Making a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and Its Political Afterlives
edited by Christopher Lee and Christopher J. Lee
Ohio University Press, 2010 eISBN: 978-0-89680-468-5 | Paper: 978-0-89680-277-3 Library of Congress Classification DS35.2.L44 2010 Dewey Decimal Classification 327.116
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Short-listed for the 2015 Asia-Africa Book Prize (ICAS)
Winner of the 2010 Ali Sastroamidjojo Award
An AfricaFocus 2011 New and Notable Book
A CHOICE Significant University Press Title for Undergraduates, 2010–11
In April 1955, twenty-nine countries from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East came together for a diplomatic conference in Bandung, Indonesia, intending to define the direction of the postcolonial world. Representing approximately two-thirds of the world’s population, the Bandung conference occurred during a key moment of transition in the mid-twentieth century—amid the global wave of decolonization that took place after the Second World War and the nascent establishment of a new cold war world order in its wake. Participants such as Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Zhou Enlai of China, and Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia seized this occasion to attempt the creation of a political alternative to the dual threats of Western neocolonialism and the cold war interventionism of the United States and the Soviet Union.
The essays in this volume explore the diverse repercussions of this event, tracing the diplomatic, intellectual, and sociocultural histories that have emanated from it. Making a World after Empire consequently addresses the complex intersection of postcolonial history and cold war history and speaks to contemporary discussions of Afro-Asianism, empire, and decolonization, thus reestablishing the conference's importance in twentieth-century global history.
Contributors: Michael Adas, Laura Bier, James R. Brennan, G. Thomas Burgess, Antoinette Burton, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Julian Go, Christopher J. Lee, Jamie Monson, Jeremy Prestholdt, Denis M. Tull
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Christopher J. Lee is the author of Frantz Fanon: Toward a Revolutionary Humanism, and Unreasonable Histories: Nativism, Multiracial Lives, and the Genealogical Imagination in British Africa and the editor of Making a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and Its Political Afterlives. He is an associate professor of history at Lafayette College.
REVIEWS
“This important collection of essays points to a phenomenon that has been lost in the common assumption of a worldwide movement from colonial empires to nation-states: the richer imagination of people in those empires and their quest for alternative modes of political connection.” Frederick Cooper — author of Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Introduction
Between a Moment and an Era:
The Origins and Afterlives of Bandung
Christopher J. Lee
Part One
Framings: Concepts, Politics, History
Chapter One
The Legacies of Bandung:
Decolonization and the Politics of Culture
Dipesh Chakrabarty
Chapter Two
Contested Hegemony: The Great War and the Afro-Asian Assault on the Civilizing Mission
Michael Adas
Chapter Three
Modeling States and Sovereignty: Postcolonial Constitutions in Asia and Africa
Julian Go
Part Two
Alignments and Nonalignments: Movements, Projects, Outcomes
Chapter Four
Feminism, Solidarity, and Identity in the Age of Bandung: Third World Women in the Egyptian Women’s Press
Laura Bier
Chapter Five
Radio Cairo and the Decolonization of East Africa, 1953–64
James R. Brennan
Chapter Six
Mao in Zanzibar: Nationalism, Discipline, and the (De)Construction of Afro-Asian Solidarities
G. Thomas Burgess
Chapter Seven
Working Ahead of Time: Labor and Modernization during the Construction of the TAZARA Railway, 1968–86
Jamie Monson
Chapter Eight
Tricontinentalism in Question: The Cold War Politics of Alex La Guma and the African National Congress
Christopher J. Lee
Part Three
The Present: Predicaments, Practices, Speculation
Chapter Nine
China’s Engagement with Africa: Scope, Significance, and Consequences
Denis M. Tull
Chapter Ten
Superpower Osama: Symbolic Discourse in the Indian Ocean Region after the Cold War
Jeremy Prestholdt
Epilogue
The Sodalities of Bandung:
Toward a Critical 21st-century History
Antoinette Burton
Making a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and Its Political Afterlives
edited by Christopher Lee and Christopher J. Lee
Ohio University Press, 2010 eISBN: 978-0-89680-468-5 Paper: 978-0-89680-277-3
Short-listed for the 2015 Asia-Africa Book Prize (ICAS)
Winner of the 2010 Ali Sastroamidjojo Award
An AfricaFocus 2011 New and Notable Book
A CHOICE Significant University Press Title for Undergraduates, 2010–11
In April 1955, twenty-nine countries from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East came together for a diplomatic conference in Bandung, Indonesia, intending to define the direction of the postcolonial world. Representing approximately two-thirds of the world’s population, the Bandung conference occurred during a key moment of transition in the mid-twentieth century—amid the global wave of decolonization that took place after the Second World War and the nascent establishment of a new cold war world order in its wake. Participants such as Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Zhou Enlai of China, and Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia seized this occasion to attempt the creation of a political alternative to the dual threats of Western neocolonialism and the cold war interventionism of the United States and the Soviet Union.
The essays in this volume explore the diverse repercussions of this event, tracing the diplomatic, intellectual, and sociocultural histories that have emanated from it. Making a World after Empire consequently addresses the complex intersection of postcolonial history and cold war history and speaks to contemporary discussions of Afro-Asianism, empire, and decolonization, thus reestablishing the conference's importance in twentieth-century global history.
Contributors: Michael Adas, Laura Bier, James R. Brennan, G. Thomas Burgess, Antoinette Burton, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Julian Go, Christopher J. Lee, Jamie Monson, Jeremy Prestholdt, Denis M. Tull
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Christopher J. Lee is the author of Frantz Fanon: Toward a Revolutionary Humanism, and Unreasonable Histories: Nativism, Multiracial Lives, and the Genealogical Imagination in British Africa and the editor of Making a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and Its Political Afterlives. He is an associate professor of history at Lafayette College.
REVIEWS
“This important collection of essays points to a phenomenon that has been lost in the common assumption of a worldwide movement from colonial empires to nation-states: the richer imagination of people in those empires and their quest for alternative modes of political connection.” Frederick Cooper — author of Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Introduction
Between a Moment and an Era:
The Origins and Afterlives of Bandung
Christopher J. Lee
Part One
Framings: Concepts, Politics, History
Chapter One
The Legacies of Bandung:
Decolonization and the Politics of Culture
Dipesh Chakrabarty
Chapter Two
Contested Hegemony: The Great War and the Afro-Asian Assault on the Civilizing Mission
Michael Adas
Chapter Three
Modeling States and Sovereignty: Postcolonial Constitutions in Asia and Africa
Julian Go
Part Two
Alignments and Nonalignments: Movements, Projects, Outcomes
Chapter Four
Feminism, Solidarity, and Identity in the Age of Bandung: Third World Women in the Egyptian Women’s Press
Laura Bier
Chapter Five
Radio Cairo and the Decolonization of East Africa, 1953–64
James R. Brennan
Chapter Six
Mao in Zanzibar: Nationalism, Discipline, and the (De)Construction of Afro-Asian Solidarities
G. Thomas Burgess
Chapter Seven
Working Ahead of Time: Labor and Modernization during the Construction of the TAZARA Railway, 1968–86
Jamie Monson
Chapter Eight
Tricontinentalism in Question: The Cold War Politics of Alex La Guma and the African National Congress
Christopher J. Lee
Part Three
The Present: Predicaments, Practices, Speculation
Chapter Nine
China’s Engagement with Africa: Scope, Significance, and Consequences
Denis M. Tull
Chapter Ten
Superpower Osama: Symbolic Discourse in the Indian Ocean Region after the Cold War
Jeremy Prestholdt
Epilogue
The Sodalities of Bandung:
Toward a Critical 21st-century History
Antoinette Burton
Select Bibliography
Index
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC