Some Problems in Redefining European Expansion as a Historical Discipline: Taking Stock

Abstract

If historians nowadays still talk of “colonial history” they do so because they are at a loss for an adequate term which would express the new quality this discipline has assumed in the course of decolonization. Rudolf von Albertini has edited a volume which presents a number of articles relevant to this problem. In his introduction he emphasizes the departure from the traditional view of overseas empire-building in which only the creative genius of European colonial powers was considered of historical interest — amidst a comparatively static scenery of exotic opacity. He draws attention to the ever growing shift towards a history of the peoples of the Third World which — whether of national or more regional orientation — shows an increasing concern for questions of social and economic history and draws on the latest findings of social and cultural anthropology, thus limiting Europe's role overseas in a decisive way. European worlddominance, once an epoch—making phenomenon, is reduced to a short—term period of alien rule over the majority of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Albertini takes account of this change, not only in the selection of the contributions to his volume, but its title reflects this change as well: it is a “new colonial history” that he presents, and Albertini gives us to understand that by this he is not concerned with the periodization of colonial history, but rather with the new approaches in this field since the end of the Second World War.