"These wars appear also to have given its death blow to colonialism and to imperialism in its colonial form, under which weaker peoples were treated as possessions to be economically exploited. At least we hope that such colonialism is on the way out"
About this Quote
The line carries the cool poise of an educator watching history lurch forward and refusing to call it progress too soon. Balch is talking about the world wars not as heroic crusades but as accelerants: catastrophes so vast they shake loose old political arrangements. Her phrasing, "appear" and "At least we hope", is doing the real work. It marks a refusal to indulge in triumphalism just because empires are wobbling. The wars may have delivered a "death blow", but death blows have a way of being walked off by systems that know how to rebrand.
The intent is moral and strategic: to frame colonialism as not merely outdated, but illegitimate in its basic logic of possession and extraction. Notice the bluntness of "treated as possessions" and "economically exploited". That is not the soft-focus language of "civilizing missions" or "trusteeship". Balch is naming the transaction at the heart of empire, collapsing the distance between colonial administration and outright ownership.
The subtext is a warning about substitution. She specifies "imperialism in its colonial form", implying other forms will survive: economic dependency, spheres of influence, informal control dressed up as development or security. Her hope is therefore conditional, almost chastened, shaped by a lifetime spanning the height of European empire and its crisis.
Context matters: Balch, a pacifist and internationalist in an era of mass slaughter, is reading war as both revelation and trap. The old order is discredited, but the same great powers that fought may still try to manage the postwar world. The sentence leaves room for agency: colonialism may be "on the way out", but only if people push it there.
The intent is moral and strategic: to frame colonialism as not merely outdated, but illegitimate in its basic logic of possession and extraction. Notice the bluntness of "treated as possessions" and "economically exploited". That is not the soft-focus language of "civilizing missions" or "trusteeship". Balch is naming the transaction at the heart of empire, collapsing the distance between colonial administration and outright ownership.
The subtext is a warning about substitution. She specifies "imperialism in its colonial form", implying other forms will survive: economic dependency, spheres of influence, informal control dressed up as development or security. Her hope is therefore conditional, almost chastened, shaped by a lifetime spanning the height of European empire and its crisis.
Context matters: Balch, a pacifist and internationalist in an era of mass slaughter, is reading war as both revelation and trap. The old order is discredited, but the same great powers that fought may still try to manage the postwar world. The sentence leaves room for agency: colonialism may be "on the way out", but only if people push it there.
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
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