There is a crisis in contemporary postcolonial theory: while an enormous body of challenging research has been produced under its auspices, severely critical questions about the validity and usefulness of this theory have also been raised. This Reader is positioned at the juncture where it can address these contestations. It makes available some of the "classics" of the field, engages with the issues raised by contemporary practitioners, and offers several of the arguments that strongly critique postcolonial theory.