3. Nationalism Transformed

Abstract

Many of the same governments which were introducing the institutions of democracy and the welfare state between 1871 and 1914 were also engaged during those very years in a form of territorial and economic expansion called colonialism or imperialism. The latter term is a tricky one because it often carries two overtones. It is sometimes used to include any territorial expansion, and it now exudes a strong odor of disapproval. Here it will be used, without any connotation of condemnation or approbation, to mean economic and political penetration of fairly remote areas populated by people with a culture quite different from that of the expansionist power. Although there are still difficulties, this definition will cover such similar events as the establishment and expansion of the British, French, Italian, German, and Belgian colonial empires in Asia and Africa, the extension of Russian power in Asia, and the penetration of Latin American and the Pacific Islands by the United States. [excerpt