Against the World
Anti-Globalism and Mass Politics Between the World Wars
Published on 10. March 2023
Book
Hardback
384 pages
978-0-393-65196-6 (ISBN)
Description
Before the First World War, enthusiasm for a borderless world reached its height. International travel, migration, trade and progressive projects on matters ranging from women's rights to world peace reached a crescendo. Yet in the same breath, an undercurrent of reaction was growing, one that would surge ahead with the outbreak of war and its aftermath.
In Against the World, a sweeping and ambitious work of history, acclaimed scholar Tara Zahra examines how nationalism, rather than internationalism, came to ensnare world politics in the early twentieth century. The air went out of the globalist balloon with the First World War as quotas were put on immigration and tariffs on trade, not only in the United States but across Europe, where war and disease led to mass societal upheaval. The "Spanish flu" heightened anxieties about porous national boundaries. The global impact of the 1929 economic crash and the Great Depression amplified a quest for food security in Europe and economic autonomy worldwide. Demands for relief from the instability and inequality linked to globalisation forged democracies and dictatorships alike, from Gandhi's India to America's New Deal and Hitler's Third Reich. Immigration restrictions, racially constituted notions of citizenship, anti-Semitism, and violent outbursts of hatred of the "other" became the norm-coming to genocidal fruition in the Second World War.
Millions across the political spectrum sought refuge from the imagined and real threats of the global economy in ways strikingly reminiscent of our contemporary political moment: new movements emerged focused on homegrown and local foods, domestically produced clothing and other goods and back-to-the-land communities. Rich with astonishing detail gleaned from Zahra's unparalleled archival research in five languages, Against the World is a poignant and thorough exhumation of the popular sources of resistance to globalization. With anti-globalism a major tenet of today's extremist agendas, Zahra's arrestingly clearsighted and wide-angled account is essential reading to grapple with our divided present.
In Against the World, a sweeping and ambitious work of history, acclaimed scholar Tara Zahra examines how nationalism, rather than internationalism, came to ensnare world politics in the early twentieth century. The air went out of the globalist balloon with the First World War as quotas were put on immigration and tariffs on trade, not only in the United States but across Europe, where war and disease led to mass societal upheaval. The "Spanish flu" heightened anxieties about porous national boundaries. The global impact of the 1929 economic crash and the Great Depression amplified a quest for food security in Europe and economic autonomy worldwide. Demands for relief from the instability and inequality linked to globalisation forged democracies and dictatorships alike, from Gandhi's India to America's New Deal and Hitler's Third Reich. Immigration restrictions, racially constituted notions of citizenship, anti-Semitism, and violent outbursts of hatred of the "other" became the norm-coming to genocidal fruition in the Second World War.
Millions across the political spectrum sought refuge from the imagined and real threats of the global economy in ways strikingly reminiscent of our contemporary political moment: new movements emerged focused on homegrown and local foods, domestically produced clothing and other goods and back-to-the-land communities. Rich with astonishing detail gleaned from Zahra's unparalleled archival research in five languages, Against the World is a poignant and thorough exhumation of the popular sources of resistance to globalization. With anti-globalism a major tenet of today's extremist agendas, Zahra's arrestingly clearsighted and wide-angled account is essential reading to grapple with our divided present.
Reviews / Votes
"Ms. Zahra's narrative shows us how closely-even eerily-our present-day world resembles the state of the globe roughly a century ago.... The most engaging sections of Ms. Zahra's vigorous and informative book are those in which she offers us biographical portraits of some of the players in the great game of globalization." -- Tunku Varadarajan - The Wall Street Journal "[Zahra] has written a panoramic work illustrating how societies across the world reacted in the interwar ear against the perceived threats of a globalised economy. " -- Financial Times "[A] superb history of the interwar period... Zahra has produced one of the best and most timely works of global history of the past few years." -- Gavin Jacobson - The New Statesman "A panoramic history of anti-globalisation... Zahra deftly weaves cutting-edge scholarship and human stories into concerns about democracy, markets and nation-states." -- Financial Times "Every story in this book is relevant and absorbing; Zahra plaits her narrative strands together with such deliberation and skill that nothing is out of place." -- Jennifer Szalai - The New York Times "Against the World counterintuitively offers a global history from the perspective of its discontents. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully told." -- Mae Ngai, Bancroft Award-winning author of The Chinese Question "Against the World is a tour de force: Tara Zahra brings her formidable talents as a writer and scholar to this elegant, consistently surprising, and richly peopled book." -- Sunil Amrith, author of Unruly Waters "Against the World not only alerts us to the central intellectual folly of our age. Splendidly timely, it also explains our bewildering present of war and rancorous mass politics, and outlines both challenges and possibilities in our shared future." -- Pankaj Mishra, author of Bland Fanatics "Every day brings another headline about the end of globalization but, as Tara Zahra shows us in her lively and learned new book, we have been here before.... Through vivid portraits of contemporaries from Czech shoe baron Tomas Bat'a to Hungarian-born femin" -- Quinn Slobodian, author of GlobalistsMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
30 illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 233 mm
Width: 163 mm
Thickness: 35 mm
Weight
661 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-393-65196-6 (9780393651966)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
03/2024
WW Norton & Co
€19.00
Available immediately
E-Book
01/2023
W. W. Norton & Company
€17.49
Available for download