Here are 100 books that Empire of Capital fans have personally recommended if you like
Empire of Capital.
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Iâve been fascinated by British colonial history for decades. Learning little about it as a child, I was shocked to learn, as a university student, how little Iâd been taught about the British Empire at school. So, I set out to study it. Inevitably, this academic interest later combined with my fondness for country walking. I once trekked 1000 miles from the tip of ScotlandâJohn OâGroatsâto the southernmost part of England, called Landâs End. This took me 2 months. Iâve since explored the UK countrysideâs colonial past in a humane history book called The Countryside, recounting my rambles through these lovely landscapes with ten walking companions.
I love this book because it describes Sangheraâs personal journey into the history of the British empire, something he barely learned about in his school lessons in the UK.
The book is great because it doesnât assume prior knowledge about the topic, so it goes over some basics that are easy to miss. In places, itâs funny; in places, it's sad, but the best thing about Empire is its feel for narrating a good story and being transparent about some of the personal feelings that this history brought up for the author
WINNER OF THE 2022 BRITISH BOOK AWARD FOR NARRATIVE NONFICTION
***THE BOOK THAT INSPIRED THE CHANNEL 4 DOCUMENTARY 'EMPIRE STATE OF MIND'*** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
'The real remedy is education of the kind that Sanghera has embraced - accepting, not ignoring, the past' Gerard deGroot, The Times _____________________________________________________
EMPIRE explains why there are millions of Britons living worldwide. EMPIRE explains Brexit and the feeling that we are exceptional. EMPIRE explains our distrust of cleverness. EMPIRE explains Britain's particular brand of racism.
Strangely hidden from view, the British Empire remains a subject of both shame and glorification. In his bestsellingâŚ
I am a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University. I have taught and written on political theory and cultural studies for over thirty years, specializing in theories of capitalism and imperialism. However, my main motivation for writing the books and articles I have published has had more to do with my life-long commitment to progressive social change and the political movements that can bring that change about. First and foremost, I have tried to make sometimes challenging theoretical and political concepts accessible to the informed reader and especially to those on the front lines of progressive political and social movements.
This updated edition of Grandinâs Pulitzer Prize-winning book charts the long history of the United Statesâ imperial domination of Latin America through gunboat diplomacy, invasion, hard and soft coups, mercenary wars, and covert actions.
Often considered its âbackyard,â Latin America is where the United States âlearned how to project its power, worked out effective and flexible tactics of extraterritorial administration, established legal precedents, and acquired its conception of itself as an empire like no other before it.â Grandin illustrates this history with numerous historical and contemporary examples, including the 1973 US-supported coup in Chile, which brought to power Augusto Pinochetâs bloody dictatorship.
With the help of University of Chicago economists Frederic Von Hayek and Milton Friedman, the dictatorship pioneered the first neoliberal imperial âworkshop.â Chile would become the template for other attempts at regime change in the region, from the 1980s wars in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua toâŚ
Examining over a century of US intervention in Latin America, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin reveals how the region has long served as a laboratory for US foreign policy, providing generations of Washington policy makers with an opportunity to rehearse a broad range of diplomatic and military tactics - tactics that then were applied elsewhere in the world as the US became a global superpower. During the Great Depression, for instance, FDR's Good Neighbor policy taught the United States to use "soft power" effectively and provided a blueprint for its postwar "empire by invitation." In the 1980s, Reagan likewise turned toâŚ
I am a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University. I have taught and written on political theory and cultural studies for over thirty years, specializing in theories of capitalism and imperialism. However, my main motivation for writing the books and articles I have published has had more to do with my life-long commitment to progressive social change and the political movements that can bring that change about. First and foremost, I have tried to make sometimes challenging theoretical and political concepts accessible to the informed reader and especially to those on the front lines of progressive political and social movements.
In this tour de force history of Great Britainâs 19th century âliberal empire,â Elkins demonstrates the glaring contradiction between the official claim that British society and its colonies were governed by liberal principles of âthe rule of lawâ and the systematic violence that lay at its core. âViolence,â Elkins argues, âwas not just the British Empireâs midwife; it was endemic to the structures and systems of British rule.â
In an age when liberal rights were ostensibly universal, race became how the empire was able to exclude black and brown people (which included âracializedâ groups such as the Irish and Afrikaners) from the ranks of âcivilizedâ peoples. The so-called âcivilizing mission,â in which âuncivilizedâ peoples would be welcomed into the ranks of the âcivilizedâ at some unspecified point, was draped in the trappings of noble enterprise and moral duty. However, while this thinly veiled ideology may have served the interests ofâŚ
From a Pulitzer Prizeâwinning historian: a searing study of the British Empire that probes the country's pervasive use of violence throughout the twentieth century and traces how these practices were exported, modified, and institutionalized in colonies around the globe
Sprawling across a quarter of the world's land mass and claiming nearly seven hundred million people, Britain's twentieth-century empire was the largest empire in human history. For many Britons, it epitomized their nation's cultural superiority. But what legacy did the island nation deliver to the world? Covering more than two hundred years of history, Caroline Elkins reveals an evolutionary and racializedâŚ
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctorâand only womanâon a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I am a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University. I have taught and written on political theory and cultural studies for over thirty years, specializing in theories of capitalism and imperialism. However, my main motivation for writing the books and articles I have published has had more to do with my life-long commitment to progressive social change and the political movements that can bring that change about. First and foremost, I have tried to make sometimes challenging theoretical and political concepts accessible to the informed reader and especially to those on the front lines of progressive political and social movements.
In an age when statues commemorating former colonialists and slave owners have been toppled worldwide, the figure of Winston Churchill has been left largely untouched. Myth-making around Churchillâs role in defeating Hitler is surely part of the explanation: no less than sixteen feature films have been made about his supposed historical achievements, three of them in the past decade.
As Tariq Ali points out in this informative book, âChurchill has become a highly burnished icon whose cult has long been out of control.â Yet, during the 1930s, as fascism ascended throughout continental Europe, Churchill was a fanboy of the far-right. Like many of his social class, Churchill admired fascism for its capacity to keep communism in check. Until 1937, his âsupport for Mussolini was effusive, his hopes for Franco outlasted the war, and, for some years, he was impressed by Hitler and the sturdy, patriotic Hitler youth.â âImperialism,â Ali argues,âŚ
The subject of numerous biographies and history books, Winston Churchill has been repeatedly voted as one of the greatest of Englishmen. Even today, Boris Johnson in his failing attempts to be magisterial, has adopted many of his hero's mannerism! And, as Tariq Ali agrees, Churchill was undoubtedly right in 1940-41 to refuse to capitulate to fascism. However, he was also one of the staunchest defenders of empire and of Britain's imperial doctrine.
In this coruscating biography, Tariq Ali challenges Churchill's vaulted record. Throughout his long career as journalist, adventurer, MP, military leader, statesman, and historian, nationalist self belief influenced Churchill'sâŚ
Since 2008, I have conducted research on themes related to International Political Economy. I am currently the co-chair of the research committee on this topic at the International Political Science Association (IPSA) and am passionate about making sense of the interplay between material and symbolic factors that shape capitalism and globalisation. Being based in Brazil, I was stuck when the countryâwhich did not have salient identity cleavages in politicsâcame to be, after 2008, a hotspot of religious-based right-wing populism associated with the defence of trade liberalisation as globalisation started to face meaningful backlash from White-majority constituencies who are relatively losers of the post-Cold War order in the advanced industrialised democracies.
Being one of the first books to scrutinize the origins of Trumpism and its impact beyond U.S. borders, I very much appreciate the argument that right-wing populism in the Westâwhich includes the forces that culminated in the Brexit processâshall be a catalyser for the power transition to the East.
Hence, the likely end of Western dominance does not arise only from Asian continuous economic growth but would also stem from the centrifugal forces that emerged at the heart of the advanced industrial democracies.
From the winner of the 2016 Orwell Prize and the European Press Prize for Commentator of the Year, a provocative analysis of how a new era of global instability has begun, as the flow of wealth and power turns from West to East.
Easternization is the defining trend of our age â the growing wealth of Asian nations is transforming the international balance of power. This shift to the East is shaping the lives of people all over the world, the fate of nations, and the great questions of war and peace.
I am a historian based in England, raised in Texas. While undertaking a summertime spoken Latin course at the Vatican in 2001 I found myself in the midst of Italian protests against that yearâs G8 summit in Genoa. The strength of the anti-globalization movement, and the violent response from the Carabinieri, sparked an early interest in the historical controversies surrounding globalization and US foreign policy. Ten years later, I had a PhD in History from the University of Texas at Austin and the first draft of what would become my book,The âConspiracyâ of Free Trade.
This easily digestible book is a must read for understanding the ways that the late-19th-century Sugar Trust and candy stores influenced early-20th-century imperial debates surrounding immigration and tariffs.
Merleauxâs enterprising study gets to the heart of how the American sweet tooth carved out many of the nationâs imperial cavities in the Caribbean and Asia-Pacific.
In the weeks and months after the end of the Spanish-American War, Americans celebrated their nation's triumph by eating sugar. Each of the nation's new imperial possessions, from Puerto Rico to the Philippines, had the potential for vastly expanding sugar production. As victory parties and commemorations prominently featured candy and other sweets, Americans saw sugar as the reward for their global ambitions.
April Merleaux demonstrates that trade policies and consumer cultures are as crucial to understanding U.S. empire as military or diplomatic interventions. As the nation's sweet tooth grew, people debated tariffs, immigration, and empire, all of which hastened theâŚ
Since 2008, I have conducted research on themes related to International Political Economy. I am currently the co-chair of the research committee on this topic at the International Political Science Association (IPSA) and am passionate about making sense of the interplay between material and symbolic factors that shape capitalism and globalisation. Being based in Brazil, I was stuck when the countryâwhich did not have salient identity cleavages in politicsâcame to be, after 2008, a hotspot of religious-based right-wing populism associated with the defence of trade liberalisation as globalisation started to face meaningful backlash from White-majority constituencies who are relatively losers of the post-Cold War order in the advanced industrialised democracies.
I love the way he explores the interplay between economic ideas and political institutions that culminated in the triumph of market forces in the aftermath of the Cold War. Yet, Gerstleâs most interesting insights lie at the end of the book as he classifies Trump and Modi as ethnonationalist leaders of the same feather as Chinaâs Xi Jinping and Russiaâs Vladimir Putin.
Globalisation, however, has not necessarily reached its end, as it may simply be reframed to fit a world whose shape has yet to be defined.
Best Books of 2022: Financial Times Best Non-Fiction Books of 2022: De Tijd Shortlisted for Financial Times Best Business Book of the Year
The most sweeping account of how neoliberalism came to dominate American politics for nearly a half century before crashing against the forces of Trumpism on the right and a new progressivism on the left.
The epochal shift toward neoliberalism-a web of related policies that, broadly speaking, reduced the footprint of government in society and reassigned economic power to private market forces-that began in the United States and Great Britain in the late 1970s fundamentally changed the world.âŚ
My interest in global issues developed when I was a student. What was my conviction already then became more obvious every year since then. In order to solve our most urgent problems, we need to have a strong and legitimate global governance system. Global governance, therefore, became the core of my research. I am Michael ZĂźrn, the Director of the Research Unit Global Governance at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) and a Professor of International Relations at Free University of Berlin. I have also been the co-spokesperson for the Cluster of Excellence "Contestations of the Liberal Script" (SCRIPTS) since 2019.
This work is motivated by the two critical questions concerning the present state and the trajectories of the global governance system. Barnett, Pavehouse, and Raustialaâs responses are developed within a new analytical framework that elevates this book to a modern classic. Their argument extends beyond a mere focus on actors of global politics to emphasize the relations between them. This approach allows them to identify three different modes of global governance: hierarchy, markets, and networks.
Based on this concept and supported by case studies on various political issues ranging from climate change to âfragile states,â the authors show that the dynamic of the global governance system is one of simultaneity. On the one hand, the mode of governance in some policy areas seems rather stable: the prevailing mode of governance here is hierarchy. However, there are areas of change in which hierarchy is more and more replaced by a marketâŚ
Global governance has come under increasing pressure since the end of the Cold War. In some issue areas, these pressures have led to significant changes in the architecture of governance institutions. In others, institutions have resisted pressures for change. This volume explores what accounts for this divergence in architecture by identifying three modes of governance: hierarchies, networks, and markets. The authors apply these ideal types to different issue areas in order to assess how global governance has changed and why. In most issue areas, hierarchical modes of governance, established after World War II, have given way to alternative forms ofâŚ
I am the USS Midway Chair in Modern US Military History at San Diego State University. Iâve been teaching courses on the relationships between war and society for years and am fascinated not just by the causes and conduct of war, but, more importantly, by the costs of war. To me, Americans have a rather peculiar connection with war. In many ways, war has become an integral part of American conduct overseasâand our very identity. And yet we often donât study it to question some of our basic assumptions about what war can do, what it means, and what the consequences are for wielding armed force so readily overseas.
Barkawi speaks of war as a form of âinterconnectionâ among peoples and wisely reasons that we have to talk about war from a global perspective if we are truly to understand it. War may be an extension of politics, to quote a certain Prussian, but itâs also a social activity. And that activity has been globalized for far longer than many of us might think.
I really enjoy the way Barkawi weaves together a global story of war, culture, and identity. His case study on the Indian Armyâhe argues it was at âonce a tool and an object of imperial controlââis superbly fascinating and highlights how localities can be affected by martial activities from faraway, distant places.
War doesn't just tear nations apart-it brings peoples and places closer together, providing a new lens on globalization. This book offers a fresh perspective on globalization and war, topics rarely considered together. It conceives war as a form of interconnection between home and abroad, and as an occasion for circulation and interchange. It identifies the political and military work required to create and maintain a free-trading world, while critiquing liberal and neoliberal conceptions of the pacific benefits of economic globalization. Speaking from the heart of old and new imperial orders, Tarak Barkawi exposes the Eurocentric limitations of military history andâŚ
Head, Heart, and Hands Listening in Coach Practice
by
Kymberly Dakin-Neal,
This NABA award-winning book explores intentional listening as an essential skill for adults, introducing the Head, Heart, and Hands Listening model to amplify effective listening in personal and professional interactions. Itâs a vital resource for coaches, psychologists, HR professionals, teachers, counselors, salespeople and others who listen for a living. ListeningâŚ
Having come of age at the End of History in the late 1990s, it seemed to me back then that the only big political questions left were international ones. Everything in domestic politics appeared to be settled. As I pursued this interest through my scholarly work as an academic, I came to understand how questions of international and domestic order were intertwined â and that one could not be understood without the other. As weâre now living through the end of the End of History, unsurprisingly weâre seeing tremendous strain on political systems at both the national and international level. These books will provide, I hope, some signposts as to what comes next.
An occasionally dense but ultimately bravura text that sought to draw out the consequences of globalization for political theory. Cohen performs the difficult but important feat of combining themes from international security with international political theory and international law, and in so doing, gets to grips with questions of political order in a way that many other books fail to do, as they remain frozen at the level of foreign policy or inter-state relations. Political order is more than policy though. Although I disagree with Cohenâs conclusions regarding the need to suppress state sovereignty through global structures and greater European integration, her honesty, hard-headedness, and attempt to interweave international security with questions of global constitutionalism remain an intellectual inspiration.
Sovereignty and the sovereign state are often seen as anachronisms; Globalization and Sovereignty challenges this view. Jean L. Cohen analyzes the new sovereignty regime emergent since the 1990s evidenced by the discourses and practice of human rights, humanitarian intervention, transformative occupation, and the UN targeted sanctions regime that blacklists alleged terrorists. Presenting a systematic theory of sovereignty and its transformation in international law and politics, Cohen argues for the continued importance of sovereign equality. She offers a theory of a dualistic world order comprised of an international society of states, and a global political community in which human rights andâŚ