What is Imperialism?
By google definition, imperialism is a policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force. To be put more simply, it's the bigger countries taking over the smaller countries. They will generally do this when they are looking for more raw materials to sell or trade to other countries or to the country that they took over. They would also build factories and such and employ the foreigners at these places. This is very similar to colonialism. In fact, colonialism is a form of expression from imperialism.
What are some examples of Imperialism?
Great Britain did a lot of imperializing over its time, and there are a lot of influences for this. The industrial revolution influenced Great Britain to go to other countries and colonize. Africa was perfect for this because it had new markets and a lot of raw materials, so they went there. Another influence for Great Britain was social Darwinism, making them think that they were to prosper because they were better fit for survival than the people living in the countries that they took over, because they were below them. This is most likely where racism began, making the idea that they were better more influential.
Great Britain took over a lot of countries in its time of imperialism. Some of the most important in history was the 13 American colonies, Canada, Indian Subcontinent, Southern and Northern Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Although there are a lot of countries that still detest Great Britain for taking over them in the past, there are a lot of countries that would not be here today without them colonizing and using them.
A more recent example in history of imperialism is with China and Zambia. The Chinese government made some deals with their government to mine their natural resources. Eventually, Chinese people started moving to Zambia while new factories were being built as well as more jobs were being created for them. They were building new hospitals and schools for the children. This was all okay with the people of Zambia until there were incidents of corruption and abuse of what the Chinese had. They are also taking their natural goods and selling them back to the people as manufactured goods. The Chinese that live there not only taking their resources, but they're building businesses there and basically colonizing the area. The people tried to elect a president that would stop the corruption that the Chinese are creating within Zambia, but the president they elected that said would help immediately formed close ties with the Chinese government. Although it looks like their government is trying to stop the corruption on the surface, no one can say for sure that it's true due to the lack of trustworthy information.