To: epicure who wrote (69707 ) 12/13/2002 11:49:43 AM From: coug Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 82486 A book about Woolf's political opinions and the connection to her work. geocities.com <<Book Review Virginia Woolf Against Empire -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Virginia Woolf Against Empire. Kathy J. Phillips. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994. Pp. 267. $34.95 (cloth). >> An excerpt: ""In spite of its theoretical limitations, Phillips's argument is persuasive in its insistence on the connection between Woolf's avowedly political essays, Three Guineas in particular, and her novels. Although Woolf's importance to the feminist debates of the 1980's have made her views on the position of women well-known, Phillips points out that Woolf's related political opinions have received less attention and have often been assumed to be discontinuous with the aims of her art. Phillips asserts that from her first book to her last Woolf "associates empire making, war making, and gender relations in a typical constellation" and "links the items in a complicated and shrewd critique" (vii). The lesson that Phillips draws from Woolf's novels is that empire leads to war, first because it necessitates its own defense, and second because it deadens and dehumanizes both imperial ruler and imperial subject to such a degree that the [End Page 123] value of human life is lost. Further, Woolf associates empire and gender relations because the oppression of women serves as training for men in the oppression of colonial peoples. Finally, the displacement of sexual energy made necessary by repressive British social life fuels both militarism and imperialism. For each of these points Phillips supplements the ample literary evidence with her own historical examples and analysis. The result is less a critical reading than a comprehensive and well-researched tract against imperialism. ""