Paul Gilroy's book Postcolonial Melancholia sounds interesting - check out this review at the site Boston Review . From the review: "Paul Gilroy’s Postcolonial Melancholia is a deeply engaging exploration of this question. The book, Gilroy’s most recent assault on both racism and the concept of race, examines Britain’s urban centers to extend the cosmopolitan anti-race project he began in his influential books, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack and Against Race. Here, Gilroy applies the Freudian concept of melancholia, as it was adapted by German social psychologists to explain Germany’s postwar reactions to its “loss of a fantasy of omnipotence.” He argues that, while Britain attempts to deny the contemporary effects of its imperialist past, it has effectively reaffirmed the colonial order, with its racial divisions, through the post-9/11 “politics of security.” At the same time, this reaffirmation neglects the spontaneous and vibrant multiculturalism that has emerged i...