The Latin Quarter and the Third World - Global Urban History (original) (raw)

Between the two World Wars, imperial centers such as London or Paris became bridgeheads for the spread of nationalism throughout the colonial world. As I argue in my recent book about Paris as an Anti-Imperial Metropolis , migration to European cities politicized many labor migrants, students, and exiles from Africa and Asia because it rendered more palpable the rights differentials that lay at the heart of imperialism. The spatial microconcentration of places in Paris's cityscape where the paths of young men from very different countries intersected further intensified this effect. Thus, the later Ho Chi Minh frequented specific Parisian venues, where he met Malagasies and Antilleans, with whom he then founded a communist-sponsored political organization that churned out some of the major anticolonialists of Asia and Africa.