Colonialism and imperialism Books

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"[An] imaginative retelling of world history."---Thomas E. Ricks, New York Times

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Book SynopsisColonial and imperial powers have often portrayed arid lands as “empty” spaces ready to be occupied, exploited, extracted, and polluted. Despite the undeniable presence of human and nonhuman lives and forces in desert territories, the “regime of emptiness” has inhabited, and is still inhabiting, many imaginaries. Deserts Are Not Empty challenges this colonial tendency, questions its roots and ramifications, and remaps the representations, theories, histories, and stories of arid lands—which comprise approximately one-third of the Earth’s land surface. The volume brings together poems in original languages, conversations with collectives, and essays by scholars and professionals from the fields of architecture, architectural history and theory, curatorial studies, comparative literature, film studies, landscape architecture, and photography. These different approaches and diverse voices draw on a framework of decoloniality to unsettle and unlearn the desert, opening up possibilities to see, think, imagine it otherwise. With contributions from Saphiya Abu Al-Maati, Menna Agha, Asaiel Al Saeed, Aseel AlYaqoub, Yousef Awaad Hussein, Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Danika Cooper, Brahim El Guabli, Timothy Hyde, Jill Jarvis, Bongani Kona, Dalal Musaed Alsayer, Observatoire des armements, Francisco E. Robles, Paulo Tavares, Alla Vronskaya, and XqSu.Trade Review[Deserts Are Not Empty] is a terrific compilation of essays that allow us to rethink how the desert has been transformed from an actual condition to an idea in service of extractive politics. -- Ali Ismail Karimi * The Atchitect's Newpaper *Table of Contents1. Against the Regime of “Emptiness” Samia Henni2. Desert Futures CollectiveA Conversation with Brahim El Guabli, Jill Jarvis, and Francisco E. Robles3. It Is Not a Desert Where Grandmother SitsMenna Agha4. Drawing Deserts, Making WorldsDanika Cooper5. Imperial Desert Effect: Palestine Is There, Where It Had Always BeenAriella Aïsha Azoulay6. Space Wars: An Investigation into Kuwait's HinterlandA Conversation with Saphiya Abu Al-Maati, Asaiel Al Saeed, Aseel AlYaqoub, and Yousef Awaad Hussein7. The Colonial-Modern Politics of Desertification (Notes on the Past and the Future of the Amazon Forest)Paulo Tavares8. Overland There’s Shorter Time to DreamXqSu9. Archives of ForgetfulnessA Conversation with Bongani Kona10. Anywhere, USA: Aramco’s Housing in Saudi Arabia’s DesertDalal Musaed Alsayer11. The White Sea Canal and the Rhetorical Desertification of KareliaAlla Vronskaya12. Architecture Adrift in the Antarctic DesertTimothy Hyde13. Observatoire des armements

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Book SynopsisTo the colonized, the term ''research'' is conflated with European colonialism; the ways in which academic research has been implicated in the throes of imperialism remains a painful memory.This essential volume explores intersections of imperialism and research - specifically, the ways in which imperialism is embedded in disciplines of knowledge and tradition as ''regimes of truth.'' Concepts such as ''discovery'' and ''claiming'' are discussed and an argument presented that the decolonization of research methods will help to reclaim control over indigenous ways of knowing and being.Now in its eagerly awaited third edition, this bestselling book includes a co-written introduction features contributions from indigenous scholars on the book's continued relevance to current research. It also features a chapter with twenty-five indigenous projects and a collection of poetry.Table of ContentsIntroduction to the Third Edition Foreword Introduction 1. Imperialism, History, Writing and Theory 2. Research through Imperial Eyes 3. Colonizing Knowledges 4. Research Adventures on Indigenous Land 5. Notes from Down Under 6. The Indigenous People's Project: Setting a New Agenda 7. Articulating an Indigenous Research Agenda 8. Twenty-Five Indigenous Projects 9. Responding to the Imperatives of an Indigenous Agenda: A Case Study of Maori 10. Towards Developing Indigenous Methodologies: Kaupapa Maori Research 11. Choosing the Margins: The Role of Research in Indigenous Struggles for Social Justice 12. Getting the Story Right, Telling the Story Well: Indigenous Activism, Indigenous Research Conclusion: A Personal Journey Twenty Further Indigenous Projects Poems Index

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Book Synopsis'An astonishingly rich story... wonderfully informative' The Times 'Rappaport does a terrific job of bringing respectful rigour to her account of Seacole's extraordinary life' Daily MailIn Search of Mary Seacole is a superb and revealing biography that explores her remarkable achievements and unique status as an icon of the 19th century, but also corrects some of the myths that have grown around her life and career. Having been raised in Jamaica and worked in Panama, Mary Seacole came to England in the 1850s and volunteered to help out during the Crimean War. When her services were turned down, she financed her own expedition to Balaclava, where she earned her reputation as a nurse and for her compassion. Popularly known as ‘Mother Seacole’, she was the most famous Black celebrity of her generation – an extraordinary achievement in VTrade Review'I salute Helen Rappaport for taking us to this place so completely with all her imagination, research and thinking. This is an astonishingly rich story... This wonderfully informative book presents Seacole in all her roundness: a ministering angel who was no angel; a driven woman who basked in adulation, and was forgotten for 90 years after her death.' -- Ysenda Maxtone Graham * The Times *'Lively and entertaining... Seacole has become such an iconic figure that many legends have grown up around her, but Rappaport's book is a more valuable monument to Seacole's legacy than that painting [she discovered], or many of the other books and poems celebrating her life. Myth is important; but not as important as history.' -- Tomiwa Owolade * Sunday Times *'Scholarly biographer Helen Rappaport says that...the authors of school textbooks have failed to check the facts...[and] Rappaport crisps up the details. Rappaport does a terrific job of bringing respectful rigour to her account of Seacole's extraordinary life.' -- Helen Brown * Daily Mail *'The story of Seacole's life is riven with holes and clouded with myth. And it's these absences and confusions that Helen Rappaort seeks to fill in and smoooth out in her impressive...new biography. The Seacole we meet in these pages is enterprising, intrepid, and...really rather shrewd.' -- Lucy Scholes * Daily Telegraph *'Richly detailed...much of the book reads like a detective story. What leaps from these pages, as well as Seacole's remarkable deeds and character, is the great esteem, indeed love, in which she was held. In this wonderful book, Dr Rappaport has created a fitting tribute.' -- Jacqueline Riding * Country Life *'Well-researched...Rappaport leaves no shred of evidence unexamined... And her work pays off; the Crimean section of In Search of Mary Seacole is the book’s beating heart... A comprehensive and much-deserved tribute to an incredible life' -- Linda Villarosa * New York Times *'An invaluable contribution to the scholarship on Seacole... Rappaport paints a vivid picture of Seacole's portly and brightly dressed figure treating grateful soldiers... Rappaport's biography is a welcome contribution to our understanding of this truly remarkable medical pioneer.' -- Wendy Moore * Literary Review *'Strips away the layers of mystery from the life of the heroine of the Crimean War. I love history books like this that describe the author’s voyage through the archives.' -- Lucy Worsley * Irish Independent *'Inevitably comparisons have been made with Florence Nightingale, who also achieved fame for her nursing exploits in the Crimea, but this is unfair to both women... Rappaport’s eloquently argued work sets the record straight by revealing the life story of a most extraordinary woman.' -- Trevor Royle * Herald *'Rappaport fleshes out Seacole's own account...she throws light on her subject's family [and] there are vivid passages about British and Caribbean society. Rappaport is particularly good at addressing her subtitle [The Making of an Icon]. This portrait of an outstanding woman is timely.' -- Andrew Lycett * Spectator *'A carefully researched piece of scholarship, balanced and informative... I was also struck by an insightful analysis of the impact that Seacole’s pioneering work has had on the development of the nursing profession. This book will serve specialists in the field and casual readers equally well, and opens a window into the life of a unique and remarkable woman about whom there is still much to be discovered.' -- Nick Goulding * Church Times *'A major new study...Rappaport's work is thoroughly documented. She has discovered a significant amount of new material. Various myths are demolished... In Search of Mary Seacole presents its subject as a woman and writer who overcame much and resists the too easy categorisations of both her own time and ours.' -- John T. Gilmore * History Today *'Rappaport’s fascination with her subject started twenty years ago when she discovered the 1869 portrait of Seacole that now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. This image of an older woman, resolute, unfussy yet proudly wearing her honours, seems incredibly modern. The book, equally measured and impressive, feels like the biography Seacole has so long deserved.' -- Clare Mulley * Historia *'This is an excellent book... She has doggedly pursued and expanded the leads thrown up by her methodology with consummate success. The tone of the book is engaging.' -- Glenn Fisher * The War Correspondent: Journal of the Crimean War Research Society *'A welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship on the presence of people, especially women, of African ancestry in the UK. Detailed and interesting...the book highlights the joys, frustrations, and often unrecognised challenges in all history writing.' -- Meleisa Ono-George * Lancet *

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Book SynopsisA series of interviews with Noam Chomsky, the world's greatest living public intellectual, about the pressing issues of our time'One of the greatest, most radical public thinkers of our time' Arundhati RoyIn this illuminating collection of interviews, Noam Chomsky shares his insights on the pressing challenges facing humanity. A Liveable Future is Possible addresses artificial intelligence and the potential for such programs to surpass humans in cognitive awareness; what lies ahead for a world engulfed in a deadly climate crisis; the rise of neo-fascism internationally, and why we should organize across borders to confront it and the striking similarities between Trump and Biden's foreign policies. Noam Chomsky has been an incomparable model of moral clarity and intellectual courage during his many decades as a scholar, political activist and social critic. A Liveable Future Is Possible is not only an urgent and informative book, it is a call-to-action for those hoping to help carry the torch of one of history's greatest minds. Chomsky is a global phenomenon . . . he may be the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet' The New York Times Book Review

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Book Synopsis'[A] comprehensive and important history of black Britain . . . Written with a wonderful clarity of style and with great force and passion.' – Kwasi Kwarteng, Sunday TimesIn this vital re-examination of a shared history, historian and broadcaster David Olusoga tells the rich and revealing story of the long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa and the Caribbean. This edition, fully revised and updated, features a new chapter encompassing the Windrush scandal and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, events which put black British history at the centre of urgent national debate. Black and British is vivid confirmation that black history can no longer be kept separate and marginalised. It is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation and it belongs to us all.Drawing on new genealogical research, original records, and expert testimony, Black and British reaches back to Roman Britain, the medieval imagination, Elizabethan ‘blackamoors’ and the global slave-trading empire. It shows that the great industrial boom of the nineteenth century was built on American slavery, and that black Britons fought at Trafalgar and in the trenches of both World Wars. Black British history is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation. It is not a singular history, but one that belongs to us all.Unflinching, confronting taboos, and revealing hitherto unknown scandals, Olusoga describes how the lives of black and white Britons have been entwined for centuries.Winner of the 2017 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize.Winner of the Longman History Today Trustees’ Award.A Waterstones History Book of the Year.Longlisted for the Orwell Prize.Shortlisted for the inaugural Jhalak Prize.Trade ReviewYou could not ask for a more judicious, comprehensive and highly readable survey of a part of British history that has been so long overlooked or denied. David Olusoga, in keeping with the high standards of his earlier books, is a superb guide. -- Adam HochschildGroundbreaking. * Observer *[A] comprehensive and important history of black Britain . . . Written with a wonderful clarity of style and with great force and passion. It is thoroughly researched and there are many interesting anecdotes. -- Kwasi Kwarteng * The Sunday Times *A radical reappraisal of the parameters of history, exposing lacunae in the nation’s version of its past. -- Arifa Akbar * Guardian *A thrilling tale of excavation -- Colin Grant * Guardian *[Olusoga] has discovered new and exciting research materials . . . Such sources give his writing freshness, originality and compassion . . . [Black and British] will inspire and will come to be seen as a major effort to address one of the greatest silences in British historiography -- David Dabydeen * New Statesman *Lucid and accessible. * Herald Scotland *Olusoga's account challenges narrow visions of Britain's past. By tracing the triangulated connections between Britain, America and Africa, he presents black British history in global terms [...] His subjects, even those who barely figure in the historical record, appear as individuals who matter, both in their own right and as historical exemplars. * The London Review of Books *An insightful, inclusive history of black people in Britain . . . Rich in detail and packed with strong personalities, this is an important contribution to our understanding of life in the UK. * History Revealed *An insightful, inclusive history of black people in Britain which is rich in detail and packed with strong, interesting characters. -- Stephanie Yeboah * GQ *Ambitious . . . Long overdue -- Hakim Adi * Spectator *Olusoga has single-handedly over recent years forced our forgotten history on the agenda . . . Written with an urgency it is a thrilling and engaging read. * Nigerian Watch *An erudite exploration of racism and how it continues to mutate . . . it is exhilarating to read a fine mind at work. -- Cathy Rentzenbrink * Guardian *Table of ContentsSection - i: List of Illustrations Section - ii: Preface Introduction - iii: ‘Years of Distant Wandering’ Chapter - One: ‘Sons of Ham’ Chapter - Two: ‘Blackamoors’ Chapter - Three: ‘For Blacks or Dogs’ Chapter - Four: ‘Too Pure an Air for Slaves' Chapter - Five: ‘Province of Freedom’ Chapter - Six: ‘The Monster is Dead’ Chapter - Seven: Moral Mission Chapter - Eight: ‘Liberated Africans’ Chapter - Nine: ‘Cotton is King' Chapter - Ten: ‘Mercy in a Massacre' Chapter - Eleven: ‘Darkest Africa’ Chapter - Twelve: ‘We are a Coloured Empire' Chapter - Thirteen: ‘We Prefer their Company' Chapter - Fourteen: ‘Swamped' Section - iv: Conclusion Acknowledgements - v: Acknowledgements Section - vi: Bibliography Section - vii: Notes Index - viii: Index

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Book SynopsisUpdated and revised edition.Trade ReviewReviews of the first edition (1855-1974): 'Bahru Zewde, one of present-day Ethiopia's leading historians, must be thanked for producing the first serious history of his country from the coronation of the reforming emperor Tewodros in 1855 to the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974. The work encompasses the lives of Ethiopia's four last, and most important, monarchs: Tewodros, Yohannes, Menilek and Hayla Sellase, whose reigns, as the author presents them, form an historical continuum. The text is valuable in that it provides an historical overview of virtually the entire area of present-day Ethiopia, with sections on the south of the country, largely ignored by previous historians, as well as on the better-documented Semitic north. ... The book, though less than 250 pages in length, is packed with information not readily available elsewhere, and contains valuable new historical insights. There are moreover interesting discussions of how events in one part of the region influenced the situation in others...there are also interesting sections on such topics as Hayla Sellase's ideas of government. ...The author does not ignore the more positive features of the occupation. ... Bahru's work is the first history of modern Ethiopia to be written by an Ethiopian, and thus provides a new perspective. Though later imprisoned for several years by Ethiopia's post-imperial regime he does not see the Hayla Sellase era, through which he lived as a student, with rosy spectacles. -- Richard Pankhurst * JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY *...gaping void now filled with distinction by Bahru Zewde...He achieves too, the difficult tasks of balancing the political history of warlords and emperors with social and economic developments, and relating internal developments to the progressive increase in external pressures. His judgements are succinct and illuminating. ...In short, it is a model of its kind. -- Christopher Clapham * AFRICAN AFFAIRS *... timely ... wealth of illustrative material ... Required reading for practitioners, graduate students and advanced undergraduates. - * CHOICE *Table of ContentsPreface to 2nd edition - The background - Unification & independence 1855-1896 - From Adwa to Maychaw 1896-1935 - The Italian occupation 1936-1941 - From liberation to revolution 1941-1974 - Revolution & its Sequel - Conclusion

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2023 What does it mean to have 'heritage', and how do we perform or undo it? In these daring and sonorous poems, Anaxagorou conducts a researched unpacking of two countries whose dividing lines of a colonial past are still visible and felt. Uniquely engaged with the complexities of Cyprus and the diasporic experience, these poems map both an island's public history alongside a person's private reckoning. They offer a ferocious and uncompromising look towards the damaging historical structures that have led to now. Fearless, intensely honest and hopeful, Heritage Aesthetics merges Anthony's gift for performance and his brilliant experimentation with form to create a vivid insistence to communicate a self in the world.Trade ReviewOne of the most politically engaged poets of our time... Uncompromisingly inventive, Heritage Aesthetics taps into the discordant music of our time and stops us in our tracks -- Kit Fan, author of Diamond HillAn education in empathy and its limitations, the liminality and porousness of nations, histories, races and memory... This is poetry bordering on pure imagination, one that makes its own conditions for living in the now -- Sandeep Parmar

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Book SynopsisAn illustrated account of the major colonial conflict of the 1920s, in which the occupying Spanish and French faced an armed uprising from the Berber tribes of northern Morocco.In June 1921, Abd el Krim, a Berber leader in the Rif highlands of Morocco, marshalled a pan-tribal uprising that killed some 13,000 Spanish troops, forcing occupying Spain to withdraw from the country's north coast and garnering worldwide attention through el Krim's deft diplomacy. Despite this, leadership of the French-held central and southern regions remained aloof until the spring of 1925 when Rifian forces attacked key outposts and strategic cities, instigating a series of clashes that culminated in May 1926 with a Franco-Spanish offensive and el Krim's eventual surrender. Co-authored by two leading authorities on the forces involved, this fascinating new study takes a close look at the most deadly colonial conflict of the interwar period. Rare photographs and newly commissioned

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Book Synopsis''Witty, energising and refreshing'' Jeffrey BoakyeTake a step through the looking-glass to a strange land, one where Piers Morgan is a voice worth listening to about race, where white people buy self-help books to help them cope with their whiteness, where Boris Johnson and Donald Trump are seen by the majority of the population as ''the right (white) man for the job''. Perhaps you know it. All the inhabitants seem to be afflicted by serious delusions, for example that racism doesn''t exist and if it does it can be cured with a one-hour inclusion seminar, and bizarre collective hallucinations, like the widely held idea that Britain''s only role in slavery was to abolish it.But there is a serious side too. Society cannot face up to the racism at its heart and in its history, so the delusions, irrationalities and hallucinations it conjures up to avoid doing so can only best be described as a psychosis, with the costs being borne by the sons and daughters of that racist history. Living in a racist world is like living in a world that bears no resemblance to reality. Black and brown people suffer from a greater number of mental health difficulties too, caused in no small part by trying to survive a racist society.Kehinde Andrews is your piercing, wry and not a little funny guide back to sanity, unpicking the absurd and outrageous lies society tells to keep up the status quo. The Psychosis of Whiteness is your lifeboat out of this topsy-turvy world.

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Book SynopsisFired up by the outbreak of the First World War and outraged by the capitulation of most socialist parties to the demands of national bourgeoisies, Lenin sought to understand the deeper roots of the crisis of the world movement. The result was Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, which went on to become a core text for the international communist movement. But Lenin also sought to break with the Eurocentrism of the socialist movement, which tended to look down with disdain at or simply reject struggles for self-determination, especially among colonized peoples.This volume, with an introduction by the renowned abolitionist and anti-imperialist theorist Ruth Wilson Gilmore, brings together the texts on imperialism and those on the national question to provide a window into Lenin's global vision of revolution.Table of ContentsIntroduction by Ruthie Wilson GilmoreCritical Remarks on the National Question (1913)The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1914)The Revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1915)Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: A Popular Outline (1916)The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up (1916)Draft Theses on National and Colonial Questions for The Second Congress of The Communist International (1920)Memo Combatting Dominant Nation Chauvinism (1922)The Question of Nationalities or 'Autonomisation' (1922)Notes

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Book SynopsisWe live in a moment rife with mixed emotionsexistential anxieties about catastrophic climate change, presumptuous confidence in planet-hacking geoengineering technologies, and hopefulness of youth climate activism. Decolonizing Environmentalism helps us navigate these emotions and reimagine our approach to environmental stewardship.The authors cast a critical eye on wealthy and influential environmental groups that committed to anti-racist strategies in the wake of the racial awakening of 2020. Yet, they continue to embrace false solutions like carbon markets and biodiversity offsets, which carry deeply racialized consequences. By tracing the roots of these misplaced priorities to detrimental modernity steeped in colonialism and capitalism, the authors call for transformational changes in human-nature relationships. They distil lessons from the divestment movement, which has questioned the fossil fuel industry''s moral standing, and food sovereignty activists, who hav

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Book SynopsisIn this urgent response to violence, racism and increasingly aggressive methods of coercion, Judith Butler explores the media's portrayal of armed conflict, a process integral to how the West prosecutes its wars. In doing so, she calls for a reconceptualization of the Left, one united in opposition and resistance to the illegitimate and arbitrary effects of interventionist military action.Trade ReviewJudith Butler is quite simply one of the most probing, challenging, and influential thinkers of our time. -- J. M. BernsteinJudith Butler is the most creative and courageous social theorist writing today. Frames of War is an intellectual masterpiece that weds a new understanding of being, immersed in history, to a novel Left politics that focuses on State violence, war and resistance. -- Cornel WestHers is a unique voice of courage and conceptual ambition that addresses public life from the perspective of psychic reality, encouraging us to acknowledge the solidarity and the suffering through which we emerge as subjects of freedom. -- Homi K. BhabhaA trenchant and brilliant book. * Utne Reader *An impressive and challenging book from one of the leading intellectuals of our time. * Diva *Judith Butler strongly upholds the tradition of dissenting voices in America, even in the midst of climate of fear and censorship that comes close at times to McCarthyism * Politics and Culture *Frames of War is an earnest, thought-provoking and uncompromisingly critical work on an issue of singular relevance * Red Pepper *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the Frantz Fanon Prize, Caribbean Philosophical Association""Winner of the ASA Best Book Prize, African Studies Association""Winner of the First Book Award, Foundations of Political Theory Section of the American Political Science Association""Co-Winner of the W.E.B. Du Bois Distinguished Book Award, National Conference of Black Political Scientists""Co-Winner of the J. David Greenstone Book Prize, Politics & History Section of the American Political Science Association""Winner of the ISA Theory Best Book, Theory Section of the International Studies Association""One of Foreign Affairs' Best Books of 2020""It’s been a bad decade for politics, but a great decade for political theory. Three standouts for me were Shatema Threadcraft’s Intimate Justice, Adom Getachew’s Worldmaking after Empire, and Kathi Weeks’s The Problem With Work."---Amia Srinivasan, The Chronicle of Higher Education"[A] marvellous book . . . tracing a new narrative of the nature and significance of anti-colonial thought and politics over the middle decades of the 20th century. Challenging the standard view of decolonisation as a moment of European-style nationbuilding, Getatchew offers instead an account of anti-colonial theory and practice as "worldmaking"."---Jonathan Egid, New Humanist"A compelling look at how Black internationalist thought evolved throughout the postcolonial period and how its successes and failures . . . continue to shape global politics today."---Jennifer Williams, Foreign Policy

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Book SynopsisWashington Bullets is written in the best traditions of Marxist journalism and history-writing. It is a book of fluent and readable stories, full of detail about U.S. imperialism, but never letting the minutiae obscure the larger political point. It is a book that could easily have been a song of despair—a lament of lost causes; it is, after all, a roll call of butchers and assassins; of plots against people’s movements and governments; of the assassinations of socialists, Marxists, communists all over the Third World by the country where liberty is a statue. Despite all this, Washington Bullets is a book about possibilities, about hope, about genuine heroes. One such is Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso—also assassinated—who said: “You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future.” Washington Bullets is a book infused with this madness, the madness that dares to invent the future.Trade ReviewThis book brings to mind the infinite instances in which Washington Bullets have shattered hope. — Evo Morales Ayma, former President of Bolivia // Like his hero Eduardo Galeano, Vijay Prashad makes the telling of the truth lovable; not an easy trick to pull off, he does it effortlessly. — Roger Waters, Pink Floyd

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"In his monumental Central Asia, Adeeb Khalid puts the region at the 'crossroads of history'. A laboratory of colonialism, revolution, nation building and telescoped social and cultural transformation, it has experienced 'every achievement of modernity and every one of its disasters'."---Daniel Beer, Times Literary Supplement"Khalid presents a masterful history of modern Central Asia which is at once scholarly, analytical and wonderfully accessible. . . .Adeeb Khalid deserves our gratitude for producing a path-breaking study of modern Central Asian history. One hopes it will pave the way for more."---Scott C. Levi, History Today ​​​​​​​"The book is successful in revealing the two centuries of political, social and cultural history of the peoples of Central Asia, and serves to further progress knowledge about this region."---Mirzokhid Askarov, Ethnic and Racial Studies"One of the newest and comprehensive studies on the region. It is a very broad and, at the same time, concise introduction to Central Asian history."---Marat Iliyasov, The Rest Journal"Formidably detailed, Central Asia is ideal for upper-level students wondering how a chronically misunderstood region has been shaped by broad currents and dominant powers of modern world history, in concert with local actors."---Andrew M. Wender, World History Connected

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Book SynopsisDavid Bristow offers spellbinding stories of some amazing, little-known characters from South Africa, past and very past, including the giant Trekboer Coenraad de Buys - rebel, renegade, a man with a price on his head who married many women and fathered a small nation.

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Book SynopsisThrough detailed archival research, Hanson reveals the origins of Uganda’s strategies for good government—assembly, assent, and powerful gifts—and explains why East African party politics often fail.Trade ReviewIn this thought-provoking new book Holly Hanson has cut clean through the conventional but hated three-part periodization of African historiography—pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial—with its equally unhelpful oppositions of tradition and modernity. With persuasive evidence she shows that Ugandans have for centuries sought consultative, accountable governance, often with institutional checks on the caprice of kings, governors, or presidents. They have long spoken up in public in the conviction that loyalty from below deserves attention from above, and now hope that premodern strategies to secure good governance will help to conjure up a better modernity. -- John Lonsdale, coauthor of Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and AfricaThis book ‘speaks loudly’ in the hope that it will ‘be heard.’ Holly Hanson successfully demonstrates how in pursuit of a just and moral polity, physical and conceptual spaces created out of people’s presence and actions provided an opportunity through which people can speak to the powerful and expect to be heard. To Speak and be Heard is a prototype of how a blended study of overt ‘spaces’ and ‘speaking’ can reveal larger political engagement and accountability trends in a complex and rapidly changing world. It superbly demonstrates how those trends could be encapsulated and discerningly written about in the twenty-first century. -- Nakanyike B. Musisi, University of Toronto, coauthor of Decentralisation and Transformation of Governance in UgandaHolly Hanson weaves into her account of good government a history of inequality, revealing the kind of thing that can make the formula for direct democracy fail to produce the desired results and atrophy. The next challenge is to speak up, be heard, and figure out the obligations that will diminish inequality. Crossing all major periods in Ugandan history, but focused on the last century and a half, this is a landmark book in African history. -- David L. Schoenbrun, author of The Names of the Python: Belonging in East Africa, 900 to 1930Holly Hanson’s survey has unearthed massive evidence to show that autocracy, one person rule and tyranny did not define African precolonial systems, much as western visitors focused on it or as current media depicts African systems of governance. [Hanson] proves that there were defined mechanisms for the expression … of alternative views of managing society. These views were implemented because there were ample spaces for people to speak and be heard. -- A.B.K. Kasozi, author of The Social Origins of Violence in Uganda, 1964–1985Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: A Long History of Political Voice Chapter 1. Building Polities through Assent, Assembly, and Voice in Ancient East Africa Chapter 2. Incorporating Strangers in the Time of Two Lukikos Chapter 3. Seeking Justice at the Palace and the Lake Chapter 4. The Modernity That Might Have Been: How Ugandans Lost Mechanisms of Accountability in the Transition to Independence Chapter 5. The Pretense of Assent and the Power of Assembly in the Time of Amin Conclusion: The Shape of the Present Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAn update of a popular work that takes on the myths of the Spanish Conquest of the Americas, featuring a new afterword.Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest reveals how the Spanish invasions in the Americas have been conceived and presented, misrepresented and misunderstood, in the five centuries since Columbus first crossed the Atlantic. This book is a unique and provocative synthesis of ideas and themes that were for generations debated or perpetuated without question in academic and popular circles. The 2003 edition became the foundation stone of a scholarly turn since called The New Conquest History. Each of the book''s seven chapters describes one myth, or one aspect of the Conquest that has been distorted or misrepresented, examines its roots, and explodes its fallacies and misconceptions. Using a wide array of primary and secondary sources, written in a scholarly but readable style, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest explains why Columbus did not set out to prove the world was round, the conquistadors were not soldiers, the native Americans did not take them for gods, Cortés did not have a unique vision of conquest procedure, and handfuls of vastly outnumbered Spaniards did not bring down great empires with stunning rapidity. Conquest realities were more complex--and far more fascinating--than conventional histories have related, and they featured a more diverse cast of protagonists-Spanish, Native American, and African. This updated edition of a key event in the history of the Americas critically examines the book''s arguments, how they have held up, and why they prompted the rise of a New Conquest History.Trade ReviewSeven Myths of the Spanish Conquest is an engaging and highly readable account of the history of the conquest of the Amerias. * Jennifer Jobb, Against the Current *A daring revisionist critique.... Restall's provocative analysis, wide-ranging scholarship and lucid prose make this a stimulating contribution to the debate on one of history's great watersheds. * Publishers Weekly *This is an important book. It should be read by all high school world history teachers, and by professors of the same....a powerful indictment of the myths that we all inadvertently rely on to explain a complex and distant period. It will undoubtedly stir up a discussion about the reality of these myths and what others might find in both popular and scholarly writing in this field, and others. * John F. Schwaller, American Historical Review *Rejecting the conventional hierarchy that placed 'subhuman' Indians below 'superhuman'' Europeans, Matthew Restall's re-examination of the Spanish conquest portrays a far more complex process in which Indians were central participants on both sides of the struggle. * The Economist *Matthew Restall has written a serious and important book, but one that is also delightful as it addresses issues about the Spanish conquest that have long intrigued scholars....It serves the needs of Latin Americanists who have not kept up with the latest literature on the subject, as well as the many scholars who address the conquest in their writings. * John E. Kicza, Renaissance Quarterly *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: The Lost Words of Bernal Diaz Ch 1 A Handful of Adventurers: The Myth of Exceptional Men Ch 2 Neither Paid Nor Forced: The Myth of the King's Army Ch 3 Invisible Warriors: The Myth of the White Conquistador Ch 4 Under the Lordship of the King: The Myth of Completion Ch 5 The Lost Words of La Malinche: The Myth of (Mis)Communication Ch 6 The Indians Are Coming to an End: The Myth of Native Desolation Ch 7 Apes and Men: The Myth of Superiority Epilogue: Cuauhtemoc's Betrayal Afterword Permissions Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisIn 1963, a human skull was discovered in a pub in south-east England. The handwritten note found inside revealed it to be that of Alum Bheg, an Indian soldier in British service who had been blown from a cannon for his role in the 1857 Uprising, his head brought back as a grisly war-trophy by an Irish officer present at his execution. The skull is a troublesome relic of both anti-colonial violence and the brutality and spectacle of British retribution. Kim Wagner presents an intimate and vivid account of life and death in British India in the throes of the largest rebellion of the nineteenth century. Examining the Victorians’ macabre fetish for collecting and exhibiting body parts, the book also offers a critical assessment of British imperialism that speaks to contemporary debates about the legacies of Empire and the myth of the ‘Mutiny’.Trade Review'Astonishing . . . Wagner radically reframes popular assumptions about how the British Empire was won and run . . . engrossing.''Superb popular history . . . meticulous forensic research into the events that led to the 1857 uprising.''[Wagner] has created a historical detective story all the more intriguing because of the "archival absence" of Bheg himself . . . a fascinating study of life and death in British India.''This is a remarkable work of historical detection . . . a meticulously researched and well-documented account of the events leading up to Bheg's execution. . . Wagner's book is a welcome addition to our understanding of the modus operandi of imperialism.'‘Gripping, fast paced narrative . . . Wagner delves deftly into vast primary source material to illustrate the intricate and multifaceted social histories of events . . . one pleasantly feels less that one is reading a historical account than an a heady whodunit.’ ‘A meticulously researched, gripping narrative that brings to life the human aspects of imperialism . . . vividly written . . . page-turning.’'Remarkable.'‘Gripping . . . a valuable addition to the existing body of scholarship on 1857.’'With this book Wagner casts off the crimes -- mutiny and murder -- for which the men of the 46th BNI were massacred. And by doing so, Wagner does something truly magical: nearly 160 years after Bheg's brutal execution, Wagner returns him and his comrades their rightful and due honour.'

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Book SynopsisAlmost since the event itself in 1757, the English East India Company''s victory over the forces of the nawab of Bengal and the territorial acquisitions that followed has been perceived as the moment when the British Empire in India was born. Examining the Company''s political and intellectual history in the century prior to this supposed transformation, The Company-State rethinks this narrative and the nature of the early East India Company itself. In this book, Philip J. Stern reveals the history of a corporation concerned not simply with the bottom line but also with the science of colonial governance. Stern demonstrates how Company leadership wrestled with typical early modern problems of political authority, such as the mutual obligations of subjects and rulers; the relationships among law, economy, and sound civil and colonial society; the constitution of civic institutions ranging from tax collection and religious practice to diplomacy and warmaking; and the nature of jurisdiction and sovereignty over people, territory, and the sea. Their ideas emerged from abstract ideological, historical, and philosophical principles and from the real-world entanglements of East India Company employees and governors with a host of allies, rivals, and polyglot populations in their overseas plantations. As the Company shaped this colonial polity, it also confronted shifting definitions of state and sovereignty across Eurasia that ultimately laid the groundwork for the Company''s incorporation into the British empire and state through the eighteenth century.Challenging traditional distinctions between the commercial and imperial eras in British India, as well as a colonial Atlantic world and a trading world of Asia, The Company-State offers a unique perspective on the fragmented nature of state, sovereignty, and empire in the early modern world.Trade ReviewWith great skill, Stern has extracted from the archives a cogent and highly engaging narrative of events that even participants found highly tremendously confusing. He deftly conveys the world of the East India company, marshaling striking visual materials and wonderfully evocative quotations from a wide array of Company documents. * Radical History Review *A thought-provoking reinterpretation that will compel us to reexamine assumptions about colonial companies in general. * H-Net *In a work of deep erudition and striking originality Philip Stern deftly demolishes many of the categories by which we try to organize our work: are states and companies really different animals, were the early modern Atlantic and Indian Oceans distinct worlds, what, if anything, was new about the post-Plassey British Indian empire? We are politely but firmly directed back to the drawing board. * P. J. Marshall, King's College London *In The Company-State, Philip Stern has made an important contribution not only to studies of empire, but to early modern history in general. This is an important and innovative reconsideration of the East India Company as a political actor in the first phase of its career. This incisively crafted book will be widely read, cited, and debated. * Sanjay Subrahmanyam, University of California, Los Angeles *A bracing re-thinking of the early modern East India Company and its role in shaping English practices of empire, governance, 'trade,' and polity, Philip Stern's book will replace all previous studies on the topic. * Kathleen Wilson, Stony Brook University *Table of ContentsIntroduction: "A State in the Disguise of a Merchant" ; Part I: Foundations ; Chapter 1 "Planning & Peopling Your Colony": Building a Company-State ; Chapter 2 "A Sort of Republic for the Management of Trade": The Jurisdiction of a Company-State ; Chapter 3 "A Politie of Civill and Military Power": Diplomacy, War, and Expansion ; Chapter 4 "Politicall Science and Martiall Prudence": Political Thought and Political Economy ; Chapter 5 "The Most Sure and Profitable Sort of Merchandice": Protestantism and Piety ; Part II: Transformations ; Chapter 6 "Great Warrs Leave Behind them Long Tales": Crisis and Response in Asia after 1688 ; Chapter 7 Auspicio Regis et Senatus Angliae": Crisis and Response in Britain after 1688 ; Chapter 8 "The Day of Small Things": Civic Governance in the New Century ; Chapter 9 "A Sword in One Hand & Money in the Other": Old Patterns, New Rivals ; Conclusion "A Great and Famous Superstructure" ; Abbreviations ; Glossary ; Notes ; Index

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Book SynopsisThe Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law provides an authoritative and original overview of the origins, concepts, and core issues of international law. The first comprehensive Handbook on the history of international law, it is a truly unique contribution to the literature of international law and relations. Pursuing both a global and an interdisciplinary approach, the Handbook brings together some sixty eminent scholars of international law, legal history, and global history from all parts of the world. Covering international legal developments from the 15th century until the end of World War II, the Handbook consists of over sixty individual chapters which are arranged in six parts. The book opens with an analysis of the principal actors in the history of international law, namely states, peoples and nations, international organisations and courts, and civil society actors. Part Two is devoted to a number of key themes of the history of international law, such as peace and war, the sovereignty of states, hegemony, religion, and the protection of the individual person. Part Three addresses the history of international law in the different regions of the world (Africa and Arabia, Asia, the Americas and the Caribbean, Europe), as well as ''encounters'' between non-European legal cultures (like those of China, Japan, and India) and Europe which had a lasting impact on the body of international law. Part Four examines certain forms of ''interaction or imposition'' in international law, such as diplomacy (as an example of interaction) or colonization and domination (as an example of imposition of law). The classical juxtaposition of the civilized and the uncivilized is also critically studied. Part Five is concerned with problems of the method and theory of history writing in international law, for instance the periodisation of international law, or Eurocentrism in the traditional historiography of international law. The Handbook concludes with a Part Six, entitled People in Portrait, which explores the life and work of twenty prominent scholars and thinkers of international law, ranging from Muhammad al-Shaybani to Sir Hersch Lauterpacht.The Handbook will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of international law. It provides historians with new perspectives on international law, and increases the historical and cultural awareness of scholars of international law. It is the standard reference work for the global history of international law.Trade ReviewThe Handbook on the History of International Law is an excellent and up-to-date contribution to a broad topic that has increasingly attracted the interest of academia in the last years. The editors certainly succeeded in bringing together a broad range of renowned experts on the various fi elds covered. It certainly deserves its place in the bookshelves of any international lawyers library. * Ralph Janik, Austrian Review of International and European Law Online *Shelley's interlocutor in Ozymandias paints a bleak picture of the fate which has befallen the Pharaoh's statue: 'Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare / The lone and level sands stretch far away ' ... Thanks to interventions such as those organised by Fassbender and Peters in this excellent volume, the historians of international law need not fear such a fate befalling their discipline-indeed, its future has never seemed brighter or more vibrant. * Cameron A. Miles, The British Yearbook of International Law *By any measure, the book is a substantial achievement, and it will be widely and rewardingly consulted for many years to come. * Jacob Katz Cogan, University of Cincinnati, American Journal of International Law *Impressive and timely volume * Rose Parfitt, Global Law Books *The volume does a marvelous job of hemming the topic in, but pays a price for its breadth and the erudition of its contributors by leaving the reader ungratefully greedy for further contextualization and (historical) policy detail - sparking this hunger in the reader though is a true vindication of a handbook of this sort. * Wouter P. F. Schmit Jongbloed, ASIL Cables *The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law innovatively and comprehensively provides a timely and ambitious global history of international law from the sixteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Under the skilled editorship of Bardo Fassbender and Anne Peters, the contributors, experts who themselves come from all parts of the world, present a history that imagines international law as the product of different regions, cultures, actors, and eras. Setting a new agenda for the field, the Handbook will be the indispensable starting point for students and researchers exploring the history of international law. * ASIL Award Citation *There is no doubt that The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law will become what editors and authors intended," the new standard reference work for the global history of international law," provides the reader with a broad spectrum of useful information on a high level which is not easily assembled. * Karl Heinz Ziegler, German Yearbook of International Law *Table of ContentsPART ONE: ACTORS; PART TWO: THEMES; PART THREE: REGIONS; I. AFRICA AND ARABIA; II. ASIA; III. THE AMERICAS AND THE CARIBBEAN; IV. EUROPE; V. ENCOUNTERS; PART FOUR: INTERACTION OR IMPOSITION; PART FIVE: METHODOLOGY AND THEORY; PART SIX: PEOPLE IN PORTRAIT

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"In France today, sex is a matter of national identity: it provides a language to speak about those whose Frenchness is deemed problematic. Indeed, the gender and sexuality of these racialized 'Others'are the object of a proliferation of discourses. Mehammed Mack's original, rich, and precise contribution to a growing field of studies focuses on the multiplicity of cultural representations that both reflect and produce postcolonial France as a kaleidoscope of sexual obsessions - a 'sexagon.'" -- -Eric Fassin Paris-8 University Vincennes-Saint-DenisTable of ContentsIntroduction: Enter the Sexagon Manipulations of Gay-Friendliness Vocabularies of Race and Desire The Sexualization of Ethnicity, Now and Then Not Queer Enough Sexual Nationalism and the Rape of Europa The Banlieue as Laboratory An Eventful Home Life Exposing the Arab The Sexagon Chapter One: The Banlieue has a Gender: Competing Visions of Sexual Diversity Banlieue Girl Gangs and Muslima soldiers Ethnographic Obfuscation in the Homo-ghetto Capitalizing on Banlieusard Homosexualities The Banlieue as Maker, Not Cracked Mirror, of the Queer Chapter Two: Constructing the Broken Family: The Draw for Psychoanalysis The Juvenile Delinquent Mother Enablers of a Male Islam "Be Careful What You Wish For" Historical Echoes of the Colonial Delinquent The Veiled Woman The Veil, the Clandestine, and the Public/Private Distinction The Impotent Father Psychoanalysis, Assimilation, and Community Attachment Chapter Three: Uncultured yet Seductive: The Trope of the Difficult Arab Boy Sexuality, Ethnography, and Literature Sexual Informants of Bad News The Guardians of French Letters Looking Hard The Rehabilitation of Ethnic Virility Atonement for Cross-Cultural Injury The Arab Boy's Post-colonial Revenge Chapter Four: Sexual Undergrounds: Cinema, Performance, and Ethnic Surveillance Exposing the Clandestine, Intimately Homosexualization and Acceptance Rehabilitating Virility The Sexualization of Authority Big Brother is Watching You Interpenetration of Communities Sex Work, Immigrant Work, Travail d'Arabe Image Control Chapter Five: Erotic Solutions for Ethnic Tension: Fantasy, Reality, Pornography Exploiting Exploitation Stereotypes and Victimology Francois Sagat, aka, "Azzedine" The banlieue's Erotic Premises From beur to beurette, a Political Loss Domestic-Exotic Men Conclusion: The Sexagon's Border Crisis Acknowledgments Notes Index

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Book SynopsisMany would rather change worlds than change the world. The settlement of communities in 'empty lands' somewhere else has often been proposed as a solution to growing contradictions. While the lands were never empty, sometimes these communities failed miserably, and sometimes they prospered and grew until they became entire countries. Building on a growing body of transnational and interdisciplinary research on the political imaginaries of settler colonialism as a specific mode of domination, this book uncovers and critiques an autonomous, influential, and coherent political tradition - a tradition still relevant today. It follows the ideas and the projects (and the failures) of those who left or planned to leave growing and chaotic cities and challenging and confusing new economic circumstances, those who wanted to protect endangered nationalities, and those who intended to pre-empt forthcoming revolutions of all sorts, including civil and social wars. They displaced, and moved to other islands and continents, beyond the settled regions, to rural districts and to secluded suburbs, to communes and intentional communities, and to cyberspace. This book outlines the global history of a resilient political idea: to seek change somewhere else as an alternative to embracing (or resisting) transformation where one is.Trade ReviewThe political theory of settler colonies has a centuries-long history amounting to a distinct, if little understood intellectual tradition. In The World Turned Inside Out: Settler Colonialism as a Political Idea, Lorenzo Veracini reconstructs this tradition for the first time. In seeking to escape the contradictions of the old world, he shows, settlers brought different ones to the new world that continue to structure the polities they founded. -- A. Dirk Moses, University of North Carolina, Chapel HillIn this brilliant tour de force, a major theorist of settler colonialism ranges across the globe to unearth a hidden political tradition with enormous and costly consequences. By revealing how our world has been shaped and reshaped by the fantasy of going someplace else to escape revolution, The World Turned Inside Out has an urgent message: we must confront injustice and crisis right where we are. -- Jeffrey Ostler, University of OregonGlobal capitalism has always been driven by the export of people as well as commodities, of people as commodities. In The World Turned Inside Out, Lorenzo Veracino shows us how European migration to settler colonies was propelled by a specific project of domestic political "pacification", designed to keep the homeland safe from revolution. In this superbly researched history of the politics, theories and cultural practices of settler colonialism, Veracino also reveals the utilitarian casual disregard for the millions of indigenous peoples across the continents whose bereft lives would be lost, disrupted, and forever disempowered as a consequence. This much-needed book uncovers the stark realities behind settler colonialism as it has been practised on every continent. -- Robert J. C. Young, New York UniversityThis important book not only salvages the global history of settler colonialism from its traditional nationalist packaging, but also reunites 'settlerism' with its alter ego, metropolitan revolutionary movements. At last, the 'world turned upside down' meets 'the world turned inside out'. -- James Belich, University of OxfordWith this book Lorenzo Veracini cements his reputation as one of the most ambitious and insightful scholars of settler colonialism. Sweeping in its historical and geographical reach, and bold in its arguments, The World Turned Inside Out is a provocative and illuminating analysis of the centrality of settler colonialism in the making of the modern world. -- Duncan Bel, University of CambridgeWorld Turned Inside Out is a brilliant exploration of settler colonialism as a political tradition in the making, predicated on a search for actual space in order to get away in Europe from existing upheavals or removing those who potentially can cause such an upheaval. Lorenzo Veracini focuses on such dislocations that brought displacement of indigenous people as part of the history of Western revolution and counter revolution. As such it asks us to rethink both tradition and revolution as transnational and global phenomena that sustained the tradition of settler colonialism even after most of these projects ended, preserving inside and outside the West Eurocentrism, racism, and capitalism. While the revisited historical chapters might seem familiar, you are invited here to reappraise them from a new and contemporary vantage point - in the midst of a new era of dislocation, displacement, resettlement and maybe even unsettlement. The human tendency to dislocate (and displace) in order to avoid upheaval, insoluble predicaments and persecution may move in the future beyond to extra-terrestrial spaces. Before this happens, it is good moment to ponder on its history until today and this is an excellent guide for such a tour into the past before we re-invent a new kind of settler colonialism. -- Ilan Pappe, University of ExeterWhat Veracini terms 'volitional' or 'voluntary' displacement stems from the belief that migration and settlement can head off social unrest. The World Turned Inside Out presents a global history of this phenomenon through wide-ranging and meticulously researched case studies. -- Sarah Maddison * Australian Book Review *Veracini takes his readers on a captivating journey spanning five centuries and six continents in an effort to trace what he believes to be a recurring yet under-analysed historical movement. -- Neve Gordon * Times Higher Education *The World Turned Inside Out is readable and compelling. It reflects Veracini's enormous intellectual reach across vast timescales and beyond the Anglo-world. The chapters chart settler colonialism's beginnings, its peak and its ends by weaving through some well-known and other remarkably obscure settler projects. The sum of these parts is a worldly, rich and new intellectual history. -- Lisa Ford * Australian Historical Studies *

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Book SynopsisPankaj Mishra''s provocative account of how China, India and the Muslim World are remaking the world in their own image - shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2013SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2013Viewed in the West as a time of self-confident progress, the Victorian period was experienced by Asians as a catastrophe. As the British gunned down the last heirs to the Mughal Empire or burned down the Summer Palace in Beijing, it was clear that for Asia to recover a new way of thinking was needed. Pankaj Mishra re-tells the history of the past two centuries, showing how a remarkable, disparate group of thinkers, journalists, radicals and charismatics emerged from the ruins of empire to create an unstoppable Asian renaissance, one whose ideas lie behind everything from the Chinese Communist Party to the Muslim Brotherhood, and have made our world what it is today.Reviews:''Arrestingly original ... this penetrating and disquieting book should be on the reading list of anybody who wants to understand where we are today'' John Gray, Independent ''A riveting account that makes new and illuminating connections ... deeply entertaining and deeply humane'' Hisham Matar''Fascinating ... a rich and genuinely thought-provoking book'' Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph''Provocative, shaming and convincing'' Michael Binyon, The Times ''Lively ... engaging ... retains the power to shock'' Mark Mazower, Financial Times''Subtle, erudite and entertaining'' Economist, New DelhiAbout the author:Pankaj Mishra is the author of Butter Chicken in Ludiana, The Romantics, An End to Suffering and Temptations of the West. He writes principally for the Guardian, The New York Times, London Review of Books and New York Review of Books. He lives in London, Shimla and New York.Trade ReviewMeticulous scholarship ... History, as Mishra insists, has been glossed and distorted by the conqueror ... [This] passionate account of the relentless subjugation of Asian empires by European, especially British, imperialism, is provocative, shaming and convincing -- Michael Binyon * The Times *One can only be thankful for writers like Mishra. From The Ruins Of Empire is erudite, provocative, inspiring and unremittingly complex; a model kind of non-fiction for our disordered days ... May well be seen in years to come as a defining volume of its kind -- Stuart Kelly * Scotsman *Deeply researched and arrestingly original ... this penetrating and disquieting book should be on the reading list of anybody who wants to understand where we are today -- John Gray * Independent *From the Ruins of Empire gives eloquent voice to [the] curious, complex intellectual odysseys ... of some of Asia's most educated, thoughtful men -- Julia Lovell * Guardian *Fascinating ... a rich and genuinely thought-provoking book -- Noel Malcolm * Telegraph *Superb and ground-breaking. Not just a brilliant history of Asia, but a vital history for Asians -- Mohsin HamidLively ... engaging ... From the Ruins of Empire retains the power to instruct and even to shock. It provides us with an exciting glimpse of the vast and still largely unexplored terrain of anti-colonial thought that shaped so much of the post-western world in which we now live -- Mark Mazower * Financial Times *Brilliant ... Mishra reverses the long gaze of the West upon the East, showing modern history as it has been felt by the majority of the world's population - from Turkey to China. These are the amazing stories of the grandfathers of today's angry Asians. Excellent -- Orhan PamukJolts our historical imagination ... a book of vast and wondrous learning and delightful and surprising associations that will give a new meaning to liberation geography -- Hamid Dabashi (Professor of Iranian Studies, Columbia University, New York)After Edward Said's masterpiece Orientalism, From the Ruins of Empire offers another bracing view of the history of the modern world. Pankaj Mishra [is] a brilliant author of wide learning ... skillful and captivating narration -- Wang Hui (Professor of Chinese Intellectual History, Tsinghua University, Beijing)Pankaj Mishra has produced a riveting account that makes new and illuminating connections. He follows the intellectual trail of this contested history with both intelligence and moral clarity. In the end we realise that what we are holding in our hands is not only a deeply entertaining and deeply humane book, but a balance sheet of the nature and mentality of colonisation -- Hisham MatarHighly readable and illuminating ... Mishra's analysis of Muslim reactions is particularly topical -- David Goodall * Tablet *Enormously ambitious but thoroughly readable, this book is essential reading for everyone who is interested in the processes of change that have led to the emergence of today's Asia -- Amitav Ghosh * Wall Street Journal *Sophisticated ... not so much polemic as cri de coeur, motivated by Mishra's keen sense of the world, East and West, hurtling towards its own destruction * Tehelka, New Delhi *Outstanding ... Mishra wears his scholarship lightly and weaves together the many strands of history into a gripping narrative ... The insights afforded by this book are too many to be enumerated ... Mishra performs a signal service to the future - by making us read the past in a fresh light * The Hindu, New Delhi *[Full of] complexity and nuance * Mail Today *Subtle, erudite and entertaining * Financial Express *Mishra allows the reader to see the events of two centuries anew, through the eyes of the journalists, poets, radicals and charismatics who criss-crossed Europe and Asia * Free Press Journal *A vital, nuanced argument ... prodigious * Mint *

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Book SynopsisExplores the major political, social, economic, religious and cultural changes impacting what was once the most important region of the Roman world.

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Book SynopsisImperialism, Race and Resistance marks an important new development in the study of British and imperial interwar history.Focusing on Britain, West Africa and South Africa, Imperialism, Race and Resistance charts the growth of anti-colonial resistance and opposition to racism in the prelude to the 'post-colonial' era. The complex nature of imperial power in explored, as well as its impact on the lives and struggles of black men and women in Africa and the African diaspora.Barbara Bush argues that tensions between white dreams of power and black dreams of freedom were seminal in transofrming Britain's relationship with Africa in an era bounded by global war and shaped by ideological conflict.Table of ContentsList of illustrations. Preface. Acknowledgements. Abbreviations. Introduction: why imperialism, race and resistance? 1. Africa after the First World War: race and imperialism redefined? West Africa. 2. Britain's imperial hinterland: colonialism in West Africa 3. Expatriate society: race, gender and the culture of imperialism 4. 'Whose dream was it anyway?' Anti-colonial protest in West Africa, 1929-45 South Africa. 5. Forging the racist state: imperialism, race and labour in Britain's 'white dominion' 6. 'Knocking on the white man's door': repression and resistance 7.'Fighting for the underdog': British liberals and the South African 'native question' Britain. 8. Into the heart of empire: black Britain 9. Into the heart of empire: the 'race problem' 10. The winds of change : towards a new imperialism in Africa? Retrospective: Africa and the African diaspora in a 'post-imperial' world Notes and references. Bibliography. Index.

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Book SynopsisThe rise and fall of modern colonial empires have had a lasting impact on the development of European political theory and notions of national identity. This book compares theories of empire as they emerged in, and helped to define, the great colonial powers of Spain, Britain and France.

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Book SynopsisThis survey of the rise and decline of European overseas empires asks how and why these empires were formed, persisted, and eventually fell. The author explains Europe's long occupation of global centre stage and seeks to throw new light on today's postcolonial world and the legacies of empire.

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Book SynopsisWhy are we speaking English? Replenishing the Earth gives a new answer to that question, uncovering a ''settler revolution'' that took place from the early nineteenth century that led to the explosive settlement of the American West and its forgotten twin, the British West, comprising the settler dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Between 1780 and 1930 the number of English-speakers rocketed from 12 million in 1780 to 200 million, and their wealth and power grew to match. Their secret was not racial, or cultural, or institutional superiority but a resonant intersection of historical changes, including the sudden rise of mass transfer across oceans and mountains, a revolutionary upward shift in attitudes to emigration, the emergence of a settler ''boom mentality'', and a late flowering of non-industrial technologies -wind, water, wood, and work animals - especially on settler frontiers. This revolution combined with the Industrial Revolution to transform settlement into something explosive - capable of creating great cities like Chicago and Melbourne and large socio-economies in a single generation. When the great settler booms busted, as they always did, a second pattern set in. Links between the Anglo-wests and their metropolises, London and New York, actually tightened as rising tides of staple products flowed one way and ideas the other. This ''re-colonization'' re-integrated Greater America and Greater Britain, bulking them out to become the superpowers of their day. The ''Settler Revolution'' was not exclusive to the Anglophone countries - Argentina, Siberia, and Manchuria also experienced it. But it was the Anglophone settlers who managed to integrate frontier and metropolis most successfully, and it was this that gave them the impetus and the material power to provide the world''s leading super-powers for the last 200 years. This book will reshape understandings of American, British, and British dominion histories in the long 19th century. It is a story that has such crucial implications for the histories of settler societies, the homelands that spawned them, and the indigenous peoples who resisted them, that their full histories cannot be written without it.Trade ReviewAstonishing... The book I read this year that will undoubtedly stick in my mind the longest. * Peter Mandler, History Today. *A wonderfully stimulating revisionist account... Provides both rich context and new perspectives for all those interested in understanding the global diaspora of the Scots in recent centuries. * Professor Tom Devine, The Glasgow Herald. *original and intelligent * Times Higher Education Supplement *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; PART I: SHAPING THE ANGLO-WORLD ; 1. Settling Societies ; 2. The Founding Rupture ; 3. Exploding Wests ; PART II: THE SETTLER REVOLUTION ; 4. The Rise of Mass Transfer ; 5. The Rise of the Settler ; 6. Colonizations ; PART III: TESTING WESTS ; 7. The American West, 1815-60 ; 8. The British West ; 9. Golden Wests? ; 10. Urban Wests ; 11. Last Best Wests ; PART IV: BEYOND THE ANGLO-WESTS ; 12. Re-colonization and the Urban Carnivore ; 13. Beyond the Anglo-World ; 14. Thinking in the Rounds ; Bibliography ; Notes ; Index

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Book SynopsisHe knew nothing of celestial navigation or of the existence of the Pacific Ocean. He was a self-promoting and ambitious entrepreneur. His maps were a hybrid of fantasy and delusion. When he did make land, he enslaved the populace he found, encouraged genocide, and polluted relations between peoples. He ended his career in near lunacy.But Columbus had one asset that made all the difference, an inborn sense of the sea, of wind and weather, and of selecting the optimal course to get from A to B. Laurence Bergreen''s energetic and bracing book gives the whole Columbus and most importantly, the whole of his career, not just the highlight of 1492. Columbus undertook three more voyages between 1494 and 1504, each designed to demonstrate that he could sail to China within a matter of weeks and convert those he found there to Christianity. By their conclusion, Columbus was broken in body and spirit, a hero undone by the tragic flaw of pride. If the first voyage illustrates the rewards of exploration, this book shows how the subsequent voyages illustrate the costs - political, moral, and economic.Trade Review"Laurence Bergreen's Columbus was brillliant, audacious, volatile, paranoid and ruthless. What emerges in this biography, a worthy addition to the literature on Columbus is a surprising and revealing portrait of a man who might have been the title charcater in a Shakespearan tradegy." — The New York Times"Laurence Bergreen's ambitious new biography, Columbus: The Four Voyages [is] a spellbinding epic that's simultaneiously a profoundly private portrait of the most complex, compelling, controversial creature ever to board a boat. This scrupulously researched, unbiased account of four death-defying journeys to The New World reveals the Admiral's paradoxical personality." — USA Today"A compelling new book [that] details the explorer's trips to the New World, including three you haven't heard about." — Salon"Once you have read this superb acount of Columbus' four voyages, you will never be content with the cliche about the Italian-born explorer's sailing the ocean blue in 1492. Author of many prize-winning popular history books on topics as diverse as Marco Polo and Al Capone. Laurence Bergreen is a New York-based scholar whose portrayal of the life and times of Christopher Columbus is a tour de force." — Winnipeg Free Press"Laurence Bergreen's new book, refreshingly, is fluid in style in its style and comprehensive in its research. Richly illustrated and enhanced with maps that are as legible as they are relevant. Columbus: The Four Voyages is complex in its themes, intriguing in its substance and sparkling with suprises." — The Washington Times"In this scrupulously fair and often thrilling account of his four vorages to the "New World," Bergreen reveals Columbus as brilliant, brave, adventurous, and deeply flawed . . . A superb reexamination of the character and career of a still controversial historical agent." — Booklist

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Book SynopsisAMERICAN COLONIES starts with the earliest years of human colonization of the American continent and environs with the Siberian migrations across the Bering Strait 15,000 years ago. It ends in around 1800 when the rough outline of the contemporary North America could be perceived.Dropping the usual Anglocentric description of North America''s fate, Taylor brilliantly conveys the far more vivid and startling story of the competing interests--Spanish, French, English, Native, Russian--that over the centuries shaped and reshaped both the continent and its ''suburbs'' in the Caribbean and the Pacific. It is one of the greatest of all human stories.Trade Review"Formidable...provokes us to contemplate the ways in which residents of North America have dealt with diversity." -The New York Times Book Review"A superb overview of colonial America." -Christian Science Monitor"Compelling, readable, and fresh, American Colonies is perhaps the most brilliant piece of synthesis in recent American historical writing." —Phillip J. Deloria, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg Collegiate Professor of American Culture and History at the University of Michigan“Even the serious student of history will find a great deal of previously obscure information. The book offers a balanced understanding of the diverse peoples and forces that converged on this continent and influenced the course of American history.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Crammed full of fascinating material uncovered by historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists in the past half-century.” —NewsdayTable of ContentsIntroductionPart I. Encounters1. Natives, 13,000 B.C.-A.D. 14922. Colonizers, 1400-18003. New Spain, 1500-16004. The Spanish Frontier, 1530-17005. Canada and Iroquoia, 1500-1660Part II. Encounters6. Virginia, 1570-16507. Chesapeake Colonies, 1650-17508. New England, 1600-17009. Puritans and Indians, 1600-170010. The West Indies, 1600-170011. Carolina, 1670-176012. Middle Colonies, 1600-1700Part III. Empires13. Revolutions, 1685-173014. The Atlantic, 1700-8015. Awakenings, 1700-7516. French America, 1650-175017. The Great Plains, 1680-180018. Imperial Wars and Crisis, 1739-7519. The Pacific, 1760-1820AcknowledgmentsBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTamerlane, the Ottomans, the Mughals, the Manchus, the British, the Soviets, the Japanese and the Nazis.All built empires they hoped would last forever: all were destined to fail. But, as John Darwin shows in his magnificent book, their empire building created the world we know today. From the death of Tamerlane in 1405, last of the world conquerors', to the rise and fall of European empires, and from America's growing colonial presence to the resurgence of India and China as global economic powers, After Tamerlane provides a wonderfully intriguing perspective on the past, present and future of empires.

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