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Some Problems in Redefining European Expansion as a Historical Discipline: Taking Stock
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2010
Extract
If historians nowadays still talk of “colonial history” they do so because they are at a loss for an adequate term which would express the new quality this discipline has assumed in the course of decolonization. Rudolf von Albertini has edited a volume which presents a number of articles relevant to this problem. In his introduction he emphasizes the departure from the traditional view of overseas empire-building in which only the creative genius of European colonial powers was considered of historical interest — amidst a comparatively static scenery of exotic opacity. He draws attention to the ever growing shift towards a history of the peoples of the Third World which — whether of national or more regional orientation — shows an increasing concern for questions of social and economic history and draws on the latest findings of social and cultural anthropology, thus limiting Europe's role overseas in a decisive way. European worlddominance, once an epoch—making phenomenon, is reduced to a short—term period of alien rule over the majority of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Albertini takes account of this change, not only in the selection of the contributions to his volume, but its title reflects this change as well: it is a “new colonial history” that he presents, and Albertini gives us to understand that by this he is not concerned with the periodization of colonial history, but rather with the new approaches in this field since the end of the Second World War.
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- The Great Debate
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- Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1983
References
Notes
1. von Albertini, Rudolf (Ed.): Moderne Kolonialgeschichte, (Köln and Berlin, 1970).Google Scholar (Weue Wissenschaftliche Bibliothek Vol. 39). Special reference is made here to the introduction on pp. 11–13. Ego—, or if you like: eurocentricity is, however, not characteristic for all the academic activities during the age of imperialism, not even in the arts faculties; European philology and anthropology, in particular, contributed a lot to the study of non-European cultures in those days.
2. The following volumes have been published so far by the Leiden Centre presenting the results of the colloquia held there:
Wesseling, H. L. (ed.): Expansion and Reaction: Essays on European Expansion and Reactions in Asia and Africa (Leiden, 1978) (Comparative Studies in Overseas History, Vol. 1);CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emmer, P. C. and Wesseling, H. L. (eds.): Reappraisals in Overseas History. Essays on Post-War Historiography about European Expansion (Leiden, 1979) (Comparative Studies in Overseas History, Vol. 2);CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blusse, L. and Gaastra, F. (eds.): Companies and Trade. Essays on Overseas Trading Companies during the Ancien Regime (Leiden, 1981) (Comparative Studies in Overseas History, Vol. 3);Google Scholar
Ross, R. (ed.): Racism and Colonialism. Essays on the Ideology and Social Structure (The Hague, 1982) (Comparative Studies in Overseas History, Vol. 4).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
As an additional volume has been published: Blusse, L., Wesseling, H. L. and Winius, G. D. (eds.): History and Underdevelopment/Histoire et Sous-Developpement: Essays Vnderdevelopment and European Expansion in Asia and Africa (Leiden, 1980).Google Scholar
3. Apart from the relevant studies in English and French essays on the colonial expansion of the remaining European powers have been included here as well.
4. Reappraisals in Overseas History, pp. 3–4.
5. Ibid. pp. 4–5.
6. Roon, Ger van: Europa und die Dritte Welt: Die Geschichte ihrer Beziehungen vom Beginn der Kolonialzeit bis zur Gegenwart (München, 1978).Google Scholar
7. See the standard work by Lantzeff, George V. and Pierce, Richard A.: Eastward to Empire. Exploration and Conquest of the Russian Open Frontier, to 1750 (Montreal and London, 1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8. See, for example, the essay by Schulin, Ernst: “Die vorindustrielle Epoche der europäischen Expansion. Einige Überlegungen zur Kolonialgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit” in: Historia Integra. Festschrift fur Erich Hassiger zum 70. Geburtstag, edited by Fenske, H., Reinhard, W. and Schulin, E. (Berlin, 1977), pp. 81–96.Google Scholar It is true that Schulin's verdict on the theoretical poverty of research done on the history of European expansion in early-modern times has explicit reference to German historiography only; however, the approaches of non-German scholars that he presents seem to render such a limitation a bit too harsh.
9. See the contributions by Meyer, Alfred G. “Lenins Imperialismustheorie” in: Wehler, Hans-Ulrich (ed.), Imperialismus, 2nd edition (Köln, 1972) pp. 123–154Google Scholar and Schroder, Hans-Christoph: Sozialistische Imperialismasdeutung. Studien zu ihrer Geschichte (Gottingen, 1973), esp. pp. 86–98Google Scholar.
10. Thus the battle-cry of the Communist Manifesto “Proletarier aller Lander, vereinigt euch” was extended to “Proletarier aller Länder und unterdrückte Völker, vereinigt euch” during the Second Congress of the Communist International.
11. The latest state in the debate on imperialism is outlined in Mommsen, Wolfgang J., Imperialismustheorien. Einüberblick tiber die neueren Imperialismusinterpretationen (Göttingen, 1980).Google Scholar
12. Rohe, for example, refers to the novel conditions and incentives for colonial expansion which modern industrial society created and to a different ideological context in which expansion took place. See Rohe, Karl: “Ursache und Bedingungen des modernen britischen Imperialismus vor 1914”, in: Mommsen, Wolfgang J. (ed.): Der moderne Imperialismus (Stuttgart/Berlin/Koln/Mainz, 1971), p. 60.Google Scholar
An illustration for Rohe's caveat that a periodization based on the historical connexion between industrialization and (imperialist) expansion is, to a certain degree, arbitrary, is provided by Van Roon in an exemplary manner. An intense interference by governments with the course of expansion and drastic consequences for the population of the dependent territories which, in order to justify the turning-point thesis, he claims to be specifically imperialistic, can, no doubt, also be demonstrated for the history of expansion in early-modern times; even the quest for new markets and for sources of raw materials, the standard arguments for a specifically imperialistic drive for expansion, advanced by van Roon in the first place — even these objectives were not unfamiliar to both the theorists and the men of action of colonial mercantilism (See Roon, G. van, Europa und die Dritte Welt, p. 9).Google Scholar
13. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System. Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York, San Francisco and London, 1974). An exposition of his research strategy is presented by Wallerstein inGoogle ScholarWallerstein, I. and Hopkins, T. K., “Patterns of Development of the Modern-World-System; Research Proposals”, in: Review 1/2 (1977), pp. 111–145Google Scholar.
14. Gallagher, John and Robinson, Ronald, “The Imperialism of Free Trade”. In: The Economic History Review, 2nd series 6 (1953), pp. 1–15;CrossRefGoogle Scholar a summary of the discussion on the thesis of free trade imperialism is given by Louis, W. R. (ed.) The Robinson and Gallagher Controversy (New York, 1976).Google Scholar
That a certain scholarly urge to illustrate such a handy formula like “development of underdevelopment” might at times prevail over the critical distance that is required is shown by Bairoch: in his discussion on the question of a pre-imperialistic differential in the development of Europe and the Third World to come he points out that, around 1700 the degree of urbanization in Latin America was higher than in Europe. See Bairoch, Paul, “Le bilan economique du colonialisme: mythes et realites” in: , Blusse et al (eds.), History and Underdevelopment, p. 33.Google Scholar Indeed the pace of urbanization is a prominent feature of Spanish colonial history!
16. A recent example for the direction envisaged is Bitterli, Urs: Die “Wilden” und die “Zivilisierten”. Grundziige einer Geistes— und Kulturgeschichte der europäisch-uberseeischen Begegnung (Munchen, 1976).Google Scholar
17. See, for example, Senghaas, Dieter (ed.): Peripherer Kapitalismus. Analysen iiber Abhangigkeit und Unterentwicklung (Frankfurt a.M., 1977).Google Scholar