Imperial Borderlands

This book delivers a connected history of imperial margins in Southeast Asia by comparing the British and French geographical policies and practices at the end of the 19th century. It focuses on a time of scramble in Asia: the English incorporated Upper Burma in the Raj after the third Anglo-Burmese war (1885), whereas the French created a protectorate on Annam-Tonkin (the Northern part of present-day Vietnam). The volume shows how these border areas, disputed by colonial and national states, have been represented and fashioned by different actors: British, French and Chinese empires, the Siam realm and local populations. Laying these discourses alongside the geographical practices of the time and emplacing both within the longue durée allows us to shed light on the original process of territorial construction that they generated.

This work is a translated and updated after the French work Aux confins des empires. Cartes et constructions territoriales dans le nord de la péninsule indochinoise (1885-1914) published by Éditions de la Sorbonne (Paris, France), in 2018.