Two of the reviews published this week share the theme of empire, but while Thomas M. Truxes (Defying Empire. Trading with the Enemy in Colonial New York, reviewed here by Simon Middleton) is interested in the illegal traders of New York at a time when it was still under British rule, Gerald Horne concentrates instead on the shared imperial experiences of African Americans and Indians, and how that has affected relations between these two groups. See Vijay Prashad’s review of Horne’s The End of Empires: African Americans and India.

Our other new review (by Graham Macklin) is of Gavin Schaffer’s study of changing scientific ideas towards race in Britain, showing the impact on these ideas of international developments in the crucial period before, during and after the Second World War.

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