Description
Book SynopsisInternational Relations theory assumes that the struggle for power is not only ahistorical but that international politics is necessarily the realm of a perpetual struggle for power between states. However, by looking beyond the state, the study of global politics may itself reveal the importance of alternative imaginaries just as historically salient as that of the state system. In particular, this book argues that a specific racial imaginary has, over the past two centuries, cut across politically defined state boundaries to legitimate practices of genocidal violence against so-called enemy races.In Global Race War, Alexander D. Barder shows how the very idea of global order was based on racial hierarchy and difference. Barder traces the emergence of this global racial hierarchy from the early 19th century to the present to explain how a historical racial global order unraveled over the first half of the 20th century, continued during the Cold War, and reemerged during the Global War on Terror. As Barder shows, imperial, racial, and geopolitical orders intersected over time in ways that violently tore apart the imperial and sovereign state system and continue to haunt politics today.Examining global politics in terms of race and racial violence reveals a different spatial topology across domestic and global politics. Moreover, global histories of racial hierarchy and violence have important implications for understanding the continued salience of race within Western polities. Global Race War revisits two centuries of international history to show the important consequences of a global racial imaginary that continues to reverberate across time and space.
Trade ReviewGlobal Race War shows how the modern international order is founded upon a pervasive, persistent, and powerful 'racial imaginary.' In so doing, it exposes the frightening global reach and lasting impact of white supremacist ideas. Everyone interested in international relations and racial thought needs to read this revelatory work of passionate scholarship. * Julian Go, author of Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory *
This is an ambitious and wide-ranging book on a topic of vital significance for understanding the development of the modern world system. Ranging from the Haitian Revolution to the present, Barder shows how a pervasive yet contested racial imaginary has legitimated global hierarchies and generated persistent violence. Global Race War is a valuable contribution to scholarship on the history and theory of international order. * Duncan Bell, University of Cambridge *
Alexander Barder's Global Race War proves Public Enemy right: Geopolitics turns on a White West's fear of a Black Planet. * Robert Vitalis, author of White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American International Relations *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Race War and the Global Racial Imaginary Chapter One: Interpreting the Haitian Revolution: Global Racial Hierarchy and War in the 19th Century Chapter Two: Scientific Racism, Social Darwinism and Global Racial Order Chapter Three: Global Racial Violence: Settler Colonialism and the American Indian Wars Chapter Four: Race Annihilation, War and the Global Imperial Order: The Armenian Genocide of 1915 Chapter Five: Nazi Grand Strategy, Genocide and Dismantlement of the State-System, 1941-1945 Chapter Six: The "Yellow Peril" and the Asia-Pacific War Chapter Seven: Racial Violence in the Global South: Vietnam and the Crisis of the American Liberal Order Chapter Eight: Civilizational Conflict as Race War: From the 1990s to the Global War on Terror Chapter Nine: The "Great Replacement": Racial War in the Twenty-First Century
