The Empires' Edge: Militarization, Resistance, and Transcending Hegemony in the Pacific (Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation Ser.) - Softcover

Davis, Sasha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0820347353 ISBN 13: 9780820347356

Publisher: University of Georgia Press, 2015

Synopsis

In the past decade the Asia-Pacific region has become a focus of international politics and military strategies. Due to China’s rising economic and military strength, North Korea’s nuclear tests and missile launches, tense international disputes over small island groups in the seas around Asia, and the United States pivoting a majority of its military forces to the region, the islands of the western Pacific have increasingly become the center of global attention. While the Pacific is a current hotbed of geopolitical rivalry and intense militarization, the region is also something else: a homeland to the hundreds of millions of people that inhabit it.

Based on a decade of research in the region, The Empires’ Edge examines the tremendous damage the militarization of the Pacific has wrought on its people and environments. Furthermore, Davis details how contemporary social movements in this region are affecting global geopolitics by challenging the military use of Pacific islands and by developing a demilitarized view of security based on affinity, mutual aid, and international solidarity. Through an examination of “sacrificed” islands from across the region―including Bikini Atoll, Okinawa, Hawai‘i, and Guam―The Empires’ Edge makes the case that the great political contest of the twenty-first century is not about which country gets hegemony in a global system but rather about the choice between perpetuating a system of international relations based on domination or pursuing a more egalitarian and cooperative future.

About this title

Book Description:

Social movements confronting military power in the Asia-Pacific region

About the Author:

SASHA DAVIS is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Hawaii-Hilo.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0820347353
• ISBN 13: 9780820347356
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176