Can a book change the world? If books were integral to the creation of the imperial global
order what role have they played in resisting that order throughout the twentieth century? To
what extent have theories and movements of anti-imperial and anticolonial resistance across the
planet been shaped by books as they are read across the world?Fighting Words responds to these
questions by examining how the book as a cultural form has fuelled resistance to empire in the
long twentieth century. Through fifteen case studies that bring together literary historical
and book historical perspectives this collection explores the ways in which books have
circulated anti-imperial ideas as they themselves have circulated as objects and commodities
within regional national and transnational networks. What emerges is a complex portrait of the
vital and multifaceted role played by the book in both the formation and the form of
anticolonial resistance and the development of the postcolonial world.
