During the last quarter of the XIX century the international system entered in a new stage of globalization. Due to the Industrial Revolution and technological advances world’s economy become one only trade network where the different industrial powers reached new overseas markets for their products. The emergence of Great Britain as the main financial center and the British Pound as a world wide accepted currency gave an additional impulse to this historical process.The industrial and technological development became the most important factor to analyze the power of a nation, demography and geography where not the main variable anymore. The endless needs of raw materials, new markets and strategically located ports forced the main industrial countries to start an extension of their empires. This new markets were not only used to sell industrial products, they become also very important for capital exports. British, German and French capitals made investments around all the globe building railway networks.Asia and Africa
In 1870 almost all american continent was already independent, that’s why during this period the european powers focused their imperial expansion over regions where they could easily establish colonial governments, Asia and Africa. During the last 25 years of the XIX century, one fifth of world’s surface and 10% of world’s pupulation was under european domination. The european civilization was projecting its shadow over the entire planet. At the Berlin Conference of 1884 the main colonial powers agreed how to divide Africa. After this summit Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and Spain started to control massive land extensions in Africa. In the course of a generation, Africa, 4 times bigger than Europe was totally fragmented. Asia was also a scene of this expansion. The British Empire had India, Burma, Malaysia and Hong Kong under its domain. France successfully controlled Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia under the name of French Indochina. The Netherlands had also an active presence in Asia with an important colony called Dutch East Indies what nowadays is Indonesia. Due to its high complexity and big territorial extension China was never colonizated by an only country. Different european powers, Russia and even Japan divided China into exclusive influence areas where they could freely trade.
Central America and the Caribbean
The Caribbean was an strategic area. As a consequence of the emerge of the United States as a world power and the increase of the global trade the construction of an inter-oceanic canal become an important issue. France, Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Spain had an strong presence in this area with colonies in different islands, all of them expected to control a future canal that would connect the Atlantic and the Pacific.The United States were a new power interested in this strategic region located in its influence area, the 1898 Spanish American war is a demonstration of the irruption of the US in this region and as a new colonial power.
On the way to the First World War
There is no doubt that this imperial expansion was one of the multiple causes of the First World War, the objective of this article was to analyze the historical period baptized by Eric Hobsbawm as “The Age of Empire” and not the First World War causes. But I think is important to at least mention the existing link between this two periods.
Is there any kind or variation whatsoever of "imperialism" going on nowadays?
ReplyDeleteand on a different subject, how did US managed to gain control over the spanish dominated territories in teh Caribbean mentioned in your article? Was it a military or an economical defeat over the other force?
I think imperialism has turned into neo-imperialism. During the last decades developed countries has changed their economies from an industrial to a post-industrial way of production. Maybe we can see in an overseas subsidiary of multinational company the new way of imperialism, for example a Volkswagen or a Peugeot car factory located in South America. Other way of imperialism I see in the XXI century is the Chinese policy of buying huge quantities of US dollars and treasury bonds as a way to increase its influence into the world's main superpower economy.
ReplyDeleteOf course, imperialism in the XXI century is a high complexity topic, we could read and write about this for years and years.