The Empire Within: Postcolonial Thought and Political Activism in Sixties Montreal

Sean Mills

Mar 2010 · Studies on the history of Quebec Book 23 · McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

About this ebook

In a brilliant history of a turbulent time and place, Mills pulls back the curtain on the decade's activists and intellectuals, showing their engagement both with each other and with people from around the world. He demonstrates how activists of different backgrounds and with different political aims drew on ideas of decolonization to rethink the meanings attached to the politics of sex, race, and class and to imagine themselves as part of a broad transnational movement of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist resistance. The temporary unity forged around ideas of decolonization came undone in the 1970s, however, as many were forced to come to terms with the contradictions and ambiguities of applying ideas of decolonization in Quebec. From linguistic debates to labour unions, and from the political activities of citizens in the city's poorest neighbourhoods to its Caribbean intellectuals, The Empire Within is a political tour of Montreal that reconsiders the meaning and legacy of the city's dissident traditions. It is also a fascinating chapter in the history of postcolonial thought.

About the author

Mills Sean : Sean Mills is Canada Research Chair in Canadian and Transnational History at the University of Toronto. He is the author of The Empire Within: Postcolonial Thought and Political Activism in Sixties Montreal and A Place in the Sun: Haiti, Haitians, and the Remaking of Quebec.Sean Mills holds a Ph.D in history from Queen's University and is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of English at New York University.