Although the word itself is of relatively recent coinage, imperialism – the practice of stronger states gaining control over and exploiting weaker ones – is as old as history itself. A narrative of the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean basin reads like a catalogue of imperial domination: the Babylonian and Assyrian empires; the Persian empire of Cyrus the Great; the vast Macedonian empire of Alexander the Great … In time the remnants of these mighty empires mostly succumbed to what would become in due course one of the greatest and longest-lasting of all empires – the expansive land empire of the Romans, which at its peak stretched from Britain to northern Africa and the Middle East.
Given the lasting significance of the Roman empire, it is appropriate that both ‘empire’ and ‘imperialism’ are derived from a Latin word – imperium. The most basic meaning of imperium is ‘power to command’ and can refer to the authority either of a civilian magistrate or of a military commander. This, too, is apt, for the essence of imperialism in all its forms is power: power wielded in an unequal relationship in which one state exercises control or influence, directly or indirectly, over another. Again and again, history has shown that peoples that enjoy some kind of military or other superiority over their neighbours look to exploit it to further their own interests. And most perniciously, such physical superiority is often projected through a lens of racial and cultural ‘otherness’, to produce a sense of moral superiority that can serve to justify the most shameless brutality and exploitation.
Naked and unapologetic Today the word ‘imperialism’ is used almost exclusively in a negative sense, usually by oppressed peoples or states to denounce the policies of their oppressors. However, before the 20th century, imperialist activity was almost always a cause of national pride, not of embarrassment or shame.
It may be no surprise to hear fascist leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini triumphantly trumpeting the glories of imperialist aggrandizement. For them, imperial domination was part of the natural order; it was human destiny that the strong would prevail over the weak. It is more shocking, however, to find that these monsters of modernity were in fact parroting a line that can be traced back through such revered figures as de Tocqueville, Francis Bacon and Machiavelli to the ‘cradle of civilization’ itself. In 432BC, just before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, the Greek historian Thucydides tells how a delegation of Athenians addressed the Spartan assembly in an effort to avert war. In justification of their imperial rule over other Greeks, they insist that they are only doing what anyone else would do in their place: ‘it has always been the way that the weaker should be subject to the stronger’. Justice, in their view, ‘never deterred anyone from taking by force as much as he could’; the only relevant considerations are political expedience and power.
Not much seemed to change over the succeeding 2500 years. From the 1880s to 1914, Britain, Germany and other European powers looked to extend their imperial possessions as they engaged in a frantic ‘scramble for Africa’. The First World War messily snuffed out these jingoistic ambitions. This scramble was pursued with such vigour that by 1914 roughly four-fifths of the earth’s land surface was under the dominion of a handful of colonial powers, which by this date had been joined by Japan and the USA. Throughout this period the tone adopted by the imperialists was magnificently unapologetic, Athenian in all but its lack of candour. Speaking in 1899, Lord Rosebery, former British prime minister and champion of so-called ‘Liberal imperialism’, argued that colonial activity was a natural extension of popular nationalism: ‘sane Imperialism,’ he declared, ‘as distinguished from what I may call wild-cat imperialism, is nothing but this – a larger patriotism.’ Writing in the Contemporary Review of the same year, J.L. Walton precisely captured the unqualified triumphalism of the age: ‘The Imperialist feels a profound pride in the magnificent heritage of empire won by the courage and energies of his ancestry, and bequeathed to him subject to the burden of many sacred trusts.’
‘Take up the White Man’s burden – Send forth the best ye breed – Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives’ need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild – Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half devil and half child.’
Rudyard Kipling, The White Man’s Burden, 1899
The White Man’s burden Walton’s reference to the burden of empire evokes an imperialist attitude, dimly represented since the start of the modern era of European colonization in the 15th century, which had become more or less orthodox by the middle of the 1800s. The supposed ‘virtues of empire’ were notoriously set forth in a poem by Rudyard Kipling, which caused an immediate controversy when published in 1899. In urging the reader to ‘Take up the White Man’s burden … To serve your captives’ need’, Kipling suggested both that the business of imperialism was a vocation dutifully accepted by the colonial powers and that its effects were basically beneficial to the subject peoples, who were characterized, with haughty condescension, as ‘Half devil and half child’. This was the myth of the ‘civilizing mission’; the idea that the nations of the West took it as their task, as another British statesman, Lord Palmerston, airily put it, ‘not to enslave but to set free’. The view that the blessings of civilization and culture that were bestowed (imposed) on subject peoples could serve as a justification (pretext) for imperialist policies was shared by many of Britain’s political and intellectual elite, including such liberal luminaries as J.S. Mill.
the condensed idea
To enslave or to set free?