Notes towards an Investigation
from Part II - Historical Sociology and the Imperial Fundaments of International Politics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 June 2023
Some scholars may have little difficulty in seeing the present as a shatterspace of empires and a palimpsest of past ones. For others, seeing the world through the filter of colonialism and imperialism requires a kind of Gestalt switch. Empire seems to be as invisible in the US as in Europe and even its former colonies. The copious evidence that empires existed in the hearts and minds of European populations even after 1945 has been vigorously denied. Conversely, a cloud of colonial amnesia descended in the former metropoles almost immediately after colonial independence. In the end, only those on the receiving end of imperial violence seem to readily frame the world in terms of empire. The social sciences remain doggedly focused on ‘domestic’ questions framed by theories devoid of any reference to time and place. This chapter examines the afterlives of colonialism.
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