Hegemony
In the 19th century, hegemony came to denote the "Social or cultural predominance or ascendancy; predominance by one group within a society or milieu". Later, it could be used to mean "a group or regime which exerts undue influence within a society". Also, it could be used for the geopolitical and the cultural predominance of one country over others, from which was derived "hegemonism", as in the idea that the Great Powers meant to establish European hegemony over Asia and Africa.
Hegemony
In the historical writing of the 19th century, the denotation of "hegemony" extended to describe the predominance of one country upon other countries; and, by extension, "hegemonism" denoted the Great Power politics (c. 1880s – 1914) for establishing hegemony (indirect imperial rule), that then leads to a definition of imperialism (direct foreign rule). In the early 20th century, in the field of international relations, the Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci developed the theory of cultural domination (an analysis of economic class) to include social class; hence, the philosophic and sociologic theory of cultural hegemony analysed the social norms that established the social structures (social and economic classes) with which the ruling class establish and exert cultural dominance to impose their "Weltanschauung" (world view)—justifying the social, political, and economic "status quo"—as natural, inevitable, and beneficial to every social class, rather than as artificial social constructs beneficial solely to the ruling class.