INTRODUCTION 
K+ 
here a theme which should appeal to the imagination, like 
a tale from an Elizabethan romance. In the twentieth cen- 
tury, conquistadors, clad in khaki or glittering in helmeted 
display, have proclaimed to most of the savages of the globe 
that they belong henceforth to European nations. On the 
wharves of London there are goods from German work- 
shops for the merchant adventurers of to-day to carry off 
to Bantus or Negritos. Piles of coal from Cardiff lie inside 
the coral reefs of Australasian islands, for the ships which 
come to break the silence of farther Hebrides than Words- 
worth dreamed of. But for the historian there is more sig- 
nificance than romance in such events. The men whom Jo- 
seph Conrad and Kipling describe are responsible for the 
transformation of Africa and Asia. And that transforma- 
tion in its turn is mainly responsible for those policies of 
imperial expansion, of commercial and colonial rivalries 
which underlie the causes of the present war. 
The partitioning of Africa and the penetration of Asia 
are thus chapters of the history of European civilization. 
But they are of vital interest to more than historians. They 
furnish as well the data for a survey of economic and polit- 
ical forces to-day. The partitioning and penetrating are still 
going on: the war itself is part of the process. They will go 
on when the war is over, though perhaps with crippled pace 
from the destruction of resources. And in that vast world- 
movement of the coming years, the United States is bound 
to have a growing interest as it develops the way of other 
industrial nations. So far we have lacked the capital for 
any serious expansion of business — except in one or two 
branches — outside the limits of the country, and we con- 
tinue to use foreign capital to help us out at home. But 
the time is coming rapidly when the American capitalist 
will be turning his attention elsewhere, and mainly toward 
exploiting whatever is left to exploit in the great world out-