page_title: Imperialism
section_title: Cartography
hierarchical_section_title: Imperialism / Issues / Cartography
context_page_description: Imperialism is a policy or ideology of extending the rule or authority of a country over other countries and people, often by military force or by gaining political and economic control. While related to the concepts of colonialism and empire, imperialism is a distinct concept that can apply to other forms of expansion and many forms of government.
  The concept of imperialism arose in the modern age, associated chiefly with the European colonial powers of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries and New Imperialism. However, expansionism and centralisation have been pursued throughout recorded history, with the earliest examples dating back to the mid-third millennium BC. Following the retrenchment of European colonization, the concept has further evolved and has been broadly used to identify as well as criticise a range of policies and a number of states, including even supposedly anti-imperialist states.
context_section_description: One of the main tools used by imperialists was cartography. Cartography is "the art, science and technology of making maps" but this definition is problematic. It implies that maps are objective representations of the world when in reality they serve very political means. For Harley, maps serve as an example of Foucault's power and knowledge concept.
  To better illustrate this idea, Bassett focuses his analysis of the role of 19th-century maps during the "scramble for Africa". He states that maps "contributed to empire by promoting, assisting, and legitimizing the extension of French and British power into West Africa". During his analysis of 19th-century cartographic techniques, he highlights the use of blank space to denote unknown or unexplored territory. This provided incentives for imperial and colonial powers to obtain "information to fill in blank spaces on contemporary maps".
  Although cartographic processes advanced through imperialism, further analysis of their progress reveals many biases linked to eurocentrism. According to Bassett, "[n]ineteenth-century explorers commonly requested Africans to sketch maps of unknown areas on the ground. Many of those maps were highly regarded for their accuracy" but were not printed in Europe unless Europeans verified them.
  Imperialism in ancient times is clear in the history of China and in the history of western Asia and the Mediterranean—an unending succession of empires. The tyrannical empire of the Assyrians was replaced (6th–4th century BCE) by that of the Persians, in strong contrast to the Assyrian in its liberal treatment of subjected peoples, assuring it long duration. It eventually gave way to the imperialism of Greece. When Greek imperialism reached an apex under Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE), a union of the eastern Mediterranean with western Asia was achieved. But the cosmopolis, in which all citizens of the world would live harmoniously together in equality, remained a dream of Alexander. It was partially realized when the Romans built their empire from Britain to Egypt.
  The concept of cultural imperialism refers to the cultural influence of one dominant culture over others, i.e. a form of soft power, which changes the moral, cultural, and societal worldview of the subordinate country. This means more than just "foreign" music, television or film becoming popular with young people; rather that a populace changes its own expectations of life, desiring for their own country to become more like the foreign country depicted. For example, depictions of opulent American lifestyles in the soap opera Dallas during the Cold War changed the expectations of Romanians; a more recent example is the influence of smuggled South Korean drama series in North Korea. The importance of soft power is not lost on authoritarian regimes, fighting such influence with bans on foreign popular culture, control of the internet and unauthorised satellite dishes etc. Nor is such a usage of culture recent, as part of Roman imperialism local elites would be exposed to the benefits and luxuries of Roman culture and lifestyle, with the aim that they would then become willing participants.
  Imperialism has been subject to moral or immoral censure by its critics, and thus the term is frequently used in international propaganda as a pejorative for expansionist and aggressive foreign policy.
caption: Ottoman wars in Europe
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