text:
Talk:Scramble for Africa

Old comments
Hey, can someone please add also the title "Race for Africa"? Many scholar lit. uses that phrase and may be useful for us to apprend this

 * This article should be moved to The Scramble for Africa. Martin 13:02, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
 * Ahh, that's better :) Martin 14:04, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Part of the problem with the big "series" box is that this article should also be part of a History of Africa series... Martin 10:44, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I remember to have read a large part of this text elsewere in Wikipedia in January. Ericd 05:07, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Borderer's edits (reverted)

 * 1) Liberia was an independent country, albeit one with close tied to the US
 * 2) Italian occupation of Ethiopia came considerably later historically, so it's irrelevant here.  Guettarda 22:07, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * 1) Liberia was founded by the US and considered by many citizens to be an imperialist land grab, as it smuggled slaves away from plantation properties on the Underground Railroad to deposit.
 * 2) Italian annexation of Ethiopia was to supplement their existing empire in Africa, which was merely finishing the work they started earlier, so it is entirely in context to the discussion.

Article title
Could this article please be renamed "Colonial Africa"? I was trying to do some background research for a class I am teaching on colonialism, and it is only by lucky accident that I was able to find this page. No one would ever think to run a search on "Scramble for Africa." Or maybe there could be a "see scramble for africa" on the colonization of africa article.

Don't want to contradict you, but I found this article while searching for "the scramble for Africa" which is what my textbooks called it. Still, we could have pointer pages Johncmullen1960 15:17, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

 * I am not knowledgeable enough to judge what title suits this article better, but I did set up a Colonial Africa redirect. Now, whenever one searches for "Colonial Africa", they should be automatically redirected here.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 20:16, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * In all of the history textbooks that I've seen, they always call this the Scramble for Africa, or something along those lines. It's probably not official or anything, but the term is widely used.  Peaceman 8 July 2005 02:38 (UTC)
 * I think the proper title should be "Partition of Africa" or there should be another article on that particular event. It is a much more proper term than "Scramble for Africa" (though this I agree is an accepted term, it should probably be a redirect, not the article title). For now I'll set up a "Partition of Africa" redirect but it should be changed eventually.Billy P 15:41, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Scramble for Africa is a term used in numerous text books. It is also the most widely used term for this period and people will search for it because that is how I found this page. Race for Africa is also used. Partitioning is not correct because it was not partition, they attempted to partition it in the Berlin Conference, but failed miserably. Colonization of Africa or European Imperialism of Africa would probably be the most accurate and proper substitutes for Scramble for Africa.

Another vote for changing the title to COLONIAL AFRICA. Indeed, the scramble did occur very soon after the dawn of the Industrial Revolution--the steam age was very important to the completion of the Suez Canal and dramatically increased sea trade. These "machine age" aspects do not appear to be included, at this time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homebuilding (talk • contribs) 19:27, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a pretty pat, amazingly one-sided piece.
"...defining 'effective occupation' as the criterion for international recognition of colonial claims and codifying the imposition of direct rule, accomplished usually through armed force."

And what of this? What were the costs to the African peoples of this ruthless usurpation of their lands and natural resources at gunpoint? What were the costs to the occupying powers? How many Africans perished? How many others? What have been the consequences of artibrarily assigned political borders resulting from the European powers carving up the continent? What has been the legacy (e.g., chronic instability, inter-ethnic conflict/"tribalism", civil war, underdevelopment, poverty, etc.) of this rape of the African continent? What? Not a single comment in this regard? This piece needs major improvement. deeceevoice 16:48, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * This article does have a very narrow focus. If this is to be the umbrella article on colonial Africa (and I'm not sure it should be), it needs a lot more info about what happened within Africa itself instead just on the European side.  The sections on the Herero and Congo are ok but nothing else seems to be covered.  If anyone's looking for more to include there's bits at History of Africa and at History of West Africa; not much but it may give you a start.  (Actually, those articles could use some expansion in this regard, too).

 * Another possibility might be to leave this article largely the way it is--that is, focused on the inter-European struggle, as the title suggests--while creating a new article for something like Colonialism in Africa that talks about how colonialism played out across the continent, and then links here for these details on the partitioning. I'm not sure which approach I like better, actually... --Dvyost 04:23, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

 * I agree with Dvyost. The name "Scamble" seems to suggest the European powers "scrambling" for land in Africa.  We could set up a series that talks about colonization in general- articles on governments in colonies, the things this post is talking about, and other things.  Or it might work better in a single article.  Hard to tell. --Mr. RX99 15:13, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

 * The European powers did scramble for land in Africa. I think this article works well for covering that. PhilipPage 22:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Map?
There should be a map of colonial Africa, showing how it was divided.
 * And perhaps that particular map shouldn't look like it's been drawn as a project in kindergarten? Dahn 18:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
 * There is nothing wrong with the map. Wizzy… ☎   07:18, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I've created a new, and to my mind better, map of colonial Africa circa 1914. Declangraham 19:58, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

List of Explorers?
I've had a brief fruitless search for one. Anyone know if wiki has one? I think it might be a handy reference. PhilipPage 20:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

 * How about category:Explorers of Africa and category:Explorers or even category:Exploration. --Richard Clegg 22:40, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Thanks Richard. PhilipPage 22:47, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

article in serious need of editing
this article is in grammatical disrepair- counted three errors in just the first sentence of the de beers sidebar. the writing style makes it very difficult to follow the progression of events and their connection to the larger issues as discussed. additionally, not sure the term 'colored' is appropriate in this context. 68.233.255.90 06:43, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

totally agree. where to begin? so i tried the beginning.

Quoting Lapaz: re: Scramble for Africa

"My English may not be perfect, however, I do believe that it is fundamental speaking of the Fashoda Incident & others crisis in the intro. Brevity mustn't means simplification, and it is quite impossible to understand how in hell could the Scramble for Africa be related to World War I if you don't pass by these historical crisis"

well, sure, but isn't naming specific incidents a bit much for the introduction? do we prefer global context or high-resolution detail here? i thought it simpler to cut rather than modify for that reason.

also, that sentence, like many, was a run-on. and it weirdly talked about an 1898 event as if it had been caused by a 1902 event. it's not grammar, just logic.

"I just want to add that the intro must be as concise as possible but, more importantly, should provide the global context need for the understanding of the article. In other words, it shouldn't repeat what the article says itself, but link it to worldwide event. This means linking it to the First World War, and thus speaking of these important international crisis. I leave the issue of the Russo-Japanese War up to you, although it could be included as, although I may have awkardly put it, it is the first war won against Europeans, and thus lead to a radical shift in mentalities (the Yellow Peril, etc.): White Man could be beaten."

right, well, what you just said makes the case for exclusion of the Russo-Japanese War from this intro better than i could make it. do we have a source for the idea that the Japanese are non-white? check out Yellow Peril and tell me about its relation to the Russo-Japanese war, or the Japanese at all.

apart from questions of fact, isn't there a POV question here? the construction of a universal "White Man" is as non-neutral as the construction of a universal "Colored," or even a "Yellow," wouldn't you say?

and "the first war won against Europeans" is contestable -- imperial Japan versus imperial Russia does not sound like the kind of conflict one would include in a survey of "Righteous Colored Rebellion"...

which brings everybody back to the topic, What is this Article About? shifting allegiances and incipient crises _between European powers_, or something else?

and an addiction to brevity more generally wouldn't hurt in other sections -- see Causes of the Scramble -- do we need to know, in this article, that Hobson influenced Lenin and Arendt?

humbly submittedDavidstaniunas 19:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

POV, syntax -- it's a nightmare in hereDavidstaniunas 19:51, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Ethiopia
Should there be something on Ethiopia, as it managed to resist Italian advances during this period I think, and I think it expanded during this period too. After the Scramble for Africa it was the only African ruled state other than Liberia (though Liberia was dominated by slave descendents to the exclusion of the other peoples of the area)

direct connection between entente's and WW I ?
The first paragraph states:

"Ongoing disputes necessitated the formation of alliances -- the Entente Cordiale, the Triple Entente, the Triple Alliance -- and led to the First World War.

Isn't this a too direct relation between these ententes and the outbreak of the war? The treaties may explain why the whole of Europe was in war in a matter of days, but are they the cause of it?

Response to the above

I agree with the above: the sentence in question is misleading and has no place here. Only the Entente Cordiale-whibvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

ch was not an alliance-can be said to have touched upon Africa in any direct sense, and that was to settle outstanding disputes between Britain and France. Neither the Triple Alliance nor the Triple Entente had any bearing on the question of Africa. White Guard 23:04, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Congo Free State
This article, and the accompanying map, suggests that the Free State of Congo/Congo Free State was under Belgium control. This how ever is not true, the Free State of Congo was, from 1885 to 1908, private property of King Leopold II of Belgium, in accordance with the Berlin Conference. After 1908 the Free State of Congo became Belgium territory and the name was changed in Belgium Congo. Mach10 08:28, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Not if you read slowly: "Léopold II, who personally owned the colony starting in 1885 and exploited it for ivory and rubber, would impose such a terror regime on the colonized people that Belgium decided to annex it in 1908." That's fairly accurate, isn't it? Lapaz 15:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Important, the main reason the Belgian government took Congo over from Leopold II was not for the terror regime. It is because Leopold II was facing bankrupty. (Lawrence Sergeant)

A lot of 19th century superstition is included in this article
POVs are reeking in this article. Quoting Lenin on the working of market economies is like quoting Hitler on zionism.

We also have a large segment dedicated to the speculation that the colonialism was based primarily on economical causes without even once stating the actual revenues accruing from these policies. It is my opinion of course, but the contemporary hysteria based on Social Darwinism was far more important than the very marginal purchasing power of the colonized markets. There was also a decided tendency of what may be called "mission creep", whereby the opportunism of local decision makers pulled the respective governments after them.

Furthermore the rivalry over African territories is stated as one of the main - if not the principal - causes of World War I. In reality the most important rivalry over African territories was the one between Britain and France who were allied during the war.

We are also "informed" that copper and tin was unavailable in Europe.

We also get treated to speculation that Abraham Lincoln was involved in the ACS. The basis for this speculation is openly admitted to be rumours which means that not even the writer thinks this to be a fact.

Definite article "the"
It is known as "The Scramble for Africa", including the definite article "the". That is the way it was called when the term was coined in 1884. Correct me if I'm wrong. I've renamed it once before, but since this is on the verge of a low-scale revert war, I'll rename it again only if there is no strong opposition. --Ezeu 17:39, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Renaming it. --Ezeu 02:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Reverting rename. Yes, it's always known with "the", but that's a matter of grammatical convention, not part of an official title. Compare this article to Middle East, it's always, 100% of the time called "The Middle East", but that doesn't make it appropriate to insert that as part of the title, because it is Wikipedia convention to remove "The" unless it's an official part of a title of a movie, book, song, etc. -Silence 11:13, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The heading "A succession of international crises leading to World War I"
The heading "A succession of international crises leading to World War I" seemed to me to imply a direct causal link between the crises listed and WWI, whereas I would think that only the Moroccan crisis is mentioned in the article on causes of WWI. So I revised the heading to "A succession of crises in the period to World War I"; perhaps someone else can think of a better wording. "International" seemed superfluous since the whole article is international. Rexparry sydney 05:45, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Removed section on cash crops
I've removed this section.

Capitalism, an economic system in which capital, or wealth, is put to work to produce more capital, revolutionized traditional economies, inducing social changes and political consequences that revolutionized African and Asian societies. Maximizing production and minimizing cost did not necessarily coincide with traditional, seasonal patterns of agricultural production. The ethic of wage productivity was thus, in many respects, a new concept to supposedly 'idle natives' merely accustomed to older patterns of production. Balanced, subsistence-based economies shifted to specialization and accumulation of surpluses. Tribal states or empires organized along precarious, unwritten cultural traditions also shifted to a division of labor based on legal protection of land and labor — once inalienable, but now commodities to be bought, sold, or traded.

It belongs in a section on colonialism in Africa, but not the 'Scramble'. These economic changes occurred both before and after the formation of colonial states, and the article doesn't even attempt to link cash cropping with the partition of Africa. The summary is also unreferenced and inaccurate: it implies that African economies were subsistence-based, egalitarian (I presume, since 'accumulation' was apparently a novelty), and static (inalienable rights to land and labour). None of these things are true.

The article needs a lot of work - it is currently based on limited, dated sources with a clear ideological bias. Sunjata 23:21, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The section has been restored once. To reiterate: it doesn't belong here. The cash crop revolution would be an excellent separate article - but it begins before, and ends after the scope of this article, c.1880s-1914. For a summary see J. Tosh, 'The Cash-crop Revolution in Tropical Africa', African Affairs (1980).

The impact of the cash crop revolution is also misrepresented in the section - if anyone wants to restore then it, then it needs to be referenced and verifiable.

Sunjata 21:16, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

William Gladstone (Liberal)
Why does it keep saying it like this? It's almost like "Liberal" is a title or his last name, which I know it's not. Is there some reason I shouldn't take out that link and just leave the link to the man? CumbiaDude 19:29, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * No reason at all, you're right that it shouldn't be there, I've done it and also edited around it. Rexparry sydney 00:51, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

The Pink Map
Proposed additions:

Xyzt1234 20:52, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) In the Berlin Conference, The Principle of Effectivity (or of Effective Occupation), that stated that powers could only hold colonies if they actually possessed them (etc.), also was approved by the newer colonialists in the stead of the principle of historical rights proposed by Portugal.
 * 2) The Portuguese Pink Map collided with Sir Cecil Rhodes "Cape to Cairo" Red Line. The dispute with England over these territories led to the British Ultimatum, to which Portugal gave in and the small obstacle that the Portuguese Empire was, was removed from the race.

Irrelevant sections
This article is still pretty incoherent and POV. It really needs to be pared down to its basics, and link to other topics as required - there is just too much wrong ATM for any one person to deal with.

Two points: 1. Why is Liberia in this article at all? How can America ahve participated in the Scramble for Africa 'marginally' if the colonization of Liberia took place and had petered out before the scope of this article even begins? 2. This article is about the scramble but also has extraneous material on colonial ideology that developed after this period - is this the best place to discuss Tintin books from the 1930s?!? I propose getting rid of both of these sections. Sunjata (talk) 20:09, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

 * The information about Liberia seems excessive for what amounts to an anomalous counterexample. The text also seems to be straining to draw ironic connections between Liberia and Monroe.  Liberia should be discussed here, but not in such depth.
 * The "Colonial encounter" section is definitely loaded with the author's opinions (I can tell from the writing style that the section came primarily from a single author). Stuff such as "Anthropology, the daughter of colonisation, participated in this so-called scientific racism..." is blatant editorializing. - JasonAQuest (talk) 17:02, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

"purchase" of kingdoms
Researching to add a smattering of African perspective on the Monarch article, I ran across this intriguingly anachronistic and quite offensive article in the New York Times that seems to fit quite nicely to this page. Thankfully, they have recently opened up their archives, so this article from 1882 documents a Colonial perspective of "purchasing" kingdoms in Africa. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B00EFDD1530E433A25754C2A9679D94639FD7CF

I don't have time at the moment to properly make edits, so I am dropping it on the talk page for other's consideration... the article begins: "AFRICAN TITLES. November 27, 1882, Wednesday Page 4, 1097 words

Now is evidently the time to buy African kingdoms, and the French are busily improving the opportunity. Good kingdoms can be bought in the Congo region for two gallons of rum each, and navigable rivers can be had, when bought by the quantity, at the rate of an ounce of gunpowder per mile."

It provides an interesting view of how Europeans justified the rush for control in Africa.--Marcinjeske (talk) 05:11, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:TintinCongo.jpg
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 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
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Tanganyika
Tanganyika should be mentioned as a British colony. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.34.71 (talk) 14:21, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

The Ideas of Charles Darwin
In the summary there is an implication that the work of Charles Darwin was somehow instrumental in the colonization of Africa. Later on it becomes clear that this is claimed to be through the emergence of Social Darwinism. You will excuse me but Social Darwinism was not by any stretch of the imagination a direct consequence of the Theory of Evolution but rather an aberration of it used as a justification for racism.

I also object to the use of the term "Darwinism" with respect to the racist display of a pygmy in the Bronx Zoo. The term "Social Darwinism" would be more accurate. The Theory of Evolution and Social Darwinism are two totally different animals. The first is the prevailing scientific foundation of modern biology while the second is a distortion of science in order to justify the exploitation of native peoples. Valicroix (talk) 18:24, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

 * I agree. In fact I tried to change the summary so that it better reflects the situation, but my edit was reverted by Kintetsubuffalo. I thought it was reasonable enough, what gives? --Ar-Pharazôn (talk) 10:47, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

 * By the way, the only instance of our dear friend's name is that sentence, and incidences of "social Darwinism". "Evolution" appears only once in the article. I'm sure anyone can see no source is cited for the claim either. I don't mean to start an edit war, but I'll at least add a citation needed to it. --Ar-Pharazôn (talk) 10:54, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * This has reappeared in the lede:
 * The ideas of Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution, the eugenics movement and racism, all helped to foster European expansionist policy
 * In what way did Darwin's ideas, or evolution, foster European expansionist policy? No citation is given.
 * Granted, there may have been widespread assumptions that white people were generally superior to black people; but:
 * A. That assumption is neither darwinian nor evolutionary;
 * B. That assumption was scarcely less prevalent before Darwin appeared on the scene;
 * C. European powers were, in the same era, often waging war against - and taking territory from - other white people.
 * Why is this in the lede?
 * I believe the first part of the sentence originally had a citation-needed tag, but through recent changes the tag drifted to the end of the sentence (a less controversial claim, perhaps, though I think it should still be linked to a reliable source). I'll move the tag back to the middle of the sentence.
 * bobrayner (talk) 13:55, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

 * Thank you Bob. Most appreciated! (What a shame you are in the minority.) Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 14:13, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. That could be ambiguous. Try again: What a shame you are in the minority with regards to explaining yourself. Thanks, Pdfpdf (talk) 14:17, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I was kinda hoping for some kind of source for the content, or a discussion about the content, rather than meta-debate about whether or not people post explanatory text when changing content. Oh well. I'll remove the uncited material, in line with WP:VERIFY. Hopefully that explanation is satisfactory to you; feel free to reinsert this text if you can provide some kind of reliable source.
 * bobrayner (talk) 15:11, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I just checked Norman Davies' "Europe: A History" and the part covering Africa/colonialism makes no mention of darwin or evolution, just simple power (much the same as the scramble for the Americas which happened some time before Darwin's ideas were spread). Conversely, where "Europe: A History" mentions Darwin, it doesn't touch on Africa at all apart from his cousin's travels. However, that's just one book. Someday I'll get around to checking my copy of Pakenham.
 * bobrayner (talk) 20:49, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * A much-belated followup; I dusted off a copy of Pakenham's comprehensive "The Scramble For Africa", and there's no mention of Darwin (or Huxley) or evolution in the index, nor in the bibliography. Not a jot.
 * bobrayner (talk) 00:30, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Liberia
It has been mentioned before, why is this here? It is before the time period. It contains factual errors (reading related articles it appears Bushrod Washington was the first president of the ACS). It contains POV (linking Liberia and the Monroe doctrine). It is under causes; how did Liberia cause the scramble for Africa any more than Sierra Leone or any other earlier colony did? It is also uncited. I intend to remove this in the next couple of days if no one can supply a good reason (and citations) as to why this should be here, at best it should be in a background section and modified to eliminate POV. 75.187.75.140 (talk) 03:43, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

 * I felt it was indeed appropriate to delete that whole section on Liberia which is out of place since this page is about the Scramble for Africa (roughly 1870-1914) --Lubiesque (talk) 13:44, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

LACK OF FOCUS ON RESISTANCE MAKES THIS ARTICLE WEAK
The lack of focus on African resistance to European aggression makes this article structurally weak. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ackees (talk • contribs) 13:40, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Introduction
Some of the facts in the lede seem a little dubious at best. Did the European powers really form a "continental united front", for instance? Surely war in Europe was not particularly abated during the 1800s, and wouldn't the 'scramble' itself serve as evidence that the European powers were not all in agreement with each other? In fact, the second sentence implies exactly the same thing: the many conferences and delegations were convened precisely to prevent the imperial lust from spilling over into intra-European war. Terrasweet (talk) 17:49, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The Map
Which one is actually better for this article? Which one is less ambiguous to color-blind people? The PNG file has bee used on heare, and the page was put on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_with_images_not_understandable_by_color_blind_users. Either the PNG is better than the SVG, and the category tag needs to be removed, or vice versa. Thoughts? Travürsa (talk) 23:30, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The former (PNG) is ugly, but at least there is good contrast between relatively saturated colours (maybe it would be possible to change a colour for the benefit of conventionally colour-blind viewers). I think that the latter (SVG) is both detailed and attractive (beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course but the pastel hues might not have enough contrast for some readers. Is it possible take the latter one back to the workshop for a slight tweak? It could also be helpful to find a different colour for either French or German colonies - two different blues are not ideal. However, all that is just my opinion and I'm no visual expert. bobrayner (talk) 01:55, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

At least the first map is labelled. An uninitiated person would have no idea what the second map even meant. AmazinglyLifelike (talk) 21:24, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Economics
This article does not say enough about economics. The African colonies had economies based on a single commodity, generally, which made their economies very unstable and at the mercy of world commodity markets. If the price of the commodity went down, it meant a significant contraction in the colony's economy. This outlasted the era of colonization, as many independent countries did not diversify their economies after de-colonization. This was a direct cause of the Rwandan Genocide, for example.--Wikigold96 (talk) 16:38, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Single-commodity orientation a direct cause of the Rwandan Genocide?? You gotta be kiddin!? Have you read that article? Besides, this is stuff for a "legacy of colonialisation" article, not one about the "Scramble for Africa". Speaking about the Great Lakes region: when the Europeans started to get involved, many people there were still living in economic conditions close to those experienced by Europeans in the prehistoric period. Whether they would have been better off (in economic terms) remaining isolated could be a subject for debate. They were obviously interested in importing manufactured goods, so they needed something to pay for those except ivory and slaves. Drow69 (talk) 16:59, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Role Reversal
The partitioning of Europe may be seen as a way for the Africans to eliminate the threat of a Africa-wide war over Europe.

Utter nonsense, isn't it? Yet on this very important article, we see this kind of sentence in the first paragraph. It might be a nice palliative for the Europeans, this sentence, but I don't think it is doing anyone any favors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.55.65.71 (talk) 10:55, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Map
Shouldn't the map include the Dervish State in what is now Somalia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.238.32.104 (talk) 11:43, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Boer War
I am by no means an expert, but it seems to me that the Second Boer War should be listed under the section listing crises preceding World War I. That and the Agadir crisis/Panther incident. Parsecboy (talk) 15:43, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
 * That looks like a good idea to me. bobrayner (talk) 16:08, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Strategic rivalry
This sentence seems unrelated to the topic of this section and should be deleted:

 * According to von Tirpitz, this aggressive naval policy was supported by the National Liberal Party rather than by the conservatives, implying that imperialism was supported by the rising middle classes.[6]

Perhaps it belongs elsewhere is this or another article.

Zulu Kane (talk) 15:18, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Germany's Weltpolitik
I do not understand the use of the word "relayed", twice, in the second paragraph. Is this some word that didn't translate correctly from German??

Zulu Kane (talk) 16:02, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Clash of rival imperial powers
This is the paragraph I deleted, because it makes no reference whatsoever to Africa:

 * On the other hand, the British abandoned their "splendid isolation" in 1902 with the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which gave the Empire of Japan the opportunity to pursue war with Russia without the risk of Russia's allies taking arms against Japan. Japan was victorious during the war against Russia (1904–1905). In 1904 the British signed the Entente cordiale with France, and in 1907 this became the Triple Entente with the addition of Russia — effectively a system of alliances pitted against the Triple Alliance, which Bismarck had patiently assembled.

Furthermore, it has no citation.

- Zulu Kane (talk) 18:03, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I suspect the following is redundant with the more detailed information in the larger "Colonization of the Congo" section, so I deleted it from this section. I've pasted it here, just in case anyone sees a need to add any of it to the main section about the Congo.

 * While pretending to advocate humanitarianism and denounce slavery, Leopold II used the most inhumane tactics to exploit his newly acquired lands. His crimes were revealed by 1905, but he remained in control until 1908, when he was forced to turn over control to the Belgian government.<ref></ref>

- Zulu Kane (talk) 18:26, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

After moving or deleting the paragraphs that didn't belong in this sub-section, all that remained was the text about Italian expansion. So I changed this sub-section title to match this subject matter:

 * Italy's expansion

- Zulu Kane (talk) 18:36, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Colonization of the Congo
This parenthetical quotation was in the middle of an already long sentence about Cecil Rhodes:

 * (who once declared, "all of these stars... these vast worlds that remain out of reach. If I could, I would annex other planets"<ref>S. Gertrude Millin, Rhodes, London, 1933, p. 138.</ref>)

While it is quite colorful, it's barely relevant in this context. Readers interested in Cecil Rhodes can already find it on his Wikipedia page. In short, it seems unnecessary and distracting here. So I deleted it.

- Zulu Kane (talk) 02:06, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Good work. bobrayner (talk) 00:24, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Title
I don't see any attribution for the title of this article. "Scramble" is not neutral language and it is not a common word in lexical corpus about history. It is a pet phrase, but not a very good one for the neutral description of an historical process. Can anyone provide a citation, if the title is not going to be changed? 66.57.23.238 (talk) 17:50, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
 * It's an established term - see Pakenham's book - but maybe there's room for improvement. Can you suggest a better title? bobrayner (talk) 21:10, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Anything pre-1990s? Where is the historical cachet for this title?--Раціональне анархіст (talk) 03:57, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I understand it is for that mentioned period only (1871 - 1914). That leaves older colonisation out (North of Sahara, like Algeria, South Africa). Also the earlier dexpedition s (Livingstone, Stanley & earlier). And not every European visit was a grab.
 * I too am not happy with the name. Could we use a description instead of the chosen name? Maybe, 'European colonisation of Africa, 1881 – 1914'? -DePiep (talk) 10:19, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
 * This article should be merged into Colonisation of Africa.--Раціональне анархіст (talk) 12:33, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
 * That, or a section forked out into a separate article, like Colonisation of Africa 1871–1914. -DePiep (talk) 14:38, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Not a fan of x-to-y dating schemes. Is there a generally agreed-upon common term for this post-Civil War/pre-WWI time-period? If such exists, then simply moving the page to Colonization of Africa (XYZ era) would be the most expedient solution.--Раціональне анархіст (talk) 05:02, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I would oppose that. Where we already have a title used by reliable sources, and the proposed title is used by zero reliable sources, a move is not a good idea. bobrayner (talk) 22:39, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Here you have a point (by WP:POVNAME). It would be good or even necessary then to add this source explanation, like "The name 'Scramble for Africa' was introduced by X in Y[1]". -DePiep (talk) 23:01, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Explaining the history of the term is probably a good idea, although I would challenge the implication that the word "scramble" is "non-neutral"; does anybody really doubt that European powers (and occasionally their proxies) raced to claim swathes of African territory? bobrayner (talk) 14:11, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The title is fine to me. I heard (read) it now and then before, and I mean decades before. In their seminal book Africa and the Victorians (1961), Robinson and Gallagher use it very occasionally (or plural: "the scrambles for Africa"). A well-know French documentary focusing on the Berlin Conference and its outcome is titled La ruée vers l'Afrique (the exact translation of the scramble for Africa).--Lubiesque (talk) 14:39, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * "Scramble for Africa" is the term used in historical literature. Further, how exactly is "scramble" not neutral? That's exactly what it was. Colonial powers felt that the African savages (colonists words, not mine) much like the Native Americans couldn't claim property therefore it was unclaimed, therefore a scramble ensued to claim it. Source material supports current title per WP:COMMONNAME and efforts to re-write history are not appreciated. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 17:02, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

"Scramble" is not neutral because it describes the European view. For people who lived there, there was nothing scrambling. -DePiep (talk) 18:55, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * According to what source? Your opinion? A scramble happened and I defy you to point to sources that say otherwise. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 19:11, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * What? Did I say it did not happen? Where? -DePiep (talk) 19:15, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Scramble for Africa is the WP:COMMONNAME. I do not find the term "scramble" to be Eurocentric; a scramble is exactly what it was. I'd also like to point out that this article is too large to be merged with Colonisation of Africa, and the latter appears to be a summary of multiple events, so it would be inappropriate to merge. Omo Obatalá  (talk) 20:43, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * is supposed to reply here. Not only is he inventing some quote by me, and also their tone is aggressive. Of course, there is no need for that. -DePiep (talk) 21:11, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't have to reply. Your experience on wiki belies your lack of familiarity with WP:CONSENSUS. Please provide sources for your assertion that scramble isn't neutral. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 00:53, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Sure you don't have to reply. But unless you quote me saying what you put in my mouth, you can just as well shut up and fuck off. -DePiep (talk) 11:08, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

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Substituted at 05:38, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Egyptian Borders
This is a minor issue but on muitiple maps I've seen throughout this article and all across the web of the completed Scramble for Africa show clearly Egypt controlling the southern portion of Cyrenaica. I find this to be problematic as there is no treaty or expedition of any sorts that I could find that Egypt annexed this area apart from a treaty in the 1920s giving the area to the Italian colony of Libya. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.106.142.1 (talk) 18:55, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

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Re: cause of World War I
I don't think the claim that the scramble caused world war I is accurate or credible. Really I don't see that section as relevant at all to the topic at hand and think it should be taken out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:86B:4A00:E0E7:A70E:E59D:AF23 (talk) 22:13, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Sagallo?
Sagallo is not mentioned.--134.153.2.217 (talk) 19:43, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

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Timeline would be useful
I think a timeline of when each present-day African state was initially colonised would be useful to get a picture of the progress of conquest. Or alternatively, a map colour-coded for conquest by decade (or 5 year period). If independence dates were also shown that would be fab. And no, before some smartass comes along and suggest I do it, I have neither the know-how nor inclination to make such a thing myself! But if any brilliant person would like to do so they will have my thanks :) LastDodo (talk) 16:12, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Which of the seven?
Hi Dabaqabad; Which of the seven citations you removed is unreliable? Heesxiisolehh (talk) 23:40, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi ,

I have removed three citations for the following reasons:

1. The British War Office citation does not support the part about Diiriye Guure (who is this guy anyways?). To quote: "He acquired some notoriety by seditious preaching in Berbera in 1895, after which he returned to his tariga in Kob Faradod, in the Dolbahanta". Nowhere in here does it mention a sultan or emir.

2. The "Taariikhdii daraawiishta iyo Sayid Maxamad Cabdille Xasan" source is not accessible online anywhere. Could you show me the particular page that is cited and is there an online copy? I have also heard concerns over its neutrality, I think I even mentioned that once to you but I am yet to find the talk page where we discussed it.

3. For the third one (which is the same source) no page has been specified. Same concerns as point 2.

In the meantime I would suggest you read up on the WP:OR, WP:VERIFY and WP:SYNTH to better your understanding on Wikipedia guidelines. Your talk page seems to highlight that this might be an issue for you that you might need to improve yourself on. Dabaqabad (talk) 00:03, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

History
Asses the cases of the scramble for africa leading to partition 41.75.216.74 (talk) 07:21, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Scramble for Africa
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Scramble for Africa's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "sarkin": From Herero and Namaqua genocide: Jeremy Sarkin-Hughes (2008) Colonial Genocide and Reparations Claims in the 21st Century: The Socio-Legal Context of Claims under International Law by the Herero against Germany for Genocide in Namibia, 1904–1908, p. 142, Praeger Security International, Westport, Conn. ISBN 978-0-313-36256-9 From Herero Wars: Jeremy Sarkin-Hughes (2008) Colonial Genocide and Reparations Claims in the 21st Century: The Socio-Legal Context of Claims under International Law by the Herero against Germany for Genocide in Namibia, 1904-1908, p. 142, Praeger Security International, Westport, Conn. ISBN 978-0-31336-256-9

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 03:14, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Geskidenes
Die oorskake van kolonisering in Afrika 102.165.192.148 (talk) 10:04, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Petrostates
Why is there this sub-section on Petrostates. It does not seem to clearly connect. It either needs to be removed or else it needs to be explained clearer to show connections to other sections. 35.20.209.10 (talk) 18:41, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Scramble for Africa


text:
Howard Engel

Howard Engel CM (April 2, 1931 – July 16, 2019) was a Canadian mystery author and CBC producer who resided in Toronto, Ontario. He was famous for his Benny Cooperman detective series, set in the Niagara Region in and around the city of Grantham, Ontario, mirroring St. Catharines, Ontario, where he was born. He was one of the founding authors of Crime Writers Of Canada in 1982.

Personal life
From 1962 to 1978 he was married to Marian Engel, a noted Canadian author of literary fiction, who died in 1985. They had two children, twins Charlotte and William, born in 1965. Charlotte currently is an independent television producer. Howard married Canadian novelist Janet Hamilton. The couple have one son, Jacob Engel, born in 1989.

In 2001, he unknowingly suffered a stroke that left him with alexia sine agraphia, a condition that prevented him from understanding written words without a major effort without affecting his ability to write. He was later able to write a new novel, Memory Book (2005), in which his character Benny Cooperman suffers a blow to the head and is similarly affected. He later published The Man Who Forgot How To Read (2007), a memoir of the time he spent recovering from the stroke, with an afterword by Oliver Sacks (who wrote about Howard's reading problems in the book The Mind's Eye), and another novel, East of Suez, in 2008.

In February 2007, Howard was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada, receiving it at the 100th investiture. In 2013, Engel received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal. He died in Toronto on July 16, 2019, of pneumonia that arose from a stroke, at the age of 88.

Benny Cooperman novels

 * The Suicide Murders (1980), ISBN 0-7720-1304-7 (Adapted as an CBC TV movie starring Saul Rubinek)
 * The Ransom Game (1981), ISBN 0-7720-1364-0
 * Murder On Location (1982), ISBN 0-7720-1384-5
 * Murder Sees The Light (1984), ISBN 0-670-80304-9 (Adapted as a CBC TV movie starring Saul Rubinek)
 * A City Called July (1986), ISBN 0-670-81268-4
 * A Victim Must Be Found (1988), ISBN 0-670-82298-1
 * Dead And Buried (1990) ISBN 0-670-83116-6
 * The Whole Megillah (1991)
 * There Was An Old Woman (1993), ISBN 0-670-85259-7
 * Getting Away With Murder (1995), ISBN 0-670-86078-6
 * My Brother's Keeper (2001), ISBN 1-55278-327-8 (with Eric Wright)
 * The Cooperman Variations (2001), ISBN 0-14-029744-8
 * Memory Book (2005), ISBN 0-14-301665-2
 * East Of Suez (2008), ISBN 978-0-14-305333-0
 * Over the River (2018), ISBN 9781770864580

Other Novels

 * Murder In Space (1985), ISBN 0-140-08370-7 (FX Woolf was a pen-name for Howard Engels and Janet Hamilton).
 * Murder In Montparnasse (1992), ISBN 0-670-84068-8
 * Mr. Doyle And Dr. Bell (1997), ISBN 0-670-87755-7
 * A Child's Christmas In Scarborough (1997), ISBN 1-55013-922-3 »City of Fallen Angels » (2014)

Non-fiction

 * Lord High Executioner: An Unashamed Look At Hangmen, Headsmen, And Their Kind (1996), ISBN 1-55013-704-2
 * Crimes Of Passion: An Unblinking Look At Murderous Love (2001), ISBN 1-55263-355-1
 * The Man Who Forgot How To Read (2007), ISBN 978-0-00-200714-6

Anthologies

 * Criminal Shorts: Mysteries By Canadian Crime Writers (1992), ISBN 0-7715-9160-8 (ed. with Eric Wright)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Howard Engel


text:
The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker (Щелкунчик, ), Op. 71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet (conceived as a ballet-féerie; балет-феерия) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination. The plot is an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The ballet's first choreographer was Marius Petipa, with whom Tchaikovsky had worked three years earlier on The Sleeping Beauty, assisted by Lev Ivanov. Although the complete and staged The Nutcracker ballet was not as successful as had been the 20-minute Nutcracker Suite that Tchaikovsky had premiered nine months earlier, The Nutcracker soon became popular.

Since the late 1960s, it has been danced by countless ballet companies, especially in North America. Major American ballet companies generate around 40% of their annual ticket revenues from performances of The Nutcracker. The ballet's score has been used in several film adaptations of Hoffmann's story.

Tchaikovsky's score has become one of his most famous compositions. Among other things, the score is noted for its use of the celesta, an instrument the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic ballad The Voyevoda (1891).

Composition
After the success of The Sleeping Beauty in 1890, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, the director of the Imperial Theatres, commissioned Tchaikovsky to compose a double-bill program featuring both an opera and a ballet. The opera would be Iolanta. For the ballet, Tchaikovsky would again join forces with Marius Petipa, with whom he had collaborated on The Sleeping Beauty. The material Vsevolozhsky chose was an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", by Alexandre Dumas called "The Story of a Nutcracker". The plot of Hoffmann's story (and Dumas' adaptation) was greatly simplified for the two-act ballet. Hoffmann's tale contains a long flashback story within its main plot titled "The Tale of the Hard Nut", which explains how the Prince was turned into the Nutcracker. This had to be excised for the ballet.

Petipa gave Tchaikovsky extremely detailed instructions for the composition of each number, down to the tempo and number of bars. The completion of the work was interrupted for a short time when Tchaikovsky visited the United States for twenty-five days to conduct concerts for the opening of Carnegie Hall. Tchaikovsky composed parts of The Nutcracker in Rouen, France.

Saint Petersburg premiere
The first performance of the ballet was held as a double premiere together with Tchaikovsky's last opera, Iolanta, on 18 December 1892, at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Although the libretto was by Marius Petipa, who exactly choreographed the first production has been debated. Petipa began work on the choreography in August 1892; however, illness removed him from its completion and his assistant of seven years, Lev Ivanov, was brought in. Although Ivanov is often credited as the choreographer, some contemporary accounts credit Petipa. The performance was conducted by Italian composer Riccardo Drigo, with Antonietta Dell'Era as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Pavel Gerdt as Prince Coqueluche, Stanislava Belinskaya as Clara, Sergei Legat as the Nutcracker-Prince, and Timofey Stukolkin as Drosselmeyer. Unlike in many later productions, the children's roles were performed by real children – students of the Imperial Ballet School in Saint Petersburg, with Belinskaya as Clara, and Vassily Stukolkin as Fritz – rather than adults.

The first performance of The Nutcracker was not deemed a success. The reaction to the dancers themselves was ambivalent. Although some critics praised Dell'Era on her pointework as the Sugar Plum Fairy (she allegedly received five curtain-calls), one critic called her "corpulent" and "podgy". Olga Preobrajenskaya as the Columbine doll was panned by one critic as "completely insipid" and praised as "charming" by another.

Alexandre Benois described the choreography of the battle scene as confusing: "One can not understand anything. Disorderly pushing about from corner to corner and running backwards and forwards – quite amateurish."

The libretto was criticized as "lopsided" and for not being faithful to the Hoffmann tale. Much of the criticism focused on the featuring of children so prominently in the ballet, and many bemoaned the fact that the ballerina did not dance until the Grand Pas de Deux near the end of the second act (which did not occur until nearly midnight during the program). Some found the transition between the mundane world of the first scene and the fantasy world of the second act too abrupt. Reception was better for Tchaikovsky's score. Some critics called it "astonishingly rich in detailed inspiration" and "from beginning to end, beautiful, melodious, original, and characteristic". But this also was not unanimous, as some critics found the party scene "ponderous" and the Grand Pas de Deux "insipid".

Subsequent productions
In 1919, choreographer Alexander Gorsky staged a production which eliminated the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier and gave their dances to Clara and the Nutcracker Prince, who were played by adults instead of children. This was the first production to do so. An abridged version of the ballet was first performed outside Russia in Budapest (Royal Opera House) in 1927, with choreography by Ede Brada. In 1934, choreographer Vasili Vainonen staged a version of the work that addressed many of the criticisms of the original 1892 production by casting adult dancers in the roles of Clara and the Prince, as Gorsky had. The Vainonen version influenced several later productions.

The first complete performance outside Russia took place in England in 1934, staged by Nicholas Sergeyev after Petipa's original choreography. Annual performances of the ballet have been staged there since 1952. Another abridged version of the ballet, performed by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, was staged in New York City in 1940, Alexandra Fedorova – again, after Petipa's version. The ballet's first complete United States performance was on 24 December 1944 by the San Francisco Ballet, staged by its artistic director, Willam Christensen, and starring Gisella Caccialanza as the Sugar Plum Fairy, and Jocelyn Vollmar as the Snow Queen. After the enormous success of this production, San Francisco Ballet has presented Nutcracker every Christmas Eve and throughout the winter season, debuting new productions in 1944, 1954, 1967, and 2004. The original Christensen version continues in Salt Lake City, where Christensen relocated in 1948. It has been performed every year since 1963 by the Christensen-founded Ballet West.

The New York City Ballet gave its first annual performance of George Balanchine's reworked staging of The Nutcracker in 1954. The performance of Maria Tallchief in the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy helped elevate the work from obscurity into an annual Christmas classic and the industry's most reliable box-office draw. Critic Walter Terry remarked that "Maria Tallchief, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, is herself a creature of magic, dancing the seemingly impossible with effortless beauty of movement, electrifying us with her brilliance, enchanting us with her radiance of being. Does she have any equals anywhere, inside or outside of fairyland? While watching her in The Nutcracker, one is tempted to doubt it."

Since Gorsky, Vainonen and Balanchine's productions, many other choreographers have made their own versions. Some institute the changes made by Gorsky and Vainonen while others, like Balanchine, utilize the original libretto. Some notable productions include Rudolf Nureyev's 1963 production for the Royal Ballet, Yury Grigorovich for the Bolshoi Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov for the American Ballet Theatre, Fernand Nault for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens starting in 1964, Kent Stowell for Pacific Northwest Ballet starting in 1983, and Peter Wright for the Royal Ballet and the Birmingham Royal Ballet. In recent years, revisionist productions, including those by Mark Morris, Matthew Bourne, and Mikhail Chemiakin have appeared; these depart radically from both the original 1892 libretto and Vainonen's revival, while Maurice Béjart's version completely discards the original plot and characters. In addition to annual live stagings of the work, many productions have also been televised or released on home video.

Roles
The following extrapolation of the characters (in order of appearance) is drawn from an examination of the stage directions in the score.

Act I
• Herr Stahlbaum

• * His wife

• * His children, including:

• * Clara, his daughter, sometimes known as Marie or Masha

• * Fritz, his son

• * Louise, his daughter

• Children Guests

• Parents dressed as incroyables

• Herr Drosselmeyer

• * His nephew (in some versions) who resembles the Nutcracker Prince and is played by the same dancer

• Dolls (spring-activated, sometimes all three dancers instead):

• * Harlequin and Columbine, appearing out of a cabbage (1st gift)

• * Vivandière and a Soldier (2nd gift)

• Nutcracker (3rd gift, at first a normal-sized toy, then full-sized and "speaking", then a Prince)

• Owl (on clock, changing into Drosselmeyer)

• Mice

• Sentinel (speaking role)

• The Bunny

• Soldiers (of the Nutcracker)

• Mouse King

• Snowflakes (sometimes Snow Crystals, sometimes accompanying a Snow Queen and King)

Act II
• Angels and/or Fairies

• Sugar Plum Fairy

• Clara/Marie

• The Nutcracker Prince

• 12 Pages

• Eminent members of the court

• Spanish dancers (Chocolate)

• Arabian dancers (Coffee)

• Chinese dancers (Tea)

• Russian dancers (Candy Canes)

• Danish shepherdesses / French mirliton players (Marzipan)

• Mother Ginger

• Polichinelles (Mother Ginger's Children)

• Dewdrop

• Flowers

• Sugar Plum Fairy's Cavalier

Plot
Below is a synopsis based on the original 1892 libretto by Marius Petipa. The story varies from production to production, though most follow the basic outline. The names of the characters also vary. In the original Hoffmann story, the young heroine is called Marie Stahlbaum and Clara (Klärchen) is her doll's name. In the adaptation by Dumas on which Petipa based his libretto, her name is Marie Silberhaus. In still other productions, such as Balanchine's, Clara is Marie Stahlbaum rather than Clara Silberhaus.

Act I
Scene 1: The Stahlbaum Home The ballet is set in Nuremberg, Germany on Christmas Eve in the 1820s, where family and friends have gathered in the parlor to decorate the Christmas tree in preparation for the party. Once the tree is finished, the children are summoned.

When the party begins, presents are given out to the children. Suddenly, as the owl-topped grandfather clock strikes eight, a mysterious figure enters the room. It is Drosselmeyer— a local councilman, magician, and Clara's godfather. He is also a talented toymaker who has brought with him gifts for the children, including four lifelike dolls who dance to the delight of all. He then has them put away for safekeeping.

Clara and her brother Fritz are sad to see the dolls being taken away, but Drosselmeyer has yet another toy for them: a wooden nutcracker doll, which the other children ignore. Clara immediately takes a liking to it, but Fritz accidentally breaks it. Clara is heartbroken, but Drosselmeyer fixes the nutcracker, much to everyone's relief.

During the night, after everyone else has gone to bed, Clara returns to the parlor to check on the nutcracker. As she reaches the small bed, the clock strikes midnight and she looks up to see Drosselmeyer perched atop it. Suddenly, mice begin to fill the room and the Christmas tree begins to grow to dizzying heights. The nutcracker also grows to life size. Clara finds herself in the midst of a battle between an army of gingerbread soldiers and the mice, led by their king.

The nutcracker appears to lead the gingerbread men, who are joined by tin soldiers, and by dolls who serve as doctors to carry away the wounded. As the seven-headed Mouse King advances on the still-wounded nutcracker, Clara throws her slipper at him, distracting him long enough for the nutcracker to stab him.

Scene 2: A Pine Forest

The mice retreat and the nutcracker is transformed into a human prince. He leads Clara through the moonlit night to a pine forest in which the snowflakes dance around them, beckoning them on to his kingdom as the first act ends.

Act II
The Land of Sweets

Clara and the Prince travel to the beautiful Land of Sweets, ruled by the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Prince's place until his return. He recounts for her how he had been saved from the Mouse King by Clara and transformed back into himself. In honor of the young heroine, a celebration of sweets from around the world is produced: chocolate from Spain, coffee from Arabia, tea from China, and candy canes from Russia all dance for their amusement; Marzipan shepherdesses perform on their flutes; Mother Ginger has her children, the Polichinelles, emerge from under her enormous hoop skirt to dance; a string of beautiful flowers perform a waltz. To conclude the night, the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier perform a dance.

A final waltz is performed by all the sweets, after which the Sugar Plum Fairy ushers Clara and the Prince down from their throne. He bows to her, she kisses Clara goodbye, and leads them to a reindeer-drawn sleigh. It takes off as they wave goodbye to all the subjects who wave back.

In the original libretto, the ballet's apotheosis "represents a large beehive with flying bees, closely guarding their riches". Just like Swan Lake, there have been various alternative endings created in productions subsequent to the original.

Musical sources and influences
The Nutcracker is one of the composer's most popular compositions. The music belongs to the Romantic period and contains some of his most memorable melodies, several of which are frequently used in television and film. (They are often heard in TV commercials shown during the Christmas season. )

Tchaikovsky is said to have argued with a friend who wagered that the composer could not write a melody based on a one-octave scale in sequence. Tchaikovsky asked if it mattered whether the notes were in ascending or descending order and was assured it did not. This resulted in the Adagio from the Grand pas de deux, which, in the ballet, nearly always immediately follows the "Waltz of the Flowers". A story is also told that Tchaikovsky's sister Alexandra (9 January 1842 — 9 April 1891 ) had died shortly before he began composition of the ballet and that his sister's death influenced him to compose a melancholy, descending scale melody for the adagio of the Grand Pas de Deux. However, it is more naturally perceived as a dreams-come-true theme because of another celebrated scale use, the ascending one in the Barcarolle from The Seasons.

Tchaikovsky was less satisfied with The Nutcracker than with The Sleeping Beauty. (In the film Fantasia, commentator Deems Taylor observes that he "really detested" the score.) Tchaikovsky accepted the commission from Vsevolozhsky but did not particularly want to write the ballet (though he did write to a friend while composing it, "I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task").

Instrumentation
The music is written for an orchestra with the following instrumentation.

Woodwinds
 * 3 flutes (2nd and 3rd doubling on piccolo)
 * 2 oboes
 * 1 cor anglais
 * 2 clarinets in B♭ and A
 * 1 bass clarinet in B♭
 * 2 bassoons

Brass
 * 4 French horns in F
 * 2 trumpets in A and B♭
 * 2 tenor trombones
 * 1 bass trombone
 * 1 tuba

Percussion
 * Timpani
 * Snare drum
 * Cymbals
 * Bass drum
 * Triangle
 * Tambourine
 * Castanets
 * Tam-tam
 * Glockenspiel

Keyboard
 * Celesta

Voice
 * Soprano and alto chorus

Strings
 * 2 harps

 * Violin I
 * Violin II
 * Viola
 * Violoncello
 * Double bass

From the Imperial Ballet's 1892 program
Titles of all of the numbers listed here come from Marius Petipa's original scenario as well as the original libretto and programs of the first production of 1892. All libretti and programs of works performed on the stages of the Imperial Theatres were titled in French, which was the official language of the Imperial Court, as well as the language from which balletic terminology is derived.

Casse-Noisette. Ballet-féerie in two acts and three tableaux with apotheosis.

Act I
 * 1) Petite ouverture
 * 2) Scène: Une fête de Noël
 * 3) Marche et petit galop des enfants
 * 4) Danse des incroyables et merveilleuses
 * 5) Entrée de Drosselmeyer
 * 6) Danses des poupées mécaniques—1. Le Soldat et la vivandière

2. Arlequin et Colombine (originally composed for a She-devil and a He-devil)
 * 1) Le Casse-Noisette—Polka et la berceuse
 * 2) Danse "Großvater"
 * 3) Grand scène fantastique: la métamorphose du salon
 * 4) La bataille de Casse-Noisette et du Roi des souris
 * 5) Le voyage
 * 6) Valse des flocons de neige

Act II
 * 1) 1. Entr'acte

2. Grand scène de Confituremburg Grand divertissement— 1. "Chocolat" — Danse espagnole

2. "Café" — Danse arabe

3. "Thé" — Danse chinoise

4. Danse des Bouffons

5. Danse des mirlitons

6. La mère Gigogne et les polichinelles

7. Grand ballabile (Waltz of the Flowers)

 * 1) Pas de deux—1. Adage

2. Variation du Prince Coqueluche (M. Pavel Gerdt)

3. Variation de la Fée-Dragée (Mlle Antoinetta Dell'Era)

4. Coda
 * 1) Coda générale
 * 2) Apothéose: Une ruche

Structure
List of acts, scenes (tableaux) and musical numbers, along with tempo indications. Numbers are given according to the original Russian and French titles of the first edition score (1892), the piano reduction score by Sergei Taneyev (1892), both published by P. Jurgenson in Moscow, and the Soviet collected edition of the composer's works, as reprinted Melville, New York: Belwin Mills [n.d.]

Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a
Tchaikovsky made a selection of eight of the numbers from the ballet before the ballet's December 1892 première, forming The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a, intended for concert performance. The suite was first performed, under the composer's direction, on 19 March 1892 at an assembly of the Saint Petersburg branch of the Musical Society. The suite became instantly popular, with almost every number encored at its premiere, while the complete ballet did not begin to achieve its great popularity until after the George Balanchine staging became a hit in New York City. The suite became very popular on the concert stage, and was excerpted in Disney's Fantasia, omitting the two movements prior to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The outline below represents the selection and sequence of the Nutcracker Suite made by the composer:

1. Miniature Overture (B-Flat Major)

2. Characteristic Dances 1. March (G Major)

2. Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy (E Minor) [ending altered from ballet version]

3. Russian Dance (Trepak) (G Major)

4. Arabian Dance (coffee) (G Minor)

5. Chinese Dance (tea) (B-Flat Major)

6. Dance of the Reed Flutes (Mirlitons) (D Major)

3. Waltz of the Flowers (D Major)

Grainger: Paraphrase on Tchaikovsky's Flower Waltz, for solo piano
The Paraphrase on Tchaikovsky's Flower Waltz is a successful piano arrangement from one of the movements from The Nutcracker by the pianist and composer Percy Grainger.

Pletnev: Concert suite from The Nutcracker, for solo piano
The pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev adapted some of the music into a virtuosic concert suite for piano solo:

1. March

2. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

3. Tarantella

4. Intermezzo (Journey through the Snow)

5. Russian Trepak

6. Chinese Dance

7. Andante maestoso (Pas de Deux)

Contemporary arrangements

 * In 1942, Freddy Martin and his orchestra recorded The Nutcracker Suite for Dance Orchestra on a set of 4 10-inch 78-RPM records issued by RCA Victor. An arrangement of the suite that lay between dance music and jazz.
 * In 1947, Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians recorded "The Nutcracker Suite" on a two-part Decca Records 12-inch 78 RPM record with one part on each side as Decca DU 90022, packaged in a picture sleeve. This version had custom lyrics written for Waring's chorus by, among others, Waring himself. The arrangements were by Harry Simeone.
 * In 1952, the Les Brown big band recorded a version of the Nutcracker Suite, arranged by Frank Comstock, for Coral Records. Brown rerecorded the arrangement in stereo for his 1958 Capitol Records album Concert Modern.
 * In 1960, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn composed jazz interpretations of pieces from Tchaikovsky's score, recorded and released on LP as The Nutcracker Suite. In 1999, this suite was supplemented with additional arrangements from the score by David Berger for The Harlem Nutcracker, a production of the ballet by choreographer Donald Byrd (born 1949) set during the Harlem Renaissance.
 * In 1960, Shorty Rogers released The Swingin' Nutcracker, featuring jazz interpretations of pieces from Tchaikovsky's score.
 * In 1962, American poet and humorist Ogden Nash wrote verses inspired by the ballet, and these verses have sometimes been performed in concert versions of the Nutcracker Suite. It has been recorded with Peter Ustinov reciting the verses, and the music is unchanged from the original.
 * In 1962 a novelty boogie piano arrangement of the "Marche", titled "Nut Rocker", was a No. 1 single in the UK, and No. 21 in the US. Credited to B. Bumble and the Stingers, it was produced by Kim Fowley and featured studio musicians Al Hazan (piano), Earl Palmer (drums), Tommy Tedesco (guitar) and Red Callender (bass). "Nut Rocker" has subsequently been covered by many others including The Shadows, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Ventures, Dropkick Murphys, The Brian Setzer Orchestra, and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The Ventures' own instrumental rock cover of "Nut Rocker", known as "Nutty", is commonly connected to the NHL team, the Boston Bruins, from being used as the theme for the Bruins' telecast games for over two decades, from the late 1960s. In 2004, The Invincible Czars arranged, recorded, and now annually perform the entire suite for rock band.
 * The Trans-Siberian Orchestra's first album, Christmas Eve and Other Stories, includes an instrumental piece titled "A Mad Russian's Christmas", which is a rock version of music from The Nutcracker.
 * On the other end of the scale is the comedic version by Spike Jones and his City Slickers released by RCA Victor in December 1945 as "Spike Jones presents for the Kiddies: The Nutcracker Suite (With Apologies to Tchaikovsky)", featuring humorous lyrics by Foster Carling and additional music by Joe "Country" Washburne. An abridged and resequenced version of this recording was issued in 1971 on the LP album Spike Jones is Murdering the Classics, one of the rare comedic pop records to be issued on the prestigious RCA Red Seal label.
 * International choreographer Val Caniparoli has created several versions of The Nutcracker ballet for Louisville Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Royal New Zealand Ballet, and Grand Rapids Ballet. While his ballets remain classically rooted, he has contemporarized them with changes such as making Marie an adult instead of a child, or having Drosselmeir emerges through the clock face during the overture making "him more humorous and mischievous." Caniparoli has been influenced by his simultaneous career as a dancer, having joined San Francisco Ballet in 1971 and performing as Drosselmeir and other various Nutcracker roles ever since that time.
 * The Disco Biscuits, a trance-fusion jam band from Philadelphia, have performed "Waltz of the Flowers" and "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" on multiple occasions.
 * The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (LAGQ) recorded the Suite arranged for four acoustic guitars on their CD recording Dances from Renaissance to Nutcracker (1992, Delos).
 * In 1993, guitarist Tim Sparks recorded his arrangements for acoustic guitar on The Nutcracker Suite.
 * The Shirim Klezmer Orchestra released a klezmer version, titled "Klezmer Nutcracker", in 1998 on the Newport label. The album became the basis for a December 2008 production by Ellen Kushner, titled The Klezmer Nutcracker and staged off-Broadway in New York City.
 * In 2002, The Constructus Corporation used the melody of Sugar Plum Fairy for their track "Choose Your Own Adventure".
 * In 2009, Pet Shop Boys used a melody from "March" for their track "All Over the World", taken from their album Yes.
 * In 2012, jazz pianist Eyran Katsenelenbogen released his renditions of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Dance of the Reed Flutes, Russian Dance and Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker Suite.
 * In 2014, Pentatonix released an a cappella arrangement of "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" on the holiday album That's Christmas to Me and received a Grammy Award on 16 February 2016 for best arrangement.
 * In 2016, Jennifer Thomas included an instrumental version of "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" on her album Winter Symphony.
 * In 2017, Lindsey Stirling released her version of "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" on her holiday album Warmer in the Winter.
 * In 2018, Pentatonix released an a cappella arrangement of "Waltz of the Flowers" on the holiday album Christmas Is Here!.
 * In 2019, Madonna sampled a portion on her song "Dark Ballet" from her Madame X album.
 * In 2019, Mariah Carey released a normal and an a cappella version of 'Sugar Plum Fairy' entitled the 'Sugar Plum Fairy Introlude' to open and close her 25th Deluxe Anniversary Edition of Merry Christmas.
 * In 2020, Coone made a hardstyle cover version titled "The Nutcracker".

Selected discography
The Nutcracker Suite, made its initial appearance on disc in 1909 in an abridged performance on the Odeon label. Historically, this 4 disc set is considered to be the first record album. The recording was conducted by Herman Finck and featured the London Palace Orchestra. It was not until after the modern LP record appeared in 1948 that recordings of the complete ballet began to be made. Because of the ballet's approximate ninety minute length when performed without intermission, applause, or interpolated numbers, the music requires two LPs. Most CD issues of the music take up two discs, often with fillers. An exception is the 81-minute 1998 Philips recording by Valery Gergiev that fits onto one CD because of Gergiev's somewhat brisker tempi.
 * In 1954, the first complete recording of the ballet was released on two LPs by Mercury Records. The cover design was by George Maas with illustrations by Dorothy Maas. The music was performed by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Antal Doráti. Doráti later re-recorded the complete ballet in stereo, with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1962 for Mercury and with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1975 for Philips Classics. According to Mercury Records, the 1962 recording was made on 35mm magnetic film rather than audio tape, and used album cover art identical to that of the 1954 recording. Dorati is the only conductor so far to have made three different recordings of the complete ballet. Some critics have cited the 1975 recording as the finest ever made of the complete ballet. It is also faithful to the score in employing a boys' choir in the Waltz of the Snowflakes. Many other recordings use an adult or mixed choir.
 * In 1956, Artur Rodziński and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra made a complete recording of the ballet in stereo for Westminster Records.
 * In 1959, the first stereo LP album set of the complete ballet, with Ernest Ansermet conducting the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, appeared on Decca Records in the UK and London Records in the US.
 * The first complete stereo Nutcracker with a Russian conductor and a Russian orchestra appeared in 1960, when Gennady Rozhdestvensky's recording with the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra, was issued first in the Soviet Union on the Melodiya label, then imported to the U.S. by Columbia Masterworks. It was also Columbia Masterworks' first complete Nutcracker.

With the advent of the stereo LP coinciding with the growing popularity of the complete ballet, many other complete recordings have been made. Notable conductors who have done so include Maurice Abravanel, André Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas, Mariss Jansons, Seiji Ozawa, Richard Bonynge, Semyon Bychkov, Alexander Vedernikov, Ondrej Lenard, Mikhail Pletnev, and Simon Rattle.
 * The soundtrack of the 1977 television production with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland, featuring the National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Schermerhorn, was issued in stereo on a Columbia Masterworks 2 LP-set, but has not appeared on CD. The LP soundtrack recording was, for a time, the only stereo version of the Baryshnikov Nutcracker available, since the performance was originally telecast in monophonic sound. The DVD of the performance is in stereo.
 * The first complete recording of the ballet in digital stereo was issued in 1985, by RCA Red Seal featuring Leonard Slatkin conducting the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. RCA later reissued the recording in a multi-CD set containing complete recordings of Tchaikovsky's two other ballets, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty.

There have been two major theatrical film versions of the ballet, and both have corresponding soundtrack albums.
 * The first theatrical film adaptation, made in 1985, is of the Pacific Northwest Ballet version, and was conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras. The music is played in this production by the London Symphony Orchestra. The film was directed by Carroll Ballard, who had never before directed a ballet film (and has not done so since). Patricia Barker played Clara in the fantasy sequences, and Vanessa Sharp played her in the Christmas party scene. Wade Walthall was the Nutcracker Prince.
 * The second film adaptation was a 1993 film of the New York City Ballet version, titled George Balanchine's The Nutcracker, with David Zinman conducting the New York City Ballet Orchestra. The director was Emile Ardolino, who had won the Emmy, Obie, and Academy Awards for filming dance, and was to die of AIDS later that year. Principal dancers included the Balanchine muse Darci Kistler, who played the Sugar Plum Fairy, Heather Watts, Damian Woetzel, and Kyra Nichols. Two well-known actors also took part: Macaulay Culkin appeared as the Nutcracker/Prince, and Kevin Kline served as the offscreen narrator. The soundtrack features the interpolated number from The Sleeping Beauty that Balanchine used in the production, and the music is heard on the album in the order that it appears in the film, not in the order that it appears in the original ballet.
 * Notable albums of excerpts from the ballet, rather than just the usual Nutcracker Suite, were recorded by Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra for Columbia Masterworks, and Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for RCA Victor. Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra (for RCA Victor), as well as Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra (for Telarc) have also recorded albums of extended excerpts. The original issue of Michael Tilson Thomas's version with the Philharmonia Orchestra on CBS Masterworks was complete. the currently available edition is abridged.

Ormandy, Reiner and Fiedler never recorded a complete version of the ballet; however, Kunzel's album of excerpts runs 73 minutes, containing more than two-thirds of the music. Conductor Neeme Järvi has recorded act 2 of the ballet complete, along with excerpts from Swan Lake. The music is played by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
 * Many famous conductors of the twentieth century made recordings of the suite, but not of the complete ballet. These include Arturo Toscanini, Sir Thomas Beecham, Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, James Levine, Sir Neville Marriner, Robert Shaw, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sir Georg Solti, Leopold Stokowski, Zubin Mehta, and John Williams.
 * In 2007, Josh Perschbacher recorded an organ transcription of the Nutcracker Suite.

Ethnic stereotypes and cultural misattribution
In the United States, commentary emerged in the 2010s about the Chinese and Arabian characteristic dances. In a 2014 article titled "Sorry, 'The Nutcracker' Is Racist", writer Alice Robb panned the typical choreography of the Chinese dance as white people wearing "harem pants and a straw hat, eyes painted to look slanted" and "wearing chopsticks in their black wigs"; the Arabian dance, she said, has a woman who "slinks around the stage in a belly shirt, bells attached to her ankles". Similarly, dance professor Jennifer Fisher at the University of California, Irvine, complained in 2018 about the use in the Chinese dance of "bobbing, subservient 'kowtow' steps, Fu Manchu mustaches, and, especially, the often-used saffron-tinged makeup, widely known as 'yellowface.'" In 2013, Dance Magazine printed the opinions of three directors: Ronald Alexander of Steps on Broadway and The Harlem School of the Arts said the characters in some of the dances were "borderline caricatures, if not downright demeaning", and that some productions had made changes to improve this; Stoner Winslett of the Richmond Ballet said The Nutcracker was not racist and that her productions had a "diverse cast"; and Donald Byrd of Spectrum Dance Theater saw the ballet as Eurocentric and not racist. Some people who have performed in productions of the ballet do not see a problem because they are continuing what is viewed as "a tradition". According to George Balanchine, the Arabian dance was a sensuous belly dance intended for the fathers, not the children.

Among the attempts to change the dances in the United States were Austin McCormick making the Arabian dance into a pole dance, and San Francisco Ballet and Pittsburgh Ballet Theater changing the Chinese dance to a dragon dance. Georgina Pazcoguin of the New York City Ballet and former dancer Phil Chan started the "Final Bow for Yellowface" movement and created a web site which explained the history of the practices and suggested changes. One of their points was that only the Chinese dance made dancers look like an ethnic group other than the one they belonged to. The New York City Ballet went on to drop geisha wigs and makeup and change some dance moves. Some other ballet companies followed.

The Nutcracker's "Arabian" dance is in fact an embellished, exotified version of a traditional Georgian lullaby, with no genuine connection to the Arab culture. Alastair Macaulay of The New York Times defended Tchaikovsky, saying he "never intended his Chinese and Arabian music to be ethnographically correct". He said, "their extraordinary color and energy are far from condescending, and they make the world of 'The Nutcracker' larger." To change anything is to "unbalance The Nutcracker" with music the author did not write. If there were stereotypes, Tchaikovsky also used them in representing his own country of Russia.

Film
Several films having little or nothing to do with the ballet or the original Hoffmann tale have used its music:
 * The 1940 Disney animated film Fantasia features a segment using The Nutcracker Suite.
 * A 1951 thirty-minute short, Santa and the Fairy Snow Queen, issued on DVD by Something Weird Video, features several dances from The Nutcracker.
 * In 2001, Barbie in the Nutcracker, produced by Mainframe Entertainment and Mattel Entertainment, and distributed by Artisan Home Entertainment was loosely adapted from E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story, "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", and features music based from Tchaikovsky's 1892 ballet, The Nutcracker
 * Disney announced that a remake of The Nutcracker would be directed by Robert Zemeckis through the use of motion capture, a technique that was used in The Polar Express, Monster House, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol. The film was cancelled following the box office disappointment of Mars Needs Moms.
 * In 2007 was released Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale featuring Tchaikovsky's music from the ballet as score.
 * In 2010, The Nutcracker in 3D with Elle Fanning abandoned the ballet and most of the story, retaining much of Tchaikovsky's music with lyrics by Tim Rice. The $90 million film became the year's biggest box office bomb.
 * In 2016, the Hallmark Channel presented A Nutcracker Christmas; a tele-film that contains a number of selected scenes of the 1892 two-act Nutcracker ballet.
 * In 2017, the Athens State Orchestra in collaboration with Cinecreed Productions (former name: 1895 cinematic creations) presented "A Different Nutcracker" animation film, directed by Yiorgos Molvalis. At the premiere (Chr. Lamprakis, Athens Concert Hall, 26 December 2017) as Silent animation, the film was recorded live by the Athens State Orchestra. In 2020 the official recording was integrated in to the film marking its completion and making it available for screenings without the need to have the orchestra present.
 * In 2018, the Disney live-action film The Nutcracker and the Four Realms was released with Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston as directors and a script by Ashleigh Powell.
 * The 2024 Russian-Hungarian animated film The Nutcracker and the Magic Flute adapted the story and used the music, while combining them with other classical works.

Television

 * The 1987 true crime miniseries Nutcracker: Money, Madness and Murder, opens every episode with the first notes of the ballet amid scenes of Frances Schreuder's daughter dancing to it in ballet dress.
 * The 2015 Canadian television film The Curse of Clara: A Holiday Tale, based on an autobiographical short story by onetime Canadian ballet student Vickie Fagan, centres on a young ballet student preparing to dance the role of Clara in a production of The Nutcracker.

Children's recordings
There have been several recorded children's adaptations of the E. T. A. Hoffmann story (the basis for the ballet) using Tchaikovsky's music, some quite faithful, some not. One that was not was a version titled The Nutcracker Suite for Children, narrated by Metropolitan Opera announcer Milton Cross, which used a two-piano arrangement of the music. It was released as a 78-RPM album set in the 1940s. A later version, titled The Nutcracker Suite, starred Denise Bryer and a full cast, was released in the 1960s on LP and made use of Tchaikovsky's music in the original orchestral arrangements. It was quite faithful to Hoffmann's story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, on which the ballet is based, even to the point of including the section in which Clara cuts her arm on the glass toy cabinet, and also mentioning that she married the Prince at the end. It also included a less gruesome version of "The Tale of the Hard Nut", the tale-within-a-tale in Hoffmann's story. It was released as part of the Tale Spinners for Children series.

Spike Jones produced a 78 rpm record set "Spike Jones presents for the kiddies The Nutcracker Suite (with Apologies to Tchaikovsky)" in 1944. It includes the tracks: "The Little Girl's Dream", "Land of the Sugar Plum Fairy", "The Fairy Ball", "The Mysterious Room", "Back to the Fairy Ball" and "End of the Little Girl's Dream". This is all done in typical Spike Jones style, with the addition of choruses and some swing music. The entire recording is available at archive.com

Journalism

 * In 2009, Pulitzer Prize–winning dance critic Sarah Kaufman wrote a series of articles for The Washington Post criticizing the primacy of The Nutcracker in the American repertory for stunting the creative evolution of ballet in the United States:

"That warm and welcoming veneer of domestic bliss in The Nutcracker gives the appearance that all is just plummy in the ballet world. But ballet is beset by serious ailments that threaten its future in this country... companies are so cautious in their programming that they have effectively reduced an art form to a rotation of over-roasted chestnuts that no one can justifiably croon about... The tyranny of The Nutcracker is emblematic of how dull and risk-averse American ballet has become. There were moments throughout the 20th century when ballet was brave. When it threw bold punches at its own conventions. First among these was the Ballets Russes period, when ballet—ballet—lassoed the avant-garde art movement and, with works such as Michel Fokine's fashionably sexy Scheherazade (1910) and Léonide Massine's Cubist-inspired Parade (1917), made world capitals sit up and take notice. Afraid of scandal? Not these free-thinkers; Vaslav Nijinsky's rough-hewn, aggressive Rite of Spring famously put Paris in an uproar in 1913... Where are this century's provocations? Has ballet become so entwined with its 'Nutcracker' image, so fearfully wedded to unthreatening offerings, that it has forgotten how eye-opening and ultimately nourishing creative destruction can be?"
 * In 2010, Alastair Macaulay, dance critic for The New York Times (who had previously taken Kaufman to task for her criticism of The Nutcracker ) began The Nutcracker Chronicles, a series of blog articles documenting his travels across the United States to see different productions of the ballet.

"Act I of The Nutcracker ends with snow falling and snowflakes dancing. Yet The Nutcracker is now seasonal entertainment even in parts of America where snow seldom falls: Hawaii, the California coast, Florida. Over the last 70 years this ballet—conceived in the Old World—has become an American institution. Its amalgam of children, parents, toys, a Christmas tree, snow, sweets and Tchaikovsky's astounding score is integral to the season of good will that runs from Thanksgiving to New Year... I am a European who lives in America, and I never saw any Nutcracker until I was 21. Since then I've seen it many times. The importance of this ballet to America has become a phenomenon that surely says as much about this country as it does about this work of art. So this year I'm running a Nutcracker marathon: taking in as many different American productions as I can reasonably manage in November and December, from coast to coast (more than 20, if all goes well). America is a country I'm still discovering; let The Nutcracker be part of my research."
 * In 2014, Ellen O'Connell, who trained with the Royal Ballet in London, wrote, in Salon (website), on the darker side of The Nutcracker story. In E. T. A. Hoffmann's original story, the Nutcracker and Mouse King, Marie's (Clara's), journey becomes a fevered delirium that transports her to a land where she sees sparkling Christmas Forests and Marzipan Castles, but in a world populated with dolls. Hoffmann's tales were so bizarre, Sigmund Freud wrote about them in The Uncanny.

"E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 fairy tale, on which the ballet is based, is troubling: Marie, a young girl, falls in love with a nutcracker doll, whom she only sees come alive when she falls asleep. ...Marie falls, ostensibly in a fevered dream, into a glass cabinet, cutting her arm badly. She hears stories of trickery, deceit, a rodent mother avenging her children's death, and a character who must never fall asleep (but of course does, with disastrous consequences). While she heals from her wound, the mouse king brainwashes her in her sleep. Her family forbids her from speaking of her 'dreams' anymore, but when she vows to love even an ugly nutcracker, he comes alive and she marries him."

Popular music

 * The song "Dance Mystique" (track B1) on the studio album Bach to the Blues (1964) by the Ramsey Lewis Trio is a jazz adaptation of Coffee (Arabian Dance).
 * The song "Fall Out" by English band Mansun from their 1998 album Six heavily relies on the celesta theme from the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.
 * The song "Dark Ballet" by American singer-songwriter Madonna samples the melody of Dance of the Reed Flutes (Danish Marzipan) which is often mistaken for Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The song also relied on the lesser-known harp cadenza from Waltz of the Flowers. The same Tchaikovsky sample was earlier used in internationally famous 1992 ads for Cadbury Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut with 'Madonna' as the singing chocolate bar (in Russian version the subtitles "'This Is Madonna'" (Это Мадонна) were displayed on a screen).

Video games

 * Waltz of the Flowers is played in one chapter of What Remains of Edith Finch.

title: The Nutcracker