Colonial Present

Derek Gregory is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

“This is a great book. 'Gregory has written a book entwining global geography with social danger. The Colonial Present takes us through the contemporary wars in Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories and Iraq as connected projects of imperial ambition... The Colonial Present is a refreshingly angry book, with all the geographical and historical scholarship to buttress its indictment of American, Israeli and British behavior around the world. It is exquisitely written... This book's screaming truths are must-read heresy."Neil Smith, Los Angeles Times "An impassioned plea by one of the world’s most eminent geographers to displace the distorted imaginative geographies that have so corrupted our representations of the Islamic world with a geographical imagination that enlarges and enhances our understandings. The long historical geography of the colonial encounter in the Middle East is here laid bare in all its twisted detail in order to comprehend the fractures underpinning contemporary political impasses in Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The Colonial Present is a ‘must read’ for all those concerned for peace and justice in our time.”David Harvey, author of The New Imperialism "The originality and profundity of Derek Gregory's The Colonial Present puts it at the top of my list."Richard Falk, Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton; author most recently of The Great Terror War (2003) “Brilliantly condenses the multiple geographies of colonialism ... so that their contemporary entanglements with the flexings of modern imperial power crackle with intensity. Using September 11 2001 as a political fulcrum, Gregory traces the searing effects of fluid but durable cartographies of violence in the intersecting wars in Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq.”Cindi Katz, Graduate Centre, CityUniversity of New York “Powerfully and persuasively argued. Passionately written. A daring, brilliant analysis … Quite simply the most significant book written by a geographer in some time.”Allan Pred, University of California, Berkeley “The Colonial Present marshals concepts of imaginative geography and insight from the spatialisation of cultural and social theory developed in the past thirty years … An impassioned but theoretically rich critique of the ‘war on terror’ and the wider Zeitgeist that it shapes and embodies … Crucially, the book is a compelling critique of and American Empire … This is a significant book … Vintage Gregory again; enticing and provoking his audience … There is no doubting that The Colonial Present sets both standards and agendas.”Environment and Planning D "The Colonial Present is an important and politiclly engaged book."Area

• List of Figures xiPreface xiiiAcknowledgments xvi1 The Colonial Present 1Foucault’s Laughter 1The Present Tense 52 Architectures of Enmity 17Imaginative Geographies 17“Why do they hate us?” 20September 11 243 “The Land where Red Tulips Grew” 30Great Games 30Uncivil Wars and Transnational Terrorism 36The Sorcerer’s Apprentices 444 “Civilization” and “Barbarism” 47The Visible and the Invisible 47Territorialization, Targets, and Technoculture 49Deadly Messengers 56Spaces of the Exception 62Deconstruction 725 Barbed Boundaries 76America’s Israel 76Diaspora, Dispossession, and Disaster 78Occupation, Coercion, and Colonization 89Compliant Cartographies 95Camp David and Goliath 1026 Defiled Cities 107Ground Zeros 107Besieging Cartographies 117Identities and Oppositions 1387 The Tyranny of Strangers 144“Not as conquerors or enemies . . .” 145Coups and Conflicts 151Desert Storms and Urban Nightmares 1568 Boundless War 180Black September 180Killing Grounds 197The Cutting-Room War 2149 Gravity’s Rainbows 248Connective Dissonance 248The Colonial Present and Cultures of Travel 256Pandora’s Spaces 258Notes 263Guide to Further Reading 352Index 359