The Long Nineteenth Century From a Global Perspective

September 23rd, 2008

C.A. Bayly's The Birth of the Modern World 1780-1914 is an excellent global history of the long nineteenth century. It is not, however, an introductory work. If you are interested in the global history of the nineteenth century this is a book you should eventually read but not the first book you should read. I do not agree with every argument Bayly makes, but if you have already read several books on the global history of the nineteenth century and want something that will push against common interpretations and challenge you to develop a better analysis of the time period this is the book for you.

Bayly labels this time period the birth of the “modern” world, which brings up the problematic issue of how to define “modern.” Bayly has a solution: the world became modern because most people thought they were modern, attempting to become modern, or were resisting modernity. Modernity takes on the status of a myth; the “modern world” is just the world in which everyone believes in modernity. This myth is clearly important because billions of people have believed it and acted on it. This approach implies that should any other myth attain or have attained a similar popularity that period could be named after the myth. The only potential problem is that labeling a time period “the modern world” could be taken to imply that myth is an accurate description of the world, but I think he avoids this problem in the text of the work.

Bayly makes a persuasive argument that, connected to the spread of the modernity myth, is a related growth of uniformity. Bayly's photographs of the clothing of ruling class males show the trend towards uniformity in dress. This is not a uniformity without exceptions – women and the lower classes weren't as uniform and even ruling class males could include their own unique touches. Bayly claims this uniformity also applies to a wide variety of other areas as well: religion, economics, politics, and others. He also argues that within this uniformity there was a growing complexity.

Bayly's use of the term “globalization” is problematic. He never gives an explicit definition of the term, but he appears to be using it to mean greater interconnection between different parts of the world. If that is what he means by globalization then the phenomenon is not happening today. For example, borders are more heavily guarded and movement of people across them faces greater restrictions than it did a century ago. Much of what is often called “globalization” today is a euphemism for neoliberalism, American imperialism, and the powerful exploiting the less powerful. Using the term in the long nineteenth century is problematic because it projects a contemporary term back into a period where the concept didn't exist and because connections between different peoples have existed since the stone age.