They Called It Peace: Worlds of imperial violence - Lauren Benton

Imperial conquest and colonisation depended on pervasive raiding, slaving and plunder. European empires amassed global power by asserting a right to use unilateral force at their discretion. Historian Lauren Benton, author of They Called It Peace, offers a panoramic history of how these routines of violence remapped the contours of empire and reordered the world from the 15th to the 20th centuries. In an account spanning from Asia to the Americas, Lauren will show how imperial violence redefined the very nature of war and peace. Instead of preparing lasting peace, fragile truces ensured an easy return to war. Serial conflicts and armed interventions projected a de facto state of perpetual war across the globe. Join Lauren as she brings vividly to life a world in which warmongers portrayed themselves as peacemakers and Europeans imagined ‘small’ violence as essential to imperial rule and global order. Holding vital lessons for us today, she will reveal how the imperial violence of the past has made perpetual war and the threat of atrocity endemic features of the international order.