Week Nine: Chapter Eighteen Summary

Industry & Empire
-Industrial Revolution's productivity of technology & Europe's growing affluence created need for lots of raw materials & agricultural products

• need to sell its own products
• investors found it profitable to invest their money abroad
• social benefits in foreign markets

-Imperialism promised to solve class conflicts while avoiding revolutions or serious redistribution of wealth

• mass nationalism -> competitive international relations
• appeared on economic & social grounds/politically & strategically necessary in international power politics
• overseas expansion more desirable [Suez Canal]

-I.R. changed the way they viewed themselves & others

• Euros thought they were the best/powerful -> opinions of other culture dropped
• Chinese: highly praised -> weak, cunning, conservative, distinct threat
• Africans: nations & kings -> tribes led by chief to emphasize "primitive" qualities
• used modern science [largest skulls] declared Euros more advanced
• hierarchy of race
• Euros had responsibility to civilize "inferior races"
• Misapplied "social Darwinism"

A Second Wave of European Conquests

-focused in Asia & Africa/new players: Germany, Belgium, US, Japan

-Euros had military & firepower advantage [Maxim guns] & won

• virtually everyone in large/complex civilizations of India & Southeast Asia lost political sovereignty, freedom of action, became subjects of Euro. colonial state

-"Scramble for Africa"

• Euro. powers fought one another in only 25yrs
• lots of negotiations & bloody military action
• French: W. Africa (16yrs/village-by-village); British: S. Africa (Boer War against Zulu)
• South Pacific (Australia & New Zealand) conquered by large settlement & diseases -> reduced natives ->became "neo-European"

-U.S. policy of removing Natives to "reservations" = "civilize" & eradicate tribal life & culture

-Ethiopia & Siam(Thailand) avoided colonization

• Ethiopia expanded empire/defeat Italy in Battle of Adowa

-countries sought to enlist Euros. w/ own struggles for power, play off imperial powers against one another, used military action, fight v. futile, negotiated for some independence

Under European Rule

Cooperation & Rebellion

-men found employment, status, & security in Euro. armed forces

• elite family members retained status & wealth

-Euro. education member served colonial state, businesses, teachers, etc./higher education became lawyers, doctors, etc. -> depended class at the expense of the more traditional elites

-Indian Rebellion(1857-1858): military cartridge smeared w/ cow & pig fate angered Muslim & Hindus to believe a plot to render them defiled & to convert to Christianity

• a mutiny among Indian troops in Bengal triggered the rebellion -> spread to other regions of the colony and other social groups
• some rebel leaders said it was an effort to revive an almost-vanished Mughal Empire
• mad British more conservative & cautious about changing Indian society
• convinced to assume direct control over India, ending the era of British East India Company rule in the subcontinent

Colonial Empires with a Difference
-"scientific racism": prominence of race in distinguishing rulers and ruled, Europe coincided with the acquisition of Asian & African colonies
-science & literary studies were inappropriate for the "primitive mind" of "natives"

• Euros. didn't want even the highest ranks of Asians or Africans

-South Africa: large population of Euros. and Africans = racial fears -> efforts to establish race as a legal feature of S.A. society

• separate "homelands", education, public facilities, etc. = apartheid
• wanted economy based off cheap labor w/o African social & political integration

-colonial states were able to penetrate the societies they governed

-Euros. now also created very different way of life, from their own modern transformations

-collect info. on people, "scientifically" organize it, & use to manage societies they governed

• India: British found caste system -> invented a Brahmin version of "traditional India'" that they wanted preserve/scorning "non-Indian" (new elite) educated in Euro. schools & enthusiastic about western ways of life"
• Africa: "tribal Africa"-Euros. identified and/or invented distinct tribes w/ own language, territory, customs, & chief -> made African societies more manageable

-gender ideology & race prejudice

• native men were "feminine", guarded Eur. women, took some men from tribes who were "masculine" -> in British military

-Euros. policies contradicted their own core values & their practices at home

• colonies were essentially dictatorships
• empires were at odds of Euro. national independence
• ranked racial classifications were against Christian/Enlightenment's human equality

-"detribalization" would encourage unrest and challenge colonial rule

• preferred "traditional" rural society w/ abuses of slavery & sati (widow burning)