Global History, Latin American Anarchists, and Imperialist Threats in the Post-Great War World
SPEAKER: Kirwin Shaffer, NIAS Fellow and Pennsylvania State University
DISCUSSANT: soon available
DATE: 14 February 2025
TIME: 15:30
ACTIVITY: CEDLA LECTURE
VENUE: Vox-Pop, Binnengasthuisstraat 9, Amsterdam
How did Latin American anarchists interpret and portray world events a hundred years ago? In the years following the Great War (later known as World War I), these anarchists critically analyzed the Treaty of Versailles and the creation of the League of Nations. They condemned the Treaty’s armistice for solely punishing the Central Powers’ aggression while rewarding the Allies, who were neither forced to disarm nor to decolonize. Additionally, they opposed Latin American governments’ pursuit of representation in the League, criticized Socialists and Social Democrats for collaborating with nationalists and capitalists within it, and denounced the League’s International Labor Organization as a feckless capitalist instrument. Yet, anarchists also feared U.S. proposals to establish a rival League for the Americas to advance U.S. neocolonial policies in the hemisphere. In this lecture on a dynamic period in global history (1918–1922), Kirwin Shaffer will discuss how Latin American anarchists conveyed their interpretations of world events to their readers and followers. Analyzing global history from the “”periphery”" (Latin America) and “”bottom-up”" (working-class anarchists) challenges mainstream narratives and provides new insights into the impacts of imperialism on marginalized voices around the world.