Europe and the World, 1870-1914

I. Balance of Power, 1870-1914 A. Geopolitics 1. Three Emperor’s League 2. Ottoman Empire

B. Instability of the Alliance System 1.Franco-German tensions

2. Russian aspirations and the Congress of Berlin

3. Alliance System Revamped

II. New Imperialism A. Technology of Empire 1. Engineering 2. Medical Advances

B. Motives 1. Economics 2. Geopolitics 3. Nationalism “We don't want to fight but by Jingo if we do We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too” 1. Economics 2. Geopolitics 3. Nationalism

“White Man’s Burden” - by British Poet Rudyard Kipling, 1899 Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.

III. Search for Territory & Markets A. Scramble for Africa 1. Drive for Markets & Profits 2. European Agreements & African Massacres

Source: Royal Niger Company, commissioned by the British government to administer and develop the Niger River delta and surrounding areas, standard form signed by multiple African rulers, 1886. We, the undersigned Chiefs of ___________, with the view to the bettering of our country and people, do this day cede to the Royal Niger Company, forever, the whole of our territory extending __________. We pledge ourselves not to enter into any war with other tribes without the sanction of the said Royal Niger Company. . . . The said Royal Niger Company bind themselves not to interfere with any of the native laws or customs of the country, consistently with the maintenance of order and good government. The said Royal Niger Company agree to pay native owners of land a reasonable amount for any portion they may require. . . . and to pay the said Chiefs __________ measures native value. The ________ chiefs . . . affixed their marks of their own free will and consent. . . . Done in triplicate at __________, this ____________ day, of __________, 188____.

3. Ethiopia as an Exception

B. Gold, Empire Building, & the Boer War 1. Afrikaner Rule 2. Britain’s War in South Africa

C. Imperialism in Asia 1. India

2. China 3. SE Asia & Japan

D. Imperialism of the USA

IV. Results of a European-Dominated World A. A World Economy 1. Meeting Western Needs 2. Investment Abroad

B. Race & Culture White Man’s Burden” - by British Poet Rudyard Kipling, 1899 Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.

Karl Pearson, Social Darwinism: Imperialism Justified by Nature British and American imperialists employed the language of Social Darwinism to promote and justify Anglo-Saxon expansion and domination of other peoples. Social Darwinist ideas spread to Germany, which was inspired by the examples of British and American expansion. In a lecture given in 1900 and titled "National Life from the Standpoint of Science," Karl Pearson (1857-1936), a British professor of mathematics, expressed the beliefs of Social Darwinists. What I have said about bad stock seems to me to hold for the lower races of man. How many centuries, how many thousands of years, have the Kaffir [a tribe in southern Africa] or the negro held large districts in Africa undisturbed by the white man? Yet their intertribal struggles have not yet produced a civilization in the least comparable with the Aryan' [western European]. Educate and nurture them as you will, I do not believe that you will succeed in modifying the stock. History shows me one way, and one way only, in which a high state of civilization has been produced, namely, the struggle of race with race, and the survival of the physically and mentally fitter race….  

C. Women & Imperialism

D. Ecology & Imperialism

E. Critiquing Capitalism

V. Conclusion: