Although shattered by war, in 1945 Britain and France still controlled the world's two largest colonial empires, with imperial territories stretched over four continents. And they appeared determined to keep them: the roll-call of British and French politicians, soldiers, settlers and writers who promised in word and print at this time to defend their colonial possessions at all costs is a long one. Yet, within twenty years both empires had almost completely disappeared. The collapse was cataclysmic. Peaceable 'transfers of power' were eclipsed by episodes of territorial partition and mass violence whose bitter aftermath still lingers. Hundreds of millions across four continents were caught up in the biggest reconfiguration of the international system ever seen. In the meantime, even the most dogged imperialists, who had once stiffly defended imperial rule, ultimately bent to the wind of change. By the early 1950s Winston Churchill had retreated from his wartime pledge to keep Britain's Empire intact. And General de Gaulle, who quit the French presidency in 1946 complaining that France's new post-war democracy would never hang on to the country's imperial prizes, narrowly escaped assassination a generation later - after negotiating the humiliating French withdrawal from Algeria. Fight or Flight is the first ever comparative account of this dramatic collapse, explaining the end of the British and French colonial empires as an intertwined, even co-dependent process. Decolonization gathered momentum, not as an empire-specific affair, but as a global one, in which the wider march of twentieth-century history played a vital part: industrial concentration and global depression, World War and Cold War, Communism and other anti-colonial ideologies, mass consumerism and the allure of American popular culture. Above all, as Martin Thomas shows, the internationalization of colonial affairs made it impossible to contain colonial problems locally, spelling the end for Europe's two largest colonial empires in less than two decades from the end of the Second World War.

How does law transform family, sexuality, and community in the fractured social world characteristic of the colonizing process? The law was a cornerstone of the so-called civilizing process of nineteenth-century colonialism. It was simultaneously a means of transformation and a marker of the seductive idea of civilization. Sally Engle Merry reveals how, in Hawai'i, indigenous Hawaiian law was displaced by a transplanted Anglo-American law as global movements of capitalism, Christianity, and imperialism swept across the islands. The new law brought novel systems of courts, prisons, and conceptions of discipline and dramatically changed the marriage patterns, work lives, and sexual conduct of the indigenous people of Hawai'i.

'Fascinating . . . O'Driscoll's research is impressive' Ben Macintyre, The Times 'It would be hard to overstate how good this book is . . . a fantastic read' Sunday Independent 'Superb . . . an even-handed and thrilling gallop through [Dugdale's] improbable life' Daily Telegraph The astonishing story of the English heiress who devoted her life to the IRA She grew up in a Chelsea townhouse and on a Devon estate. She was presented to the Queen at Buckingham Palace as a debutante in 1958. She trained at Oxford as an academic economist and had a love affair with a female professor (who was on the rebound from Iris Murdoch). At thirty, she commenced giving her inheritance away to the poor. In 1972, the deadliest year of the Northern Irish Troubles, she travelled to Ireland and joined the IRA. Sean O'Driscoll's Heiress, Rebel, Vigilante, Bomber tells the astonishing story of Rose Dugdale, who went on to become a committed terrorist, participating in a major art heist and a bombing raid on a police and army barracks; who kept a pregnancy secret for nine months in prison and gave birth there; and who ended up at the heart of the IRA's bomb-making operation during its deadly final spasms in the 1990s. Heiress, Rebel, Vigilante, Bomber is both the page-turning biography of a remarkable woman and a groundbreaking account of the inner workings of a terrorist organization. _______________ 'Possibly the most extraordinary book you'll read this year' Irish Examiner 'Jaw-dropping' Joe Duffy 'Well-researched' Irish Times

NOW SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION "Utterly gripping, timely and shocking" PHILIPPE SANDS "Compelling and disturbing . . . quietly devastating" DAMON GALGUT "This is a book of profound importance . . . A masterpiece" ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH "A vintage crime story . . . an extraordinary tale . . . It is written as a drama, part thriller, part tragedy" ALEC RUSSELL, Financial Times "A smartly paced true-crime thriller with a vivid cast of characters . . . as tense as it is disturbing" JOHN CARLIN, author of Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation Two dead men. Forty suspects. The trial that broke a small South African town "Look what the fucking dogs did to them, someone muttered. No-one mentioned the rope, or the monkey-wrench, or the gun, or the knife, or the stick, or the whip, or the blood-stained boots. In fact, no-one said much at all. It seemed simpler that way. There was no sense in pointing fingers.'" At dusk, on a warm evening in 2016, a group of forty men gathered in the corner of a dusty field on a farm outside Parys in the Free State. Some were in fury. Others treated the whole thing as a joke - a game. The events of the next two hours would come to haunt them all. They would rip families apart, prompt suicide attempts, breakdowns, divorce, bankruptcy, threats of violent revenge and acts of unforgivable treachery. These Are Not Gentle People is the story of that night, and of what happened next. It's a courtroom drama, a profound exploration of collective guilt and individual justice, and a fast-paced literary thriller. Award-winning foreign correspondent and author Andrew Harding traces the impact of one moment of collective barbarism on a fragile community - exploding lies, cover-ups, political meddling and betrayals, and revealing the inner lives of those involved with extraordinary clarity. The book is also a mesmerising examination of a small town trying to cope with a trauma that threatens to tear it in two - as such, it is as much a journey into the heart of modern South Africa as it is a gripping tale of crime, punishment and redemption. When a whole community is on trial, who pays the price?

In the 1950s, Ghana, under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention People's Party, drew the world's attention as anticolonial activists, intellectuals, and politicians looked to it as a model for Africa's postcolonial future. Nkrumah was a visionary, a statesman, and one of the key makers of contemporary Africa. In Living with Nkrumahism, Jeffrey S. Ahlman reexamines the infrastructure that organized and consolidated Nkrumah's philosophy into a political program. Ahlman draws on newly available source material to portray an organizational and cultural history of Nkrumahism. Taking us inside bureaucracies, offices, salary structures, and working routines, he painstakingly reconstructs the political and social milieu of the time and portrays a range of Ghanaians' relationships to their country's unique position in the decolonization process. Through fine attunement to the nuances of statecraft, he demonstrates how political and philosophical ideas shape lived experience. Living with Nkrumahism stands at the crossroads of the rapidly growing fields of African decolonization, postcolonial history, and Cold War studies. It provides a much-needed scholarly model through which to reflect on the changing nature of citizenship and political and social participation in Africa and the broader postcolonial world.

Professor Skendi, a native of Albania, traces the progress and setbacks of Albania's long struggle for national unity during this least-known period of its intricate history. He discusses the heritage of its people and examines in detail the developments that led to Albanian independence: national resistance to the decisions of the Congress of Berlin, later opposition to Turkey, and the struggle between the Albanians and the Young Turks. Consideration is given to such internal problems as geographic configuration, religious and political division, and to such external problems as Italo-Austrian rivalry, political interference from neighboring states, and the involvement of great powers. Originally published in 1967. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Bernard Cohn's interest in the construction of Empire as an intellectual and cultural phenomenon has set the agenda for the academic study of modern Indian culture for over two decades. His earlier publications have shown how dramatic British innovations in India, including revenue and legal systems, led to fundamental structural changes in Indian social relations. This collection of his writings in the last fifteen years discusses areas in which the colonial impact has generally been overlooked. The essays form a multifaceted exploration of the ways in which the British discovery, collection, and codification of information about Indian society contributed to colonial cultural hegemony and political control.

Cohn argues that the British Orientalists' study of Indian languages was important to the colonial project of control and command. He also asserts that an arena of colonial power that seemed most benign and most susceptible to indigenous influences--mostly law--in fact became responsible for the institutional reactivation of peculiarly British notions about how to regulate a colonial society made up of "others." He shows how the very Orientalist imagination that led to brilliant antiquarian collections, archaeological finds, and photographic forays were in fact forms of constructing an India that could be better packaged, inferiorized, and ruled. A final essay on cloth suggests how clothes have been part of the history of both colonialism and anticolonialism.

Professor Skendi, a native of Albania, traces the progress and setbacks of Albania's long struggle for national unity during this least-known period of its intricate history. He discusses the heritage of its people and examines in detail the developments that led to Albanian independence: national resistance to the decisions of the Congress of Berlin, later opposition to Turkey, and the struggle between the Albanians and the Young Turks. Consideration is given to such internal problems as geographic configuration, religious and political division, and to such external problems as Italo-Austrian rivalry, political interference from neighboring states, and the involvement of great powers. Originally published in 1967. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Bills of Rights and Decolonization analyzes the British Government's radical change in policy during the late 1950s on the use of bills of rights in colonial territories nearing independence. More broadly it explores the political dimensions of securing the protection of human rights at independence and the peaceful transfer of power through constitutional means.
This book fills a major gap in the literature on British and Commonwealth law, history, and politics by documenting how bills of rights became commonplace in Britain's former overseas territories. It provides a detailed empirical account of the origins of the bills of rights in Britain's former colonial territories in Africa, the West Indies and South East Asia as well as in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It sheds light on the development of legal systems at the point of gaining independence and raises questions about the colonial influence on the British legal establishment's change in attitude towards bills of rights in the late twentieth century. It also presents an alternative perspective on the end of Empire by focusing upon one aspect of constitutional decolonization and the importance of the local legal culture in determining each dependency's constitutional settlement and provides a series of empirical case studies on the incorporation of human rights instruments into domestic constitutions when negotiated between a state and its dependencies.
Bills of Rights and Decolonization highlights Britain's human rights legacy to its former Empire, and traces the genesis of the bills of rights of over thirty nations from the Commonwealth.

"Neither pure universalism nor radical relativism can provide the foundation for a valid critique of imperial ideology. A successful attempt at coordinating the two approaches was made at the time of the Enlightenment. In today's world, where imperialism has again become a motivating force in international politics, Sankar Muthu does well to revive and analyze this critical conception."--Tzvetan Todorov, author of "Hope and Memory"

"This is a remarkable book to come from a young scholar. Sankar Muthu has recovered a lost history of Enlightenment anti-imperialism, and shown us how its great exponents--Diderot, Kant and Herder--were able to combine a keen sense of cultural diversity with a steady awareness of what may be morally universal. The book is not only a virtuoso piece of historical reconstruction, but also a lesson in how a proper understanding of history equips us in unexpected and powerful ways to make sense of our own time."--Richard Tuck, Harvard University

"An impressive work of scholarship with a fascinating line of argument, "Enlightenment against Empire" is an important contribution to contemporary debate and a necessary corrective to one of its main tendencies. In very readable prose, Muthu demonstrates that the characterization of Enlightenment humanism as Eurocentric and exclusionary does not fit the three very important thinkers examined, and indeed that Enlightenment humanism provides valuable resources for rethinking moral, social, and political theory today."--Thomas A. McCarthy, Northwestern University

"Through close readings of Diderot, Kant, and Herder, Muthu analyzes an anti-imperialist strand in eighteenth century political thought. He sees thesethinkers as providing a novel view of what it means to be human: 'humanity as cultural agency, ' that is, membership in diverse social units with distinctive practices and beliefs. From Muthu's emphasis upon the thick notion of culture shared by these authors, he derives general arguments for human worth and respect, and rejects facile indictments of 'The Enlightenment' or 'The Enlightenment Project.'"--Melvin Richter, Hunter College

A major figure in the history of twentieth-century American radicalism, William Z. Foster (1881-1961) fought his way out of the slums of turn-of-the-century Philadelphia to become a professional revolutionary as well as a notorious and feared labor agitator. Drawing on private family papers, FBI files, and recently opened Russian archives, this first full-scale biography traces Foster's early life as a world traveler, railroad worker, seaman, hobo, union activist, and radical journalist, and also probes the origins and implications of his ill-fated career as a top-echelon Communist official and three-time presidential candidate. Even though Foster's long and eventful life ended in Moscow, where he was given a state funeral in Red Square, he was, as portrayed here, a thoroughly American radical.

The book not only reveals the circumstances of Foster's poverty-stricken childhood in Philadelphia, but also vividly describes his work and travels in the American West. Also included are fascinating accounts of his early political career as a Socialist, "Wobbly," and anarcho-syndicalist, and of his activities as the architect of giant organizing campaigns by the American Federation of Labor, involving hundreds of thousands of workers in the meatpacking and steel industries. The author views Foster's influence in the American Communist movement from the perspective of the history of American labor and unionism, but he also offers a realistic assessment of Foster's career in light of factional intrigues at the highest levels of the Communist International.

Originally published in 1998.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

‘I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest . . . But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.’ Long Walk to Freedom In 1994, Nelson Mandela became the first president of democratic South Africa. Five years later, he stood down. In that time, he and his government wrought the most extraordinary transformation, turning a nation riven by centuries of colonialism and apartheid into a fully functioning democracy in which all South Africa’s citizens, black and white, were equal before the law.

Dare Not Linger is the story of Mandela’s presidential years, drawing heavily on the memoir he began to write as he prepared to finish his term of office, but was unable to finish. Now, the acclaimed South African writer, Mandla Langa, has completed the task using Mandela’s unfinished draft and a wealth of previously unseen archival material. With a prologue by Mandela's widow, Graça Machel, the result is a vivid and inspirational account that tells the extraordinary story of the transition from decades of apartheid rule and the challenges Mandela overcame to make a reality of his cherished vision for a liberated South Africa.

This anthology brings together Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar's works on the theme of Democracy. The editors of this volume have assembled Ambedkar's original writings including his memorandums, speeches, lectures, and talks from 1919-1956 to understand his contribution to Indian political thought and history. An introductory chapter binds the anthology together by helping put in context Ambedkar's arguments and perceptions within contemporary debates on Democracy. It captures Ambedkar's political trajectory and addresses how his idea of Democracy is deeply embedded in both the colonial and the post-colonial context. The editors argue that Democracy is not merely a procedural and substantive idea, but relational as well and in Ambedkar it is deeply caught with ideas of state, power, nationalism, constitutionalism, equality, and liberty, thus emphasizing its societal and as well as political dimensions. The anthology therefore helps readers think through contemporary political debates in the country within the context of a critical overview of Ambedkar's thoughts on Democracy.