Imperialism

"Commonly, imperialism is the policy of extending authority over foreign territories by an empire or a nation. In fact, however, imperialism is a word of many meanings - far too many to lend itself to feasible historical discussion. The motivating force always was that the "other people" had to be "identified". The methods of identification ranged from civilizing the "savages" to practicing rapine. Originally, imperialist policies rested on the Western Europeans' absolute belief in religious superiority; the sixteenth century brought with it the maritime revolution- people could now sail anywhere - and Europeans discovered that other civilizations had, indeed, played a role in shaping world history. Thus evolved a new and more sophisticated attempt at subjugation. By the second half of the eighteenth century, the Europeans' new knowledge of and "respect" for their neighbors in Afro-Asia began to erode when the balance of power, because of technology, shifted in their favor. With the Industrial Revolution of the early nineteenth century, the balance of power shifted still further, and much faster. Meanwhile, biologists' efforts at classifying and understanding the world around them helped sprout a new form of European arrogance. Race were arranged by hierarchy, with European man at the pinnacle. Under international law the "lower races" were to be treated as minors. The idea of conversion evolved into the policy of trusteeship, which fostered the modern forms of colonialism: indirect rule and associationism. - Publisher.