Locating the Age of Imperialism

Abstract

The publication of Africa and the Victorians in 1961 challenged the prevaling orthodoxy regarding the European scramble for territory during the last decades of the nineteenth century. In it, Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher argued that what had been traditionally viewed as qualitatively new was merely a difference ol degree and not kind. Subsequent studies, especially the work of David Fieldhouse, effectively laid to rest the assumption that new developments in Europe were the cause of the rush for colonies after 1880. And yet historians generally have been reluctant to abandon the ‘age of imperialism’ as an appropriate epithet for late-Victorian Europe. The sheer amount of territory conquered by Europeans in so short a span ol time seemingly compels teachers ol modern history survey courses to view the period 1880–1914 from a traditional perspective and with resort to established nomenclature. Does the historical rubric, ‘age of imperialism’, still have pedagogic value? The answer is a qualified affirmative, provided that its chronological moorings are anchored elsewhere.