【作者简介】

马娅•亚桑诺夫是哈佛大学柯立芝历史学教授。她的第一部作品《帝国边缘》（2005），获得了2005年的达夫•库珀奖，被《经济学人》《卫报》《星期日泰晤士报》等多家媒体评为年度好书。第二部作品《被自由流放的人》（2011），获得了国家图书评论非虚构小说奖和乔治•华盛顿图书奖，入围塞缪尔•约翰逊奖（现在被称为巴美列捷福奖）。第三部作品《守候黎明》获得2018年坎迪尔历史奖，入围2017年达夫•库珀奖。作为2013年古根海姆研究员，亚桑诺夫获得了2017年温德姆-坎贝尔非虚构图书奖。她经常在《纽约时报》、《卫报》和《纽约书评》等出版物上发表论文和评论。

Talented historian Maya Jasonoff offers an alternative history of the British Empire. It is not about conquest -- but rather a collection of startling and fascinating personal accounts of cross-cultural exchange from those who found themselves on the edges of Empire. A Palladian mansion filled with Western art in the centre of old Calcutta, the Mughal Emperor's letters in an archive in the French Alps, the names of Italian adventurers scratched into the walls of Egyptian temples: in this imaginative book, Maya Jasanoff delves into the stories behind artefacts like these to uncover the lives of collectors in India and Egypt who lived on the frontiers of European empire. 'Edge of Empire' traces their exploits to tell an intimate history of imperialism. Written and researched on four continents, 'Edge of Empire' tells a story about the making of European empires, ones that break away from the grand narratives of power, exploitation, and resistance, to delve into the personal dimensions of imperialism. She asks what people brought to imperial frontiers and what they took away, and what motives drove them, whether ambition, opportunism, curiosity or greed. This rich and compelling book enters a world where people lived, loved and died, and identified with each other across cultures much more than our prejudices about 'Empire' might suggest.