In 1870 Europeans governed roughly a tenth of Africa; by 1914 they governed all of it except Ethiopia and Liberia. Historians explain that with three competing families of argument. Set the three dials to your own theory of empire, then test it against five real cases — a weighting that fits the Congo will not fit German Togo, and that is the whole lesson.
Choose a case
Your theory of empire
Profit and capital33%
Raw materials, markets, and above all outlets for surplus investment at home. Hobson 1902 · Lenin 1916
Strategy and crisis on the periphery33%
Protecting routes, frontiers and existing possessions; being dragged from informal influence into formal rule when local collaborators collapse. Robinson & Gallagher
Prestige and domestic politics34%
Great-power credentials, jingoism in a mass-newspaper age, missionary and civilising ideology, elections at home. The domestic-politics school