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Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History

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1st of all, the reviewer below who claims that Cooper sees colonialism as an exclusively European phenomenon can't have read much of the book....the Ottoman Empire, e.g., appears 15 times in the book.

This is an important work, which I'll be putting on my syllabus for an anthropological theory course (though Cooper's an historian) because of its thoughtful, well-documented and forceful critiques of the concepts of identity, modernity and globalization. Cooper's reluctance to follow trends, his insistence upon the details of historical encounters, his attention to history of colonial studies prior to the rise of postcolonial theory, and his illustration of the questions that are closed off by postcolonialist texts like Chakrabarty's Provincializing Europe, all make this an essential read for anyone working in the social sciences or humanities.

In this interesting study the reader is taken on a tour of 'colonial studies' looking at colonialism as a discipline and its study as historiography. Colonialism is one of those topics that every western student is expected to have a knee jerk reaction of 'bad' when the word is mentioned. Along with 'imperialism' this is the word used to condemn the west and justify murder and terrorism everywhere in the world. From Hamas to the IRA to the Tammils, it is always generic 'colonialism' that is being fought against. But how does colonialism come into play with nationalism? What about the question of colonialism and the west. What was colonialism?

These definitions and debates are interesting, however in seeking a broader understanding and looking at 'colonial studies' this book doesn't address some important questions. Most important this book accepts that 'colonialism' is a western creation when in fact it is not. Since the 7th century Islam has colonized 1/5th of the world. The Ottomans colonized Eastern Europe and the Afghans and Turks did the same to India. China colonized Korea. We have examples of colonial societies outside the west not usually recognized as such, in the pursuit of western academics to pursue their goal of self hate. The Roman Empire and the Assyrian empires were colonial constructs. Colonialism didn't start in 1492. For instance for 1000 years, 500 of which took place before 1492, the Arabs colonized East Africa and deported 5 million slaves from the region. They ran plantations and imported religion, in a similar model to the one applied by the Spanish in South America.

Seth J. Frantzman