European economic control over Muslim states preceded and enabled direct colonization

Evidence

Though Verlinden’s use of the term “nation” is more figurative than political, his characterization of the historical significance of these capitalists is helpful: Italy was the only really colonizing nation during the middle ages. From the beginning of the crusades onwards, Venice, Pisa, Genoa, later Florence, and southern Italy under the Angevins as well as under the Aragonese, were interested in the Levant and in the economic and colonial possibilities offered there by the gradual waning of the Byzantine Empire. It is also at about the same time that Italian merchants appear in the Iberian peninsula, and obtain an influence that will persist until far into the modern period, both in European and colonial economy. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 529 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The jacket blurb of Said’s Orientalism (2003 edition) announces that the author “traces the origins of ‘orientalism’ to the centuries-long period during which Europe dominated the Middle and Near East.” To any historian of the modern Islamic world, this is a puzzling pronouncement, since students of Dutch, British, and French colonialism in such regions as the Malay Archipelago, India, and North Africa would know that these European powers could not widely control, much less effectively or systematically colonize, these vast domains until the middle, if not the later parts, of the nineteenth century. It would be hard to say that modern colonialism became effective (which is to say, performative) earlier than two centuries ago, and thus the unqualified use of “centuries” in the blurb must be traced back to the body of the book where it receives ample clarification. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 53 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: European empires colonized Muslim states through loans as well as invasion.; Italian merchant capitalism preceded and colonized the Iberian economies — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 529; European powers could not effectively colonize vast domains until the mid-nineteenth century — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 53

Broader Connections

• Italian merchant capitalism preceded and colonized the Iberian economies #corroborates (0.75) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 529
• European powers could not effectively colonize vast domains until the mid-nineteenth century #expands (0.72) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 53