In 1877, the young British empire builder Cecil Rhodes drew up his last
will and testament. He bequeathed his fortune, achieved as a diamond
magnate in South Africa, to two of his close friends and acquaintances. He
also instructed them to use the inheritance to form a secret society with the aim of
bringing about “the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of
a system of emigration from the United Kingdom . . . especially the occupation of the
whole continent of Africa, the Holy Land, the valley of the Euphrates, the Islands of
Cyprus and Candia [Crete], the whole of South America . . . the ultimate recovery of
the United States as an integral part of the British Empire . . . [and] finally the foundation
of so great a power to hereafter render wars impossible and promote the best
interests of humanity.”1
Preposterous as such ideas seem to us today, they serve as a graphic reminder of the
hubris that characterized the worldview of Rhodes and many of his contemporaries
during the age of imperialism, as well as the complex union of moral concern and
vaulting ambition that motivated their actions on the world stage. During the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, Western colonialism spread throughout much
of the non-Western world. Spurred by the demands of the Industrial Revolution,
a few powerful Western states—notably Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia,
and the United States—competed avariciously for consumer markets and raw materials
for their expanding economies. By the end of the nineteenth century, virtually
all of the traditional societies in Asia and Africa were under direct or indirect colonial
rule.
World History
