Empire on Edge

Rajeshwari Dutt

ISBN 10: 1108737056 / ISBN 13: 9781108737050

Published by Cambridge University Press, GB, 2025

About this Item

How does empire operate in frontiers and borderlands during times of conflict? Empire on Edge reveals how British officials attempted, during the second half of the nineteenth century, to understand and impose order on northern Belize, an area that was both a frontier of colonial power and the locus of a disputed border with Mexico. Their efforts were complicated by the local ramifications of Yucatán's Caste War (1847-1901), a long-lasting, violent struggle between segments of the indigenous Maya in southeast Mexico and the Mexican state. The book also illuminates how people who were subject to these efforts, especially the Hispanic and various Maya groups, sought to thwart them by building alliances across seemingly firm lines of racial and ethnic division. Along the way, important questions are raised about the dissonance between colonial and imperial projects, the nature of frontiers and borderlands, and the local effects of disputes between bordering countries.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781108737050

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Empire on Edge
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, GB
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1108737056
• ISBN 13: 9781108737050
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 332 grams

About this title

Synopsis

How does empire operate in frontiers and borderlands during times of conflict? Empire on Edge reveals how British officials attempted, during the second half of the nineteenth century, to understand and impose order on northern Belize, an area that was both a frontier of colonial power and the locus of a disputed border with Mexico. Their efforts were complicated by the local ramifications of Yucatán's Caste War (1847–1901), a long-lasting, violent struggle between segments of the indigenous Maya in southeast Mexico and the Mexican state. The book also illuminates how people who were subject to these efforts, especially the Hispanic and various Maya groups, sought to thwart them by building alliances across seemingly firm lines of racial and ethnic division. Along the way, important questions are raised about the dissonance between colonial and imperial projects, the nature of frontiers and borderlands, and the local effects of disputes between bordering countries.

About the Author

Rajeshwari Dutt is Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi. She is the author of Maya Caciques in Early National Yucatán (2017).