LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Colonialism
built 678 days ago
Colonialism is not a modern phenomenon. World history is full of examples of one society gradually expanding by incorporating adjacent territory and settling its people on newly conquered territory. The ancient Greeks set up colonies as did the Romans, the Moors, and the Ottomans, to name just a few of the most notorious examples. Colonialism, then, is not restricted to a specific time or place. Nevertheless, in the sixteenth century, colonialism changed decisively because of technological developments in navigation that began to connect more remote parts of the world. Fast sailing ships made it possible to reach distant ports while sustaining closer ties between the center and colonies.
Source:
Colonialism was the transmission belt that brought to Asia, Africa, and South America the blessings of Western civilization. Many of those cultures continue to have serious problems of tyranny, tribal and religious conflict, poverty, and underdevelopment, but that is not due to an excess of Western influence; rather, it is due to the fact that those countries are insufficiently Westernized. Sub-Saharan Africa, which is probably in the worst position, has been described by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as "a cocktail of disasters." That is not because colonialism in Africa lasted so long, but because it lasted a mere half-century. It was too short a time to permit Western institutions to take firm root.
Source:
Colonialism began with the era of European exploration; in 1493 a Line of Demarcation assigned to Spain and Portugal spheres of influence in the Western Hemisphere and West Africa. France, England, and other countries soon vied for territory in North America. The zenith of colonialism came in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when most of Africa and Asia were under European economic or political control. Renewed evangelism in Africa took place at this time, in large part through the efforts of mission societies. The aims of missionaries often placed them in conflict with colonialists who sought only profit and political control. To be sure, some missionaries believed that it was their duty to bring western civilization to the world, yet many others learned and preserved tribal languages, translated scriptures, and adapted their way of life to their surroundings.
Source:
Colonialism and the slave trade represented an international criminal conspiracy of Europeans for Europeans. Like organized crime gangs who start out fighting for their own turf and, at some point realize, killing each other is counter-productive. Europe summed up it is better to divide the spoils amongst each other than to continually fight against each other. The clearest expression of this international conspiracy, of this European criminal enterprise, took place in Berlin in 1885-86. The Berlin Conference divided Africa up between the colonial masters. It made for a more tidy racket.
Source:
Colonialism as a cultural phenomenon in contemporary Japan is seen in the art world. A theater arts scholar Erica Stevens Abbitt asks in her article "Androgyny and Otherness": how it is possible to apply critical theory to Japanese and postcolonial cultural productions without imposing western perceptions or using master narratives that reduce and conquer the "foreign" (2001: 249). Japanese performances art in post-WWII (60s to 70s) presented in the U. S. were under the direct force of western hegemonic power that has legitimated art works and labeled them as "avant-garde" to give them access to the art circuit. It is necessary for Japanese artists to be called in the western term "avant-garde" artists in order to circulate in a highly selective global cultural market. Yoko Ono, for instance, who has up to this day been considered an "avant-garde" artist, poses some interesting questions. What does "avant-garde" mean for an Asian artist who mostly performs in the "West?"
Source:
Colonialism was not solely a European phenomenon in the 20th century. During this time, Japan was growing as a major imperial power. In the early 1940s Japan founded the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, claiming to unite Asian nations against Western domination. In effect, this act brought much of Asia under Japanese control as part of Japan’s political and economic empire. Japanese conquests of the Philippines, Indonesia, Burma, Malaya, and Indochina ended Western colonial administration in these areas, but Japan’s administration during World War II (1939-1945) was more severe than that of the Europeans or Americans that it replaced. In Korea, for example, Japan imposed several measures designed to assimilate the Korean population, including outlawing Korean language and even Korean family names.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Colonialism