Arising from cultural anthropology in the late 1980s and early 1990s, postcolonial translation theory is based on the observation that translation has often served as an important channel of empire. Douglas Robinson offers a concise introduction to this critical approach, focusing on the use in translation in the colonization of subject peoples, the survival of colonial attitudes in the translation market place, and the utopian use of translation to ‘decolonize’ the mind. Robinson begins with a general presentation of post-colonial theory, examines current theories of the power differentials that control what gets translated and how, and traces the historical development of postcolonial thought about translation. He also explores the negative and positive impacts of translation in the postcolonial context, reviewing various critiques of postcolonial translation theory and providing a glossary of key words.