{"id":2158,"date":"2020-05-20T21:39:02","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T21:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/?p=2158"},"modified":"2025-12-15T08:49:50","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T08:49:50","slug":"causes-of-the-age-of-imperialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/causes-of-the-age-of-imperialism\/","title":{"rendered":"Causes of the Age of Imperialism: A Detailed Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Historians have identified several causes of the Age of Imperialism<\/a>, which led these power nations to dominate the far reaches of the planet.\u00a0 As such, the five main causes or motives of the Age of Imperialism are: Economic, Colonization, Religion, Ethnocentrism<\/a>, and Prestige.\u200b The Age of Imperialism was a time period from the mid-18th century until the early part of the 20th century, which saw the major European nations (as well as the United States, Russia and Japan) expand their influence throughout several regions of Africa and Asia.\u00a0 In fact, major events associated with the Age of Imperialism include: Scramble for Africa<\/a>, British Imperialism in India<\/a> and Imperialism in China<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ECONOMIC CAUSES OF THE AGE OF IMPERIALISM<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of the most significant factors of the Age of Imperialism was the economic benefits that it created for the nations that carried out imperialistic campaigns.\u00a0 For example, the powerful European nations of the time were seeking new territories such that they could gain access to new resources.\u00a0 This was especially important with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution<\/a> in the late 18th century and early 19th century.\u00a0 For instance, the emergence of the factory system<\/a> in the Industrial Revolution meant that the European nations needed large amounts of raw materials in order to process through their factories.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Industrial
The Industrial Revolution is a significant event in world history because it transformed European and North American societies from being based on agriculture production to industrial production.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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More specifically, Britain was the first country to industrialize, and became the most dominant country in the timeframe of the Age of Imperialism.  In fact, Britain established colonies all over the world and had the largest empire during the Age of Imperialism.  Colonies such as India and South Africa were used to gather large amount of raw materials to feed the British factories.  These included resources such as gold, rubber, cotton, etc.  Therefore, historians consider the economic benefits of imperialism as a major motive or cause of sparking the Age of Imperialism.  In fact, the economic benefits of imperialism sparked a competition between the rival imperialistic nations, which led to a more widespread colonization during the 19th and 20th centuries.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The competitive nature of the Age of Imperialism can best be seen in the Scramble for Africa<\/a>, which occurred from 1870 until 1914.\u00a0 During these years, almost all of Africa came under the control of the major European powers, including: Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain.\u00a0 The Scramble for Africa unfolded as a series of major events that eventually saw the African continent colonized and then divided by the major European powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Scramble
Map of the Scramble for Africa. (Created by historycrunch.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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COLONIZATION CAUSES OF THE AGE OF IMPERIALISM<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The second important aspect that led to the rise of imperialism in the 19th century was the need for European nations to resettle parts of their population to new regions.\u00a0 At the time, Europe had experienced a period of prolonged population growth, and many feared that European populations were reaching unsustainable levels.\u00a0 For example, during the 18th century, the overall population of Europe doubled to nearly 200 million.\u00a0 It more than doubled again in the 19th century, due to advances in healthcare, sanitation and education levels.\u00a0 In fact, the events of the Industrial Revolution and Agricultural Revolution<\/a> led to a major population boom throughout Europe.\u00a0 This was due, in part, to increased food production, which caused Europe to support larger populations.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the larger populations across Europe put pressure on the different European governments, and led to some arguing that Europe was facing an overpopulation crisis.  As such, governments in Europe wanted to use the newly discovered lands from the Age of Exploration to colonize their surplus populations.  This was especially evident in the colonies of North America and Australia.  In fact, millions of European settlers migrated, either by choice or forced, to the New World colonies between the 16th and 19th centuries.  Therefore, historians consider the need for colonization as an important cause to the overall Age of Imperialism that occurred throughout the 18th and the 19th centuries.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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RELIGIOUS CAUSES OF THE AGE OF IMPERIALISM<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The third significant cause of the Age of Imperialism was the spread of Christianity into imperialized territories.\u00a0 As the major European powers spread their empires throughout the world, they also spread many of their beliefs, customs and religious practices.\u00a0 In fact, European Christian missionaries were an important aspect of the Age of Imperialism and participated in imperialistic campaigns throughout all regions that the European powers colonized.\u00a0 For example, one of the most famous missionaries from the time of the Age of Imperialism was David Livingstone<\/a>.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Livingstone is one of the most famous British figures from the 19th century and played a significant role in early efforts of European exploration in Africa.\u00a0 For example, he was a Christian missionary and travelled extensively throughout the African continent in the timeframe of the Age of Imperialism.\u00a0 Historians compare his actions with other famous figures, such as Henry Morton Stanley<\/a>, and consider him an influential person in the outbreak of the Scramble for Africa in the 19th century.\u00a0 Therefore, this shows that the European powers were propelled by religious conviction and the hope of \u2018Christianizing\u2019 as much of the world as possible.\u00a0 For this reason, historians consider missionary work an important cause of the Age of Imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"David
Missionary and explorer David Livingstone preaching from a traveling wagon in Africa. (19th Century)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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ETHNOCENTRIC CAUSES OF THE AGE OF IMPERIALISM<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The fourth major cause of the Age of Imperialism was the ethnocentric beliefs held by the powerful European nations of the time.\u00a0 Ethnocentrism<\/a> is the idea of judging other ethnicities or cultures based upon your own ethnicity or culture.\u00a0 While this comparison doesn\u2019t necessarily need to be negative in nature, \u2018ethnocentrism\u2019 is often associated with aspects of racism and prejudice.\u00a0 For example, when people are being ethnocentric, they are sometimes expressing the view that another ethnicity or culture is inferior.\u00a0 As such, the concept of ethnocentrism is often associated with historical events, which best exemplify this, including the Age of Imperialism.\u200b During this time, certain groups judged others they viewed as inferior.\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ethnocentrism
‘The White Man’s Burden’ (Apologies to Rudyard Kipling) Political cartoon from 1899. It shows the British and Americans carrying various groups of people to ‘civilization’. This cartoon would be considered ethnocentric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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As Europeans travelled the globe and colonized different regions, they came into contact with all sorts of different indigenous people.\u00a0 As such, European beliefs about their own supposed racial superiority helped inform their interactions with the people they encountered, including native Africans.\u00a0 Their Eurocentric beliefs were justified by European governments due to a concept called Social Darwinism<\/a>.\u00a0 In short, Social Darwinism is the idea that some ethnic groups or races are superior to others and therefore more \u2018fit\u2019 to rule over those that are less \u2018fit\u2019.\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social Darwinism was particularly popular in the early 1870s, when Europeans were carrying out their massive imperialistic campaigns as part of the Age of Imperialism.  The beliefs of ethnocentrism and Social Darwinism can be seen in a famous poem by Rudyard Kipling called \u2018The White Man\u2019s Burden\u2019.  In the poem, Kipling calls on Europe to \u2018send forth the best ye breed\u2019 to \u2018take up the white man\u2019s burden\u2019.  In general, Kipling is promoting the idea that people of European descent are biologically more superior to other people from around the world, and the \u2018burden\u2019 of the white man is to \u2018fix\u2019 the uncivilized indigenous peoples.  As a result, the beliefs of ethnocentrism led to the events of the Scramble for Africa in 1870 because the views of superiority on the part of the Europeans empowered them to dominate the people they encountered.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"White<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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PRESTIGE CAUSES OF THE AGE OF IMPERIALISM<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The final cause of the Age of Imperialism was the competitive nature of the major western nations and their need to gain prestige over each other.  The term prestige relates to how each of the European nations viewed themselves or their reputation in relation to each other.  For instance, the European nations of the late 19th century and early 20th century were competitive and had rivalries that existed from the previous centuries.  Europe has a long history of wars and conflicts between its major nations, and this was still true in the 19th century.  In fact, nationalism became a central motivating factor among the European nations in the 19th century and pushed them to expand their empires of control across the world.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, the European nations experienced a period of prolonged rivalry through the Age of Exploration<\/a>, which occurred from the 15th century until the 17th century.\u00a0 By the time of the Age of Imperialism, these nations were still politically and economically competitive with each other, as they each raced to capture as much territory as they could.\u00a0 This sense of rivalry was so intense that it eventually led to the outbreak of World War I<\/a> in 1914.\u00a0 As such, historians considered the rivalries that existed between the European nations in the 19th century as a major factor in the Age of Imperialism.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Nationalism
The proclamation of the German Empire following its unification in 1871. In the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, France.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There were several main causes of the Age of Imperialism, which led to the European powers of the 18th century exerting their influence across large sections of the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":18,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[75,15,23],"class_list":["post-2158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-age-of-imperialism","tag-age-of-imperialism","tag-history","tag-imperialism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2158"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4894,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158\/revisions\/4894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}