Global Histories of Disability, 1700-2015

Book excerpt: This book offers a global angle to Disability History by exploring global locations as disparate as the Caribbean, Kenya, Mauritius, Natal and Poland as well as taking new approaches to Britain and the US. Global Histories of Disability seeks to address issues including colonialism, disability, the body, forced labour and indigeneity. A further key issue that reoccurs throughout the volume is the specificity of place. With several chapters examining the Global South, such work challenges the implicit tendency to assume that the western experience of disability is a universal one. The volume intends to do more than add new case studies to our knowledge about disability in the modern period, it intends to use the insights gained from examining disparate global sites to think more about the global histories of disability both empirically and theoretically. Issues addressed by different chapters include colonialism, imperialism, disability, deafness, the body, enslavement, labour and indigeneity. Different chapters also use economic, cultural, legal and political frameworks to explore issues of disability across a range of global locations. This volume is essential for students, scholars and researchers alike interested in world and international history.