Empires of the mind : the colonial past and the politics of the present /

Empires of the mind : the colonial past and the politics of the present /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Gildea, Robert, author.
Imprint:	Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2019. ©2019
Description:	viii, 358 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	Imperialism -- History. Imperialism -- Social aspects. Postcolonialism -- History. Postcolonialism -- Social aspects. International organization. World politics -- 21st century. Imperialism. Imperialism -- Social aspects. International organization. Postcolonialism. Postcolonialism -- Social aspects. World politics. History.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11784563

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9781107159587 110715958X
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	The empires of the future would be the empires of the mind' declared Churchill in 1943, envisaging universal empires living in peaceful harmony. Robert Gildea exposes instead the brutal realities of decolonisation and neo-colonialism which have shaped the postwar world. Even after the rush of French and British decolonisation in the 1960s, the strings of economic and military power too often remained in the hands of the former colonial powers. The more empire appears to have declined and fallen, the more a fantasy of empire has been conjured up as a model for projecting power onto the world stage and legitimised colonialist intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. This aggression, along with the imposition of colonial hierarchies in metropolitan society, has excluded, alienated and even radicalised immigrant populations. Meanwhile, nostalgia for empire has bedevilled relations with Europe and played a large part in explaining Brexit.

Table of Contents:

Empires constructed and contested
Empires in crisis : two world wars
The imperialism of decolonisation
Neo-colonialism, new global empire
Colonising in reverse and colonialist backlash
Europe : in or out?
Islamism and the retreat to monocultural nationalism
Hubris and nemesis : Iraq, the colonial fracture and global economic crisis
The empire strikes back
Fantasy, anguish and working through.