imperialism in africa definition essay

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African History: A Very Short Introduction

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5 (page 91) p. 91 Colonialism in Africa

Published: March 2007
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The period of colonial rule in Africa came late and did not last very long. Africa was conquered by European imperial powers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the 1960s, it was mostly over. ‘Colonialism in Africa’ considers how this period shaped African history. For some Africans, colonial rule was threatening; for others, an opportunity. Reconstructing the complicated patterns of this time is a massive challenge for historians of Africa. Interest in Africa' colonial past has waxed and waned, and resurged recently. Colonialism was not just about the actions of the Europeans, it was also about the actions of the Africans and what they thought.

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From Imperialism to Postcolonialism: Key Concepts

An introduction to the histories of imperialism and the writings of those who grappled with its oppressions and legacies in the twentieth century.

Imperialism, the domination of one country over another country’s political, economic, and cultural systems, remains one of the most significant global phenomena of the last six centuries. Amongst historical topics, Western imperialism is unique because it spans two different broadly conceived temporal frames: “Old Imperialism,” dated between 1450 and 1650, and “New Imperialism,” dated between 1870 and 1919, although both periods were known for Western exploitation of Indigenous cultures and the extraction of natural resources to benefit imperial economies. Apart from India, which came under British influence through the rapacious actions of the East India Company , European conquest between 1650 and the 1870s remained (mostly) dormant. However, following the 1884–85 Berlin Conference, European powers began the “ Scramble for Africa ,” dividing the continent into new colonial territories. Thus, the age of New Imperialism is demarcated by establishment of vast colonies throughout Africa, as well as parts of Asia, by European nations.

These European colonizing efforts often came at the expense of other older, non-European imperial powers, such as the so-called gunpowder empires—the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires that flourished across South Asia and the Middle East. In the case of the Ottomans , their rise coincided with that of the Old Imperialism(s) of the West and lasted until after World War I. These were not the only imperial powers, however; Japan signaled its interest in creating a pan-Asian empire with the establishment of a colony in Korea in 1910 and expanded its colonial holdings rapidly during the interwar years. The United States, too, engaged in various forms of imperialism, from the conquest of the tribes of the First Nation Peoples, through filibustering in Central America during the mid-1800s, to accepting the imperialist call of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The White Man’s Burden,” which the poet wrote for President Theodore Roosevelt on the occasion of Philippine-American War. While claiming to reject naked imperialism, Roosevelt still embraced expansionism, promoting the creation of a strong US Navy and advocating for expansion into Alaska, Hawaiʻi, and the Philippines to exert American influence .

The Great War is often considered the end of the new age of imperialism, marked by the rise of decolonization movements throughout the various colonial holdings. The writings of these emergent Indigenous elites, and the often-violent repression they would face from the colonial elite, would not only profoundly shape the independence struggles on the ground but would contribute to new forms of political and philosophical thought. Scholarship from this period forces us to reckon not only with colonial legacies and the Eurocentric categories created by imperialism but also with the continuing exploitation of the former colonies via neo-colonial controls imposed on post-independence countries.

The non-exhaustive reading list below aims to provide readers with both histories of imperialism and introduces readers to the writings of those who grappled with colonialism in real time to show how their thinking created tools we still use to understand our world.

Eduardo Galeano, “ Introduction: 120 Million Children in the Eye of the Hurricane ,” Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent (NYU Press, 1997): 1 –8.

Taken from the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this classic text, Eduardo Galeano’s introduction argues that pillaging of Latin America continued for centuries past the Old Imperialism of the Spanish Crown. This work is highly readable and informative, with equal parts of impassioned activism and historical scholarship.

Nancy Rose Hunt, “ ‘Le Bebe En Brousse’: European Women, African Birth Spacing and Colonial Intervention in Breast Feeding in the Belgian Congo ,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 21, no. 3 (1988): 401–32.

Colonialism affected every aspect of life for colonized peoples. This intrusion into the intimate lives of indigenous peoples is most evident in Nancy Rose Hunt’s examination of Belgian efforts to modify birthing processes in the Belgian Congo. To increase birth rates in the colony, Belgian officials initiated a mass network of health programs focused on both infant and maternal health. Hunt provides clear examples of the underlying scientific racism that underpinned these efforts and acknowledges the effects they had on European women’s conception of motherhood.

Chima J. Korieh, “ The Invisible Farmer? Women, Gender, and Colonial Agricultural Policy in the Igbo Region of Nigeria, c. 1913–1954 ,” African Economic History No. 29 (2001): 117– 62

In this consideration of Colonial Nigeria, Chima Korieh explains how British Colonial officials imposed British conceptions of gender norms on traditional Igbo society; in particular, a rigid notion of farming as a male occupation, an idea that clashed with the fluidity of agricultural production roles of the Igbo. This paper also shows how colonial officials encouraged palm oil production, an export product, at the expense of sustainable farming practices—leading to changes in the economy that further stressed gender relations.

Colin Walter Newbury & Alexander Sydney Kanya-Forstner, “ French Policy and the Origins of the Scramble for West Africa ,” The Journal of African History 10, no. 2 (1969): 253–76.

Newbury and Kanya-Foster explain why the French decided to engage in imperialism in Africa at the end of the nineteenth century. First, they point to mid-century French engagement with Africa—limited political commitment on the African coast between Senegal and Congo, with a plan for the creation of plantations within the Senegalese interior. This plan was emboldened by their military success in Algeria, which laid the foundation of a new conception of Empire that, despite complications (Britain’s expansion of their empire and revolt in Algeria, for instance) that forced the French to abandon their initial plans, would take hold later in the century.

Mark D. Van Ells, “ Assuming the White Man’s Burden: The Seizure of the Philippines, 1898–1902 ,” Philippine Studies 43, no. 4 (1995): 607–22.

Mark D. Van Ells’s work acts as an “exploratory and interpretive” rendering of American racial attitudes toward their colonial endeavors in the Philippines. Of particular use to those wishing to understand imperialism is Van Ells’s explication of American attempts to fit Filipinos into an already-constructed racist thought system regarding formerly enslaved individuals, Latinos, and First Nation Peoples. He also shows how these racial attitudes fueled the debate between American imperialists and anti-imperialists.

Aditya Mukherjee, “ Empire: How Colonial India Made Modern Britain,” Economic and Political Weekly 45, no. 50 (2010): 73–82.

Aditya Mukherjee first provides an overview of early Indian intellectuals and Karl Marx’s thoughts on the subject to answer the question of how colonialism impacted the colonizer and the colonized. From there, he uses economic data to show the structural advantages that led to Great Britain’s ride through the “age of capitalism” through its relative decline after World War II.

Frederick Cooper, “ French Africa, 1947–48: Reform, Violence, and Uncertainty in a Colonial Situation ,” Critical Inquiry 40, no. 4 (2014): 466–78.

It can be tempting to write the history of decolonization as a given. However, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, the colonial powers would not easily give up their territories. Nor is it safe to assume that every colonized person, especially those who had invested in the colonial bureaucratic systems, necessarily wanted complete independence from the colonial metropole. In this article, Frederick Cooper shows how conflicting interests navigated revolution and citizenship questions during this moment.

Hồ Chí Minh & Kareem James Abu-Zeid, “ Unpublished Letter by Hồ Chí Minh to a French Pastor ,” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 7, no. 2 (2012): 1–7.

Written by Nguyễn Ái Quốc (the future Hồ Chí Minh) while living in Paris, this letter to a pastor planning a pioneering mission to Vietnam not only shows the young revolutionary’s commitment to the struggle against colonialism, but also his willingness to work with colonial elites to solve the system’s inherent contradictions.

Aimé Césaire, “ Discurso sobre el Colonialismo ,” Guaraguao 9, no. 20, La negritud en America Latina (Summer 2005): 157–93; Available in English as “From Discourse on Colonialism (1955),” in I Am Because We Are: Readings in Africana Philosophy , ed. by Fred Lee Hord, Mzee Lasana Okpara, and Jonathan Scott Lee, 2nd ed. (University of Massachusetts Press, 2016), 196–205.

This excerpt from Aimé Césaire’s essay directly challenges European claims of moral superiority and the concept of imperialism’s civilizing mission. He uses examples from the Spanish conquest of Latin America and ties them together with the horrors of Nazism within Europe. Césaire claims that through pursuing imperialism, Europeans had embraced the very savagery of which they accused their colonial subjects.

Frantz Fanon, “ The Wretched of the Earth ,” in Princeton Readings in Political Thought: Essential Texts since Plato , ed. Mitchell Cohen, 2nd ed. (Princeton University Press, 2018), 614–20.

Having served as a psychiatrist in a French hospital in Algeria, Frantz Fanon experienced firsthand the violence of the Algerian War. As a result, he would ultimately resign and join the Algerian National Liberation Front. In this excerpt from his longer work, Fanon writes on the need for personal liberation as a precursor to the political awaking of oppressed peoples and advocates for worldwide revolution.

Quỳnh N. Phạm & María José Méndez, “ Decolonial Designs: José Martí, Hồ Chí Minh, and Global Entanglements ,” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 40, no. 2 (2015): 156–73.

Phạm and Méndez examine the writing of José Martí and Hồ Chí Minh to show that both spoke of anticolonialism in their local contexts (Cuba and Vietnam, respectively). However, their language also reflected an awareness of a more significant global anticolonial movement. This is important as it shows that the connections were intellectual and practical.

Edward Said, “ Orientalism ,” The Georgia Review 31, no. 1 (Spring 1977): 162–206; and “ Orientalism Reconsidered ,” Cultural Critique no. 1 (Autumn 1985): 89–107.

As a Palestinian-born academic trained in British-run schools in Egypt and Jerusalem, Edward Said created a cultural theory that named the discourse nineteenth-century Europeans had about the peoples and places of the Greater Islamic World: Orientalism. The work of academics, colonial officials, and writers of various stripes contributed to a literary corpus that came to represent the “truth” of the Orient, a truth that Said argues reflects the imagination of the “West” more than it does the realities of the “Orient.” Said’s framework applies to many geographic and temporal lenses, often dispelling the false truths that centuries of Western interactions with the global South have encoded in popular culture.

Sara Danius, Stefan Jonsson, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “ An Interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak ,” boundary 20, No. 2 (Summer 1993), 24–50.

Gayatri Spivak’s 1988 essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” shifted the postcolonial discussion to a focus on agency and “the other.” Explicating Western discourse surrounding the practice of sati in India, Spivak asks if the oppressed and the marginalized can make themselves heard from within a colonial system. Can the subordinated, dispossessed indigenous subject be retrieved from the silence spaces of imperial history, or would that be yet another act of epistemological violence? Spivak argues that Western historians (i.e., white men speaking to white men about the colonized), in trying to squeeze out the subaltern voice, reproduce the hegemonic structures of colonialism and imperialism.

Antoinette Burton, “ Thinking beyond the Boundaries: Empire, Feminism and the Domains of History ,” Social History 26, no. 1 (January 2001): 60–71.

In this article, Antoinette Burton considers the controversies around using the social and cultural theory as a site of analysis within the field of imperial history; specifically, concerns of those who saw political and economic history as “outside the realm” of culture. Burton deftly merges the historiographies of anthropology and gender studies to argue for a more nuanced understanding of New Imperial history.

Michelle Moyd, “ Making the Household, Making the State: Colonial Military Communities and Labor in German East Africa ,” International Labor and Working-Class History , no. 80 (2011): 53–76.

Michelle Moyd’s work focuses on an often-overlooked part of the imperial machine, the indigenous soldiers who served the colonial powers. Using German East Africa as her case study, she discusses how these “violent intermediaries” negotiated new household and community structures within the context of colonialism.

Caroline Elkins, “ The Struggle for Mau Mau Rehabilitation in Late Colonial Kenya ,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 33, no. 1 (2000): 25–57.

Caroline Elkins looks at the both the official rehabilitation policy enacted toward Mau Mau rebels and the realities of what took place “behind the wire.” She argues that in this late colonial period, the colonial government in Nairobi was never truly able to recover from the brutality it used to suppress the Mau Mau movement and maintain colonial control.

Jan C. Jansen and Jürgen Osterhammel, “Decolonization as Moment and Process,” in Decolonization: A Short History , trans. Jeremiah Riemer (Princeton University Press, 2017): 1–34.

In this opening chapter of their book, Decolonization: A Short History , Jansen and Osterhammel lay out an ambitious plan for merging multiple perspectives on the phenomena of decolonization to explain how European colonial rule became de-legitimized. Their discussion of decolonization as both a structural and a normative process is of particular interest.

Cheikh Anta Babou, “ Decolonization or National Liberation: Debating the End of British Colonial Rule in Africa ,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 632 (2010): 41–54.

Cheikh Anta Babou challenges decolonization narratives that focus on colonial policy-makers or Cold War competition, especially in Africa, where the consensus of colonial elites was that African colonial holdings would remain under dominion for the foreseeable future even if the empire might be rolled back in South Asia or the Middle East. Babou emphasizes the liberation efforts of colonized people in winning their independence while also noting the difficulties faced by newly independent countries due to years of imperialism that had depleted the economic and political viability of the new nation. This view supports Babou’s claim that continued study of imperialism and colonialism is essential.

Mahmood Mamdani, “ Settler Colonialism: Then and Now ,” Critical Inquiry 41, no. 3 (2015): 596–614.

Mahmood Mamdani begins with the premise that “Africa is the continent where settler colonialism has been defeated; America is where settler colonialism triumphed.” Then, he seeks to turn this paradigm on its head by looking at America from an African perspective. What emerges is an evaluation of American history as a settler colonial state—further placing the United States rightfully in the discourse on imperialism.

Antoinette Burton, “S Is for SCORPION,” in Animalia: An Anti-Imperial Bestiary for Our Times , ed. Antoinette Burton and Renisa Mawani (Duke University Press, 2020): 163–70.

In their edited volume, Animalia, Antoinette Burton and Renisa Mawani use the form of a bestiary to critically examine British constructions of imperial knowledge that sought to classify animals in addition to their colonial human subjects. As they rightly point out, animals often “interrupted” imperial projects, thus impacting the physical and psychological realities of those living in the colonies. The selected chapter focuses on the scorpion, a “recurrent figure in the modern British imperial imagination” and the various ways it was used as a “biopolitical symbol,” especially in Afghanistan.

Editor’s Note: The details of Edward Said’s education have been corrected.

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In the late 1800s, European nations were competing fiercely for control of Africa, the only continent (other than Antarctica) that had not yet been colonized by Europeans. Some European imperialists, such as French leader Jules Ferry (see reading, "Expansion Was Everything" ), justified the conquest by claiming that “superior races” had both a right to the territory and a duty to “civilize” the “inferior races” that made up the Indigenous people of Africa. Others claimed no duty at all toward the Indigenous people. Historians David Olusoga and Casper W. Erichsen explain:

Herero Survivors

After the Germans drove the Herero into the Kalahari Desert in South-West Africa in 1904, the few that survived returned from the desert starving.

The white races had claimed territory across the globe by right of strength and conquest. They had triumphed everywhere because they were the fittest; their triumphs were the proof of their fitness. Whole races, who had been annihilated long before Darwin had put pen to paper, were judged to have been unfit for life by the very fact they had been exterminated. Living people across the world were categorized as “doomed races.” The only responsibility science had to such races was to record their cultures and collect their artifacts from them, before their inevitable extinction. The spread of Europeans across the globe came to be regarded as an almost sacred enterprise, and was increasingly linked to that other holy crusade of the nineteenth century—the march of progress. Alongside the clearing of land, the coming of the railroad, and the settlement of white farmers, the eradication of Indigenous tribes became a symbol of modernity. Social Darwinism thus cast itself as an agent of progress. 1

Along with Belgium, England, France, and Portugal, Germany was one of many European nations deeply influenced by Social Darwinism. It affected the way the nation justified its actions in South-West Africa (modern-day Namibia), where Germans occupied the land of Indigenous groups, including the Herero and Nama, beginning in the 1880s. Within 20 years, German settlers not only occupied much of the land but had also acquired (through confiscation or purchase) more than half of the Herero people’s cattle. Cattle were central to the Herero culture and economy. 2 Theodor Leutwein, the governor of German South-West Africa, explained what had happened to the Herero and Nama from an imperialist point of view when he wrote: “The native who did not care to work, and yet did not want to do without worldly goods, eventually was ruined; meanwhile, the industrious white man prospered. This was just a natural process.” 3

When the Herero, the Nama, and other groups in the region fought to keep their land and resources, German leaders were outraged. The Herero, led by their chief Samuel Maharero, began to revolt in January 1904. Though they had much better weapons than the Herero, German soldiers were unable to quickly end the rebellion. They lost hundreds of soldiers to disease, the unfamiliar desert climate, poor supply lines, and ambush attacks by Maharero’s soldiers. 4 German officials in both Africa and Europe were made furious not only by the uprising but also by the idea that an “inferior” people were challenging their authority.

In August, Kaiser Wilhelm sent German Lieutenant-General Lothar von Trotha to take control of the colony and to “crush the rebellion by all means necessary.” 5 Von Trotha had been previously stationed in east Africa, where he had a reputation for brutality in his efforts to put down all resistance to German rule. Von Trotha vowed to “annihilate the revolting tribes with streams of blood.” 6

Aware that large numbers of Herero warriors and their families were congregating on the nearby Waterberg Plateau, von Trotha ordered his troops to attack not only the warriors but also their wives and children. They were to take no prisoners. The troops quickly surrounded the Herero on three sides. They left open the fourth side—the Kalahari Desert. To make sure that no one used it to escape, soldiers were ordered to poison all water-holes and set up a chain of guard posts in the desert.

On October 2, long after thousands of Herero had already been murdered, von Trotha issued an “Extermination Order.” It stated:

The Herero people must leave the land. If they do not do this I will force them with [big guns or cannon]. Within the German borders, every Herero, with or without a gun, with or without cattle, will be shot. I will no longer accept women and children. I will drive them back to their people or I will let them be shot at. This is my decision for the Herero people. 7

Before von Trotha arrived in South-West Africa, historians estimate the territory was home to between 70,000 and 80,000 Herero. Most of them were killed at the Battle of Waterberg or by trying to escape through the desert. Only 20,000 to 30,000 remained in South-West Africa. Most of them were sent to labor camps and forced to work for German authorities. Conditions in the camps were so brutal that nearly half died. 8

In 1907, following increasing criticism in Germany and abroad, von Trotha's mission was canceled and he was sent back to Germany, where he was honored by the military. The shift in policy came too late for the Herero. Only 15,000 remained alive. It also came too late for the Nama people. After the defeat of the Herero, the Nama also revolted, and they too were swiftly defeated by von Trotha's forces. On April 22, 1905, he ordered them to surrender or “be shot until all are exterminated.” He reminded them that if they continued to rebel, they would be treated in much the way the Herero were. Of an estimated 20,000 Nama, about half were murdered and the rest confined in work camps. Historians have explained the genocide in German South-West Africa as a result of Social Darwinist thinking, embodied especially in von Trotha’s idea of race war, combined with the German military’s institutional culture of extreme violence. 9

The German atrocities against the Herero and Nama were not unique; similar attacks were made by British settlers against Aboriginal Tasmanians in Australia in the nineteenth century and by American settlers against the Yuki in California around the turn of the twentieth century. Contemporary historians call these episodes—in which an imperialist country intentionally tries to annihilate an Indigenous people in order to control their land and resources—frontier genocide. 10

Connection Questions

Describing the actions of Germans in South-West Africa and other similar historical cases, historian Benjamin Madley writes: Victors write history, and . . . perpetrators create a myth to excuse their crimes. By claiming that so-called “primitive” peoples and cultures are fated to vanish when they come into contact with white settlers, a deadly supposition emerges: the extinction of Indigenous people is inevitable and thus killing speeds destiny. 11
What myths did Germans use to explain their attempts to annihilate the Herero and Nama? What motives did these myths attempt to excuse?
What is “the march of progress”? What did progress mean to imperialists?
In what kinds of situations have you used or heard the word exterminate? What is the significance of the way von Trotha used this word in describing his plans in South-West Africa?
What questions does the history of imperialist conquest and violence raise for you? In what ways is such brutality unexplainable?
1 David Olusoga and Casper W. Erichsen, The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism (London: Faber & Faber, 2010), 73.
2 Benjamin Madley, "Patterns of Frontier Genocide 1803–1910: The Aboriginal Tasmanians, the Yuki of California, and the Herero of Namibia," Journal of Genocide Research 6, no. 2 (June 2004): 182.
3 Ibid.,169.
4 Ibid., 185–86.
5 Ibid., 186.
6 “ The Herero Uprising 11 January 1904 ,” Namibia-1on1.com, accessed March 23, 2016.
7 Lothar von Trotha, “Proclamation 2,” October 2, 1904, quoted in Olusoga and Erichsen, The Kaiser’s Holocaust , 149–50.
8 Benjamin Madley, "Patterns of frontier genocide 1803–1910: The Aboriginal Tasmanians, the Yuki of California, and the Herero of Namibia," Journal of Genocide Research 6, no. 2 (June 2004), 188.
9 Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), 5-6; Jürgen Zimmerer, “Annihilation in Africa: The ‘Race War’ in German Southwest Africa (1904–1908) and Its Significance for a Global–History of Genocide,” GHI Bulletin , no. 37 (2005): 51–57.
10 Benjamin Madley, "Patterns of frontier genocide 1803–1910: The Aboriginal Tasmanians, the Yuki of California, and the Herero of Namibia," Journal of Genocide Research 6, no. 2 (June 2004), 167–168.
11 Benjamin Madley, "Patterns of frontier genocide 1803–1910: The Aboriginal Tasmanians, the Yuki of California, and the Herero of Namibia," Journal of Genocide Research 6, no. 2 (June 2004), 168.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section British Colonial Rule in Sub-Saharan Africa

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British Colonial Rule in Sub-Saharan Africa by Timothy H. Parsons LAST REVIEWED: 27 November 2013 LAST MODIFIED: 27 November 2013 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846733-0019

The British Empire in Africa went through several distinct phases. From the heyday of the Atlantic slave trade to the mid-19th century, the British imperial presence was limited to a small handful of trading forts on the West African coast, the seizure of the Cape Colony from the Dutch, and a protectorate over the Sultanate of Zanzibar. Britain acquired its substantial African holdings during the era of “new imperialism” of the late 19th century, when it played a substantial role in the European conquest and partition of the continent. While British Africa may have appeared ordered and coherent from London, where a pinkish red usually marked its component territories on maps of the empire, it was in fact a highly diverse and varied entity. Empires, by their very nature, embody and institutionalize difference. Moreover, they are hierarchical institutions that appear quite different from the perspective of the metropole, a colonial capital, and local subject communities. In the decades before the First World War, British Africa included protectorates over theoretically sovereign states, a handful of West African coastal enclaves with Crown Colony status, settler colonies, the self-governing dominion of South Africa, and territories governed by anachronistic charter companies that belonged to an earlier imperial era. While there were small but politically influential communities of European descent in eastern, central, and southern Africa, the vast majority of Britain’s subjects in Africa were Africans. According to the widely accepted stereotypes of the new imperialism, Britain had a moral responsibility to govern these subject peoples because they were at a less advanced stage of human development. This doctrine of trusteeship became harder to justify as social Darwinism went out of fashion over the course of the 20th century, and it proved incompatible with institutionalized racial discrimination in the settler colonies and policies that privileged British economic interests. These realities explain why much of the literature on British Africa appears contradictory, for historians writing about imperial topics are often writing about very different things. The substantial diversity and variety in the form and function of British rule has made it difficult for historians to draw broad conclusions about Britain’s African empire. See also the related Oxford Bibliographies articles on German Colonial Rule and Belgian Colonial Rule .

Most general surveys that pay substantive attention to British Africa are histories of either the entire British Empire or Africa in general. Eldridge 1984 and Hyam 2002 are broad histories of the British Empire that pay good attention to Africa. For an in-depth examination of why Britain took part in the new imperialism, which included the conquest of Africa, see Cain and Hopkins 1993 . For a dated but still informative overview of British rule in Africa see the two edited collections, Gifford and Louis 1967 and Gifford and Louis 1971 . Hyam 2006 is a good introductory history of the British Empire’s demise that pays sufficient attention to the African colonies.

Cain, P. J. and A. G. Hopkins. British Imperialism . 2 vols. London: Longman, 1993.

This highly influential survey of British imperial history attributes Britain’s imperial expansion to an alliance between landed aristocrats and London bankers and businessmen. Vol 1, Innovation and Expansion, 1688–1914; Vol 2, Crisis and Deconstruction, 1914–1990.

Eldridge, C. C., ed. British Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century . New York: St. Martin’s, 1984.

A collection of introductory essays on British Empire building in the 19th century.

Gifford, Prosser, and William Roger Louis, eds. Britain and Germany in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1967.

This collection of essays resulted from the first of a series of scholarly conferences, organized by the noted historian William Roger Louis, which examined various aspects of European imperial rule in Africa. The chapters cover Anglo-German imperial competition and cooperation, comparisons of German and British colonial policies regarding “native administration,” missions, taxation, and the British acquisition of some of Germany’s African colonies after World War I.

Gifford, Prosser, and William Roger Louis, eds. France and Britain in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971.

Gifford and Louis’s sequel to Britain and Germany in Africa 1967, this collection compares British and French colonial policy in Africa. Topics include the French and British imperial rivalry, comparative systems of administration, education, and economic development.

Hyam, Ronald. Britain’s Imperial Century, 1815–1914: A Study of Empire and Expansion . 3d ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

DOI: 10.1057/9781403918420

An excellent introduction to the origins of Britain’s African empire, for students and general readers.

Hyam, Ronald. Britain’s Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonization, 1918–1968 . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Written by one of the foremost specialists on the British Empire, this narrative survey is a compelling explanation for the empire’s short life and unexpectedly rapid demise in the 20th century.

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Colonialism and Development in Africa

First Online: 28 January 2018

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Ruth Rempel 3

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Rempel engages the argument that President Truman invented development in 1949. She points to nineteenth-century African modernization initiatives, and the development discourse that accompanied the Scramble for Africa. Europeans initially used ad hoc development measures in their African colonies, but were pushed to systematize and change them by global war and economic depression, and by persistent African agency. Rempel’s overview of imperial development history focuses on British and French colonies where peasant agriculture predominated, particularly Uganda. US involvement in colonial-era development is examined in Liberia and Ethiopia. Rempel identifies a countervailing development project, adopted by African nationalists and systematized in the United Nations in the 1950s. It shared with its imperial rival assumptions about economic growth, planning, and the primary role of the state.

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Rempel, R. (2018). Colonialism and Development in Africa. In: Shanguhyia, M., Falola, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of African Colonial and Postcolonial History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59426-6_24

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Imperialism In Africa - Free Essay Examples and Topic Ideas

Imperialism in Africa refers to the European conquest and colonization of African territories between the 19th and 20th centuries. European powers, such as Britain, France, Portugal, and Belgium, divided and ruled over Africa, exploiting resources and people for their economic gain. This led to the displacement of African cultures and the suppression of African independence movements, leading to a legacy of underdevelopment and political instability in many African nations. The effects of imperialism in Africa are still felt to this day as many African countries continue to struggle with poverty, underdevelopment, and ethnic conflicts.

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The Causes of Imperialism in Africa

Categories: African American Imperialism

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Published: Mar 18, 2021

Words: 739 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Hook Examples for Imperialism Essay

Conquering Nations, Forging Empires: Step into the era of imperialism, where nations extended their dominion across continents, reshaping the world map and altering the course of history.
The Dark Side of Empire Building: Delve into the hidden atrocities and ethical dilemmas of imperialism, unearthing the untold stories of oppression, exploitation, and cultural erosion.
Explorers or Exploiters? Challenge the notion of imperial explorers as heroic adventurers, and examine their role as agents of exploitation, transforming indigenous societies in their quest for wealth and power.
Imperialism’s Legacy: A World Transformed: Trace the enduring impact of imperialism on contemporary geopolitics, economics, and global relations, highlighting the far-reaching consequences of past empires.
Resisting Imperial Forces: Uncover the narratives of resistance against imperial powers, where marginalized communities and leaders fought for their sovereignty and cultural preservation.

Works Cited

Gallagher, J., & Robinson, R. (1953). The imperialism of free trade. The Economic History Review, 6(1), 1-15.
Hobson, J. A. (1902). Imperialism: A Study. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Hochschild, A. (1999). King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Mariner Books.
Osterhammel, J. (2014). The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century. Princeton University Press.
Headrick, D. R. (2010). Technology: A World History. Oxford University Press.
Conrad, J. (1899). Heart of Darkness. Blackwood’s Magazine.
DuBois, W. E. B. (1899). The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Cain, P. J., & Hopkins, A. G. (2001). British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion, 1688-1914. Routledge.
MacKenzie, J. M. (1984). The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conservation and British Imperialism. Manchester University Press.
Davidson, B. (1991). The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State. Three Continents Press.

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How Imperialism Set the Stage for World War I

By: Becky Little

Updated: July 18, 2024 | Original: March 7, 2022

Battle of Cambrai, World War I, WWI battles

World War I wasn’t just a conflict between nations—it was a war between empires. Western European empires like Great Britain and France had overseas colonies around the world, while eastern empires like Austria-Hungary and Russia ruled European and North Asian territories connected by land. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on July 28, 1914 , was itself an anti-imperialist murder, planned by members of Young Bosnia angry over Austria-Hungary’s annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

European competition for imperial territories helped set the stage for the rivalries that played out during the First World War, and the war in turn had a major effect on the balance of imperial power. The Russian, German, Austria-Hungarian and Ottoman empires all collapsed during or shortly after the war, which ended with a treaty that ceded Germany’s overseas colonies to the victors.

The Scramble for Africa

By the time World War I began, almost all of the African continent was under some form of colonial rule by Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain or Portugal. Most of this colonization happened after 1880, during a period known as the Scramble for Africa or the Partition of Africa, in which European empires competed with each other for control of African territories.

In the centuries before the Scramble for Africa, European empires had invaded African coastal nations to capture and enslave people but mostly hadn’t managed to invade farther inland due to navigational difficulties and the threat of diseases like malaria. After the legal abolition of slavery, new technologies like steamboats and quinine allowed Europeans to invade much more of the continent.

The European empires that invaded Africa saw colonization as a way to exploit forced labor, extract resources and become more powerful in relation to other European empires. Although colonialism in Africa wasn’t a direct cause of World War I, it helped create an environment in which European empires thought of themselves as rivals who could only succeed at the expense of other empires. For example, France and Germany, two main rivals during World War I, competed with each other for control of Morocco in the decade before the war.

“France and Germany did not go to war over Morocco,” says Richard Fogarty , a history professor at the University at Albany and co-editor of Empires in World War I: Shifting Frontiers and Imperial Dynamics in a Global Conflict .

“What happened, though, was that they were conditioned to think of each other as competitors,” he says, “and to think of the world as this zero-sum game in which the French pursuit of empire could only come at the expense of the German pursuit of empire.”

How a Regional Conflict Snowballed Into World War I

When Austria‑Hungary declared war on Serbia in 1914, each of their allies quickly joined the fight.

World War I Battles: Timeline

For four years, from 1914 to 1918, World War I raged across Europe’s western and eastern fronts after growing tensions and then the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria ignited the war. Trench warfare and the early use of tanks, submarines and airplanes meant the war’s battles were devastatingly bloody, claiming an estimated 40 […]

8 Events that Led to World War I

Imperialism, nationalistic pride and mutual alliances all played a part in building tensions that would erupt into war.

Great Britain was also concerned about Germany’s attempt to build a navy that might challenge its own. Although Germany was nowhere close to achieving this, Fogarty says, “the British couldn’t even tolerate the idea of a threat to their naval supremacy, because they had an empire to secure. And so that made them hypersensitive to any competition.”

French and British fears about Germany’s empire-building are part of what drove European nations to form alliances and informal agreements in the decades leading up to World War I , dividing Europe into roughly two opposing camps.

Imperialism in Europe

In contrast to most of the Western European empires, the Austria-Hungarian, Russian and the Ottoman empires were contiguous, with territories connected to each other by land. On the eve of World War I, the three empires’ borders converged at the Balkans—a region in southeastern Europe that the empires viewed as strategically valuable, and played a major role in the start of the Great War.

The Ottoman Empire had previously controlled much of the Balkans but lost most of its territory there in the 19th century. Austria-Hungary took advantage of the Ottoman Empire’s retreat by occupying Bosnia-Herzegovina, a region in the Balkans that the empire annexed in 1908.

It was this occupation and annexation that the revolutionary group Young Bosnia was protesting when it assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the presumptive heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne. After the assassination, Austria-Hungary accused neighboring Serbia, another nation in the Balkans, of assisting Young Bosnia and declared war on Serbia.

Russia ostensibly agreed to back Serbia against Austria-Hungary because it was a fellow Slavic state; but Andrew Jarboe , a history professor at Berklee College of Music who co-edited Empires in World War I with Fogarty, suggests Russia was also motivated by imperial interests in the Balkans.

“I really think Russia’s calculus is: if they don’t respond militarily, they render themselves obsolete in this region,” he says.

Empires Dismantled in the Wake of World War I

Russia fought World War I on the side of the Allies, which included Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, but left the Great War in 1917 when revolution and civil war broke out in its own empire. This led to the collapse of the Russian Empire and the establishment of the Soviet Union .

The opposing side, the Central Powers, is where most of the other imperial collapses happened. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles dismantled the Austria-Hungarian Empire in Europe and the German Empire both in Europe and abroad. Great Britain, France and Belgium divided most of Germany’s African colonies among themselves, while Japan took over Germany’s colonies in China and the North Pacific. In addition, the treaty imposed measures on the Ottoman Empire that led to its dissolution in 1922.

When Adolf Hitler rose to power, he deliberately used the existence of a previous German Empire to justify his “Third Reich," or “Third Empire,” which he imagined would take control of Europe (in his mind, the Holy Roman Empire was the “First Reich”). When he invaded Poland in 1939, sparking World War II , part of his rationale that he was conquering territory that rightly belonged to Germany—an excuse that many imperialists had used before and would use again.

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Introduction

Background and characteristics

Economic imperialism, noneconomic imperialism, quest for a general theory of imperialism.

When did the British Empire begin?

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New Imperialism

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Table Of Contents

New Imperialism , period of intensified imperialistic expansion from the latter half of the 19th century until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. The renewed push to expand territorial control included not only the earlier colonial powers of western Europe but also newcomers such as Germany , Italy , Japan , Russia , and the United States .

After years of rapid growth under free trade policy regimes, an international financial crisis hit much of the industrialized world in 1873. In response to the economic and social fallout of the crisis, states began taking a more proactive approach in managing their economic affairs. In the 1870s and 1880s, the great powers of Europe suddenly shook off almost a century of apathy toward overseas colonies and, in the space of 20 years, partitioned almost the entire uncolonized portion of the globe. Once the scramble for colonies was complete, pressure groups formed in the various countries to argue the economic promise of imperialism , but just as often governments had to foster colonial development. In most cases, trade did not lead but followed the flag.

One necessary condition that characterized this New Imperialism, often overlooked, is technological. Prior to the 1870s Europeans could overawe native peoples along the coasts of Africa and Asia but lacked the firepower, mobility, and communications that would have been needed to pacify the interior. ( India was the exception, where the British East India Company exploited an anarchic situation and allied itself with selected native rulers against others.) The tsetse fly and the Anopheles mosquito —bearers of sleeping sickness and malaria —were the ultimate defenders of African and Asian jungles . The correlation of forces between Europe and the colonizable world shifted, however, with the invention of shallow-draft riverboats, the steamship and telegraph , the repeater rifle and Maxim gun , and the discovery (in India) that quinine is an effective prophylactic against malaria. By 1880 small groups of European regulars, armed with modern weapons and exercising fire discipline , could overwhelm many times their number of native troops.

Economic boom and disparity during Germany's founders' era

Apart from the ability to now expand into uncolonized regions, technological advances from the co-occuring second Industrial Revolution also enabled newcomers to the imperialist drive to compete with the old powers. Mass-produced steel, electric power and oil as sources of energy, industrial chemistry, and the internal-combustion engine helped additional states, including Germany, the United States, and, eventually, Japan, to join the colonial scramble on roughly equal footing. Both the new technology and the added competition also contributed to the rapid speed of the New Imperialism.

To operate efficiently, the new industries of the second Industrial Revolution required heavy capital investment in large-scale units. Accordingly, they encouraged the development of capital markets and banking institutions that were large and flexible enough to finance the new enterprises. The larger capital markets and industrial enterprises, in turn, helped push forward the geographic scale of operations of the industrialized nations: more capital could now be mobilized for foreign loans and investment, and the bigger businesses had the resources for the worldwide search for and development of the raw materials essential to the success and security of their investments. Not only did the new industrialism generate a voracious appetite for raw materials, but food for the swelling urban populations was now also sought in the far corners of the world. Advances in ship construction (steamships using steel hulls, twin screws, and compound engines) made feasible the inexpensive movement of bulk raw materials and food over long ocean distances. Under the pressures and opportunities of the later decades of the 19th century, more and more of the world was drawn upon as primary producers for the industrialized nations. Self-contained economic regions dissolved into a world economy, involving an international division of labour whereby the leading industrial nations made and sold manufactured products and the rest of the world supplied them with raw materials and food.

Ship construction was also of special importance to the revival of militarism in this period. Although Great Britain had long enjoyed naval supremacy, it now had to build a completely new navy , comprising steam-powered armour-plated warships, while the other industrialized nations were doing the same.

Renewed colonial rivalry, moreover, brought an end to the relatively peaceful conditions of the mid-19th century, with the South African War (the Boer War), the First Sino-Japanese War , the Spanish-American War , and the Russo-Japanese War among those that ushered in this new era. Much of the conflict arose from the intensification of tendencies that originated in earlier periods. The decision by the United States to go to war with Spain, for example, cannot be isolated from the long-standing interest of the United States in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Dominance of the Caribbean after Spain’s defeat was consistent with the Monroe Doctrine , which set up the United States as a guarantor of a Latin America free of European domination; possession of the Philippines was consistent with the historic interest of the United States in the commerce of the Pacific, as it had already manifested by its long interest in Hawaii (annexed in 1898).

The annexations during this new phase of imperial growth differed significantly from the expansionism earlier in the 19th century. While the latter was substantial in magnitude, it was primarily devoted to the consolidation of claimed territory (by penetration of continental interiors and more effective rule over indigenous populations) and only secondarily to new acquisitions. On the other hand, the New Imperialism was characterized by a burst of activity in carving up as yet independent areas: taking over almost all Africa, a good part of Asia, and many Pacific islands. This new vigour in the pursuit of colonies is reflected in the fact that the rate of new territorial acquisitions of the New Imperialism was almost three times that of the earlier period. Thus, the increase in new territories claimed in the first 75 years of the 19th century averaged about 83,000 square miles (215,000 square kilometres) a year. As against this, the colonial powers added an average of about 240,000 square miles (620,000 square kilometres) a year between the late 1870s and World War I (1914–18). By the beginning of that war, the new territory claimed was for the most part fully conquered, and the main military resistance of the indigenous populations had been suppressed . Hence, in 1914, as a consequence of this new expansion and conquest on top of that of preceding centuries, the colonial powers, their colonies, and their former colonies extended over approximately 85 percent of Earth’s surface. Economic and political control by leading powers reached almost the entire globe, for, in addition to colonial rule, other means of domination were exercised in the form of spheres of influence , special commercial treaties, and the subordination that lenders often impose on debtor nations.

Historiographical debate

The New Imperialism marked the end of vacillation over the choice of imperialist military and political policies; similar decisions to push imperialist programs to the forefront were made by the leading industrial nations over a relatively short period. This historical conjuncture requires explanation and still remains the subject of debate among historians and social scientists. The pivot of the controversy is the degree to which the New Imperialism was the product of primarily economic forces and in particular whether it was a necessary attribute of the capitalist system.

Serious analysts on both sides of the argument recognize that there is a multitude of factors involved: the main protagonists of economic imperialism recognize that political, military, and ideological influences were also at work; similarly, many who dispute the economic imperialism thesis acknowledge that economic interests played a significant role. The problem, however, is one of assigning priority to causes.

The father of the economic interpretation of the New Imperialism was the British liberal economist John Atkinson Hobson. In his seminal study, Imperialism, a Study (first published in 1902), he pointed to the role of such drives as patriotism, philanthropy, and the spirit of adventure in advancing the imperialist cause. As he saw it, however, the critical question was why the energy of these active agents takes the particular form of imperialist expansion. Hobson located the answer in the financial interests of the capitalist class as “the governor of the imperial engine.” Imperialist policy had to be considered irrational if viewed from the vantage point of the nation as a whole: the economic benefits derived were far less than the costs of wars and armaments; and needed social reforms were shunted aside in the excitement of imperial adventure. But it was rational, indeed, in the eyes of the minority of financial interest groups. The reason for this, in Hobson’s view, was the persistent congestion of capital in manufacturing. The pressure of capital needing investment outlets arose in part from a maldistribution of income: low mass consuming power blocks the absorption of goods and capital inside the country. Moreover, the practices of the larger firms, especially those operating in trusts and combines, foster restrictions on output, thus avoiding the risks and waste of overproduction. Because of this, the large firms are faced with limited opportunities to invest in expanding domestic production. The result of both the maldistribution of income and monopolistic behaviour is a need to open up new markets and new investment opportunities in foreign countries.

Hobson’s study covered a broader spectrum than the analysis of what he called its economic taproot. It also examined the associated features of the New Imperialism, such as political changes, racial attitudes, and nationalism . The book as a whole made a strong impression on, and greatly influenced, Marxist thinkers who were becoming more involved with the struggle against imperialism. The most influential of the Marxist studies was a small book published by Vladimir Lenin in 1917, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Despite many similarities, at bottom there is a wide gulf between Hobson’s and Lenin’s frameworks of analysis and also between their respective conclusions. While Hobson saw the New Imperialism serving the interests of certain capitalist groups, he believed that imperialism could be eliminated by social reforms while maintaining the capitalist system. This would require restricting the profits of those classes whose interests were closely tied to imperialism and attaining a more equitable distribution of income so that consumers would be able to buy up a nation’s production. Lenin, on the other hand, saw imperialism as being so closely integrated with the structure and normal functioning of an advanced capitalism that he believed that only the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, with the substitution of socialism , would rid the world of imperialism.

Lenin placed the issues of imperialism in a context broader than the interests of a special sector of the capitalist class. According to Lenin, capitalism itself changed in the late 19th century; moreover, because this happened at pretty much the same time in several leading capitalist nations, it explains why the new phase of capitalist development came when it did. This new phase, Lenin believed, involves political and social as well as economic changes; but its economic essence is the replacement of competitive capitalism by monopoly capitalism, a more advanced stage in which finance capital, an alliance between large industrial and banking firms, dominates the economic and political life of society. Competition continues, but among a relatively small number of giants who are able to control large sectors of the national and international economy. It is this monopoly capitalism and the resulting rivalry generated among monopoly capitalist nations that foster imperialism; in turn, the processes of imperialism stimulate the further development of monopoly capital and its influence over the whole society.

The difference between Lenin’s more complex paradigm and Hobson’s shows up clearly in the treatment of capital export. Like Hobson, Lenin maintained that the increasing importance of capital exports is a key figure of imperialism, but he attributed the phenomenon to much more than pressure from an overabundance of capital. He also saw the acceleration of capital migration arising from the desire to obtain exclusive control over raw material sources and to get a tighter grip on foreign markets. He thus shifted the emphasis from the general problem of surplus capital, inherent in capitalism in all its stages, to the imperatives of control over raw materials and markets in the monopoly stage. With this perspective, Lenin also broadened the concept of imperialism. Because the thrust is to divide the world among monopoly interest groups, the ensuing rivalry extends to a struggle over markets in the leading capitalist nations as well as in the less advanced capitalist and colonial countries. This rivalry is intensified because of the uneven development of different capitalist nations: the latecomers aggressively seek a share of the markets and colonies controlled by those who got there first, who naturally resist such a redivision. Other forces—political, military, and ideological—are at play in shaping the contours of imperialist policy, but Lenin insisted that these influences germinate in the seedbed of monopoly capitalism.

Perhaps the most systematic alternative theory of imperialism was proposed by Joseph Alois Schumpeter , one of the best known economists of the first half of the 20th century. His essay “Zur Soziologie des Imperialismus” (“The Sociology of Imperialism”) was first published in Germany in the form of two articles in 1919. Although Schumpeter was probably not familiar with Lenin’s Imperialism at the time he wrote his essay, his arguments were directed against the Marxist currents of thought of the early 20th century and in particular against the idea that imperialism grows naturally out of capitalism. Unlike other critics, however, Schumpeter accepted some of the components of the Marxist thesis , and to a certain extent he followed the Marxist tradition of looking for the influence of class forces and class interests as major levers of social change . In doing so, he in effect used the weapons of Marxist thought to rebut the essence of Marxist theory.

A survey of empires, beginning with the earliest days of written history , led Schumpeter to conclude that there are three generic characteristics of imperialism: (1) At root is a persistent tendency to war and conquest, often producing nonrational expansions that have no sound utilitarian aim. (2) These urges are not innate in man. They evolved from critical experiences when peoples and classes were molded into warriors to avoid extinction; the warrior mentality and the interests of warrior classes live on, however, and influence events even after the vital need for wars and conquests disappears. (3) The drift to war and conquest is sustained and conditioned by the domestic interests of ruling classes, often under the leadership of those individuals who have most to gain economically and socially from war. But for these factors, Schumpeter believed, imperialism would have been swept away into the dustbin of history as capitalist society ripened; for capitalism in its purest form is antithetical to imperialism: it thrives best with peace and free trade. Yet despite the innate peaceful nature of capitalism, interest groups do emerge that benefit from aggressive foreign conquests. Under monopoly capitalism the fusion of big banks and cartels creates a powerful and influential social group that pressures for exclusive control in colonies and protectorates, for the sake of higher profits.

Notwithstanding the resemblance between Schumpeter’s discussion of monopoly and that of Lenin and other Marxists, a crucial difference does remain. Monopoly capitalism in Lenin’s frame of reference is a natural outgrowth of the previous stage of competitive capitalism. But according to Schumpeter, it is an artificial graft on the more natural competitive capitalism, made possible by the catalytic effect of the residue from the preceding feudal society. Schumpeter argued that monopoly capitalism can only grow and prosper under the protection of high tariff walls; without that shield there would be large-scale industry but no cartels or other monopolistic arrangements. Because tariff walls are erected by political decisions, it is the state and not a natural economic process that promotes monopoly. Therefore, it is in the nature of the state—and especially those features that blend the heritage of the previous autocratic state, the old war machine, and feudal interests and ideas along with capitalist interests—that the cause of imperialism will be discovered. The particular form of imperialism in modern times is affected by capitalism, and capitalism itself is modified by the imperialist experience. In Schumpeter’s analysis, however, imperialism is not an inevitable product of capitalism.

The main trend of academic thought in the Western world is to follow Schumpeter’s conclusion—that modern imperialism is not a product of capitalism—without paying close attention to Schumpeter’s sophisticated sociological analysis. Specialized studies have produced a variety of interpretations of the origin or reawakening of the New Imperialism: for France , bolstering of national prestige after its defeat in the Franco-German War (1870–71); for Germany, Otto von Bismarck ’s design to stay in power when threatened by political rivals; for England, the desire for greater military security in the Mediterranean and India. These reasons—along with other frequently mentioned contributing causes, such as the spirit of national and racial superiority and the drive for power—are still matters of controversy with respect to specific cases and to the problem of fitting them into a general theory of imperialism. For example, if it is found that a new colony was acquired for better military defense of existing colonies, the questions still remain as to why the existing colonies were acquired in the first place and why it was considered necessary to defend them rather than to give them up. Similarly, explanations in terms of the search for power still have to account for the close relationship between power and wealth, because in the real world adequate economic resources are needed for a nation to hold on to its power, let alone to increase it. Conversely, increasing a nation’s wealth often requires power. As is characteristic of historical phenomena, imperialist expansion is conditioned by a nation’s previous history and the particular situation preceding each expansionist move. Moreover, it is carried forth in the midst of a complex of political, military, economic, and psychological impulses. It would seem, therefore, that the attempt to arrive at a theory that explains each and every imperialist action—ranging from a semifeudal Russia to a relatively undeveloped Italy to an industrially powerful Germany—is a vain pursuit. But this does not eliminate the more important challenge of constructing a theory that will provide a meaningful interpretation of the almost simultaneous eruption of the New Imperialism in a whole group of leading powers.

COMMENTS

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