The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century(America in the World)

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.

Table of Contents:
Preface xi Introduction xv PART ONE: APPROACHES I Memory and Self-Observation: The Perpetuation of the Nineteenth Century 3 1Visibility and Audibility 5 2Treasuries of Memory and Knowledge 7 3Observation, Description, Realism 17 4Numbers 25 5News 29 6Photography 39 II Time: When Was the Nineteenth Century? 45 1Chronology and the Coherence of the Age 45 2Calendar and Periodization 49 3Breaks and Transitions 52 4The Age of Revolution, Victorianism, Fin de Siecle 58 5Clocks and Acceleration 67 III Space: Where Was the Nineteenth Century? 77 1Space and Time 77 2Metageography: Naming Spaces 78 3Mental Maps: The Relativity of Spatial Perspective 86 4Spaces of Interaction: Land and Sea 94 5Ordering and Governing Space 104 6Territoriality, Diaspora, Borders 107 PART TWO: PANORAMAS IV Mobilities 117 1Magnitudes and Tendencies 117 2Population Disasters and the Demographic Transition 124 3The Legacy of Early Modern Migrations: Creoles and Slaves 128 4Penal Colony and Exile 133 5Ethnic Cleansing 139 6I nternal Migration and the Changing Slave Trade 144 7Migration and Capitalism 154 8Global Motives 164 V Living Standards: Risk and Security in Material Life 167 1The Standard of Living and the Quality of Life 167 2Life Expectancy and "Homo hygienicus" 170 3Medical Fears and Prevention 178 4Mobile Perils, Old and New 185 5Natural Disasters 197 6Famine 201 7Agricultural Revolutions 211 8Poverty and Wealth 216 9Globalized Consumption 226 VI Cities: European Models and Worldwide Creativity 241 1The City as Norm and Exception 241 2Urbanization and Urban Systems 249 3Between Deurbanization and Hypergrowth 256 4Specialized Cities, Universal Cities 264 5The Golden Age of Port Cities 275 6Colonial Cities, Treaty Ports, Imperial Metropolises 283 7Internal Spaces and Undergrounds 297 8Symbolism, Aesthetics, Planning 311 VII Frontiers: Subjugation of Space and Challenges to Nomadic Life 322 1Invasions and Frontier Processes 322 2The North American West 331 3South America and South Africa 347 4Eurasia 356 5Settler Colonialism 368 6The Conquest of Nature: Invasions of the Biosphere 375 VIII Imperial Systems and Nation-States: The Persistence of Empires 392 1Great-Power Politics and Imperial Expansion 392 2Paths to the Nation-State 403 3What Holds Empires Together? 419 4Empires: Typology and Comparisons 429 5Central and Marginal Cases 434 6Pax Britannica 450 7Living in Empires 461 IX International Orders, Wars, Transnational Movements: Between Two World Wars 469 1The Thorny Path to a Global System of States 469 2Spaces of Power and Hegemony 475 3Peaceful Europe, Wartorn Asia and Africa 483 4Diplomacy as Political Instrument and Intercultural Art 493 5Internationalisms and the Emergence of Universal Norms 505 X Revolutions: From Philadelphia via Nanjing to Saint Petersburg 514 1Revolutions--from Below, from Above, from Unexpected Directions 514 2The Revolutionary Atlantic 522 3The Great Turbulence in Midcentury 543 4Eurasian Revolutions, Fin de Siecle 558 XI The State: Minimal Government, Performances, and the Iron Cage 572 1Order and Communication: The State and the Political 572 2Reinventions of Monarchy 579 3Democracy 593 4Bureaucracies 605 5Mobilization and Discipline 616 6Self-Strengthening: The Politics of Peripheral Defensive 625 7State and Nationalism 629 PART THREE: THEMES XII Energy and Industry: Who Unbound Prometheus, When, and Where? 637 1Industrialization 638 2Energy Regimes: The Century of Coal 651 3Paths of Economic Development and Nondevelopment 658 4Capitalism 667 XIII Labor: The Physical Basis of Culture 673 1The Weight of Rural Labor 675 2Factory, Construction Site, Office 685 3Toward Emancipation: Slaves, Serfs, Peasants 697 4The Asymmetry of Wage Labor 706 XIV Networks: Extension, Density, Holes 710 1Communications 712 2Trade 724 3Money and Finance 730 XV Hierarchies: The Vertical Dimension of Social Space 744 1Is a Global Social History Possible? 744 2Aristocracies in (Moderate) Decline 750 3Bourgeois and Quasi-bourgeois 761 XVI Knowledge: Growth, Concentration, Distribution 779 1World Languages 781 2Literacy and Schooling 788 3The University as a Cultural Export from Europe 798 4Mobility and Translation 808 5Humanities and the Study of the Other 814 XVII Civilization and Exclusion 826 1The "Civilized World" and Its "Mission" 826 2Slave Emancipation and White Supremacy 837 3Antiforeignism and "Race War" 855 4Anti-Semitism 865 XVIII Religion 873 1Concepts of Religion and the Religious 873 2Secularization 880 3Religion and Empire 887 4Reform and Renewal 894 Conclusion: The Nineteenth Century in History 902 1Self-Diagnostics 902 2Modernity 904 3Again: The Beginning or End of a Century 906 4Five Characteristics of the Century 907 Abbreviations 921 Notes 923 Bibliography 1021 Index 1119

About the Author :
Jurgen Osterhammel is a distinguished scholar of the history of modern China and professor of modern and contemporary history at the University of Konstanz. He is the 2010 recipient of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, Germany's most prestigious academic prize. His books in English include "Globalization: A Short History" (Princeton) and "Colonialism".

Review :
" A work of tremendous conceptual precision, breadth and insight, a masterpiece that sets a new benchmark for debates on the history of world society."--Benjamin Ziemann, Times Literary Supplement "The Braudel of the nineteenth century."--Jonathan Sperber, author of Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life "A milestone of German historical writing, one of the most important historical books of the last several decades... [A] mosaic-like portrait of an epoch."--J?rgen Kocka, Die Zeit