Empires of the mind : the colonial past and the politics of the present

'The empires of the future would be the empires of the mind' declared Churchill in 1943, envisaging universal empires living in peaceful harmony. Robert Gildea exposes instead the brutal realities of decolonisation and neo-colonialism which have shaped the postwar world. Even after the rush of French and British decolonisation in the 1960s, the strings of economic and military power too often remained in the hands of the former colonial powers. The more empire appears to have declined and fallen, the more a fantasy of empire has been conjured up as a model for projecting power onto the world stage and legitimised colonialist intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. This aggression, along with the imposition of colonial hierarchies in metropolitan society, has excluded, alienated and even radicalised immigrant populations. Meanwhile, nostalgia for empire has bedevilled relations with Europe and played a large part in explaining Brexit.

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Choice Review

Also author of Fighters in the Shadows (CH, Jul'16, 53-4956) and Children of the Revolution (CH, Aug'09, 46-7021), among other works, Gildea (history, Univ. of Oxford, UK) uses a comparative approach to examine the legacy of empire in France and Britain. He points out that both countries desperately hoped to preserve their empires, fiercely resisted decolonization, and frequently intervened to keep former colonies as dependencies. Meanwhile, the bitter reality of post-imperial decline undermined the integration of immigrants from former colonies into the metropolis. In France, the long shadow of the Algerian conflict, racism, and an emphasis on secular republican values led to a reassertion of colonial rule in the banlieues. Despite Britain's avowed multiculturalism, its formerly colonized subjects faced segregation, exclusion, and violence at the hands of former colonizers. Alienated from both their adopted nation and their country of origin and enraged by the US's neo-imperialist "war on terror," many in Europe's immigrant community embraced Islam. A radicalized minority turned to jihad and terrorist violence. Though Gildea occasionally overstates the prominence of colonialist memories and fantasies, he convincingly documents their persistence over time. For example, the dubious but apparently widespread belief that Brexit would enable Britain to restore its free-trade empire supports Gildea's thesis that the past remains disturbingly present. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. --Padraic C. Kennedy, York College of Pennsylvania

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