This clearly written and engrossing book presents a global narrative
of the origins of the modern world from 1400 to the present. 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 and upon the
maturing field of environmental history, constructs a story in which
those parts of the world play major roles, including their impacts on
the environment. 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,
increasing inequality within the wealthiest industrialized countries,
and an escape from the environmental constraints of the “biological
old regime.” He explains its origins by emphasizing contingencies
(such as the conquest of the New World); the broad comparability of
the most advanced regions in China, India, and Europe; the reasons why
England was able to escape from common ecological constraints facing
all of those regions by the end of the eighteenth century; a
conjuncture of human and natural forces that solidified a gap between
the industrialized and non-industrialized parts of the world; the
mounting environmental crisis that defines the modern world; and the
ways in which the forces of globalization stress the economic and
political underpinnings of the modern world. Now in a new edition that
brings the saga of the modern world to the present in an environmental
context, the book considers how and why the United States emerged as a
world power in the twentieth century and became the sole superpower by
the twenty-first century, and why the changed relationship of humans
to the environmental likely will be the hallmark of the modern
era—the Anthropocene. Once again arguing that the US rise to global
hegemon was contingent, not inevitable, Marks also points to the
resurgence of Asia and the vastly changed relationship of humans to
the environment that may in the long run overshadow any political and
economic milestones of the past hundred years.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781538182789
Publisert
2023
Utgave
5. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter