Dreamworlds of Race

"Winner of the TSA/CUP Book Prize, Transatlantic Studies Association and Cambridge University Press"
"Shortlisted for the BISA Susan Strange Best Book Prize, British International Studies Association"
"One of Foreign Affairs' Best Books"
"Largely forgotten today, however, is that era of history when there occurred not only a 'Great Rapprochement' between the two nations but also debates about the possibility of reuniting the 'Republic and the Empire' on the basis of a shared Anglo-Saxon racial destiny. . . . Duncan Bell’s remarkable book Dreamworlds of Race brings that history to light with both scholarly rigor and narrative flair."---Bassam Sidiki, Los Angeles Review of Books
"In the United Kingdom and the United States in the late nineteenth century, a multitude of thinkers advanced new and often startling visions of the future of the global order. In this masterly book, Bell explores the ideas of some of the most intriguing figures of this era, illuminating their dreams of a world-dominating Anglo-American political community united by race and empire. This is intellectual history at its best."---G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs
"Dreamworlds of Race is a powerful and profound statement that provides a definitive intellectual history of imperial era thought and deftly demonstrates its inseparability from liberalism and racial and cultural hierarchy. For students of history, politics, international relations, and even literature, its interdisciplinary appeal should make it essential reading. Ranging in widely in scope, and written with elegance and aplomb, the work is a distinguished and indispensable contribution to our understanding of how geo-political fear and ambition rested on highly racialized conceptions of nation and empire."---Robert Singh, Ethnic & Racial Studies
"Dreamworlds of Race deserves to be read by a wide audience. It is an excellent work drawing together numerous strands of Anglo-American imaginations and revealing the tensions and hopes pinned on utopian racial thinking."---James Watts, Journal of Victorian Culture
"A hugely impressive, and topic defining, achievement. . . . The larger portrait Bell paints is not only fascinating and important, it provides an illuminating context for Wells’s thought and art."---Adam Roberts, The Wellsian
"An engaging read . . . . Bell is admirably well-read and manages to guide the reader through a myriad of different theories, thinkers and writings."---Christian K. Melby, Nations and Nationalism
"Dreamworlds is a highly-topical window into these complex, often (self) contradictory visions of Anglo-America that build on race, power, and propaganda. . . . Bell’s opus is as much a necessary read for those seeking to better comprehend the world order reimaginings in the period . . . as British PM Boris Johnson’s contemporary ‘Global Britain’."---Stephanie Prévost, European Review of International Studies
"It would be a fool’s errand to try to convey the book’s richness and detail.—Inder S. Marwah, Review of Politics"
"Dreamworlds of Race is a thoughtful, creative, and compelling work. Bell is a careful intellectual historian with an admirable appreciation for nuance, yet he is not afraid to reach boldly in unexpected places for evidence."---Daniel Immerwahr, Diplomatic History
"Duncan Bell’s Dreamworlds of Race is a timely intervention in the field of imperial and international thought."---Georgios Giannakopoulos, H-Diplo
"Rich in its excavation of printed primary sources and several personal archives, [Dreamworlds of Race] casts the discourse of Anglo-America in an original and critical light. . . . [A]n invaluable resource."---Amanda Behm, H-Diplo
"Dreamworlds of Race deserves to be read not only by intellectual historians but also by those who are interested in the role of ideas in world politics."---Ryoko Nakano, H-Diplo
"Ambitious and wide-ranging. . . . Dreamworlds of Race remains an incredibly thought-provoking work which is of great value to scholars of race and empire at the turn of the twentieth century. It deepens our conceptual understanding of Anglo-American relations and provides rich detail as to how thinkers of the late Victorian era conceptualised white identity."---Neil Suchak, H-Diplo
"Enormously erudite, admirably tracing the sources and major eddies of the poignant river of Anglo-American unity together with its many impressive contributing streams and rivulets. No mere review essay can do justice to the learning that it encompasses. No relevant writer or thinker of the time in the Anglophone world escapes Bell’s notice."---Robert I. Rotberg, Journal of Interdisciplinary History