The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century (America in the World)

this very long, very well-written, well-translated book gives a comprehensive view of the "long" 19th century (roughly from the time of the foundation of the US until just before World War I) from all over the world, though with a (deseerved or undeserved) focus on European and European "offspring" countries (but includes more material on Japan, China, and maybe India than other "third world" areas of the world). the 19th century was a century of "globalization" in many aspects, which provides one way of providing a "globalized" history. at the same time, Osterhammel points out many areas where important events/processes in non-European countries were driven by an internal, rather than globalized, dynamic.in addition to globalization and revolutions, the 19th century was also a century of "nation building". while Osterhammel doesn't dwell on individual cases (perhaps other than Japan), he provides something like "hints" of how nation building was motivated, how it affected people's thinking, etc. for an American of the late 20th/early 21st century, the fact that a time before "nations" is a revelation.for me, as a non-historian, one of the joys of reading this book was seeing the breadth of topics that *are* of interest to professional historians, as well as how historians take different views on controversial (at least within the discipline) issues.the bibliography is very extensive, and the footnotes are relevant. (i read this on a Kindle, and it would be nice if references to bibliographic entries in the footnotes were "active", so i wouldn't be forever having to "open" the footnotes, highlight the cited book's author/title, and then search the book to find, e.g., full title of the book, publication date, etc.)

While long and challenging, this is an excellent book. The writer's comprehension and his ability to express it is impressive. When I received the book, to check its accuracy, I turned to a section on life expectancy improvements in the 19th century, and I was amazed to see that Osterhammel understood the fundamental reasons behind the tremendous growth in life expectancy (clean running water and good city-wide sewage), but also clearly distinguished between "life expectancy at birth" and "life expectancy at age 2". Many infants die before age 2, and counting them to determine total life expectancy for the population does give an idea on general health, but seriously distorts how long someone who survives infancy can expect to live. Very few historians grasp this fundamental concept and just glibly refer to life expectancy without indicating what they are using to measure life expectancy.This concept is easily illustrated by a simple example. Let's suppose 50% of all children die on their 2nd birthday, and the survivors live to age 68, and then die. Life expectancy at birth is 35 =(2+68)/2, however anyone who lives past the age of 2 has a future life expectancy of 66 more years! There's a huge difference between these two approaches, and the second one gives a much better idea of how long people live in that society. The first approach tells us more about post-natal health care, but not much about adult longevity.Perhaps this is a strange way to review a book, but what I am trying to say is that the author "gets it right" where most authors don't even have a clue there is a difference to look at. Accuracy, clarity and a keen eye for what matters is a hallmark of this book!

This is one big A.. book to read but i am better informed ...It's a big book in every sense: more than 900 pages of text, a quarter more again in the form of notes, bibliography and index. It will also be a challenging read for those who expect to be carried smoothly from decade to decade or from region to region as the book proceeds. His arrangement is topical, owing more stylistically to historical sociology than narrative history, so we get chapters on the, what i understand, as the framework of this type of Historical method. Part 1 is tiltled "Approaches".The second part of the book is concerned with what Osterhammel calls “Panoramas”, in which he explores “eight spheres of reality”: mobilities, living standards, cities, frontiers, empires and nations, international organisations, revolutions and the state. Uniquely compared with any time before or since, the 19th century was the era of diasporas and migrations on a massive scale. It was a time when expanding cities and closing frontiers, in different but complementary ways, presented unprecedented challenges and opportunities, and when white men hunted and slaughtered wildlife across the globe on a scale – and with relish – that seem incomprehensible today. It was a period when nationalism, and the cult of the nation, reached new levels; but for most of the world, the default mode of organisation was in fact empire. It was an age of revolutions the like of which had never been seen before; but while those at the beginning were interconnected (the American, the French and the Haitian), those that took place in mid-century (among them the Indian “Mutiny”, the Taiping rebellion and the American civil war), and those that occurred in the 1890s (including Russia, China and Iran) were largely separate upheavals. And it was a time when many monarchies reinvented themselves (though not all: Ex China), while progress towards democracy was geographically confined for men and even more circumscribed for women.Osterhammel’s final section is entitled “Themes”, in which he offers brief discussions of big topics that are more sketchily treated than “Panoramas”. As befits an expert on China, he constantly reminds us that throughout the 19th century, and across the whole world, agriculture was far more important than industry as an employer of labour; but he is also well aware that it witnessed the unprecedented development and diversification of “global capitalism”, in part made possible by the extraordinary revolution in communications thanks to railways, steamships and the telegraph. He has fascinating things to say about schooling and universities, and about the rise of “world languages” and “big” science; and he devotes a late chapter to exploring the ambiguities and contradictions of the west’s “civilizing mission”, the emancipation of slaves and serfs, and the rise of racial thinking and of race-based regimes (such as the American south).Only in his final chapter does he get to religion – which is not easily reconciled with the claim he makes there that it occupies “center stage in a global history of the nineteenth century”; but he has valuable observations about the belated growth of religious tolerance in Europe (in the early modern period non-western societies had more readily accepted diversity), and the almost total failure of British and American missionaries to convert the “heathen” in India and China to Christianity, why,did they ever think they could?.In closing, an age of such panoramic creations deserves a chronicler with suitably panoramic inclinations. It has found a very able one in Jürgen Osterhammel.....

One of the best books I've read In years: world history at it's most ambitious, it is remarkably comprehensive, readable, and fascinating. Really good Comparative historical analysis is hard to find, and this is the real deal. More on Africa would have made this excellent book truly grand!

Grandi ottimo prodotto consegna precisa propio quello che cercavo funziona correttamente come mostrato grazie buon lavoro grazie.

Dr. Osterhammel has done a colossal amount of work in writing this very well documented book. No doubt that Dr. Osterhammel reaches its goal of showing how the world was transformed in the 19th century and also why the various facets of this transformation occurred without being judgemental. I really did appreciate the approach taken by Dr. Osterhammel in writing the book by first showing that the “19th century” he considered did not start on January 1st 1800 to end on December 31st 1899. Rather , the transformation started before 1800 and ended after 1900. Also, this global history is really global it covers the whole world and it is not euro-centric. Second, this global history is given by themes rather than being an almost endless list of dates, facts and events. To sum up, i thoroughly enjoy this book and I recommend it to any one how wants to understand and learn about this transformation of the world in the 19th century that we still see the effects today.

De forma diferente uma narrativa brilhante do longo século 19 na perspectiva cultural, político e econômico. Vale a pena ler.

I bought this book after reading in a newspaper article that Angela Merkel had read it while recuperating from a skiing accident back in 2013. About a third of the way through, I have come to the conclusion that every political leader should read it and consult it often. Osterhammel methodically debunks many of the myths we have been sold about the 19th Century and provides interesting statistics about practically every part of the world. The translation is marvelous. I recommend it highly.

I really liked this book, unfortunately I never got to finish it as I lost it in a cafe :(