Abstract
The article reconstructs the late emergence and politicization of colonialism as a term, dis
tinguishing it from older notions such as colonization and imperialism and tracing its shift,
especially after Bandung, into a condemnatory, activist category appropriated by both anti
colonial actors and historians. It shows how colonialism became central in historiography only
after decolonization, first in militant, Marxist-inflected narratives and then in more complex
frameworks that provincialize Europe, recover subaltern agency, and embed colonial history
within broader national and transnational histories. It reviews key trajectories in colonial stud
ies—from Enlightenment reflections to twentieth-century typologies of colonial situations and
states—highlighting their methodological sophistication and continuing relevance in the age
of globalization.
A substantial section analyzes how postcolonial theory, Atlantic and transnational approaches,
and concepts such as “entangled empires” and “connected histories” have redefined colonial
ism as a plural, relational, and non-teleological field of inquiry. Through case studies of Bayly,
Osterhammel, Subrahmanyam, Gruzinski, and Cooper, the article argues that some of the most
innovative strands of global history in fact grow out of colonial and imperial historiography.
It insists that global history is best understood as a perspective rather than a separate object,
and that there can be no serious global history without a rigorous, historically differentiated
account of colonialism and its legacies. In conclusion, the article stresses the analytical utility
of colonialism for understanding contemporary phenomena—neocolonialism, environmental
exploitation, global inequalities, racialization—and contends that far from being superseded
by global history, the category remains indispensable for grasping both the historical formation
and the present contradictions of a globalized world.