Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | High Imperialism (Lecture 22)

Lecture 22: While a general war was avoided on the European continent in the later part of the 19th century, the European powers launched a scramble for empire from the 1870s that cruelly carved up entire continents, subjecting foreign populations to “gunboat diplomacy” and colonialist rule. By 1914, the European powers had divided up among themselves three-quarters of the world’s land. Colonial conferences sought to resolve conflicting claims at the expense of the subject populations. Expansion in central Asia, with Britain and Russia as rivals, was called “The Great Game.” This lecture examines the wave of High Imperialism from the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the “Scramble for Africa” to the perilous moment in 1898 when France and Britain were on the brink of a colonial war.

Essential Reading:
René Albrecht-Carrié, A Diplomatic History of Europe Since the Congress of Vienna, pp. 186–94.

Supplementary Reading:
H. L. Wesseling, The European Colonial Empires 1815–1919.