how and why did imperialism happen in the 19th century?

Question

I have to write an in-class essay about imperialism and this is my outline:

1. intro
2. how imperialism happened
3. why
4.focus on nigeria
5. focus on india
6. conclusion/effects of imperialism

so i need to know how and why imperialism happened

Answer 1

Go to wikipedia and type in "imperialism." You have a good start on your outline but I'm not going to do it for you. You need to crack the books and do it yourself.

I will tell you that it was the big thing in Europe in the 19th century because it was a huge land grab to the powers of Europe. Europeans, especially the British, justified imperialism because they felt that they were doing the Africans and Indians "a favor" by educating them in Western culture and Western thought.

It became a problem with India as they wanted to be independent from Britain. When WW2 occurred in Europe, Gandhi (a pacifist) told his fellow countrymen to refuse military service on behalf of Britain.

That's all I'm going to tell you. Don't take all of this to your essay; do your own research!

Answer 2

I think British imperialism started with the idea that the white race is the more superior race, thus giving them the right to "civilize" other races and oppress them at the same time.Literature would be a good source aside from your encyclopedias. The poem "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats would give you a good idea about what I'm talking about. Check out this page for the poem:

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/anglophone/achebe.html

While you're at it, you can read the poems of African writer David Diop and the book, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. These would give you a good idea on the effects of imperialism in Africa. Other interesting resources could be movies such as Lagaan (Indian). Take care of Western-made movies about these topics though since they sometimes have the tendency to paint the picture of the Western hero instead of being objective (but this is just my opinion). I could also give you a few more ideas based on our experiences in our own Asian country which was colonized by Westerners for many many years. Economy-wise, we have become poor. Raw products are supplied by our country. For example, coconut based products are exported to other countries where they make it into beauty products, etc. and sell it back here at a much higher price. Culturally, our people have generally become biased towards Western ways and preservation of our own culture and traditions has become a perpetual challenge. Politically, we are divided. Most government leaders feel that globalization is the way to go, investors should come in our country and we need more and more foreign aid to rise from poverty. The most nationalistic and the poor protest on foreign intervention, protests and rallies have sprung left and right. The idea of being a "nation" is quite hard to impress upon a people who have been under oppressive foreign rule for hundreds of years. On the other hand, this has also allowed us great moments in history where our people show that it is possible to attain true independence if we are united.

These are pretty general ideas though.If you want a more detailed and comprehensive picture, take the advice above: research! Bottom line is, you have a lot of reading to do if you're going to tackle this topic. Good luck!

Answer 3

although imperialism brought about discomfort that may nevertheless be felt immediately (ask a guy from china about imperialism and look ahead to the rant) you would possibly want to say that it helped the communist authorities finally end up which many chinese human beings imagine is a reliable element.

Answer 4

colonial expansion and imperialism happened for many different reasons, depending on the particular place and time you are speaking of.

much of england's reach into india was done to preserve a stable environment for trade. they didn't necessarily wish to control the place, but they couldn't rely on local governments to remain stable, and provide fair courts of law where the grievances of english subjects would be given fair hearings.

often, even if the locality in which they were trying to trade was itself stable, it would border another region which was not. as such, in order to protect the stable section, england would send troops into the neighboring territory to stablize it. until the sepoy revolt, this system of imperial expansion resulted in a patchwork quilt across india of various regions, some controlled directly by the east india company, some being controlled by them indirectly, through puppet governments, and some being genuinely autonomous and stable political entities.

england took direct rule of the whole area after the sepoy revolt, replacing the east india company as master. britain democratized india and gave it sophisticated western institutions of education and government. it also unified the many different ethnicities into a nation, mostly by the indian's intense desire for self rule. england was divisive of india in that upon independence, the territory was ethnically divided between muslims (who lived and ruled the newly created state of pakistan)
and hindus (whose land continued to be known as india).

the indian territory severed east and west pakistan, and east pakistand eventually revolted against west pakistan for self rule.

india tolerated pakistani troops moving across her land to fight each other very briefly before weighing in against west pakistan in support of east pakistan's independence. east pakistan is now known as bangladesh. the enmity over the initial partition of india coupled with india's opposition to pakistan in the civil war with bangladesh, continues to echo today. (there are other bones of contention between the powers as well, but you can look into that on your own)

i know little about the nigerian experience, although nigeria probably prospered somewhat less from british rule than india did. the scramble for africa came somewhat later than the acquisition of india, and was less profitable as well. as a result, britain was ruler in nigeria for a much shorter period of time, and vacating nigeria was an english goal, whereas vacating india was something the british did reluctantly. the population of nigeria (which is i believe the largest in africa) did not have as much chance to let the desire for independence overcome ethnic and tribal differences among the population.