Well, Nationalism and "Civilize missions" really made up what imperialism was. During old imperialism, many empires needed support from its people in order to expand its borders and the idea of Nationalism gave a reason for that. Missions were a sort of path that could be taken to imperialize. During new imperialism, the white man felt it was their responsibility to civilize places like Africa or the phillipine or Hawaii.
Explanation:
There a poem and picture of what "The white mans burden is". Just search it if you need to know.
