Age of Emergency: Living with Violence at the End of the British Empire

by Erik Linstrum

An eye-opening account of how violence was experienced not just on the frontlines of colonial terror but at home in imperial Britain.

When uprisings against colonial rule broke out across the world after 1945, Britain responded with overwhelming and brutal force. Although this period has conventionally been dubbed "postwar," it was punctuated by a succession of hard-fought, long-running conflicts that were geographically diffuse, morally ambiguous, and impervious to neat endings or declarations of victory. Ruthless counterinsurgencies in Malaya, Kenya, and Cyprus rippled through British society, molding a home front defined not by the mass mobilization of resources, but by sentiments of uneasiness and the justifications they generated.

Age of Emergency traces facts and feelings about violence as torture, summary executions, collective punishments, and other ruthless methods were employed in "states of emergency." It examines how Britons at home learned to live with colonial warfare by examining activist campaigns, soldiers' letters, missionary networks, newspaper stories, television dramas, sermons, novels, and plays. As knowledge of brutality spread, so did the tactics of accommodation aimed at undermining it. Some contemporaries cast doubt on facts about violence. Others stressed the unanticipated consequences of intervening to stop it. Still others aestheticized violence by celebrating visions of racial struggle or dramatizing the grim fatalism of dirty wars. Through their voices, Erik Linstrum narrates what violence looked, heard, and felt like as an empire ended, a history with unsettling echoes in our own time.

Vividly analyzing how far-off atrocities became domestic problems, Age of Emergency shows that the compromising entanglements of war extended far beyond the conflict zones of empire.

Genres: History, British Literature

328 pages, Hardcover

Published April 25, 2023

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title tells you everything you need to know. Well researched enough. Bottom line: a lot of people looked the other way because it was convenient and popular, no matter how personally uncomfortable or contemptible. Those holding the guns were able to get around the moral discomfort by justifying the racial and/or religious superiority of the British empire. For me, didn’t learn anything new in the big picture, but the details shared through written correspondence gave what I’d previously learned a depth.

[Kellen Squire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Erik Linstrum's "Age of Emergency" explores the intersection between colonial rule and emergency responses during the late British Empire. This book delves into the ways in which British authorities used emergency measures to maintain control in various colonies and how these approaches shaped the broader dynamics of empire.

As someone who both enjoys coherent and easy to read historical analysis that doesn't get bogged down in unimportant minutae, but who has also been known to get caught reading a dense fifty-page policy tome with the same gumption of a toddler being introduced to ice cream for the first time, I found this book as a true home run on being able to defty balance both sides of that particular coin, which is no small feat.

What really stood out to me was Linstrum's ability to draw connections between these historical events and modern discussions about governance, power, and human rights. He is absolutely not afraid "to go there". His writing is engaging, making complex subjects accessible without oversimplifying them. The book encourages readers to think critically about the legacy of colonialism and its lasting impact on contemporary societies.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

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