Imperial Expansion

Brant Johnson

History 305 Section 8

Globalization by Imperial Expansion The central features of European imperialism; monopolistic Capitalism, the Civilizing Mission, and competition amongst Imperial powers all lead to a shrinking community and globalization of the world’s population. These features helped to create complex trade routes connecting communities around the globe while also introducing interaction between indigenous populations with European colonists. However these relations were not always equally beneficial. Creating linkages between peoples for interaction is the key that each of these features have in common and is the main factor in helping to spread culture and ideals to bring about a globalized world population. Monopolistic

This entailed creating colonies and settlements around the globe where influence of Imperial culture could be used to help bring smaller nations to a greater level of development. One example of this would be the Spanish influence in central America. After conquering many of the indigenous peoples the Spanish influence in the region bloomed. This created a merging of cultures for not only the natives who had been living there, but also interbreeding between them and the Spanish colonists created distinct identities for all involved. In this case we can visualize that as Imperial power spread by cause of the Civilizing mission, so too did influence and culture, effectively shrinking the globe. After the first World War the civilizing mission aided globalization through the Mandate system. This system allowed Imperial powers the ability to influence less civilized nations based on the idea that they needed help to become more modernized. In the Peace Treaty of which the Mandate system is outlined, Article 22 stated that the Imperial powers should have varying levels of influence based on how developed a country already was, which happened to be more about how much like the British the nation was. Of course these new spheres of influence shrunk the world again as nations such as Britain, France, Japan, Belgium, Australia and New Zealand gained new access into the Mandated nations. Previously these mandates had been under rule of the various defeated nations in World War I. Now in each of these mandates new trade agreements were made, new mixings of multitudes of cultures began and the world once again became