The Origins of the Modern World

238 Notes to Pages 132–144

Americans and the Russians, ‘‘developing’’ but poor nations like India, Egypt, and Indo-
nesia came to be known as the third world. By the 1970s, even poorer parts of the world,
Africa in particular, began to be seen as the fourth world. All of these terms reflect the
divisions of wealth and power that have come to define the modern world.

5. Carl A. Trocki, Opium, Empire, and the Global Political Economy: A Study of the
Asian Opium Trade, 1750–1950 (London: Routledge, 1999), 126.

6. See Edward R. Slack Jr., Opium, State, and Society: China’s Narco-Economy and the
Guomindang, 1924–1937 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001).

7. For a recent example, see David Clinginsmith and Jeffrey G. Williamson, ‘‘India’s
Deindustrialization in the 18th and 19th Centuries,’’ August 2005, http://www.tcd.ie/
Economics/staff/orourkek/Istanbul/JGWGEHNIndianDeind.pdf.

8. For the story of the rise and decline of India’s cotton textile industry, at least in
Bengal, see Debendra Bijoy Mitra, The Cotton Weavers of Bengal, 1757–1833 (Kolcata:
Temple Press, 1978), 98.

9. S. Ambirajan, Classical Political Economy and British Policy in India (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987), 54–55.

10. Trocki, Opium, Empire, and the Global Political Economy, xiii, 8–9.
11. Sergei Witte, ‘‘An Economic Policy for the Empire,’’ in Readings in Russian Civiliza-
tion, 2nd ed., vol. 2, ed. Thomas Riha (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 419.
Had it not been for Russia’s defeat by Germany in World War I and the successful Bolshe-
vik (Communist) Revolution of 1917, Witte’s plans may well have transformed Russia in
ways he had envisioned. As it was, the capitalist countries of western Europe and the
United States cut the new Soviet Union off from loans and other forms of direct foreign
investment that Witte’s plan had depended on for industrializing Russia. Instead, the
Soviet Union had to pioneer a new path, epitomized from the late 1920s on as a succes-
sion of ‘‘Five-Year Plans,’’ where the funds for investment in industry were squeezed from
a newly collectivized agriculture. Despite the expropriation of private property in both
cities and the countryside, the abolition of free markets, and hence the creation of a
‘‘planned economy’’ run by communist bureaucrats, the Soviet Union did achieve
remarkable levels of industrial growth, especially of heavy industry, all the way to the
beginning of their involvement in World War II.
12. A. J. H. Latham, The International Economy and the Underdeveloped World 1865–
1914 (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 1978), 175: ‘‘China’s large trade deficit [caused by
opium] in these years was an important feature of the international economy.’’
13. The quotes and the material in this paragraph and the next two are based on
Anthony N. Penna, The Human Footprint: A Global Environmental History (Malden, MA:
Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 181–87, 193–95. Examples could be provided hundreds of times
from all around the world, from the early nineteenth century to the present day, for the
most polluted places on Earth today are those undergoing the most rapid industrialization,
in particular China and India.
14. Gregory T. Cushman, Guano and the Opening of the Pacific World: A Global Ecologi-
cal History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Notes to Pages 144–152 239

15. For China, see the section ‘‘The Built Environment: Cities and Waste’’ in Robert
B. Marks, China: Its Environment and History (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
2013), 162–67. A description of Japan’s system is in ‘‘Fecal Matters: A Prolegomenon to
Shit in Japan,’’ an as-yet-unpublished article kindly supplied to me by David L. Howell of
the history department of Harvard University.

16. For an excellent comparative analysis of the use of night soil in China, Japan,
India, and western Europe that also addresses the larger historical issues taken up in this
book, see Dean T. Ferguson, ‘‘Nightsoil and the ‘Great Divergence’: Human Waste, the
Urban Economy, and Economic Productivity, 1500–1900,’’ Journal of Global History 9
(2014): 379–402.

17. Hugh S. Gorman, The Story of N: A Social History of the Nitrogen Cycle and the
Challenge of Sustainability (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2013), 64–69.

18. John L. Brooke, Climate Change and the Course of Global History (New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2014), 479, 488.

19. For Japan, see Mikiso Hane, Peasants, Rebels, Outcasts, and Women: The Underside
of Modern Japan (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).

20. For the United States, see Jeremy Brecher, Strike (San Francisco: Straight Arrow
Books, 1972).

21. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (New York: Washington
Square Press, 1964), 57–59, 78–79.

22. This definition is based on E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780, 2nd
ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 80.

23. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1983), esp. chaps. 1 and 7.

24. See Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth about History
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1994), chaps. 2 and 3.

25. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 88.
26. See, for example, Brian Bond, ed., Victorian Military Campaigns (New York: Freder-
ich Praeger, 1967).
27. The fascinating story is told in Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of
Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
28. Quoted in Daniel Headrick, The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperial-
ism in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 118.
29. That ditty may have captured the balance of power at that moment between Afri-
cans and Europeans, but overall the balance between Europeans and others, especially
those who used guerrilla tactics against European armies, was rapidly narrowing and
would disappear altogether in the twentieth century. Where British armies at the end of
the eighteenth century could defeat Indian armies six or seven times as large, by the early
nineteenth century they could defeat Indian armies only twice as large. Finally, by the
1840s, the British had to use armies equally as large and with superior firepower to defeat
Indian armies. Clearly, future third-worlders could quickly acquire use of the most
advanced European arms to eliminate the European technological advantage. By the

240 Notes to Pages 152–162

1950s and 1960s, as both the French and then the United States were to learn in Viet-
nam, an occupied people determined to gain independence could effectively employ guer-
rilla tactics to stymie even the most advanced armies. To defeat that kind of mobilized
population would have required five to six times as many troops as the guerrilla army, and
by the late 1960s it was clear that the American public would not allow an escalation of
troop strength from 500,000 to several million. Given those military and political reali-
ties, the American defeat in Vietnam was a foregone conclusion. On the declining arms
advantage of European armies in Africa and Asia, see Philip D. Curtin, The World and the
West: The European Challenge and the Overseas Response in the Age of Empire (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000), chap. 2.

30. The West African state founded by returned American slaves, Liberia, was also
independent, as was a small part of Morocco.

31. C. A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1988), 138–139.

32. Warren Dean, With Broadax and Firebrand: The Destruction of the Brazilian Atlantic
Forest (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 181.

33. Richard H. Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and
the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995), chaps. 5 and 6.

34. For the story of global deforestation, see Michael Williams, Deforesting the Earth:
From Prehistory to Global Crisis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).

35. Brooke, Climate Change and the Course of Global History, 498.
36. Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nin˜o Famines and the Making of the Third
World (London: Verso Press, 2001).
37. See especially Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology,
and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989).
38. Quoted in Eugen Weber, A Modern History of Europe: Men, Cultures, and Societies
from the Renaissance to the Present (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971), 1001.
39. For a discussion of the role of racism in motivating Europeans to conquer foreign
land, see John M. Hobson, The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2004), chap. 10.

Chapter 6: The Great Departure

1. This argument is developed in John M. Hobson, The Eastern Origins of Western
Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), chap 10.

2. Vaclav Smil calls this period ‘‘the Age of Synergy.’’ See Creating the Twentieth Cen-
tury: Technical Innovations of 1867–1914 and Their Lasting Impact (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2005).

3. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914–1991 (New
York: Pantheon, 1996), 12.

Notes to Pages 163–177 241

4. Unless otherwise noted, this extraordinary story of the importance of nitrogen and
its synthesis as ammonia is based upon Vaclav Smil, Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl
Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2001). For an elaboration and extension, see Hugh S. Gorman, The Story of N: A Social
History of the Nitrogen Cycle and the Challenge of Sustainability (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutg-
ers University Press, 2013).

5. In 1995, Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Federal Office Building in Okla-
homa City with a bomb composed of nitrogen fertilizer and kerosene.

6. For a look at this relationship from the perspective of the production of chemicals
used in both agriculture and the military, see Edmund Russell, War and Nature: Fighting
Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring (New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2001).

7. Gregory T. Cushman, Guano and the Opening of the Pacific World: A Global Ecologi-
cal History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

8. If, as demographers predict, the world’s population will peak at about nine billion
around the year 2050, the twentieth century will have seen the largest human population
increase ever, making it unique in world history. See William McNeill, ‘‘Demography and
Urbanization,’’ in The Oxford History of the Twentieth Century, ed. Michael Howard and
Wm. Roger Louis, 10–21 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). The reason demog-
raphers expect that population will stabilize is that as societies urbanize and industrialize,
their populations experience a ‘‘demographic transition’’ where families become smaller
with children at about the number (2.1) needed to replace their parents.

9. For the first three years, World War I ‘‘was fought predominantly with agrarian
resources,’’ not industrial ones. C. A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 455.

10. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes, 97–98.
11. Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, MA: Belknap
Press, 2014), 146–49.
12. Japan’s ‘‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’’ would have driven Europe and
America from Asia and replaced them with Japan as the industrialized core of a system
that still had the rest of Asia providing food and raw materials to them.
13. At the time of partition in 1947, Pakistan was divided into two parts, east and
west. In 1971, following decades of neglect by west Pakistan, where the government was
located, rebellion in the east resulted in the creation of the new country of Bangladesh.
14. The phrase is from Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875–1914 (New York:
Pantheon, 1987).
15. Japan fostered industrial development in its colonies in Korea and Manchuria, in
part because of the ready accessibility of coal, iron ore, and petroleum there, and in part
because those colonies were physically close and relatively easier to administer directly.
Taiwan, though, taken from China in 1895, was designed to be a rice- and sugar-
producing agricultural colony.

242 Notes to Pages 179–189

16. The concept of the ‘‘nuclear winter’’ and human extinction is explored in Jona-
than Schell, The Fate of the Earth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982).

17. As Paul Kennedy makes clear in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic
Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987), that
relationship between economic productivity and military power has been true for the past
five hundred years.

18. For the environmental history of the Soviet Union, see Paul Josephson et al., The
Environmental History of Russia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), and the
pathbreaking studies by Douglas Weiner, Models of Nature (Pittsburgh: University of Pitts-
burgh Press, 2000), and A Little Corner of Freedom (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2002).

19. The term is from Judith Shapiro, Mao’s War on Nature: Politics and the Environment
in Revolutionary China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

20. The literature on China’s environmental problems is large. For overviews, see
chapter 7 of Robert B. Marks, China: Its Environment and History (Lanham, MD: Row-
man & Littlefield, 2013), and Judith Shapiro, China’s Environmental Challenges (Malden,
MA: Polity Press, 2012).

21. Much of the following is based on David Reynolds, One World Divisible: A Global
History since 1945 (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), chap. 5.

22. See Smil, Creating the Twentieth Century, chap. 2, ‘‘The Age of Electricity.’’
23. Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon, 1964).
24. The terms are from J. R. McNeill, Something New under the Sun (New York: W. W.
Norton, 2000), 296–97.
25. For an extended discussion of autos, oil, and the environment, see McNeill, Some-
thing New under the Sun, esp. chap. 7.
26. See Hobson, Eastern Origins of Western Civilization, chap. 11.
27. The late-twentieth-century ‘‘rise of East Asia’’ is as much a regional phenomenon
involving China and Japan as specific to any one of those states. See Giovanni Arrighi,
Mark Selden, and Takeshi Hamashita, eds., The Resurgence of East Asia: 500, 150 and 50
Year Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2003), esp, the introduction and chap. 7.
28. Judith Shapiro, China’s Environmental Challenges (Malden, MA: Polity Press,
2012), 44–45.
29. Peter Jay, The Wealth of Man (New York: PublicAffairs, 2000), 246–47.
30. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes, 363.
31. In 2001 in much of Sub-Saharan Africa, 50 percent or more of children did not get
a primary school education, 100 or more infants per 1,000 died, and half of the population
subsisted on less than one dollar per day. These statistics mark life for millions in India,
Pakistan, Southeast Asia, and China as well. What that means for daily life is illustrated
by a recent story from rural China where hundreds of millions lack health insurance or
access to government-supported clinics. Unable to pay the twenty-five to sixty cents to a
rural clinic for care, people suffer at home and die: ‘‘Every year hundreds of millions of
rural Chinese . . . face the clash between health and poverty, knowing that if they treat

Notes to Pages 189–200 243

their illnesses they will lack the money needed for marriage, education and, sometimes,
food.’’ For the story, see ‘‘Wealth Grows, but Health Care Withers in China,’’ New York
Times, January 14, 2006, A1, A7.

32. See World Bank, ‘‘Heavily Indebted Poor Countries,’’ http://web.worldbank.org/
WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTDEBTDEPT/0,,contentMDK:20260049ϳmenuPK
:64166739ϳpagePK:64166689ϳpiPK:64166646ϳtheSitePK:469043,00.html.

33. In 2001, the international community adopted the ‘‘Millennium Development
Goals,’’ one of which is to halve the number of extremely poor people (defined as those
making less than one U.S. dollar per day) by 2015; see http://www.un.org/millennium
goals/.

34. See ‘‘Promises, Promises,’’ editorial, New York Times, August 22, 2005, A16.
35. See ‘‘U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit,’’ White House, http://www.whitehouse.gov/us
-africa-leaders-summit.
36. This section is based on Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, esp. part 3,
‘‘The Structure of Inequality,’’ 237–467.
37. S&P Capital IQ, Global Credit Portal, Economic Research, ‘‘How Increasing
Income Inequality Is Dampening U.S. Economic Growth, and Possible Ways to Change
the Tide,’’ https://www.globalcreditportal.com/ratingsdirect/renderArticle.do?articleId‫ס‬
1351366&SctArtId‫ס‬255732&from‫ס‬CM&nsl_code‫ס‬LIME&sourceObjectId‫ס‬87410
33&sourceRevId‫ס‬1&fee_ind‫ס‬N&exp_date‫ס‬20240804–19:41:13, August 5, 2014.
38. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes.
39. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press,
1992).
40. This point about the modern world system was first made most powerfully and ele-
gantly by Immanuel Wallerstein in his groundbreaking work, The Modern World-System:
Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century
(New York: Academic Press, 1974).
41. See Herman E. Daly, ‘‘The Perils of Free Trade,’’ Scientific American, November
1993, 50–57.
42. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2000).
43. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the Twentieth-
Century World Order (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000).
44. But as Jamal Nassar warns, the label ‘‘terrorist’’ is very slippery: it is applied by
states to those who attack them, while to the dispossessed seeking their own sovereignty
they may well be seen as freedom fighters. Nassar examines the questions of how and why
the latest round in the ‘‘war on terror’’ has become intertwined with the processes of
globalization and radicalized Islam in Globalization and Terrorism: The Migration of Dreams
and Nightmares (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).
45. For a discussion of those various energy regimes and transitions, see Vaclav Smil,
Energy Transitions: History, Requirements, Prospects (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010).

244 Notes to Pages 201–205

46. The phrase ‘‘The Great Departure’’ follows in the tradition of Karl Polanyi’s Great
Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press,
1957), and Kenneth Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of
the Modern World Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000).

47. Most of this section is based on McNeill, Something New under the Sun.
48. Daly, ‘‘Perils of Free Trade,’’ 56.
49. For a more optimistic prognosis of the implications of the Anthropocene than pre-
sented here, see Diane Ackerman, The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us (New York:
W. W. Norton, 2014).
50. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis
(Washington, DC: Island Press, 2005), 1.
51. Gorman, Story of N, 102–7, 111, 125, 132–47. On postwar environmental mitiga-
tion efforts more broadly, see Brooks, Climate Change and the Course of Global History,
543–46.
52. Smil, Enriching the Earth, chap. 7.
53. William Ruddiman argues that methane from agriculture began affecting global
climate as early as 5000 BCE and may have stopped the natural climate cycle from tipping
the Earth into another ice age. See Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum, esp. part 3 and ‘‘After-
word to the Princeton Science Library Edition,’’ 195–214.
54. Brooke, Climate Change and the Course of Global History, 547–48. Brooke also
explains (548–52) why the cause-and-effect connection between the increase in green-
house gases and global temperatures is more complex than a simple one-to-one relation-
ship.
55. Michael Williams, Deforesting the Earth: From Prehistory to Global Crisis (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2003), 420.
56. Ruddiman, Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum, 149.
57. Brooke, Climate Change and the Course of Global History, 529–30.
58. R. McLellan, L. Iyengar, B. Jeffries, and N. Oerlemans, eds., Living Planet Report
2014: Species and Spaces, People and Places (Gland, Switzerland: World Wide Fund for
Nature [WWF], 2014).
59. For an overview, see Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
(New York: Henry Holt, 2014).
60. The Easter Island warning is cited in Clive Ponting, A Green History of the World:
The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (New York: Penguin, 1993) and
David Christian, The Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2004). Jared Diamond explores the fate of civilizations in Collapse:
How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York: Viking, 2005).
61. These are very complicated questions, and the only thing we know for sure about
the future is that it cannot be predicted. Nonetheless, social and natural scientists have
modeled four different scenarios to try to examine likely stresses and outcomes. For a
discussion, see Bert de Vries and Johan Goudsblom, eds., Mappae Mundi: Humans and
Their Habitats in a Long-Term Socio-Ecological Perspective; Myths, Maps, and Models, 2nd

Notes to Pages 205–214 245

ed. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2003), chap. 8. See also Ruddiman, Plows,
Plagues, and Petroleum, chap. 19, ‘‘Consuming Earth’s Gifts,’’ 190–94.

62. For a sharply worded argument that develops this point in detail, see Naomi Klein,
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014).

63. See Klein, This Changes Everything; an earlier formulation can be found in Herman
E. Daly and John B. Cobb Jr., For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Com-
munity, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future, 2nd ed. (Boston: Beacon, 1994), esp.
chap. 11.

64. This argument is made by Hobsbawm in Age of Extremes.
65. In an illuminating essay on the relative strategic power of China and the United
States, Bruce Cumings casts doubt on the narrative of ‘‘the rise of China’’ supplanting the
global role of the United States. See Bruce Cumings, ‘‘The ‘Rise of China’?,’’ in Radical-
ism, Revolution, and Reform in Modern China: Essays in Honor of Maurice Meisner, ed. Cath-
erine Lynch, Robert B. Marks, and Paul G. Pickowicz, 185–207 (Lanham, MD:
Lextington Books, 2011).
66. This phrase was first used by Peter Perdue with respect to late imperial China; see
Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant in Hunan, 1500–1850 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1987).

Conclusion: Changes, Continuities,
and the Shape of the Future

1. In the 1950s, China’s communist leader Mao Zedong issued the slogan ‘‘People
Will Control Nature!’’ (ren ding sheng tian). See Robert B. Marks, China: Its Environment
and History (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013), 265–76.

2. For a 1970s-era statement of this idea, see the Keep America Beautiful public ser-
vice announcement, ‘‘Crying Indian,’’ run on TV on the second Earth Day, April 22,
1971: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v‫ס‬j7OHG7tHrNM.

3. Crispin Tickell, ‘‘Societal Responses to the Anthropocene,’’ Philosophical Transac-
tions of the Royal Society A 369 (2011): 926–32.



Index

Note: Figures and maps are indicated by ‘‘f’’ and ‘‘m,’’ respectively, following page
numbers.

Abu-Lughod, Janet, 222n26 224n10; New World, 102; nitrogen
accidents, historical, 12–13 cycle, 31–32, 143–45, 163–64, 202;
Aceh, 64 protectionist policies for, 189, 192;
Aden, 35m, 47 revolution in, 23–24. See also food
advertising, 182 Alexandria, 38, 53
Afghanistan, 199, 217 Algeria, 177
Africa: decolonization of, 175–76, 189; in alliances, European, 166
Allies, 172–73
early modern period, 55–58; El Nin˜ o’s American War of Independence, 96
effect on, 157–58; European compe- Americas: conquest of, 3, 75–81; empires
tition for, 151–52; as fourth world, in, 72–75; migration to, 188; nitrogen
238n4; Islam in, 55–56; political frag- cycle in, 32; silver mining in, 79;
mentation in, 56; population of, 57–58; wildlife in, 27. See also Aztecs; Incas;
poverty in, 189, 192; size of, 57; and Latin America; New World; United
slavery, 57–58; and trade, 55–56, 62; States
wildlife in, 27; world system role of, 58 ammonia, synthesis of, 165. See Haber-
African Development Bank, 189 Bosch process; nitrogen and nitrogen
agriculture: Asian, 99; in biological old cycle
regime, 23–24, 30–32, 39–40, 140; in Angola, 177
China, 105–8; climate affected by, animals. See wildlife
234n31; climate effects on, 12–13; Anthropocene, ix, 2, 163, 201–6, 213,
development and, 186; Indian, 99, 133, 236n61
134; industrialization and, 136, 140; Appleby, Joyce, 10
land and, 28–29; and migration,

247

248 Index

Arabs, and trade, 45, 48, 52. See also Islam towns and cities, 24–25; wildlife,
armed trading, 50, 61–64 26–28
Arrow War, 123, 132 biosphere, 19, 161, 201, 202, 205. See also
Asia: agriculture in, 99; economic impact Anthropocene
Birkenhead Iron Works, 122
of, 2, 11, 82–83, 206; El Nin˜ o’s effect birthrates, 186
on, 157–58; European trade route to, Black Death: conjuncture of factors in,
62–63; as geographical category, 7; 37–39; and ‘‘European miracle’’
industrialization in, 187; nitrogen cycle narrative, 15; origins of, 37, 226n40;
in, 32; population of, 82; premodern population change caused by, 21;
cities in, 24; revolutions in, 176–77; spread of, 33. See also disease, bubonic
superiority of, 6; Western characteriza- plague
tions of, 3–4 Blaut, J. M., 222n26
Aurangzeb, 71 blue baby syndrome, 202
Austria-Hungary, 166–68 Bolshevik Revolution, 168
autarky, 172, 178, 215 bonds, 90
automobiles, 182–84 Bosch, Carl, 165
Axis powers, 172–73 Braudel, Fernand, 128–29, 221n25
Aztecs, 3, 32, 73–79, 223n5, 230n9 Brazil, 83–85, 157, 160, 187
Britain: and African colonization, 151–52;
Baghdad, 24, 34; Mongol destruction of, 54 Chinese relations with, 96, 119–23;
balance of power, 96 dominance of, 68; economy of, 92;
Balkans, 166 empire of, 101, 115–16, 123, 133–34,
Bangladesh, 241n13 232n42; energy sources in, 111–13;
Bank of England, 90 environmental consequences of manu-
Barbados, 84 facturing in, 142–43; finances of, 90,
Battle of Chaldiran, 71 141; French relations with, 68, 92, 93,
Battle of Obdurman, 152 96, 101; and India, 101, 123, 133–34,
Battle of Plassey, 101 158, 175; Industrial Revolution in,
Ibn Battuta, 52–53 112–18, 135; and opium, 120–21,
Beijing, 42, 70, 119, 181 131–35; peculiar periphery of, 102–4,
Belgium, 151–52 112; revenue sources for, 90; state
Bell, Alexander Graham, 132 building in, 68, 92; sugar plantations
Bengal, 51, 101, 120, 123, 133–34 established by, 84; tea consumption by,
Bin Laden, Osama, 199, 217–18 118–19; and textiles, 83, 98–104, 112,
biological old regime, 20–33, 39–40; agri- 114–15, 133–34; between the wars,
172; and World War I, 166–68; and
culture and pastoralism, 23–26, 30–32, World War II, 172–73
39–40, 140; constraints of, 104–10, Brody, Hugh, 224n10
115–16, 124, 140, 166; disease, 33; Brooke, James L., 145, 204, 244n54
famine, 29–30; land, 28–29; necessities bubonic plague, 37–39, 226n40
of life in, 107, 110; organic nature of, Buell, Paul D., 226n40
39–40; persistence of, 130, 202–3;
population, 20–23, 28–29, 39–40;

Index 249

bureaucracy. See state bureaucracy competition for, 153, 156, 166; family
Bush, George W., 199, 220n9 size in, 106; famine in, 158; GDP of,
Byzantine empire, 80 127; German relations with, 156; global
significance of, 17, 50; gunpowder
Cabral, Alvares, 63 invented by, 59; historical challenges
Caffa (Kaffa), 38 to, 26; industrialization in, 187;
Cairo, 24, 34, 38, 52, 56, 57 Japanese relations with, 139, 153, 171,
Calicut, 42, 47m, 49m, 63 173, 176; land in, 107; manufacturing
cannons, 59–60 in, 82–83, 197; market economy of,
Cape of Good Hope, 62–63, 229n25 108–10; migration within, 188; Ming
capitalism: global crisis of (1930s), 171; Dynasty, 41–45; modernization of, 5;
and opium, 120–21, 131–32; peasants
global crisis of (1970s), 194; global in, 108–10; population of, 22, 28,
perspective on, 131–35, 221n25, 106–7, 127, 224n18; recent market
233n11; opium and, 131–35, 141; rise reforms in, 196–97; revolution in, 169;
of the West, 4; slavery and, 233n11. See rural character of, 185; Russian rela-
also consumerism; Great Depression; tions with, 153, 156; silver standard
income inequality used in, 13, 43; Soviet relations with,
capitalist class, 149 181; strengthening of, 68; tea
carbon dioxide, x, 1, 31, 78, 125, 145, 203. production by, 118–19; and trade, 42,
See also greenhouse gases 50–51, 63; U.S. relations with, 206–7;
Caribbean islands, 84–85, 157, 172, 176 and World War I, 168
Castro, Fidel, 179 Chincha Islands, 164
Catherine the Great, 69 Christianity: and civilizing mission, 161;
Catholic Church, 78, 91, 195 conquest of the Americas, 3; Eastern
Central Powers, 166–68 Orthodox, 54, 80, 195; fall of Constan-
Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), tinople, 54–55; rise of the West, 3;
185 Roman Catholic, 78, 91, 195
Charles V, King of Spain, 80, 81 Churchill, Winston, 152
children, industrialization’s effect on, cities and towns: civilization linked to,
146–47 23–24; industrialization and the growth
Chile, 164–65, 187 of, 146; in modern European states,
China: agriculture in, 105–8; British rela- 91–92; premodern, 24–25; trading, 48,
tions with, 96, 119–23; and bubonic 56
plague, 37, 226n40; coal use by, 232n1; citizenship, 148
communist, 171, 173, 176, 177, civil disobedience, 169
180–81, 196–97, 206; and constraints civilization: animal population in relation
of biological old regime, 105–10, 116; to, 27–28; challenges to, 25–26;
decline of, 152–53; demand for silver, Christian civilizing mission, 161; cities
81–82, 131, 235n53; early modern, and, 23–24; clash of civilizations,
41–46; economic impact of, 2, 50, 82, 198–200; hallmarks of, 22–24, 223n5;
197, 206; economy of, 180–81, 196–97,
207; empire of, 69–70; European

250 Index

nomads in relation to, 25–26; popu- 237n62; limits of biological old regime,
lation density and, 22–23; writing and, 110. See also contingency
23–24 Constantinople, 54, 60, 80
Civil War (U.S.), 136, 150, 151 consumerism, 181–84
clash of civilizations, 198–200 consumer taste, 65
climate: accidents of, 12–13; in early containment policy, 178, 185
modern world system, 64; effects of contingency: concept of, 11; rise of the
agriculture and land clearance on, 111, West and, 11–12, 160, 210–12. See also
145, 157, 234n31; global events, 68; conjunctures
population changes linked to, 21–22, core, in premodern world system, 36
223n4. See also global warming; Little Corte´z, Hernan, 75–76
Ice Age cotton, 98–99, 102–3, 109, 134
Clive, Robert, 101 cotton gin, 103
coal, 13, 97, 110–11, 113–16, 232n1 credit, 182–83
coffee, 157 Crimean War, 150
Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 92 Crompton, Samuel, 114
Cold War era, 162, 174, 178–96; economy Crutzen, Paul J., 236n61
in, 179–88, 194–95; end of, 194–96; Cuban Missile Crisis, 179
migration in, 188; politics of, 178–79, Czech Republic, 196
185; social problems in, 188–94; third
world in, 185–88 Da Gama, Vasco, 5, 11, 41, 63, 81, 200
colonial independence movements, 169, dar al-Islam, 52–55, 214
173–76 Darwin, Charles, 159
colonialism. See empire and imperialism Davis, Mike, 158
colonies: British, 86, 92, 96, 98, 100, 102, death rates, 186
112, 114, 119, 123, 172; Japanese, 171; decolonization. See colonial independence
Spanish, 118. See also decolonization
Columbian Exchange, 76–77, 85, 215 movements
Columbus, Christopher, 5–6, 11, 41, 62, deforestation, 43, 84–85, 111, 113, 118,
67, 79, 81, 200
combines, 136 156–57, 204
Compagnie franc¸aise des Indes occiden- democracy, as Western ideology, 8
tales, 100 Deng Xiaoping, 197
comparative advantage, 99–100, 134, 198 depressions, 140
Confucius, 43, 227n3 development, 177, 185–88, 189, 243n33
Congress Party (India), 169, 175 Dias, Bartholomeu, 62, 229n25
conjunctures, 13–14; Black Death, 37–39; Dickens, Charles, 113, 146
British cotton textile industry, 103–4; disease: in Africa, 189; in the Americas, 3,
climate change and social crises, 68;
development of modern world, 210–12; 27; epidemic, 33; in Eurasia, 77; Native
El Nin˜ o and famine, 157–58; Industrial Americans decimated by, 77–78; plan-
Revolution, 98, 112–18, 124–25, tation ecology as cause of, 84–85; in
premodern world, 33; wars and revolu-
tions affected by, 85. See also Black
Death

Index 251

divine right, 91 70–71; post–World War II, 173–74; rise
Dutch. See Netherlands of the West, 6; Russia, 69; Safavid
empire, 70–71; Spain, 67–68, 75–81,
East Africa, 56 215; World War I peace treaty and, 168
East Asia, emergence of, 16, 187, 206–7, encomienda, 78
end of history, 196–97
216 energy sources, 104–18; in biological old
Eastern Europe, 178, 179, 187, 195 regime, 104–10; coal, iron, and steam,
Eastern Orthodoxy, 54, 80, 195 113–18; consumer society and, 184;
East India Company (EIC), 100–102, 119, crisis in, 111; current usage of, 203; in
England, 111–13; need for, 200–201.
120, 122, 123, 133, 236n57 See also coal; fossil fuels; oil
ecology. See nature and environment Engels, Friedrich, 4, 147
economy: Asia’s impact on, 2, 11, 82–83; England. See Britain
Enlightenment, 3, 91
boom-bust cycles in, 140, 179; China’s environment. See nature and environment
impact on, 2, 50, 82; in Cold War era, environmental history, 6–7
179–88; communist Chinese, 180–81; environmental impact, 2
consumerist, 181–84; development- Ethiopia, 152
alism, 185–88; free trade principles, eugenics, 159, 160
134; global, 187, 197–98, 201; and Eurocentrism, 8–10; alternatives to, 9–10,
human-environment relationship, 14–17, 129–30; defining, 8–9; ideology
201–2, 205; India’s impact on, 2; indus- of, 106, 159–60, 210; Industrial Revo-
trialization’s effect on global, 140–41; lution explained according to, 105,
mercantilism and, 92–93; New World, 117; wealth gap explained according to,
83–86; oil industry and, 187–88, 194; 129
productionist, 181, 196; slavery’s role Europe: armed trading introduced by, 50;
in, 85–86; Soviet, 179–80; third-world, bubonic plague in, 37–39; dating of rise
185–88; between the wars, 170–72. See of, 5–6; early modern, 58–64; empire
also markets; trade within, 80–81; exceptionalism, 5,
education: industrialization’s effect on, 8–10; fall from dominance of, 162, 167;
147; nationalism fostered through, 149 GDP of, 127; as geographical category,
EIC. See East India Company 7; Islam in relation to, 53–55; nitrogen
Einstein, Albert, 205–6 cycle in, 32; political fragmentation in,
electricity, 183, 203 58–61, 89; population of, 22, 130f;
El Nin˜ o, 134, 157–58 premodern cities in, 24–25; purported
empire and imperialism, 69–83; Africa, superiority of, 3, 5, 6, 163, 212; revenue
151–52; the Americas, 72–75; British, sources for, 89–90; and slavery, 57; and
101, 115–16, 232n42; China, 69–70; trade, 50, 61–64; war and warfare in,
commonalities of, 72; dynamics of, 59–61, 68, 87, 88f, 89–90, 150, 163,
71–72; end of, 177; within Europe, 166–68, 172–73; between the wars,
80–81; growth of, 67; Japan, 153, 156,
162, 171–72, 173, 241n15; Mughal,
70–71; New Imperialism of industrial
era, 141, 150–58, 215–16; Ottoman,

252 Index

170–72. See also European state system; Frank, Andre Gunder, x, 222n26
West free trade: British colonization of India
European miracle, x, 5, 15
European state system, 87–96; alliances in, and, 134–35; British promotion of, 103,
166; balance of power in, 96; compet- 120; constraints on, 141; global,
itive pressures of, 135; early modern, 68; 197–98; mercantilism vs., 103;
establishment of, 87; kinds of states in, neoliberal promotion of, 220n9; in
231n35; state building in, 90–92, 148, opium, 120; U.S. promotion of, 178; as
231n35 Western ideology, 8
evolution, 159 French and Indian War. See Seven Years’
explosives. See gunpowder War
French Revolution, 3, 91, 136, 148–49,
factories, 141–43, 142f, 146–47 216
families: industrialization’s effect on,
Gandhi, Mohandas, 169, 175
146–47; size of, 15, 29, 104, 106, 147, gap. See wealth and power gap
224n19, 241n8 G8 countries, 197
famine, 29–30, 157–58 Genoa, 61
fascism, 169, 174 geography: concepts of, 7; in early modern
Federal Housing Administration, 183
Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, 166 world system, 64
Ferdinand, King of Spain, 60, 61, 62, 91 George III, King of England, 119
fertilizers, 32, 143–45, 164–66, 186, 202. Germany: and African colonization,
See also nitrogen cycle
foods: in Chinese markets, 108; 151–52; Chinese relations with, 156;
Columbian Exchange, 76–77 industrialization in, 137, 187; manu-
Ford, Henry, 182 facture of nitrates by, 165–66;
fossil fuels, 13, 97, 110, 115, 125, 161–63, nationalism in, 150; political fragmen-
200–201, 203. See also coal; oil tation of, 80, 89, 137; post–World War
fourth world, 238n4 II, 174; reunification of, 196; between
Four Tigers, 187, 206 the wars, 171–72; and World War I,
fracking, 184, 201 166–68; and World War II, 172–73
France: and African colonization, 151–52; germ theory, 3
and Algeria, 177; British relations with, Ghana, 55
68, 92, 93, 96, 101; early modern, Gillis, Barry, 222n26
60–61; industrialization in, 135–36; glasnost, 195
and nationalism, 149–50; persecution globalization: first, 67; lineage of, 20,
of Huguenots, 91; state building in, 68, 214–15; post–Cold War, 196; twen-
92; sugar plantations established by, 84; tieth-century, 162; United States and,
and textile imports, 83; and Vietnam, 162, 198, 216; waves of, 215–16
176; and World War I, 166–68; and global perspective: capitalism in, 131–35,
World War II, 172–73 221n25, 233n11; consumerism in, 184;
Franco-Prussian War, 150 economy in, 187, 197–98, 201; Great
Depression in, 170–72; industrial-
ization in, 140; Islam in, 53; oil industry

Index 253

in, 184; on origins of modern world, 41; historical narratives, 10–16; explanation
polycentrism, 16, 36; seventeenth- in, 14; fiction contrasted with, 221n18;
century crisis, 86–96; trade in, 34; in paradigms in, 9; role of accidents in,
twentieth century, 162. See also world 12–13; role of conjunctures in, 13–14;
system role of contingency in, 11–12; signifi-
global South, 130 cance of, 7–8, 12, 14–15, 221n17;
global warming, 1, 203–4, 214 structure of, 14
Glorious Revolution, 92, 103, 103–4
gold, 55–56, 75 Hitler, Adolf, 160, 167, 168, 171, 172, 174
Goldstone, Jack, ix, 237n62 Hobsbawm, E. J., 194, 232n42
Gorbachev, Mikhail, 195 Ho Chi Minh, 176
Great Departure, 163, 201–7, 213 Holland. See Netherlands
Great Depression, 141, 162, 170–72, 215 Holy Roman Empire, 80
Great Dying, 3, 77–78, 102, 103, 118 Hong Kong, 131–32, 187
Great Leap Forward, 180–81 Hormuz, 44, 47, 63
Great Recession, 193 housing, in United States, 182–83
Greece, ancient, 3 Huguenots, 91
Green, Monica, 226n40 human sacrifice, 230n10
greenhouse gases, 1, 78, 98, 125, 145, 157, human waste, 144–45
161, 203, 244n54 Humboldt, Alexander von, 164
green revolution, 186 Hundred Years’ War, 60
gross domestic production (GDP), 127, Hunt, Lynn, 10
128f, 237n1 Hussein, Saddam, 198, 199, 217
Guanches, 84 Hymes, Robert, 226n40
Guangzhou system, 119
guano, 144, 164 Iberian peninsula, Muslims on, 53, 60
guerrilla warfare, 176–77, 239n29 IBM, 197
Gulf War (1991), 198 imperialism. See empire and imperialism
gunpowder, 54, 59–60, 163–66 Incas, 3, 74–79, 223n5
guns, 60, 62, 64, 129, 136, 151–52, 163, income inequality, 192–94, 193f
212. See also rifles and rifling India: agriculture in, 99; British coloni-
Guomindang, 176
zation of, 101, 123, 133–34, 158, 175;
Haber, Fritz, 165, 167 deforestation in, 156–57; early modern,
Haber-Bosch process, 165, 202 50–52; economic impact of, 2;
Hansen, James, 1 economy of, 207; famine in, 158; GDP
harvesters, 136 of, 127; global significance of, 17; inde-
Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs), pendence movement in, 169, 175;
Islam in, 52, 175; and opium, 132–33;
189 partition of, 175; political unity/
Henry the Navigator, 62 disunity in, 51–52; population of, 22,
Hinduism, 52, 175 127; rural character of, 185; textile
manufacturing in, 51, 83, 98–99,

254 Index

133–34; and trade, 50–52; weakening 71, 199; spread of, 52–53; Sunni, 71,
of, 68. See also Mughal empire 199; and trade, 52, 56. See also Arabs
Indian Ocean, 41, 44–45, 48, 50, 63 Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), 199,
industrialization, 1; of agriculture, 136; 217
environmental consequences of, Istanbul, 54. See also Constantinople
141–45; in France, 135–36; in Italy: and African colonization, 151–52;
Germany, 137; global economic effects early modern, 60, 61; fascism in, 169;
of, 140–41; in Japan, 138–39; nation- nationalism in, 150; political fragmen-
state model and, 13–14; resistance to, tation of, 89; post–World War II, 174;
147–48; in Russia, 137–38, 238n11; between the wars, 172; and World War
social consequences of, 145–48; in II, 172–73
Soviet Union, 168, 179–80, 238n11; Itzcoatl, 73
state intervention as factor in, 139, 187; Ivan IV, ‘‘the Terrible,’’ 69
in the third world, 187; in United
States, 136. See also Industrial Revolu- Jacob, Margaret, 10
tion Jamaica, 84
Industrial Revolution, 97–125; British Japan: Chinese relations with, 139, 153,
cotton textile industry, 98–104;
China’s role in, 104–11, 118–23; 171, 173, 176; deforestation of, 111;
concept of, 233n2; conjunctures economic impact of, 206; empire of,
contributing to, 98, 112–18, 124–25, 153, 156, 162, 171–72, 173, 241n15;
237n62; energy and power sources, industrialization in, 138–39, 187; Meiji
104–18; explanations of, 104–5; global era, 139; modernization of, 2, 5; post–
factors in, 16; India’s role in, 100–102; World War II, 174; purported
New World’s role in, 102–4; signifi- superiority of, 161; resurgence of, 206;
cance of, 123–24 and textiles, 139; and trade, 64;
inequality, within countries, 192–94 between the wars, 171–72; Western
International Monetary Fund, 178, 189, relations with, 138–39; and World War
197 I, 167–68; and World War II, 172–73
Iraq, 198, 199, 217 Java, 70, 101
iron, 111, 114–17, 122 Jews, 91, 172
Isabella, Queen of Spain, 60, 61, 62, 91
Islam: in Africa, 55–56; China and, 44; Kaffa. See Caffa
and clash of civilizations, 198–200; Kashmir, 175
disintegration of early empire of, 54; in Kennedy, John F., 180
early modern period, 52–55; in East Khrushchev, Nikita, 181
Asia, 45, 48; empires based on, 71; Korea, 153, 171, 241n15. See also South
expulsion of Muslims from Spain, 91;
Hinduism vs., 52, 175; on Iberian Korea
peninsula, 53, 60; impact of empires Korean War, 176, 178
based on, 11; India and, 52, 175; Shiite, Kuhn, Thomas, 220n16
Kurds, 175–76
Kuwait, 198

Index 255

labor: changing nature of, 146; in Spanish markets: China and, 108–10; as factor in
Americas, 78 Industrial Revolution, 104–5. See also
trade
Lancashire, 102–3, 112, 116, 121, 123, 140
land: in China, 107; climate affected by Marx, Karl, 4–5, 147, 179–80, 222n26
Marxism, 6
clearance of, 111, 145, 157, 234n31; master narratives, 10
Industrial Revolution and, 115–16; material conditions. See biological old
nitrogen cycle and, 32; overexploi-
tation of, 111, 115 regime
Latin America: deforestation in, 157; El Maxim, Hiram, 152
Nin˜ o’s effect on, 157–58; social Mayas, 72–73
Darwinism and, 160; U.S. involvement Mazzini, Giuseppe, 149
in, 178; between the wars, 172 McCormick, Cyrus, 136
League of Nations, 168, 170 McNeill, J. R., ix, 85, 226n40, 237n61
Lee, James, 106 Mediterranean Sea: armed trading on,
legitimacy, political, 91, 149
Lenin, V. I., 168 61–62; Muslim control of, 53–55, 62
Lenovo, 197 megafaunal extinctions, 27
Leopold II, King of Belgium, 151 Melaka, 47, 50, 52, 63, 64, 101, 228n9;
Liberia, 240n30
life expectancy, 29 Strait of, 42, 47
Lin Zexu, 120 Menelik, King of Ethiopia, 152
Little Ice Age, 68, 69, 78, 86 mercantilism, 92–93, 100, 103
living standards, 28, 99, 114, 127, 198, 205 Merrimac River, 142–43
loans, 90, 189 methane, 125, 145, 203, 244n53. See also
Los Angeles, 183
greenhouse gases
Macartney, George, 96, 119 Mexica. See Aztecs
machine guns, 152 Mexican Revolution, 169
Ma Huan, 44 Mexico, 73, 160, 168–69, 187, 188
malaria, 84–85 middle class, 146
Mali, 55–56 Middle East: decolonization of, 175–76; oil
Malthus, Thomas, 3–5, 106
Mamluk empire, 34, 57 in, 184, 187; U.S. involvement in, 178,
Manchukuo, 171 200; after World War I, 168
Manchuria, 153, 156, 172, 241n15 migrations, 28–29, 188
Manila, 215 military power. See war and warfare
manufacturing: environmental conse- Millennium Development Goals, 243n33
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 201–2
quences of, 141–45, 142f; textile, 51, Milwaukee, 144–45
82–83, 98–99, 109, 133–34, 139, Ming dynasty, 41–46, 69
142–43; world output of, 128 Moctezuma, 73
manufacturing, world output of, 129f Moctezuma II, 75
Mao Zedong, 180 modernization: defined, 219n4; of Japan, 2,
5; rise of the West, 4–6
modern world: future of, 216–18; legacy of,
218; origins of, 1–2, 10, 41, 64–65,

256 Index

209–14; polycentrism in, 36; popu- effect on, 123–24, 141–45; nitrogen
lation, 40; resistance to, 217; rise of the cycle, 31–32; of plantations, 84–85;
West, 2–4; scholarship on, 8; structures wildlife, 26–28. See also biological old
pre-dating, 19–40; themes of, 1–2; regime
wealth gap, 4–8. See also world system Navigation Acts, 92, 103
Mohammed, Prophet, 53 Nazism, 160, 167, 168, 171–73, 174
Mongols: and bubonic plague, 37; cannons Nehru, Jawaharlal, 185
introduced to Europe by, 59; China Nemesis (warship), 121–23
and, 42–43, 45; collapse of empire neoliberalism, 220n9
(1300s), 37, 62; Islam and, 54; and Netherlands, 89, 90, 93, 100–101, 111
trade, 34 Newcomen, Thomas, 113
Morocco, 240n30 New Deal, 171
Moscow, 69 New Imperialism, 141, 150–58, 215–16
mosquitoes, 84–85 New World: agriculture in, 102;
Mughal empire, 69, 70–71, 101, 118, 133, Columbian Exchange, 76–77; economy
211 of, 83–86; migration to, 188; peculiar
Musa, Mansa, 56 character of, 102–4, 112; silver in,
Muslims. See Islam 79–82; slavery in, 83–86, 102. See also
Mussolini, Benito, 169 Americas
mutually assured destruction, 174 nitrates, 163–66, 202
nitrogen and nitrogen cycle, 7, 30–32, 40,
Nanjing (China), 24, 42, 122, 153 107, 143–45, 163–66, 202, 204, 213.
Napoleon, 148 See also nature and environment
Nassar, Jamal, 243n44 nomads, 25–26, 71, 224n10
national debt, 90 nonaligned movement, 185
nationalism: Chinese, 169; and decoloni- North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO), 185, 196
zation, 169, 174–75; ethnic/cultural, nuclear weapons, 172, 174, 179, 181, 196
150; Italian, 169; nation-states and,
148–50; political, 149–50 Obama, Barack, 192, 198
nation-states, 1–2; emergence of, 81, 148; oil, 184, 187–88, 194, 200, 201
industrialization and, 13–14; legitimacy OPEC. See Organization of Petroleum
of, 149; and nationalism, 149–50;
persistence of, 217–18. See also Exporting Countries
European state system Open Door Notes, 156, 166
Native Americans: conquest and resistance opium, 120–23, 131–35, 141
of, 75–76; decimated by disease, 77–78 Opium Wars, 121–23, 131–32, 138,
natural selection, 159
nature and environment: consumerism’s 152–53, 211
effects on, 184; economy in relation to, Organization of Petroleum Exporting
201–2, 205; human impact on, ix–x,
1–2, 6–7, 19, 78, 124, 145, 162–63, Countries (OPEC), 187, 194
201–6, 213–14, 218; industrialization’s Osman Bey, 54
Ottoman empire, 54–55, 60, 70–71, 80,

167–68

Index 257

Pakistan, 52, 133, 175, 217–18, 241n13 density of, 22–23; of Europe, 22, 130f;
paradigms, 9, 220n16 as factor in Industrial Revolution,
Paris, 24, 26, 91, 92 104–5; historical changes in, 2, 21; of
Parker, Geoffrey, 68, 87 India, 22, 127, 130f; land in relation to,
Parthasarthi, Prasannan, 116 28–29; life expectancy and, 29; Little
pastoralism, 25–26 Ice Age’s effect on, 87; in modern
Peabody family, 132 world, 40, 111; of Native Americans,
Peace of Westphalia, 87, 217 77–78; nitrogen manufacture and, 165;
peasants: Chinese, 108–10; family size of, non-human populations in relation to,
27–28; plague’s effect on, 37–39;
15, 29, 224n19; premodern, 29–30 projected peak of, 241n8; scholarly
pepper, 61 reconstruction of, 222n2; twentieth-
perestroika, 195 century, 186
periphery: New World as, 102–4, 112; in Portugal, 62–64, 83–84, 152, 177
Potos´ı, 79–80, 82
premodern world system, 36 poverty, 188–89, 190–91m, 192, 242n31,
Perry, Matthew, 138 243n33. See also wealth and power gap
Persia, 52, 53, 54, 70, 117. See also Safavid precious metals, 93
productionism, 180–81, 196
empire progress, 3–4
Peru, 144, 164 Protestantism, 4
Peter the Great, 69
petroleum. See oil al Qaeda, 199, 217
Philip II, King of Spain, 80, 81 Qianlong emperor, 70, 119
Philippines, 67, 81, 156, 172, 215 Qing dynasty, 70
philosophes, 91 Quinine, 129, 151
Piketty, Thomas, 192
Pizarro, Francisco, 75–76 racism, 159, 160, 163
planned obsolescence, 182 railroads, 114, 136, 138
plantations and plantation system, 83–86, rats, 37–38
Reagan, Ronald, 193, 195
211 recessions, 140
poisonous gases, 167 Red Sea, 34, 44, 47, 52, 56, 63
Poivre, Pierre, 105–6 rifles and rifling, 151. See also guns
Poland, 51, 60, 69, 89, 168, 172, 195 religion: Aztec, 230n10; and political legit-
Polo, Marco, 34, 62
polycentrism: in modern world system, 36, imacy, 91. See also Christianity;
Hinduism; Islam
65; in premodern world system, 16, 36; Renaissance, 3
trade and, 36 repartimento, 78–79
Pomeranz, Kenneth, x, 115 representative assemblies, 89
population: of Asia, 82; benefits and diffi- ‘‘return to normalcy,’’ 169–70
culties associated with, 28–29; in revolutions, 3, 85, 168–69, 176–77
biological old regime, 20–23, 28–29,
39–40; of China, 22, 28, 106–7, 127,
130f, 224n18; climate change affecting,
21–22, 223n4; current, 165, 186;

258 Index

Ricardo, David, 3, 5, 134 Shiite Islam, 71, 199
rise of the West, 2–4; alternative narrative silk, 82–83, 139
silver, 13, 43, 79–82, 118, 120, 131,
to, 10–16; causes of, 6, 209; contin-
gency of, 11–12, 160, 210–12; dating 235n53
of, 5–6; explanations of, 3, 6; ideas Singapore, 187
underlying, 3; ideological and Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), 139, 153
misleading theories of, 6, 7–8, 14–16, slavery: in Africa, 57–58; economic role of,
160; as master narrative, 10; modern-
ization and, 4–6; significance of, 7–8 85–86; global capitalism dependent on,
Roman empire, 3, 11, 58, 80 233n11; in New World, 83–86, 102;
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 171 numbers of Africans in, 85; ubiquity of,
Roosevelt family, 132 57
Ruddiman, William, 78, 204, 237n61, Slovakia, 196
244n53 smallpox, 76–77
rural areas: in contemporary China and Smith, Adam, 3–6, 106, 134, 222n26
India, 185; premodern, 29–30; Russia social conventions, 65
and, 137 social Darwinism, 159–60, 163
Russell Company, 131 social science, 5
Russia: Chinese relations with, 153, 156; sodium nitrate, 164–65
and Crimean War, 150; empire of, 69; Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
industrialization in, 137–38, 238n11; (SEATO), 185
post-Soviet, 196; revolution in, 168; South Korea, 187, 206
and World War I, 166–68. See also Soviet Union: Chinese relations with, 181;
Soviet Union collapse of, 187, 194–96; economy of,
Russo-Japanese War, 139, 163 179–80; industrialization in, 168,
179–80, 187, 238n11; post–World War
Saddam Hussein, 198, 199, 217 II, 174; as superpower, 162, 206, 215;
Safavid empire, 70–71 U.S. relations with, 174, 178–79, 195;
salt, 61 between the wars, 171; and World War
saltpeter, 164–65 II, 172–73. See also Cold War era;
Satsuma (warship), 139 Russia
Savery, Thomas, 113 Spain: conquest of the Americas, 3; empire
science, 32, 137, 117–18, 159, 180, 214 of, 67–68, 75–81, 215; expulsion of
Seal Team Six, 217–18 Jews and Muslims from, 91; Muslims
Seminoles, 76 driven from, 60
Sepoys, 101, 133 specialization, 108
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, species extinction, 27–28, 205
Spencer, Herbert, 159
199–200 Spice Islands, 64
Serbia, 166 Sputnik (satellite), 180
seventeenth-century global crisis, 86–96 stagflation, 194
Seven Years’ War, 87, 96, 101–2, 211 Stalin, Joseph, 168, 171, 187
sewage, 144–45 standards of living. See living standards

Index 259

state building, 90–92, 148, 231n35 environmental consequences of manu-
state bureaucracy, 90 facturing, 142–43; European importing
states. See European state system; nation- of, 83, 98–100; Indian manufacturing
of, 51, 83, 98–99, 133–34; Industrial
states Revolution and, 98–104; Japanese
steam power, 97, 103, 113–15, 121 manufacturing of, 139; New World role
steel, 137 in, 102–4; steam power and, 114
steppe, 22, 25, 39, 42, 46, 70, 71 Thatcher, Margaret, 193
subsistence levels, 30 third world: characteristics of, 134, 137,
suburbs, 183 185; developmentalism in, 185–88; El
sugar, 84. See also plantation and plan- Nin˜ o famines and, 157–58; historio-
graphical knowledge of, 128; imperial
tation system competition for, 150–51; India as part
sulfur dioxide, 203 of, 134, 135; industrialization and the
Sunni Islam, 71, 199 emergence of, 130; industrialization in,
survival of the fittest, 159 187; oil in, 187–88; origin of term, 185,
Swahili, 56 237n4; Russia likened to, 137
Sweden, 89 Thirty-Year Crisis (1914–1945), 166–73
synthesis of ammonia. See Haber-Bosch Thirty-Years’ War, 87
Thornton, John, 56
process; nitrogen and nitrogen cycle three field system, 32
Syria, 199 tigers, 26
Tilly, Charles, 87, 89, 231n35
Taiping Rebellion, 152–53 Timbuktu, 55
Taiwan, 153, 171, 187, 206, 241n15 Toltecs, 73
Taliban, 217 total war, 172
tariffs, 100, 133, 136, 138, 139, 141, 189, towns. See cities and towns
trade: Africa and, 55–56, 62; armed, 50,
192 61–64; bubonic plague and, 38; China
taxes, 30, 89, 192 and, 42, 50–51, 63; cities linked to, 48,
tea, 118–19 56; companies established for,
technological advantage: in arms, 151–52, 100–101; Europe and, 50, 61–64;
fifteenth-century world system, 49m;
239n29; in early modern world system, Indian Ocean’s role in, 41, 44–45, 48,
64; European colonization of Africa, 50; Japan and, 64; mercantilism, 92–93;
151–52; Spanish conquest of the premodern, 33–37; protectionism and,
Aztecs, 76 83, 100, 136, 138, 141; subsystems for,
technology: and future economic growth, 33–34; triangular, 86, 102, 236n57; war
203; and Industrial Revolution, 117; of in relation to, 100–101. See also free
warfare, 54, 59–60, 121–23, 151–52, trade; markets
163–66, 167 trade routes, 34
Tenochtitla´n, 73–76 transportation, 108–9
terrorism, 199, 217, 243n44
textiles: Britain and, 83, 98–104, 112,
114–15, 133–34; Chinese manufac-
turing of, 109; cotton, 98–99, 133;

260 Index

Treaty of Nanjing (1842), 122 Versailles Peace Conference (1918), 167
Treaty of Utrecht (1713), 96, 118 Veterans Administration, 183
triangular trade, 86, 102, 236n57 Victoria, Queen of England, 121, 159
tribute, 73 Vietnam, 42, 70, 158, 169, 185, 187, 200,
tribute trade system, 70
Trickell, Crispin, 214 206, 239n39
Triple Entente, 166–68 Vietnam War, 176–77, 178, 240n29
Trocki, Carl, 135 Villa, Pancho, 169
Tupi, 83–84
Turks, 70 Walesa, Lech, 195
Wallerstein, Immanuel, 222n26, 226n37
underdevelopment, 177 Wang Feng, 106
unequal treaties, 122–23, 139 war and warfare: Aztec, 230n10; in Cold
United Nations, 176, 178, 215, 218
United States: Chinese relations with, War era, 179; European, 59–61, 68, 87,
88f, 89–90, 150, 163; steam-powered
206–7; and Chinese trade, 156; Civil gunboats, 121–23; technologies of, 54,
War in, 136, 150, 151; economy of, 59–60, 121–23, 151–52, 163–66, 167;
170–71, 181–84, 194–95; environ- trade in relation to, 100–101; in twen-
mental consequences of manufacturing tieth century, 162; worldwide, 166–68,
in, 142–43; Eurocentric perspective of, 172–73
9; exceptionalism, 210; and the former War of Spanish Succession, 96
Yugoslavia, 196; and globalization, 162, Warsaw Pact, 185
198, 216; income inequality in, 193f; warships, 121–23, 139
industrialization in, 136; and Korean Washington, George, 96
War, 176, 178; migration to and within, water transportation, 108
188; Muslim attacks on, 198–200; and Watt, James, 113
nationalism, 149–50; and opium, wealth and power gap, 2, 4–8, 127–60;
131–32; post–World War II, 174, 178; within countries, 192–94; El Nin˜ o and
purported superiority of, 210; Soviet famine in relation to, 158; emergence
relations with, 174, 178–79, 195; space of, 128, 130; explanations of, 128–30,
program of, 180; as superpower, 162, 159–60; health issues, 242n31; indus-
195, 197, 198, 206, 210, 215; and trialization as factor in, 140; persistence
Vietnam War, 176–77, 178, 240n29; and growth of, 188–90; poorest coun-
between the wars, 170–72; and World tries by region, 190–91m; social
War I, 167–68; and World War II, Darwinism and, 159–60
172–73. See also Americas; Cold War Weber, Max, 4–6
era West: and clash of civilizations, 198–200;
Japanese relations with, 138–39;
Valley of Mexico, 73 purported superiority of, 8, 159–60,
Venice, 61–62, 229n28 161, 209; rise of, 2–4. See also Europe
Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, West Africa, 55–56
White Lotus Rebellion, 72
100–101 Whitney, Eli, 103

Index 261

wildlife, 26–28 theories of, 222n26; trade and, 33–37;
Williams, Eric, 233n11 twentieth-transformations in, 161–62;
Williams, Michael, 204 Wallerstein’s concept of, 226n37. See
Wilson, Woodrow, 167, 170 also global perspective; modern world
Witte, Sergei, 138, 238n11 World Trade Organization, 197
wolves, 26 World War I, 162, 163, 166–68, 215
women: consumer revolution and, 184; World War II, 162, 215
writing, 24
industrialization’s effect on, 146–47
Wong, R. Bin, 212 yellow fever, 84–85
work, changing nature of, 146 Yeltsin, Boris, 195
working class, 146, 149 Yongle emperor, 41–43
World Bank, 178, 189, 197 Yugoslavia, former, 196
world system: biological old regime, 20–33;
Zapata, Emiliano, 169
circa 1900, 154–55m; eight circuits of, Zheng He, 42–44, 63, 65, 200, 227n2
33, 35m; in eighteenth century, Zhou Enlai, 216
94–95m; in fifteenth century, 49m,
64–65; future of, 216–18; polycentric,
16, 36; post–World War II, 173–77;



About the Author

Robert B. Marks is Richard and Billie Deihl Professor of History and Envi-
ronmental Studies at Whittier College and the author of China: Its Environ-
ment and History (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013) and Tigers, Rice, Silk, and
Silt: Environment and Economy in Late Imperial China (Cambridge University
Press, 1998). In 1996 he received the Aldo Leopold Award for the best arti-
cle in the journal Environmental History and has published numerous other
articles on China’s environmental history. Holding his position at a college
that focuses on undergraduate education, Marks regularly teaches a course
for entering college students on the origins of the modern world and in 2000
received Whittier College’s Harry W. Nerhood Teaching Excellence Award.

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