| Summary/Abstract |
During 1935, a transnational social movement coalesced to protest the Italian Fascist régime’s escalating threats to invade Ethiopia. Although the global antiwar movement failed to prevent war, it did, day by day through diffuse acts, transform the dynamics of global politics. Using a repertoire of informal political practices, including mass meetings, street fights, riots, and strikes, the movement enabled common people to directly assert themselves on a question of international affairs. This article makes the case for recognizing the Hands Off Ethiopia campaign as a critical turning point in the making of a twentieth-century global left, with effects on international history that continued into World War II and lasted through the postwar era of decolonization. Conceptually, “Local People’s Global Politics” recommends that transnational history attend to the flow of ideas and power between spatial scopes such as the local and the global.
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