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that France was destined to quote/unquote,
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"civilize those who were not only not French, but not European."
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Napoleon attempted to colonize Egypt
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just at the turn of the nineteenth century,
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and his attempt combined a messianic belief in science and progress,
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an absence of any real knowledge about non-Western world,
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and a predisposition for the idea
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that non-white races were inferior to whites, to Europeans.
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And this was a potent combination of nationalism
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with ideas about race and civilization
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that would drive French colonialism until its bitter end.
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This combination came to be known in French