Many peoples and places in modern world politics have been shaped by histories of empire. This course explores the violent dimensions of the imperial past and present. It covers histories and social relations of armed conflict in imperial context from “small war” to “counterinsurgency” and the War on Terror; it looks at the ways in which warfare shapes (and is shaped by) the societies, cultures and polities that populate world politics; and it considers some of the intellectual traditions that have arisen out of the experience of colonial violence, from the thought of resistance leaders to subaltern and postcolonial studies. The premise of the course is that imperial warfare and violence have been generative forces in shaping world politics.

Image: US Troops Vietnam