New Books Network Tom Menger, "The Colonial Way of War: Violence and Colonial Warfare in the British, German and Dutch Empires, c. 1890-1914" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Jan 30, 2026
Tom Menger, a historian of imperial and trans-imperial history at the Munich Center for Global History, explores how British, German and Dutch colonial wars shared a common 'Colonial Way of War'. He traces trans-imperial transfers via soldiers, manuals and memoirs. The conversation covers racialization, punitive tactics like scorched earth and mass killing, mobility of military actors, and comparative cases including Herero and Aceh.
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Shared Colonial Way Of War
- Tom Menger argues a shared 'Colonial Way of War' shaped extreme violence across empires rather than distinct national models.
- This way of war combined racialization with common imperatives that made colonial violence trans-imperial and distinct from European warfare.
People, Not Institutions, Drove Transfers
- Menger shows exchanges moved mostly via mobile individuals rather than institutional channels.
- Military journals and attaches reflected existing practices but personal mobility transmitted lived tactics and lessons between empires.
Archetype Of The Mobile Colonial Adventurer
- Menger describes an archetypal British adventurer who fought in four or five colonial wars and appears in other memoirs.
- The memoirist said years of savage warfare had 'blunted' any former feelings, illustrating how mobility hardened perpetrators.
