Required Texts
Cook, Scott. Colonial Encounters in the Age of High Imperialism. New York, NY: Talman, 1996. ISBN: 9781886746626.
Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts. New York, NY: Verso, 2002. ISBN: 9781859843826.
Oyono, Ferdinand. Houseboy. London, UK: Heinemann, 1960, and 1991. ISBN: 9780435905323.
Orwell, George. Burmese Days. New York, NY: Harper & brothers, 1934.
Greene, Graham. The Quiet American. New York, NY: Viking Press, 1956, and 1955.
Fanon, Franz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York, NY: Grove Press, 1963. ISBN: 080215083.
Readings by Session
| LEC # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction | |
| 2 | The Decline of the Mercantilist Empires: From 1492 to the Early 19th Century | |
| 3 | Classic Theories of Imperialism |
Kipling, Rudyard. “The White Man’s Burden.” In Verse. New York, NY: Doubleday, 1899, pp. 321-323. Rose, J. Holland. The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1900. London, UK: Constable, 1905, pp. 508-512. Hobson, John A. “Imperialism.” In Imperialism: A Study. New York, NY: Harper-Collins, 1902, pp. 14-20. Lenin, V. I. “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.” In Selected Works. Moscow, Russia: Progress, 1975 (originally, 1916), pp. 36-51. Orwell, George. “Shooting an Elephant.” 1936. (A version of Orwell’s essay, “Shooting an Elephant” is available from The University of Newcastle, Austrailia.) |
| The Foundation of “British” India, and the Roots of a New Imperialism | ||
| 4 | From “John Company” to the Mutiny of 1857 |
Harlow, Barbara, and Mia Carter. “Agreement between the Nabob Nudjum-Ul-Dowlah and the Company (1765).” Archives of Empire. Vol I. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003, pp. 25-7. ISBN: 9780822331643. ———. “Documents from the impeachment of Warren Hastings (Hastings, Burke, Macauley).” Archives of Empire. Vol I. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003, pp. 131-166. ISBN: 9780822331643. |
| 5 | Shifting Economic Rationales: From “Free Trade” to Opium Wars |
Smith, Adam. “America and the East Indies.” In Wealth of Nations. 1776. Harlow, Barbara, and Mia Carter. “Macauley’s defense of the East India Company.” Archives of Empire. Vol I. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003, pp. 54-8 and 95-106. ISBN: 9780822331643. |
| (New) Views of Exotic Lands and Exotic “Others” | ||
| 6 | Charting New Terrain: Discovering “Darkest Africa” | Harlow, Barbara, and Mia Carter. Archives of Empire. Vol II. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003, pp. 253-300. ISBN: 9780822331643. (Excerpts from Livingston and Stanley.) |
| 7 | Ethnography and “Race Science” | Harlow, Barbara, and Mia Carter. “Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (1871),” “Robert Knox, The Races of Man (1850),” and “James Redfield, “Comparative Physiognomy” (1852).” In Archives of Empire, Vol II. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780822331643, pp. 153-177. (Excerpts) |
| 8 | Imperial and “Civilizing” Missions |
Harlow, Barbara, and Mia Carter. “Macauley, “Minute on Indian Education” (1835).” In Archives of Empire. Vol I. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003, pp. 54-8, 95-106, and 227-238. ISBN: 9780822331643. Cook, Scott. “Conflicting Ideologies in British India.” In Colonial Encounters in the Age of High Imperialism. New York, NY: Talman, 1996, pp. 113-143. ISBN: 9781886746626. |
| 9 | Discussion: Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts (2002) | Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts. New York, NY: Verso, 2002. ISBN: 9781859843826. |
| Partitioning the World | ||
| 10 | From the Great Game to the Scramble for Africa | Cook, Scott. Colonial Encounters in the Age of High Imperialism. New York, NY: Talman, 1996, pp. 1-28. ISBN: 9781886746626. |
| 11 | The Berlin Conference: Power-Politics and Map Fantasies | Harlow, Barbara, and Mia Carter. Archives of Empire. Vol II. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003, pp. 13-81. ISBN: 9780822331643. (Documents and maps.) |
| Violence | ||
| 12 | Colonial Warfare I: Conquest of Africa, Boer War, Boxer Uprising | |
| 13 | Genocides in the Belgian Congo and German South-West Africa |
Cook, Scott. Colonial Encounters in the Age of High Imperialism. New York, NY: Talman, 1996, pp. 33-70. ISBN: 9781886746626. Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1998, chapter 8. ISBN: 9780395759240. (Excerpt) Cocker, Mark. “The Germans in Southwest” In Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold. New York, NY: Grove Press, 2000, pp. 269-370. ISBN: 9780802116666. (Excerpt) |
| Empire in the Metropole | ||
| 14 | The Imperial Nation on Display |
Corbey, Raymond. “Ethnographic Showcases, 1870-1930.” Cultural Anthropology 8, no. 3 (1993): 338-369. Ramamurthy, Anandi. Imperial Persuaders. New York, NY: Pelgrave, 2003. ISBN: 9780719063794. (Excerpt) Ciarlo, David. “Consuming Race, Envisioning Empire.” PhD Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2003. (Excerpt) |
| 15 | Imperial Masculinities and Femininities |
Judd, Denis. “Gordon Of Khartoum: The Making Of An Imperial Martyr.” In History Today 35 (1985): 19-25. Cook, Scott. Colonial Encounters in the Age of High Imperialism. New York, NY: Talman, 1996, pp. 146-156. ISBN: 9781886746626. |
| Case Studies of Transformation in the Colonies | ||
| 16 | Hawai’i | Cook, Scott. “Islands of Manifest Destiny.” In Colonial Encounters in the Age of High Imperialism. New York, NY: Talman, 1996, pp. 73-101. ISBN: 9781886746626. |
| 17 | Discussion: Ferdinand Oyono, Houseboy | Oyono, Ferdinand. Houseboy London. UK: Heinemann, 1991. ISBN: 9780435905323. |
| 18 | Discussion: George Orwell, Burmese Days | Orwell, George. Burmese Days. New York, NY: Harper & brothers, 1934. |
| Narratives (and Counter-Narratives) of Development | ||
| 19 | The First World War | |
| 20 | Colonial Economics and “Modernization” |
Duignan, Peter, and L. H. Gann. “Economic Achievements of the Colonizers: An Assessment.” In Colonialism in Africa 1870-1960. Edited by Peter Duignan and L. H. Gann. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1969. ISBN: 9780521073738. Cooper, Frederick. “Colonizing Time.” In Colonialism and Culture. Edited by Nicholas Dirks. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780472064342. |
| Twilight of Empire | ||
| 21 | Empire in the Second World War | |
| 22 | A New World Order? From the Suez Crisis to Vietnam | Greene, Graham. The Quiet American. New York, NY: Viking Press, 1956, 1955. |
| Decolonization in Asia and Africa | ||
| 23 | Decolonization | Cooper, Frederick. “The Dialectics of Decolonization: Nationalism and Labor Movements in Postwar French Africa.” In Tensions of Empire. Edited by Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997, pp. 406-435. ISBN: 9780520206052. |
| 24 | Independent Nationalism of the New Elites | Fanon, Franz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York, NY: Grove Press, 1965. ISBN: 9780802150837. |
| New Imperialisms? | ||
| 25 | The Neo-Colonialism of “Globalization”? | |
| 26 | The New American Empire? | Kaplan, Robert D. “Supremacy by Stealth.” in The Atlantic Monthly 292, no. 1 (July/August 2003): 66-83. |
| Final Exam Week | ||
