The Origins of the Modern World: Fate and Fortune in the Rise of the West (World Social Change)

Marks, Robert B.

ISBN 10: 074255418X / ISBN 13: 9780742554184

Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publisher, 2006

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 074255418X-VB

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Origins of the Modern World: Fate and Fortune in the Rise of the West (World Social Change)
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publisher
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 074255418X
• ISBN 13: 9780742554184
• Binding: hardcover
• Condition: As New

About this title

Synopsis

How did the modern world get to be the way it is? How did we come to live in a globalized, industrialized, capitalistic set of nation-states? Moving beyond Eurocentric explanations and histories that revolve around the "rise of the West," distinguished historian Robert B. Marks explores the roles of Asia, Africa, and the New World in the global story. He defines the modern world as marked by industry, the nation state, interstate warfare, a large and growing gap between the wealthiest and poorest parts of the world, and an escape from environmental constraints. Bringing the saga to the present, Marks considers how and why the United States emerged as a world power in the 20th century and the sole superpower by the 21st century; the powerful resurgence of Asia; and the vastly changed relationship of humans to the environment.

About the Author

Robert B. Marks is Richard and Billie Deihl Professor of History at Whittier College. He is author of Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-first Century, Tigers, Rice, Silk, and Silt: Environment and Economy in Late Imperial South China, Rural Revolution in South China, and coauthor of The Making of the Modern World. He lives in Whittier, California.