Geographies of Empire
European Empires and Colonies c.1880–1960
Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography
- Published: July 2009
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521740555
- dimensions: 247 x 175 x 31 mm
- pages: 673
- contains: 30 b/w illus. 37 maps
- Genre: Geography/Historical Geography
How did the major European imperial powers and indigenous populations experience imperialism and colonisation in the period 1880-1960? In this richly-illustrated comparative account, Robin Butlin provides a comprehensive overview of the experiences of individual European imperial powers - British, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, German and Italian – and the reactions of indigenous peoples. He explores the complex processes and discourses of colonialism, conquest and resistance from the height of empire through to decolonisation and sets these within the dynamics of the globalisation of political and economic power systems. He sheds new light on variations in the timing, nature and locations of European colonisations and on key themes such as exploration and geographical knowledge; maps and mapping; demographics; land seizure and environmental modification; transport and communications; and resistance and independence movements. In so doing, he makes a major contribution to our understanding of colonisation and the end of empire.
Reviews
'Professor Butlin's new book is ambitious in scope and rich in historical and geographical detail. It showcases, for a wide audience, historical and cultural geographies of late 19th- and 20th-century imperialism and colonialism that have afforded new insights into postcolonial, gender and indigenous perspectives. With its encyclopaedic coverage of the spatial aspects of European empires and colonies and its novel approach to the historiographical basis of writing about imperialism and colonialism, the book is a welcome addition to scholarship on European High Imperialism.'
Cheryl McEwan, Durham University
'This is a big and impressive work on a big and impressive subject, placing historical geography at the very center of the study of imperialisms. It covers the fragile and broken peaks reached by European "high imperialism' in the run-up to World War One, and its precipitate collapse thereafter. Butlin also engages with gender issues and with the peripheries as well as the centers, demonstrating how transportation and communication, the main European tools of colonization and exploitation, were also the tools of resistance and dc-colonization.'
Peter Hugill, Texas A & M University
'Robin Butlin's Geographies of Empire does a great service for all those concerned with the historical geography of European empires from the advent of the new imperial age in the 1880s to the decolonisation movements of the 1960s. The reader has set before them a unique comparative examination of all Europe's imperial powers across an impressive range of geographical themes, including exploration, mapping, environment, transport, land use and urbanisation. The broad sweep of empire's geographies has never been so fully and accessibly surveyed as it is in this book.'
Miles Ogborn, Queen Mary, University of London
ROBIN A. BUTLIN is Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of Leeds. His previous publications include Geography and Imperialism, 1820-1940 (co-edited with M. Bell and M. Heffernan, 1995), Historical Geography: Through the Gates of Space and Time (1993) and, coedited with R. A. Dodgshon, An Historical Geography of England and Wales (2nd edition, 1990) and An Historical Geography of Europe
