The present imperium

Abstract

The author reflects on current trends to explore the historical record of the injustices of colonial racism and slavery, and raises the question of whether this changed mood of regret over the past bears any relation to, or significance for, the ongoing depredations visited on the most impoverished of the world today. For these still appear largely invisible. In the process, he encompasses the growing threat of catastrophic global warming and environmental disaster – and some of the movements struggling against this. He excoriates a global system of continuous economic expansion whereby the poor have become a little less poor as the rich have become abusively, unimaginably richer.