Theodor Herzl (1860-1904)

• One of the founders of modern Zionism – the political, largely secular project to create a state for the Jewish people

• Lived in Austro-Hungarian Empire and worked as a journalist, lawyer, and writer in Vienna

• Initially a believer in the emancipation of Jews and their assimilation into European societies

• Witness to wave of anti-Semitism in France following the Dreyfus Affair of 1894

• Ultimately rejected assimilation into European societies and called for Jews to leave Europe and create their own Jewish state

• Author of The Jewish State (1896)

Earl of Cromer (Evelyn Baring) (1841-1917)

• Britain’s consul-general in Egypt from 1883-1897

• Effectively ruled over Egypt while it was still under the Ottoman Empire

• Egypt became a British protectorate (1914-1922)

• Cromer: strong believer in British imperialism and its civilizing mission in its colonies

• Cromer’s strategy: remake Egypt into a nation that embodies the universalist values of a now exportable Western Civilization

Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914)

•British social reformer, politician, and imperialist

• Secretary of State of the colonies in the coalition government of Lord Salisbury (1895-1903)

• Advocate of social progressivism and empire

• Critic of free trade capitalism and proponent of exclusive trading bloc within the British Empire

• Speech, “Preference, the True Imperial Policy” (February 1905)