European Imperialism Essay

Imperialism, as defined by John Hobson, is “an external expression of a social malady”. What this means can be interpreted several different ways, but boils down to the overlaying idea that a country extends its power over other countries by “ruling”. This can be done through a plethora of ways, ranging from the use of military force to the use of diplomacy. In the late 1800’s, imperialism began to take on a larger role in the international market, resulting in a “Scramble for Africa”, where European countries tried to exert control over multiple African countries. What this did to the Concert of Europe was that it began to shift the balance of power within the Concert. The balance of power was originally shared equally within the nations in the Concert of Europe, but as imperialism began to play more of a role on the global scale, the power began to shift, which began to create a gap within the Concert of Europe. W.J. Mommsen points out how the conditions were altered to operate during “the era of free trade imperialism”, which included “a gradual crumbling of earlier forms of informal and semi-formal imperialist penetration, which made it necessary to establish far more direct an more effective forms of colonial control”, “the emergence of strong imperialist movements in various European countries, including Imperial Germany, which
This became a rather prevalent problem in Europe, which, as many would agree, was one of the major contributors to the Concert of Europe’s failure. Imperialism, an idea in which a country extends its power over other countries by “ruling” had become very popular in Europe, resulting in them to “scramble” to take control of African states, where the balance of power began to shift based on territory. This shift in the balance of power was due to imperialism was truly the beginning to the end for the Concert of