role did the different late 19th and 20th century ideologies played in European imperial
role did the different late 19th and 20th century ideologies played in European imperial
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What role did the different late 19th and 20th century ideologies played in European imperialism?
Transcribed Image Text:Increasingly, Europeans viewed the
culture and achievements of Asian and
African peoples through the prism of a
scientific racism, expressed now in
terms of modern science. Although
physical differences had often been a
basis of fear or dislike, in the
nineteenth
Europeans
century
increasingly used the prestige and
apparatus of science to support their
racial preferences and prejudices.
craniologists,
sometimes physicians used allegedly
Phrenologists,
and
scientific methods and numerous
This nineteenth-century chart, depicting the
"Progressive Development of Man" from apes to
modern Europeans, reflected the racial categories
that were so prominent at the time. It also highlights
the influence of Darwin's evolutionary ideas as they
were applied to varieties of human beings.
instruments to classify the size and
shape of human skulls and concluded,
not surprisingly, that those of whites
were larger and therefore more
Nineteenth-century
biologists, who classified the varieties
of plants and animals, applied these notions of rank to varieties of human beings as well.
The result was a hierarchy of races, with whites on top and the less developed "child races"
beneath them. Race, in this view, determined human intelligence, moral development, and
destiny. Furthermore, as the germ theory of disease took hold in nineteenth-century
Europe, it was accompanied by fears that contact with "inferior" peoples threatened the
advanced.
health and even the biological future of more advanced or "superior" peoples.
These ideas influenced how Europeans viewed their own global expansion. Almost
everyone saw it as inevitable, a natural outgrowth of a superior civilization. For many, this
viewpoint was held with a condescending sense of responsibility to the "weaker races" that
Europe was fated to dominate. "Superior races have a right, because they have a duty,"
declared the French politician Jules Ferry in 1883. "They have the duty to civilize the
inferior races." That "civilizing mission," as Europeans regarded it, included bringing
Christianity to the heathen, good government to disordered lands, work discipline and
production for the market to "lazy natives," a measure of education to the ignorant and
illiterate, clothing to the naked, and health care to the sick, while suppressing "native
customs" that ran opposite to Western ways of living. All of this was defined as “progress"|
and "civilization."
Another, harsher side to the ideology of imperialism originated from an effort to apply, or
perhaps misapply, the evolutionary thinking of Charles Darwin to an understanding of
human history. The key concept of this “social Darwinism," though not necessarily shared
by Darwin himself, was "the survival of the fittest," suggesting that European dominance
inevitably involved the displacement or destruction of backward peoples or "unfit" races.
Such views made imperialism, war, and aggression seem both natural and progressive, for
they were based on the idea that weeding out "weaker" peoples of the world would allow
the "stronger" to flourish. ?
Transcribed Image Text:What made imperialism so broadly popular in Europe, especially in the last quarter of the
nineteenth century, was the growth of mass nationalism. By 1871, the unification of Italy
and Germany made Europe's always competitive political system even more so, and much
of this rivalry spilled over into the struggle for colonies in Asia and Africa. Colonies and
spheres of influence abroad became a symbol of national "Great Power" status, and
European governments urgently tried to acquire as many colonies as possible, even if they
possessed little immediate economic value. Imperialism appealed on economic and social
grounds to the wealthy or ambitious, seemed politically and strategically necessary in the
game of international power politics, and was emotionally satisfying to almost everyone.
New Perceptions of the "Other"
Industrialization also led to a marked change in the way Europeans perceived themselves
and others. In earlier centuries, Europeans had defined others largely in religious terms.
"They" were heathen; "we" were Christian. Even as they held on to this sense of religious
superiority, Europeans nonetheless adopted many of the ideas and techniques of more
advanced societies. They held many aspects of Chinese and Indian civilization in high
regard; they freely mixed and mingled with Asian and African elites and often married their
women; some even saw the more technologically simple peoples of Africa and America as
"noble savages."
During the industrial age, however, Europeans developed a secular arrogance that fused
with or in some cases replaced their notions of religious superiority. They had, after all,
unlocked the secrets of nature, created a society of unprecedented wealth, and used both
to produce unsurpassed military power.
To Europeans, the Chinese, who had been praised in the eighteenth century, were reduced
in the nineteenth century to the image of "John Chinaman," weak, cunning, stubbornly
conservative, and a distinct threat, the "yellow peril" of late-nineteenth-century European
fears. African societies, which had been regarded even in the slave-trade era as nations and
their leaders as kings, were demoted in nineteenth-century European eyes to the status of
tribes led by chiefs as a means of emphasizing their "primitive" qualities.
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