Making Empire
Colonial Encounters and the Creation of Imperial Rule in Nineteenth-Century Africa

This is the dramatic story of the colonial encounter and the construction of empire in Southern Africa in the nineteenth century. What did the British make of the Xhosa and how did they make sense of their politics and culture? How did the British establish and then explain their dominion, especially when it ran counter to the cultural values they believed themselves to represent? In this book, Richard Price answers these questions by looking at the ways in which individual missionaries, officials and politicians interacted with the Xhosa. He describes how those encounters changed and shaped the culture of imperial rule in Southern Africa. He charts how an imperial regime developed both in the minds of the colonizers and in the everyday practice of power and how the British imperial presence was entangled in and shaped by the encounter with the Xhosa from the very moment of their first meeting.

Awards

• Awarded the 2009 Albion Prize by the North American Conference of British Studies for the 'Best Book on British Studies since 1800'

Reviews & endorsements

"This book is a brilliant entry point for anyone who wants to see how imperial rule in Africa was established… Characters leap out; their absurd antics are sometimes pure slapstick. But this is no Carry On Up the Cape. In the scale of suffering unleashed by this power struggle, it is more like Shakespearean tragedy. At times, the folly of man is overwhelming." -Joanna Lewis, Times Higher Education

Customer reviews

Product details

• Date Published: November 2008
• format: Paperback
• isbn: 9780521718196
• length: 412 pages

• dimensions: 227 x 153 x 23 mm
• weight: 0.67kg
• contains: 17 b/w illus. 5 maps
• availability: Available