The Disintegration of the American Empires

Abstract

The history of the European colonial empires falls into two overlapping cycles. The first began in the fifteenth century and ended soon after 1800; the second in the later eighteenth century, lasting into the twentieth. During the first cycle European power centred on America; in the second on Africa and Asia. There was no chronological break between them, and no reason why Europe should not continue to control America while she occupied other continents. But the disintegration of most of the original American empires in the period 1763–1830 constituted a water-shed between two epochs and changed the character of European imperialism. This alone justifies using the terms ‘old’ and ‘modern’ empires.