The White Man’s Burden 10/08/2007 16:40:00

The White Man’s Burden, 1899

• The Burden of being an imperialist power
• For the American public after the take over of the Philippines and
“liberated” them
• The people are not going to be grateful for being liberated
• They would rather stay in the darkness, rather than toward the light
of civilization
Tony Blair’s Speech to Congress, 17 July 2003
• Gave a speech about the war in Iraq and the role of the U.S. and
Britain, along with the environment and other things
• He calls on the imperial legacy of England
•

This is a new class.

the rise of western Europe

• Reformation
• The expansion of trade and capitalism within Europe itself
• the emergence of the new science. Sir Frances bacon, Newton,
scientific revolution
• enlightenment

the modern period

• industrialization
• rise of nationalism
• emergence of gender and racial ideologies
• world war I, world war II
• decolonization
o first war of decolonization, the American revolution
By 1914, 84% of the world was under the power of western world

About movement.
• People are going places
• they might discover new people, new plans
• the Europeans were great explorers
• a better term is encounter
• interconnection
o is not just a one time encounter, usually the first ship is
followed by more expeditions and people
o metropole (like the mother country)
o the metropole usually sends more people
• as all of this takes place, we have impact
o what is the impact of having an empire, along with the change
to the areas that are “discovered”
Second big theme: is Power
• Imperialism is about power
o Is about exploitation
o extending your power to benefit yourself
 the colonized places might be benefiting as well, but is
unequal
o the essence of empire is the accountable power
• resistance is a big part of power
o slave 22rebellions
• if we have power on one end and resistance on the other end, we
have a fuzzy middle that is where the resistance can take the upper
hand over time

Critique
• internal critiques about empires
 o they thought they could have better empires, not that they
shouldn’t have an empire
• external critiques
o they feel empires are always a bad thing and should be
avoided at all costs

Ideologies
• Darwinism
• nationalism
o patriotism
• democracy
• system of values or ideas
o that condition people to act in certain ways
o that allows you to justify your actions
o inform the way they conceptualize the world
• What is the relationship between cosmopolitanism and imperialism
o A good thing to be a cosmopolitan
 You embrace differences, tolerate change
• Capitalism
• Marxism
• Catholicism
• Protestantism
• restlessness
o the urge to discover, curiosity

Three main themes

• movement, power, ideology
o to see how they interconnect
o they are going to allows to engage in thoughtful conversation
Going over the syllabus
10/08/2007 16:40:00
10/08/2007 16:40:00