Facing Empire

In comparing, contrasting, and interlinking the rich contributions of Indigenous peoples across the globe, the editors have brilliantly offered readers new historiographical grounds for original thinking about the age of industrialization, Indigenous agency, and global revolutionary conquest … Facing Empire is a brilliantly written transnational work and a landmark impact on critical Indigenous and ethnic studies, postcolonial theory, settler colonialism, borderlands history, decolonization studies, history of the British Empire, and the Age of Revolution.
—Baligh Ben Taleb, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Western Historical Quarterly
Indigenous peoples of the globe have rarely taken center stage in accounts of this transformative time. Facing Empire: Indigenous Experiences in a Revolutionary Age breaks ground as the first collective volume to emphasize their agency in this era … The commonalities in their struggles and convergences in their strategies stand out in greater relief thanks to the kaleidoscopic array of essays Fullagar and McDonnell have collected. In light of Facing Empire, the history of the revolutionary age will never look quite the same again.
—David Armitage, Harvard University, Journal of British Studies
How did Indigenous peoples respond to an empire as it encroached on their territories? … The editors of this collection hope to spur a comparative conversation about the subject by bringing together contributors who specialise in encounters on different frontiers of the British empire in ‘a revolutionary age’, running from the mideighteenth to the early nineteenth century. Thirteen chapters examine Indigenous responses to empire in Australia, Bengal, New Zealand, North America, the Persian Gulf, South Africa, the Scottish Highlands, the South Pacific, and West Africa. While widely varied in argument and approach, these chapters offer a stimulating introduction to the rich scholarship on this topic.
—Dane Kennedy, George Washington University, Australian Historical Studies
Unlike many comparative histories of empire that adopt a European lens, this volume treats indigenous peoples as its main subjects … Facing Empire is a stimulating and wide-ranging introduction to global indigenous histories. The essays are high quality, and the editors effectively draw out similarities in how the histories, rivalries, expectations, and interests of indigenous peoples defined the terms of encounters.
—Jon Chandler, University College London, Journal of American History

Kate Fullagar is a senior lecturer in modern history at Macquarie University. She is the author of The Savage Visit: New World People and Popular Imperial Culture in Britain, 1710–1795. Michael A. McDonnell is a professor of history at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America.

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