Overview

International Relations theory assumes that the struggle for power is not only ahistorical but that international politics is necessarily the realm of a perpetual struggle for power between states. However, by looking beyond the state, the study of global politics may itself reveal the importance of alternative imaginaries just as historically salient as that of the state system. In particular, this book argues that a specific racial imaginary has, over the past two centuries, cut across politically defined state boundaries to legitimate practices of genocidal violence against so-called ""enemy races.""In Global Race War, Alexander D. Barder shows how the very idea of global order was based on racial hierarchy and difference. Barder traces the emergence of this global racial hierarchy from the early 19th century to the present to explain how a historical racial global order unraveled over the first half of the 20th century, continued during the Cold War, and reemerged during the Global War on Terror. As Barder shows, imperial, racial, and geopolitical orders intersected over time in ways that violently tore apart the imperial and sovereign state system and continue to haunt politics today.Examining global politics in terms of race and racial violence reveals a different spatial topology across domestic and global politics. Moreover, global histories of racial hierarchy and violence have important implications for understanding the continued salience of race within Western polities. Global Race War revisits two centuries of international history to show the important consequences of a global racial imaginary that continues to reverberate across time and space.

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9780197535622

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Reviews

Global Race War shows how the modern international order is founded upon a pervasive, persistent, and powerful 'racial imaginary.' In so doing, it exposes the frightening global reach and lasting impact of white supremacist ideas. Everyone interested in international relations and racial thought needs to read this revelatory work of passionate scholarship. * Julian Go, author of Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory * This is an ambitious and wide-ranging book on a topic of vital significance for understanding the development of the modern world system. Ranging from the Haitian Revolution to the present, Barder shows how a pervasive yet contested racial imaginary has legitimated global hierarchies and generated persistent violence. Global Race War is a valuable contribution to scholarship on the history and theory of international order. * Duncan Bell, University of Cambridge * Alexander Barder's Global Race War proves Public Enemy right: Geopolitics turns on a White West's fear of a Black Planet. * Robert Vitalis, author of White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American International Relations *

Global Race War shows how the modern international order is founded upon a pervasive, persistent, and powerful 'racial imaginary.' In so doing, it exposes the frightening global reach and lasting impact of white supremacist ideas. Everyone interested in international relations and racial thought needs to read this revelatory work of passionate scholarship. * Julian Go, author of Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory * This is an ambitious and wide-ranging book on a topic of vital significance for understanding the development of the modern world system. Ranging from the Haitian Revolution to the present, Barder shows how a pervasive yet contested racial imaginary has legitimated global hierarchies and generated persistent violence. Global Race War is a valuable contribution to scholarship on the history and theory of international order. * Duncan Bell, University of Cambridge * Alexander Barder's Global Race War proves Public Enemy right: Geopolitics turns on a White West's fear of a Black Planet. * Robert Vitalis, author of White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American International Relations *

Author Information

Alexander D. Barder is Associate Professor of International Relations at Florida International University. He is author of Empire Within: International Hierarchy and its Imperial Laboratories of Governance and co-author of Beyond Biopolitics: Theory, Violence, and Horror in World Politics. His work has appeared in Millennium, Journal of International Political Theory, International Political Sociology, and Philosophy and Social Criticism.

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