New Imperialism

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The New Imperialism (sometimes Neoimperialism or Neo-imperialism) was a period of colonial expansion—and its accompanying ideologies—by the European powers, the United States and the Empire of Japan during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By some accounts, it began as early as 1830, and may have lasted until the Second World War (1939–45). The period is distinguished by an unprecedented pursuit of overseas territorial acquisitions. At this time, countries focused on building their empire with new technological advances and developments, making their country bigger through conquest, and exploiting their resources.

The qualifier "new" is to contrast with the earlier wave of European colonization from the 15th to early 19th centuries.


The American Revolution and the collapse of the Spanish Empire in the early 1810–20s, following the revolutions in the viceroyalties of New Spain, New Granada, Peru, and the Rio de la Plata ended the first era of European imperialism. Especially in the United Kingdom (UK), these revolutions helped show the deficiencies of mercantilism, the doctrine of economic competition for finite wealth which had supported earlier imperial expansion. In 1846, The Corn Laws, which were the regulations governing the import and export of grain, were repealed after a great deal of protesting from the middle class. Because of the repeal, manufacturers were faced with a tremendous benefit, seeing that the regulations enforced by the Corn Laws had slowed their businesses. With the repeal in place, the manufacturers were then able to trade more freely. Thus, the UK began to adopt the concept of free trade.[1] The Pax era also saw the enforced opening of key markets to European, particularly British, commerce.

An oil painting of the delegates to the Congress of Vienna.
The Congress of Vienna by Jean-Baptiste Isabey, (1819). The congress was actually a series of face-to-face meetings between colonial powers. It served to divide and reappropriate imperial holdings.

During this period, between the 1815 Congress of Vienna (after the defeat of Napoleonic France) and the end of the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), Britain reaped the benefits of being the world's sole modern, industrial power. As the "workshop of the world", the United Kingdom could produce finished goods so efficiently that they could usually undersell comparable, locally manufactured goods in foreign markets, even supplying a large share of the manufactured goods consumed by such nations as Germany, France, Belgium, and the United States.[2]

The erosion of British hegemony after the Franco-Prussian War, in which a coalition of German states led by Prussia defeated France, was occasioned by changes in the European and world economies and in the continental balance of power following the breakdown of the Concert of Europe, established by the Congress of Vienna. The establishment of nation-states in Germany and Italy resolved territorial issues that had kept potential rivals embroiled in internal affairs at the heart of Europe (to Britain's advantage). The years from 1871 to 1914 would be marked by an extremely unstable peace. France’s determination to recover Alsace-Lorraine, a territory formerly located in France that had been annexed by Germany, and Germany’s mounting imperialist ambitions would keep the two nations constantly poised for conflict.[3]

This competition was sharpened by the Long Depression of 1873–1896, a prolonged period of price deflation punctuated by severe business downturns, which put pressure on governments to promote home industry, leading to the widespread abandonment of free trade among Europe's powers (in Germany from 1879 and in France from 1881).[4][5]

The Berlin Conference[edit]

The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 sought to regulate the competition between the powers by defining "effective occupation" as the criterion for international recognition of a territory claim (specifically in Africa). The imposition of direct rule in terms of "effective occupation" necessitated routine recourse to armed force against indigenous states and peoples. Uprisings against imperial rule were put down ruthlessly, most spectacularly in German South-West Africa and German East Africa in the years 1904 and 1907, respectively. One of the goals of the conference was to reach agreements over trade, navigation, and boundaries of Central Africa. However, of all of the 15 nations in attendance of the Berlin Conference, none of the countries represented were African.[9]

The main dominating powers of the conference were France, Germany, Great Britain, and Portugal. They remapped Africa without considering the cultural and linguistic borders that were already established. At the end of the conference, Africa was divided into 50 different colonies. The attendants established who was in control of each of these newly divided colonies. They also planned, noncommittally, to end the slave trade in Africa. This conference not only laid out the rules of this "feeding frenzy" but it also made it easier for Germany to participate since they hosted and planned out the conference.[10]

Britain during the era of New Imperialism[edit]

British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and Queen Victoria

In Britain, the latter half of the 19th century has been seen as the period of displacement of industrial capitalism by finance capitalism. As the country's relative commercial and industrial lag encouraged the creation of larger corporations and combines, close association of industry and banks added to the influence of financiers over the British economy and politics.[6]

Social implications[edit]

The New Imperialism gave rise to new social views of colonialism. Rudyard Kipling, for instance, urged the United States to "Take up the White Man's burden" of bringing European civilization to the other peoples of the world, regardless of whether these "other peoples" wanted this civilization or not. This part of the white man's burden truly exemplifies Britain's colonization of other countries, "Take up the White Man's burden, In patience to abide, To veil the threat of terror, And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain To seek another's profit, And work another's gain." While Social Darwinism became popular throughout Western Europe and the United States, the paternalistic French-style "civilizing mission" (In French: mission civilisatrice) appealed to many European statesmen both in and outside of France. Despite apparent benevolence existing in the notion of the "White Man's Burden", the unintended consequences of imperialism might greatly outweigh the potential benefits. Governments become increasingly paternalistic at home and neglected the individual liberties of their citizens. Military spending expanded, usually leading to an "imperial overreach", and imperialism created clients of ruling elites abroad that were brutal and corrupt. Consequently, the corrupt elites were then able to consolidate power through imperial rents and impede social change and economic development that ran against their ambitions. Furthermore, "nation building" oftentimes can create cultural sentiments of racism and xenophobia.[7]

Many of Europe's major elites also found advantages in formal, overseas expansion: large financial and industrial monopolies wanted imperial support to protect their overseas investments against competition and domestic political tensions abroad; bureaucrats wanted and sought government offices; military officers desired promotion; and the traditional but waning landed gentries sought increased profits for their investments, formal titles, and high office. Such special interests perpetuate empire building today and throughout history.[7]

Observing the rise of trade unionism, socialism, and other protest movements during an era of mass society in both Europe and later North America, elites sought to use imperial jingoism to co-opt the support of part of the industrial working class. The new mass media promoted jingoism in the Spanish-American War (1898), the Second Boer War (1899–1902), and the Boxer Rebellion (1900). The left-wing German historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler has defined social imperialism as "the diversions outwards of internal tensions and forces of change in order to preserve the social and political status quo", and as a "defensive ideology" to counter the "disruptive effects of industrialization on the social and economic structure of Germany"[8] In Wehler's opinion, social imperialism was a device that allowed the German government to distract public attention from domestic problems and preserve the existing social and political order[9] Wehler argued the dominant elites used social imperialism as the glue to hold together a fractured society and to maintain popular support for the social status quo[9] Wehler argued German colonial policy in the 1880s was the first example of social imperialism in action, and was followed up by the "Tirpitz plan" for expanding the German Navy starting in 1897[9] In this point of view, groups such as the Colonial Society and the Navy League are seen as instruments for the government to mobilize public support.[9] The demands for annexing most of Europe and Africa in World War I are seen by Wehler as the pinnacle of social imperialism.[9]

The notion of rule over tropical lands commanded widespread acceptance among metropolitan populations: even among those who associated imperial colonization with oppression and exploitation. For example, the 1904 Congress of the Socialist International concluded that the colonial peoples should be taken in hand by future European socialist governments and led by them into eventual independence.[citation needed]


“The great test of Western Imperialism is Asia, where vast people live, the inheritors of civilizations as complex as our own, more ancient and more firmly rooted by enduring custom in the general life” (Hobson).[10]


In the 17th century, the expanding British arrived in India and there, after taking a small portion of land, became known as the East India Company. The British completely took over most of the country of India, a process starting with Bengal in 1757 and ending in Punjab in 1849, leaving out certain princely states. This was aided by the decline of the Mughal Empire in India which left a power vacuum since the death of Aurangzeb and the increased British forces in India because of conflicts with France. A kind of ship called clipper ships were engineered and their larger sails were able to catch the wind and cut the trip to India from Europe in half from 6 months to 3 months. The British also laid cables on the floor of the ocean allowing telegrams to be sent from India and China. In 1818, the British controlled most of India and began imposing their ideas and ways on India. The British were also collaborating with Indian officials to increase their influence in the region. A few of these new impositions were different succession laws that allowed the British to take over a state with no successor and gain its land and armies, new taxes and monopolistic control of industry. Some Hindu and Muslim Sepoys rebelled in 1857 resulting in the Indian Mutiny. Following this war administrative functions were transferred from the chartered British East India Company to the British government in 1858.

After this revolt was suppressed by the British, India came under the direct control of the British crown. After the British had gained more control over India, they began changing around the financial state of India. Previously Europe had to pay for Indian textiles and spices in bullion. With political control, Britain directed farmers to grow cash crops for the company for exports to Europe while India became a market for textiles from Britain. In addition it collected huge revenues from land rent and taxes on its acquired monopoly on salt production. Indian weavers were replaced by new spinning and weaving machines and Indian food crops were replaced by cash crops like cotton and tea.

The British also began connecting Indian cities by railroad and telegraph to make travel and communication easier for the people in India and began building its irrigation system for increasing agricultural production. When Western education was introduced in India, Indians were quite influenced by it, but the inequalities between the British ideals of governance and their treatment of Indians became clear. In response to discriminatory treatment, a group educated Indians established the Indian National Congress that demanded that Indians be recognized as equals with the British and that they have the right to govern themselves.

John Robert Seeley a Cambridge Professor of History said "Our acquisition of India was made blindly. Nothing great that has ever been done by englishmen was done so unintentionally or accidentally as the conquest of India". According to him the political control of India was not a conquest in the usual sense because it was not an act of a state.

The new administrative arrangement, crowned with Queen Victoria's proclamation as Empress of India in 1876, effectively replaced the rule of a monopolistic enterprise with that of a trained civil service headed by graduates of Britain's top universities. The administration retained and increased the monopolies held by the company. The India Salt Act of 1882 included regulations enforcing a government monopoly on the collection and manufacture of salt and in 1923 a bill was passed doubling the salt tax.[11]

Burma, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei[edit]

After taking control of much of India, the British expanded further into Burma, Malaya, Singapore, Borneo and Brunei and these became further sources of trade and raw materials for British goods. They also went into Afghanistan and Tibet to counter Russian expansion.


Colonial government official J.Rozet, an Indo Eurasian, in negotiation with tribal chiefs (Roti Islanders), Pariti, Timor, 1896.

Formal colonisation of the Dutch East Indies (now: Indonesia) commenced at the dawn of the 19th century when the Dutch state took possession of all VOC assets. Before that time the Dutch East India Company (VOC) merchants were in principle just another trading power among many, establishing trading posts and settlements (colonies) in strategic places around the archipelago. The Dutch gradually extended their small nation’s sovereignty over most of the islands in the East Indies. Dutch expansion paused for several years during an interregnum of British rule between 1806 and 1816, when the Dutch Republic was occupied by the French forces of Napoleon. The Dutch government exiled in England, ceded rule of all its colonies to Great Britain. The Governor of the Dutch East Indies however fought the British before surrendering the colony. He was replaced by Raffles.[12]

The Dutch East Indies became the prize possession of the Dutch Empire. It was not the typical settler colony founded through massive emigration from the mother countries (such as the USA or Australia) and hardly involved displacement of the indigenous islanders.[13] Neither was it a plantation colony build on the import of slaves (such as Haiti or Jamaica) or a pure trade post colony (such as Singapore or Macau). It was more of an expansion of the existing chain of VOC trading posts. Instead of mass emigration from the homeland, the sizeable indigenous populations, were controlled through effective political manipulation supported by military force. Servitude of the indigenous masses was enabled through a structure of indirect governance, keeping existing indigenous rulers in place[14] and using the Indo Eurasian population as an intermediary buffer. Being one of the smallest nations in the world it was in fact impossible for the Netherlands to even attempt to establish a typical settler colony.

In 1869 British anthropologist Alfred Russel Wallace described the colonial governing structure in his book "The Malay Archipelago":[15]

"The mode of government now adopted in Java is to retain the whole series of native rulers, from the village chief up to princes, who, under the name of Regents, are the heads of districts about the size of a small English county. With each Regent is placed a Dutch Resident, or Assistant Resident, who is considered to be his "elder brother," and whose "orders" take the form of "recommendations," which are, however, implicitly obeyed. Along with each Assistant Resident is a Controller, a kind of inspector of all the lower native rulers, who periodically visits every village in the district, examines the proceedings of the native courts, hears complaints against the head-men or other native chiefs, and superintends the Government plantations."


France took over Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1880s; during the following decade, France completed its Indochinese empire with the annexation of Laos, leaving the kingdom of Siam (now Thailand) with an uneasy independence as a neutral buffer between British and French-ruled lands.


A shocked mandarin in Manchu robes in the back, with Queen Victoria (United Kingdom), Wilhelm II (Germany), Nicholas II (Russia), Marianne (France), and Emperor Meiji (Japan) discussing how to cut up a king cake with Chine ("China" in French) written on it.

In 1839, China found itself fighting the First Opium War with Great Britain when Lin Zexu placed a blockade on foreign trade of opium. China was defeated, and in 1842 agreed to the provisions of the Treaty of Nanjing. Hong Kong Island was ceded to Britain, and certain ports, including Shanghai and Guangzhou, were opened to British trade and residence. In 1856, the Second Opium War broke out. The Chinese were again defeated, and now forced to the terms of the 1858 Treaty of Tientsin and the 1860 Convention of Peking. The treaty opened new ports to trade and allowed foreigners to travel in the interior. Missionaries gained the right to propagate Christianity—another means of Western penetration. The United States and Russia obtained the same prerogatives in separate treaties.

Towards the end of the 19th century, China appeared on the way to territorial dismemberment and economic vassalage—the fate of India's rulers that played out much earlier. Several provisions of these treaties caused long-standing bitterness and humiliation among the Chinese: extraterritoriality (meaning that in a dispute with a Chinese person, a Westerner had the right to be tried in a court under the laws of his own country), customs regulation, and the right to station foreign warships in Chinese waters.

The rise of Japan since the Meiji Restoration as an imperial power led to further subjugation of China. In a dispute over China's longstanding claim of rule in Korea, war broke out between China and Japan, resulting in humiliating defeat for the Chinese. By the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895), China was forced to recognise effective Japanese rule over Korea, and Taiwan was ceded to Japan until its recovery in 1945 at the end of the WWII by the Republic of China.

In 1897, taking advantage of the murder of two missionaries, Germany demanded and was given a set of exclusive mining and railroad rights around Jiaozhou Bay in Shandong province. In 1898 Russia obtained access to Dairen and Port Arthur and the right to build a railroad across Manchuria, thereby achieving complete domination over a large portion of northeast China. The United Kingdom, France, and Japan also received a number of concessions later that year.

At this time, much of China was divided up into "spheres of influence": Germany dominated the Shandong peninsula and the Huang He (Hwang-Ho) valley; Russia dominated the Liaodong Peninsula and Manchuria; the United Kingdom dominated Weihaiwei and the Yangtze Valley; whereas France dominated the Guangzhou Bay and several other southern provinces neighboring its colony in Vietnam.

China continued to be divided up into these spheres until the United States, which had no sphere of influence, grew alarmed at the possibility of its businessmen being excluded from Chinese markets. In 1899, Secretary of State John Hay asked the major powers to agree to a policy of equal trading privileges. In 1900, several powers agreed to the U.S.-backed scheme, giving rise to the "Open Door" policy, denoting freedom of commercial access and non-annexation of Chinese territory. In any event, it was in the European powers' interest to have a weak but independent Chinese government. The privileges of the Europeans in China were guaranteed in the form of treaties with the Qing government. In the event that the Qing totally collapsed, each power risked losing the privileges that it had negotiated.

The erosion of Chinese sovereignty contributed to a spectacular anti-foreign outbreak in June 1900, when the "Boxers" (properly the society of the "righteous and harmonious fists") attacked foreign legations in Beijing, provoking a rare display of unity among the powers, whose troops landed at Tianjin and marched on the capital, which they took on August 14. Troops from the Eight-Nation Alliance then looted and occupied Beijing for several months. German forces were particularly severe in exacting revenge for the killing of their ambassador, while Russia tightened its hold on Manchuria in the northeast until its crushing defeat by Japan in the war of 1904-1905.

Although extraterritorial jurisdiction was abandoned by the United Kingdom and the United States in 1943, foreign political control of parts of China only finally ended with the incorporation of Hong Kong and the small Portuguese territory of Macau into the People's Republic of China in 1997 and 1999 respectively.

Mainland Chinese historians refer to this period as the Century of humiliation.

Central Asia[edit]


Between 1885 and 1914, Britain brought nearly 30% of Africa's population under its control, to 15% for France, 9% for Germany, 7% for Belgium and 1% for Italy: Nigeria alone contributed 15 million subjects to Britain, more than in the whole of French West Africa, or the entire German colonial empire. The only regions not under European control in 1914 were Liberia and Ethiopia.[16]

British colonies[edit]

Britain's 1882 formal occupation of Egypt (triggered by concern over the Suez Canal) contributed to a preoccupation over securing control of Nile, leading to the conquest of neighboring Sudan in 1896-1898, which in turn led to confrontation with a French military expedition at Fashoda in September 1898. In 1899, Britain set out to complete its takeover of the future South Africa, which it had begun in 1814 with the annexation of the Cape Colony, by invading the gold-rich Afrikaner republics of Transvaal and the neighboring Orange Free State. The chartered British South Africa Company had already seized the land to the north, renamed Rhodesia after its head, the Cape tycoon Cecil Rhodes.

British gains in southern and East Africa prompted Rhodes and Alfred Milner, Britain's High Commissioner in South Africa, to urge a "Cape to Cairo" empire: linked by rail, the strategically important Canal would be firmly connected to the mineral-rich South, though Belgian control of the Belgian Congo Free State and German control of German East Africa prevented such an outcome until the end of World War I, when Great Britain acquired the latter territory.

Britain's quest for southern Africa and their diamonds led to complicated social complications and fallouts that lasted for years. To work for their prosperous company, British businessmen hired both white and black South Africans. But when it came to jobs the white South Africans received the higher paid and less dangerous ones, leaving the black South Africans to risk their lives down in the mines for limited pay. This process of separating the two groups of South Africans, whites and blacks, was the beginning of segregation between the two that lasted until 1990.

Paradoxically, the United Kingdom, a staunch advocate of free trade, emerged in 1914 with not only the largest overseas empire, thanks to its long-standing presence in India, but also the greatest gains in the conquest of Africa, reflecting its advantageous position at its inception.

Congo Free State[edit]

Up until 1876, Belgium had no colonial presence in Africa. It was then that its king, Leopold II created the International African Society. Under the pretense of an international scientific and philanthropic association, it was actually a private holding company of Leopold’s. Henry Morton Stanley was employed to explore and colonize the Congo River basin area of equatorial Africa in order to capitalize on the plentiful resources such as ivory, rubber, diamonds, and metals. Up until this point, Africa was known as “the Dark Continent” because rapids on the Congo River had previously made exploration of this area impossible.[citation needed] Over the next few years, Stanley overpowered and made treaties with over 450 native tribes, acquiring him over 905,000 square miles (2,340,000 km2) of land, nearly 67 times the size of Belgium.[citation needed]

Neither the Belgian government, nor the Belgian people had any interest in imperialism at the time, and the land came to be personally owned by King Leopold II. At the Berlin Conference in 1884, he was allowed to have land named the Congo Free State. The other European countries at the conference allowed this to happen on the conditions that he suppress the East African slave trade, promote humanitarian policies, guarantee free trade, and encourage missions to Christianize the people of the Congo. However, Leopold II’s primary focus was to make a large profit[citation needed] on the natural resources, particularly ivory and rubber. In order to make this profit, he passed several cruel decrees that can be considered to be genocide. He forced the natives to supply him with rubber and ivory without any sort of payment in return. Their wives and children were held hostage until the workers returned with enough rubber or ivory to fill their quota, and if they could not, their family would be killed. When villages refused, they were burned down, the children of the village murdered and the men had their hands cut off.[citation needed] These policies led to uprisings that were feeble compared to the European military and technological might.[citation needed] They opposed the forced labor in other ways, by fleeing into the forests to seek refuge or setting the rubber forests on fire preventing the Europeans from harvesting the rubber.

These rebellions were crushed. In some cases, they would bring back a hand for every man they killed to show they were not wasting ammunition.[citation needed]

No population figures exist from before or after the period, but it is estimated that a maximum of 10 million people died from violence, famine and disease.[17] However, some sources point to a population of just 16 million in total),[18] rendering the high estimates unlikely.

King Leopold II profited from the enterprise with a 700% profit ratio[citation needed] for the rubber he took from Congo and exported. He used propaganda to keep the other European nations at bay, for he broke almost all of the parts of the agreement he made at the Berlin Conference. For example, he had some Congolese pygmies sing and dance at the 1897 World Fair in Belgium,[citation needed] showing how he was supposedly civilizing and educating the natives of the Congo. Under significant international pressure, the Belgian government annexed the territory and renamed it the Belgian Congo, removing it from the personal power of the king. Of all the colonies that were conquered during the wave of New Imperialism, the human right of the Congo Free State were considered the worst.[citation needed]



Dupetit Thouars taking over Tahiti on September 9, 1842.

In Oceania France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively.[22] After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887 Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888. By occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations.[23](p53) By 1900 nearly all Pacific islands were in control of Britain, France, United States, Germany and Chile.[22]

Imperial rivalries[edit]

The extension of European control over Africa and Asia added a further dimension to the rivalry and mutual suspicion which characterized international diplomacy in the decades preceding World War I. France's seizure of Tunisia (1881) initiated fifteen years of tension with Italy, which had hoped to take the country and which retaliated by allying with Germany and waging a decade-long tariff war with France. Britain's takeover of Egypt a year later caused a marked cooling of her relations with France.

The most striking conflicts of the era were the Spanish American War of 1898 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, each signaling the advent of a new imperial great power; the United States and Japan, respectively. The Fashoda incident of 1898 represented the worst Anglo-French crisis in decades, but France's buckling in the face of British demands foreshadowed improved relations as the two countries set about resolving their overseas claims.

British policy in South Africa and German actions in the Far East contributed to dramatic policy shifts, which in the 1900s, aligned hitherto isolationist Britain first with Japan as an ally, and then with France and Russia in the looser Entente. German efforts to break the Entente by challenging French hegemony in Morocco resulted in the Tangier Crisis of 1905 and the Agadir Crisis of 1911, adding to tension and anti-German sentiment in the years preceding World War I and II.


The British government (and the other European imperialist governments) gave many excuses to the public for the New Imperialism strategy. However, there were often underlying motivations behind what the government said.


One of the biggest motivations behind New Imperialism was the idea of humanitarianism and "civilizing" the "lower" class people in Africa and in other undeveloped places. This was a religious motive for many Christian missionaries, in attempt to save the souls of the "uncivilized" people, and of the idea that Christians and the people of the United Kingdom were morally superior. Most of the missionaries that supported imperialism did so because they felt the only true religion was their own. Similarly, the Roman Catholic missionaries opposed the British missionaries because the British missionaries were Protestant. At times, however, imperialism did help the people of the countries being invaded because the missionaries ended up stopping some of the slavery in some areas. Therefore, Europeans claimed that they were only there because they wanted to protect the weaker tribal groups they conquered. The missionaries and other leaders suggested that they should stop such practices as cannibalism, child marriage, and other "savage things". This humanitarian ideal was described in poems such as the "White Man's Burden" and other literature. Often, the humanitarianism was sincere, but with misguided choices. Although some imperialists were trying to be sincere with the notion of humanitarianism, at times their choices might not have been best for the areas they were conquering and the natives living there.[24]

Dutch Ethical Policy[edit]

Dutch, Indo-Eurasian and Javanese professors of law at the opening of the Rechts Hogeschool in 1924.

The Dutch Ethical Policy was the dominant reformist and liberal political character of colonial policy in the Dutch East Indies during the 20th century. In 1901, the Dutch Queen Wilhelmina announced that the Netherlands accepted an ethical responsibility for the welfare of their colonial subjects. This announcement was a sharp contrast with the former official doctrine that Indonesia was mainly a wingewest (region for making profit). It marked the start of modern development policy, implemented and practised by Alexander Willem Frederik Idenburg ; whereas other colonial powers usually talked of a civilizing mission, which mainly involved spreading their culture to colonized peoples.

The Dutch Ethical Policy (Dutch: ‘Ethische Politiek’) emphasised improvement in material living conditions. The policy suffered, however, from serious underfunding, inflated expectations and lack of acceptance in the Dutch colonial establishment, and it had largely ceased to exist by the onset of the Great Depression in 1930.[25][26] It did however create an educated indigenous elite able to articulate and eventually establish independence from the Netherlands.


The "accumulation theory" adopted by Karl Kautsky, John A. Hobson and popularized by Vladimir Lenin centered on the accumulation of surplus capital during and after the Industrial Revolution: restricted opportunities at home, the argument goes, drove financial interests to seek more profitable investments in less-developed lands with lower labor costs, unexploited raw materials and little competition. Hobson's analysis fails to explain colonial expansion on the part of less industrialized nations with little surplus capital, such as Italy, or the great powers of the next century  — the United States and Russia  — which were in fact net borrowers of foreign capital. Also, military and bureaucratic costs of occupation frequently exceeded financial returns. In Africa (exclusive of what would become the Union of South Africa in 1909) the amount of capital investment by Europeans was relatively small before and after the 1880s, and the companies involved in tropical African commerce exerted limited political influence.

The "World-Systems theory" approach of Immanuel Wallerstein sees imperialism as part of a general, gradual extension of capital investment from the "core" of the industrial countries to a less developed "periphery." Protectionism and formal empire were the major tools of "semi-peripheral," newly industrialized states, such as Germany, seeking to usurp Britain's position at the "core" of the global capitalist system.

Echoing Wallerstein's global perspective to an extent, imperial historian Bernard Porter views Britain's adoption of formal imperialism as a symptom and an effect of her relative decline in the world, and not of strength: "Stuck with outmoded physical plants and outmoded forms of business organization, [Britain] now felt the less favorable effects of being the first to modernize."

Other readings[edit]

  • Ankerl, Guy: Coexisting Contemporary Civilizations: Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western. INU PRESS, Geneva, 2000. ISBN 2-88155-004-5.
  • Recent imperial historians: Porter, P.J. Cain and A.G Hopkins contest Hobson's conspiratorial overtones and "reductionism," but do not reject the influence of "the City's" financial interests.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ "Corn Law." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 10 Nov. 2010. <>.
  2. ^ Nadel, George H. and Curtis, Perry (1969). Imperialism and Colonialism. Macmillan. 
  3. ^ "Franco-German War." Encyclopædia Britannica.2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 10 Nov. 2010 <>.
  4. ^ Kindleberger, C. P., (1961), “Foreign Trade and Economic Growth: Lessons from Britain and France, 1850-1913”, The Economic History Review, Vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 289-305.
  5. ^ Porter, B., (1996), The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism 1850-1995, (London: Longman), pp.118ff.
  6. ^ Lambert, Tim. “England in the 19th Century.” 2008. 9 Nov. 2010 <>.
  7. ^ a b Coyne, Christopher J. and Steve Davies. "Empire: Public Goods and Bads" (Jan 2007). [1]
  8. ^ Eley, Geoff "Social Imperialism" pages 925-926 from Modern Germany Volume 2, New York, Garland Publishing, 1998 page 925.
  9. ^ a b c d e Eley, Geoff "Social Imperialism" pages 925-926 from Modern Germany Volume 2, New York, Garland Publishing, 1998 page 925.
  10. ^ Hobson, J. A. Imperialism. London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1938. Print
  11. ^ History of the British salt tax in India
  12. ^ Bongenaar K.E.M. ‘De ontwikkeling van het zelfbesturend landschap in Nederlandsch-Indië.’ (Publisher: Walburg Press) ISBN 90-5730-267-5
  13. ^ With a notable and dramatic exception in the island of Banda during the VOC era. See: Hanna, Willard A. ‘Indonesian Banda: Colonialism and its Aftermath in the Nutmeg Islands.’ (1991).
  14. ^ This strategy was already established by the VOC, which independently acted as a semi-sovereign state within the Dutch state. See: Boxer, C.R. ‘The Dutch Seaborne Empire: 1600-1800.’ (London, 1965) and [2]
  15. ^ Wallace, Alfred Russel (1869) 'The Malay Archipelago', (Publisher: Harper, 1869.) Chapter VII [3]
  16. ^ Historical Map of Africa
  17. ^ Casemate, Roger (1904). Casemate report on the Administration. London: British Parliamentary Papers. 
  18. ^ Michiko Kakutani (30 August 1998). ""King Leopold's Ghost": Genocide With Spin Control". The New York Times
  19. ^ Simon Katzenellenbogen "Congo, Democratic Republic of the" Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World. Ed. Peter N. Stearns. © Oxford University Press 2008. Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World: (e-reference edition). Oxford University Press. 18 November 2010
  20. ^ Schimmer, Russell. "Belgian Congo." Genocide Studies Program. Yale University, 2010. Web. 11 Nov. 2010. < index.html>
  21. ^ • Gondola, Ch. Didier. "Congo (Kinshasa)." World Book Advanced. World Book, 2010. Web. 18 Nov. 2010.
  24. ^ Winks, Robin W. "Imperialism." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2010. Web. 18 Nov. 2010.
  25. ^ Robert Cribb, 'Development policy in the early 20th century', in Jan-Paul Dirkse, Frans Hüsken and Mario Rutten, eds, Development and social welfare: Indonesia’s experiences under the New Order (Leiden: Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 1993), pp. 225-245.
  26. ^ Ricklefs, M.C. (1991). A History of Modern Indonesia since c.1300. London: Macmillan. p. 151. ISBN 0-333-57690-X. 

External links[edit]

Review by: Gerald Hurst The English Historical Review, Vol. 47, No. 188 (Oct., 1932), pp. 687–689