Prehistories of the War on Terror - (Power, Politics, and the World) by A J Yumi Lee & Karen R Miller (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Bringing together scholarly analyses of US colonial wars in the American west and across Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this book reveals fundamental continuities between the contemporary War on Terror and earlier US imperial conflicts"--

Book Synopsis

Prehistories of the War on Terror examines the longstanding American project of classifying enemies who challenge U.S. power abroad as terrorists. To do so, the volume brings disparate episodes of U.S. military empire-building into dialogue across time and space. From settler colonial wars in the nineteenth-century American West to twentieth-century wars of conquest in Asia and the Pacific, the collection's essays argue that the United States has drawn both materially and ideologically on older systems of empire in the conflicts through which it has waged the present-day War on Terror.

Attending to the local histories from which these conflicts emerged and examining the effects of U.S. intervention in these sites, contributors analyze the cultural frameworks for understanding and remembering past conflicts that confirm, challenge, or refigure the logics of the War on Terror. This volume reveals how contestations over sovereignty, extraction, and inequality must be suppressed and flattened in public discourse to maintain a coherent vision of a totalizing War on Terror. Together, the contributors illustrate that there was no single road that led to 9/11 or the War on Terror. Rather, they argue that we must follow multiple paths into the past to fully understand our present and to fight for a more just future.

Contributors: Moustafa Bayoumi, Joo Ok Kim, Janne Lahti, A. J. Yumi Lee, Naveed Mansoori, Karen R. Miller, Kalyan Nadiminti, Tim Roberts, Colleen Woods.

Review Quotes

"Prehistories of the War on Terror is a devastating unraveling of the global US War on Terror as a presentist, exceptionalist, civilizational narrative and cultural-militarist project built on catastrophe upon catastrophe of more than a century of 'savage' colonial wars of counterinsurgency against decolonizing peoples across three continents. Historically illuminating and culturally penetrating, the essays gathered here not only testify to the transnational collusion of Western powers and the lasting consequences of brutal settler colonial and imperial wars on twenty-first century global politics. They also provide a powerful testament to the ever-continuing revolutionary struggles of people at the heart of contemporary global 'conflicts.' A much needed, timely opening up of alternative historical possibilities yet to be gleaned, this is an important work that can help us overcome our present era of permanent war."-- "Neferti X. M. Tadiar, author of Things Fall Away: Philippine Historical Experience and the Makings of Globalization"

"Prehistories of the War on Terror shatters US exceptionalism with devastating historical specificity. With its stunning temporal, geographic, and disciplinary range of essays, this collection urgently demonstrates that any search for historical origins of US imperial violence implicates our political present."-- "Monica Kim, University of Wisconsin, Madison"

"This vital, urgent, and absorbing collection of essays demands that we attend to the longer genealogy of imperial violence emanating from Washington, DC. From the decimation of the Apache nation to wars on the Korean Peninsula and the Philippines archipelago, the contributors to this book trace the histories of today's forever wars."-- "Laleh Khalili, University of Exeter"

About the Author

A. J. Yumi Lee is Assistant Professor of English at Villanova University.
Karen R. Miller is Professor of History at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York.