Philip Curtin's The World and the West

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Philip Curtin’s The World and the West

Curtin organizes his book into four parts: the technological root of European imperialism and the patterns of European expansion; cultural change among peoples over whom Europeans had direct rule; cultural change among peoples under informal European control; and cultural change in the last twenty-five years, the time of the “liquidation” of European overseas empires (xiv).  His focus is on cultural change since the middle of the 18th century, or more specifically how the European rise to dominance (including the United States) during the last two century has had an impact on the majority of the non-European world.  Curtin explains the process of cultural change through numerous case studies from different societies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia (including South and Southeast Asia, and the Middle East).  He contends that “theory and broad generalizations often conceal so many exceptions that they are in danger of becoming only vague reflections of reality.”  Moreover he suggests that case studies, “can only be partial reflection of the broader processes of history, but they make it possible to stay closer to the empirical data on which all good history must be based” (xi).  By comparing specific factors contributing to the process of change in different areas, he illustrates emerging patterns and diverse variables that have produced either similar or differing results.  

Other than the case studies themselves, Curtin constantly contrasts or relates different countries to any given process or development being discussed.  For example in the first part he discusses the “legal sovereignty” practiced by colonial powers such as the French, British, and Portugal, all of which lacked the efficacy of actually administering power in the lands they claimed.  Furthermore,  the first part essentially is a background to the technological development, both militarily and administratively, of European countries in pursuing imperialistic interests.  He also introduces terms that pave the way for the rest of his arguments, such as “true colonialism,” “territorial empire,” and “plural societies” (1)  His first case study emerges when he compares British policy in Burma and Malaya, and the concept of unintentional empire building (43-48).  He goes on to discuss the frequent disagreement between those authorities in the “motherland” and those who are “on-the-spot” (50).  

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In his second part of The World and the West Curtin expands the geographic reach of compared societies when he tackles policy making, successes, and setbacks of Europeans in South Africa and the Soviets in Central Asia (both considered plural societies).  He explains how “[i]n South Africa the policy of divide and rule failed, just as it partly succeeded in Central Asia” (71).  In the following chapter of the second part he dismisses similarities in the histories of the Americas and suggests that the United States and Canada resemble more closely the history of Australia and New Zealand (73).  He contrasts ...

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