Colonialism

Colonialism is the practice of extending and maintaining political, social, economic, and cultural domination over a territory and its people by another people in pursuit of interests defined in an often distant metropole, who also claim superiority. While frequently an imperialist project, colonialism functions through differentiating between the targeted land and people, and that of the colonizers (a critical component of colonization). Rather than annexation, this typically culminates in organizing the colonized into colonies separate to the colonizers' metropole. Colonialism sometimes deepens by developing settler colonialism, whereby settlers from one or multiple colonizing metropoles occupy a territory with the intention of partially or completely supplanting the existing Indigenous peoples, possibly amounting to genocide. 

Colonialism is a phenomenon that has occurred throughout human history across the world. Colonies were established by many prominent ancient and medieval civilizations, such as the Phoenicians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Han Chinese, and the Arabs, among others. The High Middle Ages saw a variety of European civilizations moving west, north, east, and south out of their continent. The Crusader states in the Levant exemplify some colonial features similar to those of ancient colonies.

While different forms of colonialism have existed around the world, the concept has been developed as a description of European colonial empires of the modern era. These spread globally from the 15th century to the mid-20th century, spanning 35% of Earth's land by 1800 and peaking at 84% by the beginning of the First World War. European colonialism employed mercantilism and chartered companies, and established complex colonistic organizations. Colonialism was in some cases justified with beliefs of having a civilizing mission to cultivate land and life, historically often rooted in the belief of a Christian mission.

Decolonization, which started in the 18th century, gradually led to the independence of colonies in waves, with a particular large wave of decolonizations happening in the aftermath of World War II between 1945 and 1975. Colonialism has a persistent impact on a wide range of modern outcomes, as scholars have shown that variations in colonial institutions can account for variations in economic development, regime types, and state capacity. Some academics have used the term neocolonialism to describe the continuation or imposition of elements of colonial rule through indirect means in the contemporary period.