The Reviewer

ISSUE NO. 1.19

DECEMBER 12, 1999

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COLONIALISM
A THEORETICAL OVERVIEW
By Jurgen Osterhammel, Shelley L. Frisch (Translator)
Markus Wiener Pub
Amazon Price: $18.95
Paperback
ISBN: 1558761306

Reviewed by Gene Davis

Jurgen Osterhammel presents a new approach to colonialism. Concise but sweeping, it encompasses the processes of colonisation and decolonisation from the early modern period to the twentieth century. The subject is vast, but Osterhammel is brief as he says that "the task of this book is to construct a theoretical and historical overview of colonialism with a minimum of value judgements." That he does, as he promises to "probe questions that have rarely been addressed in scholarly studies." Osterhammel says that "colonialism" is multifaceted, uneven, and "a phenomenon of colossal vagueness," but argues that it must be perceived from all possible angles, "with a central focus on both perpetrators and victims. He says "colonisation" is a process of territorial acquisition, "colony" is a particular type of sociopolitical organisation, and "colonialism" a system of domination. The basis of all three concepts is the notion of expansion of a society beyond its original habitat. These processes of expansion are a fundamental phenomenon of world history.

Osterhammel says there are six major forms of "processes of expansion," which include the total migration of whole populations, mass individual migration, settlers pushing a "frontier" into the "wilderness," and the construction of networks of naval bases. One of the most important forms of expansion is the "empire-building wars of conquest" or the "classic or Roman" form of establishing the rule of one people over another." The word "empire" [from the Latin word imperium (meaning "rule" or "authority") and the related verb, imperare (meaning "to command")] originates from the time of the Roman Republic and is at the root of the concept of "imperialism."

This example, says the author, is not necessarily "imperialism." He feels "imperialism" is the creation and control of "transcolonial empires." "Colonialism" concerns only colonial politics, but "imperialism" implies both colonial and international politics where colonies are not "just ends in themselves, but also pawns in global power games." Therefore, Great Britain and the United States have been imperialist powers in his sense of the term, though the US is an example of "imperialism without a major colonial empire." France, Germany, Russia, and Japan were imperialists in "a more limited sense" while "colonial empires without imperialism" were the rule during the early modern period of European expansion.

The definitions of "colonisation" and "colony" should not be overlap too much. His reasoning is that colonisation can occur without creating colonies. He cites the instance of North America's westward expansion in the 19th century. On the other hand, colonies can result from military conquest, not colonisation. Here, he cites the example of British India. The primary motive behind these colonies are economic gain, strategic interest, and prestige. These colonies, such as British India, Egypt (British), Indochina (French), Togo (German), the Philippines (American), and Taiwan (Japanese) have "autocratic governments by the mother country sometimes with paternalistic solicitude for the native population."

Having done this, Osterhammel dwells at length on the six "colonial epochs" from 1520 to 1960; the eight phases of "colonial conquest;" the three types of "indirect rule;" the colonial state's three "basic sociological types of rule;" the four principal results of the impact of European religion; the three elements of "colonialist ideology;" and the "six dimensions" of decolonisation.

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FREUD'S ANSWER
THE SOCIAL ORIGINS OF OUR PSYCHOANALYTIC CENTURY
by Martin Wain
List Price: $28.95 Amazon Price: $20.27 You Save: $8.68 (30%)
Ivan R Dee
Hardcover - 416 pages
ISBN: 1566632161

Reviewed by Gene Davis

Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis is increasingly challenged these days. Neither are his theories scientifically respectable nor are they therapeutically efficacious. The man concerned now being no more to refute the challenges made by critics and detractors, it is Martin Wain who provides the repartee in Freud's Answer. Psychoanalysis, Wain says, is essentially a defence of modern liberal democracy in disguise, "a symbolical, deflective tale about the mysterious workings of the mind (which was really the quite puzzling and often irrational social order), told with a seeming reason and logic that many found believable." Psychoanalysis, in its topics, methods, and goals, was designed to suppress, divert attention from, or assuage the effects of the tensions intrinsic to modernity. Though Wain does not take psychoanalysis apart, he does assert that it is sophistic and that its practitioners are guilty of deceit. While he concedes that the deception was perhaps necessary for the survival of modern liberal democracy, his views are sure to be unwelcome to committed Freudian believers. Wain's book is similar to Ernest Gellner's The Psychoanalytic Movement, William J. McGrath's Freud's Discovery of Psychoanalysis, and Carl E. Schorske's Fin-de-Siècle Vienna.

Wain says the theories of Freud were a normalising force which no longer equated social rebellion with sin or political disobedience, but with a sickness supported by the "objectivity" of science. Psychoanalysis was, in the final course of things, a new control which took the place of authority in the name of the king, the church, or the family. Wain says Freud and his colleagues were, broadly speaking, social, political, and economic therapists in the broadest sense. And the author provides the socio-political context in which Freud and his colleagues became what they were. The French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution had overturned the old order but had left the new masses of individuals on their own, lacking the certainties of the old life. Now that authority in the form of the king, the church, and the family had lost its power, the new liberal democracies needed new means of control. Freud and his colleagues provided an answer. Their analysis was essentially a justification of the form of government that they themselves vouched for. This analysis has held sway for over a hundred years.

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