The World and the West

Part I. Conquest: 1. The Pattern of Empire; 2. Technology and power; 3. The politics of Imperialism; Part II. Culture Change under Imperial Rule: 4. Culture change in plural societies: South Africa and Central Asia; 5. Culture change in Mexico; 6. Administrative choices and their consequences: examples from Bengal, Central Asia, Java, and Malaya; Part III. Conversion: 7. Christian missions in East Africa; 8. Varieties of defensive modernization; 9. Meiji Japan: revolutionary modernization; 10. Ottoman reactions to the West; Part IV. The Drive for Independence and the Liquidation of Empires: 11. Non-European resistance and the European withdrawal; 12. Personal and utopian responses: millenarianism; 13. The search for viable independence: Indonesia; 14. Paths to viable independence: Ghana.

'Informed, wide-ranging, illumined with case studies rather than blinding generalities, wise rather than ideological, relentlessly fascinating - world and comparative history come to maturity.' Alfred W. Crosby, author of Ecological Imperialism 'Philip Curtin is one of the ablest, most prolific storytellers of our time.' Mark D. W. Edington, The Boston Book Review 'Following the tradition of those who examine challenge and response in history, he identifies cultures which reacted uniquely to European encroachment, therefore providing the reader with delightful as well as informative vignettes of these distinctive responses.' Millennium '... wide ranging and generally exciting history of imperialism and its opponents ... provides a well-written overview of the engagement of the west with the non-west over the past century. it will serve well as a textbook ... for a course in the general history of the non-western world or a modern world history course. its clarity and elegance, and the insights that his case studies provide, will make it an excellent teaching text.' Journal of African History 'There is much of interest in this wide-ranging and erudite study ...'. The Guardian