Colonialism

Veracini presents colonialism as an unequal relationship built on displacement and domination, and argues that this relationship helped shape the modern world. Rather than a fixed system, the book emphasises how colonialism kept changing, adapting and persisting over time.

The author traces a sequence of successive global colonial waves. Each wave brought its own form of control and its own method of exploiting colonised peoples and lands, and each reached different regions at different times. The book follows how these phases moved across what is now called the Global South, reshaping institutions and provoking varied responses from the communities they affected.

Beyond this historical account, the book offers a new definition of colonialism and considers why this unequal relation still matters today. Its wide chronological and geographical range makes it suited to students and scholars of globalisation, colonialism and empire.