In this major work, Lewis S. Feuer examines critical distinctions between progressive and regressive imperialism. He explores causes of anti-imperial ideologies, noting that unlike the spoliation that took place under regressive tartar, Spanish and Nazi colonizations, civilization flourished during the progressive imperialism of Hellenic, Macedonian, Roman, and modern British eras of empire-building. Feuer holds that it is erroneous to blame the relative backwardness of colonial peoples on the imperialism of Western democratic nations. In case after case, the character of colonial rulers determined economic development and democratic reform alike. Pursuing the theme of progress versus regression, Feuer compares the imperialism of the United States with that of the Soviet Union – to the detriment of the latter in nearly every instance. His effort constitutes nothing short of a fundamentally new perspective on the lessons of modern history and the mistakes of modern analysts of international affairs. Feuer opens as well a new chapter in political psychology with his study of such anti-imperialist intellectuals as Hobson, Morel, and Leonard Woolf; his portrait of Emin Pasha, the heroic Jewish governor of Equatorial Sudan, suggests a living model for Conrad's Lord Jim.

Now in its second edition, The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism is the definitive reference work for students and scholars interested in the theory and history of imperialism and anti-imperialism from the sixteenth century to the present day. Written by an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars, it provides detailed studies of imperialism’s roots, goals, methods and impact around the world. It also explores the rich and varied tradition of anti-imperialism, focusing on its most significant leaders, intellectuals, theories and social movements. The second edition has been expanded to include a number of topics not covered in the first edition, such as feminism, the environment, crime, international law, imperialism and anti-imperialism in art, literature and poetry, and medicine. In addition, existing entries have been updated and revised to reflect the latest scholarship. Offering a more comprehensive and thorough treatment of imperialism and anti-imperialism, the second edition of this encyclopedia takes a comparative, global approach to challenge and enhance our understanding of today’s world.

Liberal World Orders is a timely contribution to debates about the current world order in the face of declining US hegemony and rising new powers. It examines the history and durability of liberal thought. Neo-liberalism is criticised as a theoretical perspective ill-equipped to understand the current crisis or possibilities for its amelioration.

The bestselling author of Overthrow and The Brothers brings to life the forgotten political debate that set America’s interventionist course in the world for the twentieth century and beyond. How should the United States act in the world? Americans cannot decide. Sometimes we burn with righteous anger, launching foreign wars and deposing governments. Then we retreat—until the cycle begins again. No matter how often we debate this question, none of what we say is original. Every argument is a pale shadow of the first and greatest debate, which erupted more than a century ago. Its themes resurface every time Americans argue whether to intervene in a foreign country. Revealing a piece of forgotten history, Stephen Kinzer transports us to the dawn of the twentieth century, when the United States first found itself with the chance to dominate faraway lands. That prospect thrilled some Americans. It horrified others. Their debate gripped the nation. The country’s best-known political and intellectual leaders took sides. Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Randolph Hearst pushed for imperial expansion; Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington, and Andrew Carnegie preached restraint. Only once before—in the period when the United States was founded—have so many brilliant Americans so eloquently debated a question so fraught with meaning for all humanity. All Americans, regardless of political perspective, can take inspiration from the titans who faced off in this epic confrontation. Their words are amazingly current. Every argument over America’s role in the world grows from this one. It all starts here.

Examines the emergence of anti-imperialist internationalism during the interwar years from the perspective of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

Damn Great Empires offers a new perspective on the works of William James by placing his encounter with American imperialism at the center of his philosophical vision. This book reconstructs James's overlooked political thought by treating his anti-imperialist Nachlass -- his speeches, essays, notes, and correspondence on the United States' annexation of the Philippines -- as the key to unlocking the political significance of his celebrated writings on psychology, religion, and philosophy. It shows how James located a craving for authority at the heart of empire as a way of life, a craving he diagnosed and unsettled through his insistence on a modern world without ultimate foundations. Livingston explores the persistence of political questions in James's major works, from his writings on the self in The Principles of Psychology to the method of Pragmatism, the study of faith and conversion in The Varieties of Religious Experience, and the metaphysical inquiries in A Pluralistic Universe. Against the conventional view of James as a thinker who remained silent on questions of politics, this book places him in dialogue with a transatlantic critique of modernity, as well as with champions and critics of American imperialism, from Theodore Roosevelt to W. E. B. Du Bois, in order to excavate James's anarchistic political vision. Bringing the history of political thought into conversation with contemporary debates in political theory, Damn Great Empires offers a fresh and original reexamination of the political consequences of pragmatism as a public philosophy.

Violence was prominent in France?s conquest of a colonial empire, and the use of force was integral to its control and regulation of colonial territories. What, if anything, made such violence distinctly colonial? And how did its practitioners justify or explain it? These are issues at the heart of The French Colonial Mind: Violence, Military Encounters, and Colonialism. The second of two linked volumes, this book brings together prominent scholars of French colonial history to explore the many ways in which brutality and killing became central to the French experience and management of empire. Sometimes concealed or denied, at other times highly publicized and even celebrated, French violence was so widespread that it was in some ways constitutive of colonial identity. Yet such violence was also destructive: destabilizing for its practitioners and lethal or otherwise devastating for its victims. The manifestations of violence in the minds and actions of imperialists are investigated here in essays that move from the conquest of Algeria in the 1830s to the disintegration of France?s empire after World War II. The authors engage a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from the violence of first colonial encounters to conflicts of decolonization. Each considers not only the forms and extent of colonial violence but also its dire effects on perpetrators and victims. Together, their essays provide the clearest picture yet of the workings of violence in French imperialist thought.