Expansionism

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

The ‘frozen front’: the Labour government, the division of Germany and the origins of the cold war, 1945–7

Abstract: Scholars have long argued over the origins, nature and impact of the cold war. 1 During the 1950s and the early 1960s the West was held in thrall by the so-called traditionalist view of the cold war, expounded, in many cases, by those who had been active in government during these years. According to this school of thought, the desire of the Soviet Union to expand across Europe was held in check only by the defensive, protective policy of the United States. The cold war was in essence an American response to a Soviet challenge. During the Vietnam War and the crisis of American self-confidence that ensued, American scholars took a fresh look at the 1940s. These scholars' revisionism led them to depict the early cold war years as a period of the onward march of American capitalism, seeking power, influence and East European and world markets, using the myth of Soviet expansionism to mask the true nature of the United States' own foreign policy. Both these interpretations cast Britain in a supporting rather than a leading role. One reason for this is that Britain is seen in retrospect as a middle-ranking power, unlikely to have been capable of determining the course of events in Europe. It has, however, become increasingly clear since the opening of the relevant British archives that such a view is unhistorical. Whatever happened later, Britain was, and still regarded itself as, a major power in the immediate postwar years.2 This article, based mainly on the official British archives, will argue that to the extent that the cold war began with the division of Germany between East and West, Britain carries the responsibility for the cold war as much as Russia or America. It was not until 1948 that the lines of bipolar confrontation were publicly drawn, symbolized by the European Recovery Programme, the Berlin crisis and the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In the postwar diplomatic negotiations about Germany, negotiations that shaped this superpower confrontation, Britain played a leading part.

Tocqueville in Jacksonian Context: American Expansionism and Discourses of American Indian Nomadism in Democracy in America

Abstract: Tocqueville’s discussion of American Indians in Democracy in America is often read as the paradigmatic expression of a conventional story about American political expansion. This narrative holds that westward expansion was easy, in part because American Indians did not offer much resistance. Historians of political thought and scholars of American Political Development tend to affirm this narrative when they read Tocqueville’s text as suggesting merely that Indians are “doomed” to an inevitable extinction. Our interpretation here proceeds along different lines, with a greater focus on the ways in which contending Jacksonian-era discourses of Indian nomadism are represented in Tocqueville’s text. We argue that Democracy reflects complex and often competing descriptions of inherent Indian nomadism, retreat, and removal, with varying attributions of causal responsibility for disappearing Indian populations. This reading of Tocqueville highlights contentions about Indian removal that are often ignored or neglected in current scholarship, and can therefore help us to better appreciate both his text and his time.

The Jesuit Missions to China and Peru, 1570-1610: Expectations and Appraisals of Expansionism

Abstract: Introduction Part 1: The Men and the Missions 1. The Men 2. The Missions 3. The Tricky Concepts of Hispanicization in Peru and Accommodation in China Part 2: The Missions and their Texts Introduction 4. The Craftsmanship of Jesuit Catechisms in Peru and China 5. Christian Truths in the Andean and Chinese Settings Conclusion