Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Environmental Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Century

This book presents a global narrative of the origins of the modern world from 1400 to the present, emphasizing the roles of Asia, Africa, and the New World and the impacts of environmental constraints. It defines the modern world as marked by industry, the nation-state, interstate warfare, and growing inequality. The book explains its origins by emphasizing contingencies, comparability, England's escape, human and natural forces, and the mounting environmental crisis. It also considers the US rise to global hegemon and the resurgence of Asia and the changed relationship of humans to the environment.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 320 pages
Publication date: 05 July 2019
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

This captivating book offers a comprehensive narrative of the origins of the modern world, spanning from 1400 to the present. Unlike most studies that perceive the "rise of the West" as the sole narrative of the modern world's emergence, this history presents a fresh perspective, drawing upon new scholarship on Asia, Africa, and the New World, as well as the evolving field of environmental history. It constructs a narrative that recognizes the significant roles played by these regions, including their profound impacts on the environment. Robert B. Marks defines the modern world as characterized by industry, the nation-state system, interstate warfare, a growing wealth gap between the affluent and the impoverished, escalating inequality within the most affluent industrialized countries, and a departure from the environmental constraints of the "biological old regime." He elucidates its origins by emphasizing contingencies such as the conquest of the New World; the similarities between the most advanced regions in China, India, and Europe; the factors that allowed England to escape from common ecological challenges faced by these regions by the eighteenth century; a convergence of human and natural forces that widened the divide between industrialized and non-industrialized parts of the world; and the escalating environmental crisis that defines the modern world.

In a new edition that contextualizes the modern world within an environmental framework, the book explores how and why the United States emerged as a global power in the twentieth century and eventually became the sole superpower by the twenty-first century. It also examines the changing relationship between humans and the environment, which is likely to be the defining characteristic of the modern era—known as the Anthropocene. Throughout the book, the author reiterates that the US rise.

Weight: 490g
Dimension: 153 x 228 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781538127032
Edition number: Fourth Edition