Asian Responses to Imperialism: Crash Course World History #213

In which John Green teaches you about Imperialism, but not from the perspective of the colonizers. This week John looks at some Asian perspectives on Imperialism; specifically, writers from countries that were colonized by European powers. We'll look at the writings of Sayyid Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani from the Middle East, Liang Qichao from China, and Rabindranath Tagore from India. these voices from the countries that were colonized give us a sense of how conquered people saw their conquerors, and give an insight into what these nations learned from being dominated by Europe. It's pretty interesting, OK? A lot of this episode is drawn from a fascinating book by Pankaj Mishra called The Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia. You should read it.

Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet?

[thewalkingsnail]

I think John needs to publish a series of history books:
The Fault in Our Czars (about The Downfall of the Russian Empire)
Paper Crowns (about the establishment of constitutional monarchy in Europe)
Looking for Alaska (the Adventures of John Leydard)

[OrlovKruskayev]

1:45 a map with France in red and Great Britain in blue.

This is so wrong.

[maxbelnades]

"History repeats itself but just with bigger mistakes"

[ferrymahendra]

Mr. Green, I'm Indonesian and could you discuss about Dutch colonialism and imperialism on Indonesia? Because it's not very highlighted in the American and world media and also the history lessons in my country is highly unreliable and biased (I realized this after I compared my highschool history book and Wikipedia), so could you make a video about it, please, Mr. Green?

[Gnomelord]

Problem with Authoritarianism is that there is no mechanism to ensure that you get a good ruler in power, and that ruler (even a good one) needs to waste valuable energy and resources keeping somebody else form seizing the throne. I mean Augustus was a great ruler and Tiberous...was not, nor Caligula after him. Cliadius was good, but he was followed by Nero. There is no system to make sure that the Next Autocrat is remotely talented, and you often wind up with psychotics like Caligula or Empress Irene, or you wind up with people who are just inedpt and unsuited for rule like Nicholas II or Louis the 16th.

[ImperatordeElysium]

Red France and  Blue Britain on that Africa map? Well that's the reverse of just about every map I've ever seen. Even the continent tended to use red/pink for Britain.

[AtticusEdwards]

Authoritarianism:
Good leader= Really good
Bad leader= Really, really bad
Basically, one puts all his/her eggs in one basket when adopting this strategy.

[nipunramani]

Crash course comment section, best place to have aggressive intellectual chaotic arguments which do not have any solid answers.

[maritelopezcarballo]

3:27 the one direction Icon made my day

[ChronicGalaxy]

This channel has taught me so much more about history than I ever have learned in school.. Thank you for making these videos, they're simple, not too long and made understandable with great topics. Great work to you John Green, and of course every member of the Crash Course team. Thank you for wanting to teach people, it's really appreciated.

[BalooSJ]

The thing with authoritarianism is that yeah, sometimes you get a really good dictator who gets stuff done and acts rather benevolently. But more often, you get someone bad - either incompetent or evil, or both. And when that happens, there's no good way of replacing the dictator.

Basically, the point of democracy is not to be the nation that gets good stuff done. It's to be the nation that does NOT get BAD stuff done. It's doing a so-so job in that regard, but probably better than other systems.

[RealHipHoManiac]

I want a "History" of CrashCourse!
And the origin of the Mongol joke

[yazackak]

WHY IS FRANCE RED IN THE AFRICA MAP. THAT BOTHERS ME MORE THAN IT OUGHT TO.

[Farisss]

It might look like that Colonialism was all fun and liberating but seriously, compared to massacre and centuries of oppressions that non-Westerners had to face, the benefits of colonialism were seriously so small. Sure, we had our own dictators and all but that doesn't justify Westerners trespassing into our lands, with their aims of 'civilising' us, only to oppress us after that.

But the West won and history is written by winners. History will write the White Men as the people who liberated and killed our savagery while our oppressed voice will stay silent. However, civilisations arise and fall, they arise full of grace and fall of humiliation. Soon the Western civilisation will fall and all of our voice will be free.

[histropedia]

So many people here trying to justify colonialism with their obvious stereotypes and beliefs that the west was civilized and east was barbaric. This is the traditional view for expansionism of the west that we will civilize the natives. I would rather say that the east especially the arab world, India and china were the most scientifically advanced cultures before enlightment and all that great voyages and discovery of the new world

[okiedokie]

Funny that the Chinese invented the Cannon and gunpowder, yet just a bit later they Europeans come back at them with their own poison.. The irony..

[vaibhavtripathi]

I am an India so I am not watching imperialism from eastern perspective, I am watching Western perspective of "eastern perspective" of imperialism.

[AR-nggr]

the correct translation is "God does not change the condition of a people until they change the condition of themselves from within".

Merry Xmas

[BrianHutzellMusic]

An open letter to all those people who post comments like, “But you didn’t mention X, Y, or Z:”

History majors in college send 4-8 years studying this stuff. Career historians dedicate their entire lives to it. You're not going to get it all in a handful of 10-15 minute YouTube videos! I think Crash Course provides a great overview, and gives me some starting points for further exploration.

Best wishes,
A John Green supporter

[BudCharlesUnderVlogs]

Wasn't the invasion of the Americas and Australia also imperialism?