Pierre Singaravélou is a French global historian and a former British Academy Global Professor of History at King’s College London. He is a Professor of Modern History at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and the director of the Center for Asian History (Sorbonne).
Singaravélou specializes in the modern period and has written extensively on global history and the history of colonial empires. He is the author of numerous books, TV documentaries, and international exhibitions in French, English, and Spanish. His research focuses on how empires exploit, adapt to, and are often disrupted by global movements. His works highlight how globalization was decisively shaped by nineteenth-century imperialism.
He is the co-editor of Monde(s), a French journal of global history, and the founding editor of the book series histoire-monde. He also occasionally writes op-eds for the French newspapers Le Monde and Libération. In 2021, he presented a series on French public radio, France Culture, titled “40 Objects of Globalization.”
His books in English include Decolonization (Other Press, 2022), A Past of Possibilities: A History of What Could Have Been (Yale University Press, 2021), Mapping the World: Perspectives from Asian Cartography (Singapore National Library, 2021), and France in the World: A New Global History (Other Press, 2019).
About the book in focus
Decolonization: Unsung Heroes of the Resistance (Other Press, 2023)
Full of gripping historical vignettes and evocative photographs, Decolonization provides an accessible overview of the dynamic figures who resisted colonization across India, Senegal, Algeria, Vietnam, Kenya, and Congo.
Decolonization began on the very first day of colonization.
From the arrival of the Europeans, the peoples of Africa and Asia rose up. No one willingly accepts subjugation, but to one day regain freedom, survival was paramount. Faced with the Europeans’ machine guns, the colonized fought back in other ways: through civil disobedience, communist revolutions, soccer, and literature. It was a struggle marked by infinite patience and unyielding determination, led by heroic men and women who remain largely unknown.
Condensing a wealth of scholarly research into short, engaging chapters, Decolonization brings their extraordinary stories to light:
- Manikarnika Tambe, the Indian queen who led her troops into battle against the British;
- Mary Nyanjiru, the Kenyan activist who spearheaded a protest in Nairobi;
- Lamine Senghor, the Senegalese infantryman who became an anti-colonial militant in Paris;
and many more.
With them, a current of resistance swept the world, culminating in the independence of almost all the colonies in the 1960s. But at what price? In the atomic India of Indira Gandhi, in the Congo subjected to Mobutu’s dictatorship, or in a London shaken by the rioting of young immigrants, we can see just how crucial it is that we understand and learn from this painful history.
Book
Decolonization: Unsung Heroes of the Resistance (Other Press, 2023)
When
January 2025
Where
Kerala Literature Festival 2025