>But today historians, in my opinion pseudo-intellectuals, have argued that racism was the single most important cause for European imperialism.

I agree that racism was not the cause of European Imperialism. Racism has only played a part whenever it was economically convenient. For instance, Germany's reasons the genocide of the Herero and Namaqua people in South-West Africa in 1904 wasn't predominately racism. The part of Africa Germany was taking over was on a similar latitudinal line making the climate similar to Germany's. While feelings of the superiority of descendants of the Romans were strong, they played a minor role in the genocide. Germany was looking for more land away from a crowded and unfriendly Europe. Taking over a territory with a similar climate was an economic advantage as they would be able to crow German crops there with close to the same yields.

to state that racism motivated the european colonisation of the world sounds really silly, can you cite an example of such historians?

East,

Sure, here's a website that reinforces the opinions of what I said, though it's limited to 19th century imperialism.

http://science.jrank.org/pages/9121/Empire-Imperialism-Europe-Causes.html

Zarf,

Yeah but Mercantilism wasn't so popular in the 1800s.

Zarf,

Naw I meant European imperialism on the whole, beginning with Spain, but I found an article that justified my claim about the position of historians regarding imperialism in the 1800s. It doesn't mention imperialism on the whole, but it mentions views of imperialism in the 1800s.

But regardless, the chauvinist and racist arguments don't make any sense either. The reason is that the interpretation has the order of things backwards. A people don't just have an ideology that emerges, and then they organize their society and make their political decisions based on that ideology. It's rather a facade to justify an elite's activity. Ideology is a product of the power structures within that society, and if people are expanding it's because the elite find it to their advantage and not because of that ideology. The ideology may cause the masses to be motivated to follow the elite, but it does not itself motivate expansionism.

To imply that a people are imperialistic because of their ideology is a big "WTF?"

First of all, that's not the consensus of what Historians think. Some people in the historic field are morons, but you have those everywhere (remember those tit-physicians that claimed that LHC would destroy us all). I don't think Historians are pseudo-intellectuals. On the contrary, history has quite a low self esteem, as it's looking for a new direction to investigate things in; after all, post modernism affected it moderatly hard. Historians are thus always quite modest when they're concluding things.

Somehow I think you aimed "Because at the moment I can't stop but think today's generation of historians has it very wrong." and "pseudo intelectuals" to me as well...

Now, when it comes down to racism and imperialism, the theory you quoted Justinian, is wrong. Historians agree on different causes nowadays, putting racism aside as a side effect (I'll get to this aspect later on).
Understanding 19th century industrialisation and imperialism is only to be understood from it's ultimate origin, wich is the 15th century. From this century onward, actual states start to form. Nobility gets put aside and loses most of its power, cities are no longer enclaves and they become integrated into the actual state, at the same time the power of the clergy is tackled as well. The start of this process is in the 15th century, but it's quite a slow process. Also, it differs from region to region (England was for example faster, Germany a lot slower etc) but this is the general process.
Now, along with the actual political power being formed on a higher level, competition between these entities heats up as well. You'll argue that in medieval times, there were conflicts between countries too, but those were of a different kind. These reorganised countries start to compete on very different levels, wich explains mercanilism for economy, and the military revolution of the 16th - 17th century for the military. In this scenario were the first explorations made, and colonies founded (to exploit silver mines etc). It was another way of competing against other nations on an economical level.
Now to come to the 19th century: industrialism was only just kicking in, and this meant a new rush of international competition. This is why Africa was only colonised in this period. The industrialisation meant a new demand for products (like rubber) that weren't available enough in the economical situation before the colonisation.

Racism has little to do with this process, but it must have made it easier for the Western people to colonise other peoples. Although racism was always apparent in the west, it was mostly non-violent. Also, it must be said that it wasn't completely racist either. Europeans traded with muslims for centuries while they both looked up and down on them. This is a very good example of how they actually thought about other "races".
This racism comes from a typical Western tendency to put things into a sort of order. When you compare texts of Tomas of Aquino, renaissance thinkers and even thinkers from the scientific revolution, you can always spot a tendency of trying to label things into some sort of "supertaxonomy" and a tendency put a sort of order into things. Recism found it's origin in that, but again it was more latent than all determining or all-present.

And to finish this post: I'd like to repeat that every field has its morons, I haven't read the entire article but I think it comes very close to "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond at some point, wich again was criticed heavily..

Justinian's source claimed racism was the drive behind european expansion. I scetched the proper historical explanation behind it.

Your sig is discriminating against wandering nomad people.