Independence and Imperialism. European overseas empires changed significantly from 1750 to 1914. On the one hand, European states lost colonies to independence movements that swept the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially in the British, French, and Spanish dominions. The United States became fully independent of Great Britain in 1783, and Canada, Australia, and New Zealand became self-governing nations within the British Commonwealth by the early twentieth century. Many Spanish and some French colonies on islands in the Caribbean Sea became independent, and in Central and South America Spanish colonies separated from their mother countries as well. The sole Portuguese American colony, Brazil, was also liberated.

New Imperialism. However, in other parts of the globe the pattern was exactly the opposite as the "New Imperialism" took hold in the late nineteenth century. Indeed, Great Britain was expanding its imperial dominion throughout the nineteenth century...