The Routledge Companion to Postcolonial Studies offers a unique and up-to-date mapping of the postcolonial world, and is composed of essays as well as shorter entries for ease of reference. Introducing students to the history of the great European empires and the cultural legacies created in their wake, this book brings together an international range of contributors on such topics as the colonial histories of Britain, France, Spain and Portugal; the diverse postcolonial and diasporic cultural endeavours from Africa, the Americas, Australasia, Europe, and South and East Asia; the major theoretical formulations: poststructuralist, materialist, culturalist, psychological. With a comprehensive A to Z of forty key writers and thinkers central to contemporary postcolonial studies and featuring historical maps, this is both a concise introduction and an essential resource for any student of postcolonial culture, whatever their field.