Assignment 4: Concept of social Darwinism

Assignment 4: Concept of social Darwinism

Textbook: Chapter 2, 4 of contemporary world history 6th edition by Duiker, William J.
Lesson
Minimum of 1 scholarly source (in addition to the textbook)
See additional required resources within the option instructions.

Instructions
For this assignment, select one of the following options:

Option 1: Imperialism
The exploitation of colonial resources and indigenous labor was one of the key elements in the success of imperialism. Such exploitation was a result of the prevalent ethnocentrism of the time and was justified by the unscientific concept of social Darwinism, which praised the characteristics of white Europeans and inaccurately ascribed negative characteristics to indigenous peoples. A famous poem of the time by Rudyard Kipling, “White Man’s Burden,” called on imperial powers, and particularly the U.S., at whom the poem was directed, to take up the mission of civilizing these “savage” peoples.

Read the poem at the following link:

Link (website): White Man’s Burden (Links to an external site.) (Rudyard Kipling)
After reading the poem, address the following in a case study analysis:

Select a specific part of the world (a country), and examine imperialism in that country. What was the relationship between the invading country and the native people? You can select from these examples or choose your own:
Belgium & Africa
Britain & India
Germany & Africa
France & Africa
Apply social Darwinism to this specific case.
Analyze the motivations of the invading country?
How did ethnocentrism manifest in their interactions?
How does Kipling’s poem apply to your specific example? You can quote lines for comparison.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.