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Eminent scholars repeatedly make the logically contradictory claim that colonialism was both too disruptive and not disruptive enough.

— Bruce Gilley The Case for Colonialism: A Response to My Critics (2017)

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More quotes by Bruce Gilley

One main challenge of this research is to properly enumerate the things that matter and then to assign them weights, weights that presumably varied with time and place.

The Case for Colonialism: A Response to My Critics (2017)

Of course colonial governance can only return with the consent of the country in question. The nationalist leaders in developing countries are probably not eager to see this happen. But the people- given those decades of ‘anti-colonial disaster’- possibly are.

At least in the initial phases, legitimacy will be demonstrated not by the holding of a plebiscite or by the support of organized and broadly representative groups but simply by the ability of the intervening state to win compliance from key actors and get the job done.

The Case for Colonialism: A Response to My Critics (2017)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Bruce Gilley (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.