John Hobson Imperialism Summary

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John Hobson's writing Imperialism, A Study, covers the reasons why Imperialism wasn't as great as it was sought out to be in its time. His writing is a great Historical significance, because it outlines the flaws Imperialism had and what it lead up to. Some of these flaws included how a country would force themselves into a country and take control of their people and their resources, the decline in education and science advancement in these countries, and the conflict it created with other Imperialistic countries. John Hobson saw exactly what Imperialism did first hand to South Africa, when he was in the Second Boer War.

When Imperialism started it was referred to be "forcible establishment of political control by one state over others," …show more content…

Some countries would create war with the country who has control of that region in order to obtain possession of that valuable resource. As I said before was to take note of South Africa. You know that Britain came into South Africa and took it from the Afrikaans. South Africa in the 1860s found that they had great valuable resources in their state, emphasizing on diamonds and gold along the Orange and Vaal Rivers. Due to the British annexing the Afrikaans access to these minds, it resulted in them creating an armed resistance against the British, which starts off the First Boer War (also known as the Anglo-Boer War). You can see the conflict between he two states because of the annexation the Brit's had on the Afrikaans, which also placed them under British rule still. The Afrikaans wanted independence from British rule in the first place, to govern their own territory, which the British did not grant them. Resulting in the Second Boer War, which John Hobson was a part of and saw the results of Imperialism first hand. The Second Boer War was fought also against the Zulu's. The war broke out because British wanted to keep control of South Africa alone, so they have secure control over the vast territory also the resources it offers. It shows that two states, who are not able to come to term in sharing an area will go to war with each other to determine who gets power, which in John Hobsons eyes, wasn't a positive aspect to imperialism and an internal flaw, the need to control large and numerous amounts of territory and

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