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In historical contexts, New Imperialism characterizes a period of colonial expansion primarily by the major western powers as well as the Empire of Japan, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.^[1] The period featured an unprecedented pursuit of overseas territorial acquisitions. At the time, states focused on building their empires with new technological advances and developments, expanding their territory through conquest, and exploiting the resources of the subjugated countries. During the era of New Imperialism, the European powers (and Japan) individually conquered almost all of Africa and parts of Asia. The new wave of imperialism reflected ongoing rivalries among the great powers, the economic desire for new resources and markets, and a "civilizing mission" ethos. Many of the colonies established during this era gained independence during the era of decolonization that followed World War II.

The qualifier "new" is used to differentiate modern imperialism from earlier imperial activity, such as the formation of ancient empires and the first wave of European colonization.^[1][2]

The main participants in New Imperialism were the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Russia, the United States, and Japan.^[3][4][5][6]

The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and the collapse of the Spanish Empire in Latin America in the 1820s ended the first era of European imperialism. Especially in Great Britain 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 In 1846, the Corn Laws were repealed and manufacturers grew, as the regulations enforced by the Corn Laws had slowed their businesses. With the repeal in place, the manufacturers were able to trade more freely. Thus, Britain began to adopt the concept of free trade.^[7]

During this period, between the 1815 Congress of Vienna after the defeat of Napoleonic France and Imperial Germany's victory in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, Great Britain reaped the benefits of being Europe's dominant military and economic power. As the "workshop of the world", Britain could produce finished goods so efficiently that they could usually undersell comparable, locally manufactured goods in foreign markets, supplying a large share of the manufactured goods consumed by such nations as the German states, France, Belgium, and the United States.^{[8] [page needed]}

The erosion of British hegemony after the Franco-Prussian War, in which a coalition of German states led by Prussia soundly defeated the Second French Empire, 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, annexed by Germany as a result of the Franco-Prussian War, and Germany's mounting imperialist ambitions would keep the two nations constantly poised for conflict.^[9]

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).^[10][11]

Berlin Conference

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The Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 sought to destroy 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 brutally in the Herero Wars in German South-West Africa from 1904 to 1907 and the Maji Maji Rebellion in German East Africa from 1905 to 1907. 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.

The main dominating powers of the conference were France, Germany, 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.

Britain during the era

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Further information: Historiography of the British Empire

In Britain, the age of new imperialism marked a time for significant economic changes.^[12] Because the country was the first to industrialize, Britain was technologically ahead of many other countries throughout the majority of the nineteenth century.^[13] By the end of the nineteenth century, however, other countries, chiefly Germany and the United States, began to challenge Britain's technological and economic power.^[13] After several decades of monopoly, the country was battling to maintain a dominant economic position while other powers became more involved in international markets. In 1870, Britain contained 31.8% of the world's manufacturing capacity while the United States contained 23.3% and Germany contained 13.2%.^[14] By 1910, Britain's manufacturing capacity had dropped to 14.7%, while that of the United States had risen to 35.3% and that of Germany to 15.9%.^[14] As countries like Germany and America became more economically successful, they began to become more involved with imperialism, resulting in the British struggling to maintain the volume of British trade and investment overseas.^[14]

Britain further faced strained international relations with three expansionist powers (Japan, Germany, and Italy) during the early twentieth century. Before 1939, these three powers never directly threatened Britain itself, but the dangers to the Empire were clear.^[15] By the 1930s, Britain was worried that Japan would threaten its holdings in the Far East as well as territories in India, Australia and New Zealand.^[15] Italy held an interest in North Africa, which threatened British Egypt, and German dominance of the European continent held some danger for Britain's security.^[15] Britain worried that the expansionist powers would cause the breakdown of international stability; as such, British foreign policy attempted to protect the stability in a rapidly changing world.^[15] With its stability and holdings threatened, Britain decided to adopt a policy of concession rather than resistance, a policy that became known as appeasement.^[15]

In Britain, the era of new imperialism affected public attitudes toward the idea of imperialism itself. Most of the public believed that if imperialism was going to exist, it was best if Britain was the driving force behind it.^[16] The same people further thought that British imperialism was a force for good in the world.^[16] In 1940, the Fabian Colonial Research Bureau argued that Africa could be developed both economically and socially, but until this development could happen, Africa was best off remaining with the British Empire. Rudyard Kipling's 1891 poem, "The English Flag," contains the stanza:

     Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro--
        And what should they know of England who only England know?--
     The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,
        They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English Flag!^[17]

These lines show Kipling's belief that the British who actively took part in imperialism knew more about British national identity than the ones whose entire lives were spent solely in the imperial metropolis.^[16] While there were pockets of anti-imperialist opposition in Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, resistance to imperialism was nearly nonexistent in the country as a whole.^[16] In many ways, this new form of imperialism formed a part of the British identity until the end of the era of new imperialism with the Second World War.^[16]

While Social Darwinism became popular throughout Western Europe and the United States, the paternalistic French and Portuguese "civilizing mission" (in French: mission civilisatrice; in Portuguese: Missão civilizadora) appealed to many European statesmen both in and outside France. Despite apparent benevolence existing in the notion of the "White Man's Burden", the unintended consequences of imperialism might have greatly outweighed the potential benefits. Governments became 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, consolidating power through imperial rents and impeding social change and economic development that ran against their ambitions. Furthermore, "nation building" oftentimes created cultural sentiments of racism and xenophobia.^[18]

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 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 have perpetuated empire-building throughout history.^[18]

The enforcement of mercantilist policies played a role in sustaining New Imperialism. This restricted colonies to trade only with respective metropoles, which strengthened home-country economies. At first through growing chartered companies and later through imperial states themselves, New Imperialism shifted towards the use of free trade, the reduction of market restrictions and tariffs, and the coercion of foreign markets to open up, often through gunboat diplomacy or concerted interventionism, such as police actions.^{[citation needed]}

Observing the rise of trade unionism, socialism, and other protest movements during an era of mass society both in Europe and later in 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".^[19] 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. 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. According to Wehler, German colonial policy in the 1880s was the first example of social imperialism in action, and was followed up by the 1897 Tirpitz Plan for expanding the German Navy. 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. The demands for annexing most of Europe and Africa in World War I are seen by Wehler as the pinnacle of social imperialism.^[19]

After taking control of much of India, the British expanded further into Burma, Malaya, Singapore and Borneo, with these colonies becoming further sources of trade and raw materials for British goods. France annexed all of Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1880s; in 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. The United States laid claim to the Philippines, and after the Spanish–American War, took control of the archipelago as one of its overseas possessions.

Indonesia

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Formal colonization of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) commenced at the dawn of the 19th century when the Dutch state took possession of all Dutch East India Company (VOC) assets. Before that time the 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 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-in-exile in England ceded rule of all its colonies to Great Britain. However, Jan Willem Janssens, the governor of the Dutch East Indies at the time, fought the British before surrendering the colony; he was eventually replaced by Stamford Raffles.^[21]

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, with a notable and dramatic exception in the island of Banda during the VOC era.^[22] Neither was it a plantation colony built 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. The servitude of the indigenous masses was enabled through a structure of indirect governance, keeping existing indigenous rulers in place. This strategy was already established by the VOC, which independently acted as a semi-sovereign state within the Dutch state, using the Indo Eurasian population as an intermediary buffer.^[23]

In 1869, British anthropologist Alfred Russel Wallace described the colonial governing structure in his book "The Malay Archipelago":^[24]

"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."

The "Great Game" (Also called the Tournament of Shadows (Russian: Турниры теней, Turniry Teney) in Russia) was the strategic, economic and political rivalry, emanating to conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia at the expense of Afghanistan, Persia and the Central Asian Khanates/Emirates. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running approximately from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, in which nations like Emirate of Bukhara fell. A less intensive phase followed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, causing some trouble with Persia and Afghanistan until the mid-1920s.

In the post-Second World War post-colonial period, the term has informally continued in its usage to describe the geopolitical machinations of the great powers and regional powers as they vie for geopolitical power as well as influence in the area, especially in Afghanistan and Iran/Persia.^[25]26

France gained a leading position as an imperial power in the Pacific after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively.^[35] Tahiti was later annexed entirely into the French colonial empire in 1880, along with the rest of the Society Islands.^[36]

The United States made several territorial gains during this period, particularly with the overthrow and annexation of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and acquisition of most of Spain's colonial outposts following the 1898 Spanish–American War,^[37][38] as well as the partition of the Samoan Islands into American Samoa and German Samoa.^[39]

By 1900, nearly all islands in the Pacific Ocean were under the control of Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Ecuador, and Chile.^[35]

Map of the world in 1822, after the Napoleonic Wars

Map of the world in 1914, before the start of World War I

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 in 1881 initiated fifteen years of tension with Italy, which had hoped to take the country, retaliating 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 its relations with France.

The most striking conflicts of the era were the Spanish–American War of 1898 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, 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 Triple 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. In the Pacific, conflicts between Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom contributed to the First and Second Samoan Civil War.

Another crisis occurred in 1902–1903, when there was a stand-off between Venezuela backed by Argentina, the United States (see Drago Doctrine and Monroe Doctrine) and a coalition of European countries.

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."^{[citation needed]}

The inclusion or exclusion of items from this list or length of this list is disputed. Please discuss this issue on the talk page.

• 1832: Britain annexed the Falkland Islands from the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata.
• 1837: Britain annexed the Pitcairn Islands.
• 1839: Britain conquered Aden from the Sultanate of Lahej.
• 1840: Britain established the Colony of New Zealand.
• 1843: Britain received Hong Kong Island from China.
• 1848: Britain annexed the Sikh Empire in Punjab.
• 1852: France annexed New Caledonia.
• 1854: Division of the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin between Russia and Japan.
• 1857: Britain suppressed the Indian Rebellion.
• 1859: Britain annexed the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Perim. Completion of the French conquest of Algeria.
• 1861: Unification of the Kingdom of Italy
• 1862: Creation of French Cochinchina. British Honduras declared a colony.
• 1864: Russia completed the conquest of the Caucasus.
• 1867: United States purchased Alaska from Russia.
• 1869: Japan annexed Hokkaido.
• 1870: Russia annexed Novaya Zemlya.
• 1871: Unification of the German Empire.
• 1874: Britain established the Colony of Fiji.
• 1875: Japan annexed the Bonin Islands.
• 1879: Japan annexed the Ryukyu Islands.
• 1881: France annexed Tunisia.
• 1882: Britain occupied Egypt.
• 1884: Argentina completed the Conquest of the Desert in Patagonia.
• 1885: Britain completed the conquest of Myanmar. Belgian king established the Congo Free State. German protectorate over Marshall Islands.
• 1887: British protectorate over Maldives. Creation of French Somaliland.
• 1888: Britain annexed Christmas Island. Creation of British Somaliland. Germany annexed Nauru. Chile annexed Easter Island.
• 1889: Creation of French Polynesia.
• 1890: British protectorate over Zanzibar. Creation of Italian Eritrea.
• 1892: Britain annexed Banaba Island and Gilbert Islands.
• 1895: China ceded Taiwan and Penghu to Japan.
• 1897: France annexed Madagascar.
• 1898: United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guam, and the Philippines.
• 1898: Division of the Samoan Islands into German Samoa and American Samoa.
• 1900: British protectorate over Tonga.
• 1906: Britain and France established the New Hebrides condominium.
• 1908: France annexed the Comoro Islands.
• 1910: Japan annexed the Korean Empire.
• 1915: Britain annexed Cyprus.
• 1919: Japan annexed Micronesia.
• 1920: France annexed Syria and Lebanon. Britain annexed Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine.

• Afro-Asia
• Dollar diplomacy, US about 1910
• Historiography of the British Empire
• Imperialism
• International relations (1814–1919)
• Russian Empire
• Soviet Empire
• Timeline of European imperialism
• Imperialism in Asia

• Albrecht-Carrié, René. A Diplomatic History of Europe Since the Congress of Vienna (1958), 736pp; basic survey
• Aldrich, Robert. Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion (1996)
• Anderson, Frank Maloy, and Amos Shartle Hershey, eds. Handbook for the Diplomatic History of Europe, Asia, and Africa, 1870–1914 (1918), highly detailed summary prepared for use by the American delegation to the Paris peace conference of 1919. full text
• Barros, Mario (1970). Historia Diplomática de Chile (in Spanish) (2 ed.). Santiago: Editorial Andres Bello. ISBN 956-13-0776-6.
• Baumgart, W. Imperialism: The Idea and Reality of British and French Colonial Expansion 1880-1914 (1982)
• Betts, Raymond F. Europe Overseas: Phases of Imperialism (1968) 206pp; basic survey
• Cady, John Frank. The Roots of French Imperialism in Eastern Asia (1967)
• Cain, Peter J., and Anthony G. Hopkins. "Gentlemanly capitalism and British expansion overseas II: new imperialism, 1850‐1945." The Economic History Review 40.1 (1987): 1–26.
• Delsing, Riet (2012). "Issues of Land and Sovereignty: The Uneasy Relationship Between Chile and Rapa Nui". In Mallon, Florencia (ed.). Decolonizing Native Histories. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822351528.
• Golshanpazhooh, Mahmoud Reza (22 October 2011). "Review: Post Modern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games by Eric Walberg". Iran Review. Retrieved 22 August 2012.
• Gratale, Joseph Michael (26 March 2012). "Walberg, Eric. Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games". European Journal of American Studies. Reviews 2012-1, document 9. doi:10.4000/ejas.9709. ISSN 1991-9336. S2CID 159050841. Retrieved 22 August 2012.
• Hinsley, F.H., ed. The New Cambridge Modern History, vol. 11, Material Progress and World-Wide Problems 1870-1898 (1979)
• Hodge, Carl Cavanagh. Encyclopedia of the Age of Imperialism, 1800–1914 (2 vol., 2007); online
• Langer, William. An Encyclopedia of World History (5th ed. 1973); highly detailed outline of events; 1948 edition online
• Langer, William. The Diplomacy of Imperialism 1890–1902 (1950); advanced comprehensive history; online copy free to borrow also see online review Archived 11 November 2019 at the Wayback Machine
• Manning, Patrick. Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa, 1880–1995 (1998) online
• Moon, Parker T. Imperialism & World Politics (1926), Comprehensive coverage; online
• Mowat, C. L., ed. The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 12: The Shifting Balance of World Forces, 1898–1945 (1968); online
• Page, Melvin E. et al. eds. Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia (2 vol 2003)
• Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876–1912 (1992)
• Saavedra-Rivano, Neantro (1993). "Chile and Japan: Opening Doors through Trade". In Stallings, Barbara; Szekely, Gabriel (eds.). Japan, the United States, and Latin America. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd. ISBN 978-1-349-13130-3.
• Stuchtey, Benedikt, ed. Colonialism and Imperialism, 1450–1950, European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011
• Tamm, Eric Enno (26 April 2011). The Horse that Leaps Through Clouds: A Tale of Espionage, the Silk Road, and the Rise of Modern China. Catapult. ISBN 978-1-58243-734-7.
• Taylor, A.J.P. The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848–1918 (1954) 638pp; advanced history and analysis of major diplomacy; online

• J.A. Hobson's Imperialism: A Study: A Centennial Retrospective by Professor Peter Cain
• Extensive information on the British Empire
• British Empire
• The Empire Strikes Out: The "New Imperialism" and Its Fatal Flaws Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine by Ivan Eland, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute. (an article comparing contemporary defense policy with those of New Imperialism (1870–1914)
• The Martian Chronicles: History Behind the Chronicles New Imperialism 1870–1914
• 1- Coyne, Christopher J. and Steve Davies. "Empire: Public Goods and Bads" (Jan 2007). Wayback Machine
• Imperialism – Internet History Sourcebooks – Fordham University
• The New Imperialism (a course syllabus)
• The 19th Century: The New Imperialism
• 2- Coyne, Christopher J. and Steve Davies. "Empire: Public Goods and Bads" (Jan 2007). Wayback Machine