Page 37 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol Two

386 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of
crimes and misfortunes. • Voltaire (1694–1778)

education and experience necessary to run the govern- Headrick, D. (1988). The tentacles of progress:Technology transfer in the
ment and economy were often insufficient to meet the age of imperialism, 1850–1940. New York: Oxford University Press.
Pagden, A. (1995). Lords of all the world: Ideologies of empire in Spain,
need, and the newly independent countries often lacked Britain and France c. 1500–c. 1800. New Haven, CT: Yale University
the capital to support needed infrastructure and social- Press.
Thomas, N. (1994). Colonialism’s culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni-
welfare development. For many colonies that achieved
versity Press.
independence from the 1960s onward, political unrest, Wesseling, H. L. (1997). Imperialism and colonialism: Essays on the his-
a succession of governments, dictatorial rule, poverty, tory of European expansion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Phillips, R. (1997). Mapping men and empire:A geography of adventure.
population dislocations, and civil war have followed London: Routledge.
decolonization. Spurr, D. (1993). The rhetoric of empire: Colonial discourse in journalism,
travel writing, and imperial administration. London: Duke University
Decolonization also had a profound effect on many
Press.
former colonial powers.The loss of low-cost raw materi- Supan,A. (1906). Die territoriale Entwicklung der Europaischen Kolonien
als and a ready market for products caused economic dif- [Territorial development of the European colonies]. Gotha, Germany:
Perthes.
ficulties, although established economic relations
between the colonizer and former colony rarely disinte-
grated entirely. Britain, the Netherlands, and Portugal all
created unions of former colonies that helped keep those Columbian
relations intact. Former colonial powers have also had to
absorb millions of immigrants from their former Exchange
colonies. Some were from favored ethnic groups who fell
from favor in the new power structure; others came to the wo hundred million years ago the continents of
colonial home country in flight from civil wars, revolts, TEarth were massed together contiguously.There was
and poverty; many were simply seeking a better life. As maximum opportunity for terrestrial species to migrate
a result of the influx of immigrants from former colonies, and therefore a higher degree of biotic uniformity than
Britain, the Netherlands, and France have become mul- later. Then the continents split, drifted away from each
ticultural nations with sizeable minority populations— other, and thereafter each continent’s species evolved
and now face all the attendant questions and problems independently. North America and Asia reconnected sev-
of racism, minority rights, diversity, cultural norms, and eral times in the far north and so share many species, but
freedom of religion and expression. there are many contrasts between the two; the Old
World, for example, has such native species as nightin-
David Levinson
gales and cobras, which the New World does not share,
See also Africa, Colonial; Africa, Postcolonial; Biological while the New World has hummingbirds and rattle-
Exchanges; Empire; Imperialism; Postcolonial Analysis snakes, not present in the Old World. Contrasts between
South America and the Old World are especially dra-
matic; in the former one finds nose-waggling tapirs,
Further Reading
whereas in the latter one finds nose-waggling elephants.
Boahen, A. A. (1987). African perspectives on colonialism. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Braudel, F. (1983). The wheels of commerce: Civilization and capitalism, Old and New Worlds:
15th–18th century. New York: HarperCollins. People, Crops, & Animals
Crosby,A.W. (1986). Ecological imperialism:The biological expansion of
Europe, 900–1900. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ten thousand years ago the most recent ice age ended,
Fanon, F. (1961). Les damnes de la terre [The wretched of the earth]. Paris: the continental glaciers melted, and sea levels rose, divid-
Francois Mespero.
Gellar, S. (1995). The colonial era. In P. M. Martin & P. O’Meara (Eds.) ing the Old and New Worlds once again. Before that a
Africa (3rd ed., pp. 135–155). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. number of species had passed between the two, the