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Political and economic discussions of inequality have boomed since the second half of the twentieth century, but concepts of equality and inequality are far older. Understanding the longer intellectual history of inequality helps deepen understandings of how the concept has changed over time, as well as across different societies, and how concepts of equality have been pre-figured to accommodate concepts of inequality. Concepts of equality have been informed by culturally relative theories of justice and beliefs about institutions that can help rationalise situations of inequality. This article examines how Scholastic examinations of equality in Europe during the Middle Ages came to focus both on the importance of property and proportionality, the need to differentiate between people of different status, and how this was developed by the so-called Second Scholastics during the emergence of the Spanish Empire in the sixteenth century and helped lay the foundations for the concepts of inequality that came to structure global imperialism.

This special issue aims to use historical examples to gain insight into the socio-economic impact of, and possibilities of recovery from, the Covid-19 pandemic for Black communities. We approach this question by comparing the impact of the pandemic on Black Britons in the United Kingdom with that of the 2008 subprime crisis on Black Americans. We find that, in both cases, a pattern of racially asymmetric losses and race-neutral policy responses that have systematically ignored the disparate losses borne by Black and racial/ethnic minority communities. Both patterns are manifestations of these countries' institutional racism. Relying on insights from stratification economics and using the concept of "racial formation" introduced by Harold Baron in 1985, we show how these nations' historical relationships to slavery and imperialism have led to different structures of racial control. Our review of U.K. government policy includes a critique of the March 2021 report of the U.K. Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities.

My research explores the Cleveland baseball franchise's role in the cultural reproduction of White settler space in the NE Ohio region. Using a multi‐site, mixed‐methods approach, I examine prominent narratives about Indian‐ness and ownership circulated for over a century in NE Ohio socio‐cultural spheres. I elucidate how the franchise's storytelling regarding its "Indians" identity produces localized meanings of Indian‐ness that Cleveland baseball fans reiterate and manipulate in protest narratives (what fans said in interactions with Indigenous people and allies protesting the team's "Indians" identity outside Cleveland baseball stadium) and published narratives (what fans said in published opinions following the team's name change announcement). Ultimately, this study reveals how settler‐constructed histories that disregard US imperialism and colonialism commingle with regional stories of romanticized Indian‐ness to amplify processes of colonial unknowing and reproduce White settler space. Such spaces normalize settler possession of Indigenous territories and identities, prioritize settler interests (both material and psychological), affirm White innocence, and animate racialized emotions of repulsion and disgust for Indigenous peoples.

The fight against imperialism and racism was central to the Comintern's political and cultural program of the interwar period. Although the more immediate interests of the Soviet state would come to overshadow such causes, the cultural and political connections forged during this time influenced later forms of organizing. Throughout the interwar period (1918-39), the Soviet Union served as the core location of a newly formed world-system of socialist and communist radicalism. The origin of Latin American Marxism in the work of the Peruvian theorist and political organizer José Carlos Mariátegui, as well as the politically committed literature associated with the interwar communist left in the Andean region of Latin America, shows how literature and theory devoted to the indigenous revolutionary contributed to interwar Marxist debates. The interwar influence of Mariátegui and César Vallejo makes clear the importance of resisting attempts to drive a wedge between the two authors and the broader communist movement at the time.

AbstractThis paper examines socialism in Edwardian public schools. It concentrates on understanding their students' responses to, and conceptions of, socialism's core tenets. For, existing scholarship has depicted these Edwardian institutions as almost uniformly conservative and proficient in inculcating students with pro‐social hierarchy, anti‐social innovation views. Any ideological tensions, then, stemmed from the interaction of popular, conservative‐compliant, dogmas within school contexts: social Darwinism, imperialism, athleticism, muscular Christianity and so on. This paper, however, draws on new Eton College archive sources to enhance and complicate this view. It argues socialism captivated the students' attention and garnered a strong supportive minority that, at times, advocated complete collective ownership. Moreover, the school administration showed tolerance to even the most outspoken socialists, and its non‐hegemonic, semi‐decentralized nature gave rise to local, independent sites of support. Accordingly, this research is important to understanding Edwardian public school ideologies and socialization processes. In wider terms, too, it casts insight on Edwardian socialism's penetration into secondary education and inter‐class acceptance.

Asianism persisted in Sun's vocabulary and his thinking from the 1890s until his death in 1925. Like many intellectuals, and most Asianists, Sun Yat-sen often feared that a race war was inevitable. Furthermore, he accepted the dichotomizing of West and East into different civilizations, but rather than concentrate upon material and spiritual differences, Sun saw the dichotomy upon lines of traditional moral governance. He believed that traditional Chinese thought, given the chance and supported by Japanese economic and military might, could redeem the world of its ills. In his great enthusiasm for the revival of China towards these ends, Sun's actions were often opportunistic and related to his own ambitions for control over China's course. He sometimes validated Japanese expansionism and often encouraged imperialism. His Asianism was therefore easily appropriated for use by both Japanese expansionist propagandists and anti-imperialist activists alike. This article examines the reception of Sun's Asianism in Korea, Taiwan, and Indonesia, showing how Sun's understanding of Asian unity was received very differently due to different conceptions of nationalism in 1920s Asia.

We contend that the Trump administration mainstreamed far-right politics through its foreign policy on China, the World Health Organization and its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Our Gramscian-Kautskyian theoretical perspective concentrates on elite power, class, and interconnections between advanced global capitalism and domestic inequality. We show that the administration amplified US far-right Sinophobia even as it deepened connections between US and Chinese corporate elites. Its foreign policy strategy attempted to appease transnational capitalist objectives through 'ultra-imperialism' and draw on far-right ideas to shore up its domestic support base. But the administration, much like previous ones, attempted to make China a subordinate 'responsible stakeholder' through integrating and pressuring it in the Liberal International Order. The Gramscian-Kautskyian approach highlights that Sino–US relations are a mix of security and economic competition and interdependency. Over all, we argue that the Trump administration was not such a threat to the establishment as commonly contended.

In its one hundred years of existence, the Communist Party of China has experimented with how to connect its narratives of legitimacy to people's affects. In this essay, I trace the conceptualization of gratitude, from its repudiation in the Mao era as a vestige of feudalism and imperialism to its return in the reform era as a re-verticalization of Party sovereignty. The paper addresses four examples of gratitude work: Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Yang's short-lived critique of gratitude in the name of a different conception of popular sovereignty; the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake as a day of gratitude; the detention of Uyghurs in Xinjiang who are taught to be grateful to the Communist Party in a campaign of religious de-radicalization; and the refusal of gratitude in quarantined Wuhan during the COVID-19 pandemic. In these cases, the Communist Party's sovereignty stands at the threshold between bio- and necro-politics, promising life and salvation in the midst of death and destruction. (China Q / GIGA)

Starting with the times of Napoleon Bonaparte and the nexus between European universalism and imperialism, ending with the 1989 scenario and its global implications, this essay analyses the ends of European universalism. It does so in a double sense by addressing its interests and objectives, as well as the end of its legitimation in the times we live in. Through amontage of historical and philosophical constellations from1769 to 2019, ranging fromGoethe and Champollion to Max Lingner and Frantz Fanon, Alain Mabanckou and Camille de Toledo, it seeks to understand the promises and hopes that universalismwas carrying, as well as the deceptions and losses that were caused by its epistemic implication in power relations. The history of universal progress entails a dialectics of contestation and provincialisation, both in a European and in a global perspective. If 1989 has left us with an end of utopia, then we need to understand this history to draw hope for a minor universality. ; ERC Consolidator Grant "Minor UNiversality"

This special issue aims to use historical examples to gain insight into the socio-economic impact of, and possibilities of recovery from, the Covid-19 pandemic for Black communities. We approach this question by comparing the impact of the pandemic on Black Britons in the United Kingdom with that of the 2008 subprime crisis on Black Americans. We find that, in both cases, a pattern of racially asymmetric losses and race-neutral policy responses that have systematically ignored the disparate losses borne by Black and racial/ethnic minority communities. Both patterns are manifestations of these countries' institutional racism. Relying on insights from stratification economics, and use of the concept of 'racial formation' introduced by Harold Baron in 1985, we show how these nations' historical relationships to slavery and imperialism have led to different structures of racial control. Our review of UK government policy includes a critique of the March 2021 report of the UK Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities.

ABSTRACT
Samir Amin's legacy of deployment of Marxist science, dedication to pan-Africanism and commitment to revolutionary liberation of the global South from imperialism and capitalism is re-evaluated from an epistemological vantage point. This is necessary because Amin raised fundamental epistemological issues as he challenged the discipline of economics, built institutions which advanced alternative thinking, and consistently created concepts and theories from concrete situations in the global South in general and Africa in particular. Three main issues stand out. The first is how epistemology shaped modern patterns of domination and subordination within modern Euro–North American-centric internationalism. The second is how intersections of Marxism and decoloniality reinforce a robust critique of modern racial capitalism. The third is how the legacy of Amin enabled a synthesis of Marxism (democratic Marxism of the 21st century), pan-Africanism, and decolonisation (planetary decoloniality of the 21st century) to consistently challenge and oppose the dominant and current imperial/colonial/capitalist internationalism.

Resource extraction has historically caused dramatic environmental changes across the globe. Although mining and oil drilling have transformed landscapes and polluted the air and water wherever they have taken place, knowledge of how these environmental transformations have been experienced and lived in different parts of the world remains fragmentary. This special issue seeks to provide new insights into the environmental histories of resource extraction, particularly in the Global South, where extractive industries have intensified markedly since 1950. Inspired by recent environmental history scholarship, we link together analyses of imperialism, capitalism, and environmental inequality in African, Asian, and Latin American localities of resource extraction. Furthermore, drawing on the analytical framework of political ecology, we examine why protests against extractive industries did or did not occur in specific sites. Given the increasing global demand for resources and pressing current-day questions about how to live in the Anthropocene, it is timely to scrutinise production practices, pollution, and protest in global history.

Confucian friendship adds to the literature on friendship distance sensibilities and aims to maintain and even reinforce the Confucian ethical order, whereas contemporary international politics fails to provide any clear ethical order. The use of friendship and the concomitant creation of a friendly role by China indicate an intended move away from the improper order, including the tributary system, the Cold War, imperialism, and socialism. Confucian friendship continues to constitute contemporary Chinese diplomacy under the circumstance of indeterminate distance sensibilities. It highlights the relevance of the prior relations that are perceived to have constituted friendship. This article explores several illustrative practices of a Confucian typology of friendly international relations, divided into four kinds of friendship, according to (1) the strength of prior relations and (2) the asymmetry of capacity, including the policies toward Russia, North Korea, and Vietnam, among others. Such a Confucian friendship framework additionally alludes to foreign policy analysis in general. The US policies for China and North Korea are examples that indicate this wide scope of application.

Much has been written about the nature of Australian nationalism during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While post‐Second World War historiography analysed the role of class in nationalist sentiment, more recent work has examined the racialised and martial aspects of Australian nationalism and imperialism. There has been less consideration of how the nature of turn‐of‐the‐century Australian nationalism affected the Federation that was established on 1 January 1901. This article examines early debates about commemoration of the anniversary of Federation, revealing an indifference to the occasion that was common to the public and most political and civic leaders, including Prime Minister Edmund Barton. It finds that popular enthusiasm at the inauguration of the Commonwealth in January 1901 and the opening of the first parliament in May was a response to imperial pageantry and celebrity, rather than the creation of the Australian federation. The article suggests that Australians' longstanding resistance to reform of the Federation is a legacy of their historic failure to attach to it.