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• 2000 - David Abernethy, The Dynamics of Global Dominance
• Periodisation of colonialism according to David Abernethy:

  • Five phases
  • Expansion (1415-1773)
  • First decolonisation (1775-1824)
  • Second colonisation (1824-1912)
  • Consolidation (1914-1939)
  • Second decolonisation (1940-1980)
• Abernethy is part of the compromises when talking about the periodisation of colonialism.
• The causes of colonialism according to Abernethy:

  • The 3 sectors had the will and the capacity to expand
  • Public – power - monarchs
  • Private - profit - companies
  • Religious – proselytisation (convert) – missionary bodies
  • These 3 sectors expanded independently, did not always collaborate
  • Cross-sectoral alliances → Spain, public + religious in Latin-America
• The 3 sectors by Abernethy in China:

  • Public Sector
  • Pre-eminent wealth and power
  • Revenues from intensive agriculture
  • Private Sector
  • Quantitive instead of qualitative growth
  • No need for radical shift in production technique
  • Religious Sector
  • Confucianism supported a social order considered unique
  • Reason to stay home, not to reach out (no conversion)
  • = China developed their 3 sectors very well, but didn't have the will to expand.
• The 3 sectors by Abernethy in the Arab World:

  • Public Sector
  • Weak control by supra-states (caliphates)
  • Cities: too many for competition, too small for expansion
  • Private Sector
  • No hierarchy of companies
  • Arab merchants set out on their own
  • Religious Sector
  • No ecclesiastical hierarchy
  • Cosmopolitan and highly adaptable to alien cultures
  • Arab World developed their 3 sectors very well, but they didn’t have the capacity to expand.
• 2000 - Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence
• Pomeranz is part of the critics when talking about the periodisation of colonialism.
• The periodisation of colonialism according to Pomeranz:

  • Core Areas in the 18th c. Old World:
  • NW Europe & Chinese and Japanese Cores
  • Parallels in Various Aspects:
  • Life Expectancy, Consumption, Markets, etc.
  • Comparison of Asian and European GNP
  • 1750: 130%, 1800: 100%, 1870: 50%
  • Divergence in the Early 19th Century
  • European Shortage of Energy
  • Impact on Innovation and Development
  • Timber -> Coal -> Steam -> Industrial Revolution:
  • Boom in East Asian Hinterlands
  • Prevented Need for Innovation
• 2002 - Anthony G. Hopkins, Globalisation in World History
• Periodisation of colonialism according to Antony G. Hopkins:

  • Four stages
  • Archaic globalised networks
  • Proto-globalisation (1600-1800)
  • High imperialism
  • Postcolonial era
• Hopkins, is part of the compromises when talking about the periodisation of colonialism.
• 2005 - Bernard Porter, The Absent-Minded Imperialists
• Causes of colonialism (in context of irrationality) according to Bernard Porter:

  • Empire had a far lower profile in Britain than it did abroad
  • "The British Empire was created while the Brits were asleep"
  • → Lack of commitment
  • Britain was never a genuine imperial society
  • ( → US today)
• 2007 - John Darwin, After Tamerlane
• The periodisation of colonialism according to John Darwin:

  “Before 1800 what really stood out was not the sharp economic contrast between Europe and Asia, but, on the contrary, a Eurasian world of ‘surprising resemblances’. “ - John Darwin
• Darwin is part of the critics when talking about the periodisation of colonialism.
• 2009 - Gayatri Chakravotry Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak
• Subalternity

  • → Subalterns → the most marginalised groups in society
  • Subaltern: other to the other
  • Oppressor - oppressed
  • Coloniser - colonised
  • Self - other
  • Example of sati/suttee (widow-burning → Hindu tradition, women follow their deceased husband into dead)
  • British: widespread misogynistic tradition
  • Indian elite: free will of truly Indian women
  • Women are spoken for and do not speak themselves
• 2011 - Niall Ferguson, Civilisation - The West and the Rest
• Niall Ferguson talks about the 6 field in which Britain made a difference for the rest of the world:

  1. Competition
  2. Science
  3. Property
  4. Medicine
  5. Consumption
  6. Work
• 2016 - Jon E. Wilson, India Conquered
• Causes of colonialism (in context of irrationality) according to Jon E. Wilson:

  → Chaotic imperialism

  • Beneath the veneer of pomp and splendour, British rule in India was
  • Anxious, fragile and fostered chaos
  • Oscillated between paranoid paralysis and occasional moments of extreme violence
• 2016 - Tonio Andrade, The Gunpowder Age
• The causes of colonialism (in context of technology) according to Tonio Andrade:

  • Long-standing Chinese superiority
  • Song developed gunpowder weapons
  • Ming first gunpowder empire
  • Europe: ‘classic’ gun in the 14th century
  • China prevailed in all early conflicts
  • Great Military Divergence: 1760-1840
  • Europe increasingly innovated
  • Ships, Renaissance fortress, Industrial Revolution
  • China lost position
  • Peace under Ming and High Qing
  • Dysfunctional state under late Qing
• Aníbal Quijano talks about the Colonial Matrix of Power:

  • Colonial Matrix of Power → Coloniality is everywhere
  • Economic: land, labour, finance
  • Political: state, military
  • Civic: Christian family values
  • Epistemic: control of knowledge and subjectivity, including Christian and modern rational thought and the devaluation of non-Western cosmologies and epistemologies
  • Coloniality and Modernity → modernity goes together with coloniality
  • Coloniality is not opposed to modernity
  • Coloniality does not precede modernity
• María Lugones:

  • Coloniality of gender
  • Need to include gender analysis in Modernity/Coloniality
  • Intersectionality
  • Combination of overlapping oppressions (race, gender, …)
• Walter Mignolo:

  • Colonialism
  • Specific historical periods and places of imperial domination
  • Coloniality
  • The logical structure of colonial domination
  • Latin American colonialism ended in the 19th century, but coloniality remains until today
  • Decoloniality
  • Aims to counter coloniality
• → The difference between colonialism and coloniality:

  • Colonialism
  • Something between colonialism and coloniality
  • Coloniality
  • Still exists today, the logical structure of colonial domination

  → Even though colonialism is gone, coloniality is still there
• 1919 - Joseph Schumpeter, The Sociology of Imperialism
• The causes of colonialism (in context of irrationality) according to Joseph Schumpeter:

  • Colonialism is irrational in economic terms → colonialism is non-profiting in economics
  • Drain of resources from development
  • Military adventures without meaningful economic return
• Causes of colonialism according to Joseph Schumpeter:

  • Social and physiological explanation
  • Objectless expansion: behaviour learned from other nations and institutionalised by a ‘warrior’ class
  • Atavistic and anachronistic
  • → Atavistic: tendency of people, species, animals to return to their ancestral features (tail bone)
  • → According to Schumpeter, colonialism is atavistic → irrational
  • Versus modernity: cosmopolitan and peaceful
• → Schumpeter wanted to find the other cause of the war → imperialism
• 1961 - Ronald Robinson & John Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians
• Causes of colonialism (in context of politics) according to Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher:

  • Political and strategic
  • Reluctant and because of the activities of others
  • To secure against instability
  • Peripheral and excentric
  • Politicians rather than masses
  • Local administrations rather than metropole politicians
  • Importance of local resistance that prompted occupation
• 1978 - Edward E. Said, Orientalism
• Orientalism

  • Definitions
  • An esthetic movement
  • An (outdated) academic discipline
  • Discourse of knowledge
  • Orient as inferior “Other”
  • Served to define Europe as superior
  • → Western world contrasts themselves with the East → emphasise superiority, colonial stereotypes → orientalism was at the core for justifying colonialism
  • Stereotypical essentialisation
  • Not innocent, but highly motivated
  • In part (but not only) to justify colonialism
• 1989 - Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System
• Periodisation of colonialism according to Wallerstein:

  • 16th century → rise of one single capitalist world economy
  • North-Western Europe: core
  • Rest of Europe: semi-periphery
  • Rest of the world: periphery
• Wallerstein is part of the early starters when talking about the periodisation of colonialism.