MAKING OF THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

Early 1900 saw the world shift. All over, civilizations saw a dramatic change due to western imperialism, this led to a more interconnected world. around the world imperial nations left traces of themselves, these traces have far-reaching effects. In 1885 many European powers gathered to divide up the African continent. This to strip the country of its natural recourses for use in the new factories of the industrial revolution. In the Bright and Geyer piece, they state, “that the new sources of energy in fossil fuel and steam, and medical and scientific advances, provided a very few societies with enormous new capabilities for global projections of power into and over the rest of the world” (289). However, recourses were not the only motivation for imperialism. Many times powerful nations instead sought only to open new markets for trade. China suffered intrusion from many foreign nations with the occupation of Beijing and much of Latin American was still economically dependent upon its former colonizers. Bright and Geyer discuss an Exploitation v. Survival model, in which many industrialized nations used other counties for selfish gain, forcing the colonized nations into a position where they were forced to change in order to survive in the modern climate. Countries such as Brazil which saw a rapid period of modernization which naturally disenfranchised many of the residents. This, being done in large part to be taken seriously in this new world market. I believe that the Exploitation model is more relevant to the current political climate as many countries that fell victim to this exploitation still have yet to recover. And it does seem as though this wheel was set into motion for most of the world around 1900.

At the beginning of the “The Export Boom as Modernity” reading, I found the comment that the export boom can be explained or told in many different lights. It shows that even in history, it is possible to spin a story one way or another and it’s important to look at every part of the story, not just the convenient version. Bright and Geyer, maybe not explicitly, do a good job of this. They did not like or believe in the “catch-up” model for the rest of the world compared to Western Europe. While it is a popular belief that Western Europe innovated and the rest of the world had to catch-up, Bright and Geyer believed it was more exploitation and survival strategies. They are taking one version of the story and saying another. Just as in the export boom of Latin America, the statistics can be spun in any number of ways.

The first section after the intro discusses the wide-spread belief in Latin America that order must be attained before progress and modernity can be made. That no progress could be made without order. This goes slightly against what David Christian wrote about in The Fleeting World. Christian says that the “diagnostic feature of the modern era seems to be the sharp increase in rates of innovation” (58). While those in Latin America may not disagree with Christian, they also believe that order must come first, at least for Latin American nations. I do not necessarily agree with the belief of order before progress but I understand the thought process behind it. They believed there had to be order in their countries before they could make progress to modernity.

Throughout this week while focusing on individual examples such as Beijing and Rio de Janeiro, one overarching theme that connected our examples was revealed. This theme was the idea that beginning in the early to mid 19th century, culminating in World War I, throughout the world set of new political ideas spread globally. Many of these ideas included sentiments towards protectionism, nationalism, and the withdraw of support for elite imperial powers.

We began the week reading the first part of Bayly’s first chapter, The World Crisis, c.1900-1930: Europe and the Middle East. This excerpt set up an in-depth introduction to several political revolutions that ultimately led to World War I, some of which I mentioned above, while citing new forms of communication as the key to their successful launch. Bayly successfully encapsulated this idea on page 16 by saying “very widely, the monopoly of the old white ruling families was challenged by new forms of politics and new methods of communication”.

Throughout Monday and Wednesday we continued pursuing these ideas by connecting them to individual examples primarily through lectures on Rio de Janeiro by Professor Holt and Beijing by Professor Bonk. With this lens we were able to see that individual populations in very different different geographic areas of the world responded to forced globalization in very similar ways. This included, once again, instituting protectionism, nationalism, and in the worst case, violent conflict.

 

One of the most important developments leading up to the twentieth century was of course the expansion of global trade. Made possible largely through improved transportation, the economic landscapes of nations all over the world were significantly altered. Resources and commodities became easier to access and significantly cheaper. Nations such as those in Latin America were able to provide exports to the consumption based economies of Europe. Global trade is generally regarded as a net positive, and it is, but it is not exclusively beneficial, particularly for those nations with underdeveloped economies.

The access to British markets in China played a significant role in the economies and politics of Beijing and Shanghai years earlier, eventually contributing to conflict and political tension in the area. However, the author of Latin America Since Independence indicates a more direct negative externality on page 88, saying “in almost all countries one or two commodities made up more than 50 percent of exports, which meant that falling prices for a single commodity could have devastating repercussions throughout the economy”. Professor Holt touched on the exports of Brazil in her lecture on Rio, explaining that 62% of income from exports came from coffee at the time. Decades later, this over-dependence on a single export—usually a natural resource—was coined the Dutch Disease, referencing how the Netherlands’ dependence on natural gas exports resulted in significant economic hardship in the 1970s. While one industry expands, other sectors of the economy fall behind and become less competitive on the international market, leading to unemployment and a lack of international investment. The term is now commonly used to encompass any negative effect resulting from this single resource dependence. However, it is not necessarily true that economies cannot avoid the Dutch Disease. Studies indicate that investing in a diversified economy has helped curtail the effects of single commodity dependence. Whether or not the individual countries experienced the Dutch Disease, Latin America certainly had an unfortunate, if necessary tendency to rely heavily on a single export.

From the Beijing lecture from Wednesday, I didn’t know that the 1800s famine was as overwhelming as it was and affected most of China. I find it interesting that it caused out migration from Southeast Asia to the United States, and I wonder if that migration brought in a lot of the Asian population that makes up the United States today. I know it doesn’t make up the majority of the population today but I am curious of how many migrated over at that time. I also find it interesting that the Taiping rebellion was the largest civil war in world history. That is crazy to think about because three million people were killed and I’m sure thousands more were injured and had near death injuries. The Taiping civil war sounds horrific and I think they should have battled the British instead of each other because the British were the ones who took over their ports and some of their land. However, I guess the invasion of the British and other European countries benefitted China and other Asian countries, in becoming as powerful and technology driven as they are today.

The creation of the Suez Canal connected Africa to Asia. This was very beneficial to European countries importing, exporting and traveling to places in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. This made their travel time to those parts of the world  quicker and more efficient. I wonder if the creation of the Suez Canal was beneficial to Egypt and other African nations. It definitely could have been, if those countries were free to sell their products to other nations without interference and control of European powers over there economy. It also would have been beneficial if the African countries had the means of making or buying ships in order to sell to other nations, if not then the Suez Canal had no benefit to Egypt and surrounding nations.

Elites of Japan responded the to shifts in the global economy and global balance of power, sort of late. It wasn’t until the 1860s when Japan modernized but they did so at a rapid  pace for years.

 

The 1900s witnessed many modernizations in different country. The effects of Western civilization had made Yukichi start to think about modernize his country but the way to do it was cruel to their ancestor and their culture. In that time, Yukichi saw a lot of advantage in Western civilization, their technology and compared to their resources which was left so far behind. He thought that because of the way the ancestor did was so slow and not giving enough advancement. As he said:” Civilization is like an epidemic of Measles” and he considered that this was a task of a wise man. He would not resist it but instead he would think it was a wisely decision to let the epidemic spread away and immersed in it. This was so hard to accept it because he wanted to wipe out all of his ancestors believe and work to adapt a new civilization. Even though he wanted to modernize his country but he also needs to remember and thankful for what the ancestors had done, it is unacceptable to forget and deny what they have done and follow a new civilization.

Another reason for him to so agree with the Western life was Japan was grouped with others countries that had been left behind because of poor technology and old civilization. His ideal was get rid of the old traditional and follow the new ideal which was Imperialism. He wanted to leave others countries behind and then create a new trend for Japan and Asian: “Thus we have not only gotten rid of the old customs of Japan, but also created a new trend in Asia as a whole.” It was acceptable to follow a new ways when his country was weak and need a new method to change the country but get rid of old culture and traditional and following Western civilization was unacceptable