Weighing the Effects of Imperialism
"Relative significance" means rank them
- Explain the relative significance of the effects of imperialism from 1750 to 1900.
- Relative means the answer must compare effects and say which mattered more.
- So a list of consequences is not an answer — the ranking, with a reason, is.
"Relative significance" requires you to...
The ranking, with a reason, is the answer.
Four review statements to draw on
- Industrial capitalism raised standards of living for some and increased goods' availability, affordability and variety.
- As states industrialised, they expanded existing overseas empires and established new colonies and transoceanic relationships.
- Revolution and rebellion produced new nation-states, and migration patterns changed dramatically, with the numbers of migrants increasing significantly.
Select all the defensible criteria this lesson gives.
State the criterion in your first sentence.
Choosing a criterion first
- You cannot rank effects without saying significant for whom, and by what measure.
- Number of people affected, durability, or reversibility are three defensible criteria.
- State the criterion in your first sentence, and the ranking becomes an argument rather than an opinion.
Criterion, effect, or a counter-case?
Sort each element of a relative-significance answer.
Imperialism's effects were confined to territories that were colonised.
Economic imperialism reshaped economies with their own governments; migration reshaped villages nobody conquered.
A list of effects does not answer "relative significance". The objective asks you to weigh them, and weighing requires a criterion — significant for whom, and by what measure. Without one in your first sentence, the ranking is an opinion the reader cannot check.
Select all the unit's review statements available as evidence.
The Columbian Exchange belongs to unit 4; revolution and new nation-states complete unit 5-6's four.
Effects reached beyond colonies
- The unit has supplied effects inside empires, inside the industrial core, and in states that were never colonised.
- Economic imperialism reshaped economies with their own governments; migration reshaped villages nobody conquered.
- A ranking that only weighs colonial administration has left out most of the evidence the unit assembled.
Put the significance routine in order.
The last step is the sophistication move in a history essay.
A significance routine
- Name your criterion in one sentence. Name three candidate effects.
- Rank them, giving one piece of evidence for each place in the ranking.
- Close by conceding the strongest case for a different ranking — which is the sophistication move in a history essay.
Criterion: number of people whose daily work changed. On that measure, the reorganisation of economies around export commodities outranks colonial administration, because it reached farmers in states that were never colonised. The strongest case against: administrative borders lasted longer than any single commodity boom.
Relative significance means ranking effects with a criterion — significant for whom, by what measure. Draw on the unit's four review statements: living standards for some, empires expanded as states industrialised, revolution produced new nation-states, and migration patterns changed dramatically. Effects reached beyond colonies, into economies and villages nobody governed.