Imperialism is a policy or ideology of extending the rule over peoples and other countries.
Expansionism and centralisation have been pursued throughout recorded history by states, with the earliest examples dating back to the mid-third millennium BC. However the concept of imperialism arose in the modern age, associated chiefly with the European colonial powers of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries and New Imperialism.
The Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin suggested that "imperialism was the highest form of capitalism, claiming that imperialism developed after colonialism, and was distinguished from colonialism by monopoly capitalism"