The League Against Imperialism

The League Against Imperialism: Lives and Afterlives explores the dramatic and engaging story of a global institution that brought together activists across geographical and political borders for the goal of eradicating colonial rule worldwide. The League against Imperialism attracted anticolonial activists like India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, Indonesia’s Sukarno, and Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta, as well as prominent figures like Albert Einstein, Ernst Toller, Romain Rolland, Upton Sinclair, Mohandas Gandhi, and Madame Sun Yat-Sen. This volume is the first to capture the global history of the LAI by bringing together contributions by scholars researching the movement from various regions, languages, and archives. Told primarily from the perspectives of those on the peripheries of empires, the volume argues that interwar anti-imperialism was central to the story of transnational activism during the interwar years and remained an inspiration for many who took on leadership roles during decolonization across the global south.

Michele Louro is Associate Professor at Salem State University. Her research focuses on the historical interplay between South Asia and the wider world. She has published widely on India and the intewar internationalism including her recent book, Comrades against Imperialism: Nehru, India, and Interwar Internationalism (Cambridge, 2018).

Carolien Stolte is an Assistant Professor at Leiden University. As a global historian with a focus on South Asia, she has published widely on the political and intellectual history of regionalist thought in India. In addition, she is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Itinerario and co-directs the Afro-Asian Networks Research Collective.

Heather Streets-Salter is Professor and Director of World History Programs at Northeastern University. Her work explores imperialism and colonialism as global phenomena. Recent publications include World War One in Southeast Asia: Colonialism and Anticolonialism in an Era of Global Conflict (Cambridge, 2017), and Empires and Colonies in the Modern World (Oxford, 2015), with Trevor Getz.

Sana Tannoury-Karam is an Early Career Fellow at the Arab Council for the Social Sciences and a lecturer at the Lebanese American University. Her most recent article “This War is Our War: Antifascism Among Lebanese Leftist Intellectuals” was published in the Journal of World History.