Dockside Reading

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Exploring the intersection of print culture, colonialism, and the ocean, the book delves into the role of British customs officials in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These officials scrutinized publications for obscenity and political content, often discarding condemned materials into the sea, reflecting colonial practices of erasure. Hofmeyr connects these historical censorship efforts to later regimes in apartheid South Africa, introducing the concept of hydrocolonialism to illustrate how imperialism extends its reach over both land and water.