Suchergebnisse

Introduction: Dreamworlds of race -- The dreamer of dreams: Andrew Carnegie and the reunion of the race -- Americanizing the world: W.T. Stead and Cecil J. Rhodes -- Artists in reality: H.G. Wells and the New Republic -- Machine dreams: the Angloworld as science fiction -- Beyond the sovereign state: isopolitan citizenship and race patriotism -- A messenger of peace to the world: racial utopianism and the abolition of war -- Conclusion: Unveiling the Sphinx.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction. Reordering the world -- Part I: Frames -- 2. The Dream Machine -- 3. What Is Liberalism? -- 4. Ideologies of Empire -- Part II: Themes -- 5. Escape Velocity -- 6. The Idea of a Patriot Queen? -- 7. Imagined Spaces -- 8. The Project for a New Anglo Century -- Part III: Thinkers -- 9. John Stuart Mill on Colonies -- 10. International Society in Victorian Political Thought -- 11. John Robert Seeley and the Political Theology of Empire -- 12. Republican Imperialism -- 13. Alter Orbis -- 14. Democracy and Empire -- 15. Coda -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX

During the tumultuous closing decades of the nineteenth century, as the prospect of democracy loomed and as intensified global economic and strategic competition reshaped the political imagination, British thinkers grappled with the question of how best to organize the empire. Many found an answer to the anxieties of the age in the idea of Greater Britain, a union of the United Kingdom and its settler colonies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and southern Africa. In The Idea of Greater Britain, Duncan Bell analyzes this fertile yet neglected debate, examining how a wide range of thinkers co

Political realism dominated the study of international relations during the Cold War and has again in recent years retuned to the centre of scholarly debate in international relations. In this book leading authors analyse various historical and philosophical themes, probing the potential and the pathologies of realist thought. - ;Political realism dominated the field of International Relations during the Cold War. Since then, however, its fortunes have been mixed:. pushed onto the backfoot during 1990s, it has in recent years retuned to the centre of scholarly debate. Despite its prominence in.

During the tumultuous closing decades of the nineteenth century, as the prospect of democracy loomed and as intensified global economic and strategic competition reshaped the political imagination, British thinkers grappled with the question of how best to organize the empire. Many found an answer to the anxieties of the age in the idea of Greater Britain, a union of the United Kingdom and its settler colonies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and southern Africa.

J. G. Ballard was one of the most original writers of the postwar era. Although he has drawn considerable attention from scholars across various fields, the character of his political thinking remains a puzzle. He has been claimed as both a radical and a conservative, while others suggest that his work expresses no distinct political stance. Drawing on a wide range of source materials, I argue that from the 1960s to the early years of the twenty-first century Ballard developed a bold and intriguing account of liberalism grounded in insights drawn from surrealism and Freudian psychoanalysis. This was an idiosyncratic version of the liberalism of fear. The essay analyzes Ballard's sociopolitical vision, focusing in particular on his account of human nature, social reality, totalitarianism, and the power of the imagination.

Herbert George Wells was one of the leading public intellectuals of the first half of the twentieth century. Most famous today as a founder of modern science fiction, he was once known throughout the world as a visionary social and political thinker. Questions of global order occupied a central place in his work. From the opening decade of the century until the close of the Second World War, he campaigned tirelessly for the creation of a world state, which would act as a guarantor of universal peace and justice. Yet, scholarship on Wells pays insufficient attention to the complex and conflicted nature of Wells's early views about how to build a world state. In particular, it neglects the tensions between his advocacy of a New Republic, formed by the unification of the English-speaking peoples, and his support for liberal imperialism. I analyze the development of this theme in Wells's political thinking during the years before WWI, a formative period in his intellectual life. I demonstrate how his conceptions of race, empire, and Anglo-American union shifted over time, show how his political arguments connected to his underlying views about social explanation and language, and highlight how his interpretation of the United States profoundly influenced his ideas about world order.

Read throughout the world, H. G. Wells was one of the most famous political thinkers of the early twentieth century. During the first half of the 1900s, he elaborated a bold and idiosyncratic cosmopolitan socialist vision. In this article, I offer a new reading of Wells's political thought. I argue that he developed a distinctivepragmatistphilosophical orientation, which he synthesized with his commitments to Darwinian evolutionary theory. His pragmatism had four main components: a nominalist metaphysics; a verificationist theory of truth; a Jamesian "will to believe"; and a conception of philosophy as an intellectual exercise dedicated to improving practice. His political thought was shaped by this philosophical orientation. Wells, I contend, was the most high-profile pragmatist political thinker of the opening decades of the twentieth century. Acknowledging this necessitates a re-evaluation of both Wells and the history of pragmatism.

H. G. Wells was one of the most celebrated writers in the world during the first half of the twentieth century. Famed for his innovative fiction, he was also an influential advocate of socialism and the world-state. What is much less well known is that he was a significant contributor to debates about the nature of social science. This article argues that Wells's account of social science in general, and sociology in particular, was shaped by an idiosyncratic philosophical pragmatism. In order to demonstrate how his philosophical arguments inflected his social thought, it explores his attack on prevailing theories of race, while also highlighting the limits of his analysis. The article concludes by tracing the reception of Wells's ideas among social scientists and political thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic. Although his program for utopian sociology attracted few disciples, his arguments about the dynamics of modern societies found a large audience.