Description
Yale University Press Three Faces of Imperialism British and American Approaches to Asia and Africa 1870-1970 by Phillip Darby
Imperialism presents a number of faces to those who observe it. It is variously – and often at the same time – an exercise in power politics, an expression of moral responsibility and an attempt to secure economic benefit. In this book Phillip Darby explores the interplay of these three factors in British and American imperialist ventures in Asia and Africa in the last century. Darby examines the motives, assumptions and influences behind Britain’s imperial domination in the period up to the second World War, and American attitudes toward imperial expansion in the years after, comparing the approaches of the two powers during their respective periods of ascendancy. Darby’s analysis reveals many parallels between British and American views about Asia and Africa and substantial continuities in approach over the one hundred year span. He contends that both Britain and America used Asia and Africa as instruments of power politics in struggles between the western powers. Moral considerations – often tied to the notion that the West had a duty to implant the seeds of progress in the Third World – also played a significant role in drawing the western nations more deeply into the life of Afro-Asian societies. Economic interest, on the other hand, was less compelling than much contemporary opinion would have us believe.