// October 28th, 2012 // No Comments » // Free essays
Imperialism played the determinant role in the rise of Europe as the world dominating power. European imperialist states took control over a larger part of the world and played the leading role in international politics and economic relations. Moreover, it is due to imperialism, the western civilization have eventually become the mainstream civilization which defined the development of the entire world. At the same time, the outcomes of the imperialist policies conducted by European states led to the tragic result, which affected the entire world. Since the beginning of the imperialism, this policy was accompanied by cruel and bloodthirsty conflicts and invasions but the overall outcomes put under a threat the life of all people in the world since, eventually, the imperialism involved countries in World War I, which was followed by World War II that actually put the end to traditional imperialistic policies of European states. In such a way, the European imperialism, in its classical form lasted from the epoch of the Great Geographic Discoveries to the outbreak of World War II, which actually was the logical consequence of imperialist policies. However, it is impossible to estimate that imperialist policies persisted in a way even in the post-World War II era, but the new imperialism was characterized by the shift form territorial expansion and political domination toward economic imperialism.
At the same time, the beginning of the era of imperialism dates back to the epoch of the Great Geographic Discoveries and especially the discovery of America in 1492, which became a starting point in the rise of European civilization as the dominant power in the world. In order to understand the significance of the imperialism for Europe, it is necessary to briefly dwell upon the position of European states prior to 1492. In this respect, it should be said that Europe was a relatively isolated region because European states did not have direct access to Asia, while the development of socioeconomic and political relations with Africa was less attractive for European states because of backwardness of Africa and the lack of economic interests, while Asia was extremely important for Europeans because historically the trade with Asia was important for Europe. It was Asia that supplied a lion share of exotic products, including species, jewelry, and other products, which were rare in Europe. However, European could not develop their economic relations with Asian countries directly because the Ottoman Empire took control over the trade between the East and West. As a result, it was the Ottoman Empire that benefited from this trade, while European states were unable to accelerate their trade with Asian countries and, thus, they state in a sort of isolation.
In such a situation, the discovery of America as well as other geographic discoveries made in the 15th-16th centuries by Europeans contributed to the emergence of international trade of European states and enlarge their sphere of impact as well as territories consistently. At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that the geographic discoveries made by Europeans were caused by the isolation of Europe and the desire of European states to find new trade routes as well as to invade new territories in order to accelerate their economic development. In fact, the epoch of European colonization of America that followed the discovery of the New World was, at first, entirely focused on the search of gold because it was the main goal of European colonization of the continent. Gold was strategically important because it enriched European countries, but gold was relatively scarce in America that encouraged expansionist policies of European states. As a result, they have invaded North and South America and colonized the local population, which was either eliminated physically or became subordinated to Europeans. (more…)
