Kris Manjapra - Colonialism in Global Perspective

Colonialism in Global Perspective

Kris Manjapra weaves together the study of colonialism over the past 500 years across the globe's continents and seas. This captivating work vividly evokes living human histories, introducing the reader to manifestations of colonialism as expressed through war, militarization, extractive economies, migrations and diasporas, racialization, biopolitical management, and unruly and creative responses and resistances by colonized peoples. This book describes some of the most salient political, social, and cultural constellations of our present times across the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe. By exploring the dissimilar, yet entwined, histories of conquest, settler colonialism, racial slavery, and empire, Manjapra exposes the enduring role of colonial force and freedom struggle in the making of our modern world.

Kris Manjapra is Associate Professor of History and founding Chair of the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University. He is the author of M. N. Roy: Marxism and Colonial Cosmopolitanism (2009), Cosmopolitan Thought Zones of South Asia (co-editor, 2010), and Age of Entanglement: German and Indian Intellectuals across Empire (2014).

Colonialism in Global Perspective

Kris Manjapra

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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108425261

DOI: 10.1017/9781108560580

Kris Manjapra 2020

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First published 2020

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ISBN 978-1-108-42526-1 Hardback

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For Saugato

Wars. Wars thin like sea-smoke, but their dead

were real.

Derek Walcott, Omeros , p. 29

This work was possible only because of the assistance and contributions of many friends and benefactors. At Tufts University, I am grateful to my colleagues in the RCD, especially Lisa Lowe, Kamran Rastegar, Kendra Field, Kerri Greenidge, Amahl Bishara, Adlai Murdoch, Adriana Zavala, Heather Curtis, Kareem Khubchandi, Alexander Blanchette, Lilian Mengesha, Mark Minch, Matt Hooley, Nidhi Mahajan, Khury Peterson, and Ana Cruz. It is a rare privilege to think so collaboratively and profoundly, and over such a sustained period of time, with a group of such brilliant scholars. Thanks especially to Lisa, Adriana, Heather, Amahl, Lilian, and Mark for reading and commenting on versions of this manuscript, and to Mara Josefina Saldaa-Portillo. Special thanks, too, to Ayesha Jalal and Liz Foster in the History Department. I have deep gratitude for Deborah Kochevars leadership in helping to establish the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts.

I made a major start on the manuscript while on a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. I forged transformative friendships at Radcliffe that strengthened me in important ways. Thank you, Joyce Bell, Ayesha Chaudhury, Tiana Kahakauwila, Alyssa Mt. Pleasant, Laurence Ralph, and Ross Gay for your grace, intelligence, and beauty. I also thank my undergraduate research assistants at the Radcliffe Institute, William Sack, Nicholas Santiago, Marguerite Solmssen, and Anes Sung. Over the course of writing this manuscript, I also benefited from the friendship and wisdom of Kari Polanyi Levitt, Demetrius Eudell, and Martin Kmpchen.

The work on the manuscript continued as a fellow at the Berlin Academy of Advanced Study, where I am indebted to Stefan Gellner for his heroic research assistance. In Berlin, I made many friends who inspired and instructed me. Thank you, Alice von Bieberstein, Zeynep Kivilcim, Barbara Hobson, Klaus Steinhoff, Felix Canditt, Daniel Schnpflug, Jeremy Wideman, Viktoria Serena, Sonja Mejcher-Atassi, Nimra Bucha, and Sian Gaston. A special thanks to Yassin Al-Haj Saleh and Om Barach for our conversations. My deepest gratitude goes out to Bo Forbes, Melissa Alexis, Betty Burkes, Melissa Bartholomew, Hammad Ahmed, and Jennifer Brown for your support and friendship in Boston. Bo, thank you for reading and commenting on my work with such care. Lucia Volk has been my steadfast friend throughout.

I am very grateful to all the students in the spring 2019 class of Colonialism in Global Perspective for reading and commenting on portions of this manuscript. Your feedback was essential and on point. And thanks, as well, to all the students in earlier iterations of the class, as well as my co-teacher in a number of its earlier avatars, Lisa Lowe. Thank you to Tathagatha Datta, Wendy Qian, Parker Breza, and Michael Mandelkorn at Tufts for assistance with editing.

This project would not have been possible without the gracious, careful, attentive, and patient insight and advice of Lucy Rhymer, my editor at Cambridge. It was a privilege to work on this project with you. And thanks as well to Emily Sharp for her generous contribution of expertise, and to Christopher Jackson for his careful eye and expert advice. The anonymous referees assisted me with their suggestions, critiques, and encouragements. And a special thanks to Christopher J. Lee for reading the whole manuscript and offering such meaningful recommendations; Im truly indebted. While recognizing the many generous contributions of colleagues and friends, it is also incumbent on me to say that all the remaining errors and infelicities in this text are my own.

Finally, I thank my mother, Jeanile, for our cherished friendship and for all she has given me. And, Saugato, we travel together, and this book is for you.

Colonial formations are among the most important political entities of our contemporary times, as they function through nation-states, international regulatory regimes, and the amorphous clouds of global capital. But they have also supplied the webbing of global history for hundreds of years. This book has a simple objective: to provide a critical description of the different and interlocking aspects of colonial power, including the ongoing resistances to it, that inform the global history of our present.

We pursue two distinct approaches to inquiry: historical narratives, on the one hand, and sociological analysis, on the other. The first part of this book considers four distinct yet related histories of colonial power unfolding over long periods of time, which together describe the foundations for the making of the modern world. The second part considers five defining sociological aspects of colonial power and decolonizing resistance. This study does not constitute a comprehensive account, but a diagnostic venture to prompt further study. Furthermore, this book, both because of the limitations of the author, but also its motivating intellectual objectives, is not an exhaustive chronicle of colonial processes over hundreds of years. Rather, this book is a provocation.