English Imperialism

Migration, terrorism, the tensions between global capitalism and nationalism, and a communications revolution: These forces shaped Joseph Conrad's destiny at the dawn of the 20th century. In this brilliant new interpretation of one of the great voices in modern literature, Maya Jasanoff reveals Conrad as a prophet of globalization. As an immigrant from Poland to England, and in travels from Malaya to Congo to the Caribbean, Conrad navigated an interconnected world and captured it in a literary oeuvre of extraordinary depth.

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), by Vladimir Lenin, describes the function of financial capital in generating profits from imperialist colonialism as the final stage of capitalist development to ensure greater profits. The essay is a synthesis of Lenin's modifications and developments of economic theories that Karl Marx formulated in Das Kapital (1867).

The mainstream discourse surrounding gender equality is a repertoire of violence: harassment, rape, abuse, femicide. These words designate a cruel reality. But don't they also hide another reality: that of violence committed with the complicity of the State? In this book, Françoise Vergès denounces the carceral turn in the fight against sexism.

Vladimir Lenin’s 1916 essay "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism", is a synthesis of Lenin's development of economic theories that Karl Marx formulated in Das Kapital. It attempts to account for the increasing importance of the global market in the 20th century. Lenin contends that colonialism and the First World War were the consequences of the global spread of the capitalist economy. 

The British East India Company served as one of the key players in the formation of the British Empire. From its origins as a trading company struggling to keep up with its superior Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish competitors to its tenure as the ruling authority of the Indian subcontinent to its eventual hubristic downfall, the East India Company serves as a lens through which to explore the much larger economic and social forces that shaped the formation of a global British Empire.

In the first volume in the Penguin History of the United States series, edited by Eric Foner, Alan Taylor challenges the traditional story of colonial history by examining the many cultures that helped make America, from the native inhabitants from millennia past through the decades of Western colonization and conquest and across the entire continent, all the way to the Pacific coast.

In this vivid history, master storyteller and world-renowned historian Juan Cole tells the story of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798. Revealing Napoleon's reasons for leading the expedition against Egypt and showcasing the young general's fascinating views of the Orient, Cole delves into the psychology of both the military titan and his entourage.

A brilliant, shattering, and convincing account of United States-backed suppression of political and human rights in the Third World... It relentlessly dissects the official views of Establishment scholars and their journals. The "best and brightest" pundits of the status quo emerge from this audiobook thoroughly denuded of their credibility.

In the last decades, America has gone to war as supposed defenders of democracy. The War on Terror was waged to protect the West from the dangers of Islamists. US soldiers are stationed in more than 800 locations across the world to act as the righteous arbiters of the rule of law. In this book, Andrew Cockburn brilliantly dissects the intentions behind Washington's martial appetites.

Once vast swathes of the globe were coloured imperial red and Britannia ruled not just the waves, but the prairies of America, the plains of Asia, the jungles of Africa and the deserts of Arabia. Just how did a small, rainy island in the North Atlantic achieve all this? And why did the empire on which the sun literally never set finally decline and fall?

From a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a new and eye-opening interpretation of the meaning of the frontier, from early westward expansion to Trump’s border wall.

A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies is the story of the Spanish Dominican priest Bartolome de las Casas, who came to the Americas in the 16th century. Immediately he was struck by the inhumane ways in which the native peoples were treated by the European explorers and conquerors, Las Casas went on to be a leading opponent of slavery, torture, and genocide of the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists.

The decline and fall of America's global empire is the central feature of today's geopolitical landscape, and the nature of our response to it will determine much of our future trajectory, with implications that reach far beyond the limits of one nation's borders. Decline and Fall: The End of Empire and the Future of Democracy in 21st Century America challenges the conventional wisdom of empire, using a wealth of historical examples combined with groundbreaking original analysis.

In the second half of the 18th century, as European imperial conflicts extended the domain of capitalist agriculture, warring African factions fed their captives to the transatlantic slave trade while masters struggled continuously to keep their restive slaves under the yoke. In this contentious atmosphere, a movement of enslaved West Africans in Jamaica (then called Coromantees) organized to throw off that yoke by violence. Their uprising - which became known as Tacky's Revolt - featured a style of fighting increasingly familiar today....

Written in 1916 against the backdrop of the First World War, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism explains the flaws and power of capitalism, which inevitably lead to monopolies, imperialism and colonialism. Lenin develops Marx’s theories of political economy, which had been put forward 50 years earlier in Das Kapital. He goes on to argue that imperialism is the most advanced state of capitalism, characterised by the domination of monopolies on an international scale, with the export of capital leading to the big imperialist powers carving up the world.

In A Foul Thing, Roma and Juliette have established themselves as the heads of an underground weapons ring in Zhouzhuang, making a living the way they do best while remaining anonymous in their peaceful, quiet life. But when they hear about several Russian girls showing up dead in nearby towns, they decide to investigate—and ultimately discover that this mystery is much closer to home than they ever imagined.

The Napoleonic Wars radically altered the old, established European power dynamics, and in 1795, the British, now emerging as the globe’s naval superpower, assumed control of the Cape as part of the spoils of war. In doing so, they recognized the enormous strategic value of the Cape as global shipping routes were developing and expanding. Possession passed back and forth once or twice, but more or less from that point onward, the British established their presence at the Cape, which they held until the unification of South Africa in 1910.

At the heart of power is a single family. They weren't elected but they live off the public purse. They aren't accountable to anyone, and yet between them they are privy to more government secrets than many cabinet ministers. Divinely appointed using a special hat, the head of the family is your superior, you his subject. Apparently he is guardian of our constitution - but we're also told he wouldn't dream of interfering in politics. If you accept the monarchy, you must accept the moral compromise that comes with it. But the good news is that we don't have to accept it.

The Brutish Museums sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums. Since its first publication, museums across the western world have begun to return their Bronzes to Nigeria, heralding a new era in the way we understand the collections of empire we once took for granted.

How should the United States act in the world? Americans cannot decide. Sometimes we burn with righteous anger, launching foreign wars and deposing governments. Then we retreat - until the cycle begins again. No matter how often we debate this question, none of what we say is original. Every argument is a pale shadow of the first and greatest debate, which erupted more than a century ago. Its themes resurface every time Americans argue whether to intervene in a foreign country.