WHAT IS IMPERIALISM?The extension of control or authorityover foreign areas

– controlling the politics and/or economy of another place/nation/people– in order to acquire or maintain an empire

The policy of a country in maintainingcolonies and dominance over remotelands and peoples.• Direct territorial control• Indirect control

Causes of “New” Imperialism• ECONOMIC motives

• PRESTIGE and NATIONALISM

• INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION and its technological advances

• SOCIAL DARWINISM

• WHITE MAN’S BURDEN

• MISSIONARY (RELIGIOUS) ZEAL

Mercantilism

• A way of routing trade to the benefit of the colonizers

• Raw materials from the colony to the mother country

• Finished goods from the mother country to the colony.

Colonial Trade Routes, 1700s-1800s

British Mercantilism

Economic Causes

• Agricultural Revolution causes population growth

• The Industrial Revolution created an insatiable demand– for raw materials!

– and new markets!

Economic Motives:Growth of Industry throughout Europe

Nationalism: Power and Prestige

• European nations wanted to demonstrate their power and prestige to the world.

• Tremendous competition among European nations to grab what they can

Balance of Power: British Empire, 1914

Balance of Power: French Empire, 1914

Balance of Power: East Asia

Balance of Power: East Asia, 1914

Balance of Power: Africa, 1886

Africa, 1914

White Man’s Burden

• The “West”’s sense of superiority

• Made them feelobligated to “civilize the heathen savages” they encountered.

White Man’s Burden: Paternalistic Racism as a motive for Imperialism

The White Man's BurdenBy Rudyard KiplingMcClure's Magazine 12 (Feb. 1899).

Take up the White Man's burden--Send forth the best ye breed--

Go, bind your sons to exileTo serve your captives' need;

To wait, in heavy harness,On fluttered folk and wild--

Your new-caught sullen peoples,Half devil and half child.

The Tools of ImperialismTechnological developments

at mid-century– modern firearms– steamships– railroads– anti-malarial quinine– telegraph

• much safer for Europeans to live and travel in the tropics

• easier to attack the indigenous people there.

“What the breechloader,the machine gun, thesteamboat andsteamship, and quinineand other innovationsdid was to lower thecost, in both financialand human terms, ofpenetrating,conquering, andexploiting newterritories.”