September 25 2012:
Chapter 4 Imperialism:
In many areas, imperialism took the form of colonalization by white settler families who
displaced the local people, often violently
Modernizationists does not pay much attention to imperialism
o They implied that conviction that third world societies are “traditional”
Marxists see imperialism as critical to understanding of the third world and its poverty
o They see imperialism as having shattered old class structures
Imperialism created the national boundaries of most third world countries
o Created national languages
o The imperialists brought with them public health measures that lowered morality and
caused the unprecedented population explosion in the third world
A good date for European Imperialism would be the year of 1492, Columbus set out his first
voyage of discovery
History of European imperialism falls under 3 periods:
o 1492-1776 global expansion
The development of ship building led to travel and breaking of isolation
Spanish forced the native Americans into bondage both in agriculture and in the
mines
Portuguese opened the sea route to india
Americans brought black people from Africa to work
o 1776-1870 british dominacnce and the withdrawal of other imperialists
The british withdrew from the centre stage after 1812 because trading was
being able to prosper without the british government control over it. ‘free trade’
helped withdrew control of the trading by british, thus loosening their control
over the colonies
The economic contro of latin America changed as their economy was structured
increasingly to produce primary product exports for the british market such as
beef, sugar, coffe, gold and silver.
The Monroe doctrine 1823 excluded europen colonies from power in America
except for the british
o 1870 – 1914 “new imperialism”
The resurge of European imperialism was known as “new imperialism”
It included Britain, French, Belgian, germans, Italians, Portuguese,
Americans, and Japanese.
Most dramatic event of the new imperialism was the scramble for Africa
Importance of empire in world history:
o Normal way of which political power is exercised
o Sovereign, independence, etc Native Language of the country that is being colonized by the imperialist is changed and
affected.
Control over language leads to the loss of the actual meaning within that language. Translation
can never be accurate
Christiantiy was used by imperialistics.
o Most powerful tool of culture
o Brought an aura of superiority and the sense of mission
o Christianity provided a moral cloak that could mask the destruction wrought by the
imperialists. Eg. Massacres
Why is Ghandi so important?
o Story of Ghandi is a particularly apt one for illustrating the interconnectedness of the
world
o Ghandi learned English doctrine and helped out his fellow men of india by using that of
what he learned
Why do the Khomeini and Khmer Rouge movements stand out?
o They followed their own doctrine and refused the European doctrine.
Imperialists were capitalists
The essence of capitalism is alienation
o The factors of production – land, labour, and capital – are treated in a capitalist system
as commodities to be bought or sold they are not part of a person’s birth right
o Colonies were turned into a vast production system for sugar, cacao, tobacco, wheat,
cotton, meat, fish, juice, coffee, coconuts, rubber, wool, palm oil, rice, bananas, ground
nuts,etc
o Imperialism produced world of economic specialization
Manufacturing in the core of Europe, and agriculture in the third world
countries
Canada developed a technologically advanced, productive modern economy
Why did death rates fall in the twentieth century? What happened to birth rates and standards
of living?
o Imperialists imported cheap public health technology, including the spraying of malarial
swamps with insecticides, the use of vaccines, and antibiotics.
o Birth rates reduced because small families were easier to maintain
o Standard of livings such as health conditions, death rates lowered, etc, because of
economic growth
The world Saw third world children as material and spiritual assets (the more the better)
o Children could be put to work to increase family income
o They could provide security for their parents when old age Chapter 5 Nationalism and independence:
Nationalism for the third world countries represented resistance to outside rulers, pride in ones
own identity, and a program for political self-determination
Imperialism severely damaged, distorted, even destroyed the social structures it encountered
o After imperialists retreated from societies, it could never become traditional again.
Imperialism forced third world into the dominant world system, a system of nations
It is important to distinguish the nationalist program in the third world from the revolutionary
program
o Nationalism occurred almost everywhere, but revolution only in pockets
o The distinction is that the nationalists sought political rights for all the colonized people
o Strength of nationalism was that it was an ideology capable of uniting an oppressed
people, of drawing them together in opposition to their common enemy, the imperialist
oppressor
o If national unity was the strength of the nationalist program, it was also its weakness
Nationalist movements in third world countries focused on the struggle against
the common enemy, but most were unwilling to deal with the ways in which
oppression was exercised with the nation
This would tear apart the unity that was the movements strength, so in
most cases it was avoided
Marx thought that nationalism was a particular manifestation of capitalism
o Nationalist identity, they thought, was foste
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