How Did Race Thinking Influence Imperialism

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Race-thinking was an ideology created in Europe used to make distinctions between various “races.” It encouraged nationalism and the idea of a “superior” race. While racial-thinking was a benign idea in Europe, it took on a whole new inhumane meaning after Europeans went into Africa. Hannah Arendt explores this in Origins of Totalitarianism with her “boomerang effect” theory which explains the transfer of military practices created in Europe, used in South Africa, and then later brought back to Europe by Nazis. The trip through Africa is so important regarding the influence imperialism had on European totalitarianism, because practices developed during imperialism transformed “race-thinking” into racism which later became one of the fundamental ideologies Nazis used in their justification of the Holocaust. The same contempt and disdain …show more content…
Internment camps that held women, children, and anyone who surrendered peacefully received rations that were below the bare minimum humans needed to survive. The death rate for these camps reached 45 percent, nearly doubling the rate of British camps, the same camps that inspired the Germans. Not only did the idea of pan-Germanism heighten during the German’s stay in Africa, but it now became a twisted and perverted nationalist view that not only believed that Germans were the master race, but that all other inferior races had to be destroyed.
Arendt lays down the foundation of the nature of imperialism in South Africa in Origins of Totalitarianism while Hull offers the detailed example of Germany’s military tactics there and its relationship with the Hereros in Absolute Destruction which ultimately leads us back to Europe where these two destructive forces took shape under Nazi rule in

John Stuart Mill

asks the question of how a body of government can control an individual’s way of life when every individual requires a different way of living. Mill’s idea of liberty was the checks and balances of the world that was soon to be engulfed with imperialistic views. Late 1800’s in Europe was an “era of ambitious conquest” to conform more parts of the world to one way of thinking. This idea was something that was quite contrary to the beliefs of Mill, but the “new imperialism” was born and being enforced…

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Influence of Context on Travelers’ Tales When reading and studying the multitude of travel accounts that have been written throughout history, context plays an extremely important role in guiding how one reads and interprets the content. The time period in which an individual account is written, as well as the ideologies that were prevalent during that period, influence the way the traveler’s experiences, as well as the experiences of the natives they encountered, are portrayed. In turn, the accuracy…

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