3 Euro

Question: Compare and contrast the motives for European overseas expansion during the Age of Discovery (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) and during the Age of New Imperialism (nineteenth and early twentieth centuries).
Thesis: Although both of the eras of overseas expansion were fueled by economic interests, during the Age of New Imperialism there was also the added incentive of showing the world that your country was powerful by spreading throughout the world and establishing colonies.
Age of Discovery:
-some colonizing based off of an idea of finite resources. Limited resources meant that one country’s wealth came at the expense of another country’s wealth
-most colonizing was in the Americas because they wanted the resources
  Age of New Imperialism:
-saw a drastic increase in colonizing by seeing the advantages of free trade between nations, meant that they were now interested in expanding trade between countries and colonies by now knowing that you won’t be losing wealth by trading outside the empire
-colonized new areas (China, India, Africa) not necessarily for resources, but because they saw that economic growth could be better gotten from trading goods
            -Britain being very aggressive in pushing for free trade. Relatively small country producing more goods than they could consume, needed places to sell these, primary market for these goods was America
-colonizing new areas was a sign of having power.
-Belgium colonizing the Congo to show that they want to be powerful, but couldn’t expand in Europe.
-Germany reluctantly taking land in Africa in order to show that they had power. DID NOT want to colonize be cause they wanted to preserve their newly formed country AT ALL COSTS.

Question: How and in what ways were economic and political factors responsible for intensifying European imperialist activity in Africa from the mid-nineteenth century to the beginning of the First World War?
Thesis: The increasing interest in...