Industrial Imperialism
Industrialization spread unevenly. Some states had the technology, coal, iron, labor, wealth, and political power to invest and protect trade. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, industrial powers used imperialism to gain markets, raw materials, and strategic territory. New tools like steamboats, railroads, telegraphs, medicine, and the machine gun helped them take control. In the twentieth century, colonized peoples also learned these methods and weapons. The world grew more connected, but power and benefits stayed deeply unequal.
- Industrialization spread unevenly because some countries had technology, resources, labor, wealth, and states that supported trade and investment.
- Industrialized powers pursued imperialism to gain markets, secure raw materials, and increase profits through colonial control.
- Industrial powers gained control through new technologies that improved transport, communication, medicine, and military force.
- Colonized peoples eventually challenged imperial rule by adopting industrial methods, modern weapons, and new forms of organization.
- Industrialization connected the world through global networks, but those connections distributed benefits and power unequally.
Driving Question: How did industrialization change empires?
Empire wasn’t new, but after industrialization, it was different. Industry turned conquest into a system backed by weapons, ideas, and global ambition.
Learning Objectives:
- Use causal thinking to understand how industrialization enabled imperial powers to expand their empires.
- Use the historical thinking process of contextualization to analyze the conditions that led to the Opium Wars.
- Utilize image-analysis skills to consider different theories and perspectives about the age of “new” imperialism.
Vocab Terms:
Start connecting industrial advances to imperialism by looking at how new technologies and economic systems gave empires more reach, control, and ambition.
Instructions for the Gentlemen of the Jungle activity can be found in the Lesson Guide. Be sure to read these directions ahead of time to better prepare for full-class discussion.
These materials introduce the “new” imperialism of the nineteenth century. You’ll examine how industrial power changed imperial strategies, and how people critiqued and resisted imperial rule.
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Guiding Questions
Use audio: Allow students to listen to the article for the first and/or second read. Have students follow along with the text while listening. Have them use a pencil or pen to help track the speaker. Have them pause at ideas or words they aren’t sure of. They can rewind and relisten as necessary. Note that there are audio versions of only the highest reading level of each article in OER Project courses. This is intentional: Best practice points to using the highest difficulty level.
Contextualization is a hard skill to master. Look at the contextualization one-pager for ideas to help students master that skill.
The Opium Wars reflected the goals of imperial powers and the resistance they faced. These materials will help you place the conflict in context and examine how economics and empire were deeply connected.
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
Sometimes a picture says more than a paragraph. In this part of the lesson, you’ll analyze political cartoons to uncover how people viewed imperialism—both those who promoted it and those who resisted it.
Imperialism Cartoons
Have the bug to learn even more about industrial imperialism? “The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: Japan’s Ironic Imperialism” is a great place to start.
Wrap up the lesson by thinking critically about industrial imperialism and how it relates to other global changes you’ve explored.
These materials link early global trade tensions to the peak of European imperialism. You'll examine Britain’s failed 1793 mission to China and the Berlin Conference, where industrial powers divided Africa. Together, these sources reveal how industrialization reshaped empires across the world.
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
Use these primary source excerpts to analyze different European perspectives on imperialism.