Why England and not China and India? Water systems and the history of the Industrial Revolution

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terje Tvedt
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Water System ◽  
Water Systems ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Investment Capital ◽  
System Factor ◽  
Historical Accounts

AbstractGlobal history has centred for a long time on the comparative economic successes and failures of different parts of the world, most often European versus Asian regions. There is general agreement that the balance changed definitively in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when in continental Europe and England a transformation began that revolutionized the power relations of the world and brought an end to the dominance of agrarian civilization. However, there is still widespread debate over why Europe and England industrialized first, rather than Asia. This article will propose an explanation that will shed new light on Europe’s and England’s triumph, by showing that the ‘water system’ factor is a crucial piece missing in existing historical accounts of the Industrial Revolution. It is argued that this great transformation was not only about modernizing elites, investment capital, technological innovation, and unequal trade relations, but that a balanced, inclusive explanation also needs to consider similarities and differences in how countries and regions related to their particular water systems, and in how they could exploit them for transport and the production of power for machines.

Power Lies in the Barrel of a Gun: Diplomacy Without Strategic Military Capability Is Futile

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 77-99
Author(s):  
Moorosi Leshoele
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Military Capability ◽  
Black Africa ◽  
Mineral Wealth ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Pipe Dream

Abstract The United States of America invests heavily on their military capability and it is estimated that it spends, alone, approximately 40 per cent of what the whole world spends on military. Four of the other super powers that make up the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UN-SC) also spend a significant percentage of their national budgets on military. Chinweizu has for a long time argued that Africa needs a well-resourced African Standby Force (or the Black Africa League) that will protect the interests of the continent so as to prevent the history of Africans enslavement and colonialism repeating itself. This article seeks to analyse Africa’s investment on its military defense capability vis-à-vis the five permanent members of the UN-SC and North Korea, by critiquing two case studies of two of the continent’s economic giants – South Africa and Egypt. Realist and Sankofa perspectives are used as the prisms through which the article was researched. In line with Chinweizu’s observation, the article argues that without serious political will and dedication to building Africa’s nuclear weapons capability and ensuring that Africa is economically self-reliant, diplomatic engagements with the rest of the world as (un)equal partners will remain a pipe dream and the looting of Africa’s mineral wealth will continue unabated. It is clear that given the reality of the African Holocust if African countries fail to collectively defend themselves, Africa will continue to be a political football for the rest of the world.

scholarly journals POLE-TOPS OF CHMYREVA MOHYLA BARROW

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-321
Author(s):  
Z. H. Popandopulo
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Burial Mound ◽  
World War ◽  
National Academy Of Sciences ◽  
River Region ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Burial Mounds ◽  
Academy Of Sciences

In 1977 on the site of famous burial mound Chmyrеva Mohyla located on the northern outskirts of Velyka Bilozerka village of Zaporizhzhia region three bronze pole-tops with images of gryphons were found by local people on the plowed field. There is no evidence whether other artifacts have been found. Luckily nearby in Gunovka village the expedition of Institute of Archaeology of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine was working under the leadership of Yu. V. Boltryk who got the founded artifacts and then sent them to Zaporizhzhia regional museum of local lore, history and economy. The history of excavations of Chmyrеva Mohyla numbers more than a century. They were started by F. A. Braun in 1898, M. I. Veselovskiy (1909—1910) continued the excavations and Yu. V. Boltryk in 1994 completed them. The burial mound has not been excavated in full because of various reasons. The destiny of finds from this barrow was tragic. A lot of artifacts among them silver vessels from the hiding-place which was revealed by M. I. Veselovskiy were lost during the World War II when the collections of Kharkiv historic museum were evacuated. Scythian bronze pole-tops as one of the most interesting categories of artifacts for a long time attracted attention of scholar world. They were classified by types and date, their significance in funeral ceremony and everyday life was searched for. The questions still remain. In this article we tried to put into scholar circulation a scanty type of pole-tops with the image of pacing gryphon on the pear-shaped little bell which is characteristic only for Steppe Dnieper river region. For today only eight of them are known and most of them are originated from of the burial mounds of high Scythian aristocracy: Tovsta Mohyla, Haimanova Mohyla, Chmyrova Mohyla. Chronologically they are slightly differed from other pole-tops both with the image of deer on pear-shaped little bells from Tovsta Mohyla, and with the image of deer on flat cone bushes from Haimanova Mohyla. The question about the place of production of such pole-tops is still opened. Probably just these types of pole-tops could be produced in one workshop but not all known variety of objects as V. A. Ilinska thought. One of the problems to be solved by researchers is searching for such workshops. But if these objects have been moulded by wax models the task becomes more complicated.

scholarly journals The War of Khalkhin Gol in 1939 and the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 585-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Sukhodolov ◽  
Tuvd Dorj ◽  
Yuriy Kuzmin ◽  
Mikhail Rachkov
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Historical Science ◽  
World War ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Second World

For the first time in Russian historiography, the article draws attention to the connection of the War of Khalkhin Gol in 1939 and the conclusion of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939. For a long time, historical science considered these two major events in the history of the USSR and history of the world individually, without their historic relationship. The authors made an attempt to provide evidence of this relationship, showing the role that surrounding and defeating the Japanese army at Khalkhin Gol in August 1939 and signing in Moscow of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact played in the history of the world. The study analyzes the foreign policy of the USSR in Europe, the reasons for the failure in the conclusion of the Anglo-Franco-Soviet military union in 1939 and the circumstances of the Pact. It shows the interrelation between the defeat of the Japanese troops at Khalkhin Gol and the need for the Soviet-German treaty. The authors describe the historic consequences of the conclusion of the pact for the further development of the Japanese-German relations and the course of the Second World War. They also present the characteristics of the views of these historical events in the Russian historiography.

The Decline and Rise of Democracy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Stasavage
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Central State ◽  
Weak State ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Strong State ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Accounts

Historical accounts of democracy's rise tend to focus on ancient Greece and pre-Renaissance Europe. This book draws from global evidence to show that the story is much richer—democratic practices were present in many places, at many other times, from the Americas before European conquest, to ancient Mesopotamia, to precolonial Africa. Delving into the prevalence of early democracy throughout the world, the book makes the case that understanding how and where these democracies flourished—and when and why they declined—can provide crucial information not just about the history of governance, but also about the ways modern democracies work and where they could manifest in the future. Drawing from examples spanning several millennia, the book first considers why states developed either democratic or autocratic styles of governance and argues that early democracy tended to develop in small places with a weak state and, counterintuitively, simple technologies. When central state institutions (such as a tax bureaucracy) were absent—as in medieval Europe—rulers needed consent from their populace to govern. When central institutions were strong—as in China or the Middle East—consent was less necessary and autocracy more likely. The book then explores the transition from early to modern democracy, which first took shape in England and then the United States, illustrating that modern democracy arose as an effort to combine popular control with a strong state over a large territory. Democracy has been an experiment that has unfolded over time and across the world—and its transformation is ongoing. Amidst rising democratic anxieties, the book widens the historical lens on the growth of political institutions and offers surprising lessons for all who care about governance.

Critical Analysis of the World Economy and Deglobalization Processes in Times of Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
José G. Vargas-Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Financial Integration ◽  
Economic Agents ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Complex Phenomena

This chapter aims to critically analyze both the world economy and the deglobalization processes under the assumption that they are the result of a dialectical evolution of economic, financial, political, and sanitary crises. This dialectical movement of the history of the globalization and deglobalization processes is always a very complex phenomena of interactions between the economic agents and political actors, leading to both progressive and regressive events of economic growth, social development, and environmental sustainability. After a period of intensive economic, trade, and financial integration in the creation of a world economy system, suddenly the economic, financial, and sanitary dysfunctionalities emerged at the interior and created a reactive deglobalization process. However, what has been at the center are the international cooperation and trade relations determined by the need to expand the possibilities of satisfying human needs, including culture.

The Origins of Diversity: Darwin's Conditions and Epigenetic Variations

2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 103-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
David E. Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Double Helix ◽  
Paradigm Change ◽  
Short History ◽  
Adaptive Mutations ◽  
Evolutionary Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Heritable Change

This short history of evolutionary thought during the last few centuries describes how some of our foremost thinkers have debated – and still do – the precise mechanisms at the roots of evolutionary change. Commentators frequently contradicted themselves, as well as each other. The popularity of Christian fundamentalism waned following the World Wars. Eventually the rug was pulled from beneath it – till a more recent reaction. Amidst all this babble coming from numerous towers of Babel over centuries, we failed to see Charles Darwin as the great environmentalist: who said environmental conditions, whilst working hand in glove with natural selection, constituted the more important 'law.' A bird's eye view of 18th and 19th century evolutionary thought is considered against the climate of those times (politics, industrial revolution, trade, religious expansionism, etc). Darwinism superseded Lamarckism helped by the neo-Darwinism of Weismann, higher mathematics, population genetics – the 'Modern Synthesis' of 1935 – culminating in the discovery of the double helix by Watson, Crick et al, assuring us of the correctness of 'primacy of DNA theory'. Stimulation and challenge is currently fuelled by exciting nascent knowledge of epigenetic variations and Cairnsian 'adaptive mutations'. The work of Marcus Pembrey and Barry Keverne tracking human and animal variation back generationally describing how 'genomic imprinting' causes reversible heritable change from slight variations in the chromosomes of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and parents to be. The purpose of this thesis is to put forward a new theme proposed neither by Lamarck or Darwin. We stand on the threshold of the first paradigm change for 150 years.

scholarly journals A Review of Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World

2008 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 946-973 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C Allen
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Preventive Check ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

A Farewell to Alms advances striking claims about the economic history of the world. These include (1) the preindustrial world was in a Malthusian preventive check equilibrium, (2) living standards were unchanging and above subsistence for the last 100,000 years, (3) bad institutions were not the cause of economic backwardness, (4) successful economic growth was due to the spread of “middle class” values from the elite to the rest of society for “biological” reasons, (5) workers were the big gainers in the British Industrial Revolution, and (6) the absence of middle class values, for biological reasons, explains why most of the world is poor. The empirical support for these claims is examined, and all are questionable.

scholarly journals Fenomena Multikulturalisme Dalam Musik: Sebuah Telaah Elemen Elemen Musikal Non Barat dalam Karya Komposer Musik Barat

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Esy Maestro
Keyword(s):  
American Music ◽  
World Music ◽  
The Political ◽  
Music Culture ◽  
African American Music ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference ◽  
History Of Literature

The study of the music phenomenon has long been an important discussion due to its role in upholding the accretion of the history of literature of the world of music. Among the two poles music’s idealism, which is between European and American, they both have different opinion about multiculturalism. The multiculturalism in the Europe is the unification of the music culture with the lowest integrity level between the music cultures which possibly experience the multicultural process. It means, with the music culture base which just established like music classic, so that the multicultural process will cannot be seen easily from the music which recommended, because its interference usually dissolved is the music substance which intrinsically used, at rhythmic, melodies, form and others.  Meanwhile the multiculturalism phenomenon in the America will offers the explicit structures, which accurately occurs the powerful and influential multiculturalism process. This thing also based on the heterogeneous America’s people as the interference of many cultures by means of the difference music. The multiculturalism music in America also develop faster because in its accretion it influence with the political period and the crime-infested unsafe makes the countries which moves to America feels that they the same. So, it is not surprise if the performance of the African-American music or the America’s World Music will demonstrate the music multiculturalism process which actual and has been growth for a long time. Keywords: the music, multiculturarism, America and Europe

Economics in Perspective

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kenneth Galbraith ◽  
Richard Parker
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

This book presents a compelling and accessible history of economic ideas, from Aristotle through the twentieth century. Examining theories of the past that have a continuing modern resonance, the book shows that economics is not a timeless, objective science, but is continually evolving as it is shaped by specific times and places. From Adam Smith's theories during the Industrial Revolution to those of John Maynard Keynes after the Great Depression, the book demonstrates that if economic ideas are to remain relevant, they must continually adapt to the world they inhabit. A lively examination of economic thought in historical context, the book shows how the field has evolved across the centuries.

Critical Analysis of the World Economy and Deglobalization Processes in Times of Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 202-223
Author(s):  
José G. Vargas-Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Financial Integration ◽  
Economic Agents ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Complex Phenomena

This chapter aims to critically analyze both the world economy and the deglobalization processes under the assumption that they are the result of a dialectical evolution of economic, financial, political, and sanitary crisis. This dialectical movement of the history of the globalization and deglobalization processes is always a very complex phenomena of interactions between the economic agents and political actors, leading to both progressive and regressive events of economic growth, social development, and environmental sustainability. After a period of intensive economic, trade, and financial integration in the creation of a world economy system, suddenly the economic, financial, and sanitary dysfunctionalities emerged at the interior and created a reactive deglobalization process. However, what has been at the center are the international cooperation and trade relations determined by the need to expand the possibilities of satisfying human needs, including culture.

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