Introduction: police, labour and colonial violence; Part I. Ideas and Practices: 1. Colonial policing: a discursive framework; 2. 'What did you do in the colonial police force, daddy?' Policing inter-war dissent; 3. 'Paying the butcher's bill': policing British colonial protest after 1918; Part II. Colonial Case Studies: French, British and Belgian: 4. Gendarmes: work and policing in French North Africa after 1918; 5. Policing Tunisia: mineworkers, fellahs and nationalist protest; 6. Rubber, coolies and communists: policing disorder in French Vietnam; 7. Stuck together? Rubber production, labour regulation and policing in Malaya; 8. Caning the workers? Policing and violence in Jamaica's sugar industry; 9. Oil and order: repressive violence in Trinidad's oilfields; 10. Profits, privatization and police: the birth of Sierra Leone's diamond industry; 11. Policing and politics in Nigeria: the political economy of indirect rule, 1929–39; 12. Depression and revolt: policing the Belgian Congo; Conclusion; Notes to the text.
A striking new interpretation of colonial policing and political violence in three empires between the two world wars.
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.
'In a colonial system threatened by economic crisis, labour protest
and rising nationalism, efforts to safeguard the colonial political
economy provided the key to the policing of the empire. Martin
Thomas' impressively wide-ranging and thoroughly documented study
for the first time analyses the links between colonial policing,
political economy and imperial policy in Africa, southeast Asia and
the Caribbean.' Robert Aldrich, University of Sydney
'Violence and Colonial Order testifies to the ability of
comparative historical inquiry to develop new integrative
approaches to colonial governance, political economies, and
coercive labour regimes. In taking its analysis of colonial
policing beyond its use in political repression and into the realm
of commodity production and worker discipline, Thomas' masterful
case studies shed invaluable light on both local particularities
and cross-colonial overlaps alike.' Elizabeth Buettner, University
of York
'Martin Thomas has produced a remarkable monograph on policing and
colonial violence during the inter-war years. Comparative in
approach, it spans several colonies, countries and continents, and
combines careful micro-level case studies with an overarching and
persuasive thesis concerning the centrality of political-economic
conditions. It is a wonderful achievement.' Talbot Imlay,
Université Laval, Québec
'Violence and Colonial Order is immense in its scope and erudition.
Thomas ably compares and contrasts cases as different as oil fields
in Tobago and rubber plantations in Indochina. The work is driven
by original empirical research but also demonstrates an impressive
grasp of the relevant secondary literature. Coming just five years
after his superb analysis of colonial intelligence gathering,
Empires of Intelligence (2007), one cannot help but marvel at how
he has managed to produce another ambitious and original work at
such a clip.' Mary Dewhurst Lewis, H-Diplo
(h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables)
'Martin Thomas is one of the foremost specialists in the history of
colonial empires in the interwar period. He returns to his period
of expertise to put forth a stimulating reinterpretation of the
impact of economic mutations on the political upheavals within the
European empires of the time. In this comparative history project,
Thomas invites us to take a different look at the role of economic
factors in history, while also proposing a new focal point.'
Raphaëlle Branche, University of Paris-1-Pantheon Sorbonne, IUF
'This book constitutes a critical addition to the literature on the
workings of modern colonial states … Thomas has become a force
among historians of imperialism, especially of French overseas
empire … His strengths are wide-ranging diplomatic and political
inquiry, comparison, exhaustive archival research, and nuanced
arguments, eschewing overly ambitious pronouncements in favor of
slicing through the apparently commonplace to reorient our view. He
has done it again with Violence and Colonial Order.' Matthew G.
Stanard, Berry College
'Martin Thomas's remarkable Violence and Colonial Order succeeds in
breaking new ground thanks in part to a breathtakingly comparative
approach … His fine book will be of interest to a wide range of
students and scholars, from world historians to labor, police, and
colonial historians.' Eric T. Jennings, American Historical Review
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