After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000

by John Darwin

Book Overview

Tamerlane, the Ottomans, the Mughals, the Manchus, the British, the Japanese, the Nazis, and the Soviets: All built empires meant to last forever; all were to fail. But, as John Darwin shows in this magisterial book, their empire-building created the world we know today.
From the death of Tamerlane in 1405, to America's rise to world "hyperpower," to the resurgence of China and India as global economic powers, After Tamerlane is a grand...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1596916028
• ISBN13: 9781596916029
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Length: 592 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 5.4" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Not a "popular history" by any means, this book is not for everyone.

The other reviewers here do an excellent job treating this work. What you really need to realize before buying this is that it is not what they call "popular history"-- it is a dense, extremely dry, scholarly work that presupposes a pretty serious familiarity with world history, especially European history. The author does a brilliant job synthesizing global trends, especially economic ones, and patterns of global migration, settlement and population changes, and the rise and fall of empires, states, and nations, over an enormous period of time. The value of the work lies in the analysis that is truly world spanning. But this is not a book a casual reader will enjoy. Rather, it is for the serious student or scholar of the history of economics, for example- someone who already has a great deal of knowledge about the history of the world, and would like to read a new perspective on some meta-level causes and effects from a revisionist standpoint.

Forming dispassionate trans-national views

After Tamerlane posed the fortunes of the West in terms of `conjunctures, periods of time when certain general conditions in different parts of the world coincided to encourage (or check) the enlargement of trade, the expansion of empires, the exchange of ideas or the movement of people.' Ming's strategic concentration and its concomitant seclusion and `the timing of Manchu consolidation between 1682 and 1750' contradicted determinism and lend credence to the chanciness of events. Second, the narrative rejected the traditional European definition of modernity, which had obscured the assessment and study of extra-European societies. Darwin's worldwide survey did not support the primacy of the European model. In pre-industrial revolution, both the Ottomans and Chinese held superior ability to mobilize resources and people for a given task. One example was the sultan's vaunted devshirme, who inspired fear in much of continental Europe. Consequently, the swift rise and collapse of European imperialism in Near and Far East exposed a local identity and culture with an inner strength that made European control far from redoubtable. After Tamerlane posed the question: `Is there one modernity, or are there `many modernities'?' In the conclusion, Darwin challenged readers to see the future without the distortion of conceptual lenses and held a conservative outlook on globalization: `if there is one continuity that to glean from a long view of the past, it is Eurasia's resistance to a uniform system, a single great ruler, or one set of rules.' This Foucaultian analysis defied the craze over the ineluctability of globalization. Those extra-European modernities remain to be plumbed and understood.

Invitation to Thoroughly Rethink European and Western Expansionism

John Darwin explores three themes in "After Tamerlane:" 1. The growth of global connectedness that results in the globalization as it is known today; 2. The key role that Europe and later on the West played in that process; 3. The resilience of many of Eurasia's other states and cultures in the face of Europe's expansionism. Darwin pushes his audience to rethink the history of Europe's expansion by making four assumptions: 1) Europe did not progressively rise to preeminence, then fall and rise again as part of the West. The pace of European advance was spasmodic at best in the 250 years following the arrival of Christophe Columbus in the Americas in 1492 C.E. The subjugation of the Americas did not offer Europe a decisive advantage over the rest of Eurasia during that period. Asians were not interested in most of what the Europeans had to offer, resulting in a flow of American silver to South and East Asia. After 1750 C.E., this pattern progressively changed with the subjugation of India and the advent of the industrial revolution that allowed Europeans to impose a trade of manufactured products against raw materials and foodstuffs in the region. The great expansion of trade in the 19th century C.E. and the globalization that it helped to promote were possible for two main reasons. Firstly, there was no general war between the major European powers between the Congress of Vienna in 1815 C.E. and the outbreak of the WWI in 1914 C.E. Secondly, industrialization allowed culturally self-confident Europeans to colonize far faster and on a far larger scale than was previously possible. For example, think about the scramble for Africa among European powers at the end of the 19th century C.E. In contrast, Asian empires showed a remarkable cultural and political resilience in the face of Europe's expansionism. Despite all foreign encroachments, China ultimately lost only Outer Mongolia. A fast-industrializing Japan became quickly a match for its Western alter egos before losing all its colonies at the end of WWII. The victors of WWI failed to partition the Anatolian core of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1920s C.E. Finally, Iran comprises to this day most of "historic" Persia. The great exception to that rule was India because of its openness and accessibility, and because of the sophistication of its financial and commercial life. 2) A global proto-economy came into existence in the 16th century C.E. once the Americas had been connected to Eurasia and Africa. Without the exploitation of American resources, and the commercial integration of North East America and North West Europe to form an "Atlantic" economy, the eventual creation of a global economy in the late 19th century C.E. might not have happened at all. The increased protectionism against free trade that started in the 1880s C.E. did not stop the growth in international commerce before the outbreak of WWI. Globalization remained mostly in limbo during the Europe's seco

A Meta-Survey of Economics and Empire

Critics of this work make legitimate points, but miss the point. "After Tamerlane" is intended to be a survey of deeper analyses of empires in various regions. Like Mae "mes2000" says, there is not an overabundance of specific human examples of struggles on the ground. One might want to read this book in conjunction with some of the new Napoleonic War surveys, with the recent biographies of Tamerlane, with "The Pursuit of Glory" or "Liberators," etc. In fact, Cesar Gonzales has provided us with a fairly comprehensive list in his review. Gonzales legitimately complains that Darwin spends a good deal of time answering a negative - i.e., telling us why the traditional views of European power don't completely explain what happened to world culture post-1750. But Rouco is wrong in saying Darwin never reaches that explanation. Darwin says that the abstraction of financial instruments, combined with globalized trade patterns, led to hyper-militarism. He wants to make sure readers understand that it is not merely the Industrial Revolution, not merely Marx or Weber concepts of capitalism, that brought Euro- and U.S. cultures to this point, and to make this clear, Darwin must first mention the negatives. This is a dense and subtle book, but it is masterfully written. I kept trying to think of a more straightforward way Darwin might have written this to avoid the problems mae and Cesar have, but I'm not sure that's possible. Darwin is writing a meta-analysis to observe post-Tamerlane civilizational history from the 75,000-foot level, perhaps even the orbital level, so it certainly should not be read on its own, but as a companion piece to more detailed regional historical surveys of empire.

There was no western way of war

In 1400 Europe was a backward part of the world. The Ottoman, Murghal and Chinese Empires were all infinitely richer and stronger. Yet by the 19th Century European Empires dominated the world. European historians explained this by suggesting that Europe had a superior culture which in turn led to successful economic systems and superior technology. A march of progress. As we enter the 21st Century the pattern of things is changing. The shift in world power is moving east to India and China. Europe is in decline at least as a military power. This book examines the old explanations for Europe's rise to world domination and comes up with a different take on things. Up to the 19th Century Europe had two big successes. The first was the taking over of the Americans. This was done against a weak opposition. The second was the destruction of the Murghal Empire and the colonisation of India. This was a significant achievement and was the result not so much of European technology but the impact of Persia's wars with India. Britain was able to defeat a rump state which was just a shadow of its former self. Until the 19th Century most European colonisation with the exception of the Americas and India was on the coastal periphery of weaker states. Europe never succeeded in destroying or taking over China and Japan was able to develop quickly and achieved military equality with the leading imperial powers. The golden age of colonialism occurred in the later 19th Century and its basis was that Europe was reasonably cohesive and the major powers accepted zones of control. European wars occurred but were of brief duration and not destructive. The development of the railroad and steam powered ships gave a dominance which enabled the seizure of Africa and parts of South East Asia. In the 20th Century there were major conflicts between the European powers which strengthened the hand of the colonial nations in their dealing with their colonizers. Thus Indonesia, Algeria and Vietnam were able to fight victorious anti colonial wars. Following the Second World War the conflict between the Soviet Block and the Western Powers enabled colonial and third world countries to play both sides to gain and maintain independence. During the height of empire a number of ideologies were invented to justify the system. Non white people were not civilized and empire was a device to bring them to civilization. Western ideas were superior and the way of the future, Eastern ideas were repressive and the way of the past. Central of course was racism. The conquered people were not seen to behave in certain ways because of a shared history or culture they were seen to behave because it was tied up with racial destiny. In retrospect the history of empire has been tied up with this same inherent racism and this book is closer to a real history of how Europe came to dominate the world. Even today some books have been written saying that there is an inherent western way of war. This b