As the British Empire grew, some writers wrote imperialist adventure stories, dedicated to their country and presenting the colonies as places of adventure, romance, heroism and the "other" unable to rule themselves (The History of Global Comm, page 5). Some of these books were later converted into films, as in the case of The Lost World. Author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle combines imperialistic adventure with scientific romance, according to Steampunk " the attitudes which the entire Challenger party carry with them, including a disgust at humanity's family tree (i.e. the apemen) and the fairly typical western desire to "solve" the problems of the "savages" for them An argument for imperialism ever since Rome and still present today" (page 2). .
According to Henry Morris author of History of Colonisation (published at around the same time, i.e. 1908, as Doyle's book) colonisation is "treats of newly discovered regions, of distant and unexplored portions of the earth, describes the meeting of civilised races with the savage and uncultured tribes native to the soil, recalls the heroism of those, who, at the command of country, have abandoned homes and friends, to seek, across the broad expanse of waters, military, commercial, or political supremacy for their fatherland- (page 1). This definition is important because it reflects the ideology present at the time that Doyle's book was written. Since then times have changed, however, the "savage" is still exotic, "strange" and alluring along with the escapism offered by the sci-fi drama and the prevalent Western superiority depicted in the 1999 film. The word colonialism, has however, lately been defined by the Oxford English dictionary as "alleged policy of exploitation of backward or weak peoples by a larger power." In The Lost World this could be alluded to though the explorer's use of the "othered" porter to carry their belonging, and who ended up as target practise for the "other" hostile natives in the area.