Big Era Seven: Closeup Unit 7.5.1

Why This Unit?

Traditionally the so-called "new" imperialism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has been investigated from the perspective of the colonizers: their interests, ideologies, conflicts, and agreements with one another. But an equally important aspect of this contested period is the response of the people that imperial policies affected. While some of the leaders in regions that Europeans, Americans, or Japanese invaded worked with and benefited from the colonizers, most people did not. Peoples of Africa, Asia, and the Americans where imperial assaults occurred used a variety of competing strategies to respond in order to hold on to their traditional values, attempt to negotiate with the strangers, or to resist them forcefully. Some of these approaches worked in the long run, some in the short run or not at all. Most importantly, however, it is false to conclude that hopeless victims simply accepted foreign rule. Rather, a more interesting and historically accurate approach highlights diverse strategies used and analyzes why most of those strategies failed to accomplish their goals.