The New Imperialism Of The 19 Century Revision Notes

The New Imperialism of the 19^th Century

New Imperialism:

• ‘New Imperialism’ refers to the policy of colonial expansion adopted by Europe’s powers during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries

• Distinguished by an unprecedented pursuit of territory overseas

• Countries focused on building their empire with new technological advances and developments, making their country bigger through conquest, and exploiting their new resources

• After the repeal of the Corn Laws the UK began to adopt and pursue the concept of free trade

• During the Congress of Vienna and the end of the Franco-Prussian war the Industrial Revolution in Britain allowed it to reap the benefits of being the only modern industrial power in the world

The Berlin Conference:

• 1884-85

• Attempted to regulate colonial competition between European powers by defining ‘effective occupation’ as the internationally recognised technique of expansion

  • Specifically in Africa

• Made it easier for Germany to participate in colonisation

Social implications of New Imperialism:

• “Take up the White Man’s burden”

  • Bringing European civilisation to the other peoples of the world, regardless of whether these indigenous cultures desired this civilisation or not

  • Exemplifies British colonisation

• Emergence of Social Darwinism throughout Western Europe and the USA

  • Ideology applying the principles of Darwinism (natural selection, survival of the fittest) to sociology and politics, with the assumption that conflict between groups in society leads to social progress as superior groups outcompete inferior ones

• The use of Jingoism

  • Extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy

  • Used to gain support of a majority of the working class

  • Promoted jingoism in the Spanish-American war, the Second Boer War and the Boxer Rebellion

British Imperialism:

• The 19^th century has also been dubbed ‘Britain’s imperial century’

  • Britain expanded its territory by about 10,000,000 km and 400 million people

• Perhaps a contributing factor to Britain’s success was its lack of involvement in any major wars throughout the 19^th century. While other countries were concerned with warfare, Britain remained relatively unaffected

  • ‘Splendid isolation’ – Lord Goshen, 1896

• British foreign policy was to not commit to any alliance with another great power and maintain the status quo, allowing the diversion of British attention to expansion and maintaining its colonies

• Britain’s adoption of new imperialism could be viewed as a quest for captive markets or fields of investment for surplus capital; more likely, however, it was a pre-emptive attempt to defend existing trade routes and to prevent the absorption of its overseas markets into rival imperial blocs

• The main reason for the development of new imperialism was that industry and capital had exceeded the capacity of...

Buy the full version of these notes or essay plans and more in our Roads to Modernity 1789-1945 Notes.