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In putting extraterritoriality into practice in the treaty ports, the British state did not simply withdraw rights from the Chinese state; it inhabited the space made by extraterritoriality by building institutions and engaging in practices which had consequences for the development of the treaty ports, and which need to be at the forefront of any attempt to understand colonialism in China. Through a focus both on the creation of law and institutions, and also on the management of British problem populations - violent Europeans and martial Indians - this book provides a revision of the history of empire and colonialism in China, explaining important features which have to date been glossed over in studies of other aspects of treaty port colonialism. Colonialism in China casts a long shadow, but key aspects of the British states central role in this history have before now been little understood

This article examines British encounters with Indian, Andamanese, white and African orphans in colonial India in the second half of the nineteenth century. It argues that orphans provided colonial administrators with opportunities to articulate increasingly scientific constructions of race, which might undergird contemporary imperialism, and simultaneously to explore the limits of colonial authority. The absence of parents was doubly helpful to these discoveries. At one level, the removal of the parent isolated the child from the contamination of culture. This left it available to experts, who wished to study the nature of the biological material or to leave their own impressions. At another level, it eliminated a source of political interference in the relationship between the child and the unrelated adult, which could now be interpreted largely in terms of scientific, bureaucratic or political necessity, including the language of savage-repression that constitutes a part of the prose of counter-insurgency. Orphaning was not only a metaphor for governance, it was also a problem of governance, and in some situations, a technique for the management of colonised populations.

"On 28 September 1871 an anonymous letter in a local newspaper complained that slaves from North Africa were being landed in Malta for later transfer to the Levant. That letter led to a parliamentary question in the House of Commons and opened a can of worms for the British administration in Malta. Both the Foreign and Colonial Offices in London and the Malta governors had to seek a solution to the thorny problem. All efforts to stamp the practice, however, proved frustrating for the local administration; the only consequence being accusations of negligence or connivance from British consuls in the Levant. Furthermore, such incidents provided the French-born American consul in Tripoli with ammunition to attack the British authorities in the attempt to push the interests of his adoptive nation. Additionally, the book deals extensively with the plight of the slaves landed in Malta, and the interests and ambitions of their owners."--Publisher description