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Imperialism In The 20th Century

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Following the end of the Industrialist Era and the emergence of countless technological advancements, the United States entered the world stage. The United States was attempting to create an empire by expanding to land outside of its own borders in order to benefit the country’s economic interests. Many citizens, whose views were greatly influenced by their understandings of national identity, saw this overseas expansion in conflicting ways. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these groups differed in their opinions on the idea of expansion due to either their wanting to remain a democratic country built on the ideals of freedom and liberty to preserve their sense of national identity, or their wanting to expand for economic reasons and nationalism. Imperialism, which is the extension of a country’s power and influence through expansion, began as early as the 17th century, when Britain colonized the New World in order to expand economically and gain natural resources for manufacturing. In the next two hundred years, the United States would break away from being a British colony, and instead begin to expand to other areas. America’s belief in expansion was further developed by the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which declared America to be the protector of the west. Furthermore, the Manifest Destiny in the 1840s demonstrated that the call towards expansion was a crucial part of the national identity; it was instilled into the people that God had blessed them

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