The best books about colonialism and imperialism
“What are the best books about Colonialism and Imperialism?” We looked at 254 of the top books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!
The top 29 books, all appearing on 2 or more “Best Colonialism & Imperialism” book lists are ranked below by how many times they appear. The remaining 200+ titles, as well as the sources we used to make the list are in alphabetical order on the bottom of the page.
Happy Scrolling!
29. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown
Lists it appears on: Goodreads, Goodreads 2
Immediately recognized as a revelatory and enormously controversial book since its first publication in 1971, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is universally recognized as one of those rare books that forever changes the way its subject is perceived. Now repackaged with a new introduction from bestselling author Hampton Sides to coincide with a major HBO dramatic film of the book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
28. Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II by Madhusree Mukerjee
Lists It Appears On: Wikipedia, Goodreads
A dogged enemy of Hitler, resolute ally of the Americans, and inspiring leader through World War II, Winston Churchill is venerated as one of the truly great statesmen of the last century. But while he has been widely extolled for his achievements, parts of Churchill’s record have gone woefully unexamined.
As journalist Madhusree Mukerjee reveals, at the same time that Churchill brilliantly opposed the barbarism of the Nazis, he governed India with a fierce resolve to crush its freedom movement and a profound contempt for native lives. A series of Churchill’s decisions between 1940 and 1944 directly and inevitably led to the deaths of some three million Indians. The streets of eastern Indian cities were lined with corpses, yet instead of sending emergency food shipments Churchill used the wheat and ships at his disposal to build stockpiles for feeding postwar Britain and Europe.
27. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
Lists it appears on: Goodreads, Goodreads 2From the author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, comes an exposé of international corruption, and an inspired plan to turn the tide for future generations
With a presidential election around the corner, questions of America’s military buildup, environmental impact, and foreign policy are on everyone’s mind. Former Economic Hit Man John Perkins goes behind the scenes of the current geopolitical crisis and offers bold solutions to our most pressing problems. Drawing on interviews with other EHMs, jackals, CIA operatives, reporters, businessmen, and activists, Perkins reveals the secret history of events that have created the current American Empire
26. Empire by Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt
Lists it appears on: Ranker, WikipediaImperialism as we knew it may be no more, but Empire is alive and well. It is, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negridemonstrate in this bold work, the new political order of globalization. It is easy to recognize the contemporary economic, cultural, and legal transformations taking place across the globe but difficult to understand them. Hardt and Negri contend that they should be seen in line with our historical understanding of Empire as a universal order that accepts no boundaries or limits. Their book shows how this emerging Empire is fundamentally different from the imperialism of European dominance and capitalist expansion in previous eras. Rather, today’s Empire draws on elements of U.S. constitutionalism, with its tradition of hybrid identities and expanding frontiers. Empire identifies a radical shift in concepts that form the philosophical basis of modern politics, concepts such as sovereignty, nation, and people. Hardt and Negri link this philosophical transformation to cultural and economic changes in postmodern society―to new forms of racism, new conceptions of identity and difference, new networks of communication and control, and new paths of migration. They also show how the power of transnational corporations and the increasing predominance of postindustrial forms of labor and production help to define the new imperial global order. More than analysis, Empire is also an unabashedly utopian work of political philosophy, a new Communist Manifesto. Looking beyond the regimes of exploitation and control that characterize today’s world order, it seeks an alternative political paradigm―the basis for a truly democratic global society.
25. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
Lists it appears on: Thought Catalog, GoodreadsIn this “artful, informative, and delightful” (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion –as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war –and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California’s Gold Medal.
24. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Lists it appears on: The Horseshoe Nail, GoodreadsWith effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene. Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war.
23. Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky
Lists it appears on: Ranker, Goodreads 2An immediate national bestseller, Hegemony or Survival demonstrates how, for more than half a century the United States has been pursuing a grand imperial strategy with the aim of staking out the globe. Our leaders have shown themselves willing-as in the Cuban missile crisis-to follow the dream of dominance no matter how high the risks. World-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky investigates how we came to this perilous moment and why our rulers are willing to jeopardize the future of our species.
With the striking logic that is his trademark, Chomsky tracks the U.S. government’s aggressive pursuit of “”full spectrum dominance”” and vividly lays out how the most recent manifestations of the politics of global control-from unilateralism to the dismantling of international agreements to state terrorism-cohere in a drive for hegemony that ultimately threatens our existence. Lucidly written, thoroughly documented, and featuring a new afterword by the author, Hegemony or Survival is a definitive statement from one of today’s most influential thinkers.
22. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney
Lists it appears on: Goodreads, Goodreads 2Before a bomb ended his life in the summer of 1980, Walter Rodney had created a powerful legacy. This pivotal work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, had already brought a new perspective to the question of underdevelopment in Africa. His Marxist analysis went far beyond the heretofore accepted approach in the study of Third World underdevelopment. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is an excellent introductory study for the student who wishes to better understand the dynamics of Africa s contemporary relations with the West.
21.Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest by Anne McClintock
Lists it appears on: Goodreads, Goodreads 2
Imperial Leather chronicles the dangerous liaisons between gender, race and class that shaped British imperialism and its bloody dismantling. Spanning the century between Victorian Britain and the current struggle for power in South Africa, the book takes up the complex relationships between race and sexuality, fetishism and money, gender and violence, domesticity and the imperial market, and the gendering of nationalism within the zones of imperial and anti-imperial power.
20. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Lists it appears on: Goodreads, The Horseshoe NailSaleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,” all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts.
This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Twenty-five years after its publication, Midnight’ s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time.
19. Naked Imperialism by John Bellamy Foster
Lists it appears on: Ranker, WikipediaDuring the Cold War years, mainstream commentators were quick to dismiss the idea that the United States was an imperialist power. Even when U.S. interventions led to the overthrow of popular governments, as in Iran, Guatemala, or the Congo, or wholesale war, as in Vietnam, this fiction remained intact. During the 1990s and especially since September 11, 2001, however, it has crumbled. Today, the need for American empire is openly proclaimed and defended by mainstream analysts and commentators.
John Bellamy Foster’s Naked Imperialism examines this important transformation in U.S. global policy and ideology, showing the political and economic roots of the new militarism and its consequences both in the global and local context. Foster shows how U.S.-led global capitalism is preparing the way for a new age of barbarism and demonstrates the necessity for resistance and solidarity on a global scale.
18. Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Lists it appears on: Boston University, GoodreadsA modern classic in the African literary canon and voted in the Top Ten Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century, this novel brings to the politics of decolonization theory the energy of women’s rights. An extraordinarily well-crafted work, this book is a work of vision. Through its deft negotiation of race, class, gender and cultural change, it dramatizes the ‘nervousness’ of the ‘postcolonial’ conditions that bedevil us still. In Tambu and the women of her family, we African women see ourselves, whether at home or displaced, doing daily battle with our changing world with a mixture of tenacity, bewilderment and grace.
17. Petals of Blood by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
Lists it appears on: Five Books, GoodreadsThe puzzling murder of three African directors of a foreign-owned brewery sets the scene for this fervent, hard-hitting novel about disillusionment in independent Kenya. A deceptively simple tale, Petals of Blood is on the surface a suspenseful investigation of a spectacular triple murder in upcountry Kenya. Yet as the intertwined stories of the four suspects unfold, a devastating picture emerges of a modern third-world nation whose frustrated people feel their leaders have failed them time after time.
First published in 1977, this novel was so explosive that its author was imprisoned without charges by the Kenyan government. His incarceration was so shocking that newspapers around the world called attention to the case, and protests were raised by human-rights groups, scholars, and writers, including James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Donald Barthelme, Harold Pinter, and Margaret Drabble.
16. The Age of Empire, 1875-1914 by Eric Hobsbawm
Lists it appears on: Goodreads 2, WikipediaErica Hobsbawm discusses the evolution of European economics, politics, arts, sciences, and cultural life from the height of the industrial revolution to the First World War. Hobsbawm combines vast erudition with a graceful prose style to re-create the epoch that laid the basis for the twentieth century.
15. The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding by Robert Hughes
Lists it appears on: Goodreads, Thought CatalogDigging deep into the dark history of England’s infamous efforts to move 160,000 men and women thousands of miles to the other side of the world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Hughes has crafted a groundbreaking, definitive account of the settling of Australia.
Tracing the European presence in Australia from early explorations through the rise and fall of the penal colonies, and featuring 16 pages of illustrations and 3 maps, The Fatal Shore brings to life the incredible true history of a country we thought we knew.
14. The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk
Lists it appears on: Goodreads, Goodreads 2The Great Game between Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia was fought across desolate terrain from the Caucasus to China, over the lonely passes of the Parmirs and Karakorams, in the blazing Kerman and Helmund deserts, and through the caravan towns of the old Silk Road—both powers scrambling to control access to the riches of India and the East. When play first began, the frontiers of Russia and British India lay 2000 miles apart; by the end, this distance had shrunk to twenty miles at some points. Now, in the vacuum left by the disintegration of the Soviet Union, there is once again talk of Russian soldiers “dipping their toes in the Indian Ocean.
13. The Scramble for Africa: The White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912 by Thomas Pakenham
Lists it appears on: Five Books, GoodreadsFrom the rear cover of this 738 page book: “A phenomenal achievement, clear, authoritative and compelling……Thomas Pakenham’s fine book tells the story of this particular gold rush with admirable and judicious poise….Contains some of the best-known episodes of 19th-Century history as well as some of the most mythologized and colorful characters the world has ever seen…..Livingstone and Stanley, Brazza and Rhodes, Kitchener and Gordon, Lugard and Jameson…..Highly readable.” and “Taking the entire continent as his canvas, Pakenham has painted a picture of heroism and horror. He writes both with compassion and with an effective combination of detachment and judgement. A splendid book.
12. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein
Lists it appears on: Goodreads, Goodreads 2In this groundbreaking alternative history of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman’s free-market economic revolution, Naomi Klein challenges the popular myth of this movement’s peaceful global victory. From Chile in 1973 to Iraq today, Klein shows how Friedman and his followers have repeatedly harnessed terrible shocks and violence to implement their radical policies. As John Gray wrote in The Guardian, “There are very few books that really help us understand the present. The Shock Doctrine is one of those books.”
11. The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell
Lists it appears on: Goodreads, The GuardianIndia, 1857—the year of the Great Mutiny, when Muslim soldiers turned in bloody rebellion on their British overlords. This time of convulsion is the subject of J. G. Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur, widely considered one of the finest British novels of the last fifty years.
Farrell’s story is set in an isolated Victorian outpost on the subcontinent. Rumors of strife filter in from afar, and yet the members of the colonial community remain confident of their military and, above all, moral superiority. But when they find themselves under actual siege, the true character of their dominion—at once brutal, blundering, and wistful—is soon revealed.
10. The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
Lists it appears on: Goodreads, Goodreads 2A distinguished psychiatrist from Martinique who took part in the Algerian Nationalist Movement, Frantz Fanon was one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history. Fanon’s masterwork is a classic alongside Edward Said’s Orientalism or The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and it is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of readers. The Wretched of the Earth is a brilliant analysis of the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation. Bearing singular insight into the rage and frustration of colonized peoples, and the role of violence in effecting historical change, the book incisively attacks the twin perils of postindependence colonial politics: the disenfranchisement of the masses by the elites on the one hand, and intertribal and interfaith animosities on the other. Fanon’s analysis, a veritable handbook of social reorganization for leaders of emerging nations, has been reflected all too clearly in the corruption and violence that has plagued present-day Africa. The Wretched of the Earth has had a major impact on civil rights, anticolonialism, and black consciousness movements around the world, and this bold new translation by Richard Philcox reaffirms it as a landmark.
9. Burmese Days by George Orwell
Lists it appears on: The Horseshoe Nail, Goodreads, Goodreads 2Orwell draws on his years of experience in India to tell this story of the waning days of British imperialism. A handful of Englishmen living in a settlement in Burma congregate in the European Club, drink whiskey, and argue over an impending order to admit a token Asian.
8. Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Lists it appears on: Wikipedia, Goodreads, Goodreads 2In 1916 in the midst of the First World War Lenin produced a Marxist masterpiece, entitled “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”. With US imperialism extending its domination over the whole of the world, this book is more relevant than ever. Eighty years after Lenin’s death we publish an appraisal of this classic work.…
In the preface written in April 1917, Lenin hoped that the “pamphlet will help the reader to understand the fundamental economic question, that of the economic essence of imperialism, for unless this is studied, it will be impossible to understand and appraise modern war and modern politics.” —Rob Sewell, “Imperialism and the Highest Stage of Capitalism,” In Defense of Marxism, December 16, 2004.
7. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
Lists it appears on: Goodreads, Goodreads 2, The GuardianThis novel tells the story of Kimball O’ Hara (Kim), who is the orphaned son of a soldier in the Irish regiment stationed in India during the British Raj. It describes Kim’s life and adventures from street vagabond, to his adoption by his father’s regiment and recruitment into espionage.
6. King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild
Lists it appears on: Goodreads, Goodreads 2, Thought CatalogIn the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold Ii of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million–all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian. Heroic efforts to expose these crimes eventually led to the first great human rights movement of the twentieth century, in which everyone from Mark Twain to the Archbishop of Canterbury participated. King Leopold’s Ghost is the haunting account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions, a man as cunning, charming, and cruel as any of the great Shakespearean villains. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who fought Leopold: a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure and unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust. Adam Hochschild brings this largely untold story alive with the wit and skill of a Barbara Tuchman. Like her, he knows that history often provides a far richer cast of characters than any novelist could invent. Chief among them is Edmund Morel, a young British shipping agent who went on to lead the international crusade against Leopold. Another hero of this tale, the Irish patriot Roger Casement, ended his life on a London gallows. Two courageous black Americans, George Washington Williams and William Sheppard, risked much to bring evidence of the Congo atrocities to the outside world. Sailing into the middle of the story was a young Congo River steamboat officer named Joseph Conrad. And looming above them all, the duplicitous billionaire King Leopold Ii. With great power and compassion, King Leopold’s Ghost will brand the tragedy of the Congo–too long forgotten–onto the conscience of the West.
5. Orientalism by Edward Said
Lists it appears on: Ranker, Goodreads, Goodreads 2More than three decades after its first publication, Edward Said’s groundbreaking critique of the West’s historical, cultural, and political perceptions of the East has become a modern classic.
In this wide-ranging, intellectually vigorous study, Said traces the origins of “”orientalism”” to the centuries-long period during which Europe dominated the Middle and Near East and, from its position of power, defined “”the orient”” simply as “”other than”” the occident. This entrenched view continues to dominate western ideas and, because it does not allow the East to represent itself, prevents true understanding. Essential, and still eye-opening, Orientalism remains one of the most important books written about our divided world.
4. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Lists it appears on: The Horseshoe Nail, Goodreads, Goodreads 2, The GuardianAmong the greatest novels of the twentieth century and the basis for director David Lean’s Academy Award-winning film, A Passage to India tells of the clash of cultures in British India after the turn of the century. In exquisite prose, Forster reveals the menace that lurks just beneath the surface of ordinary life, as a common misunderstanding erupts into a devastating affair.
3. Culture and Imperialism by Edward Said
Lists it appears on: Ranker, Wikipedia, Goodreads, Goodreads 2In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as the Western powers built empires that stretched from Australia to the West Indies, Western artists created masterpieces ranging from Mansfield Park to Heart of Darkness and Aida. Yet most cultural critics continue to see these phenomena as separate. Edward Said looks at these works alongside those of such writers as W. B. Yeats, Chinua Achebe, and Salman Rushdie to show how subject peoples produced their own vigorous cultures of opposition and resistance. Vast in scope and stunning in its erudition, Culture and Imperialism reopens the dialogue between literature and the life of its time.
2. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Lists it appears on: Ranker, Goodreads, Goodreads 2, Thought Catalog, Goodreads 2Heart of Darkness (1899) is a short novel by Polish novelist Joseph Conrad, written as a frame narrative, about Charles Marlow’s experience as an ivory transporter down the Congo River in Central Africa.
1. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Lists it appears on: Five Books, The Horseshoe Nail, Boston University, Goodreads 2, GoodreadsThings Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Chinua Achebe’s critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic narrative about Africa’s cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man’s futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political andreligious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order.
The 200+ Additional Best Colonialism Books
| # | Books | Authors | Lists |
| (Titles appear on 1 list each) | |||
| 30 | A Bend in the River | V.S. Naipaul | Goodreads |
| 31 | A Division of the Spoils (The Raj Quartet, #4) | Paul Scott | Goodreads |
| 32 | A Fine Balance | Rohinton Mistry |
The Horseshoe Nail
|
| 33 | A Grain of Wheat | Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o | Goodreads |
| 34 | A House for Mr. Biswas | V.S. Naipaul | Goodreads |
| 35 | A Man of the People | Chinua Achebe | Goodreads |
| 36 | A Matter of Honour | Philip Mason |
The Guardian
|
| 37 | A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East | David Fromkin |
Goodreads 2
|
| 38 | A People’s History of the United States | Howard Zinn |
Goodreads 2
|
| 39 | A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954-1962 | Alistair Horne |
Goodreads 2
|
| 40 | A Tempest | Aimé Césaire | Goodreads |
| 41 | Africa | David Diop |
Boston University
|
| 42 | Africa Has a Future | Peter Mutanda | Goodreads |
| 43 | Africa My Africa | David Diop |
Boston University
|
| 44 | African Perspectives on Colonialism | A. Adu Boahen | Goodreads |
| 45 | African Short Stories:Twenty Short Stories from Across the Continent | Chinua Achebe and Duncan Innes |
Boston University
|
| 46 | African Survey | Wikipedia | |
| 47 | Amazon Watershed | Wikipedia | |
| 48 | America is in the Heart | Carlos Bulosan |
Thought Catalog
|
| 49 | America Right or Wrong | Wikipedia | |
| 50 | Anthills of the Savannah | Chinua Achebe |
The Horseshoe Nail
|
| 51 | Anywhere But Here | Jerry Oltion | Ranker |
| 52 | Black Cosmopolitanism and Anticolonialism Pivotal Moments | Babacar M’Baye |
Love Reading
|
| 53 | Black Mischief | Evelyn Waugh | Ranker |
| 54 | Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart | Tim Butcher | Goodreads |
| 55 | Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire | Chalmers Johnson |
Goodreads 2
|
| 56 | Breath, Eyes, Memory | Edwidge Danticat | Goodreads |
| 57 | Broken Circle | Theodore Fontaine | 49th shelf |
| 58 | Brother, I’m Dying | Edwidge Danticat | Goodreads |
| 59 | Burger’s Daughter | Nadine Gordimer | Goodreads |
| 60 | Burn My Heart | Beverley Naidoo |
Boston University
|
| 61 | Bushworld | Maureen Dowd | Ranker |
| 62 | Captives | Linda Colley | Ranker |
| 63 | Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies and the CIA in Central America | Peter Dale Scott |
Goodreads 2
|
| 64 | Conquests And Cultures: An International History | Thomas Sowell | Ranker |
| 65 | Cry, the Beloved Country | Alan Paton | Goodreads |
| 66 | Curry and Rice | George Francklin Atkinson |
The Guardian
|
| 67 | Day of Empire | Wikipedia | |
| 68 | De stille kracht | Louis Couperus | Goodreads |
| 69 | Death and the King’s Horseman: A Play | Wole Soyinka | Goodreads |
| 70 | Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature | Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o | Goodreads |
| 71 | Democracy Matters | Cornel West | Ranker |
| 72 | Diasporas and Transnationalisms The Journey of the Komagata Maru | Anjali Gera Roy |
Love Reading
|
| 73 | Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield | Jeremy Scahill |
Goodreads 2
|
| 74 | Discourse on Colonialism | Aimé Césaire |
Goodreads 2
|
| 75 | Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight | Alexandra Fuller | Goodreads |
| 76 | Dreaming in Indian | Lisa Charleyboy & Mary Beth Leatherdale | 49th shelf |
| 77 | Economic Imperialism | Leonard Woolf | Ranker |
| 78 | Empire | Henry Kamen | Ranker |
| 79 | Empire | James Laxer | Ranker |
| 80 | Empire | Michael Hardt |
Goodreads 2
|
| 81 | Empire lite | Michael Ignatieff | Ranker |
| 82 | Empire of Capital | Ellen Meiksins Wood | Ranker |
| 83 | Empire, the national, and the postcolonial, 1890-1920 | Elleke Boehmer | Ranker |
| 84 | Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World | Niall Ferguson |
Goodreads 2
|
| 85 | Empire: The British Imperial Experience from 1765 to the Present | Denis Judd | Ranker |
| 86 | Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism | Greg Grandin |
Goodreads 2
|
| 87 | Empires of the Atlantic World | J.H |
Thought Catalog
|
| 88 | Essays on race and empire | Nancy Cunard | Ranker |
| 89 | Extravagant Strangers | Caryl Phillips | Ranker |
| 90 | Facing East from Indian Country | Daniel K Richter |
Thought Catalog
|
| 91 | Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy | Noam Chomsky |
Goodreads 2
|
| 92 | Farewell The Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat | Jan Morris | Goodreads |
| 93 | Fatty Legs | Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret Pokiak-Fenton | 49th shelf |
| 94 | Fixed ideas | Joan Didion | Ranker |
| 95 | Flying Tortoise | Tololwa Mollel |
Boston University
|
| 96 | From a native daughter | Haunani-Kay Trask | Ranker |
| 97 | From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia | Pankaj Mishra |
Goodreads 2
|
| 98 | Frontier Justice | Scott Ritter | Ranker |
| 99 | Gendering Orientalism: Race, Femininity and Representation | Reina Lewis | Goodreads |
| 100 | Glubb Pasha and the Arab Legion Britain, Jordan and the End of Empire in the Middle East | Graham Jevon |
Love Reading
|
| 101 | Heaven’s Command: An Imperial Progress (The Pax Britannica Trilogy, #1) | Jan Morris | Goodreads |
| 102 | Heren van de thee | Hella S. Haasse | Goodreads |
| 103 | Histoire des deux Indes | Wikipedia | |
| 104 | Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War | Jean Bricmont |
Goodreads 2
|
| 105 | I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala | Rigoberta Menchú | Goodreads |
| 106 | Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World | Noam Chomsky |
Goodreads 2
|
| 107 | Imperial Hubris | Wikipedia | |
| 108 | Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya | Caroline Elkins |
Goodreads 2
|
| 109 | Imperial Vistas Family Fictions | Kendrick Smithyman | Ranker |
| 110 | Imperialism (Hobson) | Wikipedia | |
| 111 | Imperialism Without Colonies | Harry Magdoff | Ranker |
| 112 | Ireland in an Imperial World Citizenship, Opportunism, and Subversion | Timothy McMahon |
Love Reading
|
| 113 | Jesus for President | Wikipedia | |
| 114 | Journey to the End of the Night | Louis-Ferdinand Céline | Goodreads |
| 115 | July’s People | Nadine Gordimer | Goodreads |
| 116 | Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II | William Blum |
Goodreads 2
|
| 117 | Kindling | Mick Farren | Ranker |
| 118 | King Leopold’s Soliloquy | Wikipedia | |
| 119 | Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World | Mike Davis |
Goodreads 2
|
| 120 | Lord Jim | Joseph Conrad |
Goodreads 2
|
| 121 | Man-Eaters of Kumaon | Jim Corbett |
The Guardian
|
| 122 | Marshall’s Family | Anson Welsh | Goodreads |
| 123 | Marxist Theories of Imperialism A History | Murray Noonan |
Love Reading
|
| 124 | Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company | Multatuli | Goodreads |
| 125 | Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War | Nathaniel Philbrick | Goodreads |
| 126 | Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present | Harriet A. Washington | Goodreads |
| 127 | Missing Nimama | Melanie Florence | 49th shelf |
| 128 |
Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire
| Wikipedia | |
| 129 | My Heart Fills with Happiness | Monique Gray Smith | 49th shelf |
| 130 | No Longer at Ease (The African Trilogy, #2) | Chinua Achebe | Goodreads |
| 131 | Nostromo | Joseph Conrad | Goodreads |
| 132 | Not My Girl | Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret Pokiak-Fenton | 49th shelf |
| 133 | Notebook of a Return to the Native Land | Aimé Césaire | Goodreads |
| 134 | Obasan | Joy Kogawa | 49th shelf |
| 135 | Off the map | Chellis Glendinning | Ranker |
| 136 | On Trial for My Country | Stanlake Samkange | Goodreads |
| 137 | Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent | Eduardo Galeano |
Goodreads 2
|
| 138 | Orientalism and race | Tony Ballantyne | Ranker |
| 139 | Ornamentalism | David Cannadine | Ranker |
| 140 | Out of Africa / Shadows on the Grass | Isak Dinesen | Goodreads |
| 141 | Out of Place: A Memoir | Edward Said | Ranker |
| 142 | Out of the Shadow: A Russian Jewish Girlhood on the Lower East Side | Rose Cohen |
Thought Catalog
|
| 143 | Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq | Stephen Kinzer |
Goodreads 2
|
| 144 | Pax Britannica: The Climax Of An Empire | Jan Morris | Goodreads |
| 145 | Peace kills | P. J. O’Rourke | Ranker |
| 146 | Phenomena: The Lost and Forgotten Children | Susan Tarr | Goodreads |
| 147 | Pox Americana | John Bellamy Foster | Ranker |
| 148 | River of Smoke | Amitav Ghosh |
The Horseshoe Nail
|
| 149 | Roma Eterna | Robert Silverberg | Ranker |
| 150 |
Rough Music: Blair, Bombs, Baghdad, London, Terror
| Wikipedia | |
| 151 | Salone Italiano: The True Story of an Italian Immigrant Family’s Struggles in Southwestern Colorado | Kay Niemann |
Thought Catalog
|
| 152 | Season of Migration to the North | Tayeb Salih | Goodreads |
| 153 | Shame | Salman Rushdie | Goodreads |
| 154 | Silencing the Past | Michel-Rolph Trouillot | Goodreads |
| 155 | Song of Lawino | Okot p’Bitek |
Boston University
|
| 156 | Star of the Sea | Joseph O’Connor | Goodreads |
| 157 | Staying On | Paul Scott |
The Guardian
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| 158 | Strangers Within the Realm | Bernard Bailyn | Ranker |
| 159 | The Acadian Diaspora An Eighteenth-Century History | Christopher Hodson |
Love Reading
|
| 160 |
The Accumulation of Capital
| Wikipedia | |
| 161 |
The Age of Capital: 1848–1875
| Wikipedia | |
| 162 | The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born | Ayi Kwei Armah | Goodreads |
| 163 | The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution | C.L.R. James |
Goodreads 2
|
| 164 | The Blood Never Dried: A People’s History of the British Empire | John Newsinger |
Goodreads 2
|
| 165 | The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk / Palace of Desire / Sugar Street (The Cairo Trilogy #1-3) | Naguib Mahfouz | Goodreads |
| 166 |
The City: London and the Global Power of Finance
| Wikipedia | |
| 167 | The Color Purple | Alice Walker | Goodreads |
| 168 | The Constant Gardener | John le Carré | Goodreads |
| 169 | The Conversation | Wole Soyinka |
Boston University
|
| 170 | The Crime of the Congo | Wikipedia | |
| 171 | The Crucible | Arthur Miller | Goodreads |
| 172 | The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997 | Piers Brendon |
Goodreads 2
|
| 173 | The discovery of islands | J.G.A. Pocock | Ranker |
| 174 | The Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North America, 1500-2000 | Andrew Cayton, Fred Anderson | Ranker |
| 175 |
The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power
| Wikipedia | |
| 176 | The Emperor | Ryszard Kapuściński | Goodreads |
| 177 | The empire has no clothes | Ivan Eland | Ranker |
| 178 | The English Patient | Michael Ondaatje | Goodreads |
| 179 | The Enlightenment on Trial Ordinary Litigants and Colonialism in the Spanish Empire | Bianca Premo |
Love Reading
|
| 180 |
The Extreme Centre: A Warning
| Wikipedia | |
| 181 | The First Man | Albert Camus | Goodreads |
| 182 | The First Men in the Moon | H. G. Wells | Ranker |
| 183 | The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood | Elspeth Huxley | Goodreads |
| 184 | The folly of empire | John Judis | Ranker |
| 185 | The God of Small Things | Arundhati Roy | Goodreads |
| 186 | The Great Mutiny | Christopher Hibbert |
The Guardian
|
| 187 | The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East | Robert Fisk | Goodreads |
| 188 | The Greek Cypriot Nationalist Right in the Era of British Colonialism Emergence, Mobilisation and Transformations of Right-Wing Party Politics | Yiannos Katsourides |
Love Reading
|
| 189 | The Greenlanders | Jane Smiley | Goodreads |
| 190 | The Heart of the Matter | Graham Greene | Goodreads |
| 191 | The Heat and the Dust | Ruth Prawer Jhabvala |
The Horseshoe Nail
|
| 192 | The Humanistic Tradition, Book 5 | Gloria K. Fiero | Ranker |
| 193 | The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War | James D. Bradley |
Goodreads 2
|
| 194 | The Imperialist | Sara Jeannette Duncan | Ranker |
| 195 | The Irish Americans: A History | Jay P |
Thought Catalog
|
| 196 | The Jewel in the Crown (The Raj Quartet, #1) | Paul Scott | Goodreads |
| 197 | The Last of the Mohicans (The Leatherstocking Tales #2) | James Fenimore Cooper | Goodreads |
| 198 | The Liberal Virus: Permanent War And The Americanization Of The World | Samir Amin |
Goodreads 2
|
| 199 | The Matter of Empire Metaphysics and Mining in Colonial Peru | Orlando Bentancor |
Love Reading
|
| 200 | The Moor’s Last Sigh | Salman Rushdie | Goodreads |
| 201 | The Most Distressful Country | Robert Kee | Ranker |
| 202 | The Mouse that Roared | Leonard Wibberley | Ranker |
| 203 | The Mzungu Boy | Meja Mwangi |
Boston University
|
| 204 | The New American Empire | Wikipedia | |
| 205 | The New Imperialism | David Harvey |
Goodreads 2
|
| 206 | The New Map of Empire How Britain Imagined America Before Independence | S. Max Edelson |
Love Reading
|
| 207 | The Obama Syndrome | Wikipedia | |
| 208 | The Old Man and the Medal | Ferdinand Oyono | Goodreads |
| 209 | The Piano Teacher | Janice Y.K. Lee | Goodreads |
| 210 | The Poisonwood Bible | Barbara Kingsolver | Goodreads |
| 211 | The Power of One (The Power of One, #1) | Bryce Courtenay | Goodreads |
| 212 | The Quiet American | Graham Greene | Goodreads |
| 213 | The Racket (book) | Wikipedia | |
| 214 | The real terror network | Edward S. Herman | Ranker |
| 215 |
The Revenge of History: The Battle for the Twenty First Century
| Wikipedia | |
| 216 | The Risen Empire | Scott Westerfeld | Ranker |
| 217 | The River Between | Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o | Goodreads |
| 218 | The Scarlet Letter | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Goodreads |
| 219 | The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals & the Truth about Global Corruption | John Perkins |
Goodreads 2
|
| 220 | The Secret Society | Wikipedia | |
| 221 | The Shadow of the Sun | Ryszard Kapuściński | Goodreads |
| 222 | The Sign of Four (Sherlock Holmes, #2) | Arthur Conan Doyle | Goodreads |
| 223 | The Singapore Grip | J.G. Farrell | Goodreads |
| 224 | The Stranger | Albert Camus | Goodreads |
| 225 | The Telephone Conversation | Wole Soyinka |
Boston University
|
| 226 | The Uses of Haiti | Paul Farmer | Goodreads |
| 227 | The Voyage Out | Virginia Woolf | Goodreads |
| 228 | The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898 | Evan Thomas |
Goodreads 2
|
| 229 | The Will to Die | Can Themba | Five Books |
| 230 | The Year of Living Dangerously | Christopher J. Koch | Goodreads |
| 231 | There’s No José Here | Gabriel Thompson |
Thought Catalog
|
| 232 | Thomas Jefferson, Legal History, and the Art of Recollection | Matthew Crow |
Love Reading
|
| 233 | Three Strong Women | Marie NDiaye | Goodreads |
| 234 | Through African Eyes | Leon Clark |
Boston University
|
| 235 | Translations | Brian Friel | Goodreads |
| 236 | Travels into the Interior of Africa | Mungo Park | Five Books |
| 237 | Troubles | J.G. Farrell |
The Horseshoe Nail
|
| 238 | Understanding Power | Wikipedia | |
| 239 | Unfamiliar Fishes | Sarah Vowell |
Goodreads 2
|
| 240 | UniverSoul Reflections | Peter Mutanda | Goodreads |
| 241 | Up the Country | Emily Eden |
The Guardian
|
| 242 | W.E.B. Du Bois on Asia | W.E.B. Du Bois | Ranker |
| 243 | Waiting for the Barbarians | J.M. Coetzee | Goodreads |
| 244 | West with the Night | Beryl Markham | Goodreads |
| 245 | When Heaven and Earth Changed Places | Le Ly Hayslip |
Thought Catalog
|
| 246 | When I Was Eight | Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret Pokiak-Fenton | 49th shelf |
| 247 | White Mughals | William Dalrymple |
The Guardian
|
| 248 |
Why Are We the Good Guys?: Reclaiming Your Mind from the Delusions of Propaganda
| Wikipedia | |
| 249 | Wide Sargasso Sea | Jean Rhys | Goodreads |
| 250 | World on Fire (book) | Wikipedia | |
| 251 | World Politics at the End of the Nineteenth Century | Paul Samuel Reinsch | Ranker |
| 252 | Year 501: The Conquest Continues | Noam Chomsky |
Goodreads 2
|
| 253 | Younghusband | Patrick French | Ranker |
| 254 | Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter | J. Nozipo Maraire |
Boston University
|
11 Best Imperialism Book Sources/Lists
| Source | Article |
| 49th shelf | Kids Books on Colonialism |
| Boston University | Literature on Colonialism |
| Five Books | Sam Kiley recommends the best books on Colonial Africa |
| Goodreads | Books About Colonialism |
| Goodreads 2 | Popular Imperialism Books |
| Love Reading | Colonialism & imperialism books |
| Ranker | The Best Books About Imperialism |
| The Guardian | Top 10 books about the British in India |
| The Horseshoe Nail | 10 of the best ‘postcolonial’ novels |
| Thought Catalog | 12 Books That Will Change The Way You Think About Colonization And Immigration |
| Wikipedia | Category:Books about imperialism |
