Overview

Writing more than one hundred years ago, African American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois speculated that the great dilemma of the twentieth century would be the problem of ""the color line."" Nowhere was the dilemma of racial discrimination more entrenched--and more complex--than South Africa. This book looks at South Africa's freedom struggle in the years surrounding African decolonization, and it uses the global apartheid debate to explore the way new nation-states changed the international community during the mid-twentieth century. At the highpoint of decolonization, South Africa's problems shaped a transnational conversation about nationhood. Arguments about racial justice, which crested as Europe relinquished imperial control of Africa and the Caribbean, elided a deeper contest over the meaning of sovereignty, territoriality, and development. This contest was influenced--and had an impact on--the United States. Initially hopeful that liberal international institutions would amicably resolve the color line problem, Washington lost confidence as postcolonial diplomats took control of the U.N. agenda. The result was not only America's abandonment of the universalisms that propelled decolonization, but also the unraveling of the liberal order that remade politics during the twentieth century. Based on research in African, American, and European archives, Gordian Knot advances a bold new interpretation about African decolonization's relationship to American power. The book promises to shed light on U.S. foreign relations with the Third World and recast our understanding of liberal internationalism's fate after World War II.

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9780199855612

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Reviews

Irwin's book offers insight into how apartheid struck at the root of the postcolonial narriative of justice and how it was used at the UN as a vehicle to challenge the liberal international order and the legitimacy of the nation state system. ... this is a critical addition to the field of literature. This gripping reinterpretation of the organisation and its use for burgeoning nation states raises many broader questions about the role of the UN as an agent of change in the international system. Alanna O'Malley, Journal of African History

Irwin's book offers insight into how apartheid struck at the root of the postcolonial narriative of justice and how it was used at the UN as a vehicle to challenge the liberal international order and the legitimacy of the nation state system. ... this is a critical addition to the field of literature. This gripping reinterpretation of the organisation and its use for burgeoning nation states raises many broader questions about the role of the UN as an agent of change in the international system. * Alanna O'Malley, Journal of African History * Overall, this is an outstanding book. It is well-researched, crisply written, and thought-provoking. * Diplomatic History * an enrichment for transnational and global history studies ... I can only join others reviewers in their appreciation of the book and hope that it will continue to be received widely and will find its way into curricula of Global, African and International Studies. * Angela Glodschei, geschichte.transnational *

<br> Gordian Knot is an outstanding contribution to international history. It helps us understand why the United States was seen as the defender of apartheid South Africa and shows the disastrous consequences of that position for U.S. African policy. --Odd Arne Westad, author of Restless Empire: Chinaand the World since 1750<p><br> From 1960, as more and more African countries gained their independence, the racial policies of South Africa became a matter of global concern. Ryan Irwin has spotted a gap in the literature and filled it admirably, showing the complexities and ambiguities in the ways in which the international community responded to the apartheid regime. --Christopher Saunders, University of Cape Town<p><br> In this ambitious book, Ryan Irwin recounts the intersecting histories of decolonization and the international struggle against apartheid in South Africa, from its mid-century beginnings to its triumph in the last decade of the 20th century. The very length of the struggle is an indication of its complexity and the genius of Gordian Knot is that it is able to capture it all. --Marilyn Young, New York University<p><br> Situating the debate over apartheid in its global context, Ryan Irwin offers us a new perspective on postwar international history, and particularly on the intersections of the cold war and decolonization. Through this prism, this book shows how the rise of new nations in Africa influenced the dynamics of the cold war, the nature of the United Nations, and the direction of U.S. policy, and how it reshaped international society in ways that continue to matter today. --Erez Manela, author of The Wilsonian Moment<p><br> Irwin's informative and eloquent study is unique in its focus on U.S. foreign policy toward Africa during an era defined by nonalignment, decolonization, the cold war, and the U.S. civil rights movement. Just as Jim Crow segregation was the 'Achilles heel' of the United States at the height of the cold war, the immoral

Author Information

Ryan Irwin is the Associate Director of International Security Studies at Yale University. He teaches classes on foreign affairs and decolonization and coordinates programs related to Yale's international history program.

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