The Origins of the Modern World: Study Notes

WORLD SOCIAL CHANGE

Series Editor: Mark Selden

  • Overview of the series topics that address social change and global history.

Titles and Authors:

  • Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendance of Capital - Amiya Kumar Bagchi

  • Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chinese in the Lower Mekong Region, 1750-1880 - Edited by Nola Cooke and Li Tana

  • First Globalization: The Eurasian Exchange, 1500-1800 - Geoffrey C. Gunn

  • Istanbul: Between the Global and the Local - Edited by Caglar Keyder

  • Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative - Robert B. Marks

  • Leaving China: Media, Mobility, and Transnational Imagination - Wanning Sun

  • Masters of Terror: Indonesia's Military and Violence in East Timor - Edited by Richard Tanter, Desmond Ball, and Gerry van Klinken

  • Through the Prism of Slavery: Labor, Capital, and World Economy - Dale W. Tomich

  • Politics and the Past: On Repairing Historical Injustices - Edited by John Torpey

The Origins of the Modern World

A Global and Ecological Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-first Century

  • Second Edition by Robert B. Marks

  • Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

    • Locations: Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Oxford

Preface to the Second Edition

  • Discusses the longevity of U.S. dominance in the global arena.

  • Introduces the concept of the "Great Departure," a significant change in the relationship between humans and the environment during the twentieth century.

  • Acknowledgment of contributions from students, colleagues, and mentors who influenced the author’s reflections on historical processes.

Introduction

The Rise of the West?

  • Summary of the G7 meeting in Genoa (July 20-22, 2001):

    • Leaders discussed the importance of global free trade for sustained economic growth.

    • Growing protests against globalization, highlighting the inequities in the global economy.

    • Demonstrates the continuing relevance of historical questions regarding the modern world’s construction.

Economic Context:

  • The G7 nations represent major industrialized countries which generate two-thirds of the world’s economic output.

  • Contrast drawn with historical economic dominance of China and India two centuries ago, wherein they accounted for the majority of global economic productivity.

  • Raises significant questions about the processes leading to current global economic disparities.

Historical Analysis

The Gap:

  • Discusses the growing disparity between the richest and poorest nations, mainly concentrated in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

  • Critical examination of how wealth accumulation in the G7 corresponds with disparities in underdeveloped regions.

Industrial Power:

  • Significance of the power wielded by these industrialized nations, particularly in setting global economic policies and institutions.

  • Examination of the military power backing these economic decisions, often executed through organizations like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

  • Importance of understanding how European methods of organization affected world dynamics historically.

The Rise of the West - Conceptual Framework

Conceptualization:

  • The narrative that proposes an inherent superiority of Western nations rooted in historical developments.

  • Historical incidents, such as the Spanish conquest of the Americas, set the stage for future assessments of European dominance.

Enlightenment Rationalization:

  • Enlightenment ideals reinforcing a belief in European exceptionalism during the 17th and 18th centuries.

  • Influential philosophers such as Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, and David Ricardo propagated ideas that framed capitalism and industrialization as progress, delineating contrasts between the West and the rest of the world.

Essential Arguments:

Critiques of Eurocentrism:

  • The notion of Eurocentrism, wherein European history is seen as the central narrative in global history, critiqued as a flawed perspective.

  • Scholars argue that the Eurocentric narrative fails to adequately account for historical complexities by marginalizing non-Western contributions to global history.

Alternative Perspectives:

  • Proposes a non-Eurocentric analysis to understand global historical trends and transformations.

    • Highlights historical contingency, accident, and conjuncture in understanding how different regions interacted and developed over time.

Historical Contingency:

  • Emphasizes that the rise of Western dominance is not inevitable but contingent on various factors, including environmental, technological, and social processes that occurred across different contexts.