Paris And The Spirit Of 1919

This history of Paris in 1919 explores the global implications of French political activism at the end of World War I.

This history of Paris in 1919 explores the global implications of French political activism at the end of World War I.

This history of Paris in 1919 explores the global implications of French political activism at the end of World War I.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2021 AN ECONOMIST AND HISTORY TODAY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 'Compelling and highly original ... The Asia that we see today is the product of the 'underground' which Harper describes with skill and empathy in this monumental work' Rana Mitter, Literary Review The story of the hidden struggle waged by secret networks around the world to destroy European imperialism The end of Europe's empires has so often been seen as a story of high politics and warfare. In Tim Harper's remarkable new book the narrative is very different: it shows how empires were fundamentally undermined from below. Using the new technology of cheap printing presses, global travel and the widespread use of French and English, young radicals from across Asia were able to communicate in ways simply not available before. These clandestine networks stretched to the heart of the imperial metropolises: to London, to Paris, to the Americas, but also increasingly to Moscow. They created a secret global network which was for decades engaged in bitter fighting with imperial police forces. They gathered in the great hubs of Asia - Calcutta, Singapore, Batavia, Hanoi, Tokyo, Shanghai, Canton and Hong Kong - and plotted with ceaseless ingenuity, both through persuasion and terrorism, the end of the colonial regimes. Many were caught and killed or imprisoned, but others would go on to rule their newly independent countries. Drawing on an amazing array of new sources, Underground Asia turns upside-down our understanding of twentieth-century empire. The reader enters an extraordinary world of stowaways, false identities, secret codes, cheap firearms, assassinations and conspiracies, as young Asians made their own plans for their future. 'Magnificent - it reads like a thriller and was difficult to put down' Peter Frankopan, History Today

Morelon reconstructs the collapse of the Habsburg Empire as it was experienced on the streets of Prague.

This book stretches and challenges current canonical configurations of modernism by considering the centrality of black artists, writers and intellectuals as core presences in the development of a modernist avant-garde; and by interrogating 'blackness' as

This volume reinterprets the peace settlements after 1918 as a site of remarkable innovations in the making of international order.

The racist legacy behind the Western idea of freedom The era of the Enlightenment, which gave rise to our modern conceptions of freedom and democracy, was also the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. America, a nation founded on the principle of liberty, is also a nation built on African slavery, Native American genocide, and systematic racial discrimination. White Freedom traces the complex relationship between freedom and race from the eighteenth century to today, revealing how being free has meant being white. Tyler Stovall explores the intertwined histories of racism and freedom in France and the United States, the two leading nations that have claimed liberty as the heart of their national identities. He explores how French and American thinkers defined freedom in racial terms and conceived of liberty as an aspect and privilege of whiteness. He discusses how the Statue of Liberty—a gift from France to the United States and perhaps the most famous symbol of freedom on Earth—promised both freedom and whiteness to European immigrants. Taking readers from the Age of Revolution to today, Stovall challenges the notion that racism is somehow a paradox or contradiction within the democratic tradition, demonstrating how white identity is intrinsic to Western ideas about liberty. Throughout the history of modern Western liberal democracy, freedom has long been white freedom. A major work of scholarship that is certain to draw a wide readership and transform contemporary debates, White Freedom provides vital new perspectives on the inherent racism behind our most cherished beliefs about freedom, liberty, and human rights.