A Concise History of the Modern World: 1500 to the Present A Guide to World Affairs

440 Pages·2002·3.467 MB·English

by  William Woodruff (auth.)

A CONCISE HISTORY OF THE MODERN WORLD
Also by William Woodruff
IMPACT OF WESTERN MAN
AMERICA’S IMPACT ON THE WORLD
THE STRUGGLE FOR WORLD POWER
EMERGENCE OF AN INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY
THE RISE OF THE BRITISH RUBBER INDUSTRY
VESSEL OF SADNESS: a Wartime Autobiographical Novel
PARADISE GALORE: an Allegory
THE ROAD TO NAB END: a Memoir of a Lancashire
Childhood
A Concise History of
the Modern World
1500 to the Present
A Guide to World Affairs
Fourth edition, revised and updated
William Woodruff
Graduate Research Professor (Emeritus)
University of Florida in Gainesville
© Helga Woodruff 1991,1993,1998,2002
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2002
All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988,or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,90
Tottenham Court Road,London W1T 4LP.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author William Woodruff has asserted his right to be identified as the
author of this work in accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
First edition 1991
Second edition 1993
Third edition 1998
Fourth edition 2002
Published by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Houndmills,Basingstoke,Hampshire RG21 6XS and
175 Fifth Avenue,New York,N.Y.10010
Companies and representatives throughout the world
PALGRAVEMACMILLANis the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of St.Martin’s Press,LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States,United Kingdom
and other countries.Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European
Union and other countries.
ISBN 978-0-333-97163-5 ISBN 978-0-230-55466-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230554665
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Woodruff,William.
A concise history of the modern world :1500 to the present :a guide
to world affairs / William Woodruff.— 4th ed.,rev.and updated.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1.History,Modern.I.Title.
D208 .W67 2002
909.08—dc21
2002022090
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02
In memory of
Hedwig and Richard
and
Anne and William
Contents
List of Maps ix
Preface to the Fourth Edition xi
1 Introduction 1
2 Origin of our Times: an Asian-dominated World 8
3 Europe: 1500–1914 23
4 Africa: 1500–1914 44
5 The Rise of the West 54
6 The Impact of Western Man 63
7 ‘White Peril’ in the East 81
8 The Expansion of the Russian Empire 99
9 The Expansion of the American Empires 113
10 The Scientific and Industrial Revolutions 136
11 The Great War: 1914–18 153
12 1917: Communism – A New World Religion 172
13 Asia in the Interwar Years 183
14 The Second World War: 1939–45 203
15 The Balance of Terror 219
16 The Decolonization of Africa 228
17 Communism and its Collapse in the USSR and
Eastern Europe 241
18 Latin America and the United States in the
Twentieth Century 258
19 Western Europe and North America 276
20 The Resurgence of Asia 297
21 The Threat of World Anarchy 334
Notes 352
Bibliography 384
Index 396
vii
List of Maps
I The World before 1500 6
II The Ottoman, Safavid and Mogul Empires 11
III Europe in the Sixteenth Century 26
IV Asian and African Empires before 1763 45
V Battles of the Seven Years War, 1756–63 65
VI European Empires after 1763 66
VII Europe after the Napoleonic Wars, 1815 68
VIII European Colonies in Africa in 1914 70
IX European Empires in Asia and Australasia in 1914 71
X Expansion of the Russian Empire 102
XI Colonization of East Asia 109
XII North American Expansion 126
XIII European Alliances in the First World War 155
XIV Europe after the First World War 166
XV Eastern Europe after the Second World War 217
XVI Decolonization of Africa 229
XVII The Break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 245
XVIII Eastern Europe in 2000 250
XIX The Balkans in 2000 256
XX Latin America in 2000 259
XXI The European Union and NATO in 2000 278
XXII Decolonization of Asia 298
XXIII The Middle East in 2000 322
XXIV World Religions in the 1990s 340
XXV United Nations Peacekeeping Missions, April 2001 343
ix
Preface to the Fourth
Edition
This overview of world history since AD 1500, with its underly-
ing theme of shifting global power, tells in short compass how
the modern world has come to be what it is.
In emphasizing the study of humanity as a whole, this vol-
ume continues the work I began in Impact of Western Man in 1966.
It was then that the words of the English poet John Donne, ‘No
man is an island entire of itself, every man is part of the main’,
came to have special significance for me. In seeking to under-
stand the totality, complexity and diversity of the past, my focus
shifted from the parts to the whole, from the trees to the forest.
My concern became the relation between states rather than within
states. While not denying the uniqueness of national or regional
history, or the sub-specialisms that have proliferated these past
fifty years, I felt that the growing communality and interdepend-
ence of nations justified my taking the wider, more pluralistic
view. To sharpen the focus of this ecumenical study, I have also
adopted a topical as well as a chronological approach.
To provide insights into five hundred years of world history
and put them into compact form has not been easy. No matter
how much one tries to avoid it, some items will invariably be
given more, some less, attention than they deserve; the tendency
will be to present history as much more unidirectional and con-
tinuous than events in the real world confirm. In sifting the wheat
from the chaff, I have followed the maxim of Voltaire: ‘Les détails
qui ne mènent à rien sont dans l’histoire ce que sont les bagages
dans une armée, impedimenta; il faut voir les choses en grand.’
(Meaningless details in history are like the baggage of an army:
impedimenta; one must take the wider view.) Details are not ends
in themselves.
The greatest hazard confronting a writer engaged in a task of
this kind lies not in the breadth of the subject, or in its complex-
ity, but in the point of view from which he tells his tale. I know
of no historical writing of lasting value that does not reveal the
xi
xii Preface to the Fourth Edition
man behind the pen. Of necessity, my views are personal, tem-
poral and locational.
Whatever the approach, it is only in historical terms that we
can ever hope to understand the metamorphosis of the modern
world. Only by using the past to cast light on the present can
we hope to know how the world has come to be what it is and
where it might be headed. We are the only species who can learn
from the past; we are threatened with extinction if we fail to do so.
In placing history in a global setting, I have been helped by
scholars in many parts of the world. My debt to others in knowl-
edge and inspiration (as the acknowledgements in the first edi-
tion of this work and the footnotes and bibliography of this book
make abundantly clear) is considerable.
My debt to Helga, as always, is immeasurable.
William Woodruff
University of Florida at Gainesville