Source 30 Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875-1914, 1987
The era from 1875 to 1914 may be called the Age of Empire not only becauseit developeda new kind of imperialism,but also for a much more old-fashionedreason. It was probably the periodof modern world history in which the number of rulers officially calling themselves,or regarded by western diplomatsas deserving the title of,‘emperors’was at its maximum...The economic andmilitary supremacy of the capitalist countries had long been beyond serious challenge, but no systematic attempt to translate it into formal conquest, annexation and administration had been made between the end of the eighteenthand the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Between 1880 and 1914 it was made, and most of the world outside Europe and the Americas was formally partitionedintoterritories under the formal rule or informal political domination of one or other a handful of states: mainly Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, theUSA and Japan...The only non-European state which successfully resisted formal colonial conquest when this was attempted was Ethopia, which heldItaly at bay, the weakest of the imperial states.