Connecting World History and Globalization

As history evolved after the rise of the Enlightenment, a chain reaction of ideas and processes were triggered which eventually led to the rise of world empires, their imperialistic wars, and revolutionized the world in which we live in today. This chain reaction went from the enlightenment, to a social contract between members of the same society. These contracts resulted in the ideas of equality and justice for all members of those societies, causing such political revolutions as what occurred in the U.S. and in France. Revolutions such as these led to Popular Sovereignty, or the people ruling the people. From ruling themselves, people of an area with similar revolutionary backgrounds and history grew together in the form of having a sense of patriotic nationalism. This Collective Identity still remains a significant factor in the different societies of today’s world.
These empires began to be ruled by a nation state’s own government, not that of a private company as was the case via the East India Company. Empires now put boundaries on their territories, officially differentiating between what nation-states owned and controlled different areas of land.
The United State’s Empire began to rise as a world power with the American Revolution. From there the country developed special factors unique to every country and their own empires on the earth. These included national laws, different political parties, and a standardization of monetary units within that country.
What started out as a mere grouping of thirteen British colonies on the east coast of what is today’s United States spread westward. Eventually the empire’s lands reached all the way from its beginnings on the Atlantic Ocean’s shores across to the Pacific Ocean and then even overseas in Cuba. The drive for this territory was cultivated by the idea of Manifest Destiny.
“Rallying to the rhetoric of Manifest Destiny, which maintained that it was God’s will for the United States to ‘overspread’ the North American continent, the most aggressive expansionists sought control of British lands in the northwest (in the Oregon country), and the lands south and west of the Louisiana Territory (in the northern provinces of Mexico). * However greatly this affected the rising sense of nationality within the conquering Americans, the expansive territorial control and violence that accompanied it had a massively negative effect of the native peoples. Indians and their sources were being completely wiped out, or forced from their homelands with the expanding railways connecting the empire throughout. The Second Industrial Revolution took place during this time as well, aiding in the ability for the U.S. to expand and conquer territories. Although trains were still being run by steam, mechanical power was rapidly being replaced with the harnessing of electricity. Manufacturing in factories was on the rise in the united states- mass production of goods helped make goods cheaper and more affordable for the public. This was good because the wages of laborers in these factories were being decreased. Often, the increase in the use of mechanics within manufacturing plants not only decreased people’s wages, but replaced them entirely resulting in mass unemployment issues.
Germany and Italy rose as empires parallel to the U.S. The empire achieved this at first by incorporating smaller neighbors who shared their similar languages.
“Clever strategists, Bismark and Cavour used nationalist feelings and small-scale, limited wars to enlarge their states. Both were determined to build state power and to preserve monarchical and conservative rule. To these ends, they appealed to shared literary traditions and languages to paper over social, economic, political, and religious fault lines.” *
In addition to appealing to their neighbor’s shared cultures and lifestyles, Germany in particularly used their newfound brute force brought to them through the Second Industrial Revolution by means of mass production, metal, and cheap labor.
“In a famous address in 1862, Bismarck bellowed: ‘Not through speeches and majority decisions are the great questions of the day decided- that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849 - but through blood and iron.’ Taking his own advice, he accomplished the unification of the northern German states...with Denmark... Austria...and France.” *
Even in the expansion and unification of these smaller parts of Europe under one Empire, Germany still had to deal with many internal conflicts and complications. Germany, as many other European nations at this time, simply went out in search of new land to conquer and start afresh in rather than work on fixing domestic problems. This was when Germany began its expansion into other areas of the world, such as Africa. Just as the expansion west in the U.S. hurt the native people of North America through their Manifest Destiny, the native in Africa were injured radically by the European conquering of their homelands by declaration of Social Darwinism.
“The consequences of European partition of the continent for Africa were devastating, as the newly drawn borders failed to correspond to older demarcations of ethnicity, language, culture, and commerce.” *
The ideals of Manifest Destiny and Social Darwinism were often propagandized by conquering Empires to justify their actions to their public majorities. This is where the term “the pen in mightier than the sword” came into play so harshly. In this case, the sword was taking over the countries and territories these huge empires were expanding into, but the pen was the weapon convincing the public of the sword’s justification.
The increase in industrialization, although good for companies on an economic perspective, were not ideal for workers. People’s pay being cut began to just upset and restless. Women and children had to begin to work to support family units, just as had happened before in England during the first Industrial Revolution. Women began becoming much more than a family stay-at-home motherly icon figure in the family unit. They were working as the men did now.
“Industrialization also enforced unwelcome changes in how and where people worked and lived. Rural people flocked into the cities, sometimes in response to expanding economic opportunities, but often in a desperate effort to escape widespread poverty. Urbanization tore at communal solidarities...Global economic changes caused profound social and economic transformations in the lives of women.” *
The lack of attention to the internal problems arising on the domestic fronts of these Empires was combined with the increasingly dissatisfied conquered lands overseas. Situations turned sour and anxieties and tempers rose. Not only that, but the countries in Europe were all competing for the same territories worldwide.
“Political and military tension increased among the European states as they competed for raw materials and colonial footholds.” *
All of this was eventually came to a head in the form of “Total War” or WWI.
“The decades leading up to 1914 were a time of unprecedented possibility for some, and social disruption and economic frustration for others...In the decades before WWI, opposition to European colonial rule in Asia and Africa gained strength.” *
WWI brought about changes by means of mass culture, the enhancement of mass production as well as mass consumption.
The war was spawn from the increasingly tense politicized cultures world wide associated with a new mass cultural world. Technologies such as radio and film worked towards propagandizing patriotic feelings in the home front concerning the war. Commercial Advertising was increased dramatically during this period, eventually becoming incorporated into everyday life everywhere. Art and Entertainment were focused at a lower level now, more towards the common man than exclusively towards the elite. All of these aspects helped in the solidification and unification of nationalistic and patriotic feelings on the home fronts.
Mass Production and Consumption were direct results of ideas and technologies trickling down from the Enlightenment period and through the Industrial Revolutions. Although not a plan of the pacifistic ideas of Enlightenment, many technologies were put into use to produce mass weapons and war materials. The industrialized world only helped to provide a fast and efficient way to produce these war materials at a rapid enough speed to meet with its rapid use on the war fronts. Standardization of manufacturing goods increased the production rates dramatically as well. The increase of mass production and consumption carried on into the years after the war- creating both job markets and more affordable goods. (Such as in the case of Ford’s Model T.)
The world virtually expanded and conquered each other in an almost seemingly manic manner between the period of the first Industrial Revolution to the years right before and after WWI. As global Empires sprang forth, so did the colonized and conquered territories. Anxieties and tensions rose along with these Empires. The whole concoction made for a world boiling with nationalism, political and economic struggles which are still affecting us in the world of today, almost one hundred years later.

* Tignor, Robert, Jeremy Adelman, Stephen Aron, Stephen Kotkin, Suzanne Marchand, Gyan Prakash, and Michael Tsin. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart : a History of the Modern World From the Mongol Empire to the Present.