Remember the questions you asked on the bookmark activity?Here come the answers!

Q. “Why was imperialism practiced so heavily in Europe?”

As we went over in class, there were two main reasons for European imperialism:

• Many European nations, due to an increase in life expectancy and a decrease in infant and childhood death, were using up their resources at an increased pace. The nations that they took over had these materials in abundance!

• Many European nations (Germany and Italy, being relatively new nations, were guilty of this) believed that, in order to be taken seriously by the ‘big dog’ nations like England, France, and Russia, they had to mimic their behavior. If those nations practiced imperialism, then they had to as well! While this sounds silly and juvenile, this appearance of power was a VERY important facet of national identity and security!

Q. “What were the benefits of imperialism?”

As we have talked a good bit about the benefits for the nations doing the conquering, lets look at the benefits to the nations being manipulated:

• Technology! This is the big one, as it covers almost every area of a person’s life. It led to new and improved farming tools, increased means of communication, and industry that leads to large population centers being possible.

• Medical advancement: medical science of this time, even in Europe, was barbaric by what we consider ‘standard’ today. But, compared to most of the areas that they were taking over, it was a night-and-day difference! Better knowledge of medicine and nutrition led to a higher life expectancy and a higher quality of life (at least in theory!).

• Establishment of schools, universities, and hospitals.

• Transportation and communication: roads, railroads, and the telegraph allowed for these people to move and communicate like never before.

Q. “Why was imperialism practiced mainly by Europeans only?”In order to fully practice imperialism, a nation needed several things:

• Transportation: specifically, a nation needs a powerful. Ocean-going navy in order to mover people and materials from place-to-place quickly.

• Communication: the ability to speak to distant people with relative speed (using the telegraph and later the telephone and radio) improved a nation’s ability to react and transfer information.

• ADMINISTRATION!: A nation must have the ability to take all of the information, materials, and people and put them where they need to be when they need to be there!

Europeans had these things. Other nations did not!

Q. “Why did European nations see themselves as superior?”

Simply put, Europeans looked at the people they targeted for imperialism and saw the things that they had left behind to become more ‘civilized.’ They lived comparatively clean lives in permanent buildings. They enjoyed a greatly advanced life expectancy, and used modern devices to do things with ease that took the average ‘savage’ hours, days, or even weeks to accomplish.

Europeans saw their ability to master their environment rather than be mastered by it as a symbol of superiority. They saw that, throughout history, they had progressed from tribal people using simple tools and weapons to a modern, urban people using trains, machine guns, and medicine.

Think about it, Americans have VERY SIMILAR attitudes to people in other nations (especially ‘Third World’ nations) today!

Q. “What is cultural diffusion?”

Cultural diffusion is the process by which culture spreads from area to area. Just like in chemistry, it moves from a place of high concentration to one of lower concentration until it is found everywhere.

Modern culture is LOADED with examples: dubstep, Coca-Cola, blue jeans, martial arts in movies, different dance steps, and the like are pop culture examples.

Examples from the age of imperialism include: the concept of permanent residence over nomadic society, increased industrialization, a refocusing from land power to naval power, the concept that people are inherently free and have rights that are common to all men (at this point, they meant WHITE men, later amended to JUST GUYS, and then WOMEN, TOO).

Q. “Why did nationalism lead to nations taking over other nations?”

Nationalism, at its heart, is the belief that your nation is the best nation in the world. And since your nation is the best, it is your job to show the other nations how to be more like you!

This can be done passively or actively. Imperialism is a much more active form, as it requires that you literally take over the other nation, often citing that it is “for their own good” (paternalism). Since your nation is OBVIOUSLY superior, it is your duty to help, and your right to do it by force if need be.

A more passive form comes from the idea of cultural diffusion. As mentioned in a previous slide, cultural diffusion is the process by which a cultural element (for example, dubstep) begins in one place and, through various forms of transmission (radio, word-of-mouth, CDs, movie soundtracks, and advertising), becomes common in a new place.

Q. “What is the balance of power?”

The balance of power is the theory that nations only get along well when no one nation is so powerful that it can dominate all of the other states. The theory states that should one nation become so powerful that it can dominate all others that it invariably will use this power to do just that.

Knowing this, when a nation begins to gain this kind of power, its neighbors will notice this, band together in a coalition (a group of nations fighting for one goal), and attempt to defeat the stronger nation. While this theory has proven true over the entirety of human history, the two most common examples in modern history are WWI and WWII.

Also included in this theory is the idea of nations being “balancers” (joining the coalition to regain the balance of power) and “bandwagoners” (joining the powerful nation to get in good with the bully on the block.

Q. “How did the British regain imperial power after the Revolutionary War?”

Simple answer? They never really lost it!

America was a large group of colonies, to be sure. But America was by no means the only jewel in the British imperial crown! They still maintained power all over the world, and the lessons that they learned during the U.S. War for Independence made them much more efficient when dealing with their imperial vassals during the 19th Century!

G.B. learned that naval power was the key to imperial power, and focused heavily on technology that took their already fearsome navy and made it truly unrivaled. They also learned that brutal, repressive policies inevitably lead to civil unrest. This insight led to their policies of dependant colonialism and protectorates over direct military activism. With these types of lessons learned, our gain in the Revolutionary War became their gain as well!

Q. “What decided if a nation was ‘weak’ or ‘strong?’”

Generally speaking, a nation’s level of influence is based on the amount of power that it has in a few key areas:

• Resources – how many key resources does the nation control? As time progresses, the list of important resources grows, and most nations do not have all (or even most) of them within their own borders!• Infrastructure – how adept is your nation at moving people, items, and ideas from place-to-place? Also, if one key piece breaks down, does your whole nation fall apart, or is it more of a setback?• Leadership – strong leaders almost always lead to strong nations. A strong, WISE leader leads to an even stronger nation! Strong leaders can instill fierce nationalism

Nations who score well on the three things above tend to be viewed as ‘strong’ nations, while those that do not score well are considered ‘weak.’

Q. “What began the rush towards imperialism in the late 1800s?”

There were several reasons for the sudden increase in imperialistic tendencies in Europe (the book has several examples), but two stand out (at least in my mind):

• The need for new resources. By comparison to the U.S., many European nations are pretty small. Even more so, they had used up a good deal of their mineral wealth, and increases in population due to longer life expectancies led to nations seeing food shortages in their near future. They needed new lands to acquire the resources needed to stay ‘on top.’

• MONEY! Many of the lands that Europe’s rulers were targeting had resources that, if properly taken advantage of, would make whatever nation that did ENORMOUSLY wealthy! King Leopold II of Belgium is a notorious example of this concept.

Q. What is Social Darwinism?

Social Darwinism is the political theory that, just as in nature, the strongest tend to survive. Therefore, it is the right for stronger nations to not only lord over weaker ones, but to use whatever means they can to insure as few other nations as possible rival your nation’s power.

From the late 1800s all the way to today, many leaders have used this idea to justify all manner of horrible activity. Fascism and Nazism are both heavily invested in Social Darwinism, as are many racial hate groups. By taking Darwin’s theory of ‘survival of the fittest’ to this extreme, these leaders decided that, since their race or nation was superior, then it was their right to exploit, conquer, or kill those ‘lesser’ people as they saw fit.

Q. “What caused the end of the Age of Imperialism?”

It can be argued that imperialism never really ended!

But for historical purposes, the Age of Imperialism ended on July 28, 1914, AKA the beginning of World War I. During the war the imperialist nations did not have the resources or manpower spare on imperialism, and after the war treaties were put into play to limit imperialism, which was recognized as a main reason WWI happened in the first place.

As an important note, some nations (India is a good example), actively supported their European ‘allies.’ India sent 1,000,000 troops to the battlefields of WWI. 75,000 of them died in battle.

Q. “Could a nation with 1-3 strong markets maintain a stable economy?” (Draven Welch)

EXCELLENT QUESTION! In the Ancient World, having a surplus in a few key market areas (grain, timber, building materials, ores, gold, and livestock are all good examples) was often enough for a nation to enjoy hundreds of years of success. Ancient Egypt was an excellent example of this!

However, as technology becomes more complex, new materials become more important. During the Age of Imperialism, rubber, coal, copper, iron, and oil become ever more important, and practically no nation had ample reserves of all of these that were easy to acquire. The list of materials needed to build, crew, and maintain a 1800s steam-powered warship is immense, so just imagine what a modern aircraft carrier, fully loaded and crewed, requires to build!

So, short answer: in the distant past, yes. In modern times: no!

Q. “What is the difference between nationalism and patriotism?

Short answer? The spelling is different.

Ok, a longer answer then. From a political theory standpoint, nationalism is generally regarded as a measurement of one’s national strengths and character and, based on this perception (whether rational of not), deciding that one’s nation is the best on Earth. Basically, it is “Look at how awesome we are! We MUST be the best!”

Patriotism, in general terms, requires little insight. A stereotypical patriot (in modern terms), requires little insight as to WHY their nation is the best, and simply accepts that it IS the best. At its extreme, patriotism can be like a form of zealotry, where one believes in the superiority of their nations regardless of the evidence of the nation’s insufficiencies or wrong-doing.