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Abstract

During the course of the First World War a new form of colonial governance developed in response to the need to mobilise and extract local resources for the military effort. This involved a deeper penetration of local societies and a re-working of state-society relations in each region. It occurred as the civil and military authorities embedded themselves within existing local social organisation and interfered with indigenous structures and hierarchies of power. The nature and dynamics of this extension of the arms of imposed state structures were far from monolithic, and reflected the uneven exposure of each case study to centralised control — both British and Ottoman — before 1914. Taken together, they offer a comparative analysis of how the colonial authorities managed and regulated the mobilisation of different peasant economies for participation in large-scale, industrialised, warfare.

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Notes

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© 2011 Kristian Coates Ulrichsen

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Ulrichsen, K.C. (2011). Deepening the Colonial State. In: The Logistics and Politics of the British Campaigns in the Middle East, 1914–22. Studies in Military and Strategic History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230297609_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230297609_5

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-31318-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-230-29760-9

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

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