Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter
Follow on Twitter @MWPalen

From the real story behind Patrice Lumumba’s assassination to the colonial history of Israel-Palestine, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history.

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The Real Story Behind Patrice Lumumba’s Assassination

Isaac Chotiner
New Yorker

“It is now up to you, gentlemen, to show that we were right to trust you.” So King Baudouin, of Belgium, declared in the Congolese capital of Léopoldville (present-day Kinshasa) on June 30, 1960. It was a handover ceremony: the Belgian Congo would henceforth belong to the Congolese people. Decades later, Baudouin’s condescension remains startling. His great-great-uncle Leopold II had overseen what was then called the Congo Free State as his personal fiefdom—and established a system of exploitation that was monstrous even by colonial standards. But by 1960 the Belgian government could no longer ignore the wave of anti-imperialist movements that had swept much of the continent. Now the twenty-nine-year-old monarch told the crowd—made up of new Congolese citizens, Belgian officials, and dignitaries from around the world—that independence would be “achieved not through the immediate satisfaction of simple pleasures but through work.”

Baudouin was followed in the speaking order by Joseph Kasavubu—independent Congo’s President, a relatively ceremonial role—though nobody really remembers what he said. It was Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s Prime Minister, who left an impression when he rose to speak next. A slim, enigmatic man, Lumumba was the most important politician in the country, and the one whom the Belgians were most concerned about. Lumumba’s remarks were clearly a direct reply to Baudouin’s. He ticked through the daily humiliations of life for Black Africans in the Belgian Congo, and recalled the violence visited upon his people. And then, his voice rising, he told his countrymen, “We who suffered in our bodies and hearts from colonialist oppression, we say to you out loud: from now on, all that is over.” [continue reading]

Natalie Zemon Davis: three brilliant examples of her microhistory writing

Maxine Berg
Conversation

Natalie Zemon Davis, who died on October 21 just short of her 95th birthday, was probably the best-known and most well-regarded of North American historians since the 1970s. She published her first book, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, in 1975 and was writing the final pages of her last book in the weeks before she died.

Her early work on the popular culture and religious mentalities of artisans and labourers in the 16th century captured imaginations, and she led the early teaching of women’s history at the University of Toronto. But it is her distinctive methods and contributions to what came to be known as microhistory that are best remembered. [continue reading]

The talons of empire: Why the world can’t escape from American hegemony

Quinn Slobodian
New Statesman

onflict in Israel-Palestine throws American relations with its Middle Eastern partners into chaos. Oil price rises strengthen the hand of petroleum-producing states, and offer the prospect of a realignment away from the central powers of the United States, Europe and Russia. The West is in retreat, trying to manage a situation in which they are suddenly no longer in control of world events. The year is not 2023 but 50 years ago, 1973, at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, which leads Arab oil-producing states to embargo shipments to the US and other supporters of Israel. The anniversary is likely no coincidence and must have been part of Hamas’s plans for its attack on 7 October, but it is worth asking what the difference was between now and then. How have conditions changed? Do the poor have more or less leverage than they did then?

A new book by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, Underground Empire: How America Weaponised the World Economy, helps answer this question. The weaponisation of oil in 1973 was possible because of the existence of choke points in the production system. While the US was still a significant producer, western Europe in particular was dependent on shipments from the Middle East. There was a spigot that could be turned on and off to potentially devastating effect. What Underground Empire shows is that directly – and more often indirectly – the US learned its lesson from this moment of exposure. Farrell and Newman describe the rise over the past 50 years of what they call America’s “network imperialism”. In an era where markets were supposedly becoming ever-more disembedded from states, the authors show that the opposite was the case. The US, in particular – with China as an adept late innovator – was, in fact, cleverly devising ways to turn the apparently disordered globe-spanning infrastructures of finance, information, intellectual property and production supply chains into nooses to be held in its hand, controlling and potentially choking out any challenges to American power. [continue reading]

Police Violence Against Black WWII Veterans

Candace Cunningham
Black Perspectives

Black Americans signed up in record numbers to serve their country during World War II. They did so despite a long history of unequal treatment for Black servicemen. For instance, after the Civil War, the combination of a difficult bureaucratic process, unscrupulous claim agents, and prejudiced personnel made it incredibly difficult for Black veterans and their survivors to access their pensions, even though the laws that created those federal military pensions were race-neutral. In the aftermath of—and likely in reaction to—the great strides African Americans made during Reconstruction, Black servicemen in the Spanish-American War found their heroism undermined by the white press, and future president Theodore Roosevelt, who “downplayed, ignored, or twisted” their acts of bravery into “tales of cowardice.” For African Americans, WWII did not get off to a promising start as local recruiting branches, especially in the Jim Crow South, regularly turned away Black volunteers. Yet, despite all of this, African Americans still heeded the Pittsburgh Courier’s call for the “Double-V Campaign”—the concept that while white Americans supported the war effort to defeat fascism abroad, Black Americans wanted to defeat fascism abroad and racism at home. African Americans believed (or hoped) that their active participation in World War II would finally translate into tangible political rights and socioeconomic advancements.

Instead Black servicemen encountered explicit forms of racism during their time in the military. They were segregated into different barracks and recreation facilities, and they faced racial epithets and threats of violence on and off military bases. When they returned home Black veterans did not receive the hero’s welcome they deserved. Instead the country they served—the country that alleged it was fighting for freedom and democracy—expected them to accept second-class citizenship. Returning Black veterans traveling across the US South by train reportedly pulled down the shades in segregated train cars so that racist whites wouldn’t see them and be enraged by their mere presence. This (mis)treatment stood in stark contrast to how Nazi prisoners of war were treated. For instance, Nazi POWs were allowed to sit in the same train cars and dine in the same facilities as white soldiers. [continue reading]

The colonial history of Israel-Palestine: Bringing the receipts

Karen Attiah
Washington Post

As the assault on Gaza nears its fifth week, I’ve been watching the warfare over language, rhetoric and memory. Understandably, I have gotten a lot of responses to last week’s piece on race, colonialism and the Palestinian plight — including this from Michael Gross of Burke, Va.:

“When discussing colonialism we rightly think of a people who ventured to a place that they had no history of living e.g. Europeans arriving in North America and colonizing the region. The Jewish people have lived in the Middle East region and in Israel/Palestine specifically for millennia … the power dynamic of occupiers and the occupied in Israel is like that colonialism, but the history and of how it came about and the power dynamics in the region are very different … Most people I’m sure agree that colonialism is bad, but the Israeli/Palestinian conflict does not fit neatly into that box.”

I see why people think colonial projects are limited to foreign invaders coming in with guns and bombs to take land they have no ties to. But the violence of colonization was not limited to bombs and armies. It has happened with pens, maps and “legal” transfers of land and authority by the colonial powers. [continue reading]