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Chapter 21
Worlds Apart: The Americas and Oceania
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
Unlike the growing interaction that marked the African, Asian, and European worlds, the Americas and
Oceania remained largely isolated. Any contact before 1492 was more accidental and momentary than planned or
continuous. Nevertheless, the peoples of North and South America created large empires with cultural and religious
concepts that, because of the isolation of these societies, were unique. The societies of Oceania existed in even
greater isolation. Despite this isolated existence, the peoples of Oceania eventually developed structured
agricultural societies and chiefly political structures.
OVERVIEW
States and Empires in Mesoamerica and North America
The decline of Teotihuacan in the ninth century brought about a period of confusion that would eventually
lead to the rise of the Toltecs and then the Aztecs. The Toltecs, centered around their capital city of Tula, dominated
from the mid-tenth to the mid-twelfth centuries. Tula grew rich from trade, but collapsed after 1175 because of
internal strife and nomadic invasions. The Mexica, the core tribe that would make up the Aztec state, migrated into
central Mexico in the thirteenth century. From humble origins the Aztecs built Tenochtitlan, one of the great cities
of its age, and constructed an empire that dominated central Mexico. Expansion picked up in the fifteenth century
through the efforts of the rulers Itzcóatl and Motecuzoma I. Aztec success relied on alliances, tribute, trade, and a
powerful army. By the time of the Spanish arrival, Tenochtitlan had grown so large and wealthy that some of the
conquistadores “even asked whether the things that we saw were not a dream?”
Aztec society was dominated by the warriors, who ate the best food, wore the best clothes, and even met as
a council to choose the emperors. Women, with the exception of the honored position as child bearer, played almost
no public role in Aztec society, though they were active in the marketplaces. Slaves played an important role in
Aztec society, although they, despite constant warfare, were usually Mexica and not captured foreigners. The
Aztecs were deeply influenced by their Mesoamerican predecessors such as the Olmecs and Maya. A classic
example would be their gods Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, which had been important deities in central Mexico
before the arrival of the Mexica. Huitzilopochtli was the most important god, and the Aztecs practiced human
sacrifice in his honor on an unprecedented scale.
North America witnessed the rise of a complex variety of political, social, and cultural forms. Because of
limited food resources, the societies of North America never reached the size or power of their Mesoamerican
neighbors. Large settled societies based on agriculture, however, arose in the southwest among the Pueblo and
Navajo and in the east among the Iroquois. The mound builders of eastern North America built impressive
structures for rituals and burials. The most impressive of these was the mound at Cahokia, which was the thirdlargest structure in the pre-Columbian Americas. Archeological discoveries in the mounds have revealed class
differentiation among the Indians, but the lack of a written language continues to frustrate historians in their search
for more information about the North American Indian societies.
States and Empires in South America
The lack of a written language is also a problem in deciphering the societies of South America. With the
exception of mnemonic aids such as the Inca quipu, there are no written records. These societies, however, built
much larger cities than did the North American tribes and eventually, in the case of the Inca, a true imperial state.
The pre-Inca societies like the Chucuito never rose beyond the level of a regional kingdom. Chanchan, the capital of
the Chimu state, was a city with a well-defined social order and may have had a population of up to one hundred
thousand. These states paled in comparison to the power and scale of the Inca Empire. Expansion began in the midfifteenth century during the reign of Pachacuti. Cuzco, with a population of around three hundred thousand, served
as the capital of an empire of over eleven million. The use of an elaborate series of roads that stretched over ten
thousand miles and of innovative ruling techniques such as taking hostages from the ruling classes of conquered
peoples allowed the Inca to rule over their huge empire. Deities such as the creator god Viracocha and the sun god
Inti played a central role in the Inca cosmology. Inca rulers were considered divine descendents of Inti.
The Societies of Oceania
The societies of Oceania were the only peoples on earth who lived a more isolated existence than the
peoples of the Americas. Although they never adapted to an agricultural foundation, the aborigines of Australia
played an important role in trade. Their cultural and religious traditions did not spread beyond their own homelands,
however. The tremendous distances of Polynesia made sustained trade among the islands impossible and hindered
cultural diffusion. Nevertheless, the societies continued to develop their own unique political, cultural and religious
concepts. As populations rose, the seemingly inevitable formation of social classes and chiefly states followed. The
ali`i nui, the Hawaiian class of high chiefs, enjoyed privileges not granted to commoners. A priestly class also
developed as the Polynesian religions grew more complex.
Chapter 22
Reaching Out: Cross-Cultural Interactions
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
In the five centuries after the year 1000 C.E. the societies of the eastern hemisphere began to travel, trade,
and communicate on a much greater scale than at any previous time in history. The rise to power of nomadic tribes
such as the Mongols, after initially interrupting trade, laid the groundwork for more substantial interaction between
societies. Merchants, diplomats, and missionaries traveled along the now safer roads. Technological innovations
led to a similar increase in sea exploration and trade. Religious faiths, technologies, and eventually diseases
followed the same route as trade items. One of these diseases, the bubonic plague, brought such devastation that for
a while this growing interaction was threatened. Eventually the Chinese and western Europeans recovered, and the
pace of global interaction increased even more rapidly.
OVERVIEW
Long-Distance Trade and Travel
The pace and extent of long distance trade picked up dramatically after the year 1000 C.E., with trade,
diplomacy, and missionary activity being the chief inspirations. Two principal trade routes—overland along the old
silk roads and along the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean—provided merchants with the opportunity to reach all of
Eurasia, the islands of southeast Asia, and even west Africa. Trading cities, ranging from Khanbaliq to Timbuktu,
rose as a result of growing trade and served to facilitate trade even further. Melaka, for example, was founded only
in the late fourteenth century but quickly developed into the center of eastern Indian Ocean trade. The Mongols,
despite their fearsome reputation, played a key role in this process by providing political unification and safe trade
routes. The knowledge and use of gunpowder spread from China to all of Eurasia. For the first time some
merchants actually traveled the whole way from Europe to China. The classic example is Marco Polo, whose stories
in turn inspired other Europeans to follow.
The merchants were joined along the trade routes by others traveling for political or diplomatic reasons.
Marco Polo, if he can be believed, ended up serving as governor for Yangzhou because of Khubilai Khan’s mistrust
of the mandarins. Both the Europeans and Mongols sent diplomatic envoys in an unsuccessful attempt to form an
alliance against shared Islamic enemies. The Mongol envoy, Rabban Sauma, met with the pope as well as the kings
of England and France. In turn, Muslim judges such as Ibn Battuta traveled to newly conquered or converted areas
to spread Islamic law and justice. The Sufis, who were highly successful missionaries because of their tolerance and
flexibility, also undertook lengthy sojourns. John of Montecorvino and other Roman Catholic missionaries had
similar goals. Inventions such as the magnetic compass made sailing long distances much safer and more
dependable. The spread of new crops, most notably cotton and sugarcane, brought both economic prosperity and
social transformation. As the Europeans built plantations to grow the newly arrived sugarcane they made increasing
use of slaves.
Crisis and Recovery
Diseases, most notably the bubonic plague, also traveled along the expanding trade routes. The plague
broke out as early as the 1330s in China, killing as much as ninety percent of the population in Hebei province.
Most of western Europe was threatened by the plague by 1348. In some areas of Europe the death rate soared to as
high as 60 percent to 70 percent. China’s population dropped from 85 million in 1300 down to 75 million in 1400
before rebounding to around 100 million by 1500. Europe showed a similar swing, ranging from 79 million in 1300
to 60 million in 1400 and 81 million in 1500. Even those who survived had their lives transformed in an almost
unprecedented fashion.
Both China and Europe made dramatic comebacks. China’s recovery began when Hongwu overthrew the
Yuan dynasty and founded the Ming dynasty in 1368. Hongwu attempted to return to traditional Chinese
foundations such as the Confucian educational and civil service systems. He eliminated the post of chief minister
and created a tightly centralized state under the control of talented and well-educated mandarins. The Qing dynasty,
which replaced the Ming in 1644, made use of the same system until the twentieth century. By promoting the
production of porcelain and fine silk, the Ming also helped create an economic rebound. The Ming desire to return
to Chinese traditions can also be seen in the cultural realm, where the Yongle Encyclopedia was an attempt to save
philosophical, historical, and literary works. Instead of imperial unification, as in China, recovery in Europe
centered on regional kingdoms that made use of new taxes and large standing armies. For England and France to
fight a conflict of the scope of the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), they had to create larger armies and find a
way to pay for them. The marriage of Fernando of Aragon and Isabel of Castile in 1469 laid the foundation for
Spanish greatness.
The Renaissance, or “rebirth,” reflected the continuing development of western Europe. The driving force
behind this new intellectual and cultural movement was the sophisticated northern Italian urban merchant class that
flourished because of the reestablishment of long-distance trade. To these thinkers the true golden age of the world
was that of the classical Greeks and Romans. Painters such as Masaccio and da Vinci and sculptors such as
Donatello and Michelangelo created artistic works unmatched since the ancient world in terms of perspective and
natural elegance. In creating the dome for the cathedral of Florence the architect Brunelleschi both harkened back to
the Romans and laid the foundation for future achievements. Humanists such as Erasmus and Petrarca also looked
back to the ancient world for philosophical and literary inspiration. Although deeply religious, the humanists
proposed that it was possible for humans to live a moral life in the secular world.
Exploration and Colonization
A driving force behind the Chinese and European recovery was the revival of long-distance trade and
communication. Even though the Chinese remained suspicious of outside influences they saw the importance of
trade. The emperor Yongle sent out his eunuch admiral Zheng He on seven journeys of exploration to gain control
over foreign trade as well as to awe foreign rivals with the wealth and might of China. Zheng He’s first expedition
contained over three hundred ships and twenty-eight thousand armed troops—numbers that make the European
journeys of exploration almost laughably small by comparison. During the course of his journeys Zheng He
traveled from China to southeast Asia, India, Arabia, and east Africa. The Chinese journeys only outlasted Yongle’s
death in 1424 by a few years, however, before coming to an end.
European exploration started out with different goals than the Chinese had. The Europeans hoped to profit
from commercial opportunities and spread Roman Catholicism. The Portuguese, under the able leadership of Prince
Henry, led the way. As the Portuguese gained control over islands in the Atlantic Ocean it gave them an avenue for
further exploration as well as an opportunity to grow sugarcane. In turn, the cultivation of sugarcane acted as an
inspiration for dealing in African slaves. While the Portuguese certainly didn’t start the slave trade in Africa, they
played a key role in expanding it. Over fifteen million Africans would eventually cross the Atlantic as slaves.
Vasco da Gama arrived in India in 1498, which provided the Portuguese with a sizeable head start on the rest of the
western Europeans. Christopher Columbus, sailing for Spain, took the opposite approach. Instead of sailing around
Africa to get to India, Columbus tried to find a western route to the wealth of Asia. His discoveries, while netting
him little, set the stage for profound changes for both continents.
Chapter 23
Transoceanic Encounters and Global Connections
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
While interactions between different societies have always been a part of the human experience, the nature
and scale of these relationships increased dramatically after 1500 C.E. Western European nations, armed with
advanced technologies and powerful weapons, began the slow process of imposing their will on the rest of the
world. European expansion resulted not only in increasing political hegemony, but also in the creation of
transportation, communication, and trading networks. Plants, animals, technologies, and diseases followed the same
routes. By the nineteenth century the result would be a profound shift in the global balance of power, with the
western Europeans ruling most of the world.
OVERVIEW
The European Reconnaissance of the World’s Oceans
In the four centuries after the year 1400 C.E. European explorers canvassed the globe. The journeys
themselves were almost prohibitively expensive, but in the end these mariners and their backers reaped tremendous
rewards. Although the European explorers were driven by many factors, the most powerful of them were the quest
for resources and land, the search for new trade routes to Asia, and the missionary goal of expanding Christianity.
The temptation to tie into the Asian trading markets without undergoing the dangers of the silk roads or dealing with
Muslim intermediaries drove the western Europeans to chance sea trade. Missionary zeal also inspired the
Europeans, although this motive was seldom as pure as it sounded. In reality, all these various motives usually
flowed together, as in Vasco da Gama’s famous response that he wanted “Christians and spices.” Advances in
nautical technology and navigational skills also played a role in this expansion. The adoption of square as well as
lateen sails and the use of the magnetic compass and astrolabe made European ships much more formidable. The
discovery and spread of information about “wind wheels” made sailing much more efficient.
The Portuguese, a people desperate for land and resources, led the initial exploration under the capable
leadership of Dom Henrique (Prince Henry). Portugal extended its maritime leadership when Bartolomeu Dias
rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 and Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498. Spain entered the competition
when Fernando and Isabel bankrolled a plan by Cristoforo Colombo (Christopher Columbus) to reach India by a
western route. Although Colombo’s estimations of the size of the earth were way off, he managed to reach landfall
at San Salvador in 1492. English, French, and Dutch competitors followed quickly. Ironically, most of the early
exploration of the Americas was designed to find a way around the troublesome landmass and on to the rich markets
of Asia. Fernão de Magalhães’s (Ferdinand Magellan) circumnavigation of the world from 1519–1522 was the
beginning of serious exploration of the Pacific Ocean. The Englishman James Cook explored Australia, New
Zealand, and Hawai`i in the eighteenth century. Vitus Bering and others explored the Arctic in the service of
Russia.
Trade and Conflict in Early Modern Asia
Once the Europeans arrived in an area they usually attempted to dominate trade. In most of the eastern
hemisphere they lacked the personnel or military might to make this dream a reality. The Portuguese took
advantage of their head start and established the first trading post empire, and they controlled more than fifty trading
posts between west Africa and east Asia by the middle of the sixteenth century. The goal was to force merchant
ships to pay duties at the fortified trading posts. As time passed the Portuguese approach turned more militaristic, as
with Afonso d’Alboquerque’s conquest of Hormuz, Goa, and Melaka. In the end though, the Portuguese simply did
not have enough power to maintain their early control and were superseded by the English and Dutch. Melaka, for
example, fell to the Dutch in 1641. The success of the English and Dutch was based on two factors: the invention of
faster, more powerful ships; and the organization of joint-stock companies to maximize profits while minimizing
risk. Although the joint-stock companies were theoretically similar to modern corporations, they were in reality
much more powerful; included in their charters was the right to declare and fights wars to benefit the company. The
English East India Company (1600) and the Dutch United East India Company (1602) fueled further expansion.
While the Europeans may not have possessed the strength to conquer large chunks of the eastern
hemisphere, two particular areas did fall under their control at an early stage. Miguel López de Legazpi attacked the
Philippines in 1565, and within a decade the islands were under Spanish control. Manila quickly became the center
of all Spanish Asian trading. Part of Spanish control was an effort, largely successful, to convert the population to
Roman Catholicism. Indonesia fell to the Dutch when Jan Pieterszoon Coen founded Batavia on Java in 1619. The
Dutch concerned themselves less with controlling the population than in controlling the spice market. Colonial and
mercantile competition at times resulted in open warfare. Russian expansion into central Asia and Siberia likewise
focused more on controlling markets and commodities than on subjugating the local populations. The Russian state
made little effort to convert the indigenous people to Orthodoxy.
Global Exchanges
Increasing trade led to more interaction between societies than the world had ever seen. This interchange
included plants, food crops, animals, human populations, and diseases. The growing contact between the eastern
and western hemispheres, sometimes called the “Columbian exchange,” changed the human geography and natural
environment of the world. The spread of disease, most notably smallpox, from the eastern to the western
hemisphere shows that not every element of this exchange was beneficial. During the sixteenth century up to 95
percent of the native population of Mesoamerica and South America died from diseases brought over by the
Spaniards. It has been estimated that as many as one hundred million people in the Americas and Pacific islands
may have died from disease in the three centuries after 1500. This naturally spurred some efforts at prevention—
notably the movement toward vaccination. In the long run, the Columbian exchange increased the world’s
population because of the introduction of new crops and animals. During that same three hundred year period the
world’s population grew from 425 million to over 900 million. The result was the creation of a truly global trading
market.
Chapter 24
The Transformation of Europe
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
Profound changes began to overtake Europe beginning in the sixteenth century. Christianity, which had
served as the main unifying element in Europe after the collapse of the Roman empire, was permanently fragmented
by the Protestant Reformation. The age also witnessed the rise of strong centralized states. The advent of capitalism
ensured that the competition between these new states would be fought on the economic as well as the political and
religious fronts. The Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment signaled a startling intellectual transformation. The
three centuries following 1500 were highly disruptive, but they worked to strengthen Europe as well.
OVERVIEW
The Fragmentation of Western Christendom
The religious unity of western Europe was challenged when Martin Luther, a German monk who was
appalled by the hypocrisy and immorality of the Roman Catholic church, attacked the practice of selling
indulgences. Beginning in 1517 his Ninety-Five Theses, aided immeasurably by the printing press, spread
throughout Europe. While Luther proposed specific reforms, such as closing the monasteries and translating the
Bible, his most radical stance was his refusal to recognize papal authority. To Luther the only true source of
Christian religious authority resided in the Bible. Others outside Germany took approaches that were at times very
different from Luther’s. The English Reformation was much more political than religious in nature because of the
political mind-set and needs of Henry VIII. In Geneva the French lawyer John Calvin carried his reforms even
further than Luther had. Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion summarized and organized early Protestant
thought.
It would be a mistake to view the Catholic efforts at reform as nothing more than a reaction to Luther and
Calvin. The Catholic Reformation, however, was slow and halting until the middle years of the sixteenth century.
The Council of Trent (1545–1563) both redressed specific abuses and reaffirmed traditional Catholic theology.
When St. Ignatius Loyola founded the Society of Jesus in 1540, he supplied the Catholic Reformation with active
missionaries. The Jesuits stressed education and carried their missionary zeal to India, China, Japan, the Philippines,
and the Americas. The growing tension between Catholics and Protestants manifested itself in the witch-hunts,
which were strongest in the areas where the religious confrontation was greatest. Over sixty thousand suspected
witches, mainly women, lost their lives. The Religious Wars, which saw the failure of the Spanish Armada to
conquer England in 1588, were another symptom of this struggle. In the end neither side was wholly victorious, and
compromises of varying religious, political, or geographical natures were forged.
The Consolidation of Sovereign States
The religious competition that was at the heart of the Reformation also played a role in the political
centralization of increasingly powerful European states. One state that did not share in this political centralization
was the Holy Roman Empire. Despite the able efforts of Charles V, the Holy Roman Empire never overcame its
internal fragmentation and its powerful external enemies to become the leading European state that its name implied.
Monarchs such as Henry VIII of England, Louis XI and Francis I of France, and Fernando and Isabel of Spain made
use of innovations in finance and strong standing armies to become much more powerful than their medieval
predecessors. Not surprisingly, these states often tested each other militarily. Sometimes, as with the Thirty Years’
War (1618–1648), the results were devastating. The Peace of Westphalia of 1648, however, introduced the notion
that the different states were sovereign and equal, with the right to run their own domestic affairs. This treaty hardly
ended warfare though. The Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) was in many ways the first global war. Nevertheless,
the European notion of the balance of power ensured that no nation grew powerful enough to dominate its
neighbors. Finally, this period of military confrontation between sovereign nations actually provided a greater
incentive for technological innovation than in imperial China, India, or the Islamic lands.
These more powerful states developed on two distinct political paths. France, after the chaos of the civilreligious wars of the last half of the sixteenth century, recovered along absolutist lines in the seventeenth century.
Louis XIV ruled from his magnificent palace at Versailles with few political, legal, social, or religious obstacles to
his authority. Most European leaders, with varying degrees of success, attempted to copy Louis’s absolutism.
Russia, under the influence of Tsar Peter I (the Great), attempted to reform and modernize according to western
European models. Though Catherine II (the Great) carried many of Peter’s reforms forward and even dabbled with
the notion of representative government, the end result was the strengthening of the absolutist state in Russia.
England and the Netherlands followed a very different approach. After prolonged internal conflicts, both developed
constitutional governments. These states featured governments that had limited powers and recognized the rights of
the individual and representative bodies. While less popular among rulers of the time period than absolutism,
constitutionalism would have greater long-term influence.
Early Capitalist Society
The development of capitalism, fueled by an expanding population and economy, also transformed
European society during these formative centuries. Better nutrition and a decline in deaths caused by epidemic
diseases led to a population explosion. In the three hundred years after 1500 the population of Europe increased
from 81 million to over 180 million. Capitalism, an economic system tied to the flexibility of the free market,
emerged during these centuries. Although the desire to acquire wealth was hardly a new phenomenon, the
merchants of early modern Europe made use of innovations in transportation and communication to alter their
society to a much greater extent than ever before. The development of banks and joint-stock companies facilitated
the growth of businesses and trade. Merchants avoided the control and eventually reduced the power of the guilds
by implementing the putting-out system. This shift in turn brought changes to the countryside, many of which were
devastating. Burgeoning capitalism nevertheless found many supporters; its most notable early proponent was Adam
Smith.
Science and Enlightenment
The intellectual world of early modern Europe did not escape this period of upheaval. Even the old
Ptolemaic universe with its spheres and epicycles came under attack beginning with Copernicus’s publication of his
On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in 1543. The true magnitude of Copernicus’s work is that it was more
than simply an interesting hypothesis; rather, it was the beginning of the destruction of an old worldview and the
origins of a new one. If Copernicus was correct, then human beings were not at the center of the universe. Johannes
Kepler and Galileo Galilei built on the momentum started by Copernicus. The publication of Isaac Newton’s
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1686 synthesized all the earlier discoveries into a universal
system built on the theory of gravity. Enlightenment thinkers carried on the search for reason and logic that was
such a part of the scientific revolution. Thinkers such as Locke, Montesquieu, Smith, and Voltaire looked for reason
in human behavior and institutions. These philosophes carried their own ideas and those of the scientific revolution
to a much larger audience. The desire for reason even carried over into the religious realm with the Enlightenment
emphasis on deism. Incredible human potential ensured that the theory of progress remained one of the hallmarks of
the Enlightenment.
Chapter 25
New Worlds: The Americas and Oceania
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
Before the end of the fifteenth century the western and eastern hemispheres existed in almost complete
isolation from one another. This situation began to change after the voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492.
From this point on, the contact between the two would increase dramatically, often with disastrous consequences.
The Europeans, with military and technological advantages, imposed their will on the Americas. Ironically, much of
the European success was based on a weapon they didn’t know they possessed: smallpox. The massive migration of
Europeans into the western hemisphere brought an astonishing transformation of American society. Australia and
the Pacific islands would undergo a similar experience two hundred years later.
OVERVIEW
Colliding Worlds
The first people of the Americas to come into contact with the Europeans were the Taino of the Caribbean.
After Columbus made Hispaniola his base of operations and established the fort of Santo Domingo, he initially
attempted to build trading posts to allow European merchants to trade with the indigenous population. The
experience of the Taino, ranging from forced labor under the encomienda to death from smallpox, would set a
precedent for the other societies of the Americas. Between 1519 and 1521, Hernán Cortés and a small force of 450
men brought down the powerful Aztec state. European technological advantages and divisions within Motecuzoma
II’s empire threatened the Aztecs. In the end the death blow, quite literally, was delivered by smallpox. The Inca
suffered a similar fate in the 1530s at the hands of Francisco Pizarro and an even smaller force.
The rule of conquistadores such as Cortés and Pizarro was short, and they were quickly replaced by formal
Spanish imperial rule. From their governmental centers in Mexico City and Lima the Spanish expanded control.
The viceroys, the Spanish king’s main representatives, wielded tremendous power, although their decisions were
reviewed by courts of lawyers called audiencias. New cities such as St. Augustine, Panama, Concepción, and
Buenos Aires arose as part of the bureaucratic system. Brazil, ceded to Portugal by the Treaty of Tordesillas, was
initially ignored by the Portuguese. The establishment of profitable sugar plantations changed that, and the
Portuguese quickly established a bureaucratic presence. The cities of New Spain, New Castile, and Brazil took on a
European feel, but the countryside remained indigenous in character. The Spanish and Portuguese viewed the new
world more as an opportunity for exploitation than as a potential center of colonization.
Spanish dominance, at least in the north, was eventually challenged by the English, French, and Dutch.
Unlike the Spanish, and mainly for reasons of economic expediency, these nations looked to North America as a
source of trade and a place for colonization. Colonies such as Port Royal and Quebec (French), Jamestown and
Massachusetts Bay (English), and New Amsterdam (Dutch) were founded in the early years of the seventeenth
century. Even with the occasional help of local Indian tribes these colonies struggled mightily. Only sixty of
Jamestown’s population of five hundred survived the winter of 1610. The English, French, and Dutch private
investors maintained much greater direct control over their colonies than the Spanish and Portuguese royal patrons
did over theirs. The English concept of and demand for private ownership of land was a strange and threatening
idea for the indigenous Indian population. Conflict between the two groups was, increasingly, the result.
Colonial Societies in the Americas
The small percentage of Spanish and Portuguese female migrants ensured that there was considerable
intermingling and intermarriage between the European and indigenous peoples. The result was a growing mixed
population (mestizos, mulattoes, and zambos). Nevertheless, the Europeans (peninsulares) and their descendents
(criollos) continued to dominate society. The mestizos, mulattoes, and zambos played an increasingly larger role.
Christianity, often of a syncretic variety, spread rapidly through the subject peoples of New Spain and Brazil. The
situation was different in North America. A much higher percentage of female migrants, especially among the
English colonists, reduced intermarriage. The English made every attempt to eliminate contact between the different
groups. French attitudes lay somewhere in between. Métis were the result of French and Indian intermarriage, but
did not form a distinct social class.
Silver from the prosperous mines around Zacatecas and Potosi proved to be the main attraction for the
Spanish. A fifth of the silver production, known as the quinto, was reserved for the Spanish government. Silver
from the Americas ensured a powerful Spanish army and navy and eventually made its way into the world market.
Agriculture and craft production were also important to the inhabitants of New Spain. The hacienda was the center
for both activities. In an attempt to supply laborers for the mines and farms, but also provide fair wages and reduce
brutal treatment, Spanish officials replaced the encomiendas with the repartimiento system in the late sixteenth
century. While the transformation was a change for the better overall, the system of forced labor still allowed for
harsh treatment and resulted in low productivity. In Brazil, the social and economic center was the sugar plantation
or engenho. Labor, because of a lack of experienced cultivators and the ravages of disease, remained a problem in
Brazil. In the end the Portuguese would turn to a particularly brutal system of slavery. In North America different
social, political, and economic factors ensured that trade, first for fur and then for tobacco, was of central
importance. Indentured servants and eventually slaves provided the labor force. Although the southern colonies
may have owned the slaves, the northern colonies also benefited from their labor.
Europeans in the Pacific
The peoples of Oceania discovered that their greater isolation provided a few centuries’ respite but not total
protection from the Europeans. For almost fifteen hundred years Europeans had theorized about the existence of
Terra australis incognita (“unknown southern land”). The first recorded sighting of Australia (originally called
New Holland) was made by Dutch sailors in 1606, although the Portuguese almost certainly arrived first. Captain
James Cook finally charted the entire continent in 1770. Initially, the reports were not favorable. It wasn’t until
1788 that the English finally decided to make use of Australia as a penal colony. Areas such as Guam and the
Marianas fell under Spanish control in the 1670s and 1780s. Islands like Tahiti and Hawai`i were increasingly
brought into the European trading network. Unfortunately, Oceania also suffered through the horrors of epidemic
disease and a staggering loss of life.
Chapter 26
Africa and the Atlantic World
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
Sub-Saharan Africa was influenced, like most of the rest of the world, by the establishment of global
trading networks during the early modern age. European merchants, lured by the possibility of trading opportunities
and profits, increasingly visited the west African coasts. The rise of wealthy port cities and powerful coastal
kingdoms reduced, but did not eliminate, the traditional trans-Saharan trade routes. Slavery, both African and
Islamic, had been a part of African life for centuries. The burgeoning Atlantic slave trade dwarfed its predecessors,
however, and constituted the largest migration in history before the nineteenth century. Not only were millions of
Africans captured and sold into slavery, but their home societies were often left in chaos. The integration of African
and American society would lay the foundations for the complex African Diaspora of the western hemisphere.
OVERVIEW
African Politics and Society in Early Modern Times
Increased trade brought about a transformation of African political patterns. The Songhay Empire, carrying
on the imperial tradition of Mali, reached its peak during the fifteenth century under the leadership of Sunni Ali.
Songhay rulers, like their Mali predecessors, were Islamic. Under their patronage Timbuktu became a major center
of Islamic learning. Changing economic times, especially the rising prominence of Atlantic trade, fostered the move
away from larger imperial states and toward small regional states. On the other side of Africa the Swahili city-states
fell to the gunboat diplomacy of the Portuguese. The new regional kingdoms of central Africa were also unable to
escape Portuguese interference. The king of Kongo, Afonso I, converted to Christianity and encouraged his subjects
to do the same. This close tie to Portugal, however, did not protect Kongo from Portuguese slave raiders or
invasion. Further to the south the remarkable Queen Nzinga fought a forty-year battle to keep the Portuguese from
conquering Ndongo. Her successors were not as successful, and Angola became the first European colony in subSaharan Africa. In the far south, the Dutch established Cape Town in 1652 and began to dominate the Khoikhoi
people.
As is usually the case, religious and social pressures went hand in hand with the political changes brought
by the invading Europeans. In this case first Islam and then Christianity challenged the animistic African beliefs.
Not surprisingly, both religions became popular, in syncretic versions, as the older beliefs fused with the new
concepts. The Fulani, representative of many who were concerned about the purity of Islam in the face of these new
varieties, mounted military campaigns to enforce a strict form of Islam. An interesting syncretic version of
Christianity appeared in Kongo in the early 1700s. Doña Beatriz proposed that Jesus Christ was a black African
man and that Kongo was the real holy land. In the end she was burned at the stake by the Christian king of Kongo.
Trade brought new food crops to Africa, the most important being the American manioc. The increased
food supply led to steady population growth, even with the millions forced out of Africa by slavery. In the three
centuries after 1500, the population of sub-Saharan Africa rose from 34 to 60 million. The slave trade, however,
created tremendous imbalances in African societies. Many areas were left with a disproportionately high percentage
of women because the young men had been sold into slavery. Other areas were torn by warfare caused by the
tensions from the slave trade.
The Atlantic Slave Trade
Slavery has played a role in the human experience for thousands of years, and the African societies have
suffered disproportionately. Two factors—law and society—combined to make African slavery unique. Since the
private ownership of land was not recognized in Africa, the ownership of slaves stood as a measure of personal
wealth. Slaves could also be brought into the kinship group and receive freedom and recognition in the clan within a
generation. During the centuries before the arrival of the Europeans, around ten million Africans passed into the
Islamic world as part of the trans-Saharan slave trade. The Europeans, led by the Portuguese in the fifteenth
century, tied into existing slave networks and dramatically increased the scale of the trade. Slaves played a central
role in the triangular trade between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Firearms were the most popular item that the
Europeans exchanged for slaves. The middle passage is, of course, an event of legendary inhumanity that cost the
lives of around a quarter of all African slaves shipped across the Atlantic. Over 55,000 slaves a year were exported
to the Americas during the eighteenth century, the high point of the slave trade. It has been estimated that twelve
million Africans arrived in the western hemisphere, while another four million died during the middle passage.
While some African societies such as the Asante, Dahomey, and Oyo may have benefited financially from the slave
trade, most regions suffered horribly.
The African Diaspora
As slaves were exported throughout the Americas, the foundation was laid for the establishment of the
African Diaspora. In the Americas most slaves served on large plantations that produced cash crops such as sugar,
tobacco, rice, indigo, or cotton. The nature of the slave communities varied dramatically from one region to another.
An astonishingly high mortality rate on Caribbean and South American plantations resulted in a constant turnover in
slaves and thus little family structure. The five percent of slaves who were exported to North America had a greater
chance to form families, but still led a harsh existence. Slave resistance was common, although large, organized
slave revolts remained a rare but greatly feared event. Saint-Domingue was the only place where a slave revolt
actually led to the abolition of slavery. Attempts by slaves to preserve languages or cultural traditions from their
homelands gradually became more difficult. The result was the integration of concepts and the creation of a true
African-American cultural tradition. This can be seen clearly in the rise of syncretic religions such as voodoo in
Haiti. The efforts of ex-slaves like Olaudah Equiano and Frederick Douglass created pressure to abolish the slave
trade, as did the economic reality of the decreasing benefits of slavery. The United States and most European
nations outlawed the slave trade in the first half of the nineteenth century. The abolition of slavery itself would
follow within a few decades, although it tenaciously hung on in some parts of the world well into the twentieth
century. Even today it has been estimated that around two hundred million people still live in some form of
servitude.
Chapter 27
Tradition and Change in East Asia
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
While areas such as sub-Saharan Africa and parts of the Americas may have suffered because of increased
contact with the Europeans, the east Asian states generally benefited from long-distance trade. It would be centuries
before China or Japan fell under European domination. As had been the case for centuries on end, China remained
the dominant power in east Asia. The chaos of Mongol control gave way to a restoration of Chinese traditions and a
return to glory under the Ming and Qing dynasties. Japan was unified under the Tokugawas and began its evolution
into a powerful state.
OVERVIEW
The Quest for Political Stability
The Ming dynasty, founded in 1368 by Hongwu, restored order and an emphasis on Chinese traditions after
a century of Mongol rule under the Yuan. Arguably the most spectacular achievement of the Ming was the building
of the Great Wall of China. The Great Wall, built on the remains of earlier walls that dated back to the Qin, was
also representative of the Ming desire to ensure order and control contact with the outside world. Yongle built the
Forbidden City and financed massive journeys of exploration under the control of the talented admiral Zheng He.
Later emperors, most notably Wanli, retreated into a world of isolation and opulence, and ignored the demands of
running the country. Internal problems shifted the regime’s focus away from exploration in any case. The end came
in 1644 with the invasion of the Manchus and the establishment of the Qing dynasty. The Qing viewed their
dynasty as “pure” and forbade intermarriage between the Chinese and Manchus. Chinese men were forced to wear a
queue as a form of submission. Nevertheless, China grew even stronger during the Qing era, and the Chinese
maintained either direct or indirect control over most of east Asia. The Qing reached their peak during the brilliant
reigns of Kangxi (1661–1722) and Qianlong (1736–1795). Both the Ming and Qing relied on the same massive
bureaucratic machine, with the emperor as the “son of heaven” in the center. Civil service examinations ensured the
production of scholar-bureaucrats to run the state.
Economic and Social Changes
The Ming and Qing rulers, in an effort to reestablish hierarchical and patriarchal social order, attempted to
follow traditional patterns. A changing social and economic world made this a challenge. Filial piety and
obligation, favorite topics of moralist writers, extended not only to the father and emperor but also to patrilineal
clans that could number in the thousands. These clans provided local order and welfare services as well as
supplying financial aid for poorer relatives to attain an education. The relationship between the sexes, which had
always been male dominated, became even more so during the Ming and Qing years. Footbinding is probably the
best example of the declining status of women.
Although only a small percentage of China’s land was suitable for cultivation, a combination of intensive
farming and the introduction of new crops led to an increase in the food supply and a concomitant population
explosion. In the 250 years after 1500, the population increased from 100 million to 225 million. Not surprisingly
this increase led to economic and social problems. China enjoyed a substantially favorable balance of trade and was
active commercially during these years. The massive financial support with which Yongle had backed Zheng He’s
journeys of discovery dried up under later rulers, as internal problems forced them to use resources elsewhere.
Chinese merchants and manufacturers enjoyed much less freedom from governmental supervision than their
European counterparts did. While the Ming and Qing may have enjoyed internal stability, their failure to encourage
innovation helped ensure that China fell further behind the Europeans technologically.
The Confucian Tradition and New Cultural Influences
Both the Ming and Qing emperors were active supporters of the Confucian tradition, especially the work of
the Neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Xi. His call for self-discipline, filial piety, and obedience to established rulers was
exactly what the emperors needed after the chaos of the Yuan dynasty. The Hanlin Academy was founded to
promote Confucian scholarship. Collections of literary, historical, and philosophical texts such as the Yongle
Encyclopedia, Kangxi’s Collection of Books, and Qianlong’s massive Complete Library of the Four Treasuries all
received substantial imperial patronage. The population of the burgeoning cities was increasingly literate, but
showed less interest in Neo-Confucian tomes than in popular culture. Popular novels such as The Romance of the
Three Kingdoms, The Dream of the Red Chamber, and Journey to the West were widely read during this period and
remain favorites today.
Christianity returned to China in the sixteenth century through the efforts of the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, among
others. Ricci attempted to win converts and impressed the central court of Wanli with examples of European
technology. An amazing facility for languages helps explain Ricci’s success more, however. His work, The True
Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, attempted to convince the Chinese that the philosophies of Jesus and Confucius
were similar. Ironically, his flexibility failed to win over many converts because of the inflexible exclusivity of
Christianity. Kangxi eventually put an end to Christian preaching in China, but only in response to a papal
declaration against Confucianism. Despite limited success in winning converts, the work of Matteo Ricci and others
dramatically increased the European knowledge of China.
The Unification of Japan
The date usually accepted for the unification of Japan is 1600. The previous four centuries are often
referred to as sengoku (“the country at war”), as the country was torn apart by incessant warfare among the nobles
(daimyo). Tokugawa Ieyasu restored order and implemented unification and centralization in 1600. A large part of
his success was his ability to bring the daimyo under control by limiting their power and implementing his policy of
“alternate residence.” In the 1630s the Tokugawa shoguns carried this desire for stability one step further by cutting
ties with the Europeans. Establishing a policy known as sakoku, the shoguns expelled European merchants and
missionaries and prevented the Japanese from visiting foreign lands. With the exception of a few Chinese and
Dutch merchants, Japan was cut off from the world.
The peace and stability brought about by Tokugawa Ieyasu had profound implications for the Japanese. An
increase in food and an end to warfare brought corresponding population growth, though the Japanese population
increase would pale in comparison to that of the Chinese. Through a combination of contraception, abortion, and
infanticide (“thinning out the rice shoots”), the land-poor Japanese purposely maintained slow population growth.
Between 1600 and 1850 the Japanese population only increased from 22 million to 32 million. The burgeoning
influence of the urban merchant population reduced the status of the daimyo and samurai. In the early days of the
Tokugawa era the shoguns, like their Chinese counterparts, emphasized the Neo-Confucianism of Zhu Xi.
During this period of transformation, however, the Japanese turned more and more to “native learning.” This was a
call for a return to folk traditions and Shinto, as well as the view that the Japanese were superior to other societies.
Like the Chinese cities, the expanding Japanese cities housed a literate populous with a taste for popular culture.
The “floating worlds” of cities such as Osaka fueled a demand for works like Ihara Saikaku’s The Life of a Man
Who Lived for Love. Kabuki and bunraku, two new forms of theater, flourished in this environment. Despite the
best efforts of the Tokugawa shoguns, it was impossible to keep foreign ideas out entirely. European anatomy,
botany, astronomy, and medical science, lumped together by the Japanese as “Dutch learning,” became more
popular.
Chapter 28
The Islamic Empires
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
Three Islamic empires—the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals—dominated a huge extent of territory
ranging from eastern Europe and northern Africa in the west to India in the east during the early modern age. Their
control over the Eurasian land and sea trade routes made their influence even greater. All three dynasties had their
roots in nomadic Turkish-speaking peoples of central Asia. Although they embraced new urban and agricultural
concepts, they never forgot their intellectual and social roots among the people of the steppes. During the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries these dynasties were politically, economically, and militarily dominant. By the eighteenth
century these empires, for a variety of reasons, had either collapsed or were significantly weakened.
OVERVIEW
Formation of the Islamic Empires
All three dynasties had reasonably humble origins as small warrior states on the frontier. The Ottomans
developed from a small northwestern Turkish tribe under the control of Osman Bey in the thirteenth century. Their
position on the border between the Islamic and Christian worlds gave the Ottomans an early sense of mission. They
viewed themselves as ghazi, or Islamic religious warriors. Their passionate desire for conquest and religious
expansion was backed by a powerful military machine. Janissaries, because they had been taken from the Balkans
as children and hence knew no other world, were completely loyal to the sultan and formed an impressive fighting
force. In 1453 Mehmed II’s conquest of Constantinople, and the resulting establishment of Istanbul, laid the
groundwork for what was arguably the greatest empire in history after that of the Romans. It peaked during the
sixteenth century under the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent. His conquests, both on land and at sea, left much of
southwest Asia, northern Africa, and southeastern Europe under Ottoman control. The Ottomans referred to the
sultan as Suleyman the Lawgiver, in recognition of his influential law code.
Further east the Safavids, although they would never match the might of the Ottomans, possessed a
powerful army and a state made rich by trade. Nevertheless, their longest-lasting influence would be the Twelver
Shiism of the dynasty’s founder, Shah Ismail. Although the Safavids traced their lineage back to a thirteenthcentury Sufi mystic named Safi al-Din, in the early sixteenth century Shah Ismail made the decision to embrace
Twelver Shiism. Shah Ismail’s inspiration for this decision, whether truly a case of religious conversion or merely
political opportunism, remains a mystery. Whatever Shah Ismail’s motives, the conversion to Twelver Shiism
forged a link with the qizilbash and gave the Safavids a sense of leadership in the Islamic world. The devastating
loss to the Ottomans at Chaldiran in 1514, however, almost ended the dynasty before it began. Safavid rulers who
followed Shah Ismail made greater use of technology and closed the gap with the Ottomans. Shah Abbas the Great
brought the empire to its greatest heights.
In the early sixteenth century Zahir al-Din Muhammad (Babur, or “tiger”), a descendant of Chinggis Khan
and Tamerlane, conquered India. Unlike the Ottomans or Safavids, Zahir al-Din Muhammad founded his Mughal
dynasty solely because of his dream of empire and fame and not from a sense of religious purpose. Unavoidably,
however, the rule of the Islamic Mughals over the Hindu Indian population generated religious tension. A desire to
decrease this religious animosity through an enlightened policy of toleration was the hallmark of the rule of Akbar in
the second half of the sixteenth century. Akbar even went so far as to create a syncretic religion combining elements
of the different religions of India, the “divine faith.” Ironically, this effort was accepted much more readily by the
Hindus than by the strongly monotheistic Mughals. The seventeenth-century reign of Aurangzeb marked not only
the high point of the Mughal Empire geographically but also the beginning of a decline caused by the emperor’s
decision to reverse Akbar’s policy of religious toleration.
Imperial Islamic Society
All three Islamic states placed tremendous power in the hands of the emperors. Powerful armies, which
stood at the center of much of the empires’ success, were under the personal command of the emperor. The Islamic
goal of spreading the faith to other lands also empowered the emperors to conquer new territory. Steppe traditions
not only gave the emperors tremendous latitude carrying out their own agenda but also ensured continual problems
with the succession. From the time of Mehmed II, it was legal for the new Ottoman sultan to kill off his brothers,
usually in the classic Turko-Mongol fashion of strangulation by silk bow-string. Although women were supposed to
have no voice in politics, they increasingly played a role behind the scenes, if not openly, through the politics of the
harem. Hurrem Sultana, one of Suleyman the Magnificent’s concubines, convinced the sultan to have his first son
executed.
In the Islamic empires, although to a lesser extent than in Europe, the Columbian exchange introduced
American crops such as maize, potatoes, and tomatoes. Two other new agricultural products, coffee and tobacco,
were popular but officially frowned on (and occasionally outlawed). A population surge followed the increase in
food supply. Between 1500 and 1800 the population of India increased from 105 million to 190 million; the
population of the Safavid Empire went from 5 million to 8 million; and the population of the Ottoman Empire rose
from 9 million to 28 million. The position of these empires at the heart of east-west trade ensured that they would
grow wealthy. Islamic rulers consciously strove to make their large cities centers for trade, with the best example
being the Safavid capital of Isfahan. As is common in empires this large, each society contained tremendous
religious diversity, despite their designation as Islamic. While the rulers may have actively promoted Islam,
conquered peoples were usually considered dhimmi, or protected people, and allowed to follow their own religious
beliefs. Occasionally, rulers such as Aurangzeb created turmoil by recognizing only Islam. Royal patronage
ensured that cities such as Suleyman’s Istanbul, Shah Abbas’s Isfahan, and Akbar’s Fatepur Sikri became major
cultural, artistic, and intellectual centers. The magnificence of Shah Jahan’s Taj Mahal speaks volumes about the
splendor of Mughal India.
The Empires in Transition
By the eighteenth century the three Islamic empires were in a state of serious decline. Not surprisingly,
they shared many of the same problems. As so often seems to be the case, the greatest rulers of each dynasty ruled
in the early days of expansion. A series of less competent leaders followed. In the Ottoman example, bloodshed
caused by squabbles over the succession resulted in the heirs being left to lead lives of profligacy in the harem.
Religious tensions increasingly haunted the Islamic empires. The irony is that one of the great strengths of the three
dynasties had been their early religious toleration. Conservative religious clerics put pressure on the rulers to restrict
the rights of non-Muslims. Many of the same conservative religious leaders led a backlash against western
technology. Eventually the empires fell far behind the Europeans in technology and military proficiency. Finally,
the European push across the Atlantic and around the southern tip of Africa financially devastated the Islamic
empires by changing the trade routes.
Chapter 29
Revolutions and National States in the Atlantic World
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
Revolutions shook the Atlantic world in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, bringing
unprecedented political and social changes. The American Revolution brought independence from Great Britain and
the creation of a new republic. Shortly thereafter a revolution broke out that radically transformed French society
and shook Europe to its core. Central and South America, including the Caribbean, would undergo similar
transformations. These revolutions spread Enlightenment ideals and promoted the consolidation of national states.
OVERVIEW
Popular Sovereignty and Political Upheaval
Obviously, much of the intellectual foundation for this revolutionary age relates back directly to
Enlightenment thinkers. Enlightenment ideals such as popular sovereignty, individual freedom, political and legal
equality, and the social contract formed the core of the philosophy of these revolutionary thinkers. The American
Revolution proved a natural, although at the time surprising, expression of these concepts. The overwhelming
victory in the Seven Years’ War pushed the British ahead in the race for world hegemony, but it also increased
tension with their North American colonies. Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence mirrored the influence of
Enlightenment thinkers such as Locke as well as the growing colonial dissatisfaction with the nature of their
constitutional relationship to England. The colonial victory in the resulting war—due to a combination of American
grit, British indecisiveness, and French aid—stood as an example for other thinkers dreaming of a new world.
The French were inspired by the American example but also pushed to carry out change on a much more
profound and radical level. The French Revolution attempted to transform every aspect of the ancien régime. As
expressed in the ideals of The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, the National Assembly strove to
ensure popular sovereignty, the equality of all individuals, and the sanctity of individual rights. Eventually, as is so
often the case in revolutions, the French Revolution took a more radical turn that left many of its original and more
moderate proponents mystified. The Convention declared France a republic, established the levée en masse, and
eventually executed Louis XVI. Maximilien Robespierre’s establishment of the “cult of reason” would be the most
radical phase of the revolution. The Directory marked a turn back toward a more moderate, if politically indecisive,
direction. Napoleon Bonaparte’s usurpation of power brought the revolution almost full circle. A complicated
figure, Napoleon stands somewhere between reformer and dictator. At the height of his power Napoleon controlled
most of continental Europe. The disastrous Russian campaign of 1812 turned the tide on his glorious career, and he
would eventually die in exile on St. Helena in 1821.
The Influence of Revolution
The inspiration for revolutionary change was not a European or North American monopoly. The uprising
in Saint-Domingue would prove to be the only successful slave revolt in world history. What is more, the efforts of
Boukman and especially Louverture in creating an independent Haiti brought about a level of social change even
greater than that accomplished by their American or French counterparts. The other Latin American revolutionaries
were concerned mainly with political independence and not as committed to social upheaval. Mainly, the creoles
hoped to displace the peninsulares while maintaining their own privileged place in society. Leaders such as
Augustín de Iturbide, Simón Bolívar, José de San Martín, and Bernardo O’Higgins carved off most of Latin
America from European control. No revolution met the expectations of its early leaders, however. After failing to
put together a powerful Latin American federation, Simón Bolívar complained that “those who have served the
revolution have plowed the sea.”
The revolutionary fervor also spawned new political philosophies. The English philosopher Edmund
Burke, although a supporter of the colonial position in the American Revolution, decried the extremism of the
French Revolution and became the chief early spokesman for conservatism. Liberalism grew from the writings of
John Stuart Mill and others. A call for the end to the slave trade and even slavery itself attracted many followers
during this period. In 1807 William Wilberforce pushed a bill through Parliament that ended the British slave trade.
The British abolished slavery in 1833. Other countries followed suit on both measures. Political freedom and social
equality for ex-slaves would be much more difficult to attain. Writers such as Mary Astell and Mary
Wollstonecraft, through her A Vindication of the Rights of Women, championed the cause of women’s rights.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the Seneca Falls conference in 1848 and demanded rights equivalent to those of
men. Once again though the goal of equality would prove elusive.
The Consolidation of National States in Europe
Despite all the revolutionary changes of these years, the development of nationalism may have cast the
longest shadow. The first nationalist thinkers were proponents of what might be called cultural nationalism, which
was a call for people to appreciate the unique cultural and intellectual achievements of a national community.
Johann Gottfried von Herder’s discussion of Volksgeist was a classic example of this form of nationalism. These
thinkers stressed examples of cultural accomplishment as a means of creating a sense of community, but they did not
argue for superiority. Political nationalists pushed for loyalty and solidarity for their national group and argued for
political independence and state-building. Examples of this type of nationalism would be Giuseppe Mazzini and his
Young Italy movement, and Theodore Herzl and the rise of Zionism. The specter of rapid national independence
was a frightening one for many European leaders. Prince Klemens von Metternich, presiding over the Congress of
Vienna, attempted to suppress national consciousness and re-create the sense of balance that he equated with the
ancien régime. The efforts of Cavour and Garibaldi brought the independence and unification of Italy. Otto von
Bismarck, stressing the political reality of change through “blood and iron” rather than debate, unified Germany and
permanently changed the European landscape.
Chapter 30
The Making of Industrial Society
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
Beginning in Britain in the eighteenth century, and then moving to western Europe, North America, Russia,
and Japan, the Industrial Revolution transformed life in an almost unprecedented manner. Machines driven by new
inanimate sources of power replaced traditional animal or human power. The developing machine-age devices
increased worker productivity, economic specialization, and large-scale enterprise. While industrialization raised
the material standards for much of the world in the long run, it also led to immense social and economic dislocation
as well as tremendous short-term suffering. Socialists such as the Utopians and the more influential Karl Marx
dreamed of transforming or destroying the new industrial world.
OVERVIEW
Patterns of Industrialization
Several factors allowed Britain to gain the early lead in industrialization: high agricultural productivity,
numerous skilled artisans, abundant coal and iron ore, navigable rivers and canals, advanced banking and financial
institutions, and a supportive government. The increasingly capitalist world of early modern Europe also provided
an inspiration by expanding consumer demand. Events in the British cotton industry display how one technological
innovation led to market pressures that in turn fueled more inventions. John Kay’s flying shuttle dramatically
increased the speed of the weaving process, and this increased speed supplied pressure for a faster means of spinning
thread. In 1779 the invention of Samuel Crompton’s “mule” turned the tables by producing thread faster than
weavers could use. Balance was restored with Edmund Cartwright’s invention of the power loom in 1785. James
Watt’s invention of a general purpose steam engine in 1765 provided a new power source for the industrial
revolution. Advancements in iron and steel production supplied a foundation for this age. Eventually George
Stephenson found a way to make use of Watt’s discovery, and in 1815 he invented the first steam-powered
locomotive.
As the eighteenth century progressed the factory system replaced the putting-out system, a staple of early
modern Europe. Factories allowed for a much greater amount of centralization and managerial supervision than
ever before. At the same time, a great gulf developed between the owner class and the workers who had nothing
more than their labor to offer. The pace and structure of factory work was dramatically different for the new urban
laboring class than the more traditional agrarian set-up was. Many crafts workers, best represented by the Luddites,
struck back when they feared that their livelihood and lifestyle was in jeopardy.
Britain would eventually lose its early leadership in industrialization as western European nations such as
Belgium, France, and Germany began to develop. The United States joined the competition and actively worked to
lure British crafts workers to relocate to North America. By 1900 the United States, backed by a plentiful supply of
raw materials and a growing population, became a major industrial power. Important innovations such as Eli
Whitney’s interchangeable parts and Henry Ford’s assembly line sped U.S. advancement. Corporations and
eventually monopolies, both vertical and horizontal, became staples of western European and North American
industrialization.
Industrial Society
The influence of industrialization spread far beyond the economic world. In fact, it might be argued that of
all the “revolutions” in human history the Industrial Revolution ranks second only to the discovery of agriculture in
its influence on every aspect of human life. In the long term industrialization increased material standards around
the world. World population exploded from 1700 to 1900. During these years, for example, the European
population rose from 105 to 390 million and the population of North and South America rose from 13 to 145
million. A dramatic decrease in the mortality rate keyed this population jump and made up for a slowing of the
fertility rate. Rapid industrialization encouraged migration and urbanization. In the nineteenth century the urban
British population increased from 20 percent to 75 percent. By 1900 the populations of London (6.5 million), New
York (4.2 million), Paris (3.3 million) and Berlin (2.7 million) had grown exponentially. The conditions for the
workers in these huge industrial cities were deplorable. Despite this, millions poured into the cities from internal
and transcontinental migrations. Fifty million Europeans migrated to the Americas during the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries.
The transition to the industrial urban world and the crush of an extraordinary population explosion led to
profound societal transformations. On the positive side it hastened the disappearance of slavery because the market
favored wager earners with at least the potential to be consumers. New social classes came into existence. Wealthy
businessmen and factory owners replaced the military aristocracy as leaders in society. A growing middle class
benefited from industrialization. The urban proletariat formed the backbone of the industrial revolution. Home life
was altered forever as the family was torn apart. Men were drawn away from the home and into the world of work
while women increasingly had their economic role reduced. Domesticity became their universe. Many women and
children from the lower classes, however, were driven into the industrial workforce, where they provided cheap and
compliant labor.
The excesses of industrialization led governments and regulatory organizations to pass laws limiting child
labor. Other thinkers promoted more extreme answers to the problems of the modern industrial world. Early
socialist thinkers such as the Utopians Charles Fourier and Robert Owen wanted to restructure society in a more
equitable fashion. Karl Marx along with Friedrich Engels wished to do far more than simply restructure society.
Every aspect of the capitalist world had to be destroyed through revolution and replaced by a “dictatorship of the
proletariat.” More moderate socialists worked to bring about fundamental change through the system. Trade
unions, although attacked by factory owners, eventually worked to reduce the possibility of a Marxian-type class
revolution by improving the conditions of the working class.
Global Effects of Industrialization
Industrialization eventually spread beyond western Europe and North America. Russia, under the influence
of finance minister Count Sergei Witte, made great strides. By 1900 Russia was the world’s fourth largest steel
producer, trailing only the United States, Germany, and Great Britain. In a continuing effort to compete with the
Europeans and maintain national sovereignty, the Japanese also industrialized. The Japanese zaibatsu was similar to
western European or North American monopolies. Not every nation in the world shared equally in this period of
industrial expansion though. Countries like Canada, Argentina, Uruguay, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand
acted initially as sources for raw material but also eventually underwent economic development and
industrialization. Other countries in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and southeast Asia remained
economically dependent on the industrialized nations.
Chapter 31
The Americas in the Age of Independence
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
By the early nineteenth century most of the countries of the Americas had achieved independence from
European control. As is so often the case, the most difficult part of the process still lay ahead. It was now left for
these new nations to create vibrant but stable states. The United States suffered through a bloody civil war but
eventually built a powerful state and by the end of the century was well on its way to world power status. Canada,
despite tensions between British Canadians and French Canadians, constructed a stable federal system. The Latin
American countries struggled but moved slowly toward political stability. Like their European counterparts in this
revolutionary age, all the nations of the western hemisphere found it difficult to balance the ideals of the
Enlightenment and the realities of self-government.
OVERVIEW
The Building of American States
It was especially difficult for the new United States to reconcile the rhetoric of the Declaration of
Independence with the complexities of a huge and increasingly heterogeneous country. Nevertheless, the franchise
expanded continuously, and most adult white men could vote by mid-century. The Louisiana Purchase doubled the
size of the country and made Americans believe it was their manifest destiny to expand westward. To facilitate this
expansion it was necessary to remove the indigenous Indian population. The Trail of Tears forms one of the saddest
chapters in American history. After the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890 there would be no more serious Indian
resistance. Texas, California, and New Mexico eventually came under U.S. control through victory in the MexicanAmerican War. As the United States expanded westward, serious sectional differences, exacerbated by the debate
over slavery, lurked beneath the surface. If anything, the westward movement only made the situation worse
because every new state carried the potential to destroy the precarious balance between free and slave states.
Abraham Lincoln proved a prophet when he proposed that “a house divided against itself cannot stand;” the United
States entered a bloody and protracted Civil War in 1861. In the end the northern states, with a majority of the
population and almost all the industrial base, won and the Union, bruised and bloody, held.
Canadian independence and nation building, although made difficult by the differences between British
Canadians and French Canadians, proved a much simpler and less violent proposition than it was for its neighbors to
the south. Ironically, the looming presence of the United States worked to reduce ethnic tensions inside Canada and
Canada’s rebuff of the American invasion in the War of 1812 bolstered national pride. In a similar vein, fear of
American westward expansion convinced the British to pass the British North America Act of 1867. This
legislation joined Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick together to create the Dominion of Canada.
John A. Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada, continued the expansion westward and used the building of a
transcontinental railroad to increase trade and communication.
Simón Bolívar summed up the problems in Latin America succinctly when he stated, “I fear peace more
than war.” Gran Colombia broke apart almost immediately, and so did Bolívar’s dream of a great Latin American
state. The new Latin American countries had little experience in self-government and severe challenges to face. For
the most part the new states were dominated by creole elites who jealously guarded participation in public affairs.
Like the United States, these new states immediately claimed land and pushed the indigenous peoples aside.
Political instability allowed caudillos—local military leaders—to rise to power. The caudillos did provide order, but
crushed both enemies and liberal reform in the process. Juan Manuel de Rosas, “the Machiavelli of the Pampas,”
imposed his will on Argentina. Mexico moved toward liberal reform under the leadership of President Benito
Juárez. Under the banner of La Reforma, Juárez sought to limit the authority of the army and the Catholic church.
Not surprisingly, reformers such as Juárez made many enemies among the conservative Mexican elites. The
Mexican Revolution (1911–1920) was a bloody struggle between the dictator Porfirio Díaz and the revolutionary
leaders Emiliano Zapata and Francisco (Pancho) Villa. Despite the chaotic nature of the revolution and the eventual
death of Zapata, the Mexican Constitution of 1917 recognized many of the reformers’ demands.
American Economic Development
Migration played a huge role in the industrial expansion of the Americas in the nineteenth century. The
migrants were often unskilled, but this fact only made them more attractive to employers who were trying to hold
down costs. These migrants flooded into the urban centers of the east coast and filled industrial jobs. Over two
million Europeans came into the United States in the 1850s alone, almost as many as the previous half century. By
the late nineteenth century most of the European migrants were Poles, Russian Jews, Slavs, Italians, Greeks, and
Portuguese. Asian migrants, including two hundred thousand Chinese who moved into California between 1852 and
1875, worked the gold fields and built the railroads of the western United States. Conversely, most migrants to
Latin America worked on agricultural plantations. Four million Italians migrated to Argentina alone in the 1880s
and 1890s. Some, like the golondrinas (“swallows”), traveled back and forth between Argentina and Europe.
Thousands of Japanese and Chinese migrants settled in Hawai`i.
Industrial expansion in the United States depended on British investment in the early years. The victory of
wage labor over slave labor, one of the consequences of the American Civil War, ensured more industrial growth. It
could be argued that the single most important economic development of the nineteenth century was the
construction of a rail system that linked all parts of the United States. This rail system laid the groundwork for an
integrated national economy. By the turn of the century the United States possessed over two hundred thousand
miles of railroad track, which provided cheap transportation for agricultural commodities and manufactured goods,
and jump-started the development of other industries. “Railroad time” even facilitated the division of the United
States into time zones and the creation of a precise, standardized time framework. New inventions such as electric
lights, telephones, typewriters, phonographs, film photography, motion picture cameras, and electric motors further
fueled U.S. expansion. Large-scale unions developed in opposition to the poor conditions of American workers.
Canada went through a similar period of industrial and economic expansion in the nineteenth century. The
National Policy attracted migrants, protected homegrown industries through tariffs, and built a national
transportation system centered on the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Canada also benefited from migration, including
2.7 million eastern Europeans between 1903 and 1914. Although concerned by the economic threat posed by the
expanding United States, Canada did benefit from investment from its southern neighbor; by 1918 some 30 percent
of Canadian businesses were owned by Americans.
Latin America did not undergo industrialization or economic development like its northern counterparts.
Colonial legacies and the short-sighted policies of Latin American elites held the region back. Latin American
industries were crushed by European competition before they could get started. The British did invest in cattle and
sheep ranching, and Argentina became Britain’s leading beef provider. The British controlled the industry,
however, and reaped the profits—not the Argentines. Occasionally, as in the case of the Mexican dictator Porfirio
Díaz, there were attempts to bring about industrialization and advancement. Even here, however, the money poured
in Díaz’s pocket and did not benefit the country as a whole. Exports, such as copper and silver from Mexico and
coffee from Brazil, did lead to uneven economic expansion.
American Cultural and Social Diversity
The Americas grew to be astonishingly diverse societies, which provided both benefits and challenges. The
most multicultural land in the western hemisphere was the United States. Even here, however, true political power
remained in the hands of white elites of European ancestry. Native American tribes were pushed west and into a life
of devastating poverty on reservations. Freed slaves received legal rights and civil liberties after the Civil War and
during Reconstruction, but they were not always allowed to exercise them fully, particularly in the southern states.
American women slowly gained greater educational and employment opportunities. A massive migration of
foreigners both enriched the American experience and set off xenophobic fears. The division between British
Canadians and French Canadians made Canada a culturally diverse land from its inception. Slaves escaping north
along the Underground Railroad and the migrations from Europe and Asia made the cultural mix even richer.
Western Canadian expansion into the Northwest Territory, however, raised fears among French Canadian trappers
and members of the métis population. The failed 1885 Northwest Rebellion led by Louis Riel was a product of these
fears. Colonial and slave legacies left Latin American society with a hierarchical, race-driven structure. At the top
were the creoles while the native indigenous population and the ancestors of freed slaves were at the bottom. Largescale migration, as in Canada and the United States, made the situation even more complex. Many Latin American
intellectuals were torn between a cultural affiliation to European influences or American roots. Some, like Domingo
Faustino Sarmiento in his Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism, saw the cities and their European culture as a
civilizing influence on the countryside. Others looked to influences such as the Argentine gauchos (cowboys) for
inspiration. A huge part of the Latin American, and especially the gaucho, persona was the stress on machismo.
Nevertheless, Latin American women slowly and haltingly began to obtain more educational opportunities in the
cities as the century progressed.
Chapter 32
Societies at Crossroads
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
In the nineteenth century Tokugawa Japan, Qing China, the Ottoman empire, and Russia faced profound
challenges that fundamentally transformed all four powerful states. In some cases the threats, both internal and
external, caused the societies to undergo transformations that left the states better equipped to face the twentiety
century. In other cases the states were essentially shattered and quickly fell prey to more modern and industrialized
rivals. The slow pace of technological advancement in Russia, Japan, China, and the Ottoman Empire left them in a
difficult position when competing with western Europe and the United States. The four societies also faced other
common problems: population pressures, falling agricultural productivity, famine, declining revenue, and corrupt
bureaucracies. In the end Japan, and to a lesser extent Russia, simply did a more effective job of reforming than did
China or the Ottomans.
OVERVIEW
The Ottoman Empire in Decline
As the nineteenth century dawned the Ottoman Empire was shrinking. The loss of Greece, Serbia, and
especially Egypt damaged Ottoman prestige and economic might. Unequal trading agreements with the western
Europeans, known as capitulations, made the economic situation even more dire. Attempts at reform were blocked
by governmental corruption and the power of the Janissaries. Mahmud II was only able to bring about western
European-inspired military and educational reforms by first slaughtering a large number of Janissaries. The years
from 1839 to 1876, known as the Tanzimat or “reorganization” era, brought about legal reform based on the French
model. Nevertheless, the Tanzimat reformers faced opposition from devout Muslims, corrupt bureaucrats, and the
Young Ottomans. Sultan Abdül Hamid II (1876–1909) suspended the constitution and ruled despotically but also
built railroads and continued to modernize the army and educational system. The Young Turks dethroned Abdül
Hamid II and pushed forward a program calling for universal suffrage, equality before the law, freedom of religion,
free public education, secularization of the state, and the emancipation of women. Unfortunately, the Young Turks’
insistence on Turkish as the official language of the empire caused dissension in the heterogeneous Ottoman Empire.
The Russian Empire under Pressure
The humiliating loss in the Crimean War (1853-1856) to a poorly led but technologically advanced FrancoBritish force displayed the weakness of Russia. Reform in Russia, as in the other societies discussed in this chapter,
was essential. At the heart of Russia’s attempt at social reform was Alexander II’s emancipation of the serfs in
1861. The newly freed serfs, however, discovered a world with few political or economic opportunities.
Governmental innovation, with the creation of the zemstvos or district assemblies, and judicial reform did bring
some improvements. By the end of the century Minister of Finance Sergei Witte was pushing for massive industrial
expansion and the construction of the trans-Siberian railway. In the end, however, the rapid pace of industrialization
created an angry, suffering proletariat that was susceptible to revolutionary ideas. Opposition leaders, ranging from
university students and members of the intelligentsia to anarchists and peasant revolutionaries, grew tired of the
slow pace of change. Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 by a faction of the Land and Freedom Party. His
successors, Alexander III and Nicholas II, relied more on oppression. The year 1905, with the humiliating defeat in
the Russo-Japanese War and the Revolution after the Bloody Sunday massacre, shook Russian confidence even
more.
The Chinese Empire under Siege
The causes and consequences of the Opium War (1839–1842) were profound for nineteenth-century China.
Beyond merely a dispute with the British over opium, the conflict centered around questions of sovereignty and
modernity. The Treaty of Nanjing gave the British control over Hong Kong and certain beneficial trading
concessions; more importantly, the humiliating defeat revealed the weakness of China. Even as the western
Europeans applied external pressure, China was collapsing internally. Hong Xiuquan’s devastating Taiping
Rebellion fed off the chaos of popular discontent and governmental incompetence. By its end in 1864, the Taiping
Rebellion had left around thirty million Chinese dead. Attempts at reform—such as the Self-Strengthening
Movement’s desire to combine Chinese cultural traditions with European technology—met with imperial
opposition. Like the Ottoman Empire, the Qing Empire lost control over valuable lands (e.g. Burma, Vietnam,
Korea) to more powerful competitors. Emperor Guangxu, inspired by the proposals of Kang Youwei and Liang
Qichao, embarked on the Hundred Days reforms of 1898. The empress dowager Cixi imprisoned the emperor and
squelched the reforms. The Boxer Rebellion came to nothing.
The Transformation of Japan
The story in Japan, although similar in origins, would have a very different ending. Calls for reform, such
as those of Mizuno Takakuni in the early 1840s, became more pressing after the American show of force by
Commodore Perry in 1853. Beginning in 1868, reformers such as Fukuzawa Yukichi and Ito Hirobumi brought
about the Meiji Restoration, which was designed to copy aspects of western European and American achievements
so that Japan would not meet the same fate as China. Industrialization was a key to the success of this reform. The
Meiji leaders abolished the old feudal order, revamped the tax system, and remodeled the economy. The Japanese
army and navy were modernized and restructured, and Japan embarked on a western-style imperialistic expansion.
Victories in the Sino-Japanese (1895-1896) and Russo-Japanese Wars (1904-1905) signaled Japan’s rise to the
status of a world power.
Chapter 33
The Building of Global Empires
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
Empire building is as old as history itself and has been a prominent theme for thousands of years. In the
second half of the nineteenth century the western Europeans carried imperialism to an unprecedented scale.
Equipped with industrial and military might, the English, French, Germans, and Dutch attempted to impose their
control over the world on a scale unattainable for earlier conquerors. The United States and Japan joined the
imperialist circle by the end of the century. While encouraging global trade, imperialism also exacerbated
differences between the few wealthy industrialized nations and the great mass of countries that were reduced to
colonial or economic tributary status. Imperialism was both a product of and a generator of virulent racism. The
world today, even on the other side of widespread decolonization, is still shaped by the imperialism of the nineteenth
century.
OVERVIEW
Foundations of Empire
The imperialism of the nineteenth century carried with it a far greater amount of political, social, economic,
and cultural control than earlier empires. A greater percentage of the world was divided up more quickly than
would have ever been possible before. The military and industrial might and mastery of transportation of the
Europeans left every portion of the world within their reach. Imperialists offered many explanations for their
colonial feeding frenzy. The main economic rationale was that colonies would provide raw materials for the mother
country’s industrial base and the result would be a natural trading relationship. In reality, most of the new colonies
were too poor to act as active trading partners and the Europeans were happy to leave them in a state of dependence.
Other imperialists argued that some areas were so politically important that their very existence as a colony was of
vital national significance for the colonizing power. The British made that argument about the Suez Canal (and any
land close to it) because it provided an invaluable link to India. Feelings of cultural superiority and religious zeal
also worked to justify imperialism. The white man’s burden washed away a lot of sins.
European Imperialism
India fell under British control in the 1700s and became the “jewel in the crown” of the empire. Crushing
the Sepoy uprising of 1857 led to direct imperial rule in India and signaled a transformation of the relationship
between the Indians and the British. Atrocities such as the Cawnpore massacre or the British practice of blowing
mutineers up with cannons meant that any earlier mutual respect or tolerance was gone; India was clearly a nation of
rulers and ruled. While the British may have won complete control over India, competition was the normal state of
affairs almost everyplace else. As part of the “Great Game,” the Russians and British competed for domination over
central Asia. In the end, however, Russian dreams of controlling Afghanistan and India came to nothing. The
British expanded into southeast Asia and took control of Burma and Malaya. Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos fell
under French control. The “scramble for Africa” displayed European imperialism at its most frantic. In the last
quarter of the nineteenth century almost all of Africa, one-fifth of the world’s landmass, was carved up by the
Europeans. The Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 laid the groundwork for the European division of the continent.
By 1900 only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent. Oceania witnessed the same mad rush for imperial glory.
Because of the isolation of most of the Pacific islands, Oceania suffered through the same cycle of disease and
massive death rates that had plagued the Americas after initial contact a couple centuries earlier.
The Emergence of New Imperial Powers
The United States and Japan joined the western Europeans as imperialist competitors in the late nineteenth
century. The roots of American imperialism stretched back to the issuance of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. While
warning the Europeans away from the western hemisphere, the doctrine also justified later U.S. intervention in
Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Haiti. The purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 and
the annexation of Hawai`i in 1898 expressed the growing U.S. interest in the Pacific world. Victory against an
overmatched Spain in the Spanish-American War brought control over Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the
Philippines. Emilio Aguinaldo’s long, bloody Filipino rebellion showed that not every area welcomed U.S. control.
A rebellion in Panama, actively supported by Theodore Roosevelt, brought the United States the Panama Canal.
The Meiji Restoration ensured that Japan would not suffer the same fate as other Asian nations. In addition
to industrialization and military expansion, the Japanese studied and mastered another western phenomenon:
imperialism. Hokkaido, Okinawa, the Kurile Islands, and the Ryukyu Islands fell to Japan in the 1870s. In 1876 the
Japanese, employing the same gunboat diplomacy that the British and Americans had mastered, forced Korea to
accept an unequal trade treaty. Disputes over Korea eventually led to armed conflict with China and an
overwhelming victory in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). Victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)
confirmed Japan’s arrival as a major imperial power.
Legacies of Imperialism
Colonies’ economies were often reoriented to fill the raw material needs of the imperialist nations. The
massive growth of cotton production in India is a good example. Ceylon was practically transformed into one large
tea plantation. Imperialism also led to widespread migration. Europeans, some fifty million between 1800 and
1914, usually went as free laborers to temperate climates. Indentured servants from Asia, Africa, and the Pacific
Islands—around 2.5 million between 1820 and 1914—mainly ended up in tropical or subtropical lands. The new
colonies in Asia and Africa chafed under European rule, and uprisings such as the Maji Maji rebellion in
Tanganyika were common. Racism, either “scientific” or popular, played a big role in justifying imperialism for the
conquering nations. Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau’s Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races placed
Europeans at the top of a racial hierarchy. The social Darwinism of thinkers such as Herbert Spencer justified the
European dominance over the colonies. This acceptance of conflict as a natural part of the human process would
have devastating consequences in the twentieth century. The excesses of European nationalism led to anti-colonial
and nationalist movements in the colonies themselves. Ram Mohan Roy, the “father of modern India,” was one of
the first of this generation of colonial nationalists. Typically, these early nationalists were more concerned with
better economic opportunities, equal rights, and self-government than with complete independence.
Chapter 34
The Great War: The World in Upheaval
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
The assassination of Francis Ferdinand on 28 June 1914 started a localized Serbian-Austrian conflict that
soon, and inexplicably to many of the participants, grew into a global affair and the bloodiest war in all of history up
to that point. Millions of human beings on five different continents found themselves dragged into a war that, for
the vast majority, had absolutely no meaning. New concepts such as total war and the home front changed the
course of war forever. Massive industrialization provided a seemingly endless supply of destructive new weapons.
Over nine million soldiers died and another twenty-one million people were injured. Economic losses soared into
the billions of dollars. Four powerful empires disappeared and nine new nations were born. Russian and world
history was changed forever by the world’s first communist revolution. The United States stepped tentatively on to
the world stage, changed the course of the war, shaped the peace treaty, and then rapidly retreated. Finally, the
Europeans, who had stood unchallenged as masters of the world in 1914, brought about their own destruction.
OVERVIEW
The Drift toward War
At most, the assassination of Francis Ferdinand provided a justification for the outbreak of World War I.
The actual causes of the war are as profound as its consequences. Nationalism, the great dark cloud that hangs over
the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, was a central cause. No nation could pass up the opportunity to prove its
greatness or claim its “place in the sun.” Nationalist self-determination was as much an agent of hope for the Serbs
as it was a threat to the existence of multinational states such as Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. When
Russia fostered the concept of Pan-Slavism the situation became much tenser. National rivalries like those between
Great Britain and Germany, exacerbated by industrial, colonial and military competition, made for a combustible
diplomatic environment. Naturally, no country wanted to be isolated. The evolution of the Triple Alliance
(Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy) and the Triple Entente (Great Britain, France, and Russia) locked both sides
into a position where it would only take a spark—such as the assassination of Francis Ferdinand—to lead to a much
greater conflagration. Contingency plans such as the French Plan XVII and the German Schlieffen Plan made it less
likely that the competing nations would back down from a challenge.
Global War
Francis Ferdinand’s assassination allowed the alliance system to bring in one nation after another. What
started out as a localized dispute quickly turned into a continent-wide, and then worldwide, conflict. The German
invasion of Belgium on 3 August 1914, in accordance with the Schlieffen Plan, brought England into the war and
removed any last hope for a negotiated peace. The enthusiasm of August 1914, however, soon turned to horror.
When Germany was halted at the Marne any chance for a quick victory evaporated; what developed was a long,
bloody stalemate along the western front. Technological advancements gave the defenses a tremendous advantage,
but the generals continued to employ traditional infantry charges. Glorious adventure gave way to senseless carnage
as soldiers marched straight into a no-man’s-land of land mines, hand grenades, machine guns, barbed wire, and
poison gas. The loss of millions of soldiers for almost no gain in 1916 battles such as Verdun and the Somme
characterized the pointless bloodshed on the western front. In the east, the Germans were able to outmaneuver the
Russians and push them back hundreds of miles, but not quickly enough to alter the course of the war.
One of the factors that made World War I so different from its predecessors was the enormous scope of the
conflict. This applied not only to the size of the armies themselves, but also to the demands that the warfare placed
on almost every aspect of society. For the first time, people used terms such as total war and the home front.
Government increased dramatically in size and influence. As the war dragged on, volunteer soldiers were replaced
by conscripts. Laissez-faire capitalism, at least during the war years, became a memory. Propaganda and repression
became common governmental practices. Women enjoyed greater economic advantages in the process of
supporting a total war. In the years after the war women received the vote in some states as a symbol of the
contributions they had made to the war effort.
The war spread beyond the boundaries of Europe for three main reasons. First, colonies became natural
extensions of the tensions among the European nations. Second, as the war grew in size the Europeans began to
push for colonial recruits. Third, other countries entered the war for reasons of national policy that had nothing to
do with Francis Ferdinand’s assassination or alliance considerations. Japan, for example, entered the war in 1914 in
an attempt (eventually successful) to gain control of Germany’s Pacific possessions. Eventually the Japanese used
the pretence of the war to issue the Twenty-one Demands and increase their sway over China. German colonies in
Africa (Togoland, German Southwest Africa, German East Africa, and the Cameroons) became targets for the
English and French. Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand forces were dragged into the disastrous battle of
Gallipoli as British colonials. The battle not only failed to dislodge the Turks but became a symbol of national
sacrifice and identification for the Australia and New Zealand, which further strained their relationship with
England. Ibn Ali Hussain and T. E. Lawrence led Arab resistance against Turkish rule.
The End of the War
Russia was decimated by the war. Military collapse and bread riots led Nicholas II to step down in early
1917. This February Revolution put in place a provisional government that was dedicated to reform, but as poorly
prepared as the tsar to fight the war. The provisional government’s decision to ignore popular demands to end the
war doomed it from the start. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks, understood the Russian situation
much more clearly than had Nicholas II or the leaders of the provisional government. Although a dedicated follower
of Marx, Lenin believed that the industrial workers desperately needed the leadership of an organized party to reach
revolutionary consciousness. A revolution could be made. The motto “Peace, Land, and Bread” summed up the
desperate Russian situation and demonstrated Lenin’s pragmatic political gifts. The Bolsheviks seized control in the
October Revolution. The German-imposed Treaty of Brest Litovsk forced Russia out of the war and proved to be as
harsh as the later Treaty of Versailles.
By 1917 the main combatants were exhausted and almost bankrupt. Rebellions such as the French mutiny
of fifty thousand soldiers in 1917 were representative of the frustration and anguish of the common people. The
entrance of the United States, an untested but heavily populated industrial giant, changed the course of World War I.
While the U.S. president Woodrow Wilson viewed a British and French victory as essential for the furtherance of
democracy, it was not until the Germans resumed unrestricted submarine warfare that America joined the war.
Germany, the last of the Central Powers remaining, agreed to an armistice in November 1918. Despite Wilson’s
insistence on a fair and open peace, which was one of his Fourteen Points, the combination of Anglo-French anger
and Wilson’s own political problems resulted in a harsh treaty. The absence of the Germans and Austrians, as well
as the now-communist Russians, at the peace negotiations cast doubt on the process from the beginning. Wilson
accepted a much harsher treaty than he wanted in return for the establishment of the League of Nations. The
combination of German and Russian anger, an American return to isolation, and an unstable new map of Europe
doomed the world to more horrors to come. To make it worse, the implementation of the mandate system made the
rest of world think that the Europeans were intent on reestablishing imperialism under a different name. The war
and its aftermath also spread the concept of self-determination, which many people around the world took as a call
for national independence and self-rule, and a threat to imperialism and European hegemony.
Chapter 35
An Age of Anxiety
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
The end of World War I did not mean the end of upheaval for Europe and the new Soviet Union. Europe
was shaken to its core by the carnage of the war. An entire generation of Europeans—those lucky enough to have
survived the fighting—was disillusioned by the experience. A tumultuous and disputed settlement to the war left
many people uneasy, even when prosperity apparently returned in the 1920s. Scientific discoveries and cultural
innovations only added to the anxiety by challenging accepted ideas of the world order. The stock market crash and
Great Depression displayed the disadvantages of the world’s interdependence by bringing suffering to untold
millions. Benito Mussolini in Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany created totalitarian dictatorships that fed off a fear
of chaos. On the other end of the political spectrum, Joseph Stalin built his own dictatorship, one that aimed at
destroying the established European order. It was truly an age of anxiety.
OVERVIEW
Probing Cultural Frontiers
The sense of disillusionment and estrangement that characterized Europe after World War I is summed up
in the appellation: “the lost generation.” Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front brought the horror
and folly of the war home to millions of readers. In The Decline of the West, Oswald Spengler proposed that
European society had entered its final days. Karl Barth’s Epistle to the Romans attacked liberal Christian theology
and the ideal of progress. Intellectuals, artists and politicians attacked other nineteenth-century staples such as
science, technology, and democracy along with progress. John Maynard Keynes posited the end of laissez-faire
capitalism. Developments in science, most notably in physics and psychology, also shattered older worldviews.
Albert Einstein’s discoveries suggested that there were no simple chronological or spatial guidelines to the universe.
The notion that everything in the universe was relative to each observer seemed to remove all certainty. The words
“uncertainty principle” were added to the popular lexicon by Werner Heisenberg. Basic questions of truth as well as
cause and effect were now called into question. The work of Sigmund Freud in the emerging field of
psychoanalysis proposed that humans were driven far less by rational considerations than by darker, less logical
forces. Art reflected this intellectual upheaval as well. Photography drove painters from various schools to attempt
to create reality rather than merely copy it. Painters such as Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin and Pablo Picasso strove to
“abolish the sovereignty of appearance” and destroy all accepted standards of good and bad. Walter Gropius and
Ludwig Mies von der Rohe rebelled against traditional architectural constraints.
Global Depression
The crash of the U.S. stock market on Black Thursday, 24 October 1929, brought an end to the economic
recovery that had marked much of the 1920s. Profound economic problems had existed beneath the surface for
years leading up to the crash. Agriculture suffered from overproduction and falling prices. Many nations were
industrially underdeveloped and produced only one type of raw material, which left them highly susceptible to the
boom and bust cycles of the industrial powers. The United States, Germany, and the former Allied Nations played a
dangerous balancing act involving loans, investments, and reparations payments. When the dangerously high prices
on the stock market collapsed, the entire house of cards collapsed. With the exception of the Soviet Union, which
by-and-large removed itself from the world economy, most of the rest of the world was dragged into the Great
Depression. A rise in unemployment and a dramatic decrease in industrial production and trade caused suffering on
a global scale. Most nations practiced economic nationalism and passed tariffs such as the U.S. Smoot-Hawley
Tariff, which only led to more tariffs and even less trade. Eventually the United States, Italy, Germany, and Japan
found ways of jump-starting their economies and began the process of fighting out of the Great Depression.
Challenges to the Liberal Order
A bloody civil war, Red (Bolshevik) versus White (Monarchists and others), broke out in the Soviet Union
after Lenin’s victory in the Revolution. Over two hundred thousand counter-revolutionaries, including Nicholas II
and his family, were murdered by Lenin’s secret police. The demands of the civil war led to war communism and a
radical restructuring of Russian social and economic life. The “dictatorship of the proletariat” began to take on the
form of a true dictatorship. Industrial production dropped 90 percent during the civil war. Lenin, displaying the
pragmatism that was so much a part of his nature, implemented free market reforms as part of his New Economic
Policy in 1921. Unfortunately there is no way to determine what path Lenin’s reforms might have taken in the long
term. After a failed assassination attempt and a prolonged period of illness, he died in 1924. Joseph Stalin came out
on top in the power struggle after Lenin’s death and decided that the Soviet Union needed a second revolution, in
this case an industrial one. Five-Year Plans and collectivization brought Russian industry and agriculture firmly
under Stalin’s control. Russia industrialized, but at a steep price. In 1934 Stalin turned against his real and
perceived enemies in the Great Purge. Millions of Soviet citizens died either directly or indirectly from Stalinist
terror and collectivization.
The great rival to communism during the interwar years proved to be fascism, an authoritarian political
movement that stressed the transcendence of the state over the individual. Although the term was first coined by
Benito Mussolini, fascism reached its peak in structure and significance under Adolf Hitler in Germany. Hitler
viewed communists and Jews as twin threats to world order. Liberalism and democracy were also frequent targets
after he rose to leadership of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis). Hitler’s philosophy mirrored
the political and social chaos and discontent of the 1920s and 1930s in Germany. What set Hitler apart from other
malcontents of the period was his virulent racial ideology and hatred of the Jews. Even his ill-fated attempt to
overthrow the relatively unpopular Weimar Republic in the 1923 only worked to strengthen his appeal for many
Germans. His ascension to the position of chancellor in 1933 was less of a surprise than was the brief amount of
time it took him to turn Germany into a one-party dictatorship. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which deprived Jews
of German citizenship, and the Kristallnacht of 1938 were harbingers of far darker times to come.
Chapter 36
Nationalism and Political Identities in Asia, Africa and Latin
America
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
Though the conflict centered on Europe, the Great War shifted the political, social, and economic landscape
of the entire world. In the long run, perhaps the greatest impact was felt in the colonies and former colonies of the
Great Powers. Indians and Africans who fought in the war felt their contributions proved they were ready for
independence. China and Japan, which had both been on the margins of the war, now believed themselves on par
with the European powers. Pre-existing nationalist and independence movements in these regions were inflamed,
and new ones arose. Latin America, on the other hand, found itself faced with a new imperialist threat after a
century of independence: the United States. As states in these regions struggled to develop their identities, the
global economic crisis of the Great Depression made the challenge even greater.
OVERVIEW
Asian Paths to Autonomy
The Great War, both through the weakening of colonial European powers and the spread of ideas such as
self-determination, hastened the transformation of Asia. In India an educated elite understood all too clearly the
contradiction between European ideals of freedom and democracy and the realities of imperialism. The Indian
National Congress and the Muslim League increasingly called for a reappraisal of India’s role as a British colony.
Unlike many nationalist movements that would slip into bloodshed, Mohandas Gandhi stressed nonviolent change
through passive resistance. During his years in South Africa Gandhi perfected his philosophy of satyagraha (“truth
and firmness”). Through a complex mixture of political, economic, and spiritual ideas and actions Gandhi attempted
to convert, rather than terrorize, India’s oppressors. Unfortunately, on many occasions the British and Gandhi’s own
followers resorted to violence. By 1937 the Government of India Act provided India with the institutions of a selfgoverning state. The future remained murky, however, with leaders such as Muhammad Ali Jinnah calling for the
creation of Pakistan for India’s Islamic population.
The collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911 allowed Sun Yatsen to declare a republic, but it did not ensure
political stability for China. Political fragmentation and the warlords’ military might pushed the Three Principles of
the People into the background. Frustrations caused by the European and American recognition of Japanese control
in China led to the May Fourth Movement and a turbulent period of self-examination. Mao Zedong and the Chinese
Communist Party were among the chief beneficiaries of this process. The Guomindang, under the leadership of Sun
Yatsen and eventually Jiang Jieshi, were Mao’s main internal rivals for power. External threats, particularly that of
the Japanese, further complicated the situation. The Guomindang and the Chinese Communists, the very definition
of strange bedfellows, worked to reduce Japanese influence when they weren’t actively trying to eliminate each
other. Jiang Jieshi almost captured Mao in 1934, but the resulting Long March only worked to solidify Mao’s
reputation. In the end Mao veered away from Marxist thought even more dramatically than Lenin had done earlier.
Instead of merely making room for the peasants in the political process, Mao made the peasants the single most
important feature of his revolutionary philosophy.
Africa under Colonial Domination
Africans found it much harder to shake off the colonial yoke. More than one million Africans fought in the
Great War, with many more serving behind the lines as support personnel. Some fought in Europe, but most
remained in Africa. Given arms, opportunity, and incentive, they staged several risings against European control.
All were suppressed, usually with violence. Wilson’s call for national self-determination, so powerful during the
war, was almost completely ignored as far as Africa was concerned in the peace settlements. Britain and France not
only retained their colonies, they also inherited those of Germany and Italy as “spoils of war.” With the question of
security settled for the moment but deeply in debt, the European powers focused on making the colonies into
profitable enterprises. To this end, they provided their agents in Africa with a modern infrastructure. To pay for it,
they taxed the labor and property of the Africans. In many cases, African colonies were effectively reduced to large
plantations where the Europeans controlled the land and reaped the profits while the Africans provided the labor.
Whether through policy or force, colonial policy often stripped rural sections of Africa of its male labor force and
left the remaining family members without a means of subsistence.
With the increasing Europeanization of the economy and the growing urbanization of Africa came a new
African elite. This emerging class of urban intellectuals, frequently educated in Europe and imbued with the notions
of nationalism, democracy, and self-determination, sought ways to change the balance of power. Some drew on
Africa’s pre-colonial history as a way to establish African identities, but expressed their desire for independence
using European forms and ideas. Others, like the Jamaican nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, used the European
basis for colonialism as their own basis in calling for the independence of Africans. Garvey viewed all Africans as a
single, black race and called on people of African heritage from around the globe to return and establish a panAfrican state. These leaders barely had time to begin organizing, however, before first the Great Depression and
then a second world war struck.
Latin American Struggles with Neocolonialism
While Africans struggled against the old forms of colonialism, Latin America found itself faced with a new
type of imperialist threat after the First World War. Neocolonialism, as it came to be known, was more subtle than
nineteenth century imperialism. Foreign investors and, increasingly, the United States’ government used economic
policy rather than direct, military intervention to influence or control the states of Latin America. The United States
emerged from the First World War as the world’s leading economic power (or nearly so), and it almost immediately
sought to use that power to secure its “sphere of influence” in Latin America. By replacing European investments
with American investments, the U.S. government hoped to realize the aim proclaimed in the Monroe Doctrine and
the Roosevelt Corollary of securing sole influence in Latin America. Known in the United States under such
positive slogans as “dollar diplomacy” and the “Good Neighbor Policy,” U.S. intervention in the economic affairs of
South and Central states was perceived as “Yankee imperialism” in Latin America.
The impetus of the Great War and the Russian Revolution led Latin Americans to try out new ideas and
new methods of resistance and rebellion. Though it never came to dominate any Latin American state in the
interwar era, many Latin American intellectuals and university students in particular embraced the ideology of
communism as a form of resistance. In Peru, for instance, both José Carlos Mariátegui and the Alianza Popular
Revolucionaria Americana (APRA, or American Popular Revolutionary Alliance) used communism to criticize their
government. In Mexico the artist Diego Rivera, among others, combined communism with indigenous Mexican art
and pre-Columbian folk traditions in murals that were as much social and political criticism as they were art.
By and large, these protests failed to deter the American enterprise. The Great Depression, however, was
somewhat more successful. With the stock market in ruins, American investors could not sustain their capital
investments in Latin America. This, in turn, led to the rapid deterioration of economic conditions in the states of
South and Central America that had relied on exports of raw materials and foodstuffs. Fearful that this would lead
to instability in the region, the United States turned from indirect investment to the direct subsidization of what it
perceived as stable regimes in Latin America during the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In several
states, the U.S. financed and trained police and national guard forces that supported the American-friendly economic
and military elites. In Nicaragua, these forces were entrusted to Anastacio Somoza Garcia (1896-1956) following
the elections of 1932. Within four years, Somoza had murdered the leader of the liberal opposition and maneuvered
his way past President Juan Batista Seneca to power. U.S. influence was not always so malevolent, however. The
“Good Neighbor Policy” led to a peaceful resolution of the nationalization crisis in Mexico as well as many
mutually profitable cultural exchanges. The American tolerance for challenges from Latin America, however, was
limited.