Empires of the Mind

Robert Gildea is Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford. He has written extensively on French and European history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among the many awards his publications have garnered, Fighters in the Shadows: A New History of the French Resistance (2015) was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize and Marianne in Chains: In Search of the German Occupation (2003) won the 2003 Wolfson History Prize.

• List of illustrations; Introduction; 1. Empires constructed and contested; 2. Empires in crisis: two world wars; 3. The imperialism of decolonisation; 4. Neo-colonialism, new global empire; 5. Colonising in reverse and colonialist backlash; 6. Europe: in or out?; 7. Islamism and the retreat to monocultural nationalism; 8. Hubris and nemesis: Iraq, the colonial fracture and global economic crisis; 9. The empire strikes back; 10. Fantasy, anguish and working through; Conclusion; Acknowledgements; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

'Empires of the Mind is a uniquely valuable account of the fate of the French and British empires.' William Roger Louis, University of Texas