This is a weekly thread in which we read through books on and related to imperialism and geopolitics. Last week’s thread is here.
The book we are currently reading through is Empire’s Workshop by Greg Grandin. There are two main editions, to my knowledge: the original one with a yellow cover from 2006, and an updated version from 2021 with an orange cover. I am reading the latter version.
Please comment or message me directly if you wish to be pinged for this group, or if you no longer wish to be pinged.
This week, we will be reading Chapter 2.
Next week, we will be reading Chapter 3.
Honestly, the whole idea of the US as being less imperial and/or more humanitarian than the old European empires is such an absurdity when you read through this book; it’s the exact same exploitation and racism and genocidal strategies as the inbred monarchs of Europe, they just didn’t literally incorporate the nations into their territories, merely figuratively doing so with compradors and troop occupations and corporations getting ludicrous deals.
I think this sort of campaign of terrorism and genocide is the sort of thing that the current US capitalist base is bending towards as China more clearly manifests as a looming stormcloud on the horizon threatening their intricate system of international debt peonage. This campaign is what they did when the US and Europe were in imperialist competition over nations with cheap land and resources, so surely it must work today; and in some, perhaps many places, it might, for a while.
The US vs China contest isn’t inter-imperialist of course (as China is not imperialist), but there is a different dynamic to it than the US vs USSR contest, where China is explicitly disinterested in exporting revolution or visibly helping countries resist American aggression via compradors or otherwise but is interested in competing for resources and infrastructure deals, though at a much, much better deal than the US would ever willingly provide.