Colonialism and Culture

Colonialism has had cultural effects that have too often been ignored or displaced onto the inexorable logics of modernization and world capitalism. The articles in this important volume explore the multifaced nature of colonialism and its cultural manifestations and treat the unspoken values, hidden assumptions, and buried connections out of which states are made and power is simultaneously exercised and thwarted. The contributors consider explorers’ accounts, missions and conversion, peasant resistance, torture, law, labor, and agriculture, among other issues, using examples that range from South America to Sumatra, from Africa to the Philippines, from India to the metropolitan centers of colonial rule.

Colonialism and Culture provides new and important perspectives not only on colonialism, but also on the complex character of colonial history.