Hegel and Empire From Postcolonialism to Globalism

This book provides a clear and nuanced appraisal of Hegel’s treatment of Africa, India, and Islam, and of the implications of this treatment for postcolonial and global studies. Analyzing Hegel’s master-slave dialectic and his views on Africa, India, and Islam, it situates these views not only within Hegel’s historical scheme but also within a broader European philosophical context and the debates they have provoked within Hegel scholarship. Each chapter explores various in depth readings of Hegel by postcolonial critics, investigating both the Eurocentric and potentially global nature of his dialectic. Ultimately, the book shows both where of this profoundly influential thinker archetypally embodies certain Eurocentric traits that have characterized modernity and how, ironically, he himself gives us the tools for working towards a more global vision.

1. Introduction.- 2. Hegel’s Dialectic of Master and Slave.- 3. The Master-Slave Dialectic in Theory.- 4. Hegel on Africa.- 5. Fanon.- 6. Slavery, Capitalism, and the Imperial Dialectic.- 7. Hegel on India.- 8. Gayatri Spivak.- 9. Hegel on Islam.- 10. Reading Hegel’s Islam.- 11. The Dialectic of Empire.- Index.

M.A.R. Habib is Professor of English at Rutgers University, USA, and currently Visiting Professor at the Gulf University of Science and Technology in Kuwait. He is the author of A History of Literary Criticism from Plato to the Present (2005) and Hegel and the Foundations of Literary Theory (2018).