The liberal ideal and the demons of empire : theories of imperialism from Adam Smith to Lenin
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The liberal ideal and the demons of empire : theories of imperialism from Adam Smith to Lenin
Johns Hopkins University Press, c1993
Available at 48 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
As Great Britain and other Western nations built empires - both formal and informal - writers on economic and social questions developed theories to explain why and how advanced industrial states exercised control over colonial regions. Different schools of thought emerged: some anticipated the growth of a cosmopolitan economic order, others believed in a brutal imperialism necessary for an expanding capitalism, still others saw evil pre-capitalist forces at work. In this book, Semmel traces the evolution of the ideas about imperialism and discusses four major schools of thought: the classical economists; the social theorists; the national economists; and the Marxists. From Adam Smith to Lenin, the subject of colonialism - and then imperialism - has remained controversial. Although classical economists offered visions of a prosperous world economy based on free trade, and liberal idealists argued that rational self-interest would eliminate aggressive mercantilism and wars of conquest, such "utopian" ideals proved elusive.
Even defenders of capitalism noted contradictions between the harsh realities of the emerging industrial system and the optimistic economic theories that attempted to describe it. In the end, the critics - including liberal sociologists, national economists and Marxists - would win the day by defining imperialism in terms of historic demons: feudal aristocrats, medieval usurers and evil empires. These ideas, Semmel concludes, became props of the liberal, socialist and fascist ideologies of our time.
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