imperialism

• 
• SOURCE: Public Books
  5/14/2021
  

  Imperialism: A Syllabus

  by Radhika Natarajan and John Munro

  Two historians present a public syllabus on imperialism that emphasizes the historical origins of contemporary struggles and the ways that ideas of difference are essential to the imperial work of control and exploitation. 

• 
• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  3/21/2021
  

  Washington’s Delusion of Endless World Dominion

  by Alfred McCoy

  "While Washington had been pouring blood and treasure into desert sands, Beijing was making itself into the world’s workshop."

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  

  Irish President Attacks 'Feigned Amnesia' over British Imperialism

  “I am struck by a disinclination,” he says, “in both academic and journalistic accounts to critique empire and imperialism. Openness to, and engagement in, a critique of nationalism has seemed greater.

• 
• SOURCE: The Drift
  2/2/2021
  

  First-Person Shooter Ideology​: The Cultural Contradictions of Call of Duty

  by Daniel Bessner

  "Right now, this one game is teaching millions of young Americans about the epic struggle between their government and the Soviet Union, a century-defining cataclysm that resulted in tens of millions of deaths, reshaped world history, and engendered the ideological struggles that presently bedevil the public sphere." But the lesson is one of cynical resignation to today's state of endless war. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Baffler
  7/31/2020
  

  Unnatural Disasters: On the Pandemics We Make For Ourselves

  by Ann Neumann

  Like cholera and poverty, Covid-19 is not the crisis; it’s a disease that feeds on our racialized inequalities.

• 
• SOURCE: Responsible Statecraft
  6/26/2020
  

  What Defunding the Police can Mean for U.S. Foreign Policy

  by Stuart Schrader

  To start this process will require looking inward, but it will be impossible without looking outward as well — by rethinking the U.S. role in the world, shrinking the Department of Defense’s massive footprint, and redirecting its resources and legitimacy toward more peaceful streets.

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  6/25/2020
  

  Policing the World (Review)

  by Andrew Lanham

  Since World War II, the United States has spread its style of policing—and police technology—around the world as a way to exert control. This link between modern policing and the national security state means they will have to be democratized together.

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  6/24/2020
  

  Britain's Persistent Racism Cannot Simply Be Explained by its Imperial History

  by David Edgerton

  It played its part, but empire does not explain all of Britain’s record of elitism, exploitation and discrimination.

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  6/8/2020
  

  Using the Military to Quash Protests Can Erode Democracy – As Latin America Well Knows

  by Kristina Mani

  Even strong democracies have unraveled when the military was brought in to quell protest. Uruguay in the 1960s, Venezuela in the 1980s and Chile just last year provide insights.

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  6/10/2020
  

  Britain's Imperialist Monuments Face a Bitter Reckoning Amid Black Lives Matter Protests

  After protestors took down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston this past Sunday and dumped it in the River Avon, many are reconsidering what should happen to statues of similar individuals, who profited from the suffering of so many.

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  6/8/2020
  

  Yes, American Police Act Like Occupying Armies. They Literally Studied Their Tactics

  by Stuart Schrader

  The founders of modern policing quelled foreign uprisings. ‘Demilitarizing’ police will be harder than taking away their tanks.

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  5/18/2020
  

  Venezuela Failed Raid: US Has a History of Using Mercenaries to Undermine Other Regimes

  by Andrew Thomson

  The arrest of Silvercorp mercenaries in Venezuela echoes a long history of the U.S. government supporting private troops to overthrow foreign governments. 

• 
• 12/22/19
  

  Brexit and the End of the United Kingdom

  by Ed Simon

  Because of Boris Johnson’s ascendancy, it must be considered that it is not only inevitable that there won’t be a United Kingdom again, but that it’s necessary that there shouldn’t be. 

• 
• SOURCE: Tom Dispatch
  10/13/19
  

  American Brexit

  by Tom Engelhardt

  It’s Not Just Britain Headed for the Subbasement of Imperial History.

• 
• SOURCE: Quartz
  9/23/19
  

  Thomas Cook, the travel agency of Britain’s far-flung 19th-century empire, is dead

  Thomas Cook was born with a railway journey that took place in 1841—the same year that Hong Kong was ceded to Britain, then at the peak of its imperial power.

• 
• SOURCE: Tom Dispatch
  9/19/19
  

  Ending the Afghan War Won’t End the Killing

  by Stephanie Savell

  Since 2015, casualties from explosive remnants of war and abandoned IEDs have been rising rapidly.

• 
• 9/15/19
  

  Expansion and Motivation: Frontiers and Borders in the Past and Present of the United States and Russia

  by Robert W. Thurston

  Greg Grandin's The End of the Myth, David McCullough's The Pioneers, and Angela Stent's Putin’s World push us to consider and compare the history of the frontier and borders. 

• 
• 8/18/19
  

  Book Review: Jeremy Black's Imperial Legacies

  by Jeff Roquen

  While Black lapses into a biased apologia and generalizes at the expense of factual evidence, Imperial Legacies, on the whole, delivers a long overdue re-contextualization of the British Empire.

• 
• 6/16/19
  

  Why is Brazil so American?

  by Marcos Sorrilha Pinheiro

  Given Brazil's history, it is fully understandable that its current president, a retired military man from the Brazilian middle class, has a genuine admiration for Trump and his followers. 

• 
• 5/5/19
  

  Navassa Island: The U.S.’s 160-year Forgotten Tragedy

  by Ken Lawrence

  Both the U.S. and Haiti claim the island. Here's why its history matters.