The Ideology of Early Modern Colonisation

This article argues that colonial ideologies were the concern of more than a privileged élite in early modern Europe. The article shows that early modern English colonisation was torn between the humanistic pursuit of glory, or greatness, and humanist and scholastic scepticism of empire. The article also addresses the relation between state formation and European expansion, and concludes that these processes were inherently linked rather than merely parallel. Historians have focused on the Machiavellian character of the early modern European ideology of greatness, or grandezza . They have accordingly concluded that where grandezza informed the pursuit of empire, it was driven by the Machiavellian concern with virtue rather than profit. According to such accounts, early modern ideologies of empire were uncomfortable with commerce. It is argued here that these accounts have overlooked the emergence of an alternative account of grandezza in early modern Europe, which presented commerce as the means to greatness.