1. A New Age of Imperialism
The Sun Never Set on the British Empire….or
the Spanish, French, German Empires….

2. What Came Before?
• Earlier in the year, we talked of colonialization, where
European countries took over parts of Africa, Asia, and
the Americas.
• We then talked of an Age of Revolutions, in which many
of the colonies gained independence.
• When last we met, we discussed industrialization, where
European countries, America, and Japan began building
machines to do jobs.
• These countries made immense money off of the things
these machines made. Then, they began looking out at
other countries that had supplies they could use to make
more things, and thus more money!

3. The Dawning of the Age of….
• Industrialization was the cause of a new age of Imperialism.
• Imperialism is basically a new version of colonialization,
where one wealthy country takes over a poor one.
• Imperialism led to a wealth gap between industrialized
countries and non-industrialized ones.

4. Who “imperialized?”
• The three areas the
industrialized were the
Imperial (empire
creating) countries.
–Europe (UK was #1!)
–America
–Japan

5. The Race for Empires
• Each of the places
wanted to create the
biggest empires.
• Nationalism (hope you
remember that!)
continued to grow in
the countries creating
empires.
• Each country wanted to
own the most places
and best places on the
map.

6. Social Darwinism
• Another major cause of
imperialism was the spread
of Social Darwinism.
• Social Darwinism is the
belief that the “fittest”
deserve to rule. So if your
country was conquered, it
deserved it!
• Rudyard Kipling wrote a
poem called “The White
Man’s Burden.” It stated
that Western cultures
should take their culture to
other countries, whether
the other countries wanted
to change or not.

7. A Major Prize
• India was a major “jewel”
for the British.
• It began as a trading
company (British East India
Company) like we talked
about in the first nine
weeks.
• In the Sepoy Rebellion,
some Indians fought against
the English business but
were quickly beaten. At
that point, England took the
whole country over and
made it a part of the
growing English Empire.

8. Conclusion
• Britain began taking the Indian natural resources
(remember all those spices?) and began making
things to sell to the people of India.
• British goods (like cloth) were sold cheaper than
Indian cloth (How could they make and sell things
cheaper?) Many Indian businesses closed.