Violence, War, and Empire in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Richard Fogarty, University at Albany, SUNY

This readings course will examine various topics related to violence, war, and empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will pay particular attention to French and German colonialism, though we will also examine British, Belgian, and other modern colonial empires. The following are some of the key questions that we will explore:

• Is violence systemic in all imperial formations and colonial situations? If so, what factors determine the exact nature and extent of that violence?

• Can we distinguish colonial violence from the more or less organized violence we customarily call “war”?

• What roles do indigenous soldiers play in the violence of empire and war?

• How does race and racism influence violence and war?

• Can we usefully and responsibly compare the violence of colonialism and empire across time, space, and cultures?

• Are there important differences between the violence of empire during the different phases of its development: conquest and building; rule and maintenance; dissolution, collapse, or decolonization?

• How do we properly use the terms we deploy to talk about these issues: violence, war, empire, imperial, imperialism, colonial, colonialism?

• What different insights can we gain from examining imperial and colonial violence and war from close-up, individual perspectives, versus more panoramic, state-centered perspectives?