ISRF Book Launch: 'The End of Empires and a World Remade'

WHO ARE WE?The Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) is a public benefit foundation funded by a group of private philanthropists with interests in academia and social science, founded in 2008. It is dedicated to advancing the social sciences through the promotion of new modes of inquiry and the development of interdisciplinary expertise and methods, and through better understanding of social entities and processes.To achieve this objective it intends to provide a series of research grants, enter into partnerships with academic institutions and support research activities that promote development in its field.ACADEMIC BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVESThere is an increasing recognition — both within and outside academic organisations — that the most pressing social and research challenges are beyond the scope of a single discipline or area of research.  There is evidence of this in universities, key funding bodies and the users of social science research.This is particularly true of fundamental questions in the social sciences:  How do societies evolve?  Why does hunger persist?  How do people make decisions?  What are the causes of war? These questions are inherently complex and call for diverse insights.  A particular challenge created by this complexity is the need to understand the implicit content of the models employed in social science and to ensure that it is appropriate for social analysis.The ISRF believes that interdisciplinary research — understood here as not just the simple combination of traditional approaches, but the conversation between established disciplines and the introduction of new modes of inquiry  — is critical for the advancement of new knowledge and for solving contemporary theoretical and practical problems.

Independent Social Research Foundation

A book launch & conversation with Martin Thomas, author of 'The End of Empires and a World Remade'. Hosted by Lars Cornelissen.

Barnard's Inn Hall

Was the twentieth-century collapse of European colonialism as definitive as it is often portrayed? How can we do justice to the historical complexity of decolonization while maintaining a broad global perspective?In <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691190921/the-end-of-empires-and-a-world-remade" title="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691190921/the-end-of-empires-and-a-world-remade" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">The End of Empires and World Remade: A Global History of Decolonization</a>, Professor Martin Thomas brings together perspectives from global history, comparative politics, and international relations to re-evaluate decolonization in all of its historical messiness.Professor Thomas argues that decolonization was less a transition of sovereignty from colonizer to colonized than a global, often violent process that saw the emergence of new international coalitions, triggered partitions and wars, and reshaped North-South dynamics. It energized different ideas of belonging and transnational connection, of sovereignty and independence, and of the struggles necessary to achieve them. Late colonial conflicts spurred other connections as the colonized ‘weak’ built transnational networks of support to overcome the military and economic advantages of ‘strong’ imperial overseers. The counterinsurgencies that followed left empires shamed and morally disarmed, while, at the same time, decolonization and its violence reshaped globalization just as globalization conditioned decolonization.Martin will be joined by two panelists: <a href="https://politicalscience.jhu.edu/directory/tarak-barkawi/" title="https://politicalscience.jhu.edu/directory/tarak-barkawi/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Tarak Barkawi</a>, Professor in the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University and the author of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/soldiers-of-empire/76D9A50C51276F28C5927431E0E0980F" title="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/soldiers-of-empire/76D9A50C51276F28C5927431E0E0980F" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Soldiers of Empire: Indian and British Armies in World War II </a>(Cambridge, 2017), and <a href="https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-natalya-benkhaled-vince" title="https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-natalya-benkhaled-vince" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Natalya Benkhaled-Vince</a>, Associate Professor in Modern History at the University of Oxford and the author of <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-54264-1" title="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-54264-1" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">The Algerian War, the Algerian Revolution</a> (Palgrave, 2020). A Q&amp;A will follow, moderated by Lars Cornelissen, ISRF Academic Editor.

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ISRF Book Launch: 'The End of Empires and a World Remade'

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