The Case for Colonialism

by Bruce Gilley

For the last hundred years, Western colonialism has had a bad name." So began Professor Bruce Gilley's watershed academic article "The Case for Colonialism" of 2017. The article sparked a global furor. Critics and defenders of Gilley's argument battled it out in the court of public opinion. The Times of London described Gilley as "probably the academic most likely to be no-platformed in Britain." The New York Times called him one of the "panicky white bros" who "proclaim ever more rowdily that the (white) West was, and is, best" and are "busy recyclers of Western supremacism." In this book, Gilley responds to the critics and elaborates on the case for colonialism. The critics have no evidence for their claims, he asserts. The case for colonialism is robust no matter which colonizer or colonized area one examines. Patient, empirical, humorous, and not a little exasperated by anti-colonial ideologues, Gilley here sets a challenge for the next generation of scholars of colonialism. "It is time to make the case for colonialism again," he writes.

Genres: History, Politics, Economics, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Sociology

326 pages, Paperback

First published November 14, 2023

About the author

Bruce Gilley is Professor of Political Science at the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University. His research centers on comparative and international politics and public policy. His work covers issues as diverse as democracy, climate change, political legitimacy, and international conflict. He is a specialist on the politics of China and Asia. He is the author of four university-press books, including The Nature of Asian Politics (2015), The Right to Rule: How States Win and Lose Legitimacy (2009) and China’s Democratic Future (2004) in addition to several co-edited volumes. His scholarly articles have appeared in journals including Comparative Political Studies and the European Journal of Political Research and his policy articles in journals including Foreign Affairs and the Washington Quarterly. A member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Democracy and the Journal of Contemporary China, Gilley has received grants from the Smith-Richardson Foundation and the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. He was a Commonwealth Scholar at Oxford University from 1989 to 1991 and a Woodrow Wilson Scholar at Princeton University from 2004 to 2006. From 1992 to 2002, he was a journalist in Hong Kong where he wrote for the Eastern Express newspaper and then the Far Eastern Economic Review magazine.His biggest scoop was exposing an illicit technology transfer by a Stanford professor to China's military.

Dr. Gilley is the Principal of Policy Foresight Associates LLC, a Portland-based firm providing research and strategy advice on public policies and programs for clients in the United States and abroad. He is chapter president of the Oregon Association of Scholars, the state chapter of the National Association of Scholars and member of the Heterodox Academy. He is founding signatory of the Oregon Academic Faculty Pledge on Freedom.

Reviews

[Kiki · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a much needed book. It’s a collection of essays rather than a single argument, building from chapter to chapter. But, even so, its argument is powerful and well laid out.

Colonialism is one of those subjects I spent decades paying no attention to, but feeling there was something vaguely wrong with whenever talking heads popped up on TV pontificating about it—because they talked as though the European empires were all bad, when any amount of reading from that period makes it clear that, amongst their bad, they pursued and achieved a lot of good.

I assumed the “experts” were just trying to be polite to the struggling and failed postcolonial states, to give them time to pull their acts together, before pointing out that, hey, the European empires actually brought a lot of good to you at the same time that they came in and conquered your ancestors (or, more often, made deals with some of your ancestors in order to rule over all of them)—just like every other empire did to the people they conquered all throughout history.

But, no, postcolonial “experts“ aren’t just trying to be polite. They really believe the European empires were all bad.

For a while I started to fall for it, and think well, maybe the historical record was worse than I thought. But, no, that is not true, as this book points out.

The problem is that “Postcolonialism“ is not a real academic field. It’s an ideology. In a real academic field, a researcher sorts through the historical records, lays out all the facts, and then draws conclusions based on those facts. But in an ideology there is no researcher—there is only a true believer. The true believer does not research, they merely sift through the facts, cherry picking the ones which make the ideology sound true. Then they present those facts as though they were the only facts in existence, and claim this record proves their ideology is correct.

That is the state of colonial studies today, which is actually just proselytizing for postcolonial ideology.

In light of that poison, this book is a much needed antidote. Bruce Gilley hammers away at the fact that European colonialism was actually extremely good in many ways for the peoples that it governed.

The greatest and most glaring fact of history that the postcolonialists ignore, is that the entirety of human history, after the beginning of agriculture, is a history of colonialism and imperialism. The postcolonial screed pretends that the only empires that ever existed were the European empires which began in the 1500s and ended in the 1900s. In order to believe this, they imply that all of history consisted of unique peoples living peacefully within secure, ancestral borders and righteously self-governing based on human rights and self-determination. Then—horrifically—in the midst of this glorious utopia that was the entirety of human existence, arose an evil invention by white people called Empire. And everything that has gone wrong anywhere in the world ever since, is caused by the fact some group of white people, for some period of time, once had an empire there. Oh, if only those evil white people had stayed put in Europe, then peace and harmony would reign over the whole planet!

This, of course, is complete and utter nonsense. Empire has been the central organizing force of humanity ever since agriculture was invented, and allowed humans to live in groups larger than hunting and gathering could support.

The first empires were in the Middle East, Africa, southern Europe, and Asia. Western Europeans were very, very, very late-comers to the game of empire-building. And empire has been, by and large, very good for the human species. The empires were often violent and horrific in their methods. But they forced peace onto disparate groups who had been in constant or continual states of warfare beforehand, by bringing those groups into one empire with one central government which would not allow them to continue their wars. Over time, these Empires developed and brought greater and better concepts of the rule of law and of justice to the human condition.

And of all these empires, the European empires are arguably the best in the good they have achieved for humankind, for the European empires were born at just the time in which the European philosophies were starting to turn toward Enlightenment and the strange and radical new ideas such as universal individual human dignity and rights. As these ideas developed, the European empires improved themselves, and then turned and forced the ideas onto their subject peoples, improving them.

It was the European empires which are responsible for the abolition of slavery worldwide— first they gave up slavery themselves, then they forced their colonized peoples to give up slavery as well. That is arguably the most important advancement humanity has ever made. So to pretend that the European empires were all and entirely evil, is beyond ridiculous.

And the abolition of slavery is just one of the many good things the European empires did.

Thanks to Bruce Gilley for laying out these other facts—the facts the post-colonialists are trying so hard to hide.

[Scipio Africanus · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was a great book debunking many of the modern myths about colonialism and challenging many of the mainstream views on the subjects as well. highly recommend

[Francois Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

If all professors wrote stuff like this, academia wouldn't have the bad name it has today.

[Paul (Life In The Slow Lane) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still not convinced.

This was a recommendation by a broadcaster on an Australian Far Right news channel. Never again.

I still think the book is worth reading just to get a "well-rounded" view of Colonialism, but as for its content, I think the Australian Aborigines (who lived here happily for 50,000 years prior to colonisation) might disagree. Possibly, the Native Americans might disagree also.

The book is way too long and comes across as a big whinge about having the author's point of view discredited. Maybe he should admit to himself that he might just be wrong. 2.5 stars.

[Michael Springer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bruce Gilley has been a target of the anti-colonial Marxist left ever since his 2017 essay, The Case for Colonialism. This collection expands and enhances his thesis and unapologetically makes the case that colonialism contributed far more good than evil by introducing civil administration, rule of law, commerce and trade and a host of other features that have benefited former colonies (eg, India, Hong Kong) while many countries either fell back into chaos and tribalism in their post-colonial incarnations, or never developed a functioning society at all. This is a debate worth having, and good for Mr. Gilley to challenge the current orthodoxy and bring a broader perspective into the light.

[Joeby · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of essays rather than one book so can be repetitive and there appears little or no middle ground between him and his distractors. The “facts” and sources appear to often prove diametrically opposing theories. I would like to read more on this subject but preferably in a less emotive piece.

[Steve Adkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

A refreshing rational rebuttal to the idiotic "decolonize everything" crowd. Well reasoned, well argued, well written. Very recommended.

[Matt Berkowitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating read, despite it’s rather piece-meal structure—being a collection of essays that are sometimes repetitive and disjointed. My 3/5 rating (would be 3.5 if I could) is mostly reflective of the disjointed nature of this rather jumbled package of essays, despite much of its content being interesting.

Notwithstanding the structure, Gilley delivers a much-needed counter-narrative to the monolithic anti-colonialist view that dominates many academic departments, a view that has become exported to mainstream culture.

I won’t even try to do a comprehensive review, but instead will note some of the my main substantive takeaways from reading this.

Gilley is careful to define his terms, something he repeatedly criticizes others for not doing or doing very sloppily. First, what exactly is “colonialism”? Gilley means “British, French, German, Belgian, Dutch, and Portuguese colonies from the early 19th to mid-20th centuries”, in which “formal political control [became] the dominant mode of European empire while the industrial revolution made the modes and scope of empire qualitatively different from those in the first phase” (p. 92).

Gilley has three basic dimensions he looks at to assess the “rightfulness” or “legitimacy” of a colonial project: legality, consent (of the colonized), and justification (by which means the reasons the colonial project was undertaken).

1. Legality. Using German colonialism as an example, Gilley notes that there were no legal prohibitions against territorial expansion and that local cultures had no legal restraints on their own expansions. The Germans were notably legalistic, aligning their colonial policies with local norms and the Prussian legal tradition. Despite instances of lawless local rule due to a sparse German presence, efforts were made to integrate local jurisprudence and improve administration.

2. Consent. Few could argue this is an important dimension to assess colonial legitimacy (unless one dismisses legitimacy a priori). If a local population consents to colonial government, on what basis can an external body claim this is illegitimate? Gilley notes that, although German colonialism represented a threat to local power-holders, many who lived under their oppression consented to German rule. Inasmuch as we can assess actual consent—rather than coerced affirmation—then this seems like an important attribute by which to assess colonial legitimacy.

3. Justification. Again using German colonialism as an exemplar, Gilley argues: “The most powerful justificatory ethic of German colonialism—the congruence of core values between the ruling system and those held by the population—was development. Nothing really can come close in terms of a powerful justificatory ethic.”

Gilley doesn’t use an economic cost-benefit analysis to grade a colonial project’s legitimacy (for such an analysis, see Niemietz’s “Imperial Measurement”). Rather, such economic concerns are wrapped into the above-mentioned three dimensions.

Much of the book is devoted to countering the “anti-colonialist” mentality that is dominant in certain corners of campus and academic domains. This mentality assumes a priori that colonial projects were illegitimate, often exaggerating or misattributing (Gilley claims) harms to the colonized in a way that a careful, counterfactual analysis would not.

I have to plead a high degree of agnosticism about much of the content, not being much of a reader about this topic. I don’t have a good handle on whether Gilley’s selection of sources is representative and high-quality, or whether it ignores serious counter-evidence. He does argue convincingly much of the time, and the inferential steps from facts to conclusion (“colonialism was good”) are usually pretty clear. However, given how outside-the-mainstream his views appear to be, one’s skeptical radar should always be turned to the max when assessing such unorthodox claims.

An important, challenging and illuminating read, but without much more reading, I remain unconvinced either way about its thesis.

[Chase Parsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bruce Gilley’s “The Case for Colonialism” is guaranteed to knock you out of your chair. Daring to emphasize the “good” that came from Europe in the Age of Colonialism (1815 - today), Gilley’s book is on fragile politically-correct ground to say the least. Clearly, Gilley risked his academic reputation by writing a book like this. I don’t agree with everything he wrote, but I must admit that I found his scholarship impressive and clearheaded most of the time.

This book starts with a reprinting of the famous/infamous article Gilley wrote called “The Case for Colonialism” in 2017. He then recounts how he instantly became a target for cancel-culture and how it all went down. After that, there are chapters about various case studies: Congo, Hong Kong, Yemen, Sub-Saharan Africa (as a whole), and more. Each section was fascinating. Here are some highlights:

- A powerful point Gilley makes is to compare previously colonized countries (by Europe in the 1800s-1900s) with never-colonized countries (Thailand, Ethiopia, Iran, etc.). However, one huge example omitted is Japan. I think one could argue that the Japanese did just fine without European colonialism, at least until the murderous regime in the WWII era (however, would one give credit to the West/US after WWII (US influence in rebuilding Japan?). Being the first non-Western country to industrialize, I think it is an important example to consider.

- For today’s world, Gilley supports “proxy-colonialism”. For example, some institutions could be outsourced (i.e. the police could be run by a Western country in hopes it won’t be corrupt and/or underfunded), or a piece of land could be leased to a foreign power for 100 years (i.e. how Hong Kong attracted investment, immigration, etc. during British rule).

- Gilley seems to assume that the West will always be on its best behavior. What about a Trump-led (i.e. controversial regime) West? What about greed? There have been some horrible regimes in the West (i.e. Nazis).

- Gilley’s most shocking article, in my opinion, was about the Congo. I have never come across a defense of the Congo Free State/Belgian Congo before. Gilley specifically takes on “King Leopold’s Ghost” by Adam Hothchild (which I have read) from the late 1990s, saying it full of lies. He points out: the European fight to end Arab slavery (which transformed the Congo) is never mentioned, instead of 8-10 million dying from not collecting enough rubber, possibly 10,000 died from an area roughly 15% of the Congo; many of the photos of missing limbs were from a previous time (the 1880s) in an attempt to support European colonialism (i.e. to show the barbarity of what was going on before, not how Belgians punished Africans like most people think), and how the Congo Free State was a personal holding of Leopold II, but afterwards Belgian Congo was a colony run by the Belgians and it did rather well until independence. Wow.

- Gilley connects the failure of Sub-Saharan Africa in the decolonization era to Europeans leaving too early and African culture (“Big Man” ruler dominates, loyalty to private relations/friends is key while civic/public integrity/loyalty is downplayed, etc.).

- Another book Gilley critiques is Nigel Biggar’s “Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning”. Gilley accuses Biggar for being too accommodating to the other side out of politeness (I have read the book and actually agree with Gilley to some extent). Ironically, Biggar has a blurb on the back cover supporting Gilley’s book and he is among the people Gilley thanks in the introduction.

- The best joke made is, “After all, in a free and pluralistic society, there is nothing wrong per se with participation in a delusion. If there were, there would be nobody attending Buffalo Sabres games.”

[Emily B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read this book for my book club and would not have picked it otherwise. The author's inflated ego and fondness for hyperbole distracted from his main message. For example, in Chapter 2, he claims, "I felt like Captain von Trapp leading his family out of fascist Austria into Switzerland." What inspired this comparison? He wrote a controversial article for a magazine, prompting outrage from fellow professors. Or, as he put it, "the hate mob tried to cancel me". If I hadn’t been reading on a Kindle, I probably would have thrown it a couple times.

I'm glad I could put aside my irritation and read through every chapter. It was obvious that Gilley had dedicated countless hours to his research. In fact, the official bibliography is forty-four pages! This level of effort allowed him to argue his point clearly while addressing anti-colonial arguments. He even partially convinced me of his thesis.

Gilley's pro-colonialism stance boils down to two parts:
1. The good outweighs the bad, and
2. The other guys were worse

It’s difficult for me to support Point 1. Sure, colonialism led to advances in public health, infrastructure, transportation, women’s rights, etc., but it also involved the destruction of cultures and languages. I can never forget the story of a Cameroonian professor at my college, Dr. Peter Vakunta. When he was in school, he and other students would be forced to wear a dunce cap if they spoke Bamunka instead of French. While Bamunka still has tens of thousands of speakers, other languages have not been so lucky and are near extinction.

Point 2 is easier to swallow. Even in Belgian Congo, the native rulers committed greater atrocities than the colonizers. Tippu Tip made King Leopold look like a saint! Furthermore, crimes under colonial regimes were more diligently recorded, investigated, and corrected. Pre- and post-colonial rulers took a "dump the bodies in the river" approach instead.

I kept alternating between two and three stars, but I finally decided to rate it a three, if only for the hard work involved in researching. I'd encourage people to read the original essay and follow-up in lieu of the full book. You’ll grasp the central arguments, plus you'll save time and money.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing book that again proves that most things are exactly the opposite of what is commonly held as truth. This book shows how European colonialism made a lot of places into to civil societies and much better than before or after Europeans came and left.
India is probably one of the best examples of what colonialism can do as it took a disjointed blob of tribes and made it into a world power. The author makes his point by comparing countries that has colonial rule vs those that did not in same part of the world and the results are staggering. Most of these countries took on colonial rule voluntarily as they could see the value.

Chapter 12 on being enslaved in America is a great example. Some 388,000 slaves were brought to America and the Civil war some 360,000 whites died to free these slaves. Almost 1 for every slave. Though the author nowhere condones slavery or its evils he shows that slaves in America had it better than blacks almost anywhere else in the world and certainly better than in Africa under tribal war and Arab slavery. Note most modern day African-Americans are not descended from US slaves but most of their ancestors came willing from Africa later on.
He has quotes from 1991 black Washington Post reporter Keith Richburg on his visit to Africa and basically he thanks God his ancestors came to the US and suffered slavery as what he saw in modern day Africa was much worse than anything for blacks in America.

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could have been just as effective at half the length: the first ~150 pages are spent with Mr. Gilley whinging about his cancellation in the academy for writing a paper with the same title (fair to be sympathetic but the outcome was extremely predictable).

The chapter on the Belgian Congo was clearly the best-researched and most-compelling, with the one on British Aden a close-ish second and the discussion of German South West Africa (Herero Wars) a distant third.

Some other stuff was much more-thinly investigated (e.g., I don't even remember what he said about British Canada), and some items clearly fell into the "who cares?" zone: e.g., re-reading Chinua Achebe to have had mixed feelings about British Nigeria vs. being universally against British Nigeria (if you do care, though: recognize that Mr. Achebe was a member of the Igbo population that revolted as part of Biafra in 1967 to understand why he might have had mixed feelings).

Some other highlights: the discussion of Timothy Ives's work with fieldstones in Rhode Island and the writing about colonial Malaya (don't hear a lot about that one). Surprisingly little about the British Raj (maybe too large of a subject for this desultory volume).

[Nathaniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps one of the most controversial proposition and topic I read, and I take a lot from this book with grains of salt, but Gilley makes a really interesting case that made me rethink some of my long held views about the topic, that it’s never black or white but always more nuanced. The idea that colonialism cannot be looked at in and of itself but should be compared with the counterfactual (what if the Europeans never came, who would be ruling these lands in their place) is a fascinating thought experiment. Not sure I agree with his proposals for ‘some recolonization’ though.

Substance aside, I find this book not that pleasant to read, as it’s generally a compilation of articles and rebuttals to other criticisms Gilley faced for his paper. I wish he would just write a more readable narrative book instead.

[Bernd Schnabl · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can imagine that some people might prefer to be ruled by a "somehow benign" overlord rather than by a despotic ruthless local ruler in some very specific cases, particularly if the foreign overlord builds railways and schools, but a general claim, that colonialism is "a good thing" is a bridge too far. Imagine if NAZI Germany would have conquered colonies. What I did not know and found very helpful are the mistakes that he uncovered in Adam Hochschild's "King Leopold Ghosts". I personally had an experience when I travelled to East Africa and people were talking rather positively about the German colonial period. I do not know if they only were polite or if they really meant it, but I was genuinely surprised

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A critical examination of the prevalent misconceptions in academia and politics, making it an important resource for readers. Bruce Gilley argues that European colonialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries had significant benefits for colonized populations when compared to existing local colonial practices and slave trading.

Additionally, Gilley addresses the ideological challenges posed by individuals who may often propagate historical inaccuracies. Drawing from his personal experiences with the impacts of "cancel culture" on controversial academic publications, he underscores the importance of fostering open dialogue.

[mark propp · Rating 5 out of 5]

tbh i don't really think this is a 5 star book, but i'm giving it that rating for what it means.

& it is mostly a very good read. & i definitely agree with the premise. maybe i'm too willing to lean into my own biases, but i was happy to read someone who said something that seemed obviously true.

there are issues of length & repetition, though. & occasionally wooden writing. some sections that i thought should have been deeply interesting were something of a drag to get through. but not all. and overall, i think he wrote a very compelling, convincing book, & i think lots of people ought to read it.

[William Guerrant · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a well-structured book. Instead of a robust defense of the author's controversial thesis (which is what I had expected), this is just a collection of essays, a few of which are just tedious rehashes of the fallout from the original publication of the paper that created so much fuss. Still, the essays, particularly those in the second half of the book, are interesting and worthwhile.

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book that encourages proper thinking while warning about those "woke" anti-intellectuals who would rather "feel" certain ways instead.
Gilley makes his points well.

[putperest · Rating 5 out of 5]

incredible book. world-changing. sets the standard of rigorous historical studies.
it is hard to imagine the damage caused by the mental illness that is progressivism.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Title describes content. Evidence of historical benefits of colonialism.

[Jennifer Mazzara · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little repetitive, since this is an edited version of essays and talks Gilley has given over the years. Especially useful for the bibliography and extensive source list.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought-provoking. This aligns well with Thomas Sowell's work, and cuts through much of the unbridled anti-Western nonsense on the subject which pervades Western culture.
(This is Gilley’s short paper on the subject; he has written a book with the same title.)