Imperialism is the practice, theory or attitude of maintaining or extending power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power and soft power. Imperialism focuses on establishing or maintaining hegemony and a more or less formal empire. While related to the concepts of colonialism, imperialism is a distinct concept that can apply to other forms of expansion and many forms of government.
John Atkinson Hobson was an English economist and social scientist. Hobson is best known for his writing on imperialism, which influenced Vladimir Lenin, and his theory of underconsumption.
The Scramble for Africa was the invasion, annexation, division, and colonization of most of Africa by seven Western European powers during an era known as "New Imperialism". The 10% of Africa that was under formal European control in 1870 increased to almost 90% by 1914, with only Liberia and Ethiopia remaining independent.
Imperialism: A Study (1902), by John A. Hobson, is a politico-economic discourse about the negative financial, economic, and moral aspects of imperialism as a nationalistic business enterprise. Hobson argues that capitalist business activity brought about imperialism.
French Africa includes all the historic holdings of France on the African continent.
Ronald "Robbie" Edward Robinson, CBE, DFC, FBA was a distinguished historian of the British Empire who between 1971 and 1987 held the Beit Professorship of Commonwealth History at the University of Oxford.
European colonialism and colonization is the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over other societies and territories, founding a colony, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically. For example, colonial policies, such as the type of rule implemented, the nature of investments, and identity of the colonizers, are cited as impacting postcolonial states. Examination of the state-building process, economic development, and cultural norms and mores shows the direct and indirect consequences of colonialism on the postcolonial states.
The British conquest of Egypt (1882), also known as the Anglo-Egyptian War, occurred in 1882 between Egyptian and Sudanese forces under Ahmed ‘Urabi and the United Kingdom. It ended a nationalist uprising against the Khedive Tewfik Pasha. It established firm British influence over Egypt at the expense of the Egyptians, the French, and the Ottoman Empire, whose already weak authority became nominal.
The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians, Greeks, Turks, and Arabs.
The history of external colonisation of Africa can be dated back from ancient, medieval, or modern history, depending on how the term colonisation is defined.
The historiography of the British Empire refers to the studies, sources, critical methods and interpretations used by scholars to develop a history of the British Empire. Historians and their ideas are the main focus here; specific lands and historical dates and episodes are covered in the article on the British Empire. Scholars have long studied the Empire, looking at the causes for its formation, its relations to the French and other empires, and the kinds of people who became imperialists or anti-imperialists, together with their mindsets. The history of the breakdown of the Empire has attracted scholars of the histories of the United States, the British Raj, and the African colonies. John Darwin (2013) identifies four imperial goals: colonising, civilising, converting, and commerce.
William Roger Louis CBE FBA, commonly known as Wm. Roger Louis or, informally, Roger Louis, is an American historian and a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Louis is the editor-in-chief of The Oxford History of the British Empire, a former president of the American Historical Association (AHA), a former chairman of the U.S. Department of State's Historical Advisory Committee, and a founding director of the AHA's National History Center in Washington, D. C.
John Andrew Gallagher, known as Jack Gallagher, was an historian of the British Empire who between 1963 and 1970 held the Beit Professorship of Commonwealth History at the University of Oxford and from 1971 until his death was the Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at the University of Cambridge.
David Kenneth Fieldhouse, FBA was an English historian of the British Empire. Fieldhouse was born to missionary parents in Mussoorie, northern India. He was sent to England for his education at Dean Close School, Cheltenham, from 1938 to 1943. Fieldhouse then completed naval service, before reading history at The Queen's College, Oxford.
Egypt–United Kingdom relations are the diplomatic, economic, and cultural relationships between Egypt and the United Kingdom. Relations are longstanding. They involve politics, defence, trade and education, and especially issues regarding the Suez Canal.
"The Imperialism of Free Trade" is an academic article by John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson first published in The Economic History Review in 1953. The article was influential in the debate concerning the causes of British imperial expansion in the 19th-century which, since John A. Hobson's Imperialism: A Study (1902), had focused on economic motivation. Instead, Gallagher and Robinson claimed that the New Imperialism – "the new spate of imperial expansion that gathered momentum from the 1880s" – could be best characterised as a continuation of a longer-term policy begun in the 1850s in which informal empire, based on the principles of free trade, was favoured over formal imperial control unless circumstances made such rule impossible. As well as reigniting scholarly interest in theorizing New Imperialism, the article helped launch the Cambridge School of historiography.
The official mind is the ideas, perceptions, and intentions of those policy-makers who had a bearing on British imperial policies. The policy maker is a politician or civil servant who had influence over imperial policy.
The Cambridge School of historiography was a school of thought which approached the study of the British Empire from the imperialist point of view. It emerged especially at the University of Cambridge in the 1960s. John Andrew Gallagher (1919–80) was especially influential, particularly in his article with Ronald Robinson on "The Imperialism of Free Trade".
Anti-imperialism in political science and international relations is opposition to imperialism or neocolonialism. Anti-imperialist sentiment typically manifests as a political principle in independence struggles against intervention or influence from a global superpower, as well as in opposition to colonial rule. Anti-imperialism can also arise from a specific economic theory, such as in the Leninist interpretation of imperialism, which is derived from Lenin's 1917 work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. People who categorize themselves as anti-imperialists often state that they are opposed to colonialism, colonial empires, hegemony, imperialism and the territorial expansion of a country beyond its established borders.
This Timeline of European imperialism covers episodes of imperialism outside of Europe by western nations since 1400; for other countries, see Imperialism § Imperialism by country.
