Historians have often downplayed violence as a central theme in the foundation and governance of colonial empires. In this seminar course we consider the violence of conquest and resistance, colonial genocides, anti-colonial rebellions, everyday violence and the law, the impact on indigenous peoples, policing, settler violence, and links between violence in the colonial and post-colonial eras. What are the implications for new thinking about some of the major issues in recent history such as the Holocaust and world wars, the crisis of postcolonial states, the Cold War, continuing western military interventions in Africa and the Middle East, and issues of memory and forgetting? We will examine case studies from a variety of periods and places in a comparative framework.