IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF STAMFORD RAFFLES
Author: Nigel Barley Published: 2009 312pp + 8pp photos

NIGEL Barley’s quirky, often witty biography of Thomas Stamford Raffles is one of those books about a curious sort of figure, a major champion of European colonialism,­ indeed one of the most influential of all British colonial pioneers, who deserves more than a simple firebranding from a life-time anti-colonialist like me.

I confess my anti-colonia