The Dawn of Asian-African Internationalism: India, China, and the 1947 Asian Relations Conference

Category: Essay 0

Between 23 March and 17 April 1947, the Asian Relations Conference was convened in New Delhi. In the aftermath of WWII, a moment in which the declining Western empires and the emerging independent states intersected, entangled, and collided, this Conference arguably sparked the rise of Asian-African Internationalism.[1] The latter movement soon became a distinctive political force during the early Cold … Read More

Book Spotlight “Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893-1982, Cambridge 2022”

In 1893, a group of colonial experts from thirteen countries abandoned their imperial rivalry and established the International Colonial Institute (ICI). Active until 1982, the ICI became the world’s most important colonial think tank of the twentieth century. Between 1893 and 1982, more than 700 self-styled colonial reformers joined the ICI, among them authoritative colonial experts such as Frederick Lugard, … Read More

The Myth of “Liberal” Fascism at the Transimperial Volta Congress on Africa in Rome, 1938

Category: Essay 0

The inclination of fascist regimes to settler colonization is a comparably new field of research, yet it is hardly surprising that settler colonialism was part of fascism’s destructive repertoire. It played a crucial role in the violent occupation of Eastern Europe (Germany), Libya and Ethiopia (Italy), as well as Korea and Manchuria (Japan).[1] Whether settler colonialism’s paramount purpose was the … Read More

Afro-Asian States, the Congo Crisis, and the United Nations: Solidly United in an Anti-imperial Agenda?

Category: Essay 0

On 21 November 1960, in the United Nations General Assembly debate the representative of Liberia expressed his regret about “the bitterness that has characterized the discussion” – a bitterness that had come “from the recently independent African States”.[1] The hostile discussions the Liberian delegate referred to were over current events in the Congo. Since its independence on 30 June, the … Read More