Characteristics of an Empire

1. Characteristics of an Empire

2. What is an empire? • An empire is a group of countries or states that is controlled by the strongest country in the group.

3. Why are empires created? • The ruling nation has to have a strong sense of national pride

4. The people in the ruling country need to support the conquest

5. The ruling nations take over other countries for several reasons:

6. Reason # 1: The ruling nation has a leader who can convince citizens that they are taking over other countries to help the people

7. For example, in Great Britain the leaders told people that as white Europeans it was their job to civilize other countries

8. Reason # 2: The ruling nation will conquer countries that it sees as a threat

9. Reason # 3: The ruling nation thinks they will benefit economically from taking over other countries.

10. Reason #4: The ruling nation wants to create a “buffer zone” of countries to protect itself from attack

11. Reason # 5: The ruling nation wants to spread its religious ideals.

12. Reason # 6: Power

13. What makes empires successful? • The ruling country needs to have a strong military

14. A strong military helps the country to take over and to control the people once they have taken over

15. The ruling country also needs to have strong diplomacy

16. They need to be able to convince other powerful countries that building an empire will not threaten the balance of power

17. There needs to be countries to conquer • These are usually countries who are having economic and political difficulty

18. Also, sometimes leaders in poor countries are willing to sell their countries for power or wealth