Bio
Aaron Windel is Associate Professor of History at Simon Fraser University. He researches the political history of modern Britain and the British Empire, including media and technology, rural economics, and colonial development. His current book project examines how the cooperative movement became central to British colonial development during the final decades of imperial rule. Tracing developments across India, Malaysia, Africa, and elsewhere, he explores how missionaries, social scientists, and government officials embraced cooperatives as tools for rural modernization, colonial stability, and political control. His work also shows how anti-colonial movements challenged these projects and proposed different visions for postcolonial development. Windel received his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 2010 and previously taught at Bowdoin College and UMass.