Spaces of Colonialism: Delhi's Urban Governmentalities

“The breadth of scholarship is impressive, and anyone wishing to learn about colonial Delhi will find this book a valuable source. What Legg ultimately delivers is a critique of liberal government, showing how colonial power works in illiberal ways to assert the domination of the British over the native population.” (American Journal of Sociology, July 2009)

"The main strength of this book is its conceptual rigour. Legg draws on Foucault’s recently translated 1978 lecture series ... The book provides a detailed, theoretically informed analysis of three landscapes of ordering in Delhi, Old and New ... Spaces of colonialism rewards persistence, and will be required reading for scholars of urban governmentality, and of considerable interest to post-colonial and urban geographers more generally." (Area, March 2009)

"Legg has mined and marshaled his written sources superbly and his extrapolations of Foucault are lucid and provocative." (Planning Perspectives, January 2009)

"Legg uses these (Foucault's) well-tried concepts to extremely good effect in interpreting some fascinating archival material ... .[The book] also has new things to say about New Delhi and colonial urbanism generally." (Comparative Studies in Society and History, December 2008)

"Writers have long recognised that social rules are at a premium in urban areas, and many discussions of governmentality have taken cities as their subject. Spaces of Colonialism, a case study of Delhi in the first half of the twentieth century that is published in the RGS-IBG book series, makes a significant contribution to such debates." (Journal of Historical Geography)

"A path-breaking analysis of colonial urban governmentality. The author combines a deep knowledge of Foucauldian and (post-)colonial theory with a careful interpretation of a wide range of archival data. The result is a stunning re-interpretation of the politics of late colonial Indian urbanism."
–James S. Duncan, University of Cambridge

"Conceptually nuanced and empirically rich, this book is a powerful example of the insights a theoretically informed geography can bring. It is an important and carefully researched work that is likely to have a significant impact in both governmentality and post-colonial studies."
–Stuart Elden, Durham University