' Empire, the National, and the Postcolonial is Boehmer's most challenging and rewarding book to date. Her encyclopaedic knowledge and sensitivity to textual detail, which were the hallmarks of her successful Colonial and Postcolonial Literature (Oxford 1995), combine excitingly with her impressive theoretical dexterity and ambition. Certainly this is the most conceptually sophisticated of her critical works, one which makes a significant and ground-breaking contribution to our understanding of an important period of burgeoning anti-colonial resistance.' -John McLeod, University of Leeds
'Inspiring... meticulously researched and gracefully written... Throughout the book Boehmer's commitment to historical occasion and accuracy acts as a necessary counterweight to some of the abstract excesses of postcolonial theory, enabling her to be conceptually adventurous but historically responsible.' -John McLeod, University of LeedsThis book explores the political and textual interrelations which linked anti-colonialists, nationalists, and modernists in the years 1890-1920. Focusing on both canonical and less well-known figures, and interconnecting Europe, India, and South Africa, the book considers how resistance to domination and nationalist processes of 'making new' emerged not only in reaction to the colonizer but due to the interaction between colonial margins at the time.
