Settler colonialism and social control

Many would rather change worlds than change the world. The settlement of communities in 'empty lands' somewhere else has often been proposed as a solution to growing contradictions. While the lands were never empty, sometimes these communities failed miserably, and sometimes they prospered and grew until they became entire countries. Building on a growing body of transnational and interdisciplinary research on the political imaginaries of settler colonialism as a specific mode of domination, this book uncovers and critiques an autonomous, influential, and coherent political tradition - a tradition still relevant today. It follows the ideas and the projects (and the failures) of those who left or planned to leave growing and chaotic cities and challenging and confusing new economic circumstances, those who wanted to protect endangered nationalities, and those who intended to pre-empt forthcoming revolutions of all sorts, including civil and social wars. They displaced, and moved to other islands and continents, beyond the settled regions, to rural districts and to secluded suburbs, to communes and intentional communities, and to cyberspace. This book outlines the global history of a resilient political idea: to seek change somewhere else as an alternative to embracing (or resisting) transformation where one is.

"What Veracini terms 'volitional' or 'voluntary' displacement stems from the belief that migration and settlement can head off social unrest. The World Turned Inside Out presents a global history of this phenomenon through wide-ranging and meticulously researched case studies." - Australian Book Review

"Veracini takes his readers on a captivating journey spanning five centuries and six continents in an effort to trace what he believes to be a recurring yet under-analysed historical movement." - Times Higher Education

"The World Turned Inside Out is readable and compelling. It reflects Veracini's enormous intellectual reach across vast timescales and beyond the Anglo-world. The chapters chart settler colonialism's beginnings, its peak and its ends by weaving through some well-known and other remarkably obscure settler projects. The sum of these parts is a worldly, rich and new intellectual history." - Australian Historical Studies