A Genealogy of Terrorism
Colonial Law and the Origins of an Idea

Explores how the modern concept of terrorism was shaped by colonial emergency laws dating back into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Joseph McQuade (Author)

9781108816328, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 1 September 2022

292 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.397 kg

'McQuaid provides a fascinating discussion of historical debate about political violence as it evolved in India from the eighteenth century to the making of terrorism as an international legal category in 1937 … McQuaid's excellent book will appeal to anyone interested in India, terrorism, or an elegant application of Foucault's ideas.' Richard Bach Jensen, Project Muse

Using India as a case study, Joseph McQuade demonstrates how the modern concept of terrorism was shaped by colonial emergency laws dating back into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Beginning with the 'thugs', 'pirates', and 'fanatics' of the nineteenth century, McQuade traces the emerging and novel legal category of 'the terrorist' in early twentieth-century colonial law, ending with an examination of the first international law to target global terrorism in the 1930s. Drawing on a wide range of archival research and a detailed empirical study of evolving emergency laws in British India, he argues that the idea of terrorism emerged as a deliberate strategy by officials seeking to depoliticize the actions of anti-colonial revolutionaries, and that many of the ideas embedded in this colonial legislation continue to shape contemporary understandings of terrorism today.

Introduction. The colonial prose of counterterrorism
1. Ethereal assassins: colonial law and 'hereditary crime' in the nineteenth century
2. 'The magical lore of Bengal': surveillance, swadeshi, and propaganda by bomb, 1890s to 1913
3. 'The eye of government is on them': anti-colonialism and emergency during the First World War
4. Indefinite emergency: revolutionary politics and 'terrorism' in interwar India
5. Terrorism as a 'world crime': the British Empire, international law, and the invention of global terrorism
Conclusion. Empire, law, and terrorism in the twenty-first century.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], International relations [JPS], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Asian history [HBJF]