Dreamworlds of Race: Empire and the Utopian Destiny of Anglo-America

Duncan Bell

Published by Princeton University Press 2020

Dreamworlds of Race

Empire and the Utopian Destiny of Anglo-America

Duncan Bell

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691208671

Overview
Contents

About this book

How transatlantic thinkers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries promoted the unification of Britain and the United States

Between the late nineteenth century and the First World War an ocean-spanning network of prominent individuals advocated the unification of Britain and the United States. They dreamt of the final consolidation of the Angloworld. Scholars, journalists, politicians, businessmen, and science fiction writers invested the “Anglo-Saxons” with extraordinary power. The most ambitious hailed them as a people destined to bring peace and justice to the earth. More modest visions still imagined them as likely to shape the twentieth century. Dreamworlds of Race explores this remarkable moment in the intellectual history of racial domination, political utopianism, and world order.

Focusing on a quartet of extraordinary figures—Andrew Carnegie, W. T. Stead, Cecil J. Rhodes, and H. G. Wells—Duncan Bell shows how unionists on both sides of the Atlantic reimagined citizenship, empire, patriotism, race, war, and peace in their quest to secure global supremacy. Yet even as they dreamt of an Anglo-dominated world, the unionists disagreed over the meaning of race, the legitimacy of imperialism, the nature of political belonging, and the ultimate form and purpose of unification. The racial dreamworld was an object of competing claims and fantasies. Exploring speculative fiction as well as more conventional forms of political writing, Bell reads unionist arguments as expressions of the utopianism circulating through fin-de-siècle Anglo-American culture, and juxtaposes them with pan-Africanist critiques of racial domination and late twentieth-century fictional narratives of Anglo-American empire.

Tracing how intellectual elites promoted an ambitious project of political and racial unification between Britain and the United States, Dreamworlds of Race analyzes ideas of empire and world order that reverberate to this day.

Author / Editor information

Duncan Bell is Professor of Political Thought and International Relations at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Christ’s College. He is the author of Reordering the World and The Idea of Greater Britain (both Princeton).

Reviews

"Thoroughly researched, Dreamworlds of Race illuminates material that has otherwise been ignored but clearly deserves closer attention. This superb book leaves readers with a much clearer picture of the breadth and complexity of transatlantic fin-de-siècle thought."—Jeanne Morefield, University of Birmingham

"With impeccable scholarship, Dreamworlds of Race is destined to be a primary point of reference for those working in the history of international thought."—Stuart Jones, University of Manchester

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
1. Introduction: Dreamworlds of Race Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. The Dreamer of Dreams: Andrew Carnegie and the Reunion of the Race Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
3. Americanizing the World: W. T. Stead and Cecil J. Rhodes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	100
4. Artists in Reality: H. G. Wells and the New Republic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	152
5. Machine Dreams: The Angloworld as Science Fiction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
6. Beyond the Sovereign State: Isopolitan Citizenship and Race Patriotism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
7. A Messenger of Peace to the World: Racial Utopianism and the Abolition of War Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	301
8. Conclusion: Unveiling the Sphinx Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	357
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	395
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	451