mm X 129mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Maya Jasanoff
  • : Paperback
  • : Nov-18
  • : English
  • : 823.912
  • : 400