The American West and the Nazi East : A Comparative and Interpretive Perspective

By employing new 'optics' and a comparative approach, this book helps us recognize the unexpected and unsettling connections between the US government's expansion into America's 'western' empire and Nazi Germany's expansion to their 'eastern' empire.This book links histories previously thought of as totally unrelated and leads readers towards a deep revisioning of the 'American West' and the 'Nazi East'. By employing new 'optics' and a comparative approach, this book helps us recognize the unexpected and unsettling connections between America's 'western' empire and Nazi Germany's 'eastern' empire, linking histories previously thought of as totally unrelated and leading readers towards a deep revisioning of the 'American West' and the 'Nazi East'. The American West and the Nazi East is a unique exploration of the conceptual and historical relations between the Early American and Nazi-German national projects of territorial expansion, racial cleansing, and settler colonization in their respective 'western' and 'eastern' empires, along with their associated campaigns of extreme political violence against 'native' indigenous peoples. Kakel locates the Early American national project in 'the West' as a central part of the histories of imperialism, colonialism, and genocide, and offers a unique window on to the colonial origins, content, and context of the Nazi national project in 'the East', including the Holocaust. By asking new questions of supposedly familiar historical events and periods, this book brings to light the unexpected and unsettling connections between the 'American West' and the 'Nazi East', and links histories previously thought of as totally unrelated Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction....Pages 1-9 Front Matter....Pages 11-14 Empire: National Projects of ‘Space’ and ‘Race’....Pages 15-45 Racial ‘Othering’: ‘Manufacturing Difference’....Pages 46-76 Front Matter....Pages 77-80 Conquest and Expansion: ‘Obtaining’ New ‘Living Space’....Pages 81-111 Colonization: ‘Peopling’ the Empire....Pages 112-142 ‘Out-Group’ Policy: ‘Eliminating’ the ‘Natives’....Pages 143-173 Front Matter....Pages 175-178 War and Genocide: ‘Cleansing’ the Lebensraum ....Pages 179-211 Conclusion....Pages 212-218 Back Matter....Pages 219-306