‘The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World,’ by Maya Jasanoff

In 1874, Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, a 17-year-old orphan, persuaded his uncle to allow him to join the French merchant marine. After promising never to forget that “wherever you may sail, you are always sailing towards Poland,” Konrad set out for Marseille, France, and then London, where he found work as a deck hand and, eventually, as a captain in Britain’s legendary merchant fleet. For two decades, Korzeniowski traveled the world, from Malaysia to the Congo to the Caribbean, along with Western imperialism and colonial rule.

By the end of the 19th century, Konrad Korzeniowski had become Joseph Conrad, a naturalized British subject.