Violence and Colonial Order
Police, Workers and Protest in the European Colonial Empires, 1918-1940
2012
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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.
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Author
Martin Thomas
Author · 4 books
Dr. Martin Thomas is a British historian and academic. He studied Modern History at Oxford University, graduating in 1985. He returned to Oxford for his graduate studies, earning his doctoral degree (D.Phil.) in 1991. Professor Thomas began his academic career in 1992 at the University of the West of England (Bristol). In 2003 he accepted a post in the history department of the University of Exeter. He is also the director of the Centre for the Study of War, State and Society. Professor Thomas is considered one of the leading academic specialists on French colonial history, colonial intelligence & security services, and the history of decolonisation.
