Imperialism & Independence Books

Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth

Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi, Mahadev H. Desai

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Total reviews: 70 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Gandhi's nonviolent struggles in South Africa and India had already brought him to such a level of notoriety, adulation, and controversy that when asked to write an autobiography midway through his career, he took it as an opportunity to explain himself. Although accepting of his status as a great innovator in the struggle against racism, violence, and, just then, colonialism, Gandhi feared that enthusiasm for his ideas tended to exceed a deeper understanding. He says that he was after truth rooted in devotion to God and attributed the turning points, successes, and challenges in his life to the will of God. His attempts to get closer to this divine power led him to seek purity through simple living, dietary practices (he called himself a fruitarian), celibacy, and ahimsa, a life without violence. It is in this sense that he calls his book The Story of My Experiments with Truth, offering it also as a reference for those who would follow in his footsteps. A reader expecting a complete accounting of his actions, however, will be sorely disappointed.

Although Gandhi presents his episodes chronologically, he happily leaves wide gaps, such as the entire satyagraha struggle in South Africa, for which he refers the reader to another of his books. And writing for his contemporaries, he takes it for granted that the reader is familiar with the major events of his life and of the political milieu of early 20th-century India. For the objective story, try Yogesh Chadha's Gandhi: A Life. For the inner world of a man held as a criminal by the British, a hero by Muslims, and a holy man by Hindus, look no further than these experiments. --Brian Bruya

American Colonies: The Settling of North America (The Penguin History of the United States, Volume1) (Hist of the USA)

Alan Taylor

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Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

With this volume, Alan Taylor challenges the traditional story of colonial history by examining the many cultures that helped make America. Transcending the usual Anglocentric version of our colonial past, he recovers the importance of Native American tribes, African slaves, and the rival empires of France, Spain, the Netherlands, and even Russia in the colonization of North America. Moving beyond the Atlantic seaboard to examine the entire continent, American Colonies reveals a pivotal period in the global interaction of peoples, cultures, plants, animals, and microbes. In a vivid narrative, Taylor draws upon cutting-edge scholarship to create a timely picture of the colonial world characterized by an interplay of freedom and slavery, opportunity and loss.

"Compelling, readable, and fresh, American Colonies is perhaps the most brilliant piece of synthesis in recent American historical writing." (Phillip J. Deloria, associate professor of history and American culture, University of Michigan)

Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies

Bartolome de Las Casas

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Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Essential Reading 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

"A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies" is a powerful written protest against the Spanish treatment of the American Indians. Bartolome de las Casas, a Dominican friar, witnessed first-hand the colonization of the Americas by the Spaniards, and felt it his duty to document the atrocities. He dedicated "short account" to King Philip II, in the hope that once he was aware of the atrocities, he would put a stop to them, as any good kings would. Casas documents the "destruction of the indies" in what is today Haiti and the Domican Republic, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, and Peru. Among other things, Casas reports that the Spaniards, upon coming to the Indian villages, either tortured and killed them for the gold that they might be hiding, or forced them into slavery in gold mines. The "blackguards," as he calls them, would even kill pregnant women, the elderly, and children by either burning them alive, running them through with lances, or setting vicious dogs on them. Supposedly, the Indians welcomed the Spaniards and offered to serve them, and were rewarded with torture, murder, and slavery. Casas' account has a sense of urgency that things matters might still be reversed. Further, "Short Account" is arguably the first human rights report.

That's not to say that Casas was perfect, at least by modern standards. In his view, one of the worst aspects of the wholesale slaughter of the Indians was that they would go straight to Hell, since they never heard the gospel or received the sacraments. Moreover, he never questioned the right of the Spanish to be there, or of Pope Alexander VI to grant sovereignty of the Americas to Spain and Portugal. So the fact that the book became central to the "black legend" was in spite of Casas' beliefs, not because of them. In fact, at one point he refers to Protestant German merchants who go to the Americas as heretics, so he certainly never would have countenanced Protestant Anglo-Dutch propaganda against Spain. Nor is it his intent to portray Spaniards as uniquely cruel, as black legend propaganda did; Casas simply saw the Conquistadors who killed and enslaved the Indians, rather than converting them, as sinners. Finally, as other reviewers have noted, Casas advocated replacing Indian slaves with black slaves. He eventually realized his mistake, but it was too late. In addition, Casas definitely takes the "noble savage" angle in portraying the Indians, which is now discredited.

Of course, not everything in it can be taken as literally true. For instance, Casas claims that in Mexico City, the conquistadors herded the natives into a temple and burned it. That would have been difficult, since the temple was made of stone and so could not have been set on fire. In addition, the number of dead he gives- 15 million- is impossible to verify. We don't know the pre-conquest population of the Americas with certainty, nor the number dead as a result of Spanish atrocities. But in that the Spaniards killed and plundered is not disputable, so Casas' account is more right than it is wrong.

Whatever Casas' flaws were, however, he was the only one in Catholic Spain to raise a loud protest against the treatment of the Indians. He stood above the men of his time, and contributed, willingly or not, to modern ideas such as liberation theology and human rights theory. Interestingly, he was one of the first to explicitly say that political power comes from the consent of the governed, and that those who are oppressed by some foreign monarch claiming jurisdiction over them have every right to rebel. So in conclusion, this is a must read for those wishing to learn about renaissance, early American, ecclesiastical, and political history. It should be required reading in schools.

Discourse on Colonialism

Aimé Césaire, Joan Pinkham, Robin D.G. Kelley

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Césaire's essay stands as an important document in the development of third world consciousness--a process in which [he] played a prominent role."
--Library Journal

This classic work, first published in France in 1955, profoundly influenced the generation of scholars and activists at the forefront of liberation struggles in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Nearly twenty years later, when published for the first time in English, Discourse on Colonialism inspired a new generation engaged in the Civil Rights, Black Power, and anti-war movements and has sold more than 75,000 copies to date.

Aimé Césaire eloquently describes the brutal impact of capitalism and colonialism on both the colonizer and colonized, exposing the contradictions and hypocrisy implicit in western notions of "progress" and "civilization" upon encountering the "savage," "uncultured," or "primitive." Here, Césaire reaffirms African values, identity, and culture, and their relevance, reminding us that "the relationship between consciousness and reality are extremely complex. . . . It is equally necessary to decolonize our minds, our inner life, at the same time that we decolonize society." An interview with Césaire by the poet René Depestre is also included.

The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century

Daniel R. Headrick

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Pioneer work on technology in world history [4 1/2 stars] 5 out of 5 stars.
17 of 17 people found this review helpful.

Though the subject will not interest everyone (thus 4 1/2 stars), "Tools of Empire" is still a fine example of sound research made accessible for a student/general audience by gifted writing. Headrick shows that, even though the will to dominate existed for a long time previously, Europe's chance to conquer most of the globe only came in the second half of the 19th century.

The technological changes associated with the transition from the First to the Second Industrial Revolution helped create this opportunity. Major innovations such as modern firearms, steamships, railroads, anti-malarial quinine and the telegraph made it much safer for Europeans to live and travel in the tropics, and also easier to attack the indigenous people there. The author gives special attention to developments in India, China and Africa.

Headrick's later works lack the sparkle of this groundbreaking text, but are still worthwhile in bringing the story closer to our own time. The more recent titles have rather more coverage of technology transfer---non-Western peoples' use of introduced technologies---in contrast to "Tools of Empire's" focus on the ways they were used against them. [Michael Adas, "Machines As the Measure of Men" is a stimulating look at Europeans' moral judgements about other societies based on their relative technological proficiency.]

Orientalism (Penguin Modern Classics)

Edward W. Said

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Total reviews: 69 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

absolute rubbish 1 out of 5 stars.
15 of 32 people found this review helpful.

It is interesting, as a brazilian, to realize Said's resentment resembles one of a similar kind which portraits Latin America as the victim of American Imperialism. Latin american intellectuals share the same hate, anger and paranoia towards US.
This may be why to this day brazilian academics force this appaling book down their students throats.
You dont need to be a clinical psychologist to figure this one out: a scape goat is a helpful tool to cope with one's own stupid decisions in life.

Said too much..? 2 out of 5 stars.
9 of 16 people found this review helpful.

Drawing upon the work of Michel Foucault, Edward Said claims that Western ideas of the `Orient' are not based upon objective facts but are created through academic and cultural `discourses' which serve to promote Western imperialism - often despite `liberal' intentions.

This mythical `East' is the antithesis of the West, a negative or inversion of the 'Occident' which is used to define *both* in binary opposition to each other, and to facilitate the political and domination of the East.

However in order to demonstrate the existence of this `Orientalism' Said falls back on an equally stereotypical and monolithic `West' which he constructs entirely from the carefully selected writings of a handful of 19th Century middle-class, white, male English and French authors.

This tactic not only ignores or misrepresents a large body of Western authors sympathetic to the East and sensitive to differences within it, but also glosses over Western heterogenities of class, race, sex, religion and generation in order to manufacture a homogenous `Occident' devoid of differences.

Said is as guilty of *Occidentalism* as those he criticises are of *Orientalism*.

Said fails to provide any evidence that the `West' defines itself in binary opposition to a mythical `East' that Western scholars have created for just this purpose; he simply *manufactures* the kind of `West' necessary to explain the myths about the `East' that he himself has constructed from a very limited number of Western sources.

He has created his own mythical `East' *and* `West' from a small number of literary texts which he then projects onto others and thinks he has *discovered* rather than *invented*.

Editorial Review:

The noted critic and a Palestinian now teaching at Columbia University,examines the way in which the West observes the Arabs.

Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia (Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture)

Woody Holton

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this provocative reinterpretation of one of the best-known events in American history, Woody Holton shows that when Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other elite Virginians joined their peers from other colonies in declaring independence from Britain, they acted partly in response to grassroots rebellions against their own rule.

The Virginia gentry's efforts to shape London's imperial policy were thwarted by British merchants and by a coalition of Indian nations. In 1774, elite Virginians suspended trade with Britain in order to pressure Parliament and, at the same time, to save restive Virginia debtors from a terrible recession. The boycott and the growing imperial conflict led to rebellions by enslaved Virginians, Indians, and tobacco farmers. By the spring of 1776 the gentry believed the only way to regain control of the common people was to take Virginia out of the British Empire.

Forced Founders uses the new social history to shed light on a classic political question: why did the owners of vast plantations, viewed by many of their contemporaries as aristocrats, start a revolution? As Holton's fast-paced narrative unfolds, the old story of patriot versus loyalist becomes decidedly more complex.

Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa

Martin Meredith

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

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Southern Africa was once regarded as a worthless jumble of British colonies, Boer republics, and African chiefdoms, a troublesome region of little interest to the outside world. But then prospectors chanced first upon the world's richest deposits of diamonds, and then upon its richest deposits of gold. What followed was a titanic struggle between the British and the Boers for control of the land, culminating in the costliest, bloodiest, and most humiliating war that Britain had waged in nearly a century, and in the devastation of the Boer republics.

Martin Meredith's magisterial account of those years portrays the great wealth and raw power, the deceit, corruption, and racism that lay behind Britain's empire-building in southern Africa. Based on significant new research and filled with atmospheric detail, it focuses on the fascinating rivalry between diamond titan Cecil Rhodes and Paul Kruger, the Boer leader whose only education was the Bible, who believed the earth was flat, yet who defied Britain's prime ministers and generals for nearly a quarter of a century. Diamonds, Gold and War makes palpable the cost of western greed to Africa's native peoples, and explains the rise of the virulent Afrikaner nationalism that eventually took hold in South Africa, with repercussions lasting nearly a century.

Envisioning America: English Plans for the Colonization of North America, 1580-1640 (The Bedford Series in History and Culture)

Peter C. Mancall

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Another book of the early Americas written by Europeans 3 out of 5 stars.
6 of 14 people found this review helpful.

i read this for a class in early-modern British History. The study of tracing Americas colonial roots in England is not common and this book attempts to give a start. I found the book amazingly repetitive in ideas and concerns and felt better research on the primary documents could have been done to find a wider range of views. There is also a historical error in calculating the number of Native Americans before contact (the book states 1 million and modern estimates are more like 2 million). It is a short read but take a lot of time to wade through the antiquated language of the Puritans.

Empire: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Stephen Howe

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From Sargon to Lord of the Rings...Still the same old story 5 out of 5 stars.
19 of 22 people found this review helpful.

Readers and especially students who want a quick overview of the meaning of "empire" (by no means self-evident) will find a bright diamond in Professor Howe's short text. Encompassed in this slender volume is an attempt to clarify what it means to have an empire, how that differs from colonialism, imperialism, globalization and other competing conceptual categories; a brief description of the leading empires -- Roman, Ottoman, Austria-Hungarian, British, Chinese; and an especially good discussion of relatively recent debates on the overall effects of Empire, with particular attention on the consequences of empire for the dispersion of democracy and the creation of global wealth in countries formerly within the shadow of an empire's reach. The issue of whether and to what extent the U.S. constitutes an empire is raised. This book is a great place to identify the many faceted debates associated with empire for more detailed, subsequent investigation.

Editorial Review:

A great deal of the world's history is the history of empires. Indeed it could be said that all history is colonial history, if one takes a broad enough definition and goes far enough back. And although the great historic imperial systems--the land-based Russian one as well as the seaborne empires of western European powers--have collapsed during the past half century, their legacies shape almost every aspect of life on a global scale. Meanwhile there is fierce argument, and much speculation, about what has replaced the old territorial empires in world politics. Do the United States and its allies, transnational companies, financial and media institutions, or more broadly the forces of "globalization", constitute a new imperial system?
Stephen Howe interprets the meaning of the idea of "empire" through the ages, disentangling the multiple uses and abuses of the labels "empire" and "colonialism", etc., and examines the aftermath of imperialism on the contemporary world.