In his new book Pirates of Empire (Cambridge University Press 2019), Stefan Amirell of Linnaeus University Centre for Concurrences shows that the suppression of piracy and other forms of maritime violence was a keystone in the colonisation of Southeast Asia.
The book explores how piracy was defined, contested and used to resist or justify colonial expansion, particularly during the most intense phase of imperial expansion in Southeast Asia from c.1850 to c.1920.