This edited volume examines the underexplored history of colonial violence in Africa, highlighting its systemic nature and the mechanisms through which it was justified during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Despite growing public discourse and sporadic scholarly attention, colonial violence remains marginal in academic research across disciplines such as war studies, environmental history, and cultural studies. By addressing various typologies of violence—military, environmental, cultural, and more—this book offers a nuanced understanding of how violence was embedded in colonial governance and ideology. Drawing on both secular and ecclesiastical narratives, the authors provide a multifaceted framework for interpreting colonial violence and its enduring legacies. It also establishes critical links between colonial and post-colonial violence, offering insights into the conflicts that followed independence across African nations. The book illuminates the intellectual and institutional contexts that shaped violent colonial practices, encouraging further scholarly inquiry into this vital yet neglected field.

Jairzinho Lopes Pereira is a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at KU Leuven, Belgium. Previously, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for the Study of World Christianity and Religion at VID Specialized University of Stavenger, Norway. He regularly collaborates with the Faculty of Theology at the University of Helsinki, Finland, as a guest lecturer, as well as the University of Coimbra, Spain, and the University of Santiago, Cape Verde. His recent publications include Transloyalties, Connected Histories and World Christianity during the Period of Decolonization and the Cold War, 1945-1970 (2025), and Church-state Relations in Africa in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Mission, Empire, and the Holy See (Palgrave 2022).