Description
This clearly written and engaging book presents a global narrative of the origins of the modern world. Unlike most studies, which assume that the "rise of the West" is the story of the coming of the modern world, this history, drawing upon new scholarship on Asia, Africa, and the New World, constructs a story in which those parts of the world play major roles. Robert B. Marks defines the modern world as one marked by industry, the nation state, interstate warfare, a large and growing gap between the wealthiest and poorest parts of the world, and an escape from "the biological old regime."
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For Marks (history, Whittier College), the "modern world" is the world of industrial capitalism, a system of nation-states and interstate wars, and a growing gap between the richest and the poorest. In this work he presents a narrative of the rise of the modern world that seeks to avoid Eurocentrism by, for example, showing how the British Industrial Revolution was historically contingent on global developments that included India, China, and the New World colonies. His narrative, which begins in 1400, emphasizes these historical contingencies and conjunctures, along with "silver, sugar, slaves, and cotton." For the new edition he has added a new chapter that picks up in 1900, where he originally left off, and continues to the first years of the 21st century. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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