Colonial Encounters in a Time of Global Conflict, 1914–1918

Description

This volume gathers an international cast of scholars to examine the unprecedented range of colonial encounters during the First World War. More than four million men of color, and an even greater number of white Europeans and Americans, crisscrossed the globe. Others, in occupied areas, behind the warzone or in neutral countries, were nonetheless swept into the maelstrom. From local encounters in New Zealand, Britain and East Africa to army camps and hospitals in France and Mesopotamia, from cafes and clubs in Salonika and London, to anticolonial networks in Germany, the USA and the Dutch East Indies, this volume examines the actions and experiences of a varied company of soldiers, medics, writers, photographers, and revolutionaries to reconceptualize this conflict as a turning point in the history of global encounters. How did people interact across uneven intersections of nationality, race, gender, class, religion and language? How did encounters – direct and mediated, forced and unforced – shape issues from cross-racial intimacy and identity formation to anti-colonial networks, civil rights movements and visions of a post-war future? The twelve chapters delve into spaces and processes of encounter to explore how the conjoined realities of war, race and empire were experienced, recorded and instrumentalized. Contents List of figures Acknowledgements Colonial encounters in a time of global conflict: an introduction • Santanu Das, Anna Maguire and Daniel Steinbach Part I: Spaces: camp, city, colony 1 ‘A pageant of empire?’: untangling colonial encounters in military camps • Anna Maguire 2 Urban spaces of cultural encounters: the Greek city of Salonika in the First World War • Nicole Immig 3 The British military occupation of Jerusalem, 1917–1920: soldiers as tourists and pilgrims • Mahon Murphy 4 Between intimacy and violence: imperial encounters in East Africa during the First World War • Daniel Steinbach Part II: Process: experience, commonalities and politicisation 5 Precarious encounters: South Asia, the war and anti-colonial cosmopolitanism • Santanu Das 6 Songs of war and dissent: Maori anti-war activism and its cultural legacy • Rachel Gillett 7 Blues in the trenches: John Jacob Niles’ Singing Soldiers • Michael Hammond 8 The YMCA and West Indian pan-African encounters during the First World War: the Drury Lane Club for ‘Coloured Sailors and Soldiers’ • Richard Smith Part III: Instrumentality: propaganda, resistance and the post-war world 9 African American soldiers in a black world: the politics of cultural interactions • Jennifer D. Keene 10 Influencing the Muslim world: the British propaganda newspaper Al-Haqīqah • Sadia McEvoy 11 ‘Neutral colonials’ and the global war: the role of the neutral Dutch East Indies and Indonesian intellectuals in the German ‘Programme for Revolution’ • Tessa Lobbes 12 Germany’s Global East: worldmaking in The New Orient • Jennifer Jenkins List of contributors Index