This clearly written and engrossing book presents a global narrative of the origins of the modern world from 1400 to the present. Unlike most studies, which assume that the “rise of the West” is the story of the coming of the modern world, this history, drawing upon new scholarship on Asia, Africa, and the New World and upon the maturing field of environmental history, constructs a story in which those parts of the world play major roles, including their impacts on the environment. Robert B. Marks defines the modern world as one marked by industry, the nation state, interstate warfare, a large and growing gap between the wealthiest and poorest parts of the world, increasing inequality within the wealthiest industrialized countries, and an escape from the environmental constraints of the “biological old regime.” He explains its origins by emphasizing contingencies (such as the conquest of the New World); the broad comparability of the most advanced regions in China, India, and Europe; the reasons why England was able to escape from common ecological constraints facing all of those regions by the eighteenth century; a conjuncture of human and natural forces that solidified a gap between the industrialized and non-industrialized parts of the world; and the mounting environmental crisis that defines the modern world.
Now in a new edition that brings the saga of the modern world to the present in an environmental context, the book considers how and why the United States emerged as a world power in the twentieth century and became the sole superpower by the twenty-first century, and why the changed relationship of humans to the environmental likely will be the hallmark of the modern era—the Anthopocene. Once again arguing that the US rise to global hegemon was contingent, not inevitable, Marks also points to the resurgence of Asia and the vastly changed relationship of humans to the environment that may in the long run overshadow any political and economic milestones of the past hundred years.
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Now in a new edition, this clearly written and engrossing book presents a global and environmental narrative of the origins of the modern world since 1400. Robert Marks constructs a story in which Asia, Africa, and the New World play major roles and points to the resurgence of Asia and the vastly changed relationship of humans to the environment.
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List of Figures and Maps
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Rise of the West?
The Rise of the West
“The Gap” and Its Explanations
Eurocentrism
Stories and Historical Narratives
The Elements of an Environmentally Grounded Non-Eurocentric Narrative
Notes
Chapter One: The Material and Trading World, circa 1400
The Biological Old Regime
The Weight of Numbers
Climate Change
Population Density and Civilization
The Agricultural Revolution
Towns and Cities in 1400
Nomadic Pastoralists
Wildlife
Population Growth and Land
Famine
The Nitrogen Cycle and World History
Epidemic Disease
The World and Its Trading System circa 1400
The Black Death: A Mid-Fourteenth-Century Conjuncture
Conclusion: The Biological Old Regime
Notes
Chapter Two: Starting with China
China
The Voyages of Zheng He, 1405–1433
India and the Indian Ocean
Dar al-Islam, “The Abode of Islam”
Africa
Slavery
Europe and the Gunpowder Epic
Armed Trading on the Mediterranean
Portuguese Explorations of the Atlantic
Armed Trading in the Indian Ocean
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter Three: Empires, States, and the New World, 1500–1775
Empire Builders and Conquerors
Russia and China
Mughal, Safavid, and Ottoman Expansion
The Dynamics of Empire
The Americas
The Aztecs
The Inca
The Conquest of the Americas and the Spanish Empire
The Columbian Exchange
The Great Dying
Labor Supply Problems
Silver
The Spanish Empire and Its Collapse
China’s Demand for Silver
The New World Economy
Human Migration and the Early Modern World
The Global Crisis of the Seventeenth Century and the European State System
State Building
Mercantilism
The Seven Years’ War, 1756–1763
Notes
Chapter Four: The Industrial Revolution and Its Consequences, 1750–1850
Cotton Textiles
India
The New World as a Peculiar Periphery
New Sources of Energy and Power
China
Markets
Exhausting the Earth
England, Redux
Coal, Iron, and Steam
Recap: Without Colonies, Coal, or State Support
Science and Technology
Tea, Silver, Opium, Iron, and Steam
Tea
Silver
Opium
Iron and Steam
Conclusion: Into the Anthropocene
Notes
Chapter Five: The Gap
The Gap
Opium and Global Capitalism
India
Industrialization Elsewhere
France
The United States
Germany
Russia
Japan
New Dynamics in the Industrial World
The Environmental Consequences of Industrialization
Sources of Global Warming Gases in the Nineteenth Century
The Social Consequences of Industrialization
Factories and Work
Women and Families
Resistance and Revolution
Industrialization and Migration
Nations and Nationalism
The Scrambles for Africa and China
Africa
China
El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World
Social Darwinism and Self-Congratulatory Eurocentrism
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter Six: The Great Departure
Introduction to the Twentieth Century and Beyond
Part I: Nitrogen, Wars, and the First Deglobalization, 1900–1945
World War I and the Beginning of the Thirty-Year Crisis (1914–1945)
Revolutions
Colonial Independence Movements
Normalcy?
The Great Depression of the 1930s
World War II
Part II: The Post–War and Cold War Worlds, 1945–1991
Decolonization
Asian Revolutions
Development and Underdevelopment
Consumerism versus Productionism
Consumerism
Third World Developmentalism
Migration, Refugees, and States
Global Inequality
Inequality within Rich Countries
Part III: Globalization and Its Opponents, 1991–Present
The End of the Cold War
The End of History?
A Clash of Civilizations?
Global Free Trade
Energy, Oil, and War
Deterritorialization
Does History Repeat Itself?
Part IV: The Great Departure: Into the Anthropocene
Conclusion
Notes
Conclusion: Changes, Continuities, and the Shape of the Future
The Story Summarized
Globalization
Into the Future
Notes
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In accessible prose, Robert Marks distills world history of the past six centuries to its essence. Truly global in scope, and fully attentive to environmental contexts, this book is ideal for the classroom: it will provoke both thought and discussion—and occasional disagreement.
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Includes an on-line study guide
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781538127025
Publisert
2019-07-05
Utgave
4. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Rowman & Littlefield
Vekt
567 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Dybde
23 mm
Aldersnivå
U, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
320
Forfatter