Imperialism's Global Effects Practice Test

A historian writing in the early 2000s argues that European empires often reshaped colonial economies by prioritizing export crops and mineral extraction, building railways and ports to move goods to coastal markets, and imposing new tax systems that pushed Africans and Asians into wage labor. The historian adds that these changes frequently disrupted local food production and increased vulnerability to global price swings, even as they expanded long-distance trade. Which consequence of European imperialism does this interpretation emphasize most?

In a 2015 secondary-source overview of empire, an author argues: “European officials often governed through local intermediaries and invented ‘customary’ legal categories, hardening ethnic and religious boundaries for administrative convenience. Over time, these classifications shaped access to land, education, and employment, leaving post-independence states with politicized identities and recurring conflict.” Which development is the best example of the long-term consequence described?