Gilmartin- Colonialism and Imperialism

● Three waves- Americas (Spain/Portugal first), Asia (Britain first), Africa (Berlin Conf.)

● Highly profitable- mercantilism, search for resources

● Lenin- imperialism, in addition to colonialism also monopoly capitalism

● Said/Young- colonialism for settlement/commercial purposes, imperialism also for

ideological, dominating, more centralized state policy

● Environmental determinism (environment determined peoples’ character), moral

obligation to enlighten

● Geographers supported and opposed, ‘necessary’ to survive as a nation vs not

● Hudson- academic geography gained from usefulness to imperialism

● British Columbia 1840s- reserves, set aside land for exploitation, introduced private

property.

● Geographically designed to force natives out of them into ‘civilized’ workforce (small,

lacked resources)

● Bowman- Wilson’s geographer, looked for data to underpin US authorship of ‘new world

order’.

● -> Appropriation of space central to imperial expansion and control

Flint and Taylor- World Economy, Nation-State and Locality

● World Systems Analysis- ‘world system’ (capitalist world-economy) instead of ‘multiple-

society assumption’

● Eg. decline of Britain not a British problem but ‘hegemonic decline’

● La longue duree, long-term structures and processes

● Undeveloped states have different development than studied prior

● Types of System

○ 1. Mini-System, reciprocal-lineage mode of production, limited specialization,

organization by age/gender

○ 2. World-Empire, redistributive-tributary mode, agricultural surplus, allows

business/artisan class to form, material inequality not in mini-system. Eg. Roman

Empire, Feudal Europe

○ 3. World Economy, capitalist mode, no overarching political system, dictated by

market competition, European world economy emerged 1450s, eliminated all

mini-systems and world-empires by 1900

● Types of Change

○ Internal transformation eg. mini-system into world empire

○ External transformation eg. world economy incorporating world empires

○ Discontinuity eg. between Roman Empire and feudal Europe, Chinese states

○ Continuity eg. linear and cyclical trends within one system

● Rostow’s developmentism- bottom traditionalist, top mass consumption, but misses the

context of development (one system)

● Elements of World Economy

○ Single world market, production for exchange

○ Multiple states in system

● Geographic system extent- trade necessary or ephemeral (short-term, luxury)