Expansionism

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

Sanguinary Amusement: E.A. Freeman, the Comparative Method and Victorian Theories of Race

Abstract: This article seeks to revise the conventional portrait of the historian E. A. Freeman (1823–92) as an arch-racist and confident proponent of Aryan superiority. Focusing on the relatively obscure Comparative Politics (1873), it is argued that, while attitudes towards race were hardening in the later nineteenth century, Freeman combined the insights of the practitioners of the Comparative Method and the Liberal Anglican philosophy of Thomas Arnold to define the Aryan race as a community of culture rather than of blood. Explicitly rejecting biological interpretations of race, Freeman and the practitioners of the Comparative Method used the Aryan concept to denote a community of languages, myths, laws and political institutions and, in recognizing the instability of culture, articulated an account of progress that was cyclical rather than unilinear. It will be demonstrated that Freeman's Aryan universalism issued in anxieties concerning the future stability of the West and a fear that recapitulation might be engendered by contemporary political expansionism and contact with the rival civilization of the despotic East.

French Attitudes to Empire and the Algerian War

Abstract: THIS ARTICLE has two aims, one general and one specific. The first is to throw some more light on French attitudes to Empire, and the second is to examine the proposition that it was the peculiar 'consensus' of such attitudes that more than anything else was responsible for the traumas of decolonization in the 1950s in Indo-China, Morocco, Tunisia but above all in Algeria. French attitudes to Empire during the IIIrd Republic (1871-1940) have been analysed in some detail by Brunschwig, Girardet and Ageron who have presented a clear picture of a strong and disproportionally powerful 'Parti Colonial' exploiting French self-doubts, economic anxieties and the Napoleonic tradition of the 'civilising mission' to create a mood of chauvinistic expansionism which was the dynamic force behind the creation of the French Empire in Africa and Asia. However, the attitudes of the 'Parti Colonial' were by no means representative of the whole of France, leaving some Frenchmen indignant and an even greater number indifferent.' Vichy France, the mauvaise conscience of the twentieth century French experience, has only recently started seriously to emerge from the polite cloud of humbug that denied that it existed at all except as a background to the Resistance. Thus whilst much is known about the role played by the colonies as the only concrete reality of 'Free France' much less is known about the colonies as an expression of Vichy France.2 That the humiliation of 1940 cast a long shadow over the IVth Republic (1946-58) and that the colonies, now constituted as the Union frangaise offered a chink of light in an otherwise sombre view of France's position in the world is difficult to doubt. Yet by 1960 almost all the colonies were either independent or well on their way to becoming so. What then was the nature of the colonial commitment of these years? It was above all the Algerian question that put France's commitment to her colonies to the test. Although severely shaken by the war in Indo-China and the troubles in Morocco and Tunisia, faith in the need to maintain 'Algerie frangaise' was widely shared in 1954. Algeria, after all was the jewel of France's empire. Invaded by the French in 1830, by 1954 its population included over a million settlers of European origin and represented France's

Third World Debt—Past and Present

Abstract: Although today's third world debt crisis has features different from previous crises, it is far from unique in the history of capitalism. Accumulation of foreign debt, with its aftermath of severe financial strains and reduction in the living standards of the people, has long been common to the periphery of the world capitalist system. Conversely, the energetic extension of loans to weaker nations by bankers of the core capitalist nations has long been an important component of Western expansionism, providing stepping stones either to outright colonial occupation or to the kind of economic and political penetration that laid the foundation for, or contributed to, the enduring condition of dependency of peripheral nations on the centers of imperialism.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

When states appease: British appeasement in the 1930s

Abstract: When do states appease their foes? In this article, we argue that governments are most likely to favour appeasing a foreign threat when their top leaders are severely cross–pressured: when the demands for increased security conflict sharply with their domestic political priorities We develop the deductive argument through a detailed analysis of British appeasement in the 1930s We show that Neville Chamberlain grappled with a classic dilemma of statecraft: how to reduce the risk of German expansionism while facing acute partisan and electoral incentives to invest resources at home For Chamberlain, appeasement was a means to reconcile the demands for increased security with what he and his co-partisans were trying to achieve domestically We conclude by discussing implications of the analysis for theorising about appeasement and about how leaders make grand strategy more generally

Theodore Roosevelt, Congress, and the Military: U.S. Civil‐Military Relations in the Early Twentieth Century

Abstract: "Someone should kick ... Rosevelt [sic]," complained one naval officer about the assistant secretary of the navy in 1898 (Davis 1898). Hunter Davis disliked Theodore Roosevelt's efforts to end the squabbling over status between the navy's line and engineering officers in the late nineteenth century. Davis's protest foreshadowed the sentiments of many officers toward Theodore Roosevelt, once he became their commander in chief in September 1901. Although Roosevelt was one of the best friends of the military services ever to reside in the White House, civil-military relations were not always harmonious during his presidency. In fact, he presided during a period of notable stress, uncertainty, and adjustment in civil-military affairs, and his actions--and sometimes inaction--prompted considerable debate and tension.(1) A confluence of factors at the turn of the twentieth century made Roosevelt's presidency, and those of his immediate successors, a time that tested old boundaries and established new ones in civil-military affairs. The period itself, the Progressive Era, brought transition and adjustment in American life. Reformers attacked the myriad problems associated with urbanization and industrialization; a new, post-Civil War generation assumed the mantle of political leadership; and the United States solidified its newly asserted status as a great power and protector of a modest overseas empire. During this period of rapid change, stress was inevitable, and military affairs were not immune. Tensions in military matters became especially great around the turn of the twentieth century because four elements that went straight to the heart of civil-military relations managed to converge at the same time. The new brand of overseas expansionism in American foreign policy generated an emotional political debate and questions about resources and missions for the military services. In addition, jealousy over constitutional prerogatives flared as the executive branch under Roosevelt challenged congressional influence over the organization of the War and Navy Departments and the development of military policies. Officers, for their part, split into alliances (often self-serving) with members of the executive or legislative branches. At the same time, a generational shift in both people and values complicated the picture and divided loyalties. Those Americans raised in a largely preindustrial, preurban nation--and forged into a distinct generation by the fires of the Civil War--were gradually making way for a new crop of leaders, although without a complete surrender of the older values that they represented. Finally, the press added an extra dimension to the traditional civil-military troika of president, Congress, and uniformed military in the form of mass circulation newspapers and national magazines. Participants in civil-military disputes could sometimes find a ready ally in the press, or sometimes they found it to be an independent agent that, through the force of public opinion, brought new emphasis to the "civil" side in civil-military relations. Theodore Roosevelt represented the principal axis around which civil-military relations turned in the first decade of the twentieth century. He assumed several roles, some official and others unofficial, that frequently made him the focus of civil-military debates. Officially, Roosevelt served, of course, as commander in chief and functioned, as well, as chief diplomat, but he also behaved as what could best be termed "chief dilettante," for he frequently dabbled in detailed aspects of military technology, training, planning, and operations (Oyos 1993). His expansive view of executive authority and his talent at generating publicity also contributed to his active role in remolding the civil-military architecture. All in all, across the range of military affairs, Roosevelt helped define debates, fuel controversies, solve problems, and focus expectations, although his ideas sometimes created more difficulties and disappointment than resolution and satisfaction. …