Imperialism i) Any adequate account of the reasons that pushed the Western European countries into two catastrophic

global wars during the course of the twentieth century backed up by other wars which remained contained (from the Boer War to the Gulf War) requires some understanding of the imperial motive. To this might be added the control of world trade in a manner satisfactory to the imperial and post-imperial powers as this involved opposition to communist influence. Here the central difficulty is found, however, in explaining quite what this imperial motive was. Certainly international trade required some sort of policing but this did not necessarily mean the full scale occupation and control of great stretches of the world. Indeed, it was perhaps the case that the effort and cost of "new imperialism" was actually detrimental to the domestic economies. ii) This, however, is simply to overlook the importance of long-term planning in European economies which had, by the end of the nineteenth century, undergone a technological revolution with in particular a change in the source of energy with the invention of the internal combustion motor. Transport and communications - the train system, navigation but more significantly the automobile, the military and the aircraft industy would all be fundamentally dependent on oil and petrol. Under these circustances and given the absence of oil in Western Europe itself, control of great stretches of land served not only as a means of controlling the supply of raw materials and exports in the global market but as a vital line of access to a raw material or prime importance. Oil and Petrol i) 41% of the World's oil reserves are found in the Middle East. The next major source of production, well behind the Middle East, is the United States. As the principle sources of energy have been modified over the course of the twentieth century, coal - of central importance in the period immediately after the First World War - gradually gave way to oil and today oil and nuclear power compete as the principle sources of energy in modern economies, coal falling well behind. The German engineer Nikolaus August [Index] Otto is generally credited with having built the first practical internal-combustion engine (1876), though several rudimentary devices had appeared earlier in the century. In 1885 Gottlieb [Index] Daimler, another German engineer, modified the four-cycle Otto engine so that it burned gasoline (instead of coal powder) and built the first successful high-speed internal-combustion engine. Within several decades the gasoline engine found wide application in motorcycles, automobiles, and small trucks (see Gasoline engines below). Another type of internal-combustion engine was introduced by Rudolf Diesel, also of Germany, in the early 1890s. Named for its inventor, the diesel engine was more efficient than engines of the Otto variety and was fueled by heavy oil, which is cheaper and less volatile than gasoline. As a result, it was adopted as the primary power plant for submarines, railway locomotives, and heavy machinery Extraction from underground reservoirs. Until the beginning of the 19th century, [Index] illumination in the United States and in many other countries was little improved over that known by the early Greeks and Romans. The need for better illumination that accompanied the increasing development of urban centres made it necessary to search for new sources of oil, especially since whales, which had long provided fuel for lamps, were becoming harder and harder to find. By the mid-19th century kerosene, or coal oil, derived from coal was in common use in both North America and Europe. The [Index] Industrial Revolution brought on an ever-growing demand for a cheaper and more convenient source of lubricants as well as illuminating oil. It also required better sources of energy. Energy had previously been provided by human and animal muscle and later by the combustion of such solid fuels as wood, peat, and coal. These were collected with considerable effort and laboriously transported to the site where the energy source was needed. Liquid petroleum, on the other hand, was a more easily transportable source of energy. Oil was a much more concentrated and flexible form of fuel than anything previously available. The stage was set for the first [Index] well specifically drilled for oil, a project undertaken by Edwin

L. [Index] Drake in northwestern Pennsylvania. The completion of the well in August 1859 established the groundwork for the petroleum industry and ushered in the closely associated modern industrial age. Within a short time inexpensive oil from underground reservoirs was being processed at already existing coal-oil refineries, and by the end of the century oil fields had been discovered in 14 states from New York to California and from Wyoming to Texas. During the same period, oil fields were found in Europe and East Asia as well. Significance of oil in modern times. At the beginning of the 20th century the Industrial Revolution had progressed to the extent that the use of refined oil for illuminants ceased to be of primary importance. The oil industry became the major supplier of energy largely because of the advent of the automobile. Although oil constitutes a major petrochemical feedstock, its primary importance is as an energy source on which the world economy depends. The significance of oil as a world energy source is difficult to overdramatize. The growth in energy production during the 20th century is unprecedented, and increasing oil production has been by far the major contributor to that growth. Every day an immense and intricate system moves more than 60,000,000 barrels of oil from producers to consumers. The production and consumption of oil is of vital importance to international relations and has frequently been a decisive factor in the determination of foreign policy. The position of a country in this system depends on its production capacity as related to its consumption. The possession of oil deposits is sometimes the determining factor between a rich and a poor country. For any country, however, the presence or absence of oil has a major economic consequence. On a time scale within the span of prospective human history, the utilization of oil as a major source of energy will be a transitory affair of about 100 years. Nonetheless, it will have been an affair of profound importance to world industrialization. andard Oil Company and Trust, After the Great War, known oil reserves outside the industrial powers themselves were concentrated in the British mandates of the Middle East, Persia, the Dutch East Indies, and Venezuela. The Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Anglo-Persian Oil Company dominated oil exploration and production in Asia, but increasingly they confronted revolutionary nationalism, Bolshevik agitation (in Persia), and U.S. opposition to imperialism. When the British and French agreed at San Remo (1920) to coordinate their oil policies in the Middle East, the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. State Department protested any exclusion of U.S. firms. What was more, the United States invoked the Mineral Lands Leasing Act of 1920 against the Dutch, denying them access to American reserves in retaliation for Shell's monopoly in the East Indies. In 1921, Hoover and Secretary of State Hughes encouraged seven private firms to form an American Group, led by Standard Oil of New Jersey, to seek a share of Mesopotamian oil reserves, while State Department expert Arthur Millspaugh outlined a plan for worldwide Anglo-American reciprocity. The British, fearing American retaliation and anxious to have help against native rebellions, granted the American Group a 20 percent share of the rich Mesopotamian fields. In 1922 a similar arrangement spawned the Perso-American Petroleum Company. In 1925 the Iranian nationalist [Index] Reza Khan, inspired in part by the Kemalist revolt in Turkey, seized power and had himself proclaimed Reza Shah Pahlavi, but he was unable to play the British and Americans off against each other. Oil politics and nationalism in the Middle East, therefore, presaged events of the post-1945 era. (Another anticipation occurred in Palestine, where the Balfour Declaration encouraged thousands of Jewish Zionists to immigrate, leading to bloody clashes with Palestinian Arabs in 1921 and 1929.) Reciprocity also triumphed in U.S.-Dutch oil diplomacy, and Standard Oil of New Jersey acquired a 28 percent share in the East Indies by 1939. Oil Companies In considering oil reserves a distinction might be made between land empires and sea empires. The Soviet Union and The United States had the advantage over those countries contained in the triangle from Paris to Frankfurt to Glasgow - (locus of the European industrial revolution) whose power had been based in steam and hence coal reserves during the first half of the nineteenth century - in that

they had domestic access to oil reserves. In Russia the Caspian Depression and the West Siberian plains might be mentioned, in the United States ... American [Index] company and corporate trust that from 1870 to 1911 was the industrial empire of John D. [Index] Rockefeller and associates, controlling almost all oil production, processing, marketing, and transportation in the United States. The company's origins date to 1863, when Rockefeller joined Maurice B. Clark and Samuel Andrews in a Cleveland refining business; in 1865 Rockefeller bought out Clark and two years later brought in Henry M. Flagler. By 1870 the firm of Rockfeller, Andrews, and Flagler was operating the largest refineries in Cleveland, and these and related facilities became the property of the new Standard Oil Company, incorporated in Ohio in 1870. By 1880, through elimination of competitors, mergers with other firms, and use of favourable railroad rebates, it controlled the refining of 90 to 95 percent of all oil produced in the United States. In 1882 the Standard Oil Company and affiliated companies that were engaged in producing, refining, and marketing oil were combined in the Standard Oil Trust, created by the Standard Oil Trust Agreement signed by nine trustees, including Rockefeller. By the agreement, companies could be purchased, created, dissolved, merged, or divided; and eventually the trustees governed some 40 corporations, of which 14 were wholly owned. The trust embraced a maze of legal structures, making its workings virtually impervious to public investigation and understanding. As Ida Tarbell wrote in her [Index] History of the Standard Oil Company (1904), "You could argue its existence from its effects, but you could not prove it." In 1892 the Ohio Supreme Court ordered the trust dissolved, but it effectively continued to operate from headquarters in New York City. In 1899 [Index] Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) was incorporated in New Jersey as a holding company, and all assets and interests formerly grouped in the trust were transferred to the New Jersey company. Although consolidation did advance large-scale production and distribution of oil products, many critics believed that the resulting concentration of economic power was becoming excessive. In 1906 the U.S. government brought suit against Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act; and in 1911 the New Jersey company was ordered to divest itself of its major holdings--33 companies in all. In 1911, after dissolution of the Standard Oil empire, eight companies retained "Standard Oil" in their names; by the late 20th century the name had almost passed into history. In 1931 [Index] Standard Oil Company of New York merged with Vacuum Oil Company (another trust company) to form Socony-Vacuum, which in 1966 became [Index] Mobil Oil Corporation. Standard Oil (Indiana) absorbed Standard Oil of Nebraska in 1939 and Standard Oil of Kansas in 1948 and was renamed [Index] Amoco Corporation in 1985. Standard Oil of California acquired Standard Oil of Kentucky in 1961 and was renamed Chevron Corporation in 1984. Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) changed its name to Exxon Corporation in 1972. British Petroleum Company PLC completed the purchase of Standard Oil Company (Ohio) in 1987. Other companies that once were part of the trust include Atlantic Richfield Company, Buckeye Pipe Line Company (Ohio), Chesebrough-Pond's Inc., Pennzoil Company, and Union Tank Car Company (New Jersey). Even the most short-sighted of government leaders, it might be suspected, could see the importance the internal combustion engine would have in the development of transport and communications; access to sources of oil wealth, it follows, became crucial. Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Dutch KONINKLIJKE NEDERLANDSCHE/SHELL GROEP, one of the world's largest corporate entities in sales, consisting of companies in more than 100 countries, whose shares are owned by NV Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij (Royal Dutch Petroleum Company Ltd.) of The Hague and by the "Shell" Transport and Trading Company, PLC, of

London. Below these two parent companies are two holding companies, Shell Petroleum NV and the Shell Petroleum Company Limited, whose shares are owned 60 percent by Royal Dutch and 40 percent by "Shell" Transport and Trading. The holding companies, in turn, hold shares in and administer the subsidiary service companies and operating companies around the world, which engage in oil, petrochemical, and associated industries, from research and exploration to production and marketing. Several companies also deal in metals, nuclear energy, solar energy, coal, and consumer products. The two parent companies began as rival organizations in the late 19th century. In 1878 in London, Marcus Samuel (1853-1927) took over his father's import-export business (which included the import of Oriental shells--hence the later name) and started a sideline of handling consignments of kerosene. In 1892 he began operating tankers sailing to the Far East and set up oil depots and eventually (1896) oil wells and refineries in Borneo. In 1897 he formed a separate company for his oil interests, the "Shell" Transport and Trading Company, Limited, and in the ensuing decade contracted for petroleum supplies in Sumatra, Texas, Russia, Romania, and elsewhere. (Samuel was knighted in 1898 and would become Viscount Bearsted in 1925.) Meanwhile, in 1890 a group of Dutch bankers, businessmen, and former colonial administrators formed Koninklijke Nederlandsche Maatschappij tot Exploitatie van Petroleumbronnen in Nederlandsch-Indi (Royal Dutch Company for Exploitation of Oil Wells in the Dutch Indies). This company developed its first pipeline and refinery in Sumatra in 1892, tapping the local oil fields; after 1896, under the leadership of Hendrik W.A. Deterding (1866-1939), it began the construction of tankers and storage facilities and the creation of a sales organization. In 1903 Royal Dutch and Shell made their first move toward merger by integrating their distributing and sales operations involving Far East sales and East Indies production. In 1907 the more complete merger resulted in the Royal Dutch/Shell Group headed by the two parent companies, with Deterding as general managing director of the Group. (In 1949 Royal Dutch shortened its corporate title to its current name; "Shell" Transport and Trading Company became a public limited company in 1981.) By 1913 the two companies together, combined with others, had risen to a prominent position among the world's oil companies, acquiring producing concerns in such areas as Romania, Russia, Iraq, Egypt, Venezuela, Mexico, California, and Oklahoma and enlarging sales operations in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, and North and South America. The Group's principal American subsidiary is Shell Oil Company, founded in 1922. British Petroleum Company PLC, The (BP), British [Index] petrochemical corporation registered on April 14, 1909, as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, Ltd. It was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Ltd., in 1935 and changed its name to the British Petroleum Company Limited in 1954. The current name was adopted in 1982. The company's headquarters are in London. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was formed in 1909 to take over and finance an oil-field concession granted in 1901 by the Iranian government to an English investor, William Knox D'Arcy. The first successful oil wells were drilled at Masjed Soleyman, and crude oil was piped to a refinery built at Abadan, from which the first cargo of oil was exported in March 1912. Other Iranian fields and refineries were built, and by 1938 Abadan had the largest single refinery in the world. The concession was revised in 1933, briefly suspended in 1951-53, and renewed in 1953 in a consortium with other oil companies. Effective Jan. 1, 1955, British Petroleum became a holding company, and its subsidiaries and associated companies (some 650 in all) today engage in the exploration, production, refining, transportation, and distribution of oil and natural gas and in the manufacture of chemicals, plastics, synthetic fibres, and animal-feed products. In 1914 the British government became the company's principal stockholder and over the years was usually the largest single stockholder. Beginning in 1977 the British government reduced its ownership of BP by selling shares to the public, and in the late 1980s the government turned over BP entirely to private ownership by selling its remaining

shares of the company. This cleared the way for BP to fully acquire Britoil PLC, an independent oil company that produced oil from the North Sea fields. Over the years BP developed oil fields and built refineries in several more countries. It now has major interests in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay and in the United Kingdom sector of the North Sea, where, in 1965, BP made the first commercial discovery of natural gas and, in 1970, the first discovery of a major oil field. Beginning in 1970, BP merged its assets in the United States with those of the Standard Oil Company (Ohio), in which BP acquired a controlling interest. In 1987 BP acquired the remainder of the Standard Oil Company for almost $8,000,000,000, thereby reinforcing its position as one of the largest oil companies in the world. Exxon Corporation, [Index] formerly (until 1972) STANDARD OIL COMPANY (NEW JERSEY), one of the world's largest corporations in terms of sales, with investments and operations in petroleum and natural gas, coal, nuclear fuels, chemicals, and such ores as copper, lead, and zinc. It also operates pipelines and one of the world's largest fleets of tankers and other ships. Exxon engages in every phase of the petroleum industry from oil fields to service stations. It is headquartered in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The company was founded in 1882 by the [Index] Standard Oil trust (see Standard Oil Company and Trust) and in 1899 became the holding company for all companies previously grouped in the trust. In 1911 the U.S. Supreme Court ordered it to divest itself of 33 of its American subsidiaries. Meanwhile, the New Jersey company had become a "multinational" corporation. In 1888 it organized Anglo-American Oil Co. (predecessor of Esso Petroleum Co.) to market oil in the British Isles and, two years later, acquired a major interest in the German firm that would become Esso AG. In 1898 it gained control of Imperial Oil Limited, Canada's leading oil company. A few of the many later acquisitions (complete or partial) included Humble Oil & Refining Co. (1919), Tropical Oil Co. of Colombia (1920), Standard Oil Co. of Venezuela (1921), Creole Petroleum Co. of Venezuela (1928), Turkish (now Iraq) Petroleum Co. (1928), and Arabian-American Oil Co. (now ARAMCO; 1948). In 1926 the New Jersey company introduced the trade-name Esso and applied it to many of its products and companies. Other Standard Oil companies, however, later contested the name in the courts and succeeded in barring its use in several states. Thus, in 1972, Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) became Exxon Corporation; and many subsidiaries and affiliates, such as Humble, also switched to the Exxon name. Many foreign affiliates, however, retained the Esso name. Exxon operates in more than 80 countries and manages or tends interests in about 70 refineries in North America, Latin America, Europe and Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, and the Pacific. New acquisitions. The annexations during this new phase of imperial growth differed significantly from the expansionism earlier in the 19th century. While the latter was substantial in magnitude, it was primarily devoted to the consolidation of claimed territory (by penetration of continental interiors and more effective rule over indigenous populations) and only secondarily to new acquisitions. On the other hand, the new imperialism was characterized by a burst of activity in carving up as yet independent areas: taking over almost all Africa, a good part of Asia, and many Pacific islands. This new vigour in the pursuit of colonies is reflected in the fact that the rate of new territorial acquisitions of the new imperialism was almost three times that of the earlier period. Thus, the increase in new territories claimed in the first 75 years of the 19th century averaged about 83,000 square miles (215,000 square kilometres) a year. As against this, the colonial powers added an average of about 240,000 square miles (620,000 square kilometres) a year between the late 1870s and World War I (1914-18). By the beginning of that war, the new territory claimed was for the most part fully conquered, and the main military resistance of the indigenous populations had been suppressed. Hence, in 1914, as a consequence of this new expansion and conquest on top of that of preceding centuries, the colonial

powers, their colonies, and their former colonies extended over approximately 85 percent of the Earth's surface. Economic and political control by leading powers reached almost the entire globe, for, in addition to colonial rule, other means of domination were exercised in the form of spheres of influence, special commercial treaties, and the subordination that lenders often impose on debtor nations. In August 1935 [Index] Italy [Index] attacked the empire of Ethiopia in Africa, announcing that it had apprised Britain and [Index] France at Stresa of its intentions of doing so. British public opinion was torn between a desire to avoid war and an unwillingness to sanction unprovoked aggression. The compromise was a retreat to the fiction of [Index] "collective security," which meant a dependence upon action by the League of Nations at Geneva. Had he been faced with oil sanctions, Mussolini said, he would have had to withdraw from Abyssinia within a week. But he was faced with no such problem, and on the night of May 9, 1936, he was able to announce to an enormous, expectant crowd of about 400,000 people standing shoulder to shoulder around Piazza Venezia, in Rome, that "in the 14th year of the Fascist era" a great event had been accomplished: Italy had its empire.

New colonial powers. This intensification of the drive for colonies reflected much more than a new wave of overseas activities by traditional colonial powers, including Russia. The new imperialism was distinguished particularly by the emergence of additional nations seeking slices of the colonial pie: Germany, the United States, Belgium, Italy, and, for the first time, an Asian power, Japan. Indeed, this very multiplication of colonial powers, occurring in a relatively short period, accelerated the tempo of colonial growth. Unoccupied space that could potentially be colonized was limited. Therefore, the more nations there were seeking additional colonies at about the same time, the greater was the premium on speed. Thus, the rivalry among the colonizing nations reached new heights, which in turn strengthened the motivation for preclusive occupation of territory and for attempts to control territory useful for the military defense of existing empires against rivals. The impact of the new upsurge of rivalry is well illustrated in the case of Great Britain. Relying on its economic preeminence in manufacturing, trade, and international finance as well as on its undisputed mastery of the seas during most of the 19th century, Great Britain could afford to relax in the search for new colonies, while concentrating on consolidation of the empire in hand and on building up an informal empire. But the challenge of new empire builders, backed up by increasing naval power, put a new priority on Britain's desire to extend its colonial empire. On the other hand, the more that potential colonial space shrank, the greater became the urge of lesser powers to remedy disparities in size of empires by redivision of the colonial world. The struggle over contested space and for redivision of empire generated an increase in wars among the colonial powers and an intensification of diplomatic manoeuvring. Rise of new industrialized nations. Parallel with the emergence of new powers seeking a place in the colonial sun and the increasing rivalry among existing colonial powers was the rise of industrialized nations able and willing to challenge Great Britain's lead in industry, finance, and world trade. In the mid-19th century Britain's economy outdistanced by far its potential rivals. But, by the last quarter of that century, Britain was confronted by restless competitors seeking a greater share of world trade and finance; the [Index] Industrial Revolution had gained a strong foothold in these nations, which were spurred on to increasing industrialization with the spread of railroad lines and the maturation of integrated national markets.

Moreover, the major technological innovations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries improved the competitive potential of the newer industrial nations. Great Britain's advantage as the progenitor of the first Industrial Revolution diminished substantially as the newer products and sources of energy of what has been called a second Industrial Revolution began to dominate industrial activity. The late starters, having digested the first Industrial Revolution, now had a more equal footing with Great Britain: they were all starting out more or less from the same base to exploit the second Industrial Revolution. This new industrialism, notably featuring mass-produced steel, electric power and oil as sources of energy, industrial chemistry, and the internal-combustion engine, spread over western Europe, the United States, and eventually Japan. A world economy. To operate efficiently, the new industries required heavy capital investment in large-scale units. Accordingly, they encouraged the development of capital markets and banking institutions that were large and flexible enough to finance the new enterprises. The larger capital markets and industrial enterprises, in turn, helped push forward the geographic scale of operations of the industrialized nations: more capital could now be mobilized for foreign loans and investment, and the bigger businesses had the resources for the worldwide search for and development of the raw materials essential to the success and security of their investments. Not only did the new industrialism generate a voracious appetite for raw materials, but food for the swelling urban populations was now also sought in the far corners of the world. Advances in ship construction (steamships using steel hulls, twin screws, and compound engines) made feasible the inexpensive movement of bulk raw materials and food over long ocean distances. Under the pressures and opportunities of the later decades of the 19th century, more and more of the world was drawn upon as primary producers for the industrialized nations. Self-contained economic regions dissolved into a world economy, involving an international division of labour whereby the leading industrial nations made and sold manufactured products and the rest of the world supplied them with raw materials and food. New militarism. The complex of social, political, and economic changes that accompanied the new industrialism and the vastly expanded and integrated world commerce also provided a setting for intensified commercial rivalry, the rebuilding of high tariff walls, and a revival of militarism. Of special importance militarily was the race in naval construction, which was propelled by the successful introduction and steady improvement of radically new warships that were steam driven, armour-plated, and equipped with weapons able to penetrate the new armour. Before the development of these new technologies, Britain's naval superiority was overwhelming and unchallengeable. But because Britain was now obliged in effect to build a completely new navy, other nations with adequate industrial capacities and the will to devote their resources to this purpose could challenge Britain's supremacy at sea. The new militarism and the intensification of colonial rivalry signalled the end of the relatively peaceful conditions of the mid-19th century. The conflict over the partition of Africa, the South African War (the Boer War), the Sino-Japanese War, the Spanish-American War, and the Russo-Japanese War were among the indications that the new imperialism had opened a new era that was anything but peaceful. The new imperialism also represented an intensification of tendencies that had originated in earlier periods. Thus, for example, the decision by the United States to go to war with Spain cannot be isolated from the long-standing interest of the United States in the Caribbean and the Pacific. The defeat of Spain and the suppression of the independence revolutions in Cuba and the Philippines gave substance to the Monroe Doctrine: the United States now became the dominant power in the Caribbean, and the door was opened for acquisition of greater influence in Latin America. Possession of the Philippines was consistent with the historic interest of the United States in the commerce of the Pacific, as it had already manifested by its long interest in Hawaii (annexed in 1898) and by an expedition by Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan (1853). Industry, technology, and trade.

Industrial [Index] trends magnified the demographic, for here again Germany was far and away the fastest growing economic power on the Continent. This was so not only in the basic industries of coal and iron and steel but also in the advanced fields of electricity, chemicals, and internal combustion. Germany's swift development strained the traditional balance of power in her own society and politics. By the end of the century Germany had become a highly urbanized, industrial society, complete with large, differentiated middle and factory proletariat classes, but it was still governed largely by pre-capitalist aristocrats increasingly threatened by demands for political reform. Industrialization [Index] also made possible the outfitting and supply of mass armies drawn from the growing populations. After 1815 the monarchies of Europe had shied away from arming the masses in the French revolutionary fashion, and the events of 1848 further justified their fear of an armed citizenry. But in the reserve system Prussia found a means of making possible a rapid mobilization of the citizenry without the risk to the regime or the elite officer corps posed by a large standing, and idle, army. (In Austria-Hungary the crown avoided disloyalty in the army by stationing soldiers of one ethnic group on the soil of another.) After Prussia's stunning victory over France in 1871, all the Great Powers came sooner or later to adopt the German model of a mass army, supplied by a national network of railways and arms industries coordinated in turn by a general staff. The industrialization of war meant that planning and bureaucracy, technology and finance were taking the place of bold generalship and esprit in the soldier's craft. The final contribution to the revolution in warfare was planned research and development of weapons systems. Begun hesitantly in the French Navy in the 1850s and 1860s, command technology--the collaboration of state and industry in the invention of new armaments--was widely practiced by the turn of the century, adding to the insecurity that inevitably propelled the arms races. The demographic, technical, and managerial revolutions of the 19th century, in sum, made possible the mobilization of entire populations and economies for the waging of war. The home of the Industrial Revolution was Great Britain, whose priority in the techniques of the factory system and of steam power was the foundation for a period of calm confidence known (with some exaggeration) as the Pax Britannica. The pound sterling became the preferred reserve currency of the world and the Bank of England the hub of international finance. British textiles, machinery, and shipping dominated the markets of Asia, South America, and much of Europe. The British Isles (again with some hyperbole) were "the workshop of the world" and in consequence from 1846 led the world in promoting free trade. British diplomacy, proudly eschewing alliances in favour of "splendid isolation," sought to preserve a balance of power on the Continent and to protect the routes to India from Russian encroachment in the Middle East or Afghanistan. The Pax Britannica could last only as long as Britain's industrial hegemony. But that hegemony very naturally impelled other nations somehow to catch up, in the short term by imposing protective tariffs to shield domestic industries and in the longer term by granting government subsidies (for railroads and other national development work) and the gradual replication of British techniques. First Belgium, France, and New England, then Germany and other states after 1850 began to challenge Britain's industrial dominance. France (1860), Prussia (1862), and other countries then reversed earlier policies and followed the British into free trade. But in 1873 a financial panic, attributed by some to overextension in Germany after receipt of France's billion-franc indemnity, ended the period of rapid growth. In the depression of 1873-96 (actually years of slower, uneven growth) industrial and labour leaders formed cartels, unions, and lobbies to agitate for tariffs and other forms of state intervention to stabilize the economy. Bismarck resisted until European agriculture also suffered from falling prices and lost markets after 1876 owing to the arrival in European ports of North American cereals. In 1879 the so-called alliance of rye and steel voted a German tariff on foreign manufactured goods and foodstuffs. Free trade gave way to an era of neo-mercantilism. France, Austria, Italy, and Russia followed the new (or revived) trend toward tariff protection. After 1896 the volume of world trade rose sharply again, but the sense of heightened economic competition persisted in Europe. Social rifts also hardened during the period. Challenged by unrest and demands for reforms, Bismarck sponsored the first state social insurance plans, but he also used an attempt on the Kaiser's life in 1878 as a pretext to outlaw the Social Democratic Party. Conservative circles, farmers as well

as the wealthier classes, came gradually to distrust the loyalty of the urban working class, but industrialists shared few other interests with farmers. Other countries faced similar divisions between town and country, but urbanization was not advanced enough in Russia or France for socialism to acquire a mass following, while in Britain agriculture had long since lost out to the commercial and industrial classes, and the working class participated fully in democratic politics. The social divisions attending industrialization were especially acute in Germany because of the rapidity of her development and the survival of powerful pre-capitalist elites. Moreover, the German working class, while increasingly unionized, had few legal means of affecting state policy. All this made for a series of deadlocks in German politics that would increasingly affect foreign policy after Bismarck's departure. The New Imperialism. The [Index] [Index] 1870s and 1880s, therefore, witnessed a retreat from the free market and a return to state intervention in economic affairs. The foreign counterpart to this phenomenon was the New Imperialism. The Great Powers of Europe suddenly shook off almost a century of apathy toward overseas colonies and, in the space of 20 years, partitioned almost the entire uncolonized portion of the globe. Theories postulating Europe's need to export surplus capital do not fit the facts. Only Britain and France were capital-exporting countries in 1880, and in years to come their investors preferred to export capital to other European countries (especially Russia) or the Western Hemisphere rather than to their own colonies. The British remained free-trade throughout the era of the New Imperialism, a booming home economy absorbed most German capital, and Italy and Russia were large net importers of capital. Once the scramble for colonies was complete, pressure groups did form in the various countries to argue the economic promise of imperialism, but just as often governments had to foster colonial development. In most cases, trade did not lead but followed the flag. Why, then, was the flag planted in the first place? Sometimes it was to protect economic interests, as when the British occupied Egypt in 1882, but more often it was for strategic reasons or in pursuit of national prestige. One necessary condition for the New Imperialism, often overlooked, is technological. Prior to the 1870s Europeans could overawe native peoples along the coasts of Africa and Asia but lacked the firepower, mobility, and communications that would have been needed to pacify the interior. (India was the exception, where the British East India Company exploited an anarchic situation and allied itself with selected native rulers against others.) The tsetse fly and the Anopheles mosquito--bearers of sleeping sickness and malaria--were the ultimate defenders of African and Asian jungles. The correlation of forces between Europe and the colonizable world shifted, however, with the invention of shallow-draft riverboats, the steamship and telegraph, the repeater rifle and Maxim gun, and the discovery (in India) that quinine is an effective prophylactic against malaria. By 1880 small groups of European regulars, armed with modern weapons and exercising fire discipline, could overwhelm many times their number of native troops. The scramble for Africa should be dated, not from 1882, when the British occupied [Index] Egypt, but from the opening of the [Index] Suez Canal in 1869. The strategic importance of that waterway cannot be overstated. It was the gateway to India and East Asia and hence a vital interest nonpareil for the British Empire. When the Khedive of Egypt defaulted on loans owed to France and Britain, and a nationalist uprising ensued--the first such Arab rebellion against the Western presence--the French backed away from military occupation, although with Bismarck's encouragement and moral support they occupied Tunis in 1881, expanding their North African presence from Algeria. Prime Minister William Ewart [Index] Gladstone, otherwise an adamant anticolonialist, then established a British protectorate in Egypt. When the French reacted bitterly, [Index] Bismarck further encouraged French colonial expansion in hopes of distracting them from Europe, and he then took his own country into the fray by claiming four large segments of Africa for Germany in 1884. In that year the King of the Belgians cast his eye on the entire Congo Basin. The [Index] Berlin West Africa Conference of 1884-85 was called to settle a variety of disputes involved in European colonial occupation, and over the next 10 years all the Great Powers of Europe save Austria and Russia staked out colonies and protectorates on the African continent. But whatever the ambitions and rivalries of military adventurers, explorers, and private empire-builders on the scene, the cabinets of

Europe came to agreements on colonial boundaries with surprising neighbourliness. Colonial wars did ensue after 1894, but never between two European colonial powers. Causes It has been suggested that imperial rivalries were a long-range cause of World War I. It has also been said that they were a safety valve, drawing off European energies that might otherwise have erupted in war much sooner. But the links between imperialism and the war are more subtle. The heyday of the New Imperialism, especially after 1894, created a tacit understanding in the European elites and the broad literate classes that the days of the old European balance of power were over, that a new world order was dawning, and that any nation left behind in the pursuit of world power would sink into obscurity. This intuition must surely have fed a growing sense of desperation among Germans, and one of paranoia among Britons, about trends in global politics. A second point, subtler still, is that the New Imperialism, while it did not directly provoke World War I, did occasion a transformation of alliances that proved dangerous beyond reckoning once the Great Powers turned their attention back to Europe. Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859, and within a decade popularizers had applied--or misapplied--his theories of natural selection and survival of the fittest to contemporary politics and economics. This pseudoscientific [Index] social Darwinism appealed to educated Europeans already demoralized by a century of higher criticism of religious scripture and conscious of the competitiveness of their own daily lives in that age of freewheeling industrial capitalism. By the 1870s books appeared explaining the outcome of the Franco-German War, for instance, with reference to the "vitality" of the Germanic peoples by comparison to the "exhausted" Latins. Pan-Slavic literature extolled the youthful vigour of that race, of whom Russia was seen as the natural leader. A belief in the natural affinity and superiority of Nordic peoples sustained Joseph Chamberlain's conviction that an Anglo-American-German alliance should govern the world in the 20th century. Vulgar anthropology explained the relative merits of human races on the basis of physiognomy and brain size, a "scientific" approach to world politics occasioned by the increasing contact of Europeans with Asians and Africans. [Index] Racialist rhetoric became common currency, as when the Kaiser referred to Asia's growing population as "the yellow peril" and spoke of the next war as a "death struggle between the Teutons and Slavs." Poets and philosophers idealized combat as the process by which nature weeds out the weak and improves the human race. Hobson, Lenin, etc. The new imperialism marked the end of vacillation over the choice of imperialist military and political policies; similar decisions to push imperialist programs to the forefront were made by the leading industrial nations over a relatively short period. This historical conjuncture requires explanation and still remains the subject of debate among historians and social scientists. The pivot of the controversy is the degree to which the new imperialism was the product of primarily economic forces and in particular whether it was a necessary attribute of the [Index] capitalist system. Serious analysts on both sides of the argument recognize that there is a multitude of factors involved: the main protagonists of economic imperialism recognize that political, military, and ideological influences were also at work; similarly, many who dispute the economic imperialism thesis acknowledge that economic interests played a significant role. The problem, however, is one of assigning priority to causes. Economic imperialism. The father of the economic interpretation of the new imperialism was the British liberal economist John Atkinson [Index] Hobson. In his seminal study, Imperialism, a Study (first published in 1902), he pointed to the role of such drives as patriotism, philanthropy, and the spirit of adventure in advancing the imperialist cause. As he saw it, however, the critical question was why the energy of these active agents takes the particular form of imperialist expansion. Hobson located the answer in the financial interests of the capitalist class as "the governor of the imperial engine." Imperialist policy had to be considered irrational if viewed from the vantage point of the nation as a whole: the economic benefits derived were far less than the costs of wars and armaments; and needed social

reforms were shunted aside in the excitement of imperial adventure. But it was rational, indeed, in the eyes of the minority of financial interest groups. The reason for this, in Hobson's view, was the persistent congestion of capital in manufacturing. The pressure of capital needing investment outlets arose in part from a maldistribution of income: low mass consuming power blocks the absorption of goods and capital inside the country. Moreover, the practices of the larger firms, especially those operating in trusts and combines, foster restrictions on output, thus avoiding the risks and waste of overproduction. Because of this, the large firms are faced with limited opportunities to invest in expanding domestic production. The result of both the maldistribution of income and monopolistic behaviour is a need to open up new markets and new investment opportunities in foreign countries. Hobson's study covered a broader spectrum than the analysis of what he called its economic taproot. It also examined the associated features of the new imperialism, such as political changes, racial attitudes, and nationalism. The book as a whole made a strong impression on, and greatly influenced, [Index] Marxist thinkers who were becoming more involved with the struggle against imperialism. The most influential of the Marxist studies was a small book published by [Index] Lenin in 1917, [Index] Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Despite many similarities, at bottom there is a wide gulf between Hobson's and Lenin's frameworks of analysis and also between their respective conclusions. While Hobson saw the new imperialism serving the interests of certain capitalist groups, he believed that imperialism could be eliminated by social reforms while maintaining the capitalist system. This would require restricting the profits of those classes whose interests were closely tied to imperialism and attaining a more equitable distribution of income so that consumers would be able to buy up a nation's production. Lenin, on the other hand, saw imperialism as being so closely integrated with the structure and normal functioning of an advanced capitalism that he believed that only the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, with the substitution of Socialism, would rid the world of imperialism. Lenin placed the issues of imperialism in a context broader than the interests of a special sector of the capitalist class. According to Lenin, capitalism itself changed in the late 19th century; moreover, because this happened at pretty much the same time in several leading capitalist nations, it explains why the new phase of capitalist development came when it did. This new phase, Lenin believed, involves political and social as well as economic changes; but its economic essence is the replacement of competitive capitalism by [Index] monopoly capitalism, a more advanced stage in which finance capital, an alliance between large industrial and banking firms, dominates the economic and political life of society. Competition continues, but among a relatively small number of giants who are able to control large sectors of the national and international economy. It is this monopoly capitalism and the resulting rivalry generated among monopoly capitalist nations that foster imperialism; in turn, the processes of imperialism stimulate the further development of monopoly capital and its influence over the whole society. The difference between Lenin's more complex paradigm and Hobson's shows up clearly in the treatment of capital export. Like Hobson, Lenin maintained that the increasing importance of capital exports is a key figure of imperialism, but he attributed the phenomenon to much more than pressure from an overabundance of capital. He also saw the acceleration of capital migration arising from the desire to obtain exclusive control over raw material sources and to get a tighter grip on foreign markets. He thus shifted the emphasis from the general problem of surplus capital, inherent in capitalism in all its stages, to the imperatives of control over raw materials and markets in the monopoly stage. With this perspective, Lenin also broadened the concept of imperialism. Because the thrust is to divide the world among monopoly interest groups, the ensuing rivalry extends to a struggle over markets in the leading capitalist nations as well as in the less advanced capitalist and colonial countries. This rivalry is intensified because of the uneven development of different capitalist nations: the latecomers aggressively seek a share of the markets and colonies controlled by those who got there first, who naturally resist such a redivision. Other forces--political, military, and ideological--are at play in shaping the contours of imperialist policy, but Lenin insisted that these influences germinate in the seedbed of monopoly capitalism. Noneconomic imperialism. Perhaps the most systematic alternative theory of imperialism was proposed by Joseph Alois [Index] Schumpeter, one of the best known economists of the first half of the 20th century. His essay "Zur

Soziologie des Imperialismus" ("The Sociology of Imperialism") was first published in Germany in the form of two articles in 1919. Although Schumpeter was probably not familiar with Lenin's Imperialism at the time he wrote his essay, his arguments were directed against the Marxist currents of thought of the early 20th century and in particular against the idea that imperialism grows naturally out of capitalism. Unlike other critics, however, Schumpeter accepted some of the components of the Marxist thesis, and to a certain extent he followed the Marxist tradition of looking for the influence of class forces and class interests as major levers of social change. In doing so, he in effect used the weapons of Marxist thought to rebut the essence of Marxist theory. A survey of empires, beginning with the earliest days of written history, led Schumpeter to conclude that there are three generic characteristics of imperialism: (1) At root is a persistent tendency to war and conquest, often producing nonrational expansions that have no sound utilitarian aim. (2) These urges are not innate in man. They evolved from critical experiences when peoples and classes were molded into warriors to avoid extinction; the warrior mentality and the interests of warrior classes live on, however, and influence events even after the vital need for wars and conquests disappears. (3) The drift to war and conquest is sustained and conditioned by the domestic interests of ruling classes, often under the leadership of those individuals who have most to gain economically and socially from war. But for these factors, Schumpeter believed, imperialism would have been swept away into the dustbin of history as capitalist society ripened; for capitalism in its purest form is antithetical to imperialism: it thrives best with peace and free trade. Yet despite the innate peaceful nature of capitalism, interest groups do emerge that benefit from aggressive foreign conquests. Under monopoly capitalism the fusion of big banks and cartels creates a powerful and influential social group that pressures for exclusive control in colonies and protectorates, for the sake of higher profits. Notwithstanding the resemblance between Schumpeter's discussion of monopoly and that of Lenin and other Marxists, a crucial difference does remain. Monopoly capitalism in Lenin's frame of reference is a natural outgrowth of the previous stage of competitive capitalism. But according to Schumpeter, it is an artificial graft on the more natural competitive capitalism, made possible by the catalytic effect of the residue from the preceding feudal society. Schumpeter argued that monopoly capitalism can only grow and prosper under the protection of high tariff walls; without that shield there would be large-scale industry but no cartels or other monopolistic arrangements. Because tariff walls are erected by political decisions, it is the [Index] state and not a natural economic process that promotes monopoly. Therefore, it is in the nature of the state--and especially those features that blend the heritage of the previous autocratic state, the old war machine, and feudal interests and ideas along with capitalist interests--that the cause of imperialism will be discovered. The particular form of imperialism in modern times is affected by capitalism, and capitalism itself is modified by the imperialist experience. In Schumpeter's analysis, however, imperialism is not an inevitable product of capitalism. Quest for a general theory of imperialism. The main trend of academic thought in the Western world is to follow Schumpeter's conclusion--that modern imperialism is not a product of capitalism--without paying close attention to Schumpeter's sophisticated sociological analysis. Specialized studies have produced a variety of interpretations of the origin or reawakening of the new imperialism: for France, bolstering of national prestige after its defeat in the Franco-German War (1870-71); for Germany, Bismarck's design to stay in power when threatened by political rivals; for England, the desire for greater military security in the Mediterranean and India. These reasons--along with other frequently mentioned contributing causes, such as the spirit of national and racial superiority and the drive for power--are still matters of controversy with respect to specific cases and to the problem of fitting them into a general theory of imperialism. For example, if it is found that a new colony was acquired for better military defense of existing colonies, the questions still remain as to why the existing colonies were acquired in the first place and why it was considered necessary to defend them rather than to give them up. Similarly, explanations in terms of the search for power still have to account for the close relationship between power and wealth, because in the real world adequate economic resources are needed for a nation to hold on to its power, let alone to increase it. Conversely, increasing a nation's wealth often requires power. As is characteristic of historical phenomena, imperialist expansion is conditioned by a nation's previous history and the particular situation preceding each expansionist move. Moreover,

it is carried forth in the midst of a complex of political, military, economic, and psychological impulses. It would seem, therefore, that the attempt to arrive at a theory that explains each and every imperialist action--ranging from a semifeudal Russia to a relatively undeveloped Italy to an industrially powerful Germany--is a vain pursuit. But this does not eliminate the more important challenge of constructing a theory that will provide a meaningful interpretation of the almost simultaneous eruption of the new imperialism in a whole group of leading powers. Axis Powers. In the 1930s an aggressive new colonialism devoloped on the part of the [Index] Axis Powers, which developed a new colonial doctrine ("living space" in German geopolitics, the "empire" in Italian Fascist ideology, the "co-prosperity sphere" in Japan) aiming at the repartition of the world's colonial areas, justified by the supposed racial superiority, higher birth rates, and greater productivity that the Axis Powers enjoyed as against the "decadent" West. To this the Japanese added a slogan of their own, "Asia for the Asians." In fact, the three powers aimed at carving out for themselves vast, self-sufficient empires. Though intent on a new colonialism of their own, they had to use anticolonialism as a political instrument before and during World War II; in doing so, they helped in the process of world decolonization. Fascist Italy's first colonial war was a long, bloody campaign in Cyrenaica that lasted until the early 1930s, when Italy began developing Libya as a place of settlement for Italian peasants. Then a dispute over the border between Italian Somaliland and Ethiopia (1934) gave the Italian dictator, Benito [Index] Mussolini, the opportunity to move against the African power that had routed Italian armies at Adowa. In October 1935 Italian troops from Eritrea moved into the Tigre province of northern Ethiopia, although war was never declared. Ethiopia, underequipped and feudal, could not long hold out in open combat, especially against Italian air attacks. In May 1936 Italian motorized columns reached Addis Ababa, and the Emperor went into exile. Mussolini proclaimed the Italian "empire" in East Africa. In reality, however, Ethiopian feudal chiefs continued violent resistance, even in the environs of the capital, while the Italians massacred hundreds of nobles, clergy, and commoners in an effort to repress Ethiopia by terror. In this their success was limited. The Italians built roads and kept control over all principal communication lines, but they never subdued the mountainous hinterland. The [Index] Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, Japan's new order, amounted to a self-contained empire from Manchuria to the Dutch East Indies, including China, Indochina, Thailand, and Malaya as satellite states. Japan intended to exclude both European imperialism and Communist influence from the entire Far East, while ensuring Japanese political and industrial hegemony. WORLD WAR II (1939-45) Although the Axis Powers failed in their global strategy, they crippled European colonial rule in Asia. Asia. [Index] Japan conquered its Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere and arrived at the gates of India, displacing British, Dutch, and French colonial rulers as well as the Americans in Guam and the Philippines. The Japanese had to allow some margin of freedom to their satellite regimes in Burma and [Index] Indonesia in both of which preexisting local parties proved capable of creating sovereign states after the war. On August 17, 1945, Sukarno declared Indonesia independent. Indonesia had had a long history of Muslim, nationalist, and Communist agitation against the Dutch; with captured Japanese arms, Indonesia could resist reimposition of Dutch authority. In India the Congress Party, though totally unsympathetic to the Axis, tried to take advantage of Britain's wartime extremity in order to secure immediate independence. The Muslim League supported the British administration during the war but demanded a sovereign Muslim homeland (Pakistan) as a postwar objective. By 1945 direct British rule in India was coming to an end, but the contest between Britain, the Congress Party, and the Muslim League clouded any final settlement.

Middle East. In the Middle East, Britain returned to forms of direct colonial control as Axis forces drew near, and in June-July 1941 it occupied Syria and Lebanon, under the guise of Free French administration. With Beirut and Damascus secured, the British supported Syrian and Lebanese independence from France; the two states were incorporated into the sterling area. Only U.S. and Soviet support guaranteed the independence of the two republics (1944) and their subsequent admission to the United Nations. In Egypt, when Axis forces in 1941 and 1942 came within striking distance of Alexandria, both the king, Farouk, and groups of dissident army officers were ready to welcome them and turn against the British. In February 1942 the British minister forced the King to appoint a government willing to cooperate with the Anglo-Americans; the defeat of the Germans in the Egyptian desert later that year put Egypt firmly in the Allied camp. Nevertheless much anti-British and anticolonial bitterness remained in Egypt, with postwar consequences. At the outset of World War II [Index] Iran was pro-German, and in August 1941 the Soviet Union and Britain jointly occupied the country, which then became the main supply line connecting the Soviet Union with the Western Allies. In 1942, in a three-power treaty, both Britain and the Soviet Union promised to leave Iran six months after the end of the war. Notwithstanding such commitments, the Soviet Union began to build spheres of influence in northern Iran; in 1944 the Soviet Union brought pressure to bear on Iran for an oil concession. During the final years of World War II the United States became vitally interested in the Middle East because of United States petroleum ventures in Saudi Arabia and because of strategic considerations. By the end of the war it was clear to both the Soviet Union and Britain that the United States, as a world power, would support no imposition of direct colonial controls in the postwar Middle East. Africa. During World War II [Index] Italy lost its entire colonial domain. Ethiopia was restored as an independent empire, and the other colonies eventually came under UN jurisdiction, in the first step toward decolonization in the African continent.