ABSTRACT
The emotionally connected concepts of national and racial superiority were the hallmarks of twentieth-century tribalism in pursuit of power. Burgeoning nationalist ambitions set off racial displacements, pogroms and genocides. Imperial competition among rival nations was directed against each other’s colonial properties or fracturing empires in a 31-year conflagration of war and racial genocides. The outcome of World War I was inconclusive. Decolonization opportunities allowed President Woodrow Wilson to set idealistic ambitions at Versailles and for the future that could not be achieved. The United States extended the power of its capital, maintained its racist practices and enlarged its traditional global ambitions. Economic depression and the threat of communism after the success of the Russian Revolution brought forth reactionary demagogues in Italy and Germany and allowed a fascist takeover in Spain. Japanese militarism sought to fulfill its colonial ambitions in Asia. No tyranny or racial depredation was unacceptable to U.S. or European national or colonial statecraft. Germany’s intrusion into French and British capital interests finally took them to war as Japan’s risky attack on Pearl Harbor brought in the United States. No major national power was without a racially subjugated population.
