An absorbing new history of European colonialism, showing how ideas of retribution and revenge were used to justify violent conquest and rule.Today, the use of military force to punish enemies is strictly prohibited under international law. It is also a widely accepted principle that acts of vengeance and reprisal have almost no legitimate place in warfare.Throughout much of Western history, however, punishment and retaliation were not only important aspect...

In this provocative new work, Mark Condos explores the 'dark underside' of the ideologies that sustained British rule in India. Using Punjab as a case study, he argues that India's colonial overlords were obsessively fearful, and plagued by an unreasoning belief in their own vulnerability as rulers. These enduring anxieties precipitated, and justified, an all too frequent recourse to violence, joined with an insistence on untrammelled power placed in the hands of the executive. Examining h...