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Vicente Rafael, The Promise of the Foreign: Nationalism and the Technics of Translation in the Spanish Philippines Duke U. Press, 2005

What do language and the act of translation have to do with the projection of imperial and military power? Vicente Rafael makes important connections and points to efforts to Americanize the English language in this nation's early years. He also discusses the politics of monolingualism, the notion of the melting pot, and the US military's use of interpreters in Iraq.

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Dana Frank, "Honduras: Are We Going to Make Concessions to Those Who Perpetrate Coups?" New America Media

Dana Frank, Local Girl Makes History City Lights, 2007

What do a coup in Honduras and a redwood log cross section put on display for park visitors have in common? Dana Frank comments on the recent military coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya, the repression and resistance that followed, and the US response. She also explains how date markers on tree slices connect to themes of empire, conquest and domination.

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Kristin Hoganson, Consumers' Imperium: The Global Production of American Domesticity, 1865-1920 U. of North Carolina Press, 2007

Empire isn't just enacted abroad. It also affects, in profound ways, people living in the imperial metropole. In the volume Colonial Crucible, Natalie Ring reveals that domestic attitudes toward the US South were influenced by imperialist adventures in tropical locales, and Kristin Hoganson describes how turn-of-the-twentieth-century US consumers "bought into empire."

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Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest Routledge, 1995

Why does the US torture people who it knows have no actionable intelligence? What does paranoia have to do with torture conducted at places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo? What has the commentary surrounding the Abu Ghraib photographs crucially ignored? Anne McClintock weighs in on these and other matters.

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Fitzgerald & Gould, Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story City Lights, 2009

We all know that Obama is shifting the focus of US military intervention from Iraq to Afghanistan. What we don't all know is the history of Afghanistan and its tribes and its experiences in relation to empires like the British and the Russian. Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould speak primarily about Afghan history pre-1960.

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Pacifica Radio Archives

 

 

A number of important thinkers advanced critiques of imperialism in the early twentieth century. According to Radhika Desai, it's impossible to accurately assess the imperialism of today without drawing upon those earlier critiques, and without understanding the role played by nation-states. Also featured on the program is archived audio of Fannie Lou Hamer speaking in 1965 and 1969.