World Civilization 1500-Present
4 December 2017
Western Globalization
World history, in large part, is the history of European/Western globalization. This essay will discuss western global colonial empire building, imperialism, colonization, and Europe's eventual decline. The discussion topics are split into 4 sections. The 1st section will assess how imperial powers built their colonial empires including the expeditions of Zheng He, Prince Henry, and Christopher Columbus. The second section will cover how the European/Western self – transformation in the three levels of revolutions promoted their colonial empire building in the late 19th century. The third section will evaluate how two world wars and other events lead to the decolonization. The final section will evaluate the impact of colonialism on the non-Western societies.
Imperial powers (defined as acquisition by a government of other governments or territories, or of economic or cultural power over other nations or territories, often by force (dictionary.com)) have existed in every society in world history. This section will consider the major imperial powers of the world and expand on how they helped build European empires. One of the first examples of early imperialism was during the Maritime Revolution under the lead of admiral Zheng He. Although this example takes place in Asia and not Europe, I believe that the expeditions that took place in the 14th century kickstarted Western globalization. Zheng He, in many ways, set an example for many imperialists to come. His success story was inspiration for explorers such as Christopher Columbus, Henry the Navigator, and Ferdinand Magellan. Zheng He, an “Imperial Eunuch and Muslim” (The Earth and It’s Peoples, 389), led an unmatched expedition of the Indian Ocean Basin between 1405 and 1433. Consisting of sixty-two large Chinese junks, each equipped with nine large masts, twelve sails and the carrying capacity of 3,000 tons, and over 100 small vessels (The Earth and it’s Peoples, 389). Each of these large expeditions carried over 27,000 crew members (The Earth and it’s Peoples, 389). These expeditions extended trade relations into the East Indies, Africa and India. “The enormous size of these these expeditions, far larger than needed for exploration or promoting trade, indicates that the Ming sought to inspire awe of their power and achievements”(Earth and its Peoples, 388).
Throughout history, perhaps the largest perpetrator of imperialism was Europe. European countries such as Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Spain, took over the world. By the 19th century, the Europeans had taken control over most of the world. Starting in the 14th century, the Europeans used Christian militancy, a booming trade market in the Indian Ocean and the Black Sea, and struggles with Islamic powers, to expand and globalize. The Portuguese were the first. Prince Henry, or “Henry the Navigator”, devoted his entire life to exploration. The first of his missions was to conquer Ceuta, a city in Africa. Henry and his team succeeded in their mission in 1415. After this expedition, the crew and Prince Henry focused mainly on African. Prince Henry, a devoted Christian, made it his personal goal to convert the Africans to Christianity. Using missionary power, they successfully completed Prince Henry’s goal. From 1415 to 1440, Prince Henry launched many expeditions to Africa. During these expeditions, his ships established contact with the islands of Madeira and Azores. They also improved navigational equipment in this time. During the 1440’s, Portugal raided the northwest coast of Africa. They returned from these raids with slaves. This kickstarted the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Following in Portugal's footsteps, Spain launched a series of famous expeditions in 1492. Christopher Columbus, “a genoese mariner” (The Earth and it’s People, 396) led 4 expeditions with the mission “to discover and acquire certain islands and mainland in the Ocean Sea” (The Earth and it’s Peoples, 398). Columbus, as a young man, participated in the Portuguese explorations and took inspiration from said explorations. In October of 1492, Christopher's first expedition reached the islands of the Caribbean. Columbus used forceful and inhumane ways to gain control over the Arawak Indians who had inhabited the islands far before Christopher and his men had arrived. Christopher now had complete control over the islands. He led two more expeditions to the new land. This discovery laid the basis for Spain's empire in the Americas and other European empires to come. “The decades between 1500 and 1750 witnessed a tremendous expansion of commercial, cultural, and biological exchanges around the world” (The Earth and it’s People, 415).
Citing early European expansion, the decades between 1500 and 1750 became some of Europe's most prosperous times. Because of long established trade relations with mexico, the americas, and the chinese, European cities blew up. “Urban wealth came from manufacturing, and finance, but especially from trade, both within Europe and overseas.” (The Earth and it’s Peoples, 427). Europe's major port, Amsterdam, was thriving. The Dutch dominated sea trade both in europe and overseas. Overall, early modern Europe yielded a great deal of political, religious and economic success. This success was put on pause as high military costs after the English Civil war caused European powers to exert their power on economic, religious and social life. These powers were successful and Europe continued to prosper. Economic development and prosperity did not only occur in the mainland of Europe, but in their colonies in the new world as well. Britain, France, and England had some of the most successful colonies. In the last decades of the 17th century and into the beginning of the 18th century, all of these colonies experienced economic prosperity.
Western self-transformation happened in three stages. The following section will examine how western self-transformation promoted empire building. The first stage was the religious reformation combined with the scientific revolution. The reformation, referred to the fragmentation of Christianity from 1517 to 1648. The reformation led to religious warfare, the last of this concluding in 1648. It also led to political changes between the relationship between church and state and the decline of the holy roman empire. Under the influence of this reformation and overseas expansion, the Scientific Revolution was kickstarted. The Scientific Method by Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes, substantially changed the European way of thinking. The scientific revolution was laid a solid basis for Western global dominance (Lecture Notes, Western Self-Transformation).
The second of the three stages was the Industrial Revolution, which beginning in the 18th century, represented western self transformation in the economic perspective. The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment provided the Industrial Revolution with a solid intellectual foundation. Starting in england in the 18th century, spreading to North America in the 19th century, and to Japan in the 20th century, represented a huge transformation for the transportation and production of goods (Lecture Notes, Western Self-Transformation).
. Following overseas expansion, Europe was developing new trade routes. With these new trade patterns, trade profit boomed and they acquired huge expanding markets. The general pattern of the Industrial Revolution went as follows: specific demand for products led to specific inventions; these new inventions created new demands which led to further inventions; as a result, the manufacturing process was industrialized. The Industrial Revolution not only led to a series of technological inventions but also had major influences on society and the wh
ole world. With its effective exploitation of natural resources, the Industrial Revolution led to an increase in productivity and created a new consumer society which was based on the consumption of goods. With the Industrial Revolution, more rural people moved to the cities, because urban life was more colorful and attractive. More important, the Industrial Revolution simplified the various classes in the previous society. From the perspective of world history, the Industrial Revolution finally established a new international division of labor based on the new trading pattern the Europeans established after the 15th century: the Western industrial societies produced industrial goods, while the non-Western non-industrial societies produced raw materials and depended on the manufactured goods the Industrial societies provided, as they did not have an independent industrial system (Lecture Notes, Western Self-Transformation). In this way, the Industrial Revolution determined the economic dependence of non-industrial societies on the industrial societies. Until today, many Asian, African and Latin American countries haven’t eliminated their economic dependency. In other words, the Industrial Revolution made Latin America, Africa, and most Asian areas more dependent on the industrial society (Lecture Notes, Western Self-Transformation).
The last stage of western transformation were the Western Political Revolutions.. It started in England in the 17th century and spread to North America and the European continent in the 18th century (Lecture Notes, Western Self-Transformation). In the 19th-20th centuries, the revolutions not only continued in Europe but also spread to the non-Western areas including Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Even today, some non-Western countries in Africa and Asia are still experiencing the same type of the political revolution. Since the 19th century, the political revolutions were closely related to the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution provided a new economic foundation for the political revolutions as it created new social classes. In return the political revolutions further promoted the development of the industrialization. Generally speaking, the world-wide political revolutions were also more or less powered by three isms. These 3 islam were liberalism, socialism, and nationalism—the major political forces in these centuries (Lecture Notes, Western Self-Transformation). The political revolutions contributed to European’s world domination. When the Europeans expanded into the overseas area, they encountered the societies which were still divided into two hostile and conflicting groups. Particularly, the hostility of the masses to their oppressive government substantially strengthened the stranger effect and effectively facilitated the successful conquest of the Europeans (Lecture Notes, Western Self-Transformation). The American Revolution was one of the early major Western political revolution. The revolution started in 1776. The reasons for the revolution were the British attempts to impose new taxes and commercials controls and to prevent westward movement. American colonialists used European political theory against being taxed without representation. Young men seeking new opportunities turned against the colonial leadership. Western global dominance was based not only on the intellectual and economic revolutions but also on the political revolutions. The political revolutions tried to achieve political equality. Through the political revolutions, the old mentality or concept of a division of people into the ruling class and the ruled one ended. The masses were for the first time greatly activated. Government was no longer seen as something above the people but as their agency (Lecture Notes, Western Self-Transformation).
The two world wars led to the eventual decline of Europe's world domination and colonization. World War 1, starting in 1914 and extending into 1918, led to political crisis, economic decline, and the weakening hold of the colonies for Europe (Lecture Notes, WWI). The war left Europe completely demoralized and economically unstable. They lost all of the confidence that they have gained throughout history (Lecture Notes, WWI). In the years between WW1 & WW11, France and Britain were able to escape the worst of the Depression by forcing their colonies to purchase their products. Germany had been hard-hit by its defeat in World War I, the hyperinflation of 1923, and the Depression (Lecture Notes, Interwar-year Changes). During the Depression, construction and industry had slowed down, reducing environmental stress. The Great Depression ruined the economies of industrialized nations and ruined trade relationships (Lecture Notes, Interwar-year Changes). The war reversed this trend. During the course of the Second World War, major colonial powers made it clear that they were determined to hold their colonies in Asia and Africa. But, despite their statements, all Asian colonies and virtually all African colonies, within two decades after the War were independent. Now European presence was questioned, not only by their subjects but also by their own fellow Europeans who lacked both will and strength to continue to rule. Realizing that Britain had no strength to maintain its rule in India in the face of increasingly strong nationalist sentiment in India, the British Parliament in July 1947 passed the Indian Independence Act and India gained Independence. England had earlier left Iraq in the 1930s. After World War II, Britain, Belgium and France recognized that they did not have the capacity to rule people against their will. The costs of fighting liberation movements were too high. As a result, Africans forced Europeans to quit. The decolonization of Africa and Asia greatly swelled. The postwar French government granted independence to Tunisia and Morocco between 1952 and 1956 but was determined to hold on to Algeria, which had a substantial French settler population, vineyards, and oil and gas fields. An Algerian revolt that broke out in 1954 was pursued with great brutality by both sides, but ended with French withdrawal and Algerian independence in 1962.
“Colonialism caused the loss of sovereignty which is the loss of the right of a state to control its own destiny, to play in its own development, to conduct its own diplomacy and internal relations, to decide which outside nations to associate with or to emulate and above all to manage or even mismanage its own affairs, derive pride and pleasure from its success and derive lessons, frustration and experience from its failures” (“What are the Effects of Colonialism”). Around the world today, many areas were once colonized or controlled by Western Europe. Colonialism, which is defined the practice of creating settlements in lands geographically distant from the parent land (“What are the Effects of Colonialism), is known to have many different consequences, positive and negative. A negative effect of colonialism was the loss of sovereignty and political crisis. Sovereignty, defined as supreme power or authority, was a very important asset to non-western societies. Although colonialism had negative aspects, it also contributed to the appearance of independent African states of our century. “The ascension of the colonialism ideology was based on the belief that colonies were an essential attribute of any great nation.” (“What are the Effects of Colonialism”).
In this paper, I have discussed the Imperialist powers throughout history, Western Self-Transformation through revolutions, the change that WWI and WWII had on western powers, and the pros and cons that colonisation had on colonial countries. In conclusion, the Western powers dominated the world for many centuries. Many factors including imperialism, revolutionaries and decolonization led to the demise of this domination.
Works Cited
“Dictionary.com.” Dictionary.com,
Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/.
Bulliet, Richard W., et al. The Earth and its peoples: a global history. Cengage Learning, 2015.
Kasum, Eric. “Columbus Day? True Legacy: Cruelty and Slavery.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 11 Oct. 2010, www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-kasum/columbus-day-a-bad-idea_b_742708.html.
“What Are the Effects of Colonialism.” Scribd, Scribd, www.scribd.com/doc/26505961/What-Are-the-Effects-of-Colonialism.
Corissajoy. “Effects of Colonization.” Beyond Intractability, 5 July 2016, www.beyondintractability.org/essay/post-colonial.
Disscussion 1, Reasons for Overseas Expansion
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Discussion 02: European Intervention in Africa and Impact
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Lecture Notes: The Colonial Revolution and and Post-War Nation-Building in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. https://mnsu.ims.mnscu.edu/d2l/le/content/3837622/viewContent/31722854/View
Lecture Notes: Interwar-Year Changes, and World War II
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Lecture Notes: World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the Nationalist Movements
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Lecture Notes: Western Self-Transformation (I)
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Lecture Notes: Western Self-Transformation (II)
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Lecture Notes: Western Self-Transformation (III)
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