Convicts

Clare Anderson is Professor of History at the University of Leicester.

• 1. Introduction: a British expedition to the Brazilian penal colony of Fernando de Noronha in 1887. Part I: 2. Empires and colonies; 3. Nations, borders, and islands; 4. Enslavement, banishment, and penal transportation; 5. Imperial governance; 6. Insurgency, politics, and religion; Part II: 7. Punishment and penal systems; 8. Encounters, exploration, and knowledge; 9. Medicine, criminality, and race; 10. The human sciences; 11. Escape and extradition; 12. Conclusion; Index.

'This book is a truly global history of convicts that foregrounds the subaltern subjects who made the modern world. From contributing to scientific knowledge clearing land, building infrastructure, and expanding the territorial ambitions of faraway empires, this book shows how unfree labourers became a prominent feature of a modern global regime after the abolition of slavery. Rigorously researched and intellectually capacious, the book is a must-read for global historians.' Durba Ghosh, author of Gentlemanly Terrorists: Political Violence and the Colonial State in India, 1919–1947