“The Case For Colonialism:” What DEI Gets WRONG | Peter Boghossian & Bruce Gilley

Bruce Gilley is a professor of political science at Portland State University. Bruce wrote an article in 2017 for Third World Quarterly titled, “The case for colonialism.” This enraged people who called for him to lose his academic position and be stripped of his PhD. The article was retracted due to credible death threats. In 2023, he published a book by the same name.

Before his academic career, Bruce worked as a journalist in Hong Kong. This experience strongly influenced his views about colonialism. In 2021, we produced a series on my channel called, “Decolonize Explained” where Bruce debunks the myths around colonization.

In this conversation, Bruce and I spoke about the Harvard plagiarism scandal, DEI, and the broader academic landscape. Then, we switched the topic to his book, “The Case For Colonialism.” We discussed the reality of colonialism and what history gets wrong, as well as what may have occurred absent colonialism. The conversation concludes with a discussion about what is next for Bruce’s career.

Guest essay by Bruce on Peter’s Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/boghossian/p/decolonize-explained-what-is-colonization?r=pnpqs&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Bruce’s series on Peter’s channel: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYNjnJFU-62s9Bjl6DrQ-1s7yB2UgFFNb&si=wDGmM_zyJK5UkHIk

Bruce’s research and book, “The Case For Colonialism”: https://web.pdx.edu/~gilleyb/

Bruce on X: https://twitter.com/BruceDGilley

Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:25 Harvard plagiarism scandal
15:45 Peter’s DEI prediction & Bruce’s interpretation
26:00 Bruce’s predictions of academic landscape
34:00 Backlash for Bruce’s book
52:30 The Case For Colonialism
1:03:45 Alternative to Colonialism
1:15:20 Why read Bruce’s book
1:19:20 What’s next for Bruce

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Podcast: "Conversations with Peter Boghossian": https://pod.link/1650150225
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⸺BOOKS⸺
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“A Manual For Creating Atheists” | https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1664805100&sr=1-2

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