Political Geography
Lecture Outline 2
Colonialism/Imperialism
Core-Periphery hierarchy
Marxist theory of imperialism
Development of underdevelopment
Competitive capitalism vs. monopoly capitalism
**Know the 13 major colonial empires and their major colonies (not including Ottoman)
Formal Imperialism
Two cycles of colonial expansion and contraction:
1. Two logistic waves (A & B)
A (1st non-competitive) phase – (Pre-Capitalist colonialism) 1500s - 1600s:
Spain & Portugal
B (1st competitive) phase – 1600s - 1700s: The Netherlands, Britain, France &
Baltic States (Denmark, Sweden, Prussia)
2. Kondratieff cycles – (New Imperialism) 1800s - 1900s: Britain, France &
“latecomers” (Belgium, Germany, Italy, Japan, United States)
2nd non-competitive era – British hegemony (Britain vs. France)
2nd competitive (Age of Imperialism) – decline of British hegemony &
emergence of “latecomers”
Military, Economic & Cultural Imperialism
Evolué (Belgium)
Assimilado (Portugal)
Hacienda, Encomienda, Repartimiento (Spain)
Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)
Divide and Rule
Indirect Rule (British)
Direct Rule (all others)
Decolonization in the Periphery
1st Decolonization – USA, Latin America (1750-1850)
- American War of Independence – George Washington
- Liberal revolutions under British-led capitalist world-economy
- Latin America – Simon Bolivar
2nd Decolonization – India, Africa, Southeast Asia, Arabia, Mediterranean, Pacific
- Socialist-inspired revolutions
- Challenge to American liberal leadership
- Indian independence (1947) – Mohandas “Mahatma” Ghandi
- Ghana (1957) and rest of African independence – Kwame Nkrumah
Mackinder’s Great Game – expansion of Russia’s land empire
Regional Specialization of commodities
Informal Imperialism – unequal exchange = global inequality, American hegemony
Videos:
Hotel Rwanda (DVD)
“Tools of Exploitation” in BBC’s The Africans series (VHS)
- What were the “tools of exploitation”?
- Lord Lugard’s Dual mandate
- Triangular Trade (Slave Trade) – Africa, Americas, Europe
- God, gold, glory
- Industrial Revolution
- Berlin Conference of 1885
o Partition of Africa
o Scramble for Africa
- King Leopold II (Belgium) – Congo
- Cecil Rhodes (UK/S. Africa) – Rhodesia (Zimbabwe & Zambia)
o Pax Britanica
- “Temples to the gods of modernity”