The transformation of the world : a global history of the nineteenth century / Jurgen Osterhammel.

"First published in Germany by C.H. Beck under the title Die Verwandlung der Welt, Verlag C.H. Beck oHG, Munchen 2009."

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Memory and self-observation: the perpetuation of the nineteenth-century -- Time: when was the nineteenth century? -- Space: where was the nineteenth century? -- Mobilities -- Living standards: risk and security in material life -- Cities: European models and worldwide creativity -- Frontiers: subjugation of space and challenges to nomadic life -- Imperial systems and nation-states: the persistence of empires -- International orders, wars, transnational movements: between two world wars -- Revolutions: from Philadelphia via Nanjing to Saint Petersburg -- The state: minimal government, performances, and the iron cage -- Energy and industry: who unbound Prometheus, when, and where? -- Labor: the physical basis of culture -- Networks: extension, density, holes -- Hierarchies: the vertical dimension of social space -- Knowledge: growth, concentration, distribution -- Civilization and exclusion -- Religion.

Memory and self-observation : the perpetuation of the nineteenth-century. Visibility and audibility ; Treasuries of memory and knowledge ; Observation, description, realism ; Numbers ; News ; Photography -- Time : when was the nineteenth century? Chronology and the coherence of the age ; Calendar and periodization ; Breaks and transitions ; The Age of Revolution, Victorianism, Fin de Siecle ; Clocks and acceleration -- Space : where was the nineteenth century? Space and time ; Metageography: naming spaces ; Mental maps: the relativity of spatial perspective ; Spaces of interaction: land and sea ; Ordering and governing space ; Territoriality, diaspora, borders -- Mobilities. Magnitudes and tendencies ; Population disasters and the demographic transition ; The legacy of early modern migrations: Creoles and slaves ; Penal colony and exile ; Ethnic cleansing ; Internal migration and the changing slave trade ; Migration and capitalism ; Global motives -- Living standards : risk and security in material life. The standard of living and the quality of life ; Life expectancy and "Homo hygienicus" ; Medical fears and prevention ; Mobile perils, old and new ; Natural disasters ; Famine ; Agricultural revolutions ; Poverty and wealth ; Globalized consumption -- Cities : European models and worldwide creativity. The city as norm and exception ; Urbanization and urban systems ; Between deurbanization and hypergrowth ; Specialized cities, universal cities ; The golden age of port cities ; Colonial cities, treaty ports, imperial metropolises ; Internal spaces and undergrounds ; Symbolism, aesthetics, planning -- Frontiers : subjugation of space and challenges to nomadic life. Invasions and frontier processes ; The North American West ; South America and South Africa ; Eurasia ; Settler colonialism ; The conquest of nature : invasions of the biosphere -- Imperial systems and nation-states : the persistence of empires. Great-power politics and imperial expansion ; Paths to the nation-state ; What holds empires together? ; Empires : typology and comparisons ; Central and marginal cases ; Pax Britannica ; Living in empires -- International orders, wars, transnational movements : between two world wars. The thorny path to a global system of states ; Spaces of power and hegemony ; Peaceful Europe, wartorn Asia and Africa ; Diplomacy as political instrument and intercultural art ; Internationalisms and the emergence of universal norms -- Revolutions : from Philadelphia via Nanjing to Saint Petersburg. Revolutions -- from below, from above, from unexpected directions ; The revolutionary Atlantic ; The great turbulence in midcentury ; Eurasian revolutions, fin de siecle -- The state: minimal government, performances, and the iron cage. Order and communication: the state and the political ; Reinventions of monarchy ; Democracy ; Bureaucracies ; Mobilization and discipline ; Self-strengthening : the politics of peripheral defensive ; State and nationalism -- Energy and industry : who unbound Prometheus, when, and where? Industrialization ; Energy regimes: the century of coal ; Paths of economic development and nondevelopment ; Capitalism -- Labor : the physical basis of culture. The weight of rural labor ; Factory, construction site, office ; Toward emancipation: slaves, serfs, peasants ; The asymmetry of wage labor -- Networks : extension, density, holes. Communications ; Trade ; Money and finance -- Hierarchies : the vertical dimension of social space. Is a global social history possible? ; Aristocracies in (moderate) decline ; Bourgeois and quasi-bourgeois -- Knowledge : growth, concentration, distribution. World languages ; Literacy and schooling ; The university as a cultural export from Europe ; Mobility and translation ; Humanities and the study of the other -- Civilization and exclusion. The "civilized world" and its "mission" ; Slave emancipation and white supremacy ; Antiforeignism and "race war" ; Anti-Semitism -- Religion. Concepts of religion and the religious ; Secularization ; Religion and empire ; Reform and renewal -- Conclusion : the nineteenth century in history. Self-diagnostics ; Modernity ; Again : the beginning or end of a century ; Five characteristics of the century.

A monumental history of the nineteenth century, The Transformation of the World offers a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of a world in transition. Jürgen Osterhammel, an eminent scholar who has been called the Braudel of the nineteenth century, moves beyond conventional Eurocentric and chronological accounts of the era, presenting instead a truly global history of breathtaking scope and towering erudition. He examines the powerful and complex forces that drove global change during the "long nineteenth century," taking readers from New York to New Delhi, from the Latin American revolutions to the Taiping Rebellion, from the perils and promise of Europe's transatlantic labor markets to the hardships endured by nomadic, tribal peoples across the planet. Osterhammel describes a world increasingly networked by the telegraph, the steamship, and the railways. He explores the changing relationship between human beings and nature, looks at the importance of cities, explains the role slavery and its abolition played in the emergence of new nations, challenges the widely held belief that the nineteenth century witnessed the triumph of the nation-state, and much more. -- Provided by publisher.

Text in English.