David Healy
Imperialism, in its most precise traditional usage, means the forcible extension of governmental control over foreign areas not designated for incorporation as integral parts of the nation. The term is commonly used to mean any significant degree of national influence, public or private, over other societies; but to some it refers principally to foreign economic exploitation with or without other actions. In all usages, however, the essential element is that one society must in some way impose itself upon another in a continuing unequal relationship. Thus, American expansionism dated from the beginning of the national experience, while its evolution into true imperialism occurred only in the later nineteenth century.
See also ANTI-IMPERIALISM; COLONIALISM AND NEOCOLONIALISM; CONTINENTAL EXPANSION; DOLLAR DIPLOMACY; ECONOMIC POLICY AND THEORY; INTERVENTION AND NONINTERVENTION; ISOLATIONISM; MANDATES AND TRUSTEESHIPS; OPEN DOOR POLICY; PROTECTORATES AND SPHERES OF INFLUENCE.