William

What is colonialism, where does it occur, and what is the role in diffusion in european culture?

For much of the 19th and early 20th Century how we defined regions and areas of the world was a by-product of European colonialism and European conceptions of their own enlightened superiority and ‘divine’ mission to raise up the non-White peoples of the world. Thus much of the world was demarcated from a European point of view. Today’s Middle East was known first as the Levant and then as the Near East so as to learn it from the Far East. Asia itself was largely defined by the colonial power that exercised political power or dominant influence. Thus terms such as Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia were largely absent. Instead peninsular Southeast Asia was defined as Indochina by the French while the Malay world was artificially divided between the British territories on the peninsular and the Dutch East Indies. The former was itself divided between The Straits Settlements, the Federated States of Malaya and the Unfederated States of Malaya. Of these The Straits Settlements were administered until 1867 by the famous East India Company. The Philippines, a Spanish colony until 1898, were administered from Mexico from 1565 to 1821 as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and following Mexican independence in 1821 directly from Madrid. For over 300 years The Philippines looked to its East, to the Americas and Europe rather than to its neighbors in Asia.