Imperialism
INTRODUCTION
Historically, the empires that existed were relatively limited to their neighbors both on land and across water. Empires like the Roman and Persian Empires were able to last for centuries thanks to a mix of political, militaristic, and social practices that kept a sense of togetherness. Over time, traditional empires were replaced with a new wave of empire building - imperialism. While the term is vague, imperialism transformed to encompass territory across the globe. Small nations like the United Kingdom, Spain, and Portugal incorporated lands across the globe as their own, often at the cost of the people they ruled over.
Again, the concept of imperialism is nothing new. However, the sudden surge of a global territorial conquest in modern world history was something to be analyzed further. Why does a nation like Spain need a land mass the size of Latin America or the Netherlands needing to control the vast islands that make up Indonesia? Though many elements that can answer this may seem vast, it is important to inspect each and every bit of the major details that made up the Age of Imperialism. Further analysis of the topic can be observed in the activity below.
ACTIVITY
Let’s start by looking at the map of imperial domains below:
Now let’s take a look into some of John Green’s videos:
Now that we have gone through this activity, let’s answer the following questions in the comment section:
1) Why do you think there was a sudden need for European powers to expand?
2) Was there really a need for the United States to expand? Why or why not?
3) How do the videos conceptualize your understanding of imperialism?
