STEVE JOHNSON, CHRIS SEARLE and TONY BURKE review new releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
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Stop the War - the historical case
WILL PODMORE recommends an outstanding analysis of imperial violence that holds vital lessons for today’s anti-war movements
empire
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STEVE JOHNSON, CHRIS SEARLE and TONY BURKE review new releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
Peter Mitchell's photography reveals a poetic relationship with Leeds
They Called It Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence
Lauren Benton, Princeton University Press, £35
THIS is an outstanding work which shows how empires cause a state of permanent war across the globe. They have sought to justify their wars with the ritual claim that their “limited” violence prevents catastrophic violence.
In part I Lauren Benton outlines the imperial regime of plunder in early European overseas conquests and in the militarised garrisons that advanced European power. This world of plunder is, as she acknowledges, still the world in which we live.
In part II, A World of Armed Peace, she covers 1750 to 1900. The phrase “armed peace” does not accurately describe what she rightly calls a “regime of violence.”
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