This coda studies the Indies mentality's demise. When the organization of global space shifted once more under the leadership of a new geopolitical world order, the two Indies ceased to be a compelling framework for organizing knowledge of the world. The chapter locates the swansong of the Indies mentality in the 1870s, the onset of the US systemic cycle. To be sure, the Indies mentality was residual by this time; but it was also still powerful. American desires for geopolitical dominance took shape during Britain's systemic cycle, and they bear the cultural imprint of British hegemony. One of the events that sealed the United States's rise to hegemonic status was the completion of the first transcontinental railroad to the Pacific, which was widely hailed as an American “Passage to India.” The chapter then makes the case for the portability of this book's method, especially in the context of postcolonial studies, where it can be used to reconstruct and reinhabit non-European epistemologies.
Empire’s Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad (Book Review)