Description
Book SynopsisThis collection brings together twenty-one articles that explore the diverse impact of modern empires on societies around the world since 1800. Colonial expansion changed the lives of colonised peoples in multiple ways relating to work, the environment, law, health and religion. Yet empire-builders were never working with a blank slate: colonial rule involved not just coercion but also forms of cooperation with elements of local society, while the schemes of the colonisers often led to unexpected outcomes. Covering not only western European nations but also the Ottomans, Russians and Japanese, whose empires are less frequently addressed in collections, this volume provides insight into a crucial aspect of modern world history.
Table of ContentsContents: Introduction; Part I Land and Labour: Hegemony on a shoestring: indirect rule and access to agricultural land, Sara Berry; Sugar factory workers and the emergence of ’free labour’ in 19th-century Java, R.E. Elson; Peasants at work: forced cotton cultivation in northern Mozambique, 1938-1961, Allen Isaacman and Arlindo Chilundo; Reinterpreting a colonial rebellion: forestry and social control in German East Africa, 1874-1915, Thaddeus Sunseri; Geography, race and nation: remapping ’tropical’ Australia, 1890-1930, Warwick Anderson; Between fixity and fantasy: assessing the spatial impact of colonial urban dualism, William Cunningham Bissell; The control of ’sacred’ space: conflicts over the Chinese burial grounds in colonial Singapore, 1880-1930, Brenda S.A. Yeoh. Part II Mechanisms of Rule: Bringing the state back: the limits of Ottoman rule in Jordan, 1840-1910, Eugene L. Rogan; State, enterprise, and the alcohol monopoly in colonial Vietnam, Gerard Sasges; ’Martial races’: ethnicity and security in colonial India, 1858-1939, David Omissi; ’Circle of iron’: African colonial employees and the interpretation of colonial rule in French West Africa, Emily Lynn Osborn; Negotiated spaces and contested terrain: men, women, and the law in colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-1939, Elizabeth Schmidt; The colonial development of concentration camps (1868-1902), Iain R. Smith and Andreas Stucki; Sleeping sickness epidemics and public health in the Belgian Congo, Maryinez Lyons; Sanitation and security: the imperial powers and the 19th-century Hajj, William R. Roff. Part III The Social World of Empire: The making of race in colonial Malaya: political economy and racial ideology, Charles Hirschman; Making empire respectable: the politics of race and sexual morality in 20th-century colonial cultures, Ann L. Stoler; Cultural missionaries, maternal imperialists, feminist allies: British women activists in India, 1865-1945, Barbara Ramusack; Empire and the confessio
