The Europeanisation of the World: Its Rise and Decline

Massimo L. Salvadori The Europeanisation of the World: Its Rise and Decline 1 The Dominant Power of Europe and the Combination of the Factors that Caused It When we consider Rome in the period from the end of the Punic wars to the death of Constantine, when it was establishing the power which enabled it to conquer, subjugate and organise what in its eyes constituted the world, we see that the basis of that power – what gave it a position of overwhelming superiority with respect to the political, social and institutional bodies with which it came into conflict – was something unparalleled in the geopolitical scene formed by the territories of the empire. That unparalleled factor was a combination of various elements: a political and legal culture; a system of government based on a divi- sion into provinces; an administration which controlled both the social groups in the central nucleus and the many peoples hierarchically organised within the expanding empire; high productivity and technological expertise; armed forces with offensive and defensive capabilities that could guarantee complete suprem- acy; an efficient network of communications that facilitated trade and the deploy- ment of the armed forces to maintain internal order and protect and extend the borders. This combination of elements underlay the Romanisation of the ancient world in the West until its decline and eventual dissolution. After that, this “combination of power” which had characterised ancient Rome, in its full form, disappeared from Europe for more than a thousand years. It persisted, or reappeared, in partial forms, in some particular areas – the Byz- antine empire, the Islamic empire during the golden age, the Ottoman empire, Persia, and India under the Great Mogul. Although all these great political struc- tures had the capacity for control, organisation and expansion, however, they lacked the decisive strength which had made it possible for Rome to gain an unas- sailable monopoly on power. Not even the Chinese empire bore comparison, for it was beset by recurrent episodes of turbulence and internal divisions, interne- cine warfare, a struggle for predominance between ethnic groups, and conflicts between dynasties. That same combination of factors reappeared in Europe, however, from the eighteenth century to the second half of the nineteenth century, in a form which was in one respect very similar to the Roman model, but in another very different from it, indeed the exact opposite. The similarity lay in its many important 242 Massimo L. Salvadori elements of unity; the difference lay in the fragmentation of its states and its fre- quent internal wars. Like Rome, Europe had acquired a strong identity which distinguished it from the rest of the world. This was based on a number of elements: a common Christian heritage, despite discord between Catholics, Protestants and Ortho- dox believers; a political, juridical, literary and scientific culture which, though embracing many different traditions and forms, was the common heritage of all European elites; powerful state institutions; an expanding and dynamic economy stimulated by the industrialisation which began in the late eighteenth century; unparalleled progress in the fields of science and technology; and overwhelming military superiority with respect to the rest of the world. These elements enabled Europe gradually to gain the upper hand over the Ottoman and Asian empires, which had rivalled it in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This superiority in turn enabled Europe to launch a new and even more vigorous assault on the rest of the world (after the first important but only partial “assault” which had begun in the late fifteenth century with the conquest of the Americas), and a “centrality” which would remain until the First World War. It should be noted, however, that this centrality had shown earlier signs of decline in the second half of the nineteenth century, as a result of the rapid economic and political growth of the United States and the beginning of the political and military modernisation of Japan. The Europeans’ awareness of their dominant position is well described by Montesquieu in his De l’esprit des lois. Two statements in his book are particularly revealing: one concerns Europe’s position in the world, the other the position of certain countries within Europe. With respect to the first point, he writes that “Europe has arrived at so high a degree of power that nothing in history can be compared with it”; then he goes on to note, with reference to signs of greater dynamism within Europe, that just as “Europe carries on the trade and navigation of the other three parts of the world”, so France, England and Holland “do nearly that of Europe”. Montesquieu’s words are a vital key to the understanding of the general nature of Europe’s relationship with the rest of the world, and of the economic distinction between countries of the first rank and those of the second or third rank. Another factor which contributed to Europe’s superiority, according to Montesquieu, was the scientific revolution, which had begun in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and grown with increasing vigour since the seventeenth century. In one of the Lettres persanes he makes the Usbek note with surprise that there are philosophers in Europe who “follow silently the footprints of human reason” and it is incredible “how far this guide has led them. They have cleared up chaos, and have explained, by a simple mechanism, the order of divine archi- tecture”. The Europeanisation of the World: Its Rise and Decline 243 Voltaire, too, in his Essai sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations, emphasised that the combination of culture with scientific and technological progress had given Europe instruments of power such as had never existed in previous ages and did not exist in other parts of the world. But he constantly stresses, in such works as Le siècle de Louis XIV, the fact that “despite the wars and the diversity of religion”, a “literary republic” had been established, a “great society of minds” which linked intellectuals through a common intellectual and political language. This theme was common to both Voltaire and Rousseau, whatever their disagreements on other matters; while the former declared that Europe was united by the ‘same principles of public law and politics, unknown in other parts of the world” the latter observed that in Europe there was emerging a “society of peoples’ united within a “system” which operated “through the same religion, the same law of peoples, customs, letters and commerce, and a kind of equilibrium which is the necessary consequence of all this”. About a century later, another great intellectual, John Stuart Mill, in his On Liberty, reflected – in an age now showing the full effects of the process of industrialisation whose hub was more than ever in Europe – on “what has made the European family of nations an improving, instead of a stationary portion of mankind” and therefore on the “superior excellence in them, which when it exists, exists as the effect, not as the cause”. To explain this, he cited their lack of uniformity, their diversity of character and culture, their ability to follow “a great variety of paths”, and their experimentalism, noting that “their attempts to thwart each other’s development have rarely had any permanent success, and each has in time endured to receive the good which the others have offered. His conclusion was that “Europe is [...] wholly indebted to this plurality of paths for its progres- sive and many-sided development”. He went on, however, to note pointedly that it was doubtful how long Europe would continue to enjoy this “benefit”. 2 The Peak of European “Centrality” in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Voltaire and Rousseau, then, spoke of an increasing cultural and political unity in Europe despite internal divisions, political and religious disagreements and wars. Anyone who considers the history of the continent from the late fifteenth century to the nineteenth century, however, cannot fail to notice that, in contrast to the elements of unity, that history was marked by recurrent outbreaks of vio- lence prompted by the major European states, which, with their powerful military machines, attempted to gain control, individually or in alliance with others, 244 Massimo L. Salvadori either through direct subjugation or through indirect influence; attempts which ultimately failed after partial, temporary successes. Kant was right, therefore, to observe that the peace treaties made between European powers, creating pre- carious periods of “equilibrium”, were really only “truces” between one war and another. The most significant attempts to gain control during this period were those made by Philip II, in the second half of the sixteenth century; the Habsburgs of Austria and Spain, in the first half of the seventeenth century; Louis XIV, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; and Revolutionary and Napole- onic France, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These attempts were followed in the second half of the nineteenth century by that which led to Bismarckian Germany’s clashes first with Austria and then with the France of Napoleon III, from which Germany emerged as the greatest power in continental Europe. In all these conflicts Great Britain followed an independent line. Its role as the hub and main driving force of the Industrial Revolution had given it unrivalled commercial and industrial development for about a century. As such, its main priorities were defending itself against foreign invasions, exploiting its naval superiority, and shifting its support during conflicts from one European state to another, in order to ensure that no single power achieved lasting domi- nance in continental Europe. The history of Europe since the beginning of the modern era had been one of great wars between major powers, which showed the growing effectiveness of the various military machines.

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