The transition from modern to what some scholars refer to as postmodern history is marked by the rise and collapse of the great modern empires.
The age of maritime exploration and early colonialism had knit the globe together into one intellectual construct; the age of imperialism would give political and economic reality to this set of mental maps.
Imperialism, both as word and as deed, became part of the power struggle among the Western powers and, in the twentieth century, among non- Western nations as well.
