In this address, which Du Bois delivered in London at the first Pan-African Conference in 1900, he uttered the famous phrase, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” Co-signed by fellow organizers of the conference, the address makes clear the global nature of the color line and argues that human progress requires that the opportunities of modern civilization be made available to the “darker races.” Appealing specifically to Christian nations, the address calls on them to refuse to draw distinctions of color or race; to resist exploiting and repressing Africans for the sake of greed; to govern their African and West Indian colonies justly and give them, “as soon as practicable, the rights of responsible government”; to recognize the Congo Free State as an independent Negro State; and to respect the integrity of the independent states of Abyssinia, Liberia, and Haiti.

October 1887 a veterinarian in Belfast was tinkering with his son’s bicycle. Its metal wheels made the cycle slow, so to fix this, John Dunlop took some rubber that he used in his veterinary practice; he added the inflated tube of sheet rubber to a wooden wheel and rolled both the wooden and metal wheels across his yard in a game to see which could roll furthest. The inflated wooden wheel continued on long after the metal wheel had stopped rolling. The pneumatic tyre was born.

Dunlop’s timing was impeccable. Two years earlier the Rover had first appeared on the market. In contrast to the penny-farthing, the Rover was a rear-wheel-drive, chain-driven ‘safety bicycle’ with two similar-sized wheels. It is the bicycle design still most common today. The two inventions – the new bicycle and the inflatable rubber tyre – transformed the bicycle industry.

Chapter 1 explains why colonial lobbyists founded the ICI in 1893 and why over 200 colonial experts from thirteen countries joined the ICI during a period of tense imperial rivalry. Their internationalist efforts were in the context of severe criticism of colonialism in the 1890s due to losing money for colonizing countries. After non-governmental colonial interest groups initiatied the ICI, governments and colonial administrations soon started funding it. They thus showed their esteem for its transnational agenda, which promised a quick and cheap economic development of overseas possessions. While in the early period of the ICI’s existence, emulation of other colonial powers still aimed at nationalist competition, colonial experts learned quickly how to capitalize on superior colonial methods developed through transnational exchange. Unveiling this transnational cooperation, this chapter shows how the ICI marginalized the nationalist branches of the colonial movements in Europe and even took diplomatic action to prevent colonial powers from going to war, which would pose a threat to their colonial project. Ultimately, most colonial experts turned to colonial internationalism to save the colonial project that earned them a living. By 1914, most colonizing countries brought their policies in line with the best practice propagated by the ICI.