Editorial – Leela Gandhi, Michael Dutton, Sanjay Seth; The culture peddlers – Anne Freadman; Self and similitude: translating difference (modern colonialism and renaissance conquests) – Vanita Seth; ‘(Hand)Made in China’: the curious return of the footbinding shoe – Kaz Ross; The Golden Bough and Apocalypse Now: an-other fantasy – Jojada Verrips; An American Empire? – Tim Watson; Banality for postcolonial studies – Amanda MacDonald; Utopianism and its discontents – Marcus Breen; Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India – Sanjay Seth