ABSTRACT
Introduction The industrial revolution was a defining moment in the history of Europe not only because of the internal social and economic transformations to which it had contributed. Technological development had also empowered European countries militarily and redefined their relations with the rest of the world since the nineteenth century. While technology in itself cannot be regarded as a cause of imperial expansion, historians have documented the fact that the discovery of firearms and other killing machines played a key role in the conquest of Africa, Asia and the Americas (see Headrick, 1981). In other words, technology was not necessarily a motive that fomented the desire to acquire colonies, but it certainly was an effective means that asserted domination and permitted the exploitation of plantations, farms, mines and forests. Since colonial times, techno-industrial development appeared as a distinctive characteristic of the superiority of the ‘West’ over much of the ‘rest’ – which immediately came into being in a state of backwardness.
