Page 32 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol Two

colonialism 381

The Soviet Union is an Evil Empire, and Soviet communism is the focus
of evil in the modern world. • Ronald Reagan (1911–2004)

ica. Nonetheless, the United States and the former Soviet they often took the land and exploited the labor and
Union continued to have very different views regarding resources of subjugated peoples.
world affairs.The end of Cold War tensions did not lead
to the destruction of NATO, but it did temporarily reduce Extent and Causes of
tensions and end the nuclear arms race between the Western Colonization
United States and the Soviet Union. It also paved the way Interest in colonialism in the modern era has focused pri-
for a reunited Germany and for Eastern European marily on Western colonialism from about 1500 to the
nations to join the European Union. present. Western colonialism has drawn most of the
attention because it was so widespread and was a major
Michelle Den Beste
force in human history.To give some sense of its breadth,
See also Balance of Power; Détente; Eastern Europe; consider the German geographer Alexander Supan’s ob-
Russian-Soviet Empire servation that in 1900 European nations and the United
States exerted colonial control over 90.4 percent of the
territory of Africa, 98.9 percent of the Pacific islands,
Further Reading 56.5 percent of Asia, 100 percent of Australia, and 27.2
Goff, R., Moss,W., Upshur, J-H., & Terry, J. (2002). The twentieth century: percent of the Americas.The major European colonizers
A brief global history (6th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Judge, E. H., & Langdon, J.W. (1999). The Cold War: A history through were Great Britain, France, Spain, and Germany, with
documents. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy playing a
Stromberg, R. N. (1992). Europe in the twentieth century. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. lesser role.
South and Southeast Asia were colonized at first by the
Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish; in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries the British and French expanded
into these regions as well. Africa was colonized by the
Colonialism British, French, Belgians, Spanish, Portuguese, Germans,
Italians, and Spanish, with the last decades of the nine-
olonialism is broadly defined as “a system of politi- teenth and early decades of the twentieth century being
Ccal, economic, and cultural domination forcibly the period of most intense colonization.
imposed by a technologically advanced foreign minority Colonization of the Americas began at the close of the
on an indigenous minority” (Gellar 1995, 140). Colo- fifteenth century and did not end until the close of the
nialism is a component of empire building, European nineteenth century. Some experts argue that the United
expansion, and the creation of the modern world system. States replaced European nations as the colonial power
The word colony comes from the Latin word colonie, in the Americas through its taking of Native American ter-
which referred to agricultural communities that produced ritory and its dominance over the economies and, at
food for the Roman empire. times, governments, of nations such as Honduras, Haiti,
Colonialism probably goes back some six thousand and Cuba. This form of colonization is referred to as
years in human history to when humans first established informal colonialism because the colonizing nation does
settlements large enough to require more food than the not have official control over the colonized nation.
surrounding area could provide to support their num- In some cases, colonies were placed under direct con-
bers. The first colonies were probably neighboring peo- trol of the colonizing nation’s government; in other cases
ples whose land or labor (or both) were exploited for trading companies acted as intermediaries. Still other
food. All classic preindustrial states were colonial in that colonies were organized as protectorates, while some