John Darwin is an Oxford historian specializing in the history of the British Empire, he surprised in 2008 with a Magnum Opus on world history after 1405: “After Tamerlane”.
The book is one of the best presentations of the great empires and of the various waves of Western expansion, of the material and ideological conditions that supported colonization, in particular Western ethnocentrism.
After Tamerlane: expansions of the 15th and 16th century
Tamerlane (Timur), originally from Samarkand in Uzbekistan, invaded the north and east of the country, then Afghanistan, Iran, the territories of the golden horde around the Caspian Sea, then ransacked Baghdad, attacked the Ottomans then the Mamluks in Aleppo and Damascus.
With his death goes the threat of the nomads of the steppes of Central Asia on Europe, while his descendants, the Timurids are driven out of Iran but settled in India where they found the Mughal Empire.
For Darwin, the imperial situation in the 16th century can be summarized as follows:
Spain has taken a new world, but economically, only brings back to the treasury (gold and then money) to finance European conflicts against the backdrop of fight for Catholicism.
Russia extends as the Khanate of the Horde d'Or collapses. Economically, there is only the furs trade, the exploitation of resources will come much later.
The Ottomans extended to West-Africa, and controlled Egypt, the holy cities of Medina and Mecca.
China and Japan isolated themselves commercially and developed in autarky.
In Iran, the Safavids removed the Timurid, the latter found the Mughal Empire
From 1550 to 1630, Holland independance war with Spain lasted 80 years. It organized itself as a merchant republic
We are not only witnessing an imperial deployment by European powers and Ottoman, Mughals or Safavids. Autarky is a solution that works for China and Japan, as they have not yet reached their Malthusian peak.
From the 17th century to 1750: reconfiguration in favor of England and Russia
From 1630 to 1720, it was the Golden Age of the VOC (Dutch East India Company), from 1720, its growth no longer increased its profit.
From 1670 to 1750, the Mughal Empire declined and 3 competitors appeared: the Maratha Empire in the west of India, the Durrani Empire from Afghanistan, Western merchant counters to the east.
The Safavid Empire in Iran is in decline from 1630 to 1722. Russia takes the opportunity to annex new territories.
The Qing Empire does not only conquer China, but also all nomadic nations around.
In 1755, the American colonies wanted to extend the Appalachians to the west. George Washington is captured by the French while there is an expedition there. France is at war on the Atlantic with England. France and Austria are allied in this conflict for the first time. The unthinkable loss of the Quebec Fortress in 1759 led to the Treaty of Paris in 63, at the end of the 7-year war, from which Prussia and England won against France and Austria. The French counters in India are taken by the English.
Poland, traditionally an ally of France opposed to Russia, lost its power. Stanislas II becomes king of Poland. He is one of the lovers of Empress Catherine II.
Europe is still more religious than scientific.
Many wars were fought by the Dutch, French, and Spanish. Their powers waned while England and Russia extended their influence.
From 1750 to 1830: Informational bases of the industrial revolution
Catherine II of Russia benefits from the decline of France. The Republic of Poland and Lithuania were finally dismantled by Russia and Prussia from 1770 to 1790.
Grigori Potemkin, another lover of Catherine II, conquered Crimea and Novorussia.
From 1763 to 1783, the English seek to tax trade and limit the expansion of their American colony to better control it. This leads to the Declaration of Independence. The United States will no longer be contained by the Appalachian mountains.
The West develops an infinite appetite for information. The voyage of Captain Cook in 1759 on the occasion of the Venus Transit.
Napoleon campaign in Egypt in 1798 to limit access to India by the British. He landed with 40,000 soldiers and obtained victory against the Mamluks at the Battle of the Pyramids. Nelson destroys the French fleet in Aboukir and the local economy cannot bear such an occupation army. A second victory by Nelson in Trafalgar in 1805 seals the british naval supremacy.
Intellectually, China and the Muslim world were societies where scribes rule and are dogmatic. The Christian world evolved under the influence of the Reformation, which started the delegitimization of dogma. Pierre Bayle's skepticism leads to the philosophy of enlightenment. If faith was strong in 1750, this changed within 20 years as 90 books were published every year by pious authors in France to defend the faith in 1770.
The French abandoned the island of St Domingue (Haiti) following a slave rebellion. Louisiana taken from Spain was sold by Napoleon to the United States.
Spain was conquered by Napoleon in 1805, which led Latin America to independence and free trade.
On the Ottoman, the French Baron de Tott writes his “Comments on the Turks and Tatares”.
Adam Smith writes on the influence of free trade on peace. This argument is taken up by Kant.
The British India Company abandoned its commercial monopoly in 1813.
England has such victories in India that it must progress technologically to produce enough not to ruin itself by purchasing Indian products, and to be able to project its military power.
The traditional English society reacts against the upstart making a fortune in the slave trade, and England embarks on a fight against slavery.
It is, according to many historians, including Kenneth Pomeranz, of the era of The Great Divergence.
From 1830 to 1880: the race for colonization
Non-European states are kept away by trade which becomes European and by the accumulation of technological and scientific knowledge in Europe. They must modernize urgently to avoid being colonized by Europeans.
The Napoleonic defeat of 1815 ended with the milking of Vienna and the concert of Europe, where the empires agreed to maintain the balance of superpowers.
Benjamin Constant in 1812 was opposed to people revolutions and the parvenu tyrants of the last 20 years, and described the liberal bourgeois European consensus: trade and free trade avoid war. Freedom of thought and expression allows "progress" in every direction.
This first liberal consensus has enemies like Thomas Carlyle and Karl Marx, who condemn the exploitation of the proletariat, or the Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt who condemns increased technology and advocates tradition. But a liberal consensus dominated the west-european and created a network of information, knowledge, ideas, and people that excluded non-Westerners.
Russia is the main European player outside the consensus. After the failure of the Decembrist revolt in 1825, the Tsar imposed a conservative policy, and Russian literature was coded to escape censorship. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Pushkin define the Russian soul.
The Russian defeat during the Crimean War in 1855 pushed the next Tsar Alexandre II to launch reforms. In particular, the abolition of serfdom in 1861.
Vasili Kliuchevski is working on the historiography of the Russian nation.
The United States had a dazzling growth at that time, its universal suffrage made it a populist, racist, violent, and unstable country. Until 1860, the agrarian society opposed the centralization of power, after that, its proclaimed liberalism and its “civilizing mission” would be the Trojan horse of imperialism.
New York became the capital of import-export, with cotton from 1830 to 1860, and as a center for commercial and financial networks.
The telegraph, the colt, and the machine gun were developed in the USA and then used by the other powers to colonize.
The population of European origin increased from 170 million in 1800 to 400 million. The economist Robert Giffen provides for the "white replacement", that is of all non-white populations by whites. Immigration to the New World comes from countries at their Malthusian limit: such as Ireland and Scotland. France and Spain see little emigration.
After 50 years of relative consolidation and peace, Europe is ready to conquer Africa and the Middle East.
The industrial revolution would therefore be above all a productive jump made necessary by the opening of the Indian market.
Conclusions
The evolution of non-Western empires shows how much the prejudices of the 19th century concerning the stagnation of oriental despotisms are unfounded.
John Darwin's work shows some of the critical junctures of the preceding two centuries that led to Western supremacy in the 19th century. The losers are the great powers that have made incessant wars: France, Austria, and Spain. The winners are England and Russia, the United States, that is to say, those who have not fought in the previous round.
Another lesson is that the nationalist struggle contributed to the independence of Japan and China. The Ottoman modernization effort faced secessionist pressure from non-Muslim ethnic groups, which led to its fragmentation.