Imperialism why did it happen

It was first associated with ancient Rome a fact that is borne out quite emphatically in the first pages of Heart of Darkness , where the presence of the Romans gives a sense of history. Imperialism has a specifically expansionist connotation.

Globalization generally refers to the period since , following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the break-down of the Cold War system. In contrast to the earlier, colonial era, globalization is characterized by the decay of national boundaries and state institutions in favor of transnational economic activity. Today, historians agree that the famous Kruger telegram, sent by Wilhelm II, German Emperor to the president of the Republic of South Africa after the failure of the British Jameson raid in , was a severe diplomatic mistake.

The German emperor surrendered his neutrality and symbolically joined the Boers against British South Africa when it was not necessary. However, the German public welcomed this step. Likewise, several strong anti-British propaganda campaigns created popular support for the freedom-fight of the Boers among the German public, using anti-British propaganda and comparing the struggle to that between David and Goliath.

At the same time, neither the German nor the British government was interested in worsening bilateral diplomatic relations because of the Boer question. However, both governments were facing enormous difficulties trying to calm the press in their respective countries. Comparable problems appeared repeatedly in the decade before Although the British government favored a compromise solution, British support for the railway in the Ottoman Empire became impossible due to the public outcry against it.

Arguments against British participation were soon adopted by several members of Parliament. George Ernest Morrison , correspondent of The Times in Beijing, initiated anti-German press campaigns and even demanded a preventive war against Germany in because of informal German imperialism in China.

He was convinced that a major European war with Germany as a main aggressor was bound to occur, no matter what the British government did to appease Berlin. In Italy, beginning in the s public opinion also contributed to the creation of a pro-imperialist and expansionist mood.

The Liberal Party had thus far been unable to form a homogenous nation state, although the unification of the country had already started in the s. The creation of an Italian empire in Africa seemed to be a means both of distracting critics at home from discussing domestic problems and of creating a unifying feeling.

However, this failed when the Italian colonial army suffered a disastrous and humiliating defeat by the independent state of Ethiopia in According to Paul Kennedy, economic imperialism and the Anglo-German trade rivalry were crucial factors leading to the emergence of the Anglo-German antagonism, which contributed to the outbreak of World War I.

One has to distinguish between the objective figures on the one hand and the perceived situation on the other.

In relative terms, in the two decades before one can talk about a British decline and a German rise in export economies. For British Social Darwinists and nationalists, this development was identical to decline. However, this view did not capture the reality of economic developments.

Germany remained an important market for British goods and vice versa. In Germany was in fact the second biggest market for British exports and re-exports. Especially in imperial affairs, German and British traders and bankers often cooperated quite successfully; at the same time, German banks had to compete with other German firms, while British banks had to deal with British competition.

Unlike the British or French colonies, economically the German colonial empire was not important for the mother country. It was also of little significance for the rising tensions between the European Great Powers prior to the First World War.

In Neo-Rankean terminology, used both by contemporary diplomats and by diplomatic historians, states acted as subjects and consequently the economy was nationalized. However, economic imperialism followed its own rules, which in some cases fit with the respective national political interests but did not necessarily have to. The intricate diplomatic and political problems caused by economic expansion are illustrated by the example of the famous Baghdad Railway project. Since the late s German banks, especially the Deutsche Bank, had been active in Turkish affairs and in financing several Turkish railway enterprises.

At the turn of the century the position of German firms was so strong that one can refer to certain regions of Turkey as parts of a German economic informal empire. The government of the Ottoman Empire tried to persuade the German bankers to extend the already existing railway lines to Baghdad and the Persian Gulf, mainly for strategic reasons.

However, as mentioned above, in these ideas met with British resistance, as this line would have been the fastest route to India and would have been controlled by German firms. Before financial imperialism very often remained multinational despite governmental attempts to nationalize it. Banks viewed these projects as commercial opportunities and were unconcerned with national prestige. Governments acted within the frame of the nation state or empire and often tried to further national expansion.

Multinational firms and banks, however, were confronted with the challenge of economic globalization and had to act internationally if they wanted to expand overseas. Until London remained the financial clearing center of the world and the London stock exchange was the most important place for all kinds of transactions. The gold standard guaranteed stable exchange rates, and internationally the pound sterling was the most accepted currency for bills of exchange.

In private a banker or trader could have been a hardcore nationalist, but if he wanted to earn money he had to act internationally. In a couple of cases economic investments could spur imperial conflicts.

Governments could claim to protect or defend investments that were threatened by an indigenous state or an imperial competitor. Examples include the bankruptcies of Egypt and the Ottoman Empire and the Venezuelan debt crisis, which started at the end of the 19 th century. For European firms this classical form of financial imperialism was much more effective than direct rule.

During the s and s in Egypt, several disputes between the French and the British caused tensions. For the British, the German support was crucial. After internal uprisings and civil war, the Venezuelan government was unable to pay back its foreign debts. A British-German-Italian naval blockade escalated as German cruisers provoked skirmishes. These military events alarmed the United States, which feared that the Monroe Doctrine would be violated.

However, even if informal and financial imperialism contributed to the worsening of relations between certain states during this first wave of globalization between the s and , during this period close economic ties and global financial networks were also created.

They were convinced that countries would not risk destroying the global economic system. They strongly believed that the destruction of the close connections in finance and trade, which would be the result of a great war among the European powers, would lead to a global economic disaster. As World War I showed, this opinion was correct.

Between and the British government tried to improve Anglo-German relations through economic imperialism. After the failure of the famous Haldane Mission in , British statesmen looked for objectives outside of Europe for which there could be compromise solutions with Germany. The extremely difficult negotiations for the Baghdad Railway were successfully finished in the spring of Additionally, in the treaty partitioning the Portuguese colonies , the British accepted huge German colonial acquisitions in Africa at the expense its traditional ally, Portugal.

In the same year German banks and firms created economic zones of interest using railway projects and chartered companies in southern Angola and in the north of Mozambique. By the summer of , economically the two regions were firmly in the hands of the Germans and could have been annexed under the pretext of a violation of German interests by Portuguese authorities.

This example shows that both Africa and smaller European states like Portugal were simply pawns for the European Great Powers. At the same time, economic imperialism could be used as a means to defuse political tensions.

Even if in some cases a strong British-German trade rivalry existed, the reaction of leading bankers and economists interested in imperial projects showed that they were not interested in going to war with one another. Karl Helfferich — was one of the most nationalist German bankers and as a director of the Deutsche Bank was responsible for the Baghdad Railway. I suppose Germany, our best customer, will be beaten. And what then?

The third part of this article deals with diplomacy and imperialism. This term remains popular but is misleading. The European orchestra played without a conductor and without clearly accepted rules of international law. If there was anything like a system it was organized and held together by the governments of the Great Powers, which followed their own interests and jealously prevented other states from becoming too strong or reaching a hegemonic position.

Since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, disputes over colonial or imperial issues had not escalated to the point where peace in Europe was threatened. This was in large part because conflicts did not touch on interests that the European powers regarded as vital. A few exceptions, such as the Fashoda Crisis of , which nearly led to war between France and Britain, and the Second Moroccan Crisis , which will be discussed later, prove the rule.

However, disputes at the so-called periphery could strongly influence the competition between the Great Powers in Europe and could lead them to redefine their interests in Europe. The reasons for the acceleration of European expansion during the s are still being debated, but this article concentrates on the diplomatic processes and consequences of imperial expansion.

This surprising step led to serious tensions with Italy, which was also interested in this territory. The French annexation had direct repercussions for the European system; fearing further French aggressions, the Italian government joined the German-Austrian-Hungarian military defensive alliance. What did Columbus do besides sail to the New World? My history teacher said that if your religious denomination isn't Catholic, than you are a Protestant. Is she right? Do you think that Mormons are Christians?

What is the full name of the Mormon Church? What is the size of Europe in square miles? How were the Crusades a turning point in Western history? I know that the verb pluck means to pull out or pull at, but what's the definition when used as a noun? Which novels would you recommend to year-olds on the theme of places and forms of power? In The Pearl, why didn't John Steinbeck give the pearl buyers identifying names?

What is perfidy from Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser? Is being pedantic a good or bad thing? Is a termagant a type of seabird? What is ichor from The Iliad? Is a rivulet really a river, only smaller? Charles Dickens has this person called the beadle" in lots of his books. Is that like a nickname for a man with buggy eyes or something? What is the main tenet of stoicism?

What's the meaning of obsequious from Theodore Dreiser's urban novel Sister Carrie? Where are the Antipodes from Much Ado about Nothing? What is a truckle bed from Romeo and Juliet?

What does truculent from Great Expectations mean? If someone inculcates you, should you feel insulted? Nice or mean? What does laconic mean? At a restaurant famous for its rude servers, a waitress told me to lump it" when I asked for another napkin. Can you tell me about that phrase? I thought necro had something to do with being dead. So, what's a necromancer? Sounds creepy. In Orwell's , what does the opening sentence suggest about the book? Understanding the literary genre Magical Realism What's a prig?

I asked my granddad if he liked his new apartment and he said, It's all hunky-dory, kiddo. I hate finding typos in books. Here's one I've seen several times: jalousies instead of jealousies.

On the second week of my summer job at a bookstore, my boss handed me an envelope with what she called my emoluments. Looked like a paycheck to me, though. In To Kill a Mockingbird, what are some examples of the characters having courage?

What's cud? I was once told to stop chewing my cud and get back to work. What can you tell me about the word patois from The Awakening? What are thews from Ivanhoe? What does pot-shop from The Pickwick Papers mean? Are all dowagers women? If someone is the titular head of a political party, does it mean they have all the power? The word flummox confuses me. What does it mean? Somebody told me I looked pasty. Does that mean I've eaten too many sweets?

I started taking private bassoon lessons. Is anomalous the same as anonymous? I know that a fathom is a unit of measure used by sailors, but how long is a fathom?

What is a joss from Victory, by Joseph Conrad? What does eschew from The Pickwick Papers mean? What does excrescence from The Call of the Wild mean?

What does the word covert mean? In Shakespeare's Sonnet , what is an oblation? In Moby-Dick , what does vitiate mean? In War and Peace , what does bane mean? In Jane Eyre , what are chilblains? Does mendacious refer to something that is fixable mendable?

Is kickshawses one of those weird words that Shakespeare coined? What is renege , in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra? What is maxim? I think it's a female name but I'm not sure. Last Valentine's Day, this guy I barely know gave me a rose and said something about ardent love.

What does ardent mean? What kind of literature is a picaresque novel? What does culpable mean? What's a cenotaph? What does gallimaufry mean in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? My vocabulary is pretty good, but that one has me stumped! What does it mean to genuflect? Someone told me I was looking wistful. What is wistful? In David Copperfield, what does superannuated mean? Does the word syllogism have something to do with biology?

I see the word benefactor a lot in my reading assignments. Is that somebody who benefits from something? I found a funny word in The Glass Castle. Where did skedaddle come from and what does it mean?

Does sinuous mean something like full of sin"? I saw the word in The Devil in the White City. What are characteristics of Modernist literature, fiction in particular?

What does my brother mean when he says he's too ensconced in his studies to look for a girlfriend? My grandpa complained about a bunch of politicians making what he called chin music. Did he mean they were in a loud band? What is melodrama? In Dracula, what's a missal? In the terms abject poverty and abject misery, what does abject mean? In Moby-Dick, what does craven mean? What does cicatrize mean? What is a noisome smell" in Tolstoy's War and Peace?

In Jane Eyre, what's syncope? I just read Dracula. What's the forcemeat in Jonathan Harker's journal? Can the word stern mean more than one thing? Where is Yoknapatawpha county?

What does smouch mean? How do you pronounce quay? And what does it mean, anyway? What are some examples of paradox in the novel Frankenstein? In Ivanhoe, what does mammock mean? What does rummage mean? Is a mummer some type of religious person? Some guy I don't like told his friend I was acting all demure. When I complained about our cafeteria food, my biology teacher told me he wished they'd serve agarics. Was he talking about some kind of dessert? Where did the name Of Mice and Men come from?

What genre would you consider the book, The Outsiders? In Fahrenheit , why would a society make being a pedestrian a crime? What does the phrase, a worn-out man of fashion" mean from Jane Eyre? My teacher told me I was being obdurate. Was that a compliment? What motives inspired Iago to plot revenge against Othello? Who was the first king of Rome?

What does enervate mean? What is a parvenu? Is salubrity somehow related to being famous? Do capers have something to do with cops? What's the difference between a soliloquy and a monologue?

What's a pandybat? Does the word inexorable have something to do with driving demons out of a person? Do people who prognosticate have some sort of special power? What is a hegemony, from James Joyce's Ulysses? What are fallow fields? I'm a city gal who heard the term at a 4-H fair and just read it in Anna Karenina. What's the difference between parody and satire?

Lord of the Flies uses the word inimical. I saw vertiginous in Madame Bovary. What does mean the word mean? What does overweening mean, in Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes? Can you hear a dirge anyplace but a funeral? Does imperturbable refer to something you can't break through? What are the seven ages of man? What's dross? What is an injunction? For school I had to make a Napoleon hat, which called for a cockade.

What is that? If someone studies assiduously, does it mean they're working really hard or really slowly? Define mood as it relates to a work of fiction. Distinguish mood from effect. My sister calls me the Princess of Prevarication.

This biography I'm reading about Queen Victoria says that she refused to remove the hatchment she had for her husband Prince Albert. What does that word mean? What does sine qua non mean? What's lugubrious mean? What's impugn mean, from Ivanhoe? What does postprandial mean?

I love reading fashion magazines and occasionally come across the word atelier. What does King Lear mean when he says that ingratitude is a marble-hearted fiend"? In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , what are disquisitions? What's shrive? My neighbor said she's been unshriven for years, but I think her skin looks quite shriveled. What's a dobbin? What's polemic? Over winter break, my uncle told me I was polemic and asked if I was on the debate team at school.

I came across a list of homonyms: mu, moo, moue. I know mu is Greek for the letter m , and moo is the sound cows make, but what's a moue? What does trow mean?

In Far from the Madding Crowd , what does cavil mean? Where can I find the word naught in The Scarlet Letter? I found an old diary from the s where the writer describes how he almost died but was saved by a sinapism. I know what mulch is, but what's mulct? When our teacher was introducing the next reading assignment, he said we'll be using the unexpurgated version.

What did he mean? For some reason, the word dingle sticks in my head after having read Treasure Island years ago. I never did discover what it meant. How about it, Cliff? In Dracula , what's stertorous breathing? What does philippic mean? I'm usually pretty good at guessing what words mean, but have no clue about exigence.

What is it? What's doughty? How do you pronounce it? What's sharecropping? I'm kind of embarrassed to ask, because it's one of those words everyone assumes you know what it means.

I'm working on my summer reading list with Kafka's The Trial. The very first sentence uses traduce , and I don't know what that means. What does the cormorant bird symbolize in mythology? I saw the word badinage in the book Uncle Tom's Cabin. Do you think that's a typo that really should be bandage?

On a TV modeling contest, a judge said, Her simian walk is unbelievable. In Oliver Twist , Dodger refers to Oliver as flash companion. Can't find a definition of this anywhere.

Do elocutionists kill people? For my English homework, I have to write a love poem. I'm only 13 and I haven't had my first love yet. How would I go about writing about feelings that I haven't felt yet? Where on the body would I find my sarcophagus? What's stolid? It sounds like someone who's stupid and built solid like a wall. What's a wonton person?

In which play did William Shakespeare state that misery loves company? What's comfit? Is it a different way of saying comfort? Where did the story Frankenstein by Mary Shelley take place? What kind of person would a shallow-pate be? What are myrmidons of Justice" in Great Expectations? What did I do? In The Red Badge of Courage , what's an imprecation? The word portmanteau shows up in a lot of the literature I read for school assignments.

It sounds French. I did something really stupid yesterday, and my grandfather told me I was hoist with my own petard. And what's a petard? What's a bourse? I read it in my finance class. In The House of Mirth, what are oubliettes? In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, what are thimble-riggers? In Wuthering Heights , what's a thible? Which Hemingway story references the running of the bulls" in Spain? My dad mentioned that his granddad was there for a long time during World War I.

If somebody is toady," does it mean they're ugly? In the movie Failure to Launch , there's a line that goes, Well, she certainly is yar," in reference to a yacht. What's yar? I got detention because a teacher said I was being contumacious. What's that? What are encomiums? What are billets in The Three Musketeers?

In Orwell's , what is doublethink? What are orts? That's a weird word that reminds me of orcs from The Lord of the Rings. What are alliteration and assonance? What's quinsy? What is New Historicism? I found the word unwonted in a book I'm reading.

Is that a typo, you think? In Heart of Darkness , what does cipher mean? In the play The Glass Menagerie, would you describe Tom as selfish? What does Kantian mean, from a philosophical perspective? What's a colonnade? My girlfriend is freaking me out with stories of her dream wedding where she walks down a colonnade. I know this is the least of my problems, but I'm curious. My grandma says she knows how I feel when I knit my brows.

Is she crazy? I know bier has something to do with dead people, but what is it exactly? My brainy brother owns a Harley and says his girlfriend is the pillion.

Is he insulting her or just showing off? I ran across the word mien in a book. Is it a typo? Is a younker a person or a place? Does precipitancy have something to do with the weather? Any suggestions? A friend says she suffers from ineffable sadness.

What's ineffable? What's a scow? Is a maelstrom some kind of dangerous weather? What is the meaning of this saying, The cat will mew and dog will have his day"? The Picture of Dorian Gray mentions a panegyric on youth. In Madame Bovary , what's a mairie? Lord Lugard of Britain said that:. Lugard further justified the policy of colonial expansion by saying that the benefits were not limited to Britain. Colonies would gain access to superior European goods and influence.

The Scramble for Africa in the s to was motivated by these ideas. Imperialist ambitions in Africa were boosted by the expansion of competitive trade in Europe.

The main aim was to secure commercial and trade links with African societies and protect those links from other European competitors.

Europe established trade relations with African rulers and encouraged them to trade with them exclusively. European traders were at first not interested in expanding into the interior of Africa. As long as African rulers assured them of a supply of slaves from the interior, they felt no need to expand into the interior. The rapid expansion of industries made European countries look to African for a supply of cheap raw materials and slave labour.

West Africa was particularly important for the development of industries in Europe. The production of African palm oil used as industrial oil was in high demand for European industries.

Greed for ever-greater profits meant intensifying and expanding industrial production. European countries realised that by taking control of African territories they could secure a very cheap supply of raw materials that would ensure industrial success and overall economic prosperity.

Colonial governments organised agricultural production in the colonies to match the demand for raw materials in Europe. Imperial expansion of Europe into the African interior saw many African farmers forced off their land and turned into farm labourers on white-owned plantations, where they were usually subject to cruel exploitative practices.

European governments encouraged their citizens to become permanent settlers in their African colonies, providing them with farming land. The loss of land caused much resentment among African people. Those who remained on their land and plantations found themselves forced to farm cash crops such as cotton, tobacco, coffee and sugar that were important for European industries instead of their traditional staple foods in order to survive.

The price they were paid for these harvests was also very low especially when compared with the selling price of it after processing in Europe. It is not surprising then that early resistance to colonial rule in Africa revolved around the use of land and its restoration to its traditional owners.

Not all European countries had imperial ambitions for Africa. It was only the major powers in Europe that competed for the control of Africa. Britain and France were at the forefront of imperialism in Africa. These two countries were in competition with each other to dominate European politics and economics. They each aimed to beat the other through vying for greater control of Africa and thus her natural resources and labour supply.

They also claimed exclusive trading rights with their colonies. These practices guaranteed them markets outside Europe for the sales of surplus goods and led to the practice of dumping. Dumping refers to the practice of offloading goods at very low prices to crush local competition for customers. African producers could not match these prices especially in the absence of similar government support and so they were unable to withstand European competition.

This undermined the development of African industries and wealth and locked the continent into an unfair economic relationship with Europe in which African producers were barely able to survive by supplying cheap cash crops and primary goods. Moreover, African countries became dependent on European aid and loans, a state of affairs that remains today. Many African countries have been crippled by the burden of repayment of these loans. The map shows how major imperialists, England and France used Africa to extend their competition for dominance in Europe.

As the map shows, England came to be a dominant power in southern Africa, with only two Portuguese and French colonies in the region. France took control of most parts of West Africa. Colonial rule was the result of competition among European countries for control of African resources. In the beginning, control was limited to colonial authorities securing the loyalty of African chiefs and kings.