...mmmm...British International School of Ljubljana: Richard Major : History year 13: 2012

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I. Class schedule

Mondays, periods III and IV, ZK101
Tuesdays, periods I and II, ZK206, 209
Fridays, periods VII and VIII, ZK101

II. Textbook

Robert Gildea, Barricades and Borders (3rd ed., 2003), pp. 337-354.

Not Gildea's best chapter.
.............But he does make some important points, if not as clearly as I am about to make them.
(a) The political and emotional energy for imperialism was mainly produced by issues within Europe: German resentment of the Royal Navy, French shame after the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, Italian desire to assert nationhood, and so forth.
(b) There was a big difference between
......- the economic colonialism of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
......- the competitive rush of annexations touched off in the early 1880s, especially when France took Tunisia, and
......- the almost mystical atmosphere of 1898, when colonial expansion seemed a religious duty,
......and even America joined the imperial powers (by purloining what was left of the Spanish empire).
.............Note carefully what Gildea says on pp. 351-2, and read thoughtfully Rudyard Kipling's famous poem about America's new role.

III. Past A-level questions

May/June 2011:
Assess the problems that ‘New Imperialism’ caused for European countries by the end of the nineteenth century.

November 2010:
Analyse the reasons why the possession of overseas empires was important to major European governments from c.1870 to 1900. (You should refer to developments in at least two of Britain, France and Germany in your answer.)

May/June 2010:
Assess the results of ‘New Imperialism’ for Europe in the late nineteenth century.

November 2010:
Assess the problems that faced European countries in establishing colonies in either (a) Africa or (b) Asia in the later nineteenth century.

IV. Niall Ferguson's Empire (2003)

Five parts: I, II, III, IV, V.
Part IV, on India, is worth watching very carefully.

V. Some maps

Colonial empires in 1914;
East Africa;
a German map (note the resentment!);
a French map (note the exaggerations!)
This one moves.

VI. Some resources

Articles on the New Imperialism,
the Berlin Conference,
the Scramble for Africa, and
the Fashoda Incident (note the yukiness of the place, then and now);
a compendium site;
a lecture on French imperialism, and
a documentary on the Spanish-American War,
a very naive documentary on the Scramble for Africa.

VII. Films

Clips from:
Young Winston (1972), showing a punitive expedition (what is that?) on the Northwest Frontier (where is that?) in 1897;
55 Days at Peking (1963), about the Boxer Rebellion of 1900;
Zulu (1964), about the Zulu War of 1878, and
a recent American documentary about the British catastrophe at Isandlwana;
a CGI of the battle of Omdurman, 1898.