Colonial Switzerland is awkwardly intriguing given a lack of Swiss colonies overall. ... Colonial Switzerland looks at Switzerland 'as a country shaped by colonialism in a variety of ways' ... and thereby explores overlooked avenues of inquiry tied to the 'colonialism at the margins' or 'colonialism without colonies' ... . Colonial Switzerland constitutes, without a doubt, a valuable contribution to ongoing conversations around the study of 'colonialism without colonies' ... a scholarly interest apparent well beyond the small Alpine state. (Martin Kalb, Itinerario, Vol. 40 (1), April, 2016)
Patricia Purtschert is Postdoctoral Researcher at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and a philosopher. Her areas of research are feminist, gender, queer, postcolonial and cultural studies. Together with Barbara Luthi and Francesca Falk, she has co-edited the volume Postkoloniale Schweiz: Formen und Folgen eines Kolonialismus ohne Kolonien (2012, 2nd edition 2013).
Harald Fischer-Tine is Professor of Global History at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. He has published widely on South Asian history and the history of colonialism and imperialism. His latest monograph is the biography of a diasporic Indian revolutionary: Shyamji Krishnavarma: Sanskrit, Sociology and Anti-Imperialism (2014).