A fascinating study of the important role of biology in European expansion, from 900 to 1900.

This volume contains a series of essays aimed at illuminating the theory, history, and roots of imperialism, which extend the analysis developed in Magdoff’s The Age of Imperialism.

In 1800, Europeans governed about one-third of the world's land surface; by the start of World War I in 1914, Europeans had imposed some form of political or economic ascendancy on over 80 percent of the globe. The basic structure of global and European politics in the twentieth century was fashioned in the previous century out of the clash of competing imperial interests and the effects, both beneficial and harmful, of the imperial powers on the societies they dominated. This encyclopedia offers current, detailed information on the major world powers of the nineteenth century and their global empires, as well as on the people, events, and ideas, both European and non-European, that shaped the Age of Imperialism.--Publisher description.