Hobson and Imperialism: An Appraisal

Abstract

John Atkinson Hobson’s Imperialism: A Study (1902) was undoubtedly one of the most influential books of the early twentieth century. In a period when ‘imperialism’ was a catchword of politicians for winning popular support, he portrayed imperialism in a more grim fashion, showing it to be devastating both at home and in the colonies and pursued mainly in the interest of a few wealthy financial capitalists. As Richard Koebner has shown, this word ‘imperialism’ — ‘loaded with an emotive force eluding all demands for precise definition’² — has a long history back to the early decades of the nineteenth century when it was mainly used to describe a policy of military grandeur and aggrandisement by acquisition of dependencies in the style of the Imperium of ancient Rome — or to use a more recent comparison, the empire of Napoleon. However, by the 1890s the word had found an alternative usage and most of its early derogatory meaning ‘had paled’, according to Koebner.³ In Britain Chamberlain and his followers had launched a policy of ‘popular imperialism’ in fashion not only among the Conservatives, but also among many Liberals and Socialists (especially of the Fabian brand). It was this policy that Hobson — probably more thoroughly and certainly more effectively than anyone else at the time — so fiercely attacked in his several books and articles by the turn of the century, among which Imperialism: A Study stands out as the most central.

I want especially to thank Michael Freeden, Jules Townshend, John King, Alon Kadish and Michael Schneider for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.