Clare Anderson, University of Leicester, has edited A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies, now out with Bloomsbury. From the press:
“In documenting the magnitude, diversity and near-ubiquity of convict transportation and penal colonies across five centuries, Anderson and her collaborators transform the marginalised and fragmented history of the global convict into a story central to European expansion, labour control and enduring empire. Drawing on a wealth of archival material and an exceptional range of national and imperial perspectives, this is an outstanding contribution to the critical literature on carceral geographies and prison histories. It is also global history at its most innovative, insightful and combative.” -David Arnold
“In this stunning account of convict circuitry across the globe, Clare Anderson and contributors prove without a shadow of a doubt that convicts made the modern world. Tracking their movements and their carceral traces across nations, empires and many dispersed spaces in between, the authors map a remarkable range of social, economic, cultural, labor, gendered and racial histories. In the process, they model a transnational method that follows the archive while recognizing how distorted it is by the way that penal regimes worked. Students of global history will turn to this book as an example of world history from below for many years to come.” -Antoinette Burton
Here is the Table of Contents:
1. Introduction: A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies (Clare Anderson, University of Leicester, UK)
2. The Portuguese Empire, 1100-1932 (Tim Coates, College of Charleston, South Carolina, USA)
3. The Spanish Empire, 1500 to 1898 (Christian G. De Vito, University of Leicester, UK)
4. The Scandinavian Empires in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Johan Heinsen, Aalborg University, Denmark)
5. The French Empire, 1542-1976 (Jean-Lucien Sanchez, Centre for Sociological Research on Law and Penal Institutions, CESDIP, France)
6. The Dutch East India Company in Asia, 1595-1811 (Matthias van Rossum, International Institute of Social History, the Netherlands)
7. Transportation from Britain and Ireland, 1615-1875 (Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, University of Tasmania, Australia)
8. British India, 1789-1939 (Clare Anderson, University of Leicester, UK)
9. Post-colonial Latin America since 1800 (Ryan C. Edwards, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)
10. Russia and the Soviet Union from the 19th to the 21st Century (Sarah Badcock, University of Nottingham, UK and Judith Pallot, Christ Church, University of Oxford, UK)
11. Japan in the 18th and 19th Centuries (Minako Sakata, Tomakomai Komazawa University, Japan)
12. Modern Europe, 1750-1950 (Mary Gibson, CUNY, USA and Ilaria Poerio, University of Reading, UK)
Epilogue: In Carceral Motion: Disposals of Life and Labour (Ann Laura Stoler, New School for Social Research, New York, USA)
Further information is available here.
Praise for the collection:Between 1415, when the Portuguese first used convicts for colonization purposes in the North African enclave of Ceuta, to the 1960s and the dissolution of Stalin's gulags, global powers including the Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, British, Russians, Chinese and Japanese transported millions of convicts to forts, penal settlements and penal colonies all over the world. A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies builds on specific regional archives and literatures to write the first global history of penal transportation. The essays explore the idea of penal transportation as an engine of global change, in which political repression and forced labour combined to produce long-term impacts on economy, society and identity. They investigate the varied and interconnected routes convicts took to penal sites across the world, and the relationship of these convict flows to other forms of punishment, unfree labour, military service and indigenous incarceration. They also explore the lived worlds of convicts, including work, culture, religion and intimacy, and convict experience and agency.
“In documenting the magnitude, diversity and near-ubiquity of convict transportation and penal colonies across five centuries, Anderson and her collaborators transform the marginalised and fragmented history of the global convict into a story central to European expansion, labour control and enduring empire. Drawing on a wealth of archival material and an exceptional range of national and imperial perspectives, this is an outstanding contribution to the critical literature on carceral geographies and prison histories. It is also global history at its most innovative, insightful and combative.” -David Arnold
“In this stunning account of convict circuitry across the globe, Clare Anderson and contributors prove without a shadow of a doubt that convicts made the modern world. Tracking their movements and their carceral traces across nations, empires and many dispersed spaces in between, the authors map a remarkable range of social, economic, cultural, labor, gendered and racial histories. In the process, they model a transnational method that follows the archive while recognizing how distorted it is by the way that penal regimes worked. Students of global history will turn to this book as an example of world history from below for many years to come.” -Antoinette Burton
Here is the Table of Contents:
1. Introduction: A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies (Clare Anderson, University of Leicester, UK)
2. The Portuguese Empire, 1100-1932 (Tim Coates, College of Charleston, South Carolina, USA)
3. The Spanish Empire, 1500 to 1898 (Christian G. De Vito, University of Leicester, UK)
4. The Scandinavian Empires in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Johan Heinsen, Aalborg University, Denmark)
5. The French Empire, 1542-1976 (Jean-Lucien Sanchez, Centre for Sociological Research on Law and Penal Institutions, CESDIP, France)
6. The Dutch East India Company in Asia, 1595-1811 (Matthias van Rossum, International Institute of Social History, the Netherlands)
7. Transportation from Britain and Ireland, 1615-1875 (Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, University of Tasmania, Australia)
8. British India, 1789-1939 (Clare Anderson, University of Leicester, UK)
9. Post-colonial Latin America since 1800 (Ryan C. Edwards, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)
10. Russia and the Soviet Union from the 19th to the 21st Century (Sarah Badcock, University of Nottingham, UK and Judith Pallot, Christ Church, University of Oxford, UK)
11. Japan in the 18th and 19th Centuries (Minako Sakata, Tomakomai Komazawa University, Japan)
12. Modern Europe, 1750-1950 (Mary Gibson, CUNY, USA and Ilaria Poerio, University of Reading, UK)
Epilogue: In Carceral Motion: Disposals of Life and Labour (Ann Laura Stoler, New School for Social Research, New York, USA)
Further information is available here.
