Sakis Gekas. Xenocracy: state, class and colonialism in the Ionian Islands, 1815–1864

Abstract

British colonialism in the Mediterranean during the nineteenth century has long attracted attention from historians. Sakis Gekas’s Xenocracy: State, Class and Colonialism in the Ionian Islands, 1815–1864, is primarily concerned with the history of the Ionian State under British colonial rule. The book offers a comprehensive account of the complex sociopolitical and economic aspects of British colonialism in the islands. The Ionian Islands were occupied during the Napoleonic wars and then became part of the British Empire as a protectorate state in 1815. Historians of British colonialism and of the late Ottoman Empire have often used Foucauldian terminology, such as governmentality, surveillance, and discipline, to construct their theoretical frameworks.