A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

826 Ch. 21 • The Age of European Imperialism

Map 21.2 Imperialism in Africa before 1914 Belgian, British, French, German,

Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish colonies in Africa and dates of European control.

of conquest, as in the case of the U.S. transcontinental railway. Not sur­

prisingly, the railroad captured the imagination of imperialists. Cecil

Rhodes (1853-1902), British entrepreneur and colonialist, reasoned that

rails went farther and cost less than bullets. A French railway network was

mapped out to connect Algeria and Senegal by crossing the Sahara Desert.