Russia's own Orient examines how intellectuals in early twentieth-century Russia offered a new and radical critique of the ways in which Oriental cultures were understood at the time. Out of the ferment of revolution and war, a group of scholars in St. Petersburg articulated fresh ideas about the relationship between power and knowledge, and about Europe and Asia as mere political and cultural constructs. Their ideas anticipated the work of Edward Said and post-colonial scholarship by half a century. The similarities between the two groups were, in fact, genealogical. Said was indebted, via Arab intellectuals of the 1960s who studied in the Soviet Union, to the revisionist ideas of Russian Orientologists of the fin de siecle. But why did this body of Russian scholarship of the early twentieth century turn out to be so innovative? Should we agree with a popular claim of the Russian elites about their country's particular affinity with the 'Orient'? There is no single answer to this question. The early twentieth century was a period when all over Europe a fascination with things 'Oriental' engendered the questioning of many nineteenth-century assumptions and prejudices. In that sense, the revisionism of Russian Orientologists was part of a pan-European trend. And yet, Tolz also argues that a set of political, social, and cultural factors, which were specific to Russia, allowed its imperial scholars to engage in an unusual dialogue with representatives of the empire's non-European minorities. It is together that they were able to articulate a powerful long-lasting critique of modern imperialism and colonialism, and to shape ethnic politics in Russia across the divide of the 1917 revolutions.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, 'white' colonies around the world had restricted Asian migration, associated with immorality, disease, and a threat to 'white' labour. The 'yellow peril' was in full swing. And yet, in 1904, the British government imported over 64,000 Chinese indentured labourers to work on gold mines in southern Africa. This book explores the decision to import Chinese labour so soon after the empire had fought to secure southern Africa for the British empire and despite the already tense racial situation in the region. This enables a clearer understanding of racial and political developments in southern Africa during the reconstruction period and the formation of South Africa the nation. It places these localised issues within a wider historiography, such as research into colonial violence, moral panics and Black Perils, networks of labourism and whiteness, and economic imperialism. Through this book one can trace the complicated negotiations between national and imperial identities, between independence and patriotism, and giving a clearer sense of how trans-colonial relationships evolved.

This collection of essays explores the inter-imperial connections between British, Spanish, Dutch, and French Caribbean colonies, and the 'Old World' countries which founded them. Grounded in primary archival research, the thirteen contributors focus on the ways that participants in the Atlantic World economy transcended imperial boundaries.

Missionary Discourse examines missionary writings from India and southern Africa to explore colonial discourses about race, religion, gender and culture. The book is organised around three themes: family, sickness and violence, which were key areas of missionary concern, and important axes around which colonial difference was forged.

This pioneering study argues that the bitter civil war that thrust Zimbabwe into international headlines from 1966 to 1979 had its roots in the reports issued by the colonial commissions of inquiry into education. As the author explains in his introduction, these commissions and the reports they issued, which reinforced separate educational systems for African and white students, reached far beyond educational policy in their effects. Basing his work on original documents and materials which have not appeared in print before--most of which were only recently declassified by the government of Zimbabwe--the author shows the profound influence these reports had on government policy, on government control of opportunity in general, and on the relationships between and among institutions within the country.

Following an introductory overview, Mungazi turns to a discussion of the specific issues which the commissions were appointed to investigate. Separate chapters are then devoted to the circumstances surrounding the naming of commissions, their findings and recommendations, and the implications of implementing their recommendations on the character of colonial society itself. This chronological treatment enables the author to focus particularly on how the recommendations of the commissions constituted a sequence of developments that led inevitably to conflict. The final chapter draws some conclusions regarding the social environment that produced a major national conflict and discusses what might be learned from the tragic events that took place in Zimbabwe from 1966 to 1979.

Quantifiable citizenship in the form of birth certificates, census forms, and immigration quotas is so ubiquitous that today it appears ahistorical. Yet before the modern colonial era, there was neither a word for "population" in the sense of numbers of people, nor agreement that monarchs should count their subjects. Much of the work of naturalizing the view that people can be represented as populations took place far outside government institutions and philosophical treatises. It occurred instead in the work of colonial writers who found in the act of counting the "vast numbers" of Indians who held her captive a way to imagine fixed boundaries between intermingling groups. Counting Bodies explores the imaginative, personal, and narrative writings that performed the cultural work of normalizing the enumeration of bodies. By repositioning and unearthing a literary pre-history of population science, the book shows that representing individuals as numbers was a central element of colonial projects. Early colonial writings that describe routine and even intimate interactions offer a window into the way people wove the quantifiable forms of subjectivity made available by population counts into everyday life. Whether trying to make sense of plantation slavery, frontier warfare, rapid migration, or global commerce, writers framed questions about human relationships across different cultures and generations in terms of population.

Because many of the documents and books about Puerto Rico have been written by the island's colonizers, only the victors were celebrated. With this in mind, the author has expressly composed this book from the viewpoint of the colonized, suppressed, and exploited. She challenges a previously-held notion that the Tainos simply gave up at the first sight of the Spaniards, and shows that they not only fought the intruders, but continued to resist them for more than sixty years after the battle of Yaguecas. The author discusses the fate and contributions of Africans who, as slaves or as free persons, became instrumental in Puerto Rico's social and economic development and shows how this multi-cultural Caribbean island brings together the global traditions of the Americas, Africa, and Europe.

"Fanonian Practices in South Africa" examines Frantz Fanon's relevance to contemporary South African politics, and by extension, research on postcolonial Africa and the tragic development of postcolonies. Here leading Fanon scholar Nigel C. Gibson offers theoretically informed historical analysis, providing crucial scholarly insights into the circumstances that led to the current hegemony of neoliberalism in South Africa.

This book provides a significant history of Italy's brutal occupation of Libya. Using the lens of the life of the iconic resistance fighter Mohamed Fekini, it tells the story of Libya under Ottoman and Italian rule from the point of view of the colonized. The story begins with the onset of Italian occupation in 1911-12, includes the crucial period of the anti-Italian jihad, from 1921 to 1930, and continues through the postwar creation of a united Libya under King Idris in 1947.

This book explores the development of navigation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It examines the role of men of science, seamen and practitioners across Europe, and the realities of navigational practice, showing that old and new methods were complementary not exclusive, their use dependent on many competing factors.

Drawing on a wealth of primary and secondary sources, this book explores how far imperial culture penetrated Antipodean city institutions. It argues that far from imperial saturation, the city 'Down Under' was remarkably untouched by the Empire. Only at certain times, such as during imperial crises, were citizens alerted to their place as imperial citizens, but in times of peace, operationalising a sense of this identity was far more difficult. Through an exploration of imperial loyalty leagues, school culture, ideas of imperial federation, youth organisations, the daily and weekly press and popular culture of the city, the book notes that there was an instrumental approach to Empire on the part of the Antipodean working class. Imperial ceremonies and traditions failed to embed themselves and by the inter-war years internationalism more generally challenged imperial values. The roots of imperial decline are found in the inter war years as various aspects of British imperial culture lost their grip. Indeed, many had struggled to implant themselves in the first place.

The half century between 1783 and 1833 witnessed the creation of British India. Through his writings, the leading East India Company servant, Sir John Malcolm helped to shape the historical thought of British empire-building in India. Comparing Malcolm with contemporaries such as James Mill, this book uses his works to examine the intellectual history of British expansion in South Asia, shedding light upon the history of orientalism, the origins of indirect rule and the formation of British power in southern and western India. It presents Malcolm as one of the most prolific and influential imperial ideologues of the century before the Indian Uprising of 1857.

This study seeks to explain the impact of historical narratives on the inclusiveness and pluralism of citizenship models. Drawing on comparative historical analysis of two post-imperial core countries, Turkey and Austria, it explores how narrative forms operate to support or constrain citizenship models.

Settler-native conflicts in Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, and South Africa serve as excellent comparative cases as three areas linked to Britain where insurgencies occurred during roughly the same period. Important factors considered are settler parties, settler mythology, the role of native fighters, settler terror, the role of liberal parties, and the conduct of the war by security forces. Settlers and natives in each area share similar attitudes, liberal parties operate in similar fashions, and there are common explanations for the formation of splinter liberation groups. However, according to Mitchell, the key difference between the cases lies in the behavior of British security forces in comparison to South African and Israeli forces. Mitchell's chapter on liberal parties includes an independent account of the Progressive Federal Party of South Africa, the official parliamentary opposition from 1977 to 1987, along with the first major published account of the Alliance Party in Northern Ireland. His study of splinter group formation contains the first major account since 1964 of the Pan-Africanist Party of Azania, including its insurgency campaign in the 1980s and 1990s. Mitchell also contrasts behavior among the Inkatha Party and Labour Party in South Africa with the Social Democrat and Labour Party in Northern Ireland.

When early explorers and settlers arrived in New Zealand, they found the islands already populated by the Polynesian Maori people. This account details the interaction between the Maori leaders and the British Crown from first contact to New Zealand's eventual autonomy. As settlers outnumbered Maori, the struggle for land resulted in war and confiscations, and Maori loss of land and traditional lifestyle was accompanied by widespread ill health. It would be well into the twentieth century before the Crown would have to address promises made to the Maori in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, and the resulting efforts of the Waitangi Tribunal would forever change Maori relations with the Pakeha (New Zealanders of European descent). During recent decades, both groups have come to understand the complexity of the situation in New Zealand. The Pakeha have learned Maori sentiments regarding forests, flora, and language; and the Maori have come to realize that today's Pakeha should not be penalized by attempts at redress. The Maori have gradually acquired a larger role in dealing with their own affairs and addressing social inequalities, and recent electoral changes have resulted in a stronger Maori voice in Parliament. While serious tension remains and some Pakeha argue for "one law for all," steps have been taken toward more harmonious relations.

Describes the life, achievements, rise to power, and influences of the military leader who crowned himself Emperor of the French and established dominance over Europe.

The shift to the modern world in East Asia was accomplished in part via the experience of colonial rule in the late nineteenth century. Following imperial crisis in the 1930s and 1940s, independent nation states formed from which the political structure of East Asia is based today.

As a resurgent Poland emerged at the end of World War I, an eclectic group of Polish border guards, state officials, military settlers, teachers, academics, urban planners, and health workers descended upon Volhynia, an eastern borderland province that was home to Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews. Its aim was not simply to shore up state power in a place where Poles constituted an ethnic minority, but also to launch an ambitious civilizing mission that would transform a poor Russian imperial backwater into a region that was at once civilized, modern, and Polish. Over the next two decades, these men and women recast imperial hierarchies of global civilization-in which Poles themselves were often viewed as uncivilized-within the borders of their supposedly anti-imperial nation-state. As state institutions remained fragile, long-debated questions of who should be included in the nation re-emerged with new urgency, turning Volhynia's mainly Yiddish-speaking towns and Ukrainian-speaking villages into vital testing grounds for competing Polish national visions. By the eve of World War II, with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union growing in strength, schemes to ensure the loyalty of Jews and Ukrainians by offering them a conditional place in the nation were replaced by increasingly aggressive calls for Jewish emigration and the assimilation of non-Polish Slavs. Drawing on research in local and national archives across four countries and utilizing a vast range of written and visual sources that bring Volhynia to life, On Civilization's Edge offers a highly intimate story of nation-building from the ground up. We eavesdrop on peasant rumors at the Polish-Soviet border, read ethnographic descriptions of isolated marshlands, and scrutinize staged photographs of everyday life. But the book's central questions transcend the Polish case, inviting us to consider how fears of national weakness and competitions for local power affect the treatment of national minorities, how more inclusive definitions of the nation are themselves based on exclusions, and how the very distinction between empires and nation-states is not always clear-cut.

The first study to bring together such a breadth of data, this book compares responses to colonization in the Iron-Age Mediterranean. From North Syria to Sicily and North Africa, Tamar Hodos explores the responses to these colonies in areas where Greeks and Phoenicians were in competition with one another via the same local communities. Highlighting the diversity of interest displayed by local populations in these foreign cultural offering, Hodos charts their selective adaptation, modification and reinterpretation of Greek and Phoenician goods and ideas as their own cultures evolve. For students of archaeology and history, this will provide an essential resource for their degree course studies.

This pioneering biography breaks new ground about Colonial America and about James Glen, correcting major misconceptions. Glen was appointed royal governor of Colonial South Carolina in 1738 and came to the colony in 1743 to serve until 1756, the longest tenure of any governor during its Colonial period. Two major themes are stressed: first, Glen had to protect the royal prerogative and follow the dictates of his commission in the face of persistent challenge from the assembly; and second, his role in Indian affairs was critical and dominated much of his time and energy, because Glen had a keen interest in and an aptitude for Indian negotiations.

In an effort to restore its world-power status after the humiliation of defeat and occupation, France was eager to maintain its overseas empire at the end of the Second World War. Yet just fifteen years later France had decolonized, and by 1960 only a few small island territories remained under French control.The process of decolonization in Indochina and Algeria has been widely studied, but much less has been written about decolonization in France's largest colony, French West Africa. Here, the French approach was regarded as exemplary -- that is, a smooth transition successfully managed by well intentioned French politicians and enlightened African leaders. Overturning this received wisdom, Chafer argues that the rapid unfurling of events after the Second World War was a complex , piecemeal and unpredictable process, resulting in a 'successful decolonization' that was achieved largely by accident. At independence, the winners assumed the reins of political power, while the losers were often repressed, imprisoned or silenced.This important book challenges the traditional dichotomy between 'imperial' and 'colonial' history and will be of interest to students of imperial and French history, politics and international relations, development and post-colonial studies.

The history of Italian colonial affairs has recently attracted renewed interest from historians and economists. It is a complex and involved question. Over the last few years, though perhaps slightly later than the more mature historiography of other European countries, the work of some important scholars has opened up new fields of investigation and research. Recent studies have tried to analyse in greater depth the working mechanisms of the colonial system, broadening the field of investigation also to the perspective of African countries and the political-economic equilibriums of the second half of the 20th century. This study fits into this area of research and analyses crucial aspects of the decolonisation of Somalia, the history of the presence of Italian banking in Somaliland; relations between Italian and Somali institutions; Italian political-monetary policies during the reconstruction and the first economic boom.

This book brings together the newest and the most innovative scholarship on Nigerian children-one of the least researched groups in African colonial history. It engages the changing conceptions of childhood, relating it to the broader themes about modernity, power, agency, and social transformation under imperial rule.

Arguing that Britain's sterling policy had a significant impact on its colonial economic policy, this book focuses on the connection between Britain's sterling and balance of payments policy, colonial economic policy, and the British government's decision to transfer power to colonial peoples. The volume considers such factors as sterling policy and the state of the British economy, U.S. and Western European pressure for multilateralism in Britain's trade and commercial policy, the movement toward independence in colonial territories, and the cost of financing colonial development and welfare. The book argues that in the postwar years the assumptions guiding British policies for colonial political reform were undermined by postwar developments in Ghana, Nigeria, and the Malayan Federation--the three greatest dollar-earning colonies. As these colonies moved toward independence, their demands for development finance forced Britain to face the prospect of meeting such demands at great costs when the expenditure could not be justified. Britain extricated itself from this dilemma by transferring power to colonial peoples.