Conflagration: How Transcendentalists Sparked the American Struggle for Racial, Gender, and Social Justice

Abstract

understood their encounters, operationally, as moments where individual relationships interlaced dynamic global trade networks—but sometimes still chose to represent them, symbolically, as sustained encounters between distinct, stable identity groups. Future researchers may profitably take up the question of why this was so and how effective the practice of sharing “founding narratives” actually was. More generally, Rose’s research will be a useful guide for anyone plotting their own dives into the topics, people, and places she includes in her case studies. Those interested in exploring the personal networks that undergirded commercial and religious exchanges will find territory for further investigation well-mapped here; Rose’s narrative and detailed bibliography will be especially useful for plotting new explorations into the manuscript sources in the US, London, and Mumbai archives she has surveyed. In Boston and Bombay Rose has revealed many new details about the early connections between Americans and Bombay Parsis; other scholars should take her up on the invitation to dig further into this rich and complex material.