AMERICAN IMPERIALISM

American Imperialism

American Imperialism

Imperialism is a political relationship of dependency without involving territorial annexation and occupation. This relationship is distinguished by three necessary elements: inequality, domination, and a multiplicity of causes. An imperial relationship is one of effective domination or control over foreign entities through various direct and/or indirect means. Imperial domination includes control over the foreign entities' political, economic, and cultural practices. States, for example, may implement unfair trade practices and treaties. Actual military force is not a necessary condition; the implied use of force may be sufficient to compel other territories to acquiesce to the demands of the more dominant state. The spatial manifestation of imperial relations may be termed empire (Wright, 1961).

Unlike the empires of colonialism, those of the age of imperialism embodied the growing social conscience of the 19th century. Englishmen like Gladstone and Joseph Chamberlain believed that the common people of England deserved a better share of the benefits of empire, and Gladstone tried unsuccessfully to extend Home Rule, a measure of self-government, to Ireland, arguably England's first colony. Strong anti-imperialist movements developed in the United States and England. And even among the most hardy of imperialists, like England's poet Rudyard Kipling, a feeling emerged that the imperial rulers owed their subjects overseas a better life and more opportunity and education than they had previously enjoyed. The French referred to the same responsibility as their mission civilisatrice, their civilizing mission.

However, by the turn of the 20th century, concern over the growing power of imperial Germany began to eclipse imperial issues in France, England, and the United States. Germany was already building an empire in Africa and the Pacific, as well as extending ties in the Middle East with the Ottoman Turkish Empire. The growing power of Germany brought together the three former imperial rivals, France, ...