ABSTRACT
A rough distinction may be drawn between growth, due primarily to internal evolution and ferment, and change, which may come about most often through external intrusion; and the deepest alterations may be supposed to have come about through a convergence of the two factors, a phenomenon extremely rare in the history of both modern and older forms of imperialism. Modern colonialism entered a new phase after the great events of the later eighteenth century: the Industrial Revolution and American and French Revolutions. The West could admire itself at times as a revolutionizer of comatose communities; but Mark Twain’s Yankee in ancient Britain and a Yankee of Twain’s own time in the Philippines were very different personages. With Mao, Marxism learned to appeal to the peasantry as the potential battering ram of revolution. Experience has yet to show whether this could in the long run give socialism a permanent base.
