After Tamerlane (87 page)

A. Reid,
Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680
(2vols., New Haven, 1988, 1993) integrates environmental, economic and political history somewhat in the spirit of Braudel. D. Twitchett and F. Mote (eds.),
The Cambridge History of China, vol. 8: The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644
, pt 2 (Cambridge, 1998) and P. J. Smith and R. von Glahn (eds.),
The Song–Yuan–Ming Transition in Chinese History
(Cambridge, Mass., 2003) present recent work on China.

R. J. Bonney (ed.),
Economic Systems and State Finance
(Oxford, 1995) deals with a fundamental aspect of
ancien régime
Europe. A. Sorel,
Europe and the French Revolution: The Political Traditions of the Old Regime
(1885; Eng. trans. London, 1969) is a brilliant, if cynical, introduction to eighteenth-century European diplomacy. J. de Vries and Ad van der Woude,
The First Modern Economy: Success, Failure and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy
, 1500–1815 (Cambridge, 1997) explains the limits of growth in Europe's most successful pre-industrial economy. L. Hughes,
Russia in the Age of Peter the Great
(London, 1998) assesses the impact of Peter's reforms.

The context of European commercial activity in Asia can be followed in Holden Furber,
Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient 1600–1800
(Minneapolis, 1976; repr. New Delhi, 2004). J. E. Wills, ‘Maritime Asia, 1500–1800: The Interactive Emergence of European Domination',
American Historical Review98
, 1 (1993), pp. 83–105, is a useful survey of more recent writing. S. F. Dale,
Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade 1600–1750
(Cambridge, 1994) is a reminder of the continuing importance of overland trade. The classic study of change in the Ottoman Empire is H. A. R. Gibb and H. Bowen,
Islamic Society and the West: A Study of the Impact of Western Civilisation on Moslem Culture in the Near East
, vol. 1:
Islamic Society in the Eighteenth Century
(2pts, London, 1950, 1957). The disorder that followed the fall of the Safavids in Iran is described in J. R. Perry,
Karim Khan Zand
(Chicago, 1979). For the growth of Mughal power, J. F. Richards,
The Mughal Empire
(Cambridge, 1993), Jos Gommans,
Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and the Highroads to Empire 1500–1700
(London, 2002) and R. M. Eaton,
The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier 1204–1760
(London, 1993).

J. Spence,
Treason by the Book
(London, 2001) and P. C. Perdue,
China Marches West
(Cambridge, Mass., 2005) deal with different aspects of China's great age of success. L. Struve (ed.),
The Qing Formation in World Historical Time
(Cambridge, Mass., 2004), despite a forbidding title, contains a valuable selection of recent work in Chinese history.

For Japan, C. Totman,
Early Modern Japan
(London, 1993) and M. Jansen,
China in the Tokugawa World
(Cambridge, Mass., 1992).

P. W. Schroeder,
The Transformation of European Politics 1763–1848
(Oxford, 1994) and C. A. Bayly,
Imperial Meridian
(London, 1988) help to set the geopolitical scene. R. J. Bonney (ed.),
The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe c.1200–1815
(Oxford, 1999) discusses a crucial element of Europeans' capacity to project their power.

P. Bairoch,
Victoires et déboires: Histoire économique et sociale du monde du xvi siècle à nos jours
(3vols., Paris, 1997), as yet untranslated, provides a panoptic account of economic change. The debate over economic change in Britain can be followed in P. Hudson,
The Industrial Revolution
(London, 1992), J. Mokyr,
The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress
(Oxford, 1990), E. A. Wrigley,
Continuity, Chance and Change: The Character of the Industrial Revolution in England
(Cambridge, 1988), N. F. R. Crafts,
British Economic Growth During the Industrial Revolution
(Oxford, 1985) and J. E. Inikori,
Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A Study in International Trade and Economic Development
(Cambridge, 2002). An important reassessment, based on quantitative evidence, of the economic performance of Europe and Asia is R. C. Allen, ‘Real Wages in Europe and Asia: A First Look at the Long-Term Patterns', in R. C. Allen, T. Bengtsson and M. Dribe (eds.),
Living Standards in the Past: NewPerspectives on Well-Being in Asia and Europe
(Oxford, 2005).

R. Owen,
The Middle East in the World Economy 1800–1914
(London, 1981), Kenneth Pomeranz,
The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy
(Princeton, 2000) and C. A. Bayly,
Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion 1770–1870
(Cambridge, 1983) deal with the economic history of the Middle East, China and India respectively.

P. Marshall (ed.),
The Eighteenth Century in Indian History: Evolution or Revolution
(New Delhi, 2003) collects much of the recent research on Indian history in the period of British expansion. J. J. L. Gommans, The Rise of the Indo-Afghan Empire, c.1710–1780 (Leiden, 1995) adds an important dimension to the history of political change in North India. P. Kuhn, Soul-stealers:
The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768
(Cambridge, Mass., 1990) and J. M. Polachek,
The Inner Opium War
(Cambridge, Mass., 1991) open up aspects of Chinese politics and culture. For cultural and intellectual life, A. Hourani,
Islam in European Thought
(Cambridge, 1991), B. Lewis,
The Muslim Discovery of Europe
(London, 1982), A. Pagden,
European Encounters with the New World
(London, 1993), N. Hampson, The Enlightenment (London, 1968), Gulfishan
Khan, Indian Muslim Perceptions of the West in
the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1998) and R. Drayton, Nature's Government: Science, Imperial Britain and the ‘Improvement' of the World (London, 2000)
.

R. E. Robinson and J. A. Gallagher,
Africa and the Victorians
(London, 1961) is a brilliant evocation of the psychology behind British imperial policy in the age of expansion. D. K. Fieldhouse,
Economics and Empire 1830–1914
(London, 1973) is an unrivalled survey of the economic and non-economic influences on European empire-building. W. Woodruff,
The Impact of Western Man: A Study of Europe's Role in the World Economy 1750–1960
(London, 1966) provides much hard information. C. A. Bayly,
The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons
(Oxford, 2004) emphasizes the parallels in social, cultural and political change across much of the world. D. Abernethy,
The Dynamics of Global Dominance: European Overseas Empires 1415–1980
(New Haven, 2000) covers a longer period, and is packed with analytical ideas. K. H. O'Rourke and J. G. Williamson, Globalization and History:
The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy
(Cambridge, Mass., 1999) is a sweeping interpretation of the emergence of a world economy in the nineteenth century. The importance of East Asian trade is emphasized in K. Sugihara (ed.),
Japan, China, and the Growth of the Asian International Economy, 1850–1949
(Oxford, 2005). European thought is surveyed in J. W. Burrow,
The Crisis of Reason
(London, 2000). The ambivalence of European responses to the ‘Orient' is convincingly stressed in J. MacKenzie,
Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts
(Manchester, 1995).

For Russia, there is nothing to match the fizz of M. Malia,
Russia unde rWestern Eyes
(Cambridge, Mass., 1999), but D. Lieven,
Russia's Ruler sunde r the Old Regime
(London, 1989) gets under the skin of the tsarist regime to show how it really worked – or not. The best introduction to African history is J. Iliffe,
Africans: Th eHistor yo f aContinent
(Cambridge, 1995); the best account of an African region is A. G. Hopkins,
An Economic History of West Africa
(London, 1973). For the Ottoman Middle East, S. Deringil,
The Well-Protecte dDomains: Ideologyan dth eLegitimatio no fPowe ri nthe Ottoman Empire, 1876–1909
(London, 1998), A. Hourani, Arabi cThough ti nth eLibera lAg e 1798–1939 (London, 1962; repr. Cambridge, 1983) and A. Hourani, ‘Ottoman Reform and the Politics of Notables', in A. Hourani, P. S. Khoury and M. C. Wilson (eds.), The Modern Middle East (London, 1993), pp. 83–109. For Iran, H.
Algar, Religion and
State in Iran 1785–1906
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969) is fundamental.K. Fahmy,
All the Pasha's Men: Mehmed Ali, his Army and the Making of Modern Egypt
(Cairo, 2002) reverses much myth-making about nineteenth-century Egypt. A. Seal, ‘Imperialism and Nationalism in India', in J. Gallagher, G. Johnson and A. Seal (eds.),
Locality, Province and Nation
(Cambridge, 1973), offers what is still the most compelling account of how colonial rule provoked a nationalist response. R. Bin Wong,
China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience
(Ithaca, NY, 1997) is an especially stimulating account of Chinese experience. J. Hevia,
English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China
(London, 2003) examines European efforts to force China into a colonial mould. E. H. Norman,
Japan's Emergence as a Modern State
(New York, 1940) is a neglected classic.

Much American history remains stubbornly resistant to external comparison, and America's relations with Europe (and the rest of the nineteenth-century world) have been curiously neglected by an introverted historiography. But the series of books by D. W. Meinig on ‘The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500Years of History', especially his
Continental America, 1800–1867
(New Haven, 1993), is a wonderful stimulus to comparative thinking. And the most influential of all American historians, Frederick Jackson Turner, whose ‘The Significance of the Frontier in American History' was originally published in 1893, continues to provoke comparative study. See M. Bassin, ‘Turner, Solov'ev and the ‘‘Frontier Hypothesis'': The Nationalist Significance of Open Spaces',
Journal of Modern History 65
, (1993), pp. 473–511. J. C. Malin was a Kansas maverick. His ‘Mobility and History: Reflections on the Agricultural Policies of the United States in Relation to a Mechanised World',
Agricultural History 17, 4
(1943), pp. 177–91, debunks many of the myths of the American frontier.

H. Strachan,
The First World War: To Arms
(Oxford, 2001) is the first of three projected volumes. It is especially good on the approach to war and on the Middle East and African theatres, as well as on the economics and financing of the war. Z. Steiner,
The Lights That Failed: European International History, 1919–1933
(Oxford, 2005) provides an authoritative account of post-war diplomacy. M. Mazower,
The Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieh Century
(London, 2000) brings fresh insight to Europe's modern ‘dark age'. For the breakdown of the world economy, H. James,
The End of Globalisation
(London, 2001). The three volumes of Robert Skidelsky's
biography of John Maynard Keynes –
John Maynard Keynes: Hope sBetraye d 1883–1920
(London, 1983),
Joh nMaynar dKeynes: Th eEconomis ta sSaviou r 1920–1937
(London, 1992) and
Joh nMaynar dKeynes: Fightin gfo rBritai n 1937–1946
(London, 2000) – are a superb introduction to the economic history of the first half of the twentieth century.

American attitudes and policy are discussed in A. Iriye,
The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, vol. 3: The Globalising of America
(Cambridge, 1995), N. G. Levin, Woodrow
Wilson and World Politics: America's Response to War and Revolution
(Oxford, 1968) and M. J. Hogan,
Informal Entente: The Private Structure of Cooperation in Anglo-American Economic Diplomacy
(Columbia, Mo., 1977). For Soviet Russia, R. Overy,
The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia
(London, 2004), R. Pipes,
The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism 1917–1923
(rev. edn, Cambridge, Mass., 1964), M. Malia,
Russia under Western Eyes
(Cambridge, Mass., 1999), and L. Viola,
Peasant Rebels under Stalin: Collectivization and the Culture of Peasant Resistance
(New York, 1996).

For the Middle East, B. Lewis,
The Emergence of Modern Turkey
(London, 1961), A. Mango,
Atatack
(London, 1999) and M. E. Meeker,
A Nation of Empire: The Ottoman Legacy of Turkish Modernity
(Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 2002) explain Turkey's post-imperial transition. E. Abrahamian,
Iran between Two Revolutions
(Princeton, 1982) is the indispensable account of Iran's modern history. M. E. Yapp,
The Near East since the First World War
(London, 1991) is a superb general survey.

For Indian politics in the last phase of colonial rule, D. Hardiman,
Peasant Nationalists of Gujarat
(Delhi, 1981) offers a fascinating close-up. S. Bose and A. Jalal,
Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy
(London, 1998) is a lively treatment. Gandhi's autobiography can be read alongside the modern biography by J. M. Brown,
Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope
(London, 1991). B. Parekh, Colonialism, Tradition and Reform (London, 1989) explains Gandhi's ideas. For the growth of Muslim politics, D. Page,
Prelude to Partition: The Indian Muslims and the Imperial System of Control
1920–1932 (Delhi, 1982).

For the links between Japan's domestic history and its career of expansion, P. Duus, R. Myers and M. Peattie (eds.),
Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895–1937
(Princeton, 1989), W. G. Beasley,
Japanese Imperialism 1894–1945
(Oxford, 1991) and H. Harootunian,
Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture and Community in Inter-war Japan
(Princeton, 2000). Hans van der Ven,
War and Nationalism in China 1925–1945
(London, 2003) is now essential for understanding the most violent phase of China's history. R. Mitter,
A Bitter Revolution: China's Struggle with the Modern World
(Oxford, 2004) brings out the later significance of the May Fourth movement.