When architecture is used to stake a political claim andproject authority, we may expect it to be unmistakable. Grand palaces andimposing fortresses command attention. Yet Euro-Western political entities havelong relied also on far more unassuming built objects to mark theirsovereignty. Drawing on case studies spanning five continents - ranging from anancient Roman military sanctuary, a medieval Venetian traveler inn inSouthwestern Asia, and a Portuguese trading post in Western Africa, to a Britishtelegraph pole in Oceania, and a recent US American detention camp in CentralAmerica - this book examines how buildings have been instrumental in exertingcontrol. It reveals spatial practices through which power is demonstrated instructures of the everyday, equipping readers to recognize these objects in thebuilt environment around them. A journey into the universal concept of thearchitecture of power Twenty-four global case studies spanning morethan two millennia of colonial expansion Illustrated throughout with originalarchitectural and cartographic drawings.