Why did the western powers want to take over territory in the late 1800s?
The desire to expand one’s power seems to be a basic human trend. Whenever you see a sudden burst of expansion of one tribe or civilization over another, it’s due to an innovation – that innovation is usually technological, such as agriculture, architecture, weaponry, food preservation, or it could be a cultural innovation such as a religion, written language, laws, paper money, property rights. The industrial revolution gave western civilizations a phenomenal advantage in power over other civilizations. It wasn’t so much about why they suddenly wanted to do this, but it is about why they were suddenly ABLE to do this.
