Cultural theory and the age of imperialism

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