Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- List of Tables
- List of Figures
- Introduction
- 1 Imperial Paths to Power, 1688–1939
- 2 Colonial Rules
- 3 Hegemonies and Empires
- 4 Imperial Forms, Global Fields
- 5 Weary Titans
- 6 The Dynamics of Imperialism
- 7 Conclusion
- Appendix Notes on Data
- Archives and Abbreviations
- References
- Index
6 - The Dynamics of Imperialism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- List of Tables
- List of Figures
- Introduction
- 1 Imperial Paths to Power, 1688–1939
- 2 Colonial Rules
- 3 Hegemonies and Empires
- 4 Imperial Forms, Global Fields
- 5 Weary Titans
- 6 The Dynamics of Imperialism
- 7 Conclusion
- Appendix Notes on Data
- Archives and Abbreviations
- References
- Index
Summary
The Eastern nations sink, their glory ends, And empire rises where the sun descends.
– Inscription on rock in Monument Bay, Plymouth MAIn 1879, the British sociologist Herbert Spencer wrote to liberal parliamentarian and free trader John Bright. Urging him to support a new Anti-Aggression League, Spencer bemoaned the “aggressive tendencies displayed by us all over the world – picking quarrels with native races and taking possession of their land.” Decades later V. I. Lenin referred to a similar process. He spoke of the “tremendous ‘boom’ in colonial conquests” by the British state that had begun in the late nineteenth century. Of course, Spencer and Lenin were speaking of Britain's “new imperialism,” about which we already know. Occurring in the context of Britain's economic decline, it marked a new aggression on the part of the British state. We also know about the American counterpart to this. In the 1980s, in the context of its own economic decline, the American state too embarked on a new path of direct imperialism. Both states shifted their imperial modalities and intensity; they become more bold, direct, and aggressive.
However, the fact that both the British and American states embarked on new imperialisms should not be the end of our story. It merely invites us to consider larger historical dynamics. The fact that both states initiated new imperialisms intimates the possibility of older imperialisms. It suggests the possibility of imperial shifts or transformations over longer periods of time. It intimates a story about imperial states sometimes becoming more violent and bold and sometimes more restrained and less direct. The new imperialisms might just be fragments of a larger pattern of imperial expansion and contraction, relative stability and renewed assertion, and imperial stagnation and growth.
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- Information
- Patterns of EmpireThe British and American Empires, 1688 to the Present, pp. 206 - 234Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011