Título original: La possession du monde: poids et mesunes de la colonisation.

Introduction -- Pte.1. Tools of empire and the human cost of colonial conquests: 1. Mortality and numbers of the first europeans in the tropics -- 2. Malaria, Quinine and colonial conquests -- 3. The use of indigenous troops in colonial conquests -- 4. European losses during the conquests -- 5. Indigenous losses during the conquests -- Pte.2. Colonial areas and populations, a comparative study of empires: 6. Measuring the land populations -- 7. The rate and scale of colonisation -- 8. Comparative portraits of the empires I: 1760-1830 -- 9. Comparative portraits of the empires II: 1830-1880 -- 10. Comparative portraits of the empires III: 1880-1938 -- 11. The decolonisation period -- Conclusion - Appendices -- Sources -- Bibliography.

Based on an impressive body of information and data, this volume recounts the history of five continents over a long stretch of time and in a comparative approach. From the beginning of European expansion the question was posed: what were the "empire tools" that gave Europe its military superiority, even before the industrial revolution? What was it that enabled Europeans to withstand life-threatening tropical diseases and to control indigenous populations? This book gives a fresh and wide-ranging view of the construction and collapse of the modern colonial empires of Europe, the United States of America and Japan.