Cultural Theory and the Age of Imperialism
Jun 25, 2015
Cultural Theory and the Age of Imperialism
Introduction
• Changing Social Ideas/Theories– Maturation
• Political Military Economic Power
• Marketplace• Desire for Resources• End Result Colonial
Imperialism
• Intellectual Currents reflected Social Development– Realism– Naturalism– Positivism
Marx
• Karl Marx 1818-1883– Communist Manifesto– Social Theories– Cause of Revolutions of 1848?– Das Kapital– Marx’s Efforts Failed
• International Working Men’s Association Reformed in 1889
Karl Marx 1818 -1883
Darwinism
• Charles Darwin 1809-1882– Radically Alters
Conception of Time and Biological Life
– Natural Selection• Origin of Species
(1859)• Decent of Man (1871)
– Darwinism and Christianity
Scopes Monkey Trial
• Social Darwinism– Extension of Darwin’s Theory to Society– Herbert Spencer– Link w/ Racism– Buttressed imperialism, racism, nationalism,
and militarism• Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic Superiority
• Racial Nationalism– Volkish Thought-
Germany– Uses of History and
Race• Frederick Nietzsche
“God is Dead” “I teach you the Superman”
• Anti-Semitism– France -Edourd Drumont Journalist– Austria-Karl Lueger
• Christian Socialist Party
– Germany-fears of “World Conspiracy”– Russia-expels 20,000 Jews from Moscow– 19th Century Anti-Semitism Different
• No Longer Just Religious
• Theodor Hertzl The Jewish State (1896)
Dreyfus Affair
New Imperialism
• Causes– Vs Colonialism– Second Industrial Revolution
• Economic Motives Inseparable from National
– Missionaries-Good Works• Raise those Who Can Not Raise Themselves
– Desire for Adventure and Exploration
• Responses– Violent– Ideological– Nationalistic Resistance
• British India– Sepoy Mutiny 1857– Limited positive affects
• China– Boxer Rebellion
ChinaBoxer Rebellion
• “Carving up the Chinese melon.“
• Japan defeats China 1895
• The Righteous and Harmonious Fists
• Boxer Protocol of 1901• Humiliating
Terms
• Scramble for Africa– European Hegemony– 1880 1/10– 1910 ALL– Leopold II International Association for the
Exploration and Civilization of Central Africa– Berlin Conference
• Map Still Reflects Boundaries Drawn
Boer War
• British Africa– Cecil Rhodes– Gold– War
• Conclusions