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Prostitution and the Ends of Empire deftly reveals that the attack on the brothel in interwar Delhi was more than just a city-specific act, but rather demonstrated the power of international, imperial and local networks. Using Foucault and Agamben's work he persuasively shows the reimagining of the brothel as a space of danger that required its suppression. Stephen Legg's use of scalar analysis is carefully constructed and brilliantly conclusive. This is an important and original reading of colonial prostitution. --Philippa Levine, author of The British Empire: Sunrise to Sunset (03/12/2014)

Stephen Legg's Prostitution and the Ends of Empire excels in providing an insightful analysis of how the 'brothel' in colonial India, once tolerated for its alleged socially useful fringe benefits, became during the interwar period the target of an extensive campaign for abolition. Legg is at his best in the meticulous care with which he charts the roles and motivations of a wide variety of civil society actors--individuals, institutions, and organizations--who were important players, alongside the colonial state, in this interwar shift, including the policy of the forced removal of public 'prostitutes' out of the city in Delhi, from places like Chowri Bazar and Ajmere Gate Bazar, to marginal locations. With the skills of a geographer, Legg tacks nimbly between the space of the brothel itself and the interlocking scales of the urban, provincial, national, imperial, and international that framed it as a problem. This smart and thoroughly researched book will be welcomed by students of colonial urbanism, of sexuality, and of transational methodologies in the study of India. --Philippa Levine, author of The British Empire: Sunrise to Sunset (03/12/2014)

Stephen Legg's Prostitution and the Ends of Empire excels in providing an insightful analysis of how the 'brothel' in colonial India, once tolerated for its alleged socially useful fringe benefits, became during the interwar period the target of an extensive campaign for abolition. Legg is at his best in the meticulous care with which he charts the roles and motivations of a wide variety of civil society actors--individuals, institutions, and organizations--who were important players, alongside the colonial state, in this interwar shift, including the policy of the forced removal of public 'prostitutes' out of the city in Delhi, from places like Chowri Bazar and Ajmere Gate Bazar, to marginal locations. With the skills of a geographer, Legg tacks nimbly between the space of the brothel itself and the interlocking scales of the urban, provincial, national, imperial, and international that framed it as a problem. This smart and thoroughly researched book will be welcomed by students of colonial urbanism, of sexuality, and of transational methodologies in the study of India. --Mrinalini Sinha, author of Specters of Mother India: The Global Restructuring of an Empire

Author Information

Stephen Legg is Associate Professor in the School of Geography at the University of Nottingham. He is the author of Spaces of Colonialism: Delhi's Urban Governmentalities and the editor of Spatiality, Sovereignty and Carl Schmitt: Geographies of the Nomos.

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