The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

There's a film out there in the cinemas which is based on a W. Somerset Maugham's novel set in the 1920s, The Painted Veil.W. Somerset Maugham is someone you would consider as a modern writer (he was born in 1874, died in 1965) whose fame was based on his works which looked at the colonised life in the Far East (he travelled a lot in the last days of Empire).

Speaking of colonialism, Cheryl asked me a question on the difference between imperialism and colonialism last week. Definition-wise in the dictionary, there is little difference: both refer to a country maintaining or extending its authority and control over a foreign country, either through territorial claims and/or political/economic/ideological claims. I think colonialism refers to a more specific set of practices or beliefs that establishes the authority of the country over that of the foreign country, usually through the institution of administrative practices ruling over the indigenous people or the original people of the country (i.e. processes of colonialisation), while the term 'imperialism' is more broadly used to refer to policy of controlling other countries for the purposes of building empire, so that could include formal and informal influence (the United States is sometimes seen as a 'cultural imperialist' these days). Both terms are often used interchangeably, but the term 'imperialists' often specifically refer to the European expansionist countries in the 19th/20th century (e.g. Britain, France, Germany, etc.) -- that was the 'Age of Imperialism'.