The many forms of imperialism have in common an expansionist economic system –capitalist or communist – that claims to have its roots in a universal human nature. They also boast of possessing a wondrous cultural system that is either the inevitable consequence of the triumph of that economic system or one of the preconditions of its emergence. As a system, imperialism is distinct from colonialism by virtue of its more coherent organizational form and its more fully articulated characterization of itself as a missionary project to the world at large. To disguise its essentially rapacious nature, colonialism has been represented in literary, historical, and political discourses as a species of adventure tale, dominated by an ethic of personal heroism that is embedded in a specific national-religious formation.