Science Fiction Research Association Book Award winner
Reverse colonization narratives are stories like H. G. Wells鈥檚 War of the Worlds, in which technologically superior Martians invade and colonize England. They ask Western audiences to imagine what it鈥檚 like to be the colonized rather than the colonizers. David Higgins argues that although some reverse colonization stories are thoughtful and provocative, reverse colonization fantasy has also led to the prevalence of a very dangerous kind of science fictional thinking in our current political culture. It has become popular among groups such as anti-feminists, white supremacists, and far-right reactionaries to appropriate a sense of righteous, anti-imperial victimhood鈥攖he sense that white men, in particular, are somehow colonized victims fighting an insurgent resistance against an oppressive establishment. Nothing could be timelier, as an armed far-right mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an effort to stop the presidential election from being 鈥渟tolen from them.鈥
Higgins shows that this reverse colonization stance depends upon a science fictional logic that achieved dominance within imperial fantasy during the 1960s and has continued to gain momentum ever since. By identifying with fantastic forms of victimhood, subjects who already enjoy social hegemony are able to justify economic inequality, expansions of police and military power, climatological devastation, new articulations of racism, and countless other forms of violence鈥攁ll purportedly in the name of security, self-defense, and self-protection.
鈥Reverse Colonization offers a fascinating look into the process by which such stories are generated and transformed into cultural references and societal roadmaps. . . . a pleasure to read: wide-ranging, informative, and full of twists and ironies.鈥濃Los Angeles Review of Books
鈥淗iggins鈥檚 thoroughly researched, well-grounded analysis of the science fictional roots of 鈥榠mperial masochism鈥 is both timely and persuasive. It should become an important reference for work on Anglophone science fiction after WWII, and on the growth of neoliberal ideology and right-wing conspiracy theory in the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.鈥濃擩ohn Rieder, University of Hawai鈥榠 at M膩noa
鈥淚n reading Reverse Colonization, we discover the staggering extent to which the contemporary American political imagination鈥攐n all sides鈥攈as been furnished by science fiction. Higgins opens an exciting new direction for scholarship in exploring how and why science fiction鈥檚 images and fantasies have been so adaptable and so powerful.鈥濃擲cott Selisker, author, Human Programming: Brainwashing, Automatons, and American Unfreedom
鈥淩everse Colonization covers a vast range of real-world examples, primary text analysis, and critical theory very quickly and efficiently. . . . This pace allows Higgins to make thought-provoking connections and bring together a number of seemingly disparate ideas in order to challenge the reader to question their own modes of reading. It is not a text one would browse quickly, but, instead, one that is meant to be read, pondered, digested, and read again to consider new ideas, connections, or kernels of thought. It is certainly one that I look forward to reading again in the near future.鈥濃Fafnir, Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research
2022 Science Fiction Research Association Book Award
