Describe the major wars fought among European imperial powers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and identify the major consequences of these wars

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ANSWER:
Students should identify the colonial wars beginning in the seventeenth century, when the Netherlands attacked Spanish and Portuguese colonies worldwide. Great Britain also raided Spanish and Portuguese colonies, gaining a foothold overseas. The British then attacked the Dutch, whose waning influence drew Britain and France into a struggle for power and control. In the eighteenth century, the War of Spanish Succession brought all of the major powers into conflict, as did the War of Austrian Succession a few decades later. Another series of wars between France and Britain culminated in the Seven Years War, which ended in 1763. When that war ended, Britain had gained control of all the French holdings in North America and most of French territory in India. Even though the economies of European countries were expanding because of the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, the extensive colonial wars created an enormous fiscal crisis. The problems generated by that fiscal crisis helped spark the revolutionary era.