Diamonds Are Forever. Or so the De Beers mining company would like to remind us. For a century, if you purchased a diamond, there was a 90% or higher chance that The De Beer mining company brought it to market—a true monopoly. The last three and a half decades have not been so kind to the firm, with market share crashing to a “mere” 35%. This company was founded by none other than Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes was archetypically imperialist. We are given a small glimpse of Mr. Rhodes’ brand of imperialism in Lenin’s text on the matter. In summation of this quote, Cecil believed that to save the British Isles from civil war, new territories must be opened up for the settlement of surplus English population and new markets for English goods. With history
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Several times Cecil espoused scientifically racist sentiments, saying that he believed the Englishman was the greatest human specimen in the world and that his rule would be a benefit to all. Cecil was a believer in the glory of the British Empire and saw it as his god given task to expand the empire, not only for the benefit of the Empire itself, but also for all the peoples whom she would conquer. He saw Empire as a platform to advance the human race, in other words he whole heartedly believed Imperialism to be good for all. A naïve cynic might try to dismiss the plethora of quotes from Cecil simply as a crude justification for the practices which he employed to his great economic advantage, but this seems unlikely given that he supported scientific racism in his youth, long before he stood to gain economically from such …show more content…
His most enduring legacy, the Rhodes Scholarship, reflects this sentiment in that the money from his estate is being used to mold English speakers from other parts of the empire (a broader sense of empire here) into vessels of British value. His goal was to create an elite class of American philosopher-kings who would eventually reunite Britain and America, ensuring Anglo-Saxon dominance and perpetual peace (he also believed Germany would share in world domination and allowed English speaking German students to have their heads crammed with Oxford ideals as a result of his
Several times Cecil espoused scientifically racist sentiments, saying that he believed the Englishman was the greatest human specimen in the world and that his rule would be a benefit to all. Cecil was a believer in the glory of the British Empire and saw it as his god given task to expand the empire, not only for the benefit of the Empire itself, but also for all the peoples whom she would conquer. He saw Empire as a platform to advance the human race, in other words he whole heartedly believed Imperialism to be good for all. A naïve cynic might try to dismiss the plethora of quotes from Cecil simply as a crude justification for the practices which he employed to his great economic advantage, but this seems unlikely given that he supported scientific racism in his youth, long before he stood to gain economically from such …show more content…
His most enduring legacy, the Rhodes Scholarship, reflects this sentiment in that the money from his estate is being used to mold English speakers from other parts of the empire (a broader sense of empire here) into vessels of British value. His goal was to create an elite class of American philosopher-kings who would eventually reunite Britain and America, ensuring Anglo-Saxon dominance and perpetual peace (he also believed Germany would share in world domination and allowed English speaking German students to have their heads crammed with Oxford ideals as a result of his