ABSTRACT
Such dramatic shifts in the global balance of power and in economic and cultural patterns called for explanations and analyses. In this part of the reader, students will find arguments in favor of imperialism and colonialism. The texts and images are drawn primarily from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem, “The White Man’s Burden,” is perhaps the classic statement on the subject of western involvement in the affairs of Asian and African people. The work and ideas of Herbert Spencer, a wellknown social Darwinist, also contributed to pro-imperialist sentiment at the turn of the nineteenth century. These famous writings were, however, but a small sample of the range and style of arguments in favor of the new colonialism. Commentators from around the world and from a wide variety of perspectives attempted to justify or explain the dramatic changes in global politics, economics, and culture. Some of these explanations, like that of Karl Marx (a surprising supporter of British colonial policy in India), were primarily economic in character and focused on patterns of world development. Students should keep in mind, of course, that thinkers as dynamic as Spencer, Kipling, and Marx wrote on a wide variety of topics. Although they are grouped here in a section entitled “The Imperialists,” they represented a very wide spectrum of opinion and perspective. They would have made strange bedfellows indeed if one could have brought them all together. Moreover, someone like Marx, while explaining and advocating for British overseas action in India, would probably chafe at the label “imperialist” applied to him.
