The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World is a book written by black studies academic Kehinde Andrews.
The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World is a book written by black studies academic Kehinde Andrews.
The book, authored by Kehinde Andrews, a Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University, discusses how the legacies of European imperialism and colonialism – both grounded in racism and white supremacy – have implications on modern-day neo-imperialist and neo-colonialist thought. This is prevalent in the attitudes and behaviours of non-governmental organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organization, whose objectives are biased towards the ideals and goals of the Western world.
However, Andrews notes that colonial mindsets are not exclusively Western in nature, and argues that China is engaging in empire-building through its transactional relationship with various African nations.
In the magazine gal-dem , Adele Walton says Andrews dispels "self-congratulatory myths ... making clear that the Global North's ability to enjoy immense levels of private wealth are dependent on the continued exploitation of the Global South. By taking the reader on a journey from the Enlightenment period, to the Second World War to the rise of neoliberal hegemony under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, Andrews reveals how even though racism and colonialism have taken on new forms, they remain at the core of the system of globalised capitalism we see today." [1]
In the LSE Review of Books , Ayşe Işın Kirenci said called the book "a compact and comprehensive resource for those interested in development and colonialism studies who are looking for more critical perspectives on some of the orthodoxies in the political economy literature. Through its historical institutionalist approach, the study challenges the grand narratives of the Enlightenment, Western linear progress and developmentalism." [2]
In the Evening Standard , Calvin Robinson calls Andrew's book "a fantastical journey through a parallel universe" whereby "everything and everyone is racist, there is no solution, and we should all subscribe to the principles of Critical Race Theory". He also criticises the "underlying Marxism" he sees inherent in the work. [3]
Although describing the book as having shortcomings, Ashish Ghadiali in The Guardian says that Andrews is building on "the intellectual legacy of Cedric Robinson" and standing on the shoulders of giants of black radical politics, "from WEB Du Bois to Ava DuVernay, and delivers a book destined to serve as a kind of primary text for a new generation of students of antiracism looking to get to grips with the violence of our imperial inheritance, in broad-brush terms." [4]
Environmental determinism is the study of how the physical environment predisposes societies and states towards particular development trajectories. Jared Diamond, Jeffrey Herbst, Ian Morris, and other social scientists sparked a revival of the theory during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This "neo-environmental determinism" school of thought examines how geographic and ecological forces influence state-building, economic development, and institutions. Many scholars underscore that this original approach was used to encourage colonialism and eurocentrism, and devalued human agency in non-Western societies, whereas modern figures like Diamond have instead used the approach as an explanation that rejects racism.
Frantz Omar Fanon, also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psychiatrist and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique. His works have become influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory and Marxism. As well as being an intellectual, Fanon was a political radical, Pan-Africanist, and Marxist humanist concerned with the psychopathology of colonization and the human, social, and cultural consequences of decolonization.
Neocolonialism is the continuation or reimposition of imperialist rule by a state over another nominally independent state. Neocolonialism takes the form of economic imperialism, globalization, cultural imperialism and conditional aid to influence or control a developing country instead of the previous colonial methods of direct military control or indirect political control (hegemony).
White guilt refers to a belief that white people bear a collective responsibility for the harm which has resulted from historical or current racist treatment of people belonging to other racial groups, as for example in the context of the Atlantic slave trade, European colonialism, and the genocide of indigenous peoples.
A colonial mentality is the internalized attitude of ethnic or cultural inferiority felt by people as a result of colonization, i.e. them being colonized by another group. It corresponds with the belief that the cultural values of the colonizer are inherently superior to one's own. The term has been used by postcolonial scholars to discuss the transgenerational effects of colonialism present in former colonies following decolonization. It is commonly used as an operational concept for framing ideological domination in historical colonial experiences. In psychology colonial mentality has been used to explain instances of collective depression, anxiety, and other widespread mental health issues in populations that have experienced colonization.
Niall Campbell Ferguson is a Scottish-American historian based in the United States who is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Previously, he was a professor at Harvard University, the London School of Economics, New York University, a visiting professor at the New College of the Humanities, and a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, England.
Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, its three volumes first published in 1987, 1991, and 2006 respectively, is a controversial book by Martin Bernal proposing an alternative hypothesis on the origins of ancient Greece and classical civilisation. Bernal's thesis discusses the perception of ancient Greece in relation to Greece's African and Asiatic neighbors, especially the ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians who, he believes, colonized ancient Greece. Bernal proposes that a change in the Western perception of Greece took place from the 18th century onward and that this change fostered a subsequent denial by Western academia of any significant African and Phoenician influence on ancient Greek civilization.
Lewis Ricardo Gordon is an American philosopher at the University of Connecticut who works in the areas of Africana philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of race and racism, philosophies of liberation, aesthetics, philosophy of education, and philosophy of religion. He has written particularly extensively on Africana and black existentialism, postcolonial phenomenology, race and racism, and on the works and thought of W. E. B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon. His most recent book is titled: Fear of Black Consciousness.
Orientalism is a 1978 book by Edward W. Said, in which the author establishes the term "Orientalism" as a critical concept to describe the West's commonly contemptuous depiction and portrayal of The East, i.e. the Orient. Societies and peoples of the Orient are those who inhabit the places of Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East. Said argues that Orientalism, in the sense of the Western scholarship about the Eastern World, is inextricably tied to the imperialist societies who produced it, which makes much Orientalist work inherently political and servile to power.
European colonialism and colonization was the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over other societies and territories, founding a colony, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically. For example, colonial policies, such as the type of rule implemented, the nature of investments, and identity of the colonizers, are cited as impacting postcolonial states. Examination of the state-building process, economic development, and cultural norms and mores shows the direct and indirect consequences of colonialism on the postcolonial states.
Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a critical theory analysis of the history, culture, literature, and discourse of imperial power.
Postcolonial international relations is a branch of scholarship that approaches the study of international relations (IR) using the critical lens of postcolonialism. This critique of IR theory suggests that mainstream IR scholarship does not adequately address the impacts of colonialism and imperialism on current day world politics. Despite using the language of post-, scholars of Postcolonial IR argue that the legacies of colonialism are ongoing, and that critiquing International Relations with this lens allows scholars to contextualize global events. By bridging postcolonialism and International Relations, scholars point to the process of globalization as a crucial point in both fields, due to the increases in global interactions and integration. Postcolonial IR focuses on the re-narrativization of global politics to create a balanced transnational understanding of colonial histories, and attempts to tie non-Western sources of thought into political praxis.
Mahmood Mamdani, FBA is an Indian-born Ugandan academic, author, and political commentator. He currently serves as the Chancellor of Kampala International University, Uganda. He was the director of the Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) from 2010 until February 2022, the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University and the Professor of Anthropology, Political Science and African Studies at Columbia University.
The theory of imperialism refers to a range of theoretical approaches to understanding the expansion of capitalism into new areas, the unequal development of different countries, and economic systems that may lead to the dominance of some countries over others. These theories are considered distinct from other uses of the word imperialism which refer to the general tendency for empires throughout history to seek power and territorial expansion. The theory of imperialism is often associated with Marxist economics, but many theories were developed by non-Marxists. Most theories of imperialism, with the notable exception of ultra-imperialism, hold that imperialist exploitation leads to warfare, colonization, and international inequality.
Kehinde Nkosi Andrews is a British academic and author specialising in Black Studies.
Priyamvada Gopal is an Indian-born academic, writer and public intellectual who is Professor of Postcolonial Studies in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. Her primary teaching and research interests are in colonial and postcolonial studies, South Asian literature, critical race studies, and the politics and cultures of empire and globalisation. She has written three books engaging these subjects: Literary Radicalism in India (2005), The Indian English Novel (2009) and Insurgent Empire (2019). Her work on Indian writing in English and expertise in colonial and postcolonial literature are recognised at universities worldwide. Her third book, Insurgent Empire, was shortlisted for the 2020 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding.
The National Association of Black Supplementary Schools (NABSS) is a resource, information and advice centre for supplementary schools aimed at Black children and parents in the United Kingdom.
Decolonization of knowledge is a concept advanced in decolonial scholarship that critiques the perceived hegemony of Western knowledge systems. It seeks to construct and legitimize other knowledge systems by exploring alternative epistemologies, ontologies and methodologies. It is also an intellectual project that aims to "disinfect" academic activities that are believed to have little connection with the objective pursuit of knowledge and truth. The presumption is that if curricula, theories, and knowledge are colonized, it means they have been partly influenced by political, economic, social and cultural considerations. The decolonial knowledge perspective covers a wide variety of subjects including philosophy, science, history of science, and other fundamental categories in social science.
Racial capitalism is a concept coined by Cedric J. Robinson in his book Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, published in 1983. It describes the process of extracting social and economic value from a person of a different racial identity, typically a person of color; however, a person of any race might engage in racial capitalism, as might an institution dominated by one particular race. Robinson, in contrast to both his predecessors and successors, theorized that all capitalism was inherently racial capitalism, and racialism is present in all layers of capitalism's socioeconomic stratification. As formulated by Jodi Melamed, Robinson's point is that capitalism "can only accumulate by producing and moving through relations of severe inequality among human groups." Therefore, for capitalism to survive, it must exploit and prey upon the "unequal differentiation of human value."
His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice is a 2022 biography about George Floyd written by Washington Post journalists Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa.