The Empire Within

In a brilliant history of a turbulent time and place Mills pulls back the curtain on the decades 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 citys poorest neighbourhoods to its Caribbean intellectuals The Empire Within is a political tour of Montreal that reconsiders the meaning and legacy of the citys dissident traditions. It is also a fascinating chapter in the history of postcolonial thought.