Based on three decades of fieldwork throughout the developing
world, Scars of Partition is the first book to systematically
evaluate the long-term implications of French and British styles of
colonialism and decolonization for ordinary people throughout the
so-called Third World. It pays particular attention to the
contemporary legacies of artificial boundaries superimposed by
Britain and France that continue to divide indigenous peoples into
separate postcolonial states. In so doing, it uniquely illustrates
how the distinctive stamps of France and Britain continue to mark
daily life along and behind these inherited borders in Africa,
Asia, Oceania, and the Caribbean. Scars of Partition draws
on political science, anthropology, history, and geography to
examine six cases of indigenous, indentured, and enslaved peoples
partitioned by colonialism in West Africa, West Indies, South
Pacific, Southeast Asia, South India, and the Indian Ocean. William
F. S. Miles demonstrates that sovereign nations throughout the
developing world, despite basic differences in culture, geography,
and politics, still bear the underlying imprint of their colonial
pasts. Disentangling and appreciating these embedded colonial
legacies is critical to achieving full decolonization—particularly
in their borderlands.