Introduction for Chapter 24

24 The West and the World

1815–1914

While industrialization and nationalism were transforming urban and rural life throughout Europe, Western society itself was reshaping the world. At the peak of its power and pride, the West entered the third and most dynamic phase of the aggressive expansion that had begun with the Crusades and continued with the rise of seaborne colonial empires. At the same time, millions of Europeans picked up stakes and emigrated abroad, primarily to North and South America but also to Australia, North and South Africa, and Asiatic Russia. An ever-growing stream of people, products, and ideas flowed into and out of Europe in the nineteenth century. Hardly any corner of the globe was left untouched.

The most spectacular manifestations of Western expansion came in the late nineteenth century when the leading European nations established or enlarged their far-flung political empires. This political annexation of territory in the 1880s — the “new imperialism,” as it is often called by historians — was the capstone of Europe’s underlying economic and technological transformation. More directly, Europe’s new imperialism rested on a formidable combination of superior military might and strong authoritarian rule, and it posed a brutal challenge to African and Asian peoples. Different societies met this Western challenge in different ways and with changing tactics, as we shall see. Nevertheless, by 1914 non-Western elites in many lands were rallying their peoples and leading an anti-imperialist struggle for dignity and genuine independence that would eventually triumph after 1945.

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Life on the Imperial Frontier. Colonialism entangled the lives of Europeans, natives, and immigrants, as seen in this 1886 painting of the city of Durban in the British colony of South Africa, the site of a minor gold rush. Here European settlers view an exhibit of gold nuggets found in local mines, as a South Asian migrant laborer and an African Zulu, both dressed in their native clothing, pass by. (Photo © Tarker/The Bridgeman Art Library)

CHAPTER PREVIEW

Industrialization and the World Economy

What were some of the global consequences of European industrialization between 1815 and 1914?

Global Migration Around 1900

How was massive migration an integral part of Western expansion?

Western Imperialism, 1880–1914

How did Western imperialism change after 1880?

Responding to Western Imperialism

What was the general pattern of non-Western responses to Western expansion?

Chronology

1805–1848 Muhammad Ali modernizes Egypt
1839–1842 First Opium War; Treaty of Nanking
1853 Perry “opens” Japan for trade
1856–1860 Second Opium War
1857–1858 Britain crushes Great Rebellion in India
1863–1879 Reign of Ismail in Egypt
1867 Meiji Restoration in Japan
1869 Suez Canal opens
1880–1900 Most of Africa falls under European rule
1884–1885 Berlin Conference
1885 Russian expansion reaches borders of Afghanistan
1898 United States takes over Philippines; hundred days of reform in China; Battle of Omdurman
1899 Kipling writes “The White Man’s Burden”
1899–1902 South African War
1902 Conrad publishes Heart of Darkness; Hobson publishes Imperialism
1912 Western-style republic replaces China’s Qing Dynasty
1914 Panama Canal opens