What is imperialism? HIstory class, its not homework. Just want to know.?

Answer 1

Now for an answer from a real person rather than a cut-and-paste piece that doesn't mean anything to you:

1. Imperialism is the act of a large country (America) going out and taking over a smaller ORGANIZED country like Hawaii, Cuba, the Phillippines, etc... The key term to note is that the country taken over already has their own political institutions, their own culture, their own organized economy, etc...

2. By comparison, colonialism is when an organized country (like England) comes to land that is NOT organized with any of the above mentioned things (like America was prior to 1607) anc claims the land as theirs.

Colonialism is viewed as brave, heroic, and adventurous. However, imperialism is viewed as overbearing, and reminiscent of being a bully.

Answer 2

These quotes are from Wikipedia and give a good overview of the meaning of "imperialism" and political climates at the times of its use. For more details, read the whole of each article, check out the links and resources and/or search google.com or ask.com for further sites.


(1)
Imperialism is a policy of exerting effective and continuing control or authority over foreign entities as a means of acquisition and/or maintenance of empires. This is either through direct territorial conquest or settlement, or through indirect methods of influencing or controlling the politics and/or economy. The term is used to describe the policy of a nation's dominance over distant lands, regardless of whether the subjugated nation considers itself part of the empire.

The "Age of Imperialism" usually refers to the Old Imperialism period starting from 1860, when major European states started colonizing the other continents. The term 'Imperialism' was initially coined in the mid to late 1500s [1] to reflect the policies of countries such as Britain and France's expansion into Africa, and the Americas.


(2)
The term New Imperialism refers to the colonial expansion adopted by Europe's powers and, later, Japan and the United States, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries; approximately from the Franco-Prussian War to World War I (c. 1871–1914). The period is distinguished by an unprecedented pursuit of what has been termed "empire empire's sake," aggressive competition for overseas territorial acquisitions and the emergence in colonizing countries of doctrines of racial superiority which denied the fitness of subjugated peoples for self-government.

The term imperialism was used from the third quarter of the nineteenth century to describe various forms of political control by a greater power over less powerful territories or nationalities, although analytically the phenomena which it denotes may differ greatly from each other and from the "New" imperialism.

A later usage developed in the early 20th century among Marxists, who saw "imperialism" as the economic and political dominance of "monopolistic finance capital" in the most advanced countries and its acquisition — and enforcement through the state — of control of the means (and hence the returns) of production in less developed regions.

Elements of both conceptions are present in the "New imperialism" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But along with the adoption of ultra-nationalist and racial supremacist ideologies, the period saw a shift to pre-emptive colonial expansion, fueled by the imposition of tariff barriers aimed at excluding economic rivals from markets.