Empire, development & colonialism: the past in the present

Abstract

This collection draws on a range of methodologies and approaches to explore the similarities, differences and overlaps between the contemporary debates on international development and humanitarian intervention and the historical artefacts and strategies of Empire. 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 of the Iraq invasion, used ethno-graphic information compiled by British colonial administrators. Are these interconnections accidental curiosities or more elemental? The contributors to this book articulate the belief that these comparisons 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. This book will be of great interest to all those concerned with understanding the historical antecedents and wider implications of today's emergent liberal interventionism, and the various logics of international development.