Harvard University Press
Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India
Key Metrics
- Nico Slate
- Harvard University Press
- Hardcover
- 9780674059672
- 9.5 X 6.5 X 0.9 inches
- 1.25 pounds
- Social Science > Ethnic Studies - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
A hidden history connects India and the United States, the world's two largest democracies. From the late nineteenth century through the 1960s, activists worked across borders of race and nation to push both countries toward achieving their democratic principles. At the heart of this shared struggle, African Americans and Indians forged bonds ranging from statements of sympathy to coordinated acts of solidarity. Within these two groups, certain activists developed a colored cosmopolitanism, a vision of the world that transcended traditional racial distinctions. These men and women agitated for the freedom of the colored world, even while challenging the meanings of both color and freedom.
Colored Cosmopolitanism is the first detailed examination of both ends of this transnational encounter. Nico Slate tells the stories of neglected historical figures, like the Eurasian scholar Cedric Dover, and offers a stunning glimpse of people we thought we knew. Prominent figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Swami Vivekananda, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Martin Luther King Jr. emerge as never before seen. Slate reveals the full gamut of this exchange--from selective appropriations, to blatant misunderstandings, to a profound empathy--as African Americans and South Asians sought a united front against racism, imperialism, and other forms of oppression.
Author Bio
Nico Slate’s research and teaching focus on the history of social movements in the United States and India. He is the author of four books: Lord Cornwallis Is Dead: The Struggle for Democracy in the United States and India (Harvard University Press in 2019); Gandhi’s Search for the Perfect Diet: Eating with the World in Mind (University of Washington Press, 2019); The Prism of Race: W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson and the Colored World of Cedric Dover (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); and Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India (Harvard University Press, 2012). He is also the editor of Black Power Beyond Borders (Palgrave MacMillan, 2013), a volume that tracks the global dimensions of the Black Power movement.
Dr. Slate is currently at work on two books: a study of race in Los Angeles after 1965 and a history of truth and power in the American civil rights movement. In his research and teaching, he loves asking questions like the following: What’s the relationship between truth and power? How can the history of democracy contribute to the future of democracy? How do social movements learn? And how do they teach? Why is there so much racism, xenophobia, and intolerance in our world and what can we do about it? How do universities contribute to inequality? How can they reduce inequality?
Dr. Slate is the founder and director of the Bajaj Rural Development Lab and SocialChange101.org. Born in Los Angeles and raised in California's Mojave Desert, he earned degrees in Earth Systems and the Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities from Stanford University and in Environmental Change and Management from Oxford University before completing his Ph.D. in History at Harvard University.
Source: Carnegie Mellon University
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