The essays collected in this volume, first published in 1998, address the profound changes and disruptions wrought in peasant societies as a result of European colonial domination and the spread of the capitalist world economy from its European base. Detailed case study evidence is included in the essays, and all are aimed at delineating broader patterns and addressing general questions and debates regarding peasant responses to the varied impact of colonialism and capitalism.

The essays collected in this volume, first published in 1998, address the profound changes and disruptions wrought in peasant societies as a result of European colonial domination and the spread of the capitalist world economy from its European base. Detailed case study evidence is included in the essays, and all are aimed at delineating broader patterns and addressing general questions and debates regarding peasant responses to the varied impact of colonialism and capitalism.

Technological innovation was crucial to the process of European expansion: advances in astronomy and navigation and changes in weaponry all contributed to the emergence of European commercial enclaves in Africa and Asia, and the conquest of the Americas. This volume illustrates the ways in which these European technological advantages shaped the expansion of the global system, whilst making clear that Western technology both adapted models from other cultures and was at times seriously challenged by them. In the arts of war, the West had much less of a technological edge over its Asian adversaries than is usually believed. Substantially dealing with the issue of technology transfer between the world and Europe, these studies underline the interactive nature of the process.

Distinguished writers provide new approaches to cross-cultural history

Over the past five centuries, advances in Western understanding of and control over the material world have strongly influenced European responses to non-Western peoples and cultures. In Machines as the Measure of Men, Michael Adas explores the ways in which European perceptions of their scientific and technological superiority shaped their interactions with people overseas. Adopting a broad, comparative perspective, he analyzes European responses to the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa, India, and China, cultures that they judged to represent lower levels of material mastery and social organization. Beginning with the early decades of overseas expansion in the sixteenth century, Adas traces the impact of scientific and technological advances on European attitudes toward Asians and Africans and on their policies for dealing with colonized societies. He concentrates on British and French thinking in the nineteenth century, when, he maintains, scientific and technological measures of human worth played a critical role in shaping arguments for the notion of racial supremacy and the "civilizing mission" ideology which were used to justify Europe's domination of the globe. Finally, he examines the reasons why many Europeans grew dissatisfied with and even rejected this gauge of human worth after World War I, and explains why it has remained important to Americans. Showing how the scientific and industrial revolutions contributed to the development of European imperialist ideologies, Machines as the Measure of Men highlights the cultural factors that have nurtured disdain for non-Western accomplishments and value systems. It also indicates how these attitudes, in shaping policies that restricted the diffusion of scientific knowledge, have perpetuated themselves, and contributed significantly to chronic underdevelopment throughout the developing world. Adas's far-reaching and provocative book will be compelling reading for all who are concerned about the history of Western imperialism and its legacies. First published to wide acclaim in 1989, Machines as the Measure of Men is now available in a new edition that features a preface by the author that discusses how subsequent developments in gender and race studies, as well as global technology and politics, enter into conversation with his original arguments.

Adas explores the relationship between millenarianism and violent protest by focusing on five case studies representing a wide range of social, political, and economic systems. The rebellions examined are: Netherlands East Indies (1825-30), New Zealand (c. 1864-67), Central India (1895-1900), German East Africa (1903-6), and Burma (1930-32). Arranged topically to emphasize comparative patterns, the study analyzes causes, leaders, organization, failure, and the impact on the individual society.
Originally published in 1979.
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Over the past five centuries, advances in Western understanding of and control over the material world have strongly influenced European responses to non-Western peoples and cultures. In Machines as the Measure of Men, Michael Adas explores the ways in which European perceptions of their scientific and technological superiority shaped their interactions with people overseas. Adopting a broad, comparative perspective, he analyzes European responses to the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa, India, and China, cultures that they judged to represent lower levels of material mastery and social organization.

Beginning with the early decades of overseas expansion in the sixteenth century, Adas traces the impact of scientific and technological advances on European attitudes toward Asians and Africans and on their policies for dealing with colonized societies. He concentrates on British and French thinking in the nineteenth century, when, he maintains, scientific and technological measures of human worth played a critical role in shaping arguments for the notion of racial supremacy and the "civilizing mission" ideology which were used to justify Europe's domination of the globe. Finally, he examines the reasons why many Europeans grew dissatisfied with and even rejected this gauge of human worth after World War I, and explains why it has remained important to Americans.

Showing how the scientific and industrial revolutions contributed to the development of European imperialist ideologies, Machines as the Measure of Men highlights the cultural factors that have nurtured disdain for non-Western accomplishments and value systems. It also indicates how these attitudes, in shaping policies that restricted the diffusion of scientific knowledge, have perpetuated themselves, and contributed significantly to chronic underdevelopment throughout the developing world. Adas's far-reaching and provocative book will be compelling reading for all who are concerned about the history of Western imperialism and its legacies.

First published to wide acclaim in 1989, Machines as the Measure of Men is now available in a new edition that features a preface by the author that discusses how subsequent developments in gender and race studies, as well as global technology and politics, enter into conversation with his original arguments.

Probing the paradoxes of

Long before the United States became a major force in global affairs, Americans believed in their superiority over others due to their inventiveness, productivity, and economic and social well-being. U.S. expansionists assumed a mandate to "civilize" non-Western peoples by demanding submission to American technological prowess and design. As an integral part of America's national identity and sense of itself in the world, this civilizing mission provided the rationale to displace the Indians from much of our continent, to build an island empire in the Pacific and Caribbean, and to promote unilateral--at times military--interventionism throughout Asia. In our age of "smart bombs" and mobile warfare, technological aptitude remains preeminent in validating America's global mission.

Michael Adas brilliantly pursues the history of this mission through America's foreign relations over nearly four centuries from North America to the Philippines, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf. The belief that it is our right and destiny to remake foreign societies in our image has endured from the early decades of colonization to our current crusade to implant American-style democracy in the Muslim Middle East.

"Dominance by Design" explores the critical ways in which technological superiority has undergirded the U.S.'s policies of unilateralism, preemption, and interventionism in foreign affairs and raised us from an impoverished frontier nation to a global power. Challenging the long-held assumptions and imperatives that sustain the civilizing mission, Adas gives us an essential guide to America's past and present role in the world as well as cautionary lessons for the future.

Discusses the development of the world's leading civilizations, emphasising the major stages of interaction between different peoples and societies. This edition of the text includes an expanded post-Cold War section as well as the issues of terrorism, the Gulf Wars and globalization.

The primary goal of "World Civilizations" is to present a truly global history— since the development of agriculture and herding to the present. Using a unique periodization, this book divides the main periods of human history according to changes in the nature and extent of global contacts.   The primary goal of "World Civilizations" is to present a truly global history– since the development of agriculture and herding to the present.  Overview of World History. Readers interested in the history and development of civilization worldwide.