Imperialism

Imperialism refers to the practice and the ideas that support one state extending its rule or control over other lands and peoples. This can take the form of direct colonial rule, settler colonization, protectorates or informal domination through economic and political pressure. As an ideology, imperialism was most openly argued for in Europe, the United States and Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its advocates claimed that empire brought national power, wealth and prestige, and that it spread order, commerce, Christianity or civilization. Historians and critics stress that empire relied on military force and racial hierarchies, and that it caused great suffering among colonized peoples.

Empires existed in the ancient world, in China, western Asia and the Mediterranean. European powers built overseas empires from the fifteenth century, starting with Portugal and Spain. The period from about 1870 to 1914, often called the New Imperialism, saw a rapid scramble for colonies in Africa and Asia; the Berlin Conference of 1884 and 1885 set rules for European claims in Africa. Advocates included Cecil Rhodes in southern Africa, Joseph Chamberlain in Britain, Jules Ferry in France and the American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan. Rudyard Kipling's 1899 poem The White Man's Burden expressed the idea of a civilizing mission. In the 1930s and 1940s, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and imperial Japan pursued violent expansion that led to the Second World War. After 1945 most colonies won independence.

Settler colonialism involves large-scale settlement and the displacement of Indigenous peoples. Administrative colonialism rules territories through officials and local intermediaries. Informal or free trade imperialism uses economic and diplomatic pressure without formal annexation. Liberal imperialism claimed to prepare colonized peoples for eventual self-rule. Economic and cultural imperialism are terms used by critics for the influence of powerful states over weaker ones.

Critics from liberal, socialist, religious and anticolonial traditions argue that imperialism denied self-government, rested on racism and enriched colonizers at the expense of the colonized. Historians point to atrocities such as forced labor and mass deaths in the Congo Free State under King Leopold II, and the German genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples from 1904 to 1908. Many scholars also link imperial rivalry to the outbreak of the First World War. Some historians argue that empire also spread infrastructure, legal systems and trade, but this view is strongly contested.

At its height, European imperialism brought most of Africa and much of Asia under foreign rule. Its legacies include many modern borders, official languages, legal systems and economic patterns. Decolonization after 1945 ended most formal empires, and open advocacy of imperialism has largely disappeared, though debates continue over spheres of influence and intervention.