The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century

Citation

Osterhammel, J. (2015). The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century (P. Camiller, Trans.). Princeton University Press.

Chapter Summary

The English edition is a translation by Patrick Camiller of the German original of 2009 and runs to more than 1,100 pages. Princeton describes it as a global history that moves beyond Eurocentric and chronological accounts of the "long nineteenth century". It has eighteen chapters in three parts, followed by a conclusion, notes, a bibliography and an index. The chapter titles below follow the table of contents, and the descriptions draw on the publisher's description and on a reading-group discussion of the opening chapters.

Preface and Introduction

A preface and an introduction to the first German edition frame the project. The publisher's account of its aims is that the book organises the century by themes and compares developments across continents, from New York to New Delhi, instead of narrating country by country.

Part One, Chapters I–III: Approaches

Chapter I, "Memory and Self-Observation: The Perpetuation of the Nineteenth Century", chapter II, "Time: When Was the Nineteenth Century?", and chapter III, "Space: Where Was the Nineteenth Century?", ask how the century should be bounded and how it saw itself. A discussion of these chapters by the Journal of the History of Ideas blog reports that the book makes a strong claim for the nineteenth century as a European century, understood through European-driven attempts to standardise time, space and the past, and that it treats the period as especially explanatory of the present.

Part Two, Chapters IV–VIII: Panoramas I

Chapters IV to VIII are "Mobilities"; "Living Standards: Risk and Security in Material Life"; "Cities: European Models and Worldwide Creativity"; "Frontiers: Subjugation of Space and Challenges to Nomadic Life"; and "Imperial Systems and Nation-States: The Persistence of Empires". They survey how people, goods and settlements were organised across the world and how empires and frontier regions fit into that picture.

Part Two, Chapters IX–XI: Panoramas II

Chapter IX is "International Orders, Wars, Transnational Movements: Between Two World Wars", chapter X "Revolutions: From Philadelphia via Nanjing to Saint Petersburg" and chapter XI "The State: Minimal Government, Performances, and the Iron Cage". The revolutions chapter ranges from the American Revolution through China to Russia, and the book's description lists the Latin American revolutions and the Taiping Rebellion among its subjects.

Part Three, Chapters XII–XVI: Themes I

Chapter XII, "Energy and Industry: Who Unbound Prometheus, When, and Where?", chapter XIII, "Labor: The Physical Basis of Culture", chapter XIV, "Networks: Extension, Density, Holes", chapter XV, "Hierarchies: The Vertical Dimension of Social Space" and chapter XVI, "Knowledge: Growth, Concentration, Distribution" take up the economic and social structures of the century. The publisher's description of the book mentions the transatlantic labour markets of Europe among the forces it examines.

Part Three, Chapters XVII–XVIII and Conclusion: Themes II

Chapter XVII is "Civilization and Exclusion" and chapter XVIII "Religion". The book closes with "The Nineteenth Century in History", which looks back over the whole and, according to the publisher, shows how the century prepared the catastrophes of the twentieth while also giving rise to pacifism, liberalism and the trade union.

Key Concepts

Part One: Approaches

• The long nineteenth century: the book's temporal frame, discussed in chapter II as a question of when the century began and ended.
• Space and self-observation: how the century defined its own geography and memory, set out in chapters I and III.

Part Two: Panoramas

• Mobilities and frontiers: movement of people and the subjugation of space and nomadic peoples.
• Empires and nation-states: the persistence of empires alongside the rise of nation-states.
• Revolutions: considered in a single comparative chapter from Philadelphia to Saint Petersburg.
• The state: minimal government, performance and the "iron cage".

Part Three: Themes

• Energy and industry: the question of who started industrialisation, when and where.
• Networks and hierarchies: the horizontal and vertical structure of social space.
• Knowledge, civilization and exclusion: how knowledge was produced and distributed, and how ideas of civilization excluded some groups.
• Religion: treated as a final theme before the conclusion.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Thematic design for a global subject. Rather than a narrative by country, the eighteen chapters take cities, labour, empires, religion and other themes across the whole world, which suits the publisher's aim of avoiding a Eurocentric account.
• A reference-like structure. Because each chapter stands on a theme, a reader can go directly to cities, energy or revolutions without following a narrative from the beginning.
• Scale and reputation. Princeton notes the author has been called "the Braudel of the nineteenth century" and points to the original's critical success and translation into several languages.
• Reflection on periodisation. Chapters I to III make the problem of when and where the century was part of the book's subject.

Limitations

• Length and density. At over 1,100 pages the book is demanding, and its themes are not meant to be read as one continuous story. A reader may wish to use it as a collection of long essays.
• No single argument. A 2014 review by Samuel Moyn, as quoted by the Journal of the History of Ideas blog, observes that the book lacks an American-style argumentative thesis. Readers who want a clear thesis to test will find a set of claims instead.
• Not a narrative of events. The thematic organisation means that a student looking for a chronological account of the revolutions, wars or unifications will need another source.
• Assumed background. The book ranges across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas without a narrative to orient the reader, so a prior world history survey and some knowledge of modern European and non-European history are needed.

Where It Fits in the Course

The world and global history course contains textbooks, introductions and specialised studies. Sebastian Conrad's What Is Global History? is a concise introduction to the approach and a good prior reading for the method that Osterhammel applies. Textbooks such as The Earth and Its Peoples, Traditions & Encounters, Ways of the World and Worlds Together, Worlds Apart cover world history over a much longer span, and David Christian's Maps of Time places human history within a much larger scale of time. Abu-Lughod's Before European Hegemony studies the world system of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and sets the situation before the period Osterhammel covers. Regional histories in the course, on Latin America and the modern Middle East, supply detail on parts of the world the book treats comparatively.

Osterhammel is the one to read for a single century in depth, and it is best taken after a global-history textbook and a short introduction to the method. For the European side, Evans's The Pursuit of Power covers a similar period as a narrative history of the continent.

How to Use This Book

This is a book for advanced undergraduates and graduate students with a general grounding in world history. It is rarely read cover to cover, and the structure invites selective reading.

A practical plan:

• Start with Part One. Chapters I to III set the frame, and the preface and introduction state the aims.
• Choose from Part Two and Part Three by topic. A course on cities can take chapter VI, one on empire chapters VII and VIII, one on revolutions chapter X, one on economic history chapters XII to XV, and one on religion chapter XVIII.
• Finish with the conclusion, "The Nineteenth Century in History", for the overall assessment.
• Use the notes and bibliography. At nearly two hundred pages together, the notes and bibliography are a research tool for finding literature on each theme.
• Pair with a narrative. Read alongside a chronological history, such as Evans for Europe, so that the thematic chapters have a sequence of events behind them.