Define and Rule

by Mahmood Mamdani

Published 29 November 2012
In Define and Rule, Mahmood Mamdani considers the empire of so-called 'indirect rule' and argues that, far from being a weak state, as has long been assumed, indirect rule embodied a distinctly modern political rationality. This book is a much-needed historiographic and contemporary-political intervention. It is vintage Mamdani: erudite, pathbreaking, and a profound challenge to conventional wisdom.