Geographies of Empire Paperback: European Empires and Colonies c.1880–1960: 42 (Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography, Series Number 42) - Tapa blanda

'Professor Butlin's new book is ambitious in scope and rich in historical and geographical detail. It showcases for a wide audience historical and cultural geographies of late 19th and 20th Century imperialism and colonialism that have afforded new insights into postcolonial, gender and indigenous perspectives. With its encyclopaedic coverage of the spatial aspects of European empires and colonies and its novel approach to the historiographical basis of writing about imperialism and colonialism, the book is a welcome addition to scholarship on European High Imperialism.' Cheryl McEwan, Durham University

'This is a big and impressive work on a big and impressive subject, placing historical geography at the very center of the study of imperialisms. It covers the fragile and broken peaks reached by European 'high imperialism,' a 'grotesque mixture of savagery and farce,' in the run-up to World War One, and its precipitate collapse thereafter. Butlin also engages with gender issues and with the peripheries as well as the centers, demonstrating how transportation and communication, the main European tools of colonization and exploitation, were also the tools of resistance and de-colonization.' Peter Hugill, Texas A&M University

'Robin Butlin's Geographies of Empire does a great service for all those concerned with the historical geography of European empires from the advent of the new imperial age in the 1880s to the decolonisation movements of the 1960s. The reader has set before them a unique comparative examination of all Europe's imperial powers across an impressive range of geographical themes; including exploration, mapping, environment, transport, land use and urbanisation. The broad sweep of empire's geographies has never been so fully and accessibly surveyed as it is in this book.' Miles Ogborn, Queen Mary, University of London

'Because of its breadth, this book does work as a kind of textbook which would be of particular value for undergraduate and MA courses on the history of Empire. For that readership, it offers a solid overview of the colonial period with a particular emphasis on aspects of colonialism that fall within the parameters of what might loosely be called geography. A great deal of the literature on empire is also summarised and thoughtfully presented ... this is an impressively erudite and knowledgeable book.' Michael Collins, University College London

'This is a book of breathtaking scale that seeks to explain imperialism as a global phenomenon and through carefully chosen vignettes demonstrates its character, strengths and especially weaknesses. It should be essential reading for teachers and students of the subject.' The Historian

'... this is a seminal work ...' Choice

'Without doubt, Robin Butlin must be congratulated for having assembled a uniquely accessible comparison of Europe's imperial powers, their impact on colonial territories, and the impact of those territories on European nations.' Annales de Géographie

'Geography's tertiary-level teachers and students will derive great value from this timely reference text.' Joseph Powell, The Australian Geographer

'As one of the premier scholars in historical geography, Butlin has produced another remarkable contribution to the fields of both history and geography.' World History Bulletin

'This is a work of deep learning about and an obvious familiarity with a vast literature on the historic course of European colonialism from the medieval period to the recent past. The book is clearly organized and extremely well-written. It will pay reading by all those with even the slightest interest in the historical geography of European colonialism and its continuing effects around the world into the present day. I see little possibility any day soon of a book's appearing that will challenge this one as the essential synthetic survey of its subject.' John Agnew, Journal of Historical Geography

Robin A. Butlin is Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of Leeds. His previous publications include Geography and Imperialism, 1820–1940 (co-edited with M. Bell and M. Heffernan, 1995), Historical Geography: Through the Gates of Space and Time (1993), and, co-edited with R. A. Dodgshon, An Historical Geography of England and Wales (2nd edition 1990), and An Historical Geography of Europe (1998).