The History and Politics of Star Wars: Death Stars and Democracy
This book provides the first detailed and comprehensive examination of all the materials making up the Star Wars franchise relating to the portrayal and representation of real-world history and politics.
Drawing on a variety of sources, including films, published interviews with directors and actors, novels, comics, and computer games, this volume explores the ways in which historical and contemporary events have been repurposed within Star Wars. It focuses on key themes such as fascism and the Galactic Empire, the failures of democracy, the portrayal of warfare, the morality of the Jedi, and the representations of sex, gender, and race. Through these themes, this study highlights the impacts of the fall of the Soviet Union, the War on Terror, and the failures of the United Nations upon the ‘galaxy far, far away’. By analysing and understanding these events and their portrayal within Star Wars, it shows how the most popular media franchise in existence aims to speak about wider contemporary events and issues.
The History and Politics of Star Wars is useful for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars of a variety of disciplines such as transmedia studies, science fiction, cultural studies, and world history and politics in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Author: Chris Kempshall
Publisher: Routledge
Publication date: August 11, 2022
Print length: 252 pages
ISBN: 9781032318875
For anyone who believes Star Wars is merely a glorious space adventure or an on-screen spectacle, Chris Kempshall’s The History and Politics of Star Wars: Death Stars and Democracy is the definitive counter-argument. As a public historian with a PhD specializing in the transnational experience of warfare, Kempshall is uniquely qualified to explore the franchise’s deeper political parallels. He brings in the rigor of a professional historian to the subject, making this independent study a fascinating exploration of how fictional conflicts mirror our own reality.
This book serves as a vital exploration of how fictional conflicts mirror our own reality, and it is a testament to his expertise that this very work helped launch his career as a writer of official Star Wars titles. Since its release, he has gone on to write Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire, which is one of my personal favorites among the in-universe books. Beyond that, he has contributed to Star Wars Insider and Star Wars Battles that Changed the Galaxy, and we are currently looking forward to his upcoming work, Star Wars: Star Pilots.
The History and Politics of Star Wars opens by reminding us that George Lucas was never just making a movie; he was translating wider, real-world themes—specifically his anxieties regarding the Vietnam War—into a narrative that speaks to audiences on a profound level. As Lucas himself once noted, “The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film—whether it’s history, psychology, economics, or architecture—so you have something to make a movie about”. Kempshall takes this philosophy to heart, meticulously peeling back the layers of the franchise to analyze how these real-world events have been repurposed. The scope of his work is vast, tracing a timeline through the rise of totalitarianism, the failures of democracy, the depiction of warfare, the complicated morality of the Jedi, and the exclusion of the “other”, addressing themes that have been fundamental for Star Wars straight from the beginning.
For me personally, this book feels like a validation of my own relationship with the saga. I have always claimed that the prequels and The Clone Wars were largely what sparked my own political awareness during my teenage years, and Kempshall’s analysis proves that Star Wars has always been a vehicle for profound messages. Whether it is resisting tyranny, questioning authority, or identifying the traits of fascism or the roots of political propaganda, the book offers a deep, scholarly, yet accessible analysis of these concepts.
Kempshall gives equal weight to material often overlooked by other scholars, including the rich history of the Expanded Universe, now known as the Legends continuity. Readers who grew up with these stories will find fresh outlooks on old favorites, such as the connection the Yuuzhan Vong invasion had to real-world geopolitical shifts like 9/11. Whether he is discussing the War on Terror or the fall of the Soviet Union, Kempshall connects the pillars of Star Wars to these events with clarity and nuance. It is an essential companion piece for anyone who has ever wondered exactly what real-world events underpin the Empire and the Rebellion. For fans and students of sociology, film studies, and international relations alike, this is a tremendous, highly recommended achievement that deserves a permanent spot on every bookshelf.
For further reading, I’d also recommend the 2012 book Star Wars and History by Nancy Reagin and Janice Liedl.