The Age of Empire: 1875–1914

The Age of Empire: 1875–1914 is a book by the British historian Eric Hobsbawm, published in 1987. It is the third in a trilogy of books about "the long 19th century" (coined by Hobsbawm), preceded by The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848 and The Age of Capital: 1848–1875. A fourth book, The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991, acts as a sequel to the trilogy.

The period of less than fifty years described by Hobsbawm began with an economic depression (see Long Depression), but the capitalist world economy quickly recovered, although the dominant British economy was being undermined by the German economy and American economy. Rising productivity resulted in increasing flow of goods, and rising living standards. Despite that, inequality was growing, both on the national and international levels. In the cultural sphere, it was the period of the Belle Époque, the swan-song of , increasingly marginalized by the growing affluence of the upper middle class (bourgeois), which can be seen as the class most benefiting from changes of that period.

It was also a period of peace, with Europe and the Western world involved in only a few minor conflicts. This led to a popular belief that no significant wars would happen in the future, an era of widespread optimism. At the same time, the military-industrial complex in all countries was busily stocking supplies for the conflict to come. In the background, the belief in progress and science was clashing with the old forces of religion. The West, dominating the world through its colonial system, was also increasingly interested in foreign cultures. It was such internal contradictions and tensions that for Hobsbawm defined this era, and spelled its inevitable end.