Chapter 19

I. Beginning

A. Japanese history textbooks became controversial around 2000, with the Chinese expressing outrage over what they regarded as a whitewashing of Japanese offenses against China.

1. the controversy reflects Japan’s surprising rise to world importance, which started in the mid-nineteenth century

2. both Japan and China had to face the threat of European dominance

B. Most peoples of Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America had to deal in some way with European imperialism.

1. they also had to deal with internal problems and challenges

C. This chapter focuses on societies that faced internal crises while maintaining formal independence.

D. Four main dimensions of European imperialism confronted these societies:

1. military might and political ambitions of rival European states

2. involvement in a new world economy that radiated from Europe

3. influence of aspects of traditional European culture (e.g., language, religion, literature)

4. engagement with the culture of modernity

II. The External Challenge: European Industry and Empire

A. The nineteenth century was Europe’s greatest age of global expansion.

1. became the center of the world economy

2. millions of Europeans moved to regions beyond Europe

3. explorers and missionaries reached nearly everywhere

4. much of the world became part of European colonies

B. New Motives, New Means

1. the Industrial Revolution fueled much of Europe’s expansion

a. demand for raw materials and agricultural products

b. need for markets to sell European products

c. European capitalists often invested money abroad

d. foreign markets kept workers within Europe employed

2. growth of mass nationalism in Europe made imperialism broadly popular

a. Italy and Germany unified by 1871

b. colonies were a status symbol

3. industrial-age developments made overseas expansion possible

a. steamships

b. underwater telegraph

c. quinine

d. breech-loading rifles and machine guns

C. New Perceptions of the “Other”

1. in the past, Europeans had largely defined others in religious terms

a. but had also adopted many foreign ideas and techniques

b. mingled more freely with Asian and African elites

c. had even seen technologically simple peoples at times as “noble savages”

2. the industrial age promoted a secular arrogance among Europeans

a. was sometimes combined with a sense of religious superiority

b. Europeans increasingly despised other cultures

c. African societies lost status

i. earlier: were regarded as nations, their leaders as kings

ii. nineteenth century: became tribes led by chiefs in European eyes

d. new kind of racism, expressed in terms of modern science

i. scientific “proof” of some peoples’ inferiority

ii. creation of a hierarchy of races

iii. view of race as determining intelligence, moral development, and destiny

iv. view that inferior peoples threatened Europeans with their diseases

3. sense of responsibility to the “weaker races”

a. duty to civilize them

b. bringing them education, health care, Christianity, good government, etc., was regarded as “progress” and “civilization”

4. social Darwinism: an effort to apply Darwin’s evolutionary theory to human history

a. regarded as inevitable that the “unfit” races should be displaced or destroyed

Chapter 18

I. Beginning


A. Mahatma Gandhi criticized industrialization as economic exploitation.


1. few people have agreed with him


2. every kind of society has embraced at least the idea of industrialization since it started in Great Britain in the late eighteenth century

B. The Industrial Revolution was one of the most significant elements of Europe’s modern transformation.

1. initial industrialization period was 1750–1900

2. drew on the Scientific Revolution

3. utterly transformed European society

4. pushed Europe into a position of global dominance

5. was more fundamental than any breakthrough since the Agricultural Revolution

C. We don’t know where we are in the industrial era—at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end.

II. Explaining the Industrial Revolution

A. At the heart of the Industrial Revolution lay a great acceleration in the rate of technological innovation, leading to enormous increases in the output of goods and services.

1. use of new energy sources (steam engines, petroleum engines)

2. in Britain, output increased some fiftyfold in the period 1750–1900

3. based on a “culture of innovation”

4. before 1750/1800, the major Eurasian civilizations were about equal technologically

5. greatest breakthrough was the steam engine

a. soon spread from the textile industry to many other types of production

b. agriculture was transformed

6. spread from Britain to Western Europe, then to the United States, Russia, and Japan

a. became global in the twentieth century

B. Why Europe?

1. many scholars have debated why industrialization appeared first in Great Britain, and why it started in the late nineteenth century

a. older views: there’s something unique about European society

2. that view has been challenged by:

a. the fact that other parts of the world have had times of great technological and scientific flourishing

i. Islamic world 750–1100 c.e.

ii. India was the center of cotton textile production and source of many agricultural innovations

iii. China led the world in technological innovation between 700 and 1400 c.e.

iv. all had slowed or stagnated by the early modern era

b. the fact that Europe did not enjoy any overall economic advantage as late as 1750

i. across Eurasia, life expectancy, consumption and nutrition patterns, wage levels, living standards, etc., were broadly similar in the eighteenth century

c. the rapid spread of industrial techniques to much of the world in the past 250 years

3. contemporary historians tend to see the Industrial Revolution as a rather quick and unexpected eruption in the period 1750–1850

4. why it might have occurred in Europe

a. some patterns of European internal development favored innovation

i. small, highly competitive states

Chapter 17: Revolutions of Industrialization

A. Mahatma Gandhi criticized industrialization as economic exploitation
1. few people have agreed with him
2. every kind of society has embraced at least the idea of industrialization since it started in Great Britain in
xB. The Industrial Revolution was one of the most significant elements of Europe’s modern transformation.
1. initial industrialization period was 1750–1900
2. drew on the Scientific Revolution
3. utterly transformed European society
4. pushed Europe into a position of global dominance
5. was more fundamental than any breakthrough since the Agricultural Revolution
C. We don’t know where we are in the industrial era—at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end.

1. At the heart of the Industrial Revolution lay a great acceleration in the rate of technological innovation, leading to enormous increases in the output of goods and services.
   1. use of new energy sources (steam engines, petroleum engines)
   2. in Britain, output increased some fiftyfold in the period 1750–1900
   3. based on a “culture of innovation”
   4. before 1750/1800, the major Eurasian civilizations were about equal technologically 5. greatest breakthrough was the steam engine
   a. soon spread from the textile industry to many other types of production
   b. agriculture was transformed
   6. spread from Britain to Western Europe, then to the United States, Russia, and Japan
   
   A. There was a massive increase in output as industrialization took hold in Britain.
   

   1. rapid development of railroad systems
      
   2. much of the dramatic increase was in mining, manufacturing, and services
      
   3. agriculture became less important by comparison (in 1891, agriculture generated only 8 percent of British
      national income)
      
   4. vast transformation of daily life
      a. it was a traumatic process for many
      b. different people were affected in different ways
      
      
   
   

Chapter 16: Atlantic Revolutions, Global Echoes

- The 2010 Haitian earthquake devastated this already impoverished country. 

- also reawakened issues from slave-led revolution of 1804

- heavy reparations to the French had long impeded development of the country 

- Haitian Revolution was part of a wider set of upheavals

-  Haitians drew inspiration from North American and French Revolutions

-  the Haitian revolution helped to shape Latin American independence struggles

1. From the early eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century, political and social upheaval occurred in many parts of the world.
   
2. Atlantic revolutions took place in this wider framework.
   
3. But the Atlantic revolutions were distinctive. 
   1. costly wars that put strains on European states were global rather than regional 
   2. the revolutions were closely linked to one another 
   a. revolutionaries provided advice and encouragement to each other 
   b. shared a common set of ideas 

1. The North American Revolution, 1775–1787 
   1. basic facts of the American Revolution are well known
   2. a bigger question is what it changed
   3. the American Revolution was a conservative political movement 
   a. aimed to preserve colonial liberties, rather than gain new ones
   b. for most of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British North American colonies had 
   much local autonomy
   c. colonists regarded autonomy as their birthright
   d. few thought of breaking away from Britain before 1750 
   
   
   A. The legacies of the Atlantic revolutions are still controversial. 

   1. to some people, they opened new worlds of human potential 

   2. the revolutions also had many victims, critics, and opponents

   a. conservatives believed that societies were organisms that should evolve slowly; radical change invited disaster

   
   

   b. critics argued that revolutions were largely unnecessary

   
   

   B. Historians also struggle with the pros and cons of revolutionary movements.