Imperialism: Origins, Theories, and Impact
Source: Imperialism and Theory
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, a new term emerged in politics: imperialism. This referred to the efforts of the great European powers to build major overseas empires in Asia, Africa, and Oceania during the 19th century. Throughout the 19th century, the formation of new territorial empires increasingly replaced the old. This trend intensified between 1880 and 1914, during which the European powers divided Africa, Oceania, and exerted influence over China. Additionally, countries with no prior colonial tradition, such as Germany, Italy, Belgium, the USA, and Japan, also established territorial colonies during these years.
This phenomenon, despite emerging during a time of triumph for political and economic liberalism in Europe, refused to extend non-European political and economic liberty to the colonies.
Arguments in Favor of Imperialism:
The National Interest of the Powers: Supporters of imperialism argued that colonial expansion would benefit the nation as a whole. Colonies were deemed necessary for national development and desirable because they helped improve the living conditions of the inhabitants of the metropolis.
The White Man’s Civilizing Mission: Western civilization believed it had a mission to offer the benefits of Western civilization to backward peoples, considering them wild, and aiming to convert them to Christianity, or to offer the protection of a nation or master race (the white race).
According to these theories, colonies may not have been absolutely necessary for national development, but they were desirable for the best fulfillment of the Western civilizing mission.
Source: Against Imperialism
The Benefit of Interest Groups: Critics accused imperialism of benefiting certain social groups almost exclusively. They believed that colonies were neither necessary for national development nor desirable, arguing that imperialism was an instrument of the oligarchs.
The Needs of Financial Capitalism: Some argued that imperialism was an essential stage in the evolution of global capitalism.
Colonies were considered necessary for capitalist development, and therefore not desirable for a future triumph of socialism.
The Causes of Imperialism:
The following factors contributed to the phenomenon of imperialism:
- European economic expansion.
- Expeditions were mostly carried out by adventurers, explorers, or missionaries.
- The military and technological superiority of the colonizers and scientific progress. In the nineteenth century, the superiority of land and naval armaments of the “Europeans” was decisive in submitting extensive territories like India and Africa.
- Advances in medicine (chemical use) allowed white settlers to live in tropical areas where diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and malaria were almost endemic.
- The rivalry between world powers and the hostility of the native population.
- Apparently, territories without much economic interest were occupied or converted into colonies only to protect others that already existed.
Completion of Restoration and Origin of the Revolutions of 1820, 1830, and 1848
Between 1815 and 1848, there were three major waves of revolutionary fervor in Europe and America: the first in 1820-1824, called the revolutions of 1820; the second between 1829-1834, known as the revolutions of 1830; and the third around 1847-1849, designated the revolutions of 1848, or simply ’48.
All three revolutionary waves were inspired by the early French Revolution (from the most moderate to the most radical), which was taken as a model. They also united the revolutionary opposition to the common system of the Restoration and absolute monarchies.
However, all three were very different, and their importance grew progressively as time went on. The 1820s were less important than the 1830s, and the 1830s less than the 1848s. In the latter, moreover, the desire for democracy, socialism, and nationalism burst forth with much greater force, which opened a new historical period.