Seminal Works Related to Colonization, Imperialism, and Decolonization

1. Colonization, Imperialism, and Decolonization
Ending Empires, Hendrik Spruyt
Thesis: Political fragmentation in the imperial center allows more opportunities for delaying
withdrawal from colonies.
Question: Why did some empires withdraw more quickly than others?
Type of History: Political History on Decolonization
Location: Global Coverage
Decolonization
History in Three Keys, Paul Cohen
Thesis: Three types of encounters with history – as an event, an experience, and a myth – all
contribute important aspects of understanding to history and show that historians are never
completely removed from the process of “making” history.
Question: How can the past be understood and what allows us to build that understanding?
Political and Social History
Japan and Western Europe
Imperialism?
Empire Families, Elizabeth Buettner
Thesis: Buettner addresses “the integral role of family practices in the reproduction of imperial
rule and its personnel, accounting for the substantial degree of family continuity among the
middle classes engaged with the raj
Question: How to bridge the colonial-metropolitan divide
History of Family, social history
British and India
Imperialism
Satchmo Blows Up the World, Penny von Eschen
Thesis: While the United States government was using the Jazz ambassadors to promote the
triumph of American democracy, the black musicians were using the tours as an opportunity to
promote the freedom and self-esteem of African-descended people throughout the world.
African-American History
Cold War USA, etc.
Imperialism
Ecological Imperialism, Alfred Crosby
Thesis: he suggests that the domination of the globe by people of European cultural origins is
based upon the conversion of alien environments into country suitable to their mode of living
Question: "Perhaps European humans have triumphed because of their superiority in arms,
organization, and fanaticism, but what in heaven's name is the reason that the sun never sets on
the empire of the dandelion? Perhaps the success of European imperialism has a biological, and
ecological, component."
Environmental History
Global Coverage
Imperialism/Colonization
Dominance by Design, Michael Adas
Thesis: aims to describe the successive articulations of the “civilizing mission” that derived from
a sense of technological progress and social superiority that were integral to the American
experience
History of Science/Political History

2. Global Coverage
Colonization
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
Thesis: the evolution and spread of cultural systems and ultimately the expansion of Europe can
be explained by the original distribution of plants and animals suitable for domestication,
combined with geographic ease of diffusion of domesticants and their social corollaries
Question: Why did Europe colonize New Guinea instead of the other way around?
Anthropological History?
Global Coverage
Colonization
Empire of Love, Matt Matsuda
Thesis: Asia and the Pacific but, rather, themselves producers of possible territories of French
empire. Journalists, colonial bureaucrats, colonists, politicians, and naval commanders created
their own official, archival "documents" and historical records out of the narratives established
by his "fictions'"
Social/Cultural History
France and the Pacific
Imperialism
Orientalism, Edward Said
Thesis: Orientalism was a network of assumptions which arose to perform a critical function in
nineteenth and twentieth century Western culture, linking the arts and sciences as well as
different political perspectives from conservative to Marxist.
Criticisms: One of the central and most immediately recognized flaws in Orientalism was its
tendency to be absolutist and ahistorical in lumping together all westerners who ever wrote
about the Orient, or depicted oriental subject matter, as falsifiers and distorters by necessity,
because they could not escape predetermined preconceptions, regardless of the time and the
place in which they wrote and to which they belonged. This can be most glaringly seen in Said s
treatment of Karl Marx
Imperialism
Social History
Global Coverage
Ornamentalism, David Cannadine
Thesis: Cannadine proposes an approach centered on the power and appeal of social hierarchy
across metropole and colonies that he claims provides a better explanation of empire than one
linked to Edward W. Said's critique of Orientalism and concerned with discourses of racial
difference and inequality. A gifted writer, Cannadine drives his wideranging argument from
beginning to end of Ornamentalism. Part 1, "Beginnings," examines British responses to the
hierarchical nature of Native American and Mughal Indian societies and efforts to establish
hierarchically ordered societies in Ireland and the Americas. Part 2, "Localities," brings out the
hierarchical structure and image of the dominions, India, African and Asian colonies, and Middle
Eastern mandatories. Part 3, "Generalities," focuses on the imperial scope and role of the
honors system and the monarchy and then expounds Cannadine's argument at greater length.
The British perceived their colonial subjects more often in terms of "rank" than "race" (123)
and conceived of the empire as a traditional and even "anti-capitalist" (128) projection of their
own society. This part of the book concludes with a consideration of some of the forces
undermining imperial hierarchy, from the political opposition of metropolitan radicalism,

3. dominion nationalism, and anticolonial nationalism to the technological developments of
"imperial modernity" (149). Part 4, "Endings," connects the end of empire to the end of
hierarchy in British society, although in Schumpeterian fashion Cannadine does note hierarchical
survivals. An appendix, "An Imperial Childhood?," offers reminiscences of growing up and
coming of age in Britain between the 1950s and early 1970s as this core society experienced
the unnamed metropolitan variant of what we call decolonization in peripheral societies.
Ornamentalism clearly conveys the fact that the British and their far-flung collaborators
developed flexible and, at least for a time, relatively stable modes of colonial rule.
Imperialism
Social History
Primarily Great Britain
Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon
Thesis: Fanon began on the initial premise that he was concerned with the emancipation of all of
humanity. Marx had said that "Labour in the white skin cannot emancipate itself until labour in
black skin is free." Fanon also posits the view that "All forms of exploitation are identical
because all of them are applied against the same object: Man."4 He also writes, "I want that the
enslavement of man by man cease forever. That it be possible for me to discover and to love
man, wherever he may be."5 In the same book, he also says: "Today I believe in the possibility
of love; that is why I endeavour to trace its imperfections, its perversions."6 Fanon, thus, sought
ways to facilitate "a healthy encounter between black and white." And to the extent that he
accepted another of Marx's principles, economic determinism, he was able to envisage the
conflict in "class" terms rather than "race" terms.
Decolonization
Irresistible Empire, Victoria de Grazia
Thesis: According to Victoria de Grazia, as America was focusing on raising the standard of
living for all, European cultural elites "feared a debasement of taste, craftsmanship, and civility"
(p. 78). Irresistible Empire provides a richly detailed and fascinating account of the creation of a
trans-Atlantic market for consumer goods. It explains the evolution of business practices and
standards on both sides of the Atlantic through the twentieth century, with a particular
emphasis on the adoption of American institutions and norms within Europe. global fast-food
franchises (conclusion). The story de Grazia wants to tell is one of American hegemony
through the imposition of the Market Empire on Europe. America regarded other nations as
having limited sovereignty over their public space (p. 6). This was particularly obvious in the
realm of culture. Identifying this view as an imperialist characteristic involves the implicit value
judgment that nations (or influential national elites) should have dominion over people's
consumption decisions whenever these decisions have spillovers into the public space.
Imperialism
America and Europe
Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon (from Grant Kamenju’s review in Transition, no. 26, 1966)
Thesis: Effective and real decolonization requires violence to achieve
Question: How to address the political, economic and social problems of colonization?
Type of History: Marxist inspired
Region: African and Asian colonies
Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power, Ann Laura Stoler (from Catherine Hall review in Social
History, November 2004)

4. Thesis: The categories of colonizer and colonized were secured through sexual control concerning racial
mixing and sexual control.
Question: Rethinking colonial categories
Type of History: Social/Cultural History
Region: French and Dutch Empires
Dominance by Design, Michael Adas (from Daniel Headrick review in Journal of World History, March 2007)
Thesis: Adas evaluates American foreign policy and contends that the US has treated non-Western peoples
with condescension, aggression, and violence. In contrast to American exceptionalism, the book argues
American history is an ongoing moral disaster.
Question: How did technology impact America’s foreign relations beginning with Commodore Perry and
moving forward to the aftermath of 9/11/
Type of History: Political History
Region: United States Foreign Policy/Global coverage
Fast cars, clean bodies: decolonization and the reordering of French culture, Kristin Ross (from James
Kwak review in Theory and Society, October 1996)
Thesis: “Decolonization and capitalist modernization were historically interrelated, and the specific
contradictions resulting from their coexistence have marked the identity of France today” (p. 745 of
review)
Type of History: Social and Cultural History
Region: France
Europe and the People Without History, Eric Wolf (from John W. Cole review in Theory and Society, January 1985)
Thesis: Virtually all peoples on earth were connected through long distance networks long before the
Europeans came to dominate those relationships five centuries ago.
Type of History: Economic History
Region: Europe
The Rise of the “Rest’: Challenges to the West from Late Industrializing Economies, Alice Amsden (from James Cypher
review in Journal of Economic Issues, March 2002)
Thesis: The development of countries comes from the incorporation of manufacturing supported by wise
government development policies based on a reciprocity link between government support and industrial
performance.
Type of History: Economic History
Region: Africa, Asia, Latin America, Middle East
Imperialism, JA Hobson (from Daniel H. Kruger, Journal of the History of Ideas, April 1955)
Thesis: Imperialism is a necessity for controllers to find other markets for goods due to underconsumption
by the home market. If wealth were better distributed in the home market, then there would be no
underconsumption and no need for imperialism.
***** This is a key theory in world history.
Question: General Theory of Imperialism
Type of History: Economic
Region: Europe/Global Coverage
Imperialism, VI Lenin (from Daniel H. Kruger, Journal of the History of Ideas, April 1955)
Thesis: Lenin’s take on imperialism is informed from Hobson’s argument. He believes imperialism is “the
monopoly stage of capitalism…in which the division of the world by international trusts has begun” (p.
256). The growth of monopoly led to colonial policies and increased competition for the divided areas of
the world.
Type of History: Economic History
Region: Europe/Global Coverage

5. Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire, Christopher Bayly (from Ian Kerr review in
The International History Review, August 1989)
Thesis: The evolving nature and structure of Indian society in the late 1800s shaped the emerging Indo-
British colonial relationship. This relationship was “prolonged, profound, and multilayered with
consequences made as much by Indians as by the British” (p. 543).
Question: Describe the emergence of the mature colonial India of late nineteenth century
Type of History: Social/Economic History
Region: India
Ecological Imperialism, Alfred Crosby (from William Cronon review in The Journal of American
History, June 1987)
Thesis: European migrations to new areas were most successful when “they occupied ecosystems capable
of sustaining the cultigens, domesticated animals, and diseases on which so much of Old World culture and
agriculture depended” (p. 151).
Type of History: Ecological History
Region: North America/Europe
Tools of Empire, Daniel Headrick (from Ann Beck review in The American Historical Review,
February 1982).
Thesis: European technological advances in transportation, weaponry and medicine impacted the timing
and success of the “scramble for Africa.”
Question: Causes and motivations of European Imperialism
Type of History: Technological History
Region: Europe/Africa
Tentacles of Progress, Daniel Headrick (from Nancy Gallagher review in The American Historical Review, October
1989).
Thesis: Colonized areas did not industrialize because the technology transfer of the age “came wrapped in
flags” and if Africa and Asia had not been conquered, they would have possibly become more modern or
industrial (p. 1064).
Question: Why did colonized areas not industrialize themselves despite the technology transfer from
Europe during the Imperial Age?
Type of History: Technological History
Region: Europe/Africa/Asia
Industry and Empire, Eric Hobsbawm
Age of Empire, Eric Hobsbawm
Pursuit of Power, William McNeill
The World Revolution of Westernization, Theodore von Laue
Islamic and European Expansion, Michael Adas
Empire and Information, Christopher Bayly
Law and Colonial Cultures, Lauren Benton
Colonizer’s Model of the World, James Blaut
“The Environment beyond Europe and the European Theory of Empire” by Philip Curtin in Journal of World History
1
Disease and Empire, Philip Curtin
Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis

6. Countering, Colonization, Carol Devens
“‘If We Get the Girls, We get the Race:’ Missionary Education of Native American Girls” by Carol Devens in
Journal of World History 3
Missionary education of Native American Girls deprives the girls of their “continueing tutelage of their
mothers and other female relatives-instruction that was the key to assuming their place as a women
within her own cultural traditional.” In other words, it takes away the girls' cultural identity as an Native
American. - Carol Devens, p.220.
Native American History/Imperial History
Colonization
Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, David Northrup
“Northrup surveys the global flow of indentured migrants that developed after the end of the slave
trade from Africa and continued until shortly after the First World War...Northrup presents the experience of
indentured labour as a distinct phenomenon, showing that it was not a continuation of slavery, and was
introduced in places that did not even experience slavery.” -Verene A. Shepherd, p.860.
Type of History: Migration/Immigrant History.
Region-Global.
Colonization
Age of Gunpowder Empires, William McNeill
After Colonialism, Gyan Prakash
Prakash argues for “the importance of resisting disciplinary boundaries and geographical enclosures”
when studying colonialism. “The major theme in this collection is the colonial construction of identities.” -Kirk A.
Hoppe, p154.
Regions- South America, African, and India.
Imperial History and identity/ Social History.
Culture and Imperialism, Edward Said
European culture, through Victorian texts and novels, created “the historical and poltiical context of
imperialism” that we still engage today.-Audrey A. Fisch, p. 98.
Race and the Education of Desire, Ann Stoler
Stoler argues that “racial episteme of the nineteenth-century world order … effect on European
sensibilities and bodily constitutons of its gulag of suject people. Just as sugar and tea revoltutionized
European tastes so, too, did sexual experience drawn from the externalized Others in the colonies.”-
William D. Wilder, p.1087.
Region-Europe (British, French, and Dutch mainly) Southeast Asia
Social History/Imperialism
Colonial Masculinity, Mrinalini Sinha
“By foregrounding masculinity as a critical site of power, Mrinalini Sinha recontectualizeds four
contentious episodes in the political hisotry of India from the 1880s and 1890s. Customarily, the Ilbert
Bill, native volunteer movement, native participation in public administration, and the age of sexual
consent have been viewed as polarizing events that defined the landscape of colonial and nationalist
politics.” -Douglas M. Haynes, p. 909.
Region-India
Imperial History/ Social History.
Colonization
German Women for Empire, Lora Wildenthal
“Wildenthal argues the strong and immediate relationship between culture and politics in Germany and in
the colonies. German authors, officials, and politicians, both female and male, imagined the colonies at

7. cultural frontiers raising questions and generating evidence about German women and men's proper roles
and relationships to nation and race.”-Kirk A. Hoppe, p. 88-9.
Gender and Political History.
Germany and colonization.
“The Search for European Differences and Domination in the Early Modern World: A View from Asia” R. Bin
Wong in American Historical Review 107
Wong examines the origin of European economic domination and refute the idea that the pre-19th
Century European economy is fundamentally unique and apart from the rest of the world's. He does so
by comparing the pre-19th
Century European economy to the Chinese economy to show that “the
supposed European differences from and domination over others in economic matters may simply be
false; they are at best weakly supported empirically.” - R. Bin Wong, p.447-8.
Economic History of Europe and Asia.
Siam Mapped, Winichakul Thongchai
Thongchai argues that nation states originate from maps. “He seeks to demonstrate that there are extra-
scientific procedures involved in geographical knowledge and that an interpretive process is involved in
understanding a modern map. Thus, while in theory a map merely reflects the preexisting political
boundaries of the nation, in reality the territorial nation exists first, and sometimes only, on the map.”-
Prasenjit Duara, p. 478.
Asian History.
Lords of All the World, Anthony Pagden
Explores “the expansion of Western Europe after the fifteenth century brought sweeping changes in
aboriginal populations; the formation of new, mixed ones; the development of new trade routes and
commerce; the erosion of old cultures; and the creation of new states and political forms.”-Woodrow
Borah, p.80
European Imperial History in the Americas.