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Challenging Imperialism Across Borders: Recent Studies of Twentieth-Century Internationalist Networks against Empire
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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2019
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In recent years there has been a growing interest in the global dimensions of twentieth-century imperialism and anti-imperialism. Historians, themselves part of an increasingly interconnected world, have been drawn to investigate the links between anti-colonial activists working in different parts of the globe. After a period in which most studies had focused either on the perspective of imperial decision makers in Europe or on that of nationalist activists within the framework of one single colony, more recently scholars have argued that the first of these approaches underrates the agency of anti-imperialists in interactions with the imperial rulers, while the second makes it difficult to explain broader, global trends, including the surprising near-simultaneity of decolonisation in large parts of the world between 1945 and 1970. Instead, historians now argue that we need to take into account the inherently internationalist visions of many activists in this period, which led them to travel the world, interact with their counterparts from other colonies, develop shared views of anti-imperialism and provide each other with practical and ideological support. This review article examines some of the most successful monographs to be published in this field between 2014 and 2018.
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References
1 Louro, Michele L., Comrades Against Imperialism: Nehru, India, and Interwar Internationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 James, Leslie, George Padmore and Decolonization from Below: Pan-Africanism, the Cold War, and the End of Empire (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Fischer-Tiné, Harald, Shyamji Krishnavarma: Sanskrit, Sociology and Anti-Imperialism (London et al. : Routledge, 2014)Google Scholar.
4 Manjapra, Kris, Age of Entanglement: German and Indian Intellectuals Across Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Matera, Marc, Black London: The Imperial Metropolis and Decolonization in the Twentieth Century (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015)Google Scholar.
6 Goebel, Michael, Anti-Imperial Metropolis: Interwar Paris and the Seeds of Third-World Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 1–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 For this argument regarding Paris, see Goebel, Anti-Imperial Metropolis, 52–5; for London, see Matera, Black London, 64.
8 James, Padmore, 98.
9 Ibid., 82–9.
10 Fischer-Tiné, Krishnavarma, 30–4, 54.
11 Ibid., 58–65.
12 See Brückenhaus, Daniel, Policing Transnational Protest: Liberal Imperialism and the Surveillance of Anticolonialists in Europe, 1905–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for an attempt to show how the extensive police surveillance of anti-colonialists from different parts of the world living in Europe motivated these activists to move across inner-European borders, and how such travels, in turn, contributed to the creation of a shared pro-imperial mindset among the authorities of different empires.
13 Fischer-Tiné, Krishnavarma, 112, 120.
14 Goebel, Anti-Imperial Metropolis, 279. See also ibid., 3–6.
15 Ibid., 36–44.
16 Ibid., 116–48.
17 Ibid., 75–82, 108–15.
18 Ibid., 284.
19 Matera, Black London, 6.
20 Ibid., 7, 22–61.
21 Ibid., 62–99.
22 Ibid., 9–13, 145–99, quote on 199.
23 Ibid., 200–37.
24 Ibid., 43–5, 100–99.
25 Fischer-Tiné, Krishnavarma, xxiii; 83–93, 185, quotes on xxiii and 185.
26 Louro, Comrades, 9, 21, 67–79.
27 Goebel, Anti-Imperial Metropolis, 177, 194.
28 Ibid., 180.
29 Ibid., 179.
30 Louro, Comrades, 188–98, 214–41.
31 James, Padmore, 24.
32 Ibid., 24.
33 Ibid., 27.
34 Louro, Comrades, 58, 96–109, 184–8, 257, 273, 278.
35 James, Padmore, 96, 106–11.
36 Ibid., 140.
37 Ibid., 63, 159.
38 Ibid., 16.
39 Ibid., 110.
40 Manjapra, Age of Entanglement, 6.
41 Ibid., 1.
42 Ibid., 88–108.
43 Ibid., 75–87.
44 Ibid., 171–90.
45 Ibid., 211–37.
46 Ibid., 238–74.
47 Ibid., 111–42.
48 Ibid., 143–70.
49 Goebel, Anti-Imperial Metropolis, 10, 20, 216–49.
50 Goswami, Manu, ‘AHR Forum: Colonial Internationalisms and Imaginary Futures’, American Historical Review, 117 (2012), 1461, 1484CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cooper, Frederick, Citizenship between Empire and Nation: Remaking France and French Africa, 1945–1960 (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014)Google Scholar.
51 Cooper, Citizenship.
52 Matera, Black London, 2–5, 7–8, 29–36, 59, 322, quote on 4.
53 Louro, Comrades, 1, 4. See also ibid., 103. Quotes on 1 and 4.
54 Goebel, Anti-Imperial Metropolis, 251.
55 Fischer-Tiné, Krishnavarma, 32, 54, 58–65, 130–5.
56 Goebel, Anti-Imperial Metropolis, 269.
57 James, Padmore, 160.
58 Louro, Comrades, 90, 104–26, 132–9, 140–2, 168–76.
59 Goebel, Anti-Imperial Metropolis, 252.
60 Ibid., 286; see also 179, 214. Quote on 286.
61 Matera, Black London, 313.
62 James, Padmore, 167.
63 Goebel, Anti-Imperial Metropolis, 285.
64 Louro, Comrades, 183, 198–206.
65 James, Padmore, 84.
66 Ibid., 12.
67 Ibid., 136.
68 Louro, Comrades, 266.
69 Ibid., 13.
70 Ibid., 266.
71 Goebel, Anti-Imperial Metropolis, 289.
72 James, Padmore, 183.
73 Ibid., 13, 137–9.
74 Ibid., 160, 167, quotes on 160.
75 Ibid., 160, 167, 172, 180.
76 Ibid., 182, 192.
77 Ibid., 182.
78 Ibid., 194.
79 Ibid., 195.
80 Manjapra, Age of Entanglement, 279.
81 See Armitage, David, ‘The Contagion of Sovereignty: Declarations of Independence since 1776’, South African History Journal, 52 (2005), 1–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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