Explain The Cultural Motives Of American Imperialism

Imperialism entails increasing a country’s influence and might through means such as military capacity and the more acceptable means that is diplomacy (Bensel, 2000). American has been through this process on different occasions whether self initiated or brought up by second and third parties. Imperialism comes about through several sources that include economic sources, geopolitical sources as well as cultural motives. These sources hold various degrees of imperialism depending on their application and their causative agents. Cultural motives vary from religion factors to gender diversity among other factors. On the religious front, the imperialism theme comes out through the “American revolution”. In order to expand its territory during
Unlike the modern day world, during the periods past men and not women were part of the army. This assumption manifests further through the advertisement by Howard chandler Christy. The advertisement is a painting of a woman wishing she were a man so that she could join the navy. Another source of imperialism is the economic factor. Naturally, money talks and the businesspersons of then had keen interests in maximizing their profits by all available means. This involved using cheap labor, control over markets as well natural resources. After the industrial revolution, the newly acquired territories provided raw materials to their colonial masters. Finally, geopolitical factors determined the political; landscape of a region depending on the leaders in power. This led to allegiance with ruling classes with similar ideologies and wars with those who held different points of
This is quite evident when the U.S obtained several territories from Spain. These territories include Florida undertaken by secretary of state through the “Florida Purchase Treaty”. Other territories ceded were the Philippines, Texas, Colorado, Utah and California; the ceding process came about in 1822. Through imperialism, U.S obtained foreign bases and one such base was in China (Bensel, 2000). This base led to interaction on an economic platform between the two countries and the open door trade policy came forth as the fruit. The policy enable trading with all of china’s markets as well as respecting Chinese territorial integrity through the hands of the then secretary of