EMPIRES OF VIOLENCE, massacre in a revolutionary age

326pp., illus., maps, paperback, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2025

ISBN: 9781350538634

In this comparative study, four scholars specialising in four different regions of the world - South Africa, North America, Australia, and Europe - interrogate the violence committed by colonial powers against Indigenous peoples between 1780 and 1820, and demonstrate how such violence maintained and incited racism, othering and fear, in spite of prevailing discourses on humanitarianism, civilisation and progress.

"Violence transformed much of the world during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, not just within Europe or colonial spaces, but in both. This brilliant team probes this violence, exploring the French and British invasions of Europe, North America, Southern Africa and Australia to provide an interconnected and comparative history of the barbaric making of the modern world" Professor Alan Lester, University of Sussex

"This innovative collaboration sheds light on the experiences of diverse peoples confronting imperial violence, illuminates transnational linkages, explores continuities in the psychology of mass killing, and conclusively demonstrates the inextricability of imperial conquest and extreme violence. This is a daring, important, heart-breaking study which demands a wide readership." Professor Elizabeth Elbourne, McGill University, Canada

Philip Dwyer is Emeritus Professor of History and founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence at the University of Newcastle, Australia.

Barbara Alice Mann is Professor of Humanities in the Jesup Scott Honors College at the University of Toledo, and is the author of 13 books.

Nigel Penn is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Lyndall Ryan was Emeritus Professor of History at University of Newcastle, Australia.