The Causes of Colonial Expansions: A case study of the British Colonialism

Abstract

Colonialism is a practice of control, which contains the defeat of one person to another. One of the main complications in defining colonialism is that it is difficult to separate it from colonialism. Nowadays these two concepts are described as synonyms. Colonialism also includes political and economic control over a dependent land. Over the past two centuries, many scholars have discussed colonial expansion. Some historians have presented some theories about colonial causes which are still the most popular theories, The purpose of this research is to examine the most significant reasons for colonialisms which are mentioned by historians and contemporary researchers. This research consists of an Introduction, four sections and a conclusion. In the first section economic factor of colonialism has been discussed. For instance, economic terms; will focus on some theories which are mostly written by Marxist theorists. These theories discuss having much funding in great countries and seeking investment and looking for raw material as well. While the second section has studied the political and national factors of colonial expansions. This means political and national causes have been discussed with particularly concentrating on the British Empire. The third section cultural role has been debated by providing some examples. This section. Investigated of cultural motivation of colonialism. Cultural terms have examined religious aims which were driven by missionaries to spread Christianity. As well as, westernization goals other points will be discussed about Europeans who attempted to impose their lifestyle on colonial people. Finally, in the last section, racial causes which focus on Social Darwinism and impacts on racial motivation is another major factor that encouraged European people to consider that, their race and nation was over of other races in the world. The method of this research has depended on description and interpretation method.