The Birth of the Modern World, 1780 - 1914

by Bayly, C. A.

• ISBN13: 9780631236160
• ISBN10: 0631236163
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-12-02
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

This thematic history of the world from 1780 to the onset of the First World War reveals that the world was far more 'globalised' at this time than is commonly thought. Explores previously neglected sets of connections in world history. Reveals that the world was far more 'globalised', even at the beginning of this period, than is commonly thought. Sketches the 'ripple effects' of world crises such as the European revolutions and the American Civil War. Shows how events in Asia, Africa and South America impacted on the world as a whole. Considers the great themes of the nineteenth-century world, including the rise of the modern state, industrialisation and liberalism. Challenges and complements the regional and national approaches which have traditionally dominated history teaching and writing.

Author Biography

C.A. Bayly is Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. He is winner of the 2004 Wolfson History Prize for his distinguished contribution to the writing of history.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	xii
List of Maps and Tables	xviii
Series Editor's Preface	xix
Acknowledgments	xxii
Notes and Conventions	xxiii
Introduction	1	(22)
The Organization of the Book	3	(2)
Problem One: "Prime Movers" and the Economic Factor	5	(3)
Problem Two: Global History and Postmodernism	8	(1)
Problem Three: The Continuing "Riddle of the Modern"	9	(3)
Conforming to Standards: Bodily Practice	12	(7)
Building Outward from the Body: Communications and Complexity	19	(4)
PART I THE END OF THE OLD REGIME	23	(98)
1 Old Regimes and "Archaic Globalization"	27	(22)
Peasants and Lords	27	(2)
The Politics of Difference	29	(7)
Powers on the Fringes of States	36	(4)
Harbingers of New Political Formations	40	(1)
The Prehistory of "Globalization"	41	(3)
Archaic and Early Modern Globalization	44	(3)
Prospect	47	(2)
2 Passages from the Old Regimes to Modernity	49	(37)
The Last "Great Domestication" and "Industrious Revolutions"	49	(6)
New Patterns of Afro-Asian Material Culture, Production, and Trade	55	(3)
The Internal and External Limits of Afro-Asian "Industrious Revolutions"	58	(1)
Trade, Finance, and Innovation: European Competitive Advantages	59	(5)
The Activist, Patriotic State Evolves	64	(7)
Critical Publics	71	(5)
The Development of Asian and African Publics	76	(4)
Conclusion: "Backwardness," Lags, and Conjunctures	80	(2)
Prospect	82	(4)
3 Converging Revolutions, 1780-1820	86	(39)
Contemporaries Ponder the World Crisis	86	(2)
A Summary Anatomy of the World Crisis, 1720-1820	88	(12)
Sapping the Legitimacy of the State: From France to China	100	(6)
The Ideological Origins of the Modern Left and the Modern State	106	(6)
Nationalities versus States and Empires	112	(2)
The Third Revolution: Polite and Commercial Peoples Worldwide	114	(6)
Prospect	120	(1)
PART II THE MODERN WORLD IN GENESIS	121	(124)
4 Between World Revolutions, c.1815-1865	125	(45)
Assessing the "Wreck of Nations"	125	(3)
British Maritime Supremacy, World Trade, and the Revival of Agriculture	128	(4)
Emigration: A Safety Valve?	132	(2)
The Losers in the "New World Order," 1815-1865	134	(5)
Problems of Hybrid Legitimacy: Whose State Was It?	139	(4)
The State Gains Strength, but not Enough	143	(5)
Wars of Legitimacy in Asia: A Summary Account	148	(3)
Economic and Ideological Roots of the Asian Revolutions	151	(4)
The Years of Hunger and Rebellion in Europe, 1848-1851	155	(6)
The American Civil War as a Global Event	161	(4)
Convergence or Difference?	165	(3)
Reviewing the Argument	168	(2)
5 Industrialization and the New City	170	(29)
Historians, Industrialization, and Cities	170	(2)
The Progress of Industrialization	172	(5)
Poverty and the Absence of Industry	177	(6)
Cities as Centers of Production, Consumption, and Politics	183	(3)
The Urban Impact of the Global Crisis, 1780-1820	186	(2)
Race and Class in the New Cities	188	(3)
Working-Class Politics	191	(3)
Worldwide Urban Cultures and their Critics	194	(4)
Conclusion	198	(1)
6 Nation, Empire, and Ethnicity, c.1860-1900	199	(48)
Theories of Nationalism	199	(6)
When was Nationalism?	205	(1)
Whose Nation?	206	(2)
Perpetuating Nationalisms: Memories, National Associations, and Print	208	(4)
From Community to Nation: The Eurasian Empires	212	(6)
Where We Stand with Nationalism	218	(1)
Peoples without States: Persecution or Assimilation?	219	(8)
Imperialism and its History: The Late Nineteenth Century	227	(1)
Dimensions of the "New Imperialism"	228	(6)
A World of Nation-States?	234	(1)
The Persistence of Archaic Globalization	234	(2)
From Globalization to Internationalism	236	(3)
Internationalism in Practice	239	(3)
Conclusion	242	(3)
PART III STATE AND SOCIETY IN THE AGE OF IMPERIALISM	245	(148)
7 Myths and Technologies of the Modern State	247	(37)
Dimensions of the Modern State	247	(2)
The State and the Historians	249	(3)
Problems of Defining the State	252	(2)
The Modern State Takes Root: Geographical Dimensions	254	(7)
Claims to Justice and Symbols of Power	261	(4)
The State's Resources	265	(6)
The State's Obligations to Society	271	(3)
Tools of the State	274	(3)
State, Economy, and Nation	277	(4)
A Balance Sheet: What had the State Achieved?	281	(3)
8 The Theory and Practice of Liberalism, Rationalism, Socialism, and Science	284	(41)
Contextualizing Intellectual History	284	(1)
The Corruption of the Righteous Republic: A Classic Theme	285	(3)
Righteous Republics Worldwide	288	(2)
The Advent of Liberalism and the Market: Western Exceptionalism?	290	(5)
Liberalism and Land Reform: Radical Theory and Conservative Practice	295	(5)
Free Trade or National Political Economy?	300	(2)
Representing the Peoples	302	(5)
Secularism and Positivism: Transnational Affinities	307	(1)
The Reception of Socialism and its Local Resonances	308	(4)
Science in Global Context	312	(8)
Professionalization at World Level	320	(2)
Conclusion	322	(3)
9 Empires of Religion	325	(41)
Religion in the Eyes of Contemporaries	325	(4)
The View of Recent Historians	329	(1)
The Rise of New-Style Religion	330	(3)
Modes of Religious Dominion, their Agents and their Limitations	333	(3)
Formalizing Religious Authority, Creating "Imperial Religions"	336	(4)
Formalizing Doctrines and Rites	340	(3)
The Expansion of "Imperial Religions" on their Inner and Outer Frontiers	343	(8)
Pilgrimage and Globalization	351	(6)
Printing and the Propagation of Religion	357	(2)
Religious Building	359	(2)
Religion and the Nation	361	(2)
Conclusion: The Spirits of the Age	363	(3)
10 The World of the Arts and the Imagination	366	(27)
Arts and Politics	366	(1)
Hybridity and Uniformity in Art across the Globe	367	(4)
Leveling Forces: The Market, the Everyday, and the Museum	371	(3)
The Arts of the Emerging Nation, 1760-1850	374	(6)
Arts and the People, 1850-1914	380	(1)
Outside the West: Adaptation and Dependency	381	(3)
Architecture: A Mirror of the City	384	(1)
Towards World Literature?	385	(4)
Conclusion: Arts and Societies	389	(3)
Prospect	392	(1)
PART IV CHANGE, DECAY, AND CRISIS	393	(95)
11 The Reconstitution of Social Hierarchies	395	(37)
Change and the Historians	396	(3)
Gender and Subordination in the "Liberal Age"	399	(3)
Slavery's Indian Summer	402	(8)
The Peasant and Rural Laborer as Bond Serf	410	(5)
The Peasants that Got Away	415	(2)
Why Rural Subordination Survived	417	(1)
The Transformation of "Gentries"	418	(1)
Challenges to the Gentry	419	(1)
Routes to Survival: State Service and Commerce	420	(4)
Men of Fewer "Broad Acres" in Europe	424	(2)
Surviving Supremacies	426	(4)
Continuity or Change?	430	(2)
12 The Destruction of Native Peoples and Ecological Depredation	432	(19)
What is Meant by "Native Peoples"?	432	(2)
Europeans and Native Peoples before e.1820	434	(3)
Native Peoples in the "Age of Hiatus"	437	(2)
The White Deluge, 1840-1890	439	(2)
The Deluge in Practice: New Zealand, South Africa, and the USA	441	(3)
Ruling Savage Natures: Recovery and Marginalization	444	(7)
13 Conclusion: The Great Acceleration, c.1890-1914	451	(37)
Predicting "Things to Come"	451	(4)
The Agricultural Depression, Internationalism, and the New Imperialism	455	(7)
The New Nationalism	462	(2)
The Strange Death of International Liberalism	464	(4)
Summing Up: Globalization and Crisis, 1780-1914	468	(1)
Global Comparisons and Connections, 1780-1914: Conclusion	469	(4)
What Were the Motors of Change?	473	(2)
Power in Global and International Networks	475	(3)
Contested Uniformity and Universal Complexity Revisited	478	(8)
August 1914	486	(2)
Notes	488	(26)
Bibliography	514	(19)
Index	533