Talk:New Imperialism

What to include in the timeline
I have recently removed some points about activities under Argentine flag in Califonia, Peru and Manila (?) in the 1810s and 1820s. These events are clearly related to the Spanish American wars of independence and not part of an expansionist scheme by Argentina, which was by then a very fragmented country. The question is what things to include and which not. For example, the Chilean annexation of Easter Island is very much aking to the annexations of the Great Powers in Oceania, and I argue thus that it should be included. But then question is should the Argentine occupation and the British invasion of the Falklandsin the 1820s and 1830s be included, and if so, why not Ecuador's occupation Galapagos be? How do we select which events fall under the category of New Imperialism? Dentren &#124; Talk 15:56, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * There is unfortunately much in this article which is wildly ahistorical. New Imperialism is much narrower in meaning than the article appears to suggest and refers principally to the British and French empires from the 1880s. For example, there is almost nothing relevant in the section on Indonesia. And why do we discuss 1930s' appeasement? At the same time, we have almost nothing on the French empire in Africa or the Fashoda incident. The section on Chilean imperialism (!) is actually longer than that on British colonial expansion in Africa. It really needs to be junked entirely. —Brigade Piron (talk) 16:19, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree in that Chilean stuff can be trimmed down, but before that happens information about German, French, US and British colonial adventures in Oceania should be added. It is not the ordinary procedure in Wikipedia to delete content to give due weight, but rather to add content to the underepresented subject. Dentren &#124; Talk 18:41, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That's not necessarily true (WP:UNDUE) but I'm not proposing to delete it. The ideal thing would be for someone to entirely re-write it! —Brigade Piron (talk) 18:55, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Most of the content in in Oceania fits much better in the article maritime history of Chile. I do think however that Chile's and other small powers and nations roles in New Imperialism should not be overlooked, but should be streamlined to fit a narrative dually centered on the nations subject to the "New" imperialism and the Great Powers. Dentren &#124; Ta<b style="color: Green">lk</b> 16:41, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2021 and 3 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cdmarte.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:11, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Boer War
The present text says bluntly that 'In 1899, Britain set out to complete its takeover of the future South Africa, which it had begun in 1814 with the annexation of the Cape Colony, by invading the gold-rich Afrikaner republics of Transvaal and the neighboring Orange Free State.' I think it is not disputed that the Second Boer War, which began in 1899, was initiated by attacks by the Boers (Afrikaners) on British settlements. The Wiki article on the War says 'The conflict broke out in 1899 after the failure of the Bloemfontein Conference and Boer irregulars and militia attacked colonial settlements in nearby British colonies. Starting in October 1899, the Boers placed Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking under siege, and won a string of victories at Colenso, Magersfontein and Stormberg. In response to these developments, increased numbers of British Army soldiers were brought to Southern Africa, and mounted largely unsuccessful attacks against the Boers'. Does this sound like Britain 'setting out to complete its takeover of the future South Africa'? I know that there were British interests, led by Cecil Rhodes, who wanted to occupy the Boer territories. Moreover, after a long and bloody conflict, Britain did in fact obtain control of the whole of what is now South Africa, though not long after that it also conceded a large measure of self-government to the colony. However, if that was the intention of the British policy all along, I think a source should be cited. 2A00:23C8:7907:4B01:D451:20E:657E:8FD8 (talk) 21:14, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

The "Humanitarian" section is really quite bad.
Under the section "Motivations", the first listed is "Humanitarian", written with what I feel can be pretty evidently observed as an obvious bias toward colonizer rhetoric, being extremely generous in some cases and outright uncritical in others. Notably there are no citations in the entire paragraph to support the supposed "humanitarian" effort of african colonization beyond the literal and rather infamous piece of white supremacist propaganda "The White Man's Burden", which has long been analyzed as being both an excuse and apologetics for conquest. The piece in the paragraph where the author states that "this had positive effects" especially is not only laughable, but quite frankly deeply troubling. Again, not only is there no citation of these supposed "positive effects", but as far as i'm knowledgeable, it's actually rather agreed upon that european colonization did far, far more damage to their colonies than any positive.

Looking through the history I see a "HawkNightingale175" reverted an attempted revision as being "biased information", which is quite funny and also frustrating considering how obviously biased the section is already--not even to mention the part where the author erroneously refers to those who present evidence that this was not a "humanitarian mission" but instead good 'ol white supremacy, as "Historical Revisionists", which is just...kind of wow. I suppose you could say that it's "Historical Revisionism" in the absolute most generous of terms, but I feel that this is clearly loaded phrasing.

I'll be blunt, this is in my eyes a disgusting, and frankly a-historical framing to present this period of brutal colonization and enslavement as in any way "humanitarian"; It would be like framing Germany's actions in WW2 as "defensive". I'm more of a history nerd rather than an actual historian, but if no one else touches up this section within the near future, I'll probably set aside some time to completely revise that section with citations, but i'd like it if a Historian, Anthropologist, and/or Sociologist could put their expertise and academic resources to this section in my stead. IntoDaDark (talk) 07:48, 2 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I have tagged the section in question for lacking sources and neutrality. – Gluonz  talk contribs 14:14, 2 July 2024 (UTC)