David Harvey: The New Imperialism

“On the one hand, these fast-moving events made it very difficult to devise a set of lectures on the topic of’the new imperialism’. But, on the other hand, the very nature of these events and the threats they posed economically, politically, and militarily to global security made some sort of in-depth analysis imperative. I therefore determined to try as best I could to penetrate beneath the surface flux to divine some of the deeper currents in the making of the world’s historical geography that might shed some light on why we have arrived at such a dangerous and difficult conjuncture.” (Preface)

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‘Korean Wave’ — The Popular Culture, Comes as Both Cultural and Economic Imperialism in the East Asia (Xiaowei Huang)

“Korean popular culture such as movies, TV dramas, and pop music is overwhelmingly powerful and TV dramas are one of the most remarkable popular cultures of these. They are not only popular in terms of the fanaticalness of audiences and fans, but also bring considerable profit to the national income. Cultural imperialism to be a new form of economic imperialism. The Korean wave brings a different level of Korean fever in certain East Asian countries, such as China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, and the Philippines. This paper aims to analyse the changing position of audiences and consumers. It discusses the role of the media, especially, television, which is not only to provide entertainment to its audiences, but is also to change the audiences’ consumption.” (abstract)

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The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (Frederick Engels)

“The increase in wealth gave more status to the man in the family and provided the stimulus to overthrow the traditional order of matrilinial inheritance to establish the institution of patriliny. Engels argues that this gender revolution took place in prehistoric times (i.e., before the development of writing) and therefore the exact knowledge of how and when it took place is unknown but it can be demonstrated ethnographically. He states “the overthrow of mother right was the world-historic defeat of the female sex”.2 Men seized control over the households, women became degraded and slaves to men’s lust and were the instruments for reproducing more children. In fact, the word family comes from the Latin term famulus which means household slave, and familia, the totality of slaves belonging to one man, the patriarch, who inherited all the wealth and wielded absolute power over all members of the household. This shift towards gender inequality was presented as a natural, not a social process.” (excerpt)

Download: Engels-Origin of the Family