Hussain analyses the uses and the history of a range of emergency powers, such as the suspension of habeas corpus and the use of military tribunals. His study focuses on British colonialism in India from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century to demonstrate how questions of law and emergency shaped colonial rule, which in turn affected the place of colonialism in modern law, depicting the colonies not as passive recipients but as agents in the interpretation and delineation of Western ideas and practices.