Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians continues well into 2024, despite vocal condemnation by international human rights bodies and widespread public disapproval. After dedicating time to study the specific history of settler colonialism and resistance in Palestine over the past months, we expand our study to the history of capitalist imperialism to better understand the enduring systems of global hegemony and dominance that allow the genocide to continue unabated.
This series is for anyone who wants to learn more about the history of violent dispossessions that characterize the ascent of global capitalism and struggles for self-determination around the world—struggles which remain core to the socialist project. Across four sessions, this series examines foundational concepts, the role of national liberation within imperial power dynamics, and closes with a contemporary case study.
Our first session interrogates the question – Is imperialism the highest stage of capitalism? The primary reading, Lenin’s “The Division of the World Among the Great Powers” is accompanied by selections form contemporary(ish) left writers interpreting the trajectory of British capitalism and leftist debate on Pre-WWII theories of imperialism.
Recommended readings listed below: Pages 4 – 22 in the Imperialism Reader
- “Division of the World Among the Great Powers”, Vladimir Lenin; excerpt from Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916)
- “The origin of capitalist imperialism”, Ellen M. Wood (1999), excerpt from the book The Origin of Capitalism
- Coloniality of Power and Eurocentrism in Latin America, Anibal Quijano et al. (2000)
RSVP: https://actionnetwork.org/events/imperialism-night-school