INTRODUCTION
 Imperialism - process
of extending a
nation’s authority by
territorial acquisition
or by the
establishment of
political and
economic hegemony
over other nations.
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Empires represented the
extension of:
One people’s control
over another
One state’s hegemony
over others’ territory
Opportunity to cheaply
extract goods without
concern for local costs,
and
Chance to extend values
to other people.
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ORIGINS OF IMPERIALISM
 The expansion of
European political
and economic
dominance was built
on three foundations:
 Search for trade
routes to Asia
 Controlling trade &
resources would
strengthen the
European home
country
 European superiority
in technology.
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One critical key to
European expansion
was the result of
both a social
necessity and a
technological
revolution in
seafaring.
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 One of the most
fundamental
distinctions among
European empires
was that some
emphasized territorial
conquest, whereas
others concentrated
on control of trade
routes.
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THE FIRST TRANSOCEANIC EMPIRES: SPAIN
AND PORTUGAL
 Colonial Collusion:
Dividing the World
 To avoid conflict over
their competing
expansion, Spain and
Portugal established an
imaginary line in 1494.
 The Treaty of Tordesillas
purported to divide up
the world
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Spanish Colonial Administration
 European
conquistadors were
aided by a number of
factors.
 Gunpowder and
muskets.
 Native Americans had
less immunity to
diseases.
 The political systems of
the Aztecs and the
Incas were so tyrannical
that foreign intervention
was often welcome by
the people.
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Portuguese Colonialism
 Most of the
Portuguese Empire
was based on trade
Instead of occupying
territory, they were
content to establish
trading ports.
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Spanish-American Independence
 The Napoleonic Wars
provided an
opportunity for
rebellion in Spanish
colonies
 Most of Spain’s
American colonies
received political
independence under
the leadership of Simon
Bolivar.
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Independence From Portugal
 The catalyst for
independence came with
the Napoleonic Wars.
 Throughout the French
occupation of Portugal, the
center of the Portuguese
Empire resided in Brazil, and
Brazilians were allowed to
trade freely with other
countries.
 Brazil gained its
independence with
relatively little conflict, but
Portuguese colonies in
Africa would wait until the
1970s.
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DUTCH EMPIRE
 The Dutch Empire
began with the
founding of the Dutch
East India Company
 Concentrated on
controlling key strategic
trading ports, straits,
and coasts.
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 The real wealth of the
Dutch Empire came
from the spices of the
Dutch East Indies
 Tea plantations brought
high profits.
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 Dutch colonial
presence in the
Indian Ocean was
ended by losses
during the Napoleonic
Wars
 Retained some
Caribbean islands.
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ANGLO-FRENCH RIVALRY
 Britain and France
brought different
strengths and
weaknesses to their
struggle.
 The British Isles made
foreign invasion unlikely
 Britain could focus on the
Royal Navy.
 Britain had to trade for many
raw materials.
 France, as a continental
power, had to devote large
resources to its standing
army.
 French self-sufficiency in
food made France more
inward-looking in economic
matters
 British population pressures
encouraged emigration.
 The combination of these
factors gave Britain
consistent advantages
over France.
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France’s Bid for Empire
 French emphasized
control of territory
 Never achieved lasting
domination because
they never attracted a
great number of
settlers.
 The French Empire
collapsed as a result
of the Seven Years’
War
 France rebuilt an
empire after the
Napoleonic Wars
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 The French saw their
role as bringing
culture and
civilization to
backward people and
thus attempted to
assimilate them to
the French way of life.
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 Decolonization was
difficult for the
French Empire
 Only a few Caribbean
and Pacific islands
remain “overseas
departments” for the
French Republic today.
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BRITISH EMPIRE
 17th & 18th Centuries
 The first area of English
overseas colonization
was at Jamestown,
Virginia, in 1607
 English hegemony in
North America lasted until
the American Revolution.
 The British Empire in
Asia, South Africa,
Ceylon, and other Indian
Ocean islands lasted
longer.
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 19th & 20th Centuries
 Added Burma and
Malaya to their Asian
Empire;
 Australia and New
Zealand were colonized.
 To prevent a repeat of
the American
Revolution, the British
government granted
self-government to
the colonies of
Canada, Australia,
and New Zealand.
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 Competition for colonies
in Africa reached a fever
pitch in the 1880s,
 Britain used its navy to
secure the proverbial “lion’s
share.”
 Britain’s most important and
costly colonial war, the Boer
War, took place in South
Africa, 1899–1902.
 By the eve of World War I,
the “sun never set” on the
empire
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Twilight of Empire
 World War I and World
War II led to
independence by
 Ireland, Arab states,
India, Burma, Ceylon, and
Israel.
 The decolonization of
the British Empire was
generally peacefully
achieved.
 In Africa, most colonies
gained independence in
the mid-1950s and
early 1960s,
 Followed by most of the
Caribbean and South
Pacific island territories.
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TWO GREAT CONTINENTAL EMPIRES: RUSSIA
AND THE UNITED STATES
The Russians
 Russia was an
absolutist monarchy.
 The Russian Empire
expanded relentlessly to
the east across Siberia
and toward the Baltic
Sea.
 Russia became firmly
established as a
European power
during the reign of
Alexander I (1801–
1825)
 After the defeat of
Napoléon and the
establishment of the
Concert of Europe.
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 In 1917, the Bolshevik
Revolution and the civil
war that followed
destroyed the
centralized,
bureaucratic, and
repressive Russian
Empire
 Replaced it with the
equally repressive Union
of Soviet Socialist
Republics.
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 Russian influence over
world politics peaked
during the Cold War.
 But massive military spending
and inability to compete with
Western technology exhausted
the USSR.
 The Soviet Union
disintegrated in 1991, and
by 1992 the collapse of the
empire was complete.
 Collapse was rapid and
disorderly but mostly peaceful.
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The Americans
 The United States
expanded westward
through North America
 In 1898 entered the
ranks of the overseas
imperialist powers by
obtaining Puerto Rico
and the Philippines;
 It seized Hawaii, Guam,
and other Pacific islands,
making it a major power
in the Pacific.
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 The American Empire was
“informal,”
 Controlling economic and political
development without direct
colonial rule.
 American attempts to keep
“friendly” governments in
power in some Third World
countries often led to disaster
(e.g., Vietnam).
 There remains a latent antiAmericanism in Latin America
that is typical of anticolonial
movements elsewhere in the
developing world.
 There remains antiAmericanism in Latin America
that is typical of anticolonial
movements elsewhere in the
developing world.
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OTTOMAN EMPIRE
 The Muslim empire of
the Ottoman Turks
was a major force in
world politics for more
than five hundred
years;
 Controlled the Balkans,
the Middle East, North
Africa, and parts of
what are now southern
Russia.
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“The Sick Man of Europe”
 The weakened Ottoman
Empire increasingly
came under attack from
Russia and Austria.
 Deteriorated, as the other
European powers vied for
parts of the crumbling
empire.
 The Ottomans gradually
lost control of the
Balkans to either Austria
and Russia or to newly
independent states.
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GERMAN AND JAPANESE EMPIRES
 The bids for empire by
both Germany and
Japan produced
numerous bloody
wars between 1860
and 1945.
 Neither was effective in
creating permanent
empires.
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DECLINE OF IMPERIALISM
 European ideas of
nationalism and
political sovereignty
served to undermine
the colonial powers’
legitimacy.
 Today, few countries
even acknowledge
overseas territories as
being part of an
empire; empire
became politically
incorrect.
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 The impact of
empires includes:
 The redrawing of
borders;
 The creation of new
countries;
 The alteration of the
economic, political,
and social
organization of the
people.
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SOCIAL IMPACT OF IMPERIALISM
 Today virtually all countries
that comprise the developing
world are direct descendants
of European empires and
colonialism;
 there were two forms of
colonialism that most
significantly affected the social
organization of the colony:
 Settler colonialism
 Immigrants seized land
from the indigenous
population and became
the dominant population.
 Elite colonialism
 The indigenous rulers
were replaced by a
European political and
economic elite but the
native population
remained essentially in
place and thus much of
the culture remained
intact.
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North America is
one of the best
cases of settler
colonialism;
Settlers
overwhelmed the
native population
and in essence
transplanted their
cultural traditions.
The Caribbean
also experienced
large-scale settler
colonialism,
Most were
Africans imported
as slaves to work
on sugar
plantations.
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Latin America
experienced a
hybrid mixture
of settler and
elite
colonialism.
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Most of Africa was
spared European
colonization until
the late nineteenth
century,
Virtually all of the
European
imperialism in Africa
was elite
colonialism.
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 East Asia was the only
part of the accessible
world that avoided
direct colonial rule by
European powers
 Japan was forced to
modernize and adopt
Western ways;
 China was forced to
sign “unequal
treaties” that gave
Western powers
control over foreign
trade and granted
special legal privileges
to Europeans.
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ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF COLONIALISM
 Latin America, Africa, and
the Pacific
 North American colonies
sent furs, timber, fish, and
tobacco back to France and
Britain; the export of cotton
from the American south
helped spur Britain’s textile
industry.
 In South America the
Spanish plundered and
mined gold and silver; they
also transplanted corn and
the potato to Europe.
 The major export from Africa
was coerced labor in the
form of slaves, but by the
late nineteenth century it
turned to exporting cocoa,
coffee, palm oil, tea, cotton,
ivory, tropical hardwoods,
copper, and gold.
 In the Pacific, Britain turned
Australia and New Zealand
into huge sheep and dairy
farms supplying Britain with
food and wool.
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 In Asia, the purpose of
colonialism was not
primarily to gain natural
resources but to control
overseas trade routes.
Despite economic
difficulties, colonialism
did create a degree of
political and economic
predictability that
allowed for increased
trading opportunities,
higher levels of foreign
investment, and
economic growth; it also
increased the building of
infrastructure.
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CULTURAL AND IDEOLOGICAL IMPACT OF
COLONIALISM
 Colonialism and Culture
 In the United States,
Canada, Australia, and New
Zealand, the legacy of AngloSaxon traditions of rule of
law, private property, and
individual rights has never
seriously been questioned.
 In areas of elite colonialism,
the strategy of divide and
conquer made postcolonial
political cohesion and
stability more difficult to
achieve.
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 Colonialism and Ideology
 European notions of liberty
and democracy have been
diffused to some degree
over the past two centuries.
 The one ideological
movement that virtually all
developing countries have
agreed on is anticolonialism,
especially in areas
dominated by elite
colonialism.
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