Deck 25: Western Dominance in the Nineteenth Century: The Westward Shift of Power and the Rise of Global Empires

Question 1

What two European states only came into existence in the decade before 1871?

A) Belgium and the Netherlands
B) Germany and Italy
C) Hungary and Austria
D) Poland and Czechoslovakia

Answer 1

Germany and Italy

Question 2

The term "stranger effect" refers to

A) the revulsion that peoples often have to foreigners.
B) the bigotry shown by Europeans toward native peoples.
C) the power that is deferred to foreigners on account of exotic or strange qualities.
D) a belief that strangers were sent by the gods.

Answer 2

the power that is deferred to foreigners on account of exotic or strange qualities.

Question 3

Britain argued that confiscation of opium by Chinese authorities in 1839 was wrong because it violated

A) freedom of commerce.
B) basic human decency.
C) Britain's right to do whatever it wanted.
D) the rights of individual Chinese to do as they pleased.

Answer 3

freedom of commerce.

Question 4

One of the leading arguments used by European imperialists as a moral justification for the carving up of Africa into European colonies was

A) the abolition of slavery.
B) the creation of "Little Europes" to elevate Africa.
C) to industrialize and improve African civilization.
D) to end disease and hunger across the continent.

Question 5

By the 1850s,trade with China

A) had grown, and Britain's trade deficit with China had almost increased three-fold.
B) had increased, but Britain now was the greatest beneficiary.
C) was falling because of internal instability.
D) decreased dramatically because goods that had been sought after before, such as silks, tea, and porcelain, could be obtained more cheaply elsewhere.

Question 6

During the period of the Napoleonic Wars,Britain's new colonial possessions were

A) mainly to make up for its territorial losses in North America.
B) largely strategic stations for communications and trade.
C) primarily to check the territorial ambitions of the United States.
D) directed toward areas that could provide large amounts of raw materials for its factories.

Question 7

During the 1890s,over 300 million Indians were governed by approximately

A) 300 British administrators.
B) 650 British administrators.
C) 1,000 British administrators.
D) 1,500 British administrators.

Question 8

For most European countries during the nineteenth century,population

A) decreased slightly.
B) was stable.
C) increased slightly.
D) doubled.

Question 9

Quinine was essential for the expansion of imperial powers because of its

A) value for flavoring and preserving food.
B) role as a military weapon.
C) usefulness in fighting malaria.
D) value as an alternative fuel source.

Question 10

The opium trade with China was a breakthrough for British merchants because it

A) weakened Chinese production.
B) humiliated the Chinese government.
C) was something they could not sell in Europe.
D) enabled them to correct their imbalance of trade.

Question 11

By 1880,European business dominated China so thoroughly that

A) most of China's production was in the hands of Europeans.
B) the majority of China's shipping was controlled by foreigners.
C) China's government was dominated by Europeans also.
D) even agricultural production was largely controlled by European companies.

Question 12

The deadliest challenge that foreign militaries had to face in places like Indochina and Cuba was

A) disease.
B) guerilla warfare tactics.
C) technological deficiencies.
D) well-armed and trained soldiers.

Question 13

In his letter to British Queen Victoria,Chinese Commissioner Lin argued that Britain should end its opium trade in China mainly on

A) the economic argument that China would embargo trade in opium by the British.
B) the military argument that China would go to war with Britain.
C) the moral argument that selling opium was wrong and would lead to no good.
D) the religious argument that selling opium was contrary to Christian teaching.

Question 14

Which of the following was NOT a method employed by the British as a method of gaining the cooperation of local elites in the governance of India?

A) coats of arms and titles
B) officer rank in the army
C) lavish ceremonies
D) real power over local states

Question 15

One of the most important inventions of the late eighteenth century that spurred forward Western navigation was the

A) astrolabe.
B) chronometer.
C) magnetic compass.
D) sextant.

Question 16

One of the most lasting effects of colonial rule in places like Malaya and South Africa was the adoption of European

A) legal practice.
B) ideas of government.
C) religion.
D) etiquette.

Question 17

In Sierra Leone,the freed black slave colonists from the Caribbean

A) attempted to return to their native African traditions.
B) created an imitation of England with garden parties and lecture circuits.
C) converted to Islam and established a government on Islamic principles.
D) were used by the British colonists in their wars against the Zulu.

Question 18

About two-thirds of the total business investment in Latin America from 1870 to 1913 came from

A) American companies.
B) British companies.
C) Dutch banks.
D) Spanish companies.

Question 19

In French Morocco,governance was conducted through

A) republican governments established by the French.
B) native Sultans.
C) direct rule by French governors.
D) Arab monarchies.

Question 20

In the Canadian constitution,the native peoples were

A) established in reservations that were to be governed internally.
B) provided with self-government in marginal lands that whites were uninterested in.
C) ignored.
D) considered subhuman and expected to live in reservations under white rule.

Question 21

Social Darwinism is a concept that

A) all of humanity has evolved to the same point of perfection.
B) it is the duty of the strong to help the weak become stronger.
C) all of creation is a part of a greater whole.
D) conflict is natural and that the strongest will rise to eliminate the weak.

Question 22

Compare the arguments each side made in the Opium War.Who had the moral high ground?

Question 23

During the nineteenth century,European racism was never so bad that

A) some blacks and Eskimos in Europe were displayed in zoos.
B) an encyclopedia stated that blacks were never equal to whites.
C) British aristocrats sometimes identified more closely with Indian elites than with working-class English persons.
D) some European scientists held that "weak" races ought to be exterminated.

Question 24

Did China's failure in the Opium Wars affect the rising dominance of the European powers in East Asia? If so,why?

Question 25

What technological and medical advances facilitated European empire building?

Question 26

What imperial power made it difficult for European imperialists to claim that only whites possessed a civilization capable of creating an industrialized,overseas empire in the late nineteenth century?

A) China
B) Ethiopia
C) India
D) Japan

Question 27

At his stop in Tierra del Fuego,Charles Darwin recognized that

A) the diversity of the area was a result of evolution over an immense period of time.
B) native peoples were able to live in such extreme climates because their bodies had adapted to the environment.
C) the native peoples there belonged to an inferior race.
D) the very different conditions there were because species had evolved differently in different locations.

Question 28

What types of resistance did native peoples employ against these growing empires? How successful were these acts of resistance?

Question 29

Comte de Gobineau,a French anthropologist,argued that human beings were

A) all the same, regardless of race.
B) classified by race, with the French at the top and Asians at the bottom.
C) classified by race, with whites at the top and blacks at the bottom.
D) classifiable by race, but that non-Europeans who adopted European culture could evolve to a higher state of being.

Question 30

During a period of repeated global famines at the end of the nineteenth century,

A) global empire helped keep the death toll in India low through improved agricultural practices.
B) few Western countries were badly affected.
C) the American Midwest saw a large death toll because there was no organized relief.
D) China was largely unaffected because of strong relief measures by the government.

Question 31

Why did some native peoples cooperate with their imperialist rulers? What advantages did they gain in their own societies from doing so?

Question 32

What roles did native peoples play in the process of governing and managing these empires?

Question 33

When the United States moved native peoples from their homes in the Midwest and Southeast into Indian Territory in present Oklahoma,they meant to

A) provide Native Americans with safe and ample lands.
B) kill as many Native Americans as possible through starvation, exposure, and disease.
C) protect Native Americans from white settlers.
D) simply make it easier to manage native populations in the face of large migrations by whites and others into these areas.

Question 34

The idea that Europeans possessed moral superiority over the rest of humanity was NOT based on

A) a desire to see themselves as better in reaction to historical positions of economic and technological inferiority.
B) the actual practice of bettering the lives of native peoples who lived in the European colonies.
C) fear, especially of Asians.
D) racism.

Question 35

What caused the conflict between China and Britain over the sale of opium? Why did China lose this series of wars?

Question 36

Western ideas found the most popularity during the nineteenth century in

A) China and India.
B) India and Japan.
C) Korea and Indonesia.
D) the Ottoman Empire and China.

Question 37

Japanese intellectuals in the nineteenth century saw the creation of empire as necessary because they believed Japan

A) needed natural resources and cheap labor to industrialize and become strong.
B) could drive Europe out of Eastern Asia and become its savior.
C) should mimic the West and follow Western patterns of behavior.
D) had a mission to make other East Asians into Japanese citizens.

Question 38

What factors encouraged Europeans to build empires around the world during the nineteenth century?

Question 39

An example of the superiority of European technology during the nineteenth century may be seen in the

A) development of Indian industries.
B) successes of Maori and Ethiopian resistances to European imperial forces.
C) reduction of poverty in British-ruled Egypt.
D) higher life expectancy rates enjoyed by people living in the industrial cities of Britain.

Question 40

The Crimean War was fought by

A) the Ottomans against Russia and Britain.
B) Britain against the Ottomans and French.
C) France and Russia against the Ottomans.
D) Russia against the Ottomans, British, and French.

Question 41

How were the European powers able to gain control of so much of the world's resources during the nineteenth century?

Question 42

What were the "New Europes," and why did they arise in certain areas?

Question 43

What new attitudes resulted from the successes of European imperialism?

Question 44

What types of empire building occurred in Japan and Russia? How do those two cases compare to each other?

Question 45

Why did some Europeans come to see themselves as morally superior to the rest of humanity?

Question 46

How did Charles Darwin's theory of evolution spark ideas that supported European imperialism? How was this a distortion of Darwin's scientific arguments?

Question 47

Was racism a cause or a result of imperialism? What is the evidence for each position?
In Perspective

Question 48

In what ways did Japan,Russia and the United States,all relative "latecomers" to imperialism,adopt and adapt the practices and rationales used by European empires?

Question 49

Compare the motives of major European powers as they expanded into China and Africa.In what ways did timing,resources,politics,and geography contribute to very different approaches to imperialism in these two regions?

Question 50

What were the imperial ambitions of Japan,Russia,and the United States in the nineteenth century?

Question 51

How did economics drive European empire building?