Webs of Empire

Breaking open colonization to reveal tangled cultural and economic networks, Webs of Empire offers new paths into colonial history. Linking Gore and Chicago, Maori and Asia, India and newspapers, whalers and writing, Ballantyne presents empire building as a spreading web of connected places, people, ideas, and trade. These links question narrow, national stories, while broadening perspectives on the past and the legacies of colonialism that persist today. Bringing together essays from two decades of prolific publishing on international colonial history, Webs of Empire establishes Tony Ballantyne as one of the leading historians of the British Empire.

Graeme Wynn, FRSC, is a professor of geography at the University of British Columbia:
Attentive to the arguments of post-colonial theory, demonstrating a strong historiographic sensibility, and firmly grounded in New Zealand and other archives, this timely book offers a thoughtful challenge to the primacy of national history. Stressing the lumpiness of the past, Ballantyne sees places as knot-like conjunctures produced by the convergence of imperial networks with local webs of interdependence mediated by institutions operating at various scales. These diverse essays offer insight and pleasure to anyone interested in the colonial past.