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This volume gathers an international cast of scholars to examine the unprecedented range of colonial encounters during the First World War. More than four million men of color, and an even greater number of white Europeans and Americans, crisscrossed the globe. Others, in occupied areas, behind the warzone or in neutral countries, were nonetheless swept into the maelstrom. From local encounters in New Zealand, Britain and East Africa to army camps and hospitals in France and Mesopotamia, from cafes and clubs in Salonika and London, to anticolonial networks in Germany, the USA and the Dutch East Indies, this volume examines the actions and experiences of a varied company of soldiers, medics, writers, photographers, and revolutionaries to reconceptualize this conflict as a turning point in the history of global encounters. How did people interact across uneven intersections of nationality, race, gender, class, religion and language? How did encounters - direct and mediated, forced and unforced - shape issues from cross-racial intimacy and identity formation to anti-colonial networks, civil rights movements and visions of a post-war future? The twelve chapters delve into spaces and processes of encounter to explore how the conjoined realities of war, race and empire were experienced, recorded and instrumentalized.
List of contents
Colonial Encounters in a Time of Global Conflict: An Introduction Part 1: Spaces: Camp, City, Colony 1. "A Pageant of Empire"?: Untangling Colonial Encounters in Military Camps 2. Urban Spaces of Cultural Encounters: The Greek City of Salonica in the First World War 3. The British Military Occupation of Jerusalem, 1917-1920: Soldiers as Tourists and Pilgrims 4. Between Intimacy and Violence: Imperial Encounters in East Africa During the First World War Part 2: Process: Experience, Commonalities and Politicisation 5. Precarious Encounters: South Asia, the War and Anti-Colonial Cosmopolitanism 6. Songs of War and Dissent: Maori Anti-War Activism and Its Cultural Legacy 7. Blues in the Trenches: John Jacob Niles' Singing Soldiers 8. The YMCA and West Indian Pan-African Encounters During the First World War: The Drury Lane Club for "Coloured Sailors and Soldiers" Part 3: Instrumentality: Propaganda, Resistance and the Post-War World 9. African American Soldiers in a Black World: The Politics of Cultural Interaction 10. Influencing the Muslim World: The British Propaganda Newspaper Al-Haqiqah 11. "Neutral Colonials" and the Global War: The Role of the Neutral Dutch East Indies and Indonesian Intellectuals in the German "Programme for Revolution" 12. Germany's Global East: Worldmaking in The New Orient
About the author
Santanu Das is Professor of English and Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.
Anna Maguire is a Leverhulme Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London.
Daniel Steinbach is a historian of European colonial history and teaches at the University of Copenhagen.
Summary
This volume examines colonial encounters during the First World War. Through case studies from across the globe, the twelve chapters explore the spaces and processes of encounter to explore how the conjoined realities of war, race and empire were experienced, recorded and instrumentalized.
Report
"This remarkable feat of scholarship reveals rich and important unknown histories of the First World War that will fundamentally enhance our understanding of the conflict and its imperial nature. At its heart, this book uncovers the significance of the myriad, often life-changing, diverse human encounters that the war generated and their historical legacy in contributing to global change. It is an outstanding achievement and essential reading."
Heather Jones, University College London, UK
