Violence and Colonial Order: Police, Workers and Protest in the European Colonial Empires, 1918-1940

This is a pioneering, multi-empire account of the relationship between the politics of imperial repression and the economic structures of European colonies between the two World Wars. Ranging across colonial Africa, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean, Martin Thomas explores the structure of local police forces, their involvement in colonial labour control and the containment of uprisings and dissent. His work sheds new light on broader trends in the direction and intent of colonial state repression. It shows that the management of colonial economies, particularly in crisis conditions, took precedence over individual imperial powers' particular methods of rule in determining the forms and functions of colonial police actions. The politics of colonial labour thus became central to police work, with the depression years marking a watershed not only in local economic conditions but also in the breakdown of the European colonial order more generally.

Author: Martin Thomas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 09/20/2012
Pages: 540
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.95lbs
Size: 9.10h x 5.80w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9780521768412

Review Citation(s):
Choice 08/01/2013

About the Author
Thomas, Martin: - Martin Charles Thomas is Professor of Colonial History in the Department of History at the University of Exeter. He is a director of the University's Centre for the Study of War, State and Society, an interdisciplinary research centre that supports research into the impact of armed conflict and collective violence on societies and communities.