Robert J. C. Young - Empire, Colony, Postcolony

Robert J. C. Young

I would like to begin by thanking Emma Bennett, for suggesting to me that I should write a short book that would develop some of the conceptual and historical categories first presented in my Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (Wiley-Blackwell 2001). The present volume is intended to complement, develop, and update that earlier account in a different form; the reader who is interested in more specific and detailed histories of the anticolonial movements in the Soviet Union, South America, Africa, and Asia will find extended analyses of them there. In general, given the intended length of this book, and against the academics natural impulse to give a long list of relevant sources, I have tried to keep references to a reasonable minimum. Although this book is designed to be read as a book, that is, in sequence, the individual chapters have also been designed to be relatively free standing; this necessarily requires occasional small repetitions.

At Wiley-Blackwell I would also like to thank Bridget Jennings and Ben Thatcher, and especially my former editor, the ever genial Andrew McNeillie.

I have been very fortunate in having a number of expert readers for the manuscript of this book at various stages. Stephen Howe read a late version with his customary attention to detail and dazzling encyclopedic historical knowledge, offering a host of useful suggestions and corrections. Douglas Kerr responded with characteristic elegance that made me consider unthought possibilities, rethink some knotty problems, and attend to my grammar; Hlne Quiniou read the manuscript with a Francophone philosophical brilliance that opened up a range of new possibilities, some of which must be held over for the future. Rita Kothari grappled with an early draft and asked some simple but characteristically penetrating questions about it; Mlanie Heydari read through a late version and pointed me towards many detailed improvements. I am sincerely grateful to them all and hope they feel that the final version is worth their very generous efforts. Virginia Smithson of the British Museum kindly located the Asante Ewer for me. I owe special thanks to Omar Mahdawi for walking me through Shatila Camp in West Beirut.

I would like to express my gratitude to New York University for supporting my research; Christopher Cannon for being such a considerate head of department; my colleagues on the Postcolonial Studies Project at NYU Toral Gajarawala and Jini Kim Watson; and also for collegiate discussions of all kinds, my colleagues John Archer, Tom Augst, Jennifer Baker, Una Chaudhuri, Patricia Crain, Patrick Deer, Carolyn Dinshaw, Juliet Fleming, Elaine Freedgood, Ernest Gilman, Lisa Gitelman, John Guillory, Richard Halpern, Phillip Harper, Josephine Hendin, David Hoover, Julia Jarcho, Wendy Lee, Larry Lockridge, John Maynard, Paula McDowell, Elizabeth McHenry, Maureen Mclane, Perry Meisel, Haruko Momma, Peter Nichols, Crystal A. Parikh, Mary Poovey, Sonya Posmentier, Catherine Robson, Martha Rust, Sukhdev Sandhu, Lytle Shaw, Jeff Spear, Gabrielle Star, Gregory Vargo, and John Waters. An especially big thank you to our administrators Lissette Florez, Susan McKeon, Taeesha Muhammad, Patricia Okoh-Esene, and Shanna Williams. My assistant, Hannah May Jocelyn, has helped to put me and my house in order, for which I remain very grateful. In Comparative Literature and elsewhere at NYU, many thanks too to Arjun Appadurai, Emily Apter, Lauren Benton, J. Michael Dash, Ana Maria Dopico, Allen Feldman, Dick Foley, Jay Garcia, Gayatri Gopinath, Hala Halim, Ben Kafka, Jacques Lezra, David Ludden, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Mary Louise Pratt, Arvind Rajagopal, Mark Sanders, Ella Shohat, Richard Sieburth, Robert Stam, Kate Stimpson, Jack Tchen, and Jane Tylus, and in New York more generally, Meena Alexander, Kate Ballen, Akeel Bilgrami, Tanya Fernando, Simon Gikandi, Kyoo Lee, Arwa Mahdawi, Rosalind Morris, Nick Nesbitt, Bruce Robbins, Mariam Said, Gayatri Spivak, Megan Vaughan, Tony Vidler, and Michael Wood. My thanks also to my students and graduate students over the past few years, particularly Shifa Ali, Durba Basu, Suzy Cater, Keren Dotan, Mosarrap Khan, Laurie Lambert, Jo Livingstone, Nick Matlin, Rajiv Menon, Omar Miranda, Joe Napolitano, Adam Spanos, Alice Speri, David Sugarman, and Shirley Lau Wong. At NYU Abu Dhabi I have been fortunate to have many productive conversations with colleagues, particularly Awam Ampka, Alide Cagidemetrio, Walter Feldman, Ama Francis, Wail Hassan, Stephanie Hilger, Paulo Horta, Dale Hudson, Philip Kennedy, Masha Kirasirova, Martin Klimke, Sheetal Majithia, Judy Miller, Cyrus Patell, Maurice Pomerantz, Gunja Sengupta, Werner Sollors, Bryan Waterman, Katherine Williams, Shamoon Zamir; many thanks too to Hilary Ballon, Al Bloom, and Fabio Piano, for making it all possible.