Empire, Development and Colonialism: The Past in the Present - Softcover

Hewitt, Vernon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1847010776 ISBN 13: 9781847010773

Publisher: James Currey, 2013

Synopsis

This book makes a unique contribution to the renewed debate about empire and imperialism and will be of great interest to all those concerned with understanding the historical antecedents and wider implications of today's emergentliberal interventionism, and the various logics of international development. This collection explores the similarities, differences and overlaps between the contemporary debates on international development and humanitarian intervention and the historical artefacts and strategies of Empire. It includes views by historians and students of politics and development, drawing on a range of methodologies and approaches. The parallels between the language of nineteenth-century liberal imperialism and the humanitarian interventionism of the post-Cold War era are striking. The American military, both in Somalia in the early 1990s and in the aftermath the Iraq invasion, used ethnographic information compiled by British colonial administrators. Are these interconnections, which are capable of endless multiplication, accidental curiosities or more elemental? The contributors to this book articulate the belief that these comparisons are not just anecdotal but are analytically revealing.From the language of moral necessity and conviction, the design of specific aid packages; the devised forms of intervention and governmentality, through to the life-style, design and location of NGO encampments, the authors seek to account for the numerous and often striking parallels between contemporary international security, development and humanitarian intervention, and the logic of Empire. MARK DUFFIELD is Professor of Development Politicsat the University of Bristol; VERNON HEWITT is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Bristol Southern Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Namibia): HSRC Press

About this title

Review

There is enough quality in this volume to recommend this book to scholars and students interested in development theory and colonization and how both processes might be theorized as mutually constitutive. I have little doubt that the editors and contributors have set down a compelling research agenda that will be carried forward in future publications. ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW

A thought-provoking collection. [...] This is a valuable set of essays addressing contemporary issues with an eye on the past and revealing some insights into the antecedents of contemporary development rhetoric and techniques. POLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW

This volume adds to a recent debate that revisits the concepts and notions of development rooted in the 'civilising mission' during the colonial era. Hence it explores a hitherto largely ignored, or at least neglected link concerning the continuity of the 'colonial mind' in international relations of today. NEW ROUTES

About the Author

MARK DUFFIELD is Professor of Development Politics at the University of Bristol; VERNON HEWITT is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Bristol

Edition details

• Publisher: James Currey
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1847010776
• ISBN 13: 9781847010773
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 223
• Editor: Duffield Mark, Hewitt Vernon