Robbins, William G.

Colony and Empire: The Capitalist Transformation of the

American West. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1994.

Robbins’ Colony and Empire presents the west as a massive underdeveloped

area that was envisioned as a source of enormous profit by businessman in the

large financial centers of the western world. Following the revisionist “New Western”

History model, Robbins views the history of the west without the usual romantic

exceptionalism tendency attempting to show the “true” west.

Robbins defines the west as from the ninety-eighth meridian west to the

Pacific, not including Hawaii or Alaska. This is a massive area encompassing

seventeen states. This area has many different complex geographic and cultural

factors.

Robbins defines his thesis on page three: “The movement of capital from

points of accumulation to points of investment triggered mass migrations and

disrupted indigenous populations worldwide, circumstances that reflect the totality

of the modernizing forces that must be called “global capitalism”. For Robbins,

understanding capitalism is essential to understanding the history of the west.

Robbins argues the total ideology of capitalism is a social and political ideology, not

just an economic factor, which was typified by the development of the American

West. Robbins highlights the complexity of the capitalist networks in the west.

Robbins believed the development of the West created a system of

dependency. Robbins views the west as a place where foreign capital and

investment dictated its development and a place of “greed, debasement and

exploitation” (12). Robbins ignores many factors to highlight this exploitation by

external forces.

Robbins follows a thematic approach using primarily secondary sources to

address the profound changes. The book is very well researched, presenting

separate case studies of how the west changed due to outside influence. To help

gain perspective of the development of the west, Robbins analyzes the ideology and

myth of the west, the role of industry to outside influence, the borderland issues

with Mexico and Canada, the differences between the south and west regions, and

the importance of urban areas in western development.

It is a good critique of capitalism, and it shows the results from the lack of

government regulation. Robbins writes that all the development of the West was

inseparably linked to the evolution of capitalism is narrow minded. The arguments

are provocative and intriguing but eventually become predictable and repetitive.

Colony and Empire is well research and informative and provides an

application of the new western revisionist model that is an excellent spring board for

discussion of the West. Robbins does not prove his thesis because to view the West

only by analyzing power, exploitation and class structure, the greater influence of

the region is omitted. Robbins does a good job within the parameters he sets,

however, the west is simply too complex a concept to explain in this manner.

William Tyler Grove

Appalachian State University