Industrial revolution meant that home nations soon did not have enough resources to reach the demands of manufactured goods by their populations. This economic growth led to competition amongst industrialized nations to acquire colonies in the undeveloped world (We will focus on the acquisition of North America and Africa as colonies). These colonies provided raw resources to the industrialized nations leading to new relationships between the colonized and colonizers some of which were positive while others were not.
Outcomes:
know that the hinterland is a tributary region (pays money and goods) which may be rural and/or urban. It is connected by a transportation system and is used to supply resources or markets for an urban centre
know that nation states are concerned about their ability to hold necessary hinterlands and to protect the transportation lines to those hinterlands
know that nations are always tempted to use whatever power they have to protect themselves against the insecurity of competition
know that in general terms the relationships between cultures can be based on: accommodation, assimilation, segregation and annihilation
Skills:
collecting data and organizing
collecting main ideas from data
practice creating thesis statements with corroborating evidence
ethical dimension
Assessments:
Key Terms Chart
Country Comparisons on Imperialism
Primary Source Activity on Pros and Cons of Imperialism
Causes of Imperialism Station Work
Africa WebQuest
Scramble for Africa Simulation
Imperialism in Canada
What is Imperialism?
“The policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire of nation over foreign countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialis)
Imperialism is normally used by powerful governments to take over a weaker country without a unified government OR Imperialism also describes indirect political or economic influence or control of weak states by more powerful ones
What are the 4 main causes/motivations for Imperialism?
1. Economic 2. Political 3. Humanitarian - "The White Man's Burden" 4. Social Darwinism - many European nations felt that as the “fittest” of the nations, they had a duty to conquer weaker nations to show their superiority. Indeed, they felt that since this struggle between cultures was part of nature’s law as prescribed by Darwin, their conquest of “inferior” people was just.