Globalisation in the 19th century multipolar world
Myths and realities of hegemons, empires, nations and world orders
There are many myths of hegemons, empires, nations and world orders in the 19th century. What was globalisation and the multipolar world really like in the 19th century?
In this series of essays, I outline a very brief history of the multipolar world. The principal hypotheses are:
the world has always been multipolar, with many sources of power, culture and initiative, but the nature of multipolarity has differed over time
there have been many phases of globalisation - defined as long-distance exchange of people, resources, ideas and biota - over the course of human history
different periods of multipolarity and globalisation have distinct characteristics, but are never uniform, rarely stable, and often chaotic in their effects
Still for most of the period from 1820 to 2010 the West has surfed the tides of globalisation, so much so it imagined it could control these deep under-currents, and indeed, infamously in the words of Fukuyama, had brought history to an end.
We are now living through a change in the tidal currents of globalisation, which is generating a storm in world affairs, not dissimilar to the era between 1900 and 1945, and this storm precedes a new set of non-Western international norms.
The West is now like King Canute, seated on its golden billion throne, demanding the new tides of globalisation stop, but slowly drowning in its obduracy.
This is the fifth article in a series that presents a new interpretation of the current world crisis, which so many describe as the emergence of the multipolar world. Xi Jinping says the world is changing in ways not seen for 100 years. Many interpret that comment as referring to the birth of that multipolar world. I argue instead that the changes are a new phase of the process of globalisation that has occurred many times before in the very long history of the multipolar world. The tides of globalisation have changed again.
The previous articles were:
The Era of Non-Western Blobalisation has Begun: empire, globalisation and history in the world crisis (20 November 2023)
The world was always multipolar (3 Feb 2024)
New Tides of Globalisation: A very short history of the ‘multipolar’ world (part 1)’ (10 January 2024)
Since 1990 ideas of world order and globalisation have dominated elite government and business debates in the world. Those ideas were placed in a simplified history of globalisation, which was a rewrite of the Rise of the West. For 30 years, the tides of globalisation were powered by the Washington consensus. But in the last decade, those tides have turned. New currents and surges suddenly revealed an ancient multipolar world. (“New Tides”)
The Changing Tides of Globalization A brief history of the multipolar world to 1800 globalisation before 1800 (31 January 2024)
The processes of globalization have changed, and are confusing many people about how events in the world are unfolding. If you examine a brief history of the multipolar world to 1800, you will see these patterns of change more clearly. But first you might need to unlearn the TED-talk version of world history…. It is worth stretching the narrative of world order back before 1800 so we can tell a better story of globalisation in the always multipolar world. (“Changing Tides”)
This article looks at the nineteenth century; how its distinctive globalisation transformed the world; and how, despite the realities of European and North American imperial expansion and the illusion of a Pax Brittanica, those transformations did not erase the multipolar world.
In the TED talk version of world history, the nineteenth century is the era of British hegemony. It is the century when the West took off as result of the industrial revolution and the birth of democracy. It is the era of the rise of the more virtuous America, prodigal child of the British Empire. It is the time of imperfect preparation for the American century and its manifest destiny, prior to the catastrophe of World War One, the collapse of empires, and the liberation of progressive nations.
But in quality, up-to-date world history, the nineteenth century looks very different, and does not justify Western exceptionalism or American exceptionalism. The century begins with what some scholars have described as the “Great Divergence”, in which the gaps in economic performance and social power of the West and the Rest increased dramatically. It is the century of the Concert of Europe, in which a form of a multipolar world order provided for a century of peace, after the global Napoleonic wars, and inspired the practice of Western diplomacy by, among others, that dark soul and servant of the 20th century American world system, Henry Kissinger.
Full subscribers may read on for some reflections on how quality world history has rethought the nineteenth century. I also offer my book recommendations for you to explore a deeper understanding of how our world is changing.
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