The World and the West
The European Challenge and the Overseas Response in the Age of Empire

This book studies the interaction between the empire-building West and the rest of the world.

Philip D. Curtin (Author)

9780521890540, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 25 February 2002

310 pages, 13 b/w illus. 2 tables
23.1 x 15.5 x 1.5 cm, 0.415 kg

'There is much of interest in this wide-ranging and erudite study …'. The Guardian

This book is a study of the interaction of the Western societies of Europe and America with others around the world in the past two centuries - the age of European empire. It deals with the European threat and the non-Western response, but the focus is on the ways in which people in Asia, Africa, and Indian America have tried to adapt their ways of life to the overwhelming European power that existed in this period. The challenge and the response are presented through a series of selected and widely scattered case studies. They vary from those of the Maya and Yaqui of Mexico, to millennial responses as varied as the Ghost Dance or the cargo cults of Melanesia, as well as those of major players like the Ottoman Empire and Meiji Japan.

Part I. Conquest: 1. The Pattern of Empire
2. Technology and power
3. The politics of Imperialism
Part II. Culture Change under Imperial Rule: 4. Culture change in plural societies: South Africa and Central Asia
5. Culture change in Mexico
6. Administrative choices and their consequences: examples from Bengal, Central Asia, Java, and Malaya
Part III. Conversion: 7. Christian missions in East Africa
8. Varieties of defensive modernization
9. Meiji Japan: revolutionary modernization
10. Ottoman reactions to the West
Part IV. The Drive for Independence and the Liquidation of Empires: 11. Non-European resistance and the European withdrawal
12. Personal and utopian responses: millenarianism
13. The search for viable independence: Indonesia
14. Paths to viable independence: Ghana.

Subject Areas: Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], General & world history [HBG]