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Hi, this is Professor Charlie Evans, and this morning I'm going to be talking a little bit
about Age of Imperialism. That's the period roughly from about 1850 to 1914 that we cover
in both History 102 -- History of the Western World and History 112 -- History of World
Civilization. The first thing I want to say is that imperialism has been with world history
since very very early on. Um--when we study Western and World history, we study about the age of
the Roman Empire. We study about Chinese Empire. We study about Empire India. We study about Charlemagne's
Empire. We study about the early Colonial Empire, set up in the 16th century; the Portuguese,
Dutch, English, French, started empires in the 18th century. I mean all of Western and
World History involves the age of empire. And that's what really imperialism is, is as an
age of empire, when the countries of northwestern Europe and including the United States set
up worldwide empires. Um--so let me first give a--a really quick definition of what Imperialism
is. Uh--imperial--imperialism has been defined as the rule or control political, economic, or cultural,
direct or indirect of one state, nation or people over other similar groups. So, in some
cases imperialism involves the actual physical control of a society by another society. In
other cases imperialism can take far more indirect means. So why the age of imperialism?
Why suddenly in the 1850s did the countries of Europe and, also to a lesser extent, the
United States become involved in a race to colonize the world, to control the world? Reason
number one usually is given as economic reasons. Uh--because of a worldwide depression in the late
19th century, the countries of Europe sought both raw materials abroad and markets abroad.
And that meant that they wanted to control areas. And that gave them a reason to create
an empire. Now, once countries embarked on an empire, another consideration that often
got involved with--uh the imperial motive was strategy or military necessity. Once you created
colonies or controlled colonies somewhere, you wanted to able to protect those colonies.
And to protect those colonies you often needed other colonies or other places around the
world to protect those colonies. So it became kind of a catch 22 situation. Once you set
up colonies because of economic reasons, you needed more colonies for military reasons,
and so forth, and so forth, and so forth. Um--another impulse you find in the imperialist agenda
of the late 19th century was the spread of Christianity. That had been a driving motive
in imperial ambitions really since the early 16th century. Uh--but in the 19th century again
there's this renewed interest in the Christian churches, spreading Christianity, and supposedly
improving the lifestyles and of the society the cultures that westerners came in contact
with. Uh--so we've got economic reasons, we've got strategic considerations, we have uh-- Christianity
and the urge to Christianize people around the world. Uh--you've got a really important factor
that has always been a driving force in human motivation and that is gold. The desire to
find gold, the desire to find wealth, the desire to find riches and this was uh-- another
motive of the Age of Imperialism. Uh--there's a whole bunch of other things we could talk
about. Um--the--the perceived overpopulation in Europe, and the need to-- for the people--for excess populations
if you want to put it in those terms--of Europeans to move out--move out of Europe. Um--you had of
course the technology and military advances in Europe which allowed Europe to begin to
control the world. I mean once you have steam--steam ship--steam ships and rifles you
had the kind of technology and military advantages that allowed you to control some societies
and the rest of the world. Um--another key motivation for the Age of Imperialism was what we could
call, irrational factors. Um--with the age of newspapers and publicity, the exploits of explorers, the
exploits of the--the--the Europeans on the front lines, uh--creating an empire became part of newspaper
coverage and everything. People followed their exploits. People were interested in it and
it became kind of this emotional--you know--we're gonna create this great empire and
we're gonna be proud of our great empire and so it became--the empire building became
kind of thrown in there with national status -- national power and a sign of national power.
And so uh--because of the Age of Nationalism, which had come up--been developing through the 19th century and everything,
the creation of empire became caught up in this idea of the nation as a powerful entity.
Um--the last factor I mentioned with the Age of Imperialism is this uh--motivation to bring civilization
to the other peoples of the world who did not have the benefits of western civilization. Um--
this was often associated with the whole bunch of different intellectuals in Europe, in the
late 19th century. The civilizing mission of the European. Um--Rudyard Kipling, the English
poet and writer uh--put it best in one of his poems where he wrote "take up the white man's
burden. Send forth the best ye breed. Go bind your sons to exile. To serve your captives' needs."
In other words it was this--this duty of the white man and everything to bring the
white man's civilization to the rest of the world.
And that was like-- that was a really powerful-- motivi-- motiviza--motive--oh God--if I can say this right
-- mo-tive for 19th century individuals -- this idea they were bringing the benefits
of civilization to the rest of the world. So just to sum up here there's you know the Age of Imperialism.
I mean-- history has always been an age of imperial ambitions and the creation of empires. The
period from 1850 to 1914 was the period in which the
countries of northwestern Europe; France, United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, Netherlands,
Belgium, etc., all kind of embarked on a race to colonize and imperialize the world. We're
looking at a map here of the world in 1914 and you can see that Africa has been carved
up; has been divided up amongst the imperial powers of Europe with one exception and
that would have been Ethiopia. Uh--South America is not completely under imperial control although
you might argue for indirect imperial control. And most of Asia and everything also has significant
control by European powers and everything. So that's what the situation was in 1914.
Motivation is economic, strategic/political, Christianity, gold, irrational...