In the 1890s Germany belatedly decided to acquire a few colonies throughout the wider world. Most of its expansionist aggression earlier in the century had focussed on eastern Europe, with politicians such as Chancellor Otto von Bismarck obstinately refusing to consider overseas empire building on the grounds that it cost more to hold distant territories and to administer them than the value of goods and taxes they generated for the Empire.
Bismark fell from grace not long after Kaiser Wilhelm II succeeded to the throne. At about the same time an influential German sociologist, Max Weber, argued strongly that
