Chapter 5 Key Terms and Assessments
Key Terms
Boxers members of the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists, an anti-foreign secret society in northern China
Congo Free State a personal colony of Belgium’s King Leopold II where infamous abuse of African laborers took place
deindustrialization a decline in a nation’s or region’s industrial activity
export economy an economy that primarily provides raw materials for use by other nations
Force Publique a native army commanded by European officers to enforce brutal discipline in the Congo Free State
imperialism the policy of gaining direct or indirect control over parts of the world with low-cost resources and no competing mass-produced goods
Meiji Restoration the period beginning in 1868 when, under Emperor Meiji, Japan began to industrialize
Scramble for Africa the competition among European countries to establish colonies in Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
shogunate a Japanese system in which a military leader, the shogun, and an aristocratic military elite, the samurai, ruled in place of the emperor
The Great Game the contest between Britain and Russia to dominate central Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
Assessments
Review Questions
1. How did independence affect the economies of Latin American nations?
a. It opened their markets to competitive U.S. and European manufactured goods.
b. It reduced the number of wealthy government officials who could afford to purchase luxury goods.
c. It caused European engineers and other skilled workers to return home.
d. It eliminated Spanish and Portuguese subsidies for the development of roads and harbors.
2. What country was initially prevented from industrializing because of a lack of free laborers?
a. Germany
b. Italy
c. Britain
d. Russia
3. Which invention enabled nineteenth-century manufacturers to power machinery where steam engines were too big to be used?
a. water wheels
b. internal combustion engines
c. wind turbines
d. solar-powered engines
4. To whom is the invention of the radio attributed?
a. Thomas Edison
b. Alexander Graham Bell
c. Guglielmo Marconi
d. Henry Ford
5. After the Meiji Restoration, where did industrialization begin?
a. China
b. Russia
c. Japan
d. Brazil
6. How did colonization in the second half of the nineteenth century differ from colonization in previous centuries?
a. Nineteenth-century colonialism was inspired primarily by religious not economic motives.
b. Nineteenth-century colonialism generated very little violence.
c. Nineteenth-century colonies were not usually intended to be settler colonies.
d. Nineteenth-century colonies were largely left to govern themselves with little interference.
7. Which industrial innovation aided colonization in the second half of the nineteenth century?
a. Maxim gun
b. color photography
c. electricity
d. automobile
8. What was one of the main motives of nineteenth-century imperialism?
a. learning more about the cultures of non-European peoples
b. finding new lands for large numbers of Europeans to settle in
c. gaining access to raw materials
d. discovering new species of animal life
9. What was a major reason Europeans did not make extensive inroads into the African interior before the middle of the nineteenth century?
a. African societies’ superior weapons-making technology
b. inability to protect themselves from malaria
c. fear of large predatory animals
d. lack of desire to secure raw materials or trade with Africans
10. What caused the Fashoda Incident?
a. France and Britain each sought control of Sudan to connect their colonies by rail.
b. Germany tried to seize some of Britain’s African colonies.
c. Belgium and France both claimed the same territory in the Congo Basin.
d. Egyptians revolted when Britain and France tried to depose their ruler.
11. With which country did Japan compete for control of Korea?
a. Germany
b. Britain
c. United States
d. Russia
12. Which nation established colonies primarily in West Africa and Indochina?
a. Britain
b. Italy
c. France
d. United States
13. What was the purpose of the 1884–1885 Berlin Conference?
a. to punish France for its brutality toward West Africans
b. to decide which European countries possessed different parts of Africa
c. to conclude a peace treaty between Italy and Ethiopia
d. to carve out the industrialized nations’ spheres of influence in China
14. By the end of the nineteenth century, which country had adopted a primarily political response to European colonization?
a. China
b. India
c. Philippines
d. Ethiopia
15. What was the Force Publique?
a. an Indigenous army used to discipline Congolese laborers
b. the Egyptian army that fought to take control of Sudan
c. a health-care organization in France’s African and Asian colonies
d. a court for trying French citizens accused of abusing natives of French West Africa
16. In what way did rinderpest harm the colonized people of Africa?
a. It killed the corn crop, causing millions to starve to death.
b. It doubled the rate of infant mortality.
c. It caused widespread blindness.
d. It sickened and killed African cattle herds.
Check Your Understanding Questions
- What are possible reasons why China did not industrialize when many other wealthy and powerful nations did?
- What changes were made to Japan’s traditional social structure as a result of the Meiji Restoration?
- What did “the civilizing mission” of industrialized nations entail?
- How did technological developments assist in colonization?
- Which two nations most interfered with Italy’s desire to establish an empire in Africa?
- Why did the United States want to gain control of islands in the Pacific?
- Why did Germany have only a few colonies compared to France and Britain?
- How were Africans treated in the Congo Free State?
- How did imperialism harm the health of colonized people?
- What caused the Boxer Uprising in China?
Application and Reflection Questions
- What were some of the obstacles to industrialization faced by India, Egypt, and China? How might industrialization have played out if these obstacles had been addressed differently?
- What role did the Japanese government play in Japan’s industrialization during the Meiji Restoration? How did their approach to industrialization differ from that of governments in Europe and North America?
- What role did racism play in motivating those from industrialized nations to colonize other lands?
- Which of the inventions of the industrial world do you think played the greatest role in enabling the colonization of Asia, Africa, and the Pacific? Why?
- What role did geography play in determining where and how industrialized nations built empires in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?
- What role did violence play in industrialized nations’ attempts to build their empires? Do you think it is ever justifiable to use violence against other nations except in self-defense? Why or why not?
- Are people in the poorer parts of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific still exploited by wealthier nations? If so, how?
- If you lived under colonial rule, would you consider resistance an option? What factors might influence your position one way or the other?
