Kagan et al. divided an expansion of the European imperialism into several periods. The first period has finished by the end of the seventeenth century. During this time, European countries were mainly occupied by discovering and establishing of the New World (482). The second period is connected with the rise of mercantilism, colonial trade and a rise of slavery. A government tried to control the trade in order to increase national wealth. Thus, all countries believed that a nation can be wealthy if only it has more gold and silver than its rivals (482). In order to gain this wealth, countries were always focused on wars with nearest neighbors with the intention of occupying their territories and gaining more wealth.
In addition, European countries had many colonies all over the world, which they used for collecting of more economic resources (482). Prior to the nineteenth century, European countries had their foreign Empires mainly for trade and commerce. In the middle of the eighteenth century, Prusia and Great Britan have gained a significant power in the world in a form of many colonies. However, the third period of expansion, which started in the nineteenth century, had a name of new imperialism and was mainly connected with desired economic growth, moral superiority, Christian mission enterprise, and military strategy (483). Lastly, the fourth period was in the middle of the twentieth century and was mainly connected with decolonization of previous colonies. During these four periods, European countries had a significant influence in the world because of their naval power, gun powder, and cultural superiority (483).
The empires of the nineteenth century were different because of several technological advantages. First, it was a period of the rise of cities and urbanization. The cities were redesigned and rebuilt with having many new zones, such as residential zones, zones for commerce, and leisure activities (Kagan et al. 723). Further development transformed urban suburbs into residential areas for middle and working class. With introduction of railways, mechanical and electric tramways, subways, people started to live outside of the cities and to travel each day to work (723). Cholera and other epidemics of that time pushed the development of water and sewer systems. That was also a time of the rise of governmental involvement in the life of people (724).
Mainly it was connected with public health concerns and allowed medical officers and inspectors to enter homes or even to excavate private land in order to construct sewers. There were also many changes in a social sphere with regard to women. The Second Industrial Revolution created two new employment patterns for women (729). Unmarried and young women could work on many new jobs, such as secretaries and clerks for government and private business, or shop assistants (730). On the other hand, many married women withdrew from a job. It was a case of women after the birth of a first child. During that time, women were struggling because of their low social rank too. They had not property rights, they had no rights in a family law that required women to obey the authority of their man, and there was no education system for women since it all was reserved for men (730). However, later there was a rise of female feminism or a fight of women for female rights and equality (733). They achieved a big success in many fields. For instance, they received voting and many other rights.
Works Cited
Kagan Donald, Steven Ozment, Frank M Turner, and Alison Frank. The Western Heritage: Volume 2 (11th Edition). New York, NY: Pearson, 2012. Print.