The Rock of Gibraltar, a 55 million-year-old piece of limestone sticking up in the air at the western end of the Mediterranean Sea.  Although not quite dating to the imperialist era of the late nineteenth century, is there a better symbol of the overseas British Empire than the Rock of Gibraltar which the British captured way back in 1704? The Treaty of Utrecht (1713), which ended the War of the Spanish Succession--a major defeat for Louis XIV--ceded Gibraltar to the United Kingdom.  England has repeatedly refused to part with it since Gibraltar controls the straits of Gibraltar and access to the Mediterranean.  Photo courtesy C. Wayne and Dorothy Miller

• Read chapter 22 in the textbook.
• Read my notes on Imperialism.
• Study the Questions to Consider and the Key Terms for the unit.
• Post (or respond) your thoughts/ideas about this unit's reading and assignment in the Blackboard online discussion forum. Do not post your assignment there.
  

• Read Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, or Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Child of All Nations, or Amadou Hampaté Bâ, The Fortunes of Wangrin (if you are going to submit the optional imperialism paper).
• Submit the Optional Imperialism paper.  If you don't understand why I call this an optional paper, take a look at the Explanation of Assignments and Grading
• Listen to some further information about this unit as a mp3 file.  You can also read the same information as a txt file.
• I have available the very detailed lecture notes of Professor Thomas Hammond, one of my advisors at the University of Virginia, on imperialism (*.pdf file).  These notes will give you not only a summary of the key events of the imperialist era, but also give you an idea of what a professor's lecture notes look like.
• This was also the age of Impressionism.  See the trip to the Art Institute of Chicago by two of my former students. 

• John Merriman- Yale, Imperialism and Boy Scouts
• Lynn Hunt –UCLA, Imperialism and Mass Politics
• European Imperialism in Africa
• Charles Keith – Yale, French Imperialism
• South Africa: The Boer War [part 1of 5]
• The Boer War
• BBC: The Boer War - Part 1
• The War File - The Boer War (1/6)
• The Boxer Rebellion
• Introduction to Evolution and Natural Selection
• Manet's Le déjeuner sur l'herbe
• Monet's The Argenteuil Bridge
• Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
• For extra credit please suggest to your instructor a relevant video for this unit of the course. Send the title of the video, the url and a brief explanation of why you find the video interesting and applicable to the material that is being studied in this unit.

• Take the short 5-point quiz for chapter 22. Log into Blackboard and look under "Chapter Quizzes." You have five minutes to complete each quiz (multiple-choice questions).
• For a maximum of 50 points extra credit, review these sources (The Earl of Cromer, Why Britain Acquired Egypt in 1882 (1908); Wilfred Scawen Blunt: Britain's Imperial Destiny (1896-1899); Anthony Trollope: The Diamond Fields of South Africa (1870)) and write a short paper examining the colonial experience.  Please be sure to include quoted material.
• Explore life in the United States at the turn of the century. Check out the Slatington News Project and write the paper for a maximum of 50 points (maybe more points if the paper is great!).
• Explain the outcomes of the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 in a one-page paper for a maximum of 50 points extra credit.  Please be sure to cite your sources.
• Was there an "Impressionism" movement in music and literature?  Write a one-page paper for a maximum of 50 points extra credit.
• Watch Breaker Morant and write a one-page paper assessing the historical accuracy of the movie for a maximum of 50 points extra credit.
• What was the extent of and justification for American imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century?  Answer that question in a long paragraph for a maximum of 25 points extra credit--maybe more-- (Use some of the resources available at www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook34.html.).
  
• Read Lenin's Imperialism and explain his main revisions to Marx's theory of socialism in a short paper (1-2 pages) for a maximum of 50 points extra credit.
• For a maximum of 25 points extra credit, read Captain F. D. Lugard, The Rise of Our East African Empire (1893) and write a long paragraph explaining the rationale for the British empire in Africa.
  
• For a maximum of 25 points extra credit, read Simón de Bolívar (1783-1830): Message to the Congress of Angostura (1819) and write a paragraph in which you examine Bolivar's rationale for his resistance and his political ideas.
• For a maximum of 25 points extra credit, read the Monroe Doctrine (1823) and write a paragraph in which you explain the justification for American imperialism.
  
• For extra credit of a maximum of 10 points, you can submit the answers to the Achebe study questions.  Please write in formal, complete sentences.
• For extra credit, please suggest a relevant website for this unit of the course.  Send the title of the site, the url and a brief explanation why you find the information interesting and applicable to the material being studied this unit.