Race, Empire, and the Idea of Human Development

Examines racism and imperialism in the modern world order, arguing that both remain a fundamental part of Western hegemony.

Thomas McCarthy (Author)

9780521740432, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 16 July 2009

264 pages
22.6 x 15 x 1.3 cm, 0.43 kg

'Thomas McCarthy has written a splendid book, an immediately indispensable contribution to ongoing discussions of political philosophical method, racial injustice, liberal imperialism, and globalization. Empirically rich and richly insightful, it is a masterly exemplar of critical history with a practical intent and will be enthusiastically welcomed by all who would understand how racism and the rationalization of empire have shaped the modern world.' Robert Gooding-Williams, The University of Chicago

In an exciting study of ideas accompanying the rise of the West, Thomas McCarthy analyzes the ideologies of race and empire that were integral to European-American expansion. He highlights the central role that conceptions of human development (civilization, progress, modernization, and the like) played in answering challenges to legitimacy through a hierarchical ordering of difference. Focusing on Kant and natural history in the eighteenth century, Mill and social Darwinism in the nineteenth, and theories of development and modernization in the twentieth, he proposes a critical theory of development which can counter contemporary neoracism and neoimperialism, and can accommodate the multiple modernities now taking shape. Offering an unusual perspective on the past and present of our globalizing world, this book will appeal to scholars and advanced students of philosophy, political theory, the history of ideas, racial and ethnic studies, social theory, and cultural studies.

Introduction
Part I: 1. Political philosophy and racial injustice: a preliminary note on methodology
2. Kant on race and development
3. Social Darwinism and white supremacy
4. Coming to terms with the past: on the politics of the memory of slavery
Part II: 5. What may we hope? Reflections on the idea of universal history in the wake of Kant
6. Liberal imperialism and the dilemma of development
7. From modernism to messianism: reflections on the state of 'development'
Conclusion: the presence of the past.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA], Sociology [JHB], Social & political philosophy [HPS], General & world history [HBG], History [HB]