More than 25 experts from around the world have contributed to this unique and provocative book. In a series of illuminating short essays, each author has presented a striking image as an invitation to consider the ghosts of colonialism and imperialism in today’s global economy. In defiance of those who claim that today’s capitalist system is free of racism and exploitation, this book shows that the past is not behind us, it defines our world and our lives. This book takes the reader on a global tour, from Malaysia to Canada, from Angola to Mexico, from Libya to China, from the City of London to the Australian outback, from the deep sea to the atmosphere. Along the way we meet the financiers, artists, advertisers, activists and everyday people who are grappling with the entangled legacies of empire.

This collection focuses on the way the legacies of empire, race and colonialism persist in the present: from the early days of settler colonialism to contemporary extractive industries, from direct colonial rule to racist border regimes. The racialized dimensions of Covid-19 and uprisings against anti-Black police violence of 2020 remind us that the afterlives of colonialism, empire and racism profoundly shape the global economy. Materials for learning about and unpacking these connections are urgently needed. Addressing themes as diverse as children's play equipment, digital infrastructures, the origins of money, and oil, this volume will be of interest to students, activists, journalists and anyone who intends to learn about how empire, race and colonialism continue to influence the global economy. This highly readable book offers twenty-four snapshots from around the world contributed by established and emerging scholars, artist and curators, alongside an incisive editorial introduction that makes the links from past to present with clarity and conviction.

Investigations into how technologies became peculiar forms of politics in an expanded geography of the Cold War. The Cold War was not simply a duel of superpowers. It took place not just in Washington and Moscow but also in the social and political arenas of geographically far-flung countries emerging from colonial rule. Moreover, Cold War tensions were manifest not only in global political disputes but also in struggles over technology. Technological systems and expertise offered a powerful way to shape countries politically, economically, socially, and culturally. Entangled Geographies explores how Cold War politics, imperialism, and postcolonial nation building became entangled in technologies and considers the legacies of those entanglements for today's globalized world. The essays address such topics as the islands and atolls taken over for military and technological purposes by the supposedly non-imperial United States, apartheid-era South Africa's efforts to achieve international legitimacy as a nuclear nation, international technical assistance and Cold War politics, the Saudi irrigation system that spurred a Shi'i rebellion, and the momentary technopolitics of emergency as practiced by Medecins sans Frontières. The contributors to Entangled Geographies offer insights from the anthropology and history of development, from diplomatic history, and from science and technology studies. The book represents a unique synthesis of these three disciplines, providing new perspectives on the global Cold War.

Imperial Leather chronicles the dangerous liaisons between gender, race and class that shaped British imperialism and its bloody dismantling. Spanning the century between Victorian Britain and the current struggle for power in South Africa, the book takes up the complex relationships between race and sexuality, fetishism and money, gender and violence, domesticity and the imperial market, and the gendering of nationalism within the zones of imperial and anti-imperial power.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the US government viewed education as one sure way of civilizing “others” under its sway—among them American Indians and, after 1898, Filipinos. Teaching Empire considers how teachers took up this task, first at the Carlisle Indian Boarding School in Pennsylvania, opened in 1879, and then in a school system set up amid an ongoing rebellion launched by Filipinos. Drawing upon the records of fifty-five teachers at Carlisle and thirty-three sent to the Philippines—including five who worked in both locations—the book reveals the challenges of translating imperial policy into practice, even for those most dedicated to the imperial mission. These educators, who worked on behalf of the US government, sought to meet the expectations of bureaucrats and supervisors while contending with leadership crises on the ground. In their stories, Elisabeth Eittreim finds the problems common to all classrooms—how to manage students and convey knowledge—complicated by their unique circumstances, particularly the military conflict in the Philippines. Eittreim’s research shows the dilemma presented by these schools’ imperial goal: “pouring in” knowledge that purposefully dismissed and undermined the values, desires, and protests of those being taught. To varying degrees these stories demonstrate both the complexity and fragility of implementing US imperial education and the importance of teachers’ own perspectives. Entangled in US ambitions, racist norms, and gendered assumptions, teachers nonetheless exhibited significant agency, wielding their authority with students and the institutions they worked for and negotiating their roles as powerful purveyors of cultural knowledge, often reinforcing but rarely challenging the then-dominant understanding of “civilization.” Examining these teachers’ attitudes and performances, close-up and in-depth over the years of Carlisle’s operation, Eittreim’s comparative study offers rare insight into the personal, institutional, and cultural implications of education deployed in the service of US expansion—with consequences that reach well beyond the imperial classrooms of the time.

From the rise of populist leaders and the threat of democratic backsliding to polarizing culture wars and the return of great power competition, the backlash against the political, economic, and social liberalism is increasingly labeled "illiberal." Yet, despite the increasing importance of these phenomena, scholars still lack a firm grasp on illiberalism as a conceptual tool for understanding societal transformations. The Oxford Handbook of Illiberalism addresses this gap by establishing a theoretical foundation for the study of illiberalism and showcasing state-of-the-art research on this phenomenon in its varied scripts-political, economic, cultural, and geopolitical. Bringing together the expertise of dozens of scholars, the Oxford Handbook of Illiberalism offers a thorough overview that characterizes the current state of the field and charts a path forward for future scholarship on this critical and quickly developing concept.