The Rise of Imperialism Essay

New Imperialism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries compared to Old Imperialism of the 16th and 17th centuries. Imperialism is the spread of control over territories across the globe. The Industrial Revolution and interests in nationalism created a new period of imperialism around 1750. Old imperialism lasted from 1450- 1750, but imperialism alone remained until 1914.Old imperialism and new imperialism shared the same basic concept of controlling and utilizing foreign countries. Old imperialism focused mainly on systems of trade while new imperialism took bolder steps to overtaking nations. Old Imperialism was the period from 1450-1750

Since there were many nations involved, there were many attributes that led up to imperialism. Firstly, the Europeans wanted economic expansion. Since the industrial revolution had taken place, the Europeans were in need of more natural resources. They also wanted new markets for the sake of selling industrial products. To achieve this they had to look for more places outside of Europe and colonize it.

Imperialism began during the 1870’s, it was a process in which states, companies, and people exercised their dominance over the rest of the world. Some characteristics of imperialism are: a system of dominance rather than exchange, the investment of wealth brought in alternated the whole infrastructure, lastly it is based on treating other class divisions poorly just to benefit from their work. Imperialism came into power through the disproportionate European power, the unparalleled domestic support, the non-western power vacuum, and lastly due to divide and conquer tactics in which local leaders would support the imperialist dominating.

Imperialism is the spread of control over territories across the globe. The Industrial Revolution and interests in nationalism created a new period of imperialism around 1750. Old imperialism lasted from 1450- 1750, but imperialism alone remained until 1914.Old imperialism and new imperialism shared the same basic concept of controlling and utilizing foreign countries. Old imperialism focused mainly on systems of trade while new imperialism took bolder steps to overtaking nations.

Imperialism is defined as a policy of extending a country 's power and influence through diplomacy or military force. Countries during the Industrial Revolution wanted to imperialize due to social, political, and economic reasons. As early as the mid 1800’s, the European countries craved the idea of power and conquering new lands in order to obtain resources/raw materials. They took over Africa, the Ottoman Empire, India, and Southeast Asia due to this as well as for their convenient location. They believed that the more land one owns, the stronger the country would be. Although some can argue the fact that imperialism had a detrimental effect because these countries lost their culture and independence, the end result of this was definitely more positive than negative both short term and long term. These countries would not be as thriving today if this had not happened. European Imperialism in parts of the Middle east, Africa, and Asia had more of a positive impact on the world due to education, modernization, healthcare/sanitation, and more trade/resources used.

Economic forces such as the desire for more resources, capitalism, a new consumer market, and a cheap labor were most responsible for the new imperialism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It played a big role in Europe's nation. Like in document 1, "The makers of cotton and iron goods have been very much interested in imperialism", which shows that they desired more resources. Like in document 5, William L. Langer says "The economic side....must not be allowed to obscure the other factors. Phychologically speaking,...evolutionary teaching was perhaps most crucial", meaning that the economy shouldn't be allowed to hide other things.

Between 1870 and 1920, the European nations took the use of imperialism due to economic, political, and social forces to control the less-developed locations of the world. Economical forces used the need for raw materials for a reason to take locations. Social forces such as racism, thinking that themselves, the Europeans were better than whomever they were taking over. Political forces used militarism more often than not to take the less-developed locations of the world. The use of economical, political, and social forces were all important during the rise of imperialism during the 1870s through 1920s due to the humanitarianism (used in both political and social forces), racism, and the market through world trade with the need for militarism.

This period provided motives for American commercial expansions. The great American Businessmen began, at this time, to look overseas to expand their businesses and for profit. New colonies also provided captive markets for manufactured good. All these reasons pushed for the rise of Imperialism.

Imperialism was one of the four contributing factors to the cause of World War One, along with secret alliances, militarism, and nationalism.  It is the most important cause of WW1, because it created a build-up of tension in Europe and outside of Europe, and through imperialism, the three other causes were able to affect the beginnings of the war. Imperialism is defined as the governing of one people by another country, which was a recurring dilemma prior to WW1 due to the industrialist movement. Although not all events that fall into the imperialistic category were about controlling another country, they contributed to the war, and imperialistic events were the foundation of the cause of WW1.

Colonial Expansion started as early as the fifteenth century with the European expansion into the Americas. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that was known as new imperialism (notes). During this time, new imperialism sparked the colonial empires expansion and this caused the colonial empires completely take off. These imperialist powers were inspired and motivated to build these colonial empires due to the economic, political and cultural values. These highly industrialized countries were in need of more raw materials like oil, copper, tin, and rubber along with industrial crops and stimulants (notes). Securing these raw materials would fuel their industrialized economies. Due to the domestic markets of Western Europe being full meaning no more increase of profit, these overseas colonies became more profitable. The economy was a large part important in building these colonial empires. In addition, each country wanted to further politically, so that each Western Empire wanted more prestige. This would show the more power and overall national security in competition with other Western countries. Culturally, each country wanted to be the most powerful and believed that their way of life was the greatest. With a strong feeling of cultural superiority, the Europeans felt a moral duty to their countries. This is where nationalism played a role. In many ways, the dominating countries like

Imperialism is defined in the dictionary as being a " The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by establishing economic and political hegemony over other nations" (p 681 American Heritage college Dictionary). Usually people associate imperialism as being the domination of a small country by a larger, more powerful country, usually to the advantage of the larger country. At the beginning of the nineteenth century most of the countries in Europe were involved in imperialism. Each country had it's own motives for wanting to gain an empire and some of the reason were Economic, Political, Religious and Exploitation.

needed on the European home front. Imperialism provided a way in which unemployed laborers could obtain jobs and/or riches. Not all motives for imperialism were greedy and self-motivating however. The earnest desire of some to help civilize and Christianize natives was the utmost reason for imperialism.

What is the New Imperialism and what were the cause and effects in the World Wars in order to understand what is the “New Imperialism”, we must first learn and define Imperialism: a policy or practice by which a country increases its power by gaining control over other areas of the world: the effect that a powerful country or group of countries has in changing or influencing the way people live in other, poorer countries. The New Imperialism takes on effects in the late 19th century this is when there is an interest or wanting to gain a imperial territory, Imperialism is also consider to be when there is a desire to control a trading routes and resources in a nation. A perfect example of the New Imperialism is called the "Scramble for Africa", this is when Europe tries to takes control over Africa. In the late 19th century Europe struggle to destabilize and to balance the power that they once had before Italy and Germany became unify.

Imperialism and industrialization are two historical events that could be linked together. In fact, I look at it as a domino effect. Because of this event that happened during the industrial period, it now affects what’s token place in imperialism. Europe had many reasons they engaged in imperialism. Many may agree that its due to the desire to have extending rule over something. Whether that be a country, nation, empire, or a group of people. One of the motivations of imperialism was to explore and bring about new things, just like industrialization. In addition, the gain of wealth and additional resources were both factors in industrialization and imperialism. The goal for imperialism was more of the factor to bring about exploration, military power, political power, spread of ideological, but also growth in economics. Yet, the industrialization brought new changes such as increased standard of living, social patterns, and urbanization.

Economic motives were a major cause of New Imperialism. By the late 1870’s countries were industrializing rapidly. Great Britain began losing its economic lead and was faced with competition in foreign markets. The seizing of Asian and African territories