Asia and in Africa.

All of this imperialism was probably less the direct result of nationalism (though it still played a part) than of the need for raw materials prompted by industrialization. Yet the competition over colonies was a kind of sublimated form of the usual antagonism played out perpetually through wars on the European continent itself. For nearly a hundred years (1815 to 1914) the wars fought within Europe itself were on a relatively small scale. But the emergence of newly unified Germany (Italy less so) and its competition for empire was clearly a factor in the new and unprecedented outbreak of violence in 1914.

”Scientific racism” was a response to the need to rationalize the taking over of foreign lands. In the earlier, pre-Enlightenment period, thinking was primitive enough to allow people to believe it was simply their right to conquer, and it was seen as a given that non-white peoples were inferior, or that their subjugation could be rationalized through the need to convert them to the white man’s values, especially Christianity. But in the more advanced nineteenth century this rationale was inadequate. It was a scientific age, so a scientific facade was needed to justify conquest. Theories of racial hierarchy were no less primitive, and were rooted in the same tribal mentality, but there was a veneer of modernity and sophistication to them, just as there was in the theorizing about the relative superiority of one European nation with respect to others. So ultimately we do see a convergence of nationalism, imperialist intentions within Europe (the Ottoman and Austrian Empires in Europe were held together as long as possible and then, the latter was partly recreated by the Nazis) as well as outside of it, and a pseudo-scientific rationale for all of this re-emergence of primitivism.

Imperialism was in many ways inextricably linked with the ideologies of nationalism and racism. Nationalists saw the acquisition of overseas territories as a means of asserting national power, not to mention fostering pride in the nation. In a very famous speech in 1898, US senator Albert Beveridge claimed the United States, as a democratic nation, had a "nobler destiny" than European nations, because it would take over territories around the world to spread democratic principles. This brand of nationalism was common among Western powers. Imperialism promoted nationalistic beliefs, and nationalists urged imperialistic policies. In the late nineteenth century, as Social Darwinistic theories gained popularity, the idea that Anglo-Saxon nations were inherently more advanced than others was used to justify imperialism in two ways. One was to characterize relations between nations as a brutal struggle for existence, one which justified aggressive foreign policy as a means of survival. Many Americans, for example, justified the annexation of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War on the grounds that Germany would take the islands if the United States did not. Others saw in scientific racism a "white man's burden," one which mandated that whites "civilize" supposedly less advanced peoples by taking them over. As should be evident by now, nationalism was steeped in racism. German, American, and British nationalists in particular argued for a national destiny that was connected to their supposed superiority to other peoples. This superiority, they claimed, was supported by scientific thinking on race.