The liberation struggles of colonized peoples transformed the modern world. This course will study the history of anti-colonial struggles from the 19th century during the Age of Empire into the revolutionary era after 1917, with particular attention to the wave of decolonization in the 1950's-1970's. It will examine the major movements from the Bandung Conference and the Tricontinental in the 50's and 60's through African resistance to European colonial and settler colonial regimes through the 1980's. The course will examine the consequences of decolonization for geopolitical economy, the "postcolonial state", and social movements in the aftermath of formal independence. The course has a primary focus on West Asia and North Africa in a global, comparative perspective. As a result, issues of religious resistance, Islamic anti-imperialist or reformist thought and social movements in the 1980's to the present will be explored. However, in taking a global perspective, the course will also explore transnational and transregional connections across the Global South as well as intersections between the anticolonial movements and antiracism struggles in Europe and North America, like the Black Freedom Struggle in North America. The purpose of the course is to enable anticolonial historical research by appreciating the global and regional dimensions of the world system and resistance to or within it at all levels of cultural, social, political, intellectual, and economic life. Students will develop a research project on some aspect of decolonization history in a relevant context to their interests.
