Anticolonialism and Social Thought by Anaheed Al-Hardan and Julian Go

Not only did the anticolonial movements of the past two centuries help bring down the global order of colonial empires, they also produced novel, innovative and vital social thought. Anticolonialism has been largely ignored in conventional Europe-centered social thought and theory, but this book shows how our sociological imagination can be expanded by taking challenges to colonialism and imperialism seriously. Amidst their struggles to change the world, anticolonial actors offer devastating critiques of it, challenging the racism, economic exploitation, political exclusions and social inequalities central to imperialism and colonialism. Anticolonial thinkers and activists thereby seek to understand the world they are struggling against and, in the process, develop new concepts and theorize the world in new ways. Chapters by leading scholars help uncover this dissident tradition of social thought as the authors discuss an array of anticolonial thinkers, activists and movements from Palestine, India, South Africa, Brazil, Algeria and beyond.

Anaheed Al-Hardan is an associate professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Howard University. She leads the research program Afro-Asian Futures Past, which investigates African-Asian anticolonialism in the early Cold War period, in collaboration with the American University of Beirut, University of Ghana, University of Cape Town and the University of the Witwatersrand. She is the author of Palestinians in Syria: Nakba Memories of Shattered Communities (2016).


Julian Go is Professor of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture and the Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago. His work includes, among other books, Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory (2016).

2025