Présents-problèmes V : Forging a Common Present through Speculation: Pierre Paul Le Mercier de la Rivière and the Colonial Crisis in Martinique
What exactly makes the present feel like a “problem”? In the mid-eighteenth century, during the global upheaval of the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), the French colonial empire experienced precisely such a collision of urgencies. The war, which saw the British Royal Navy effectively blockade the French Caribbean, severed the empire’s supply lines. For the royal administrators in Versailles, the pressing issue was a geopolitical calculation to maintain imperial cohesion; for the local planters in the colonies, the crisis was one of immediate, visceral material supply …




