Expansionism

About: Expansionism is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 979 publications have been published within this topic receiving 11169 citations.

Colonizing Hokkaido and the Origin of Japanese Trans-Pacific Expansion, 1869–1894

Abstract: This article argues that the Meiji government’s programs of colonial migration to Hokkaido established the intellectual foundation for the earliest wave of Japanese trans-Pacific migration to the US and colonial expansion in the South Pacific and Latin America between the 1880s and 1894. The experiences of migration-based colonial expansion and the trans-Pacific diaspora in modern Japan have been studied in isolation in existing literature. This article shows that these two experiences are actually inseparable from each other. The ideological origins of both were the migration-driven expansionism that emerged from the Meiji government’s colonial project in Hokkaido from 1869 to 1882.

The press, patriotism, and public discussion: c. p. scott, the manchester guardian , and the boer war, 1899–1902

Abstract: This article demonstrates the connections between journalism, patriotism, and the culture of public discussion in late Victorian Britain, taking as a case study C. P. Scott's use of the Guardian in opposing the Boer War. It asserts that while opposing the war, Scott was simultaneously trying to redefine ‘patriotism’ and preserve a rapidly waning ideal of the press as an agent of public discussion, two interrelated goals. In contrast to a predominant image of the patriot as blind supporter of the government's imperial expansionism, the Guardian put forth an ideal of a critical patriotism. At the same time, Scott rejected the prevailing contemporary notion that the press should merely ‘represent’ the readers' interests. Instead, he sought to use leading articles and news reports to encourage a culture of public discussion. Scott's journalistic and political goals overlapped, as his notion of patriotism required maintaining a healthy public sphere. Although this study demonstrates Scott's role in the persistence of critical ideals of patriotism and journalism, it concludes that Scott had to content himself with appealing to an elite audience.

Out of sight and out of mind : On the cultural hegemony of intellectual property (critique)

Abstract: Based on E.P. Thompson's insistence that cultural hegemony involves the creation of blinkers that open up certain venues of sight while closing down others, this essay relies on the faculty of seeing (or not-seeing) to suggest a critique of the critique of intellectual property rights. In the current climate of increasing intellectual property expansionism, the public domain has emerged the positive other, a shield against the missiles launched by the blitz-krieg inclined copyright holders, even perhaps a benevolent Dr Jekyll to ward off Mr Hyde's hyper-aggression. I will argue that two powerful rhetorical devices have become commonplace in the critique against the current intellectual property system and in defense of the value of the public domain: creativity and free/dom (or the ideas of free and freedom), and that these, far from being simple and universal categories, in fact are constructions that need to be further problematized and discussed. The ongoing copyright wars have resulted in a polarizati...

War, Politics and Memory: Russian Historians Reevaluate the Origins of World War II

Abstract: The myth of the Great Patriotic War, including the role of the USSR in the origins of World War II, continues to be a key element in the national identity of the Russian people. Previously, Soviet authorities mandated a narrative depicting the Soviet Union sincerely and unambiguously working for peace and against Nazi expansionism in the prewar years. This interpretation criticized the Western Powers for their alleged complicity in Hitler's aggression. After the collapse of the USSR, several competing views have appeared. The Putin and Medvedev administrations, as well as the popular "national-patriotic" school, maintain much of the former Soviet interpretation. Other Russian historians, many of them politically liberal, indict Stalin for mishandling the prewar crisis or even for promoting the onset of war for imperialistic or revolutionary purposes.