The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century

Jürgen Osterhammel

Princeton University Press, Sep 15, 2015 - Business & Economics - 1167 pages

A panoramic global history of the nineteenth century

A monumental history of the nineteenth century, The Transformation of the World offers a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of a world in transition. Jürgen Osterhammel, an eminent scholar who has been called the Braudel of the nineteenth century, moves beyond conventional Eurocentric and chronological accounts of the era, presenting instead a truly global history of breathtaking scope and towering erudition. He examines the powerful and complex forces that drove global change during the "long nineteenth century," taking readers from New York to New Delhi, from the Latin American revolutions to the Taiping Rebellion, from the perils and promise of Europe's transatlantic labor markets to the hardships endured by nomadic, tribal peoples across the planet. Osterhammel describes a world increasingly networked by the telegraph, the steamship, and the railways. He explores the changing relationship between human beings and nature, looks at the importance of cities, explains the role slavery and its abolition played in the emergence of new nations, challenges the widely held belief that the nineteenth century witnessed the triumph of the nation-state, and much more.

This is the highly anticipated English edition of the spectacularly successful and critically acclaimed German book, which is also being translated into Chinese, Polish, Russian, and French. Indispensable for any historian, The Transformation of the World sheds important new light on this momentous epoch, showing how the nineteenth century paved the way for the global catastrophes of the twentieth century, yet how it also gave rise to pacifism, liberalism, the trade union, and a host of other crucial developments.

Contents

• The Perpetuation: 3
• When Was the Nineteenth Century?: 45
• Where Was the Nineteenth Century?: 77
• PANORAMAS: 115
• Mobilities: 117
• Population Disasters and the Demographic Transition: 124
• Creoles and Slaves: 128
• Penal Colony and Exile: 133
• Ethnic Cleansing: 139
• Internal Migration and the Changing Slave Trade: 144
• Migration and Capitalism: 154
• Global Motives: 164
• Risk and Security in Material Life: 167
• Life Expectancy and Homo hygienicus: 170
• Medical Fears and Prevention: 178
• Mobile Perils Old and New: 185
• Natural Disasters: 197
• Famine: 201
• Agricultural Revolutions: 211
• Poverty and Wealth: 216
• Globalized Consumption: 226
• European Models and Worldwide Creativity: 241
• Urbanization and Urban Systems: 249
• Between Deurbanization and Hypergrowth: 256
• Specialized Cities Universal Cities: 264
• The Golden Age of Port Cities: 275
• Colonial Cities Treaty Ports Imperial Metropolises: 283
• Internal Spaces and Undergrounds: 297
• Symbolism Aesthetics Planning: 311
• Subjugation of Space and Challenges to Nomadic Life: 322
• The North American West: 331
• South America and South Africa: 347
• Eurasia: 356
• Settler Colonialism: 368
• Invasions of the Biosphere: 375
• The Persistence of Empires: 392
• Paths to the NationState: 403
• What Holds Empires Together?: 419
• Typology and Comparisons: 429
• Central and Marginal Cases: 434
• Pax Britannica: 450
• Living in Empires: 461
• Between Two World Wars: 469
• Spaces of Power and Hegemony: 475
• Peaceful Europe Wartorn Asia and Africa: 483
• Diplomacy as Political Instrument and Intercultural Art: 493
• Internationalisms and the Emergence of Universal Norms: 505
• From Philadelphia via Nanjing to Saint Petersburg: 514
• The Revolutionary Atlantic: 522
• The Great Turbulence in Midcentury: 543
• Eurasian Revolutions Fin de Siècle: 558
• Minimal Government Performances and the Iron Cage: 572
• Reinventions of Monarchy: 579
• Democracy: 593
• Bureaucracies: 605
• Mobilization and Discipline: 616
• The Politics of Peripheral Defensive: 625
• State and Nationalism: 629
• THEMES: 635
• Who Unbound Prometheus When and Where?: 637
• Industrialization: 638
• The Century of Coal: 651
• Paths of Economic Development and Nondevelopment: 658
• Capitalism: 667
• The Physical Basis of Culture: 673
• The Weight of Rural Labor: 675
• Factory Construction Site Office: 685
• Slaves Serfs Peasants: 697
• The Asymmetry of Wage Labor: 706
• XIV: 710
• The Nineteenth Century in History: 902

About the author

Jürgen Osterhammel is professor of modern and contemporary history at the University of Konstanz. He is the coauthor of Globalization: A Short History and a coeditor of A History of the World.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century; Volume 15 of America in the World, ISSN 2577-7947
• Author: Jürgen Osterhammel
• Translated by: Patrick Camiller
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2015
• ISBN: 0691169802, 9780691169804
• Length: 1167 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Economic History; History / Modern / 19th Century; History / Social History; History / World; Technology & Engineering / History