[History] Chapter 1: Imperialism

[History] Chapter 1: Imperialism

Background : The desire to dominate neighboring or distant regions was the base of imperialism. Unlike the 3 great ancient empires (Roman, Greek and Turkish), the new imperialism brought by industrial revolution in 18th century concentrated on acquiring wealth as well as expanding territories. Geographical discoveries : Turks won Istanbul. Columbus, Cabot and Vespucci discovered America. Vasco-de-Gama found new sea route to India. Magellan circumnavigated the Earth. These discoveries connected nations for trading. Imperialism : Dominance of a developed region over an undeveloped one is called imperialism. Hence colonization was an important part of it. Reasons of imperialism :  New scientific inventions motivated modern weapons and made human more ambitious. New markets were opened by industrial revolution. Europe needed cheap raw material from eastern colonies. Asia and Africa were rich in natural resources but politically weak and easy to take over. New nations like Germany and Italy joined the competition. The European nations wanted political dominance and also wanted to spread Christianity. Economic Imperialism : The whole objective of imperialism was to exploit colonies to gain profits. Capital rose in industrial revolution. Hence the economically rich and stable European nations could easily conquer Asia and Africa. Various forms : Only some of the objectives of imperialism stated above could be fulfilled. European nations could take control of the vast nations of Asia and Africa, could establish markets there and could also obtain required raw material from them. Soon they could dominate the nations politically and economically. But they could not spread Christianity in the Asian countries who had very rich cultures.