Great Leaps Forward: Modernizers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, 1st edition

Published by Pearson (September 22, 2009) © 2010

  • Cyrus Veeser
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Part of the Connections: Key Themes in World History series, this book presents students and general readers with a brief, accessible, but scholarly overview of the nationalist modernization that sought to transform less-developed societies in response to the rapid rise of the West after 1820. 

Great Leaps Forward is part of the Connections: Key Themes in World History series.

Connections: Key Themes in World History  focuses on specific issues of world historical significance from antiquity to the present. It does so by employing a combination of explanatory narrative, primary sources, questions relating to those sources, a summary analysis (“Making Connections”), and further points to ponder, all of which combine to enable readers to discover some of the most important driving forces in world history.

This series is created to bridge the gap between professional publications and general surveys, especially surveys of world history. The increasingly rapid  pace and specialization of historical inquiry has created an ever-widening gap between professional publications and general surveys, especially surveys of world history. The purpose of Connections is to bridge that gap by placing the latest research and debates on selected topics of global historical significance, as well as some of the evidence upon which historians base their insights, into a form and context that is comprehensible to students and general readers alike.

Two pedagogical principles infuse this series. First, students master world history most easily if allowed to focus on specific themes and issues. Such themes,  by their very specificity, as well as because of their general application,  enable students to perceive and understand the overall patterns and meaning of our shared global past more clearly than is possible through reading, by itself,  a massive world history textbook. Second, students learn best when asked to think critically about what they are studying. So far as the study of history is concerned, critical thinking necessarily involves analysis of primary sources. 

This series is made up of brief, tightly focused  books that embrace a radical simplicity and a  provocative format. Each book  goes to the heart of a key theme, phenomenon, or issue in world history—something that has connected humans across cultures, continents, and time spans. By actively engaging with this material, the reader comes to understand in a nuanced and meaningful manner how often distantly located human cultures have been connected to one another as key actors in the epic story of world history.

INTRODUCTION

Definitions

The West Invents Modernity

Was there an Industrial Revolution?

The Industrial Revolution and Western Power

Shock and Awe in the Periphery

The Premodern World

From Premodern to Modern

Coming to Grips with the West

Catching the West:  Precocious Egypt

Catching the West: Meiji Japan

The Periphery Fights Back

Modernization in the Colonies

The Structure of this Book

 

1. Porfirio Díaz:  Importing Modernity

Spain’s Jewel in the Crown

Rich Colony

Struggling Republic

Years of Chaos

La Reforma and the French Invasion

The Rise of Porfirio Díaz

Díaz in Power

Modernizing Mexico

The Díaz System

Premodern Mexico

Railroads: Touchstones of Modernity

The American Connection

Exports versus Indians

Indians and Immigrants

Industrializing Mexico

The New Economy Breeds Unrest

Educating the Masses

Toward the Revolution

 

Sources

Porfirio Díaz, Memorias

Mexico through American Eyes

A Cientifico Analyzes the Porfiriato

Díaz Campaign Image

 

2. Menelik II:  Africa’s Modernizing Lion

An Ancient People

An Ambitious King

Appropriating European Power

Italy’s Empire in Africa

Fortifying Shoa

Menelik Becomes Emperor

Imperial Rivalries

The Battle of Adowa

Suddenly “Civilized”

Repercussions of Adowa

Forging a Centralized State

Economic Change

Menelik’s Concessions

Conclusion

 

Sources

Menelik Writes to the King of Italy

Ethiopia from a British Diplomat’s Perspective

Ethiopia’s Economy through American Eyes

Ethiopian Railroad Stock Certificate

 

3. Sun Yatsen: Revolutionary Outsider

The World’s Greatest Premodern State

Barbarians at the Gate

Self-Strengthening to Save the Empire

Sun Yatsen and the Overseas Chinese

From Medicine to Politics

From Reformer to Revolutionary

Revolution from Afar

The Boxers

Blueprint for a New China

A Decade of Change

Creating the Republic

Developing China

A Second Revolution

Unlikely Anti-Imperialist

Redefining the Three Principles

Conclusion

 

Sources

Sun Yatsen Pleads for Reform, 1894

Sun Yatsen Issues the Republican Manifesto, 1912

Sun Yatsen Explains the Principle of Livelihood,1912

A Picture of Rural Life In China

 

4. Mustafa Kemal: Muslim Modernity

Europe’s “Other”
Early Efforts at Reform
Reforming a Multicultural Empire
The Rise of Mustafa Kemal
The Young Turks
Mustafa Kemal, War Hero
From Empire to Republic
A Revolutionary Republic
The First Wave
The New Woman
Modernizing the Mind
Reforming the Language
“Turkification” or Westernization?
Failed Opposition
Modernizing the Economy
Legacy of Reform

Sources
Mustafa Kemal’s Great Speech

The Idea of the Republic

Abolishing the Sultanate

Suppressing the Republic’s Enemies

Early Reforms

 

EPILOGUE: MAKING CONNECTIONS

 THE ROADS TO MODERNITY

Centralization

Infrastructure and Industry

Secularization

National Identity

Democracy

Social Engineering

Modernization and the Cold War

Modernization or Westernization?

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Cyrus Veeser earned his Ph.D. in history at Columbia University, where his dissertation won the Bancroft prize.  He has been a Fulbright and NEH fellow as well as a fellow at Harvard University’s Charles Warren Center.  He is currently associate professor of history at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts.   

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