A Brief History of Some Walls: Roman Wall of Lugo

Source: http://www.european-heritage.org

Source: Lala Lugo via Wikicommons

The Lugo Wall is the only urban defensive wall of Roman Empire origin still intact and complete: its 5 original gates or portas [False, Miñá, San Pedro, Santiago and Nova] and 46 towers stand with great impression. It is for this reason in year 2000 it became part of the World Heritage Site Family but before that period, specifically in 1921, the Lugo Wall became a National Monument.^[1] Today, the Roman Wall would not exist if many persons like Engineer major-general Felipe Paz, received permission to knock down the wall for city growth. It is safe to say that people of Galicia, Spain are extremely pleased that the wall stayed intact because it is not only a pleasing monument but also a major income earner for the area. Many tourist travel from far and year exploring the wall and explore the sites within reach.

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Economic Motives for New Imperialism

(From searchfiletype.com )

The policy of New Imperialism emerged around the period, 1870. It is thus termed because the imperialist nations, usually European powers such as France, Spain, Britain, Russia, Germany and Italy, were exploring and setting up territorial settlements and negotiating on a different part of the globe. New Imperialism continued the policy or action by which one country controls another country or territory. Raymond F. Betts argues that “most such control is achieved by military means to gain economic and political advantage.” Such a policy is also called expansionism; this policy creates an expansionist state that obtains overseas territories following a policy called colonialism. There are many reasons or motives for the sudden greater interest of the European powers in Africa and Asian territories. Furthermore, it could be said that the political and social factors stemmed from economic ones.

Industrialization [which began in the mid-1700 in Britain but spread to other lands] propelled entrepreneurs and capitalists to search for new economic ventures. As a result of this, there was immense competition between the countries for raw materials, investments opportunities, markets and labour for the industries. What the capitalists and entrepreneurs really wanted was a high profit margin. They realized that such profits could be achieved through a greater abundance of raw materials at cheaper price, investment opportunities that would add much to that profit and new markets that would increase their sales. As a result, they targeted Asia and Africa; rich in resources both  raw materials and of people were ideal places for these capitalists and entrepreneurs. The tropical rainforest, the temperate savannahs and other lands of plains each provided their own resources ranging from rubber, silk, tea, and cotton, indigo to diamonds. Rich lands such as Algeria, Morocco and the Ivory Coast are examples of African lands that attracted these European people. India, was also important to Britain because of its supply of tea which demand drastically increased within the English Channel. China also had its share of wealth with the raw material silk.