Topic
Civilizing mission
About: Civilizing mission is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 305 publications have been published within this topic receiving 4395 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
Book•
21 Aug 1990
TL;DR: In Machines as the Measure of Men as mentioned in this paper, Adas explores the ways in which European perceptions of their scientific and technological superiority shaped their interactions with people overseas and analyzes European responses to the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa, India, and China, cultures judged to represent lower levels of material mastery and social organization.
Abstract: Over the past five centuries, advances in Western understanding of and control over the material world have strongly influenced European responses to non-Western peoples and cultures. In Machines as the Measure of Men, Michael Adas explores the ways in which European perceptions of their scientific and technological superiority shaped their interactions with people overseas. Adopting a broad, comparative perspective, he analyzes European responses to the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa, India, and China, cultures that they judged to represent lower levels of material mastery and social organization. Beginning with the early decades of overseas expansion in the sixteenth century, Adas traces the impact of scientific and technological advances on European attitudes toward Asians and Africans and on their policies for dealing with colonized societies. He concentrates on British and French thinking in the nineteenth century, when, he maintains, scientific and technological measures of human worth played a critical role in shaping arguments for the notion of racial supremacy and the "civilizing mission" ideology which were used to justify Europe's domination of the globe. Finally, he examines the reasons why many Europeans grew dissatisfied with and even rejected this gauge of human worth after World War I, and explains why it has remained important to Americans. Showing how the scientific and industrial revolutions contributed to the development of European imperialist ideologies, Machines as the Measure of Men highlights the cultural factors that have nurtured disdain for non-Western accomplishments and value systems. It also indicates how these attitudes, in shaping policies that restricted the diffusion of scientific knowledge, have perpetuated themselves, and contributed significantly to chronic underdevelopment throughout the developing world. Adas's far-reaching and provocative book will be compelling reading for all who are concerned about the history of Western imperialism and its legacies.
821 citations
Book•
1 Jan 1997
TL;DR: A note on orthography and translation is given in this paper, where the setting: the idea of the civilizing mission in 1895 and the creation of the government general is discussed.
Abstract: A note on orthography and translation Introduction 1. The setting: the idea of the civilizing mission in 1895 and the creation of the government general 2. Public works and public health: civilization, technology, and science (1902-1914) 3. Forging the republican Sujet: schools, courts, and the attack on slavery (1902-1908) 4. 'En faire des hommes': William Ponty and the pursuit of moral progress (1908-1914) 5. Revolt and reaction: World War I and its consequences (1914-1930) 6. 'Democracy' reinvented: civilization through association (1914-1930) 7. Civilization through coercion: human Mise en Valeur in the 1920s Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index.
586 citations
TL;DR: The Ottoman Empire was the last great Muslim world empire to survive into the age of modernity as mentioned in this paper, and the Ottoman elite adopted the mindset of their enemies, the arch-imperialists, and came to conceive of its periphery as a colonial setting.
Abstract: The Ottoman Empire was the last great Muslim world empire to survive into the age of modernity. The Ottoman state, together with its contemporaries, Habsburg Austria and Romanov Russia, was engaged in a struggle for survival in a world where it no longer made the rules. As the nineteenth century approached its last quarter, these rules were increasingly determined by the successful and aggressive world powers, Britain, France, and after 1870, Germany. As external pressure on the ottoman Empire mounted from the second half of the century, the Ottoman center found itself obliged to squeeze manpower resources it had hitherto not tapped. Particularly nomadic populations, armed and already possessing the military skills required, now became a primary target for mobilization. This study is an attempt to come to grips with the “civilizing mission” mentality of the late Ottomans and their “project of modernity” as reflected in their provincial administration. It is the view of this writer that sometime in the nineteenth century the Ottoman elite adopted the mindset of their enemies, the arch-imperialists, and came to conceive of its periphery as a colonial setting.My definition of colonialism here closely follows the Leninist position as in “Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism.” In my view, this is still one of the best and most succinct definitions of imperialism. After showing how the partition of the word accelerated in the 1880s, Lenin concludes, “It is beyond doubt therefore, that capitalism's transition to the stage of monopoly capitalism, to finance capital, is connected with the intensification of the struggle for the partitioning of the world.” V. Lenin, Selected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers 1977), 224.
244 citations
Book•
1 Jan 2005
TL;DR: In the shadow of America's recent military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, distinguished historians of empires and noted international relations specialists consider the dirty word "empire" in the face of contemporary political reality as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the shadow of America’s recent military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, distinguished historians of empires and noted international relations specialists consider the dirty word “empire” in the face of contemporary political reality. Is “empire” a useful way to talk about America’s economic, cultural, political, and military power?
This final volume in the Social Science Research Council “After September 11” series examines what the experience of past empires tells us about the nature and consequences of global power. How do the goals and circumstances of the United States today compare to classical imperialist projects of rule over others, whether for economic exploitation or in pursuit of a “civilizing mission”?
Reviewing the much contested history of domination by Western colonizing powers, Lessons of Empire asks what lessons the history of these empires can teach us about the world today.
157 citations
Book•
10 Jan 2014
TL;DR: Makdisi as mentioned in this paper identifies the convergence between the British Empire's civilizing mission abroad and a parallel mission within England itself, and points to romanticism as one of the key sites of resistance to the imperial culture in Britain after 1815.
Abstract: The central argument of Edward Said's Orientalism is that the relationship between Britain and its colonies was primarily oppositional, based on contrasts between conquest abroad and domestic order at home. Saree Makdisi directly challenges that premise in Making England Western, identifying the convergence between the British Empire's civilizing mission abroad and a parallel mission within England itself, and pointing to romanticism as one of the key sites of resistance to the imperial culture in Britain after 1815. Makdisi argues that there existed places and populations in both England and the colonies that were thought of in similar terms - for example, there were sites in England that might as well have been Arabia, and English people to whom the idea of the freeborn Englishman did not extend. The boundaries between "us" and "them" began to take form during the romantic period, when England became a desirable Occidental space, connected with but superior to distant lands. Delving into the works of Wordsworth, Austen, Byron, Dickens, and others to trace an arc of celebration, ambivalence, and criticism influenced by these imperial dynamics, Makdisi demonstrates the extent to which romanticism offered both hopes for and warnings against future developments in Occidentalism. Revealing that romanticism provided a way to resist imperial logic about improvement and moral virtue, Making England Western is an exciting contribution to the study of both British literature and colonialism.
141 citations
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
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| 2021 | 6 |
| 2020 | 11 |
| 2019 | 5 |
| 2018 | 5 |
| 2017 | 15 |
| 2016 | 21 |