Alibis of Empire: Henry Maine and the Ends of Liberal Imperialism

(Hardback)

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Chronicles the origins, and afterlife of late imperial ideology. This title challenges the idea that Victorian empire was legitimated by liberal notions of progress and civilization. It examines how the Victorian legal scholar Henry Maine's sociotheoretic model of 'traditional' society laid the groundwork for the culturalist logic of late empire.

Reviews

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2010 "Mantena carefully situates [Henry] Maine in political debates of the Britain of his time. Her study features excellent accounts of the luminaries of liberal imperialism and their critics before turning to the writings of Maine, particularly his analysis of 'traditional societies' and the implications of that analysis for the revision of imperial law codes and for a new treatment of property... [A] striking debut."--Choice "It is Mantena's earnest engagement with the question of a liberal empire's invariable ends that will appeal to a set of readers well beyond the circle of political theorists, intellectual historians, and students of the British empire who are the target audience for this book, and for whom this book is necessary reading."--Ishita Pande, Economic & Political Weekly "[H]er book is enormously rich... Mantena's wide-ranging erudition amply bolsters her thesis ... [which] serves as an invaluable corrective to flattened, univocal, and static accounts of the relationship between liberalism and imperialism... She has written an extraordinary book that cannot be ignored."--Daniel I. O'Neill, Perspectives on Politics "Mantena's main thesis serves as an invaluable corrective to flattened, univocal, and static accounts of the relationship between liberalism and imperialism... Mantena has broken new intellectual ground in (he study of empire. Hers is a bold and novel argument that should become required reading for anyone interested in modern imperialism. In this sense, whether subsequent scholarly treatments of the topic concur with Mantena's argument in all respects is immaterial. She has written an extraordinary book that cannot be ignored."--Daniel I. O'Neill, Political Theory "Alibis of Empire is a sophisticated work of intellectual history... [D]eep analysis of Maine's work is the heart of the book, and Mantena undertakes it with great skill and confidence."--Mark Doyle, Canadian Journal of History

Author Bio

Karuna Mantena is assistant professor of political science at Yale University.