Convicts: A Global History

Clare Anderson provides a radical new reading of histories of empire and nation, showing that the history of punishment is not connected solely to the emergence of prisons and penitentiaries, but to histories of governance, occupation, and global connections across the world. Exploring punitive mobility to islands, colonies, and remote inland and border regions over a period of five centuries, she proposes a close and enduring connection between punishment, governance, repression, and nation and empire building, and reveals how states, imperial powers, and trading companies used convicts to satisfy various geo-political and social ambitions. Punitive mobility became intertwined with other forms of labour bondage, including enslavement, with convicts a key source of unfree labour that could be used to occupy territories. Far from passive subjects, however, convicts manifested their agency in various forms, including the extension of political ideology and cultural transfer, and vital contributions to contemporary knowledge production.

Author: Clare Anderson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 01/13/2022
Pages: 400
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.82lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 1.06d
ISBN13: 9781108840729
ISBN10: 1108840728
BISAC Categories:
- History | World | General
- Social Science | Penology