248
GEORGE LICHTHEUA
and Kipling duly appear as protagonists of British overseas expansioll,
while the far more influential Liberal Imperialists (and their Fabian
allies) are ignored. Socialist pacifism before 1914 is illustrated by a
bit of sentimental rhetoric culled from one of
J
aures' speeches on
Morocco; nothing is said about Edouard Bernstein's public support
for German colonial expansion and the acquisition of naval bases in
China. Marxism is represented by Lenin, although his pamphlet on
imperialism merely vulgarized the thought of more serious writers.
Schumpeter's well-known essay of 1919 is quoted in such a fashion
as to give the totally misleading impression that he denied the economic
roots of modern imperialism; whereas in fact his account of the subject
differs from the Austro-Marxist theory only in unimportant details.
This particular bit of "editing" really calls for something stronger
than mere critical reproof; scholars are free to indulge their political
hobby-horses, but they are not supposed to tamper with the evidence.
But the chief fault of this tedious compilation is its mindlessness.
A large-scale exercise in Cold War propaganda, elaborately dressed
up as scholarship, might still have contained a few illuminating ideas.
There are none, only a large and badly organized collection of snippets,
and a parade of trivialities by the editor. Students curious to know
what imperialism meant in its heyday before the First World War
will do better to consult the case for the prosecution and for the de–
fense in two recent books: Bernard Semmel's
Imperialism and Social
Reform
and A. P. Thornton's
The Imperial Idea and. its Enemies;
the
first a quasi-Marxist analysis of the forces underlying British policy,
the second an eloquent apology of the imperial creed by one of its
last defenders. For imperialism was more than a political maneuver.
It was a movement, an ideology, almost a way of life. Its exponents
included liberal aristocrats, Fabian socialists, and neo-Hegelian phi–
losphers, as well as militarists and racists. Above all, it was an inter–
national phenomenon. Its loudest and most eloquent protagonists were
Anglo-American liberals. Mr. Halle, who, unlike Professor Snyder,
is
not disposed to conceal this awkward fact, quotes a characteristic ut–
terance by the well-known liberal journalist William Allen White: "It
is the Anglo-Saxon's manifest destiny to go forth as a world con–
queror. He will take possession of the islands of the sea. . . . This
is
what fate hold's for the chosen people. It is so written. .. . It is to be"
(Gp. cit.,
p. 177). Of course this was at the height of the mania
around 1900. The point is that, with a few exceptions, the mood had
taken possession of people who regarded themselves as advanced and
progressive. The split within the Liberal party in England (which
