75TJ123-8-2009 LK VWD0011 Tradition Humanistic 6th Edition W:220mm x H:292mm 175L 115 Stora Enso M/A Magenta (V)EXPLORING ISSUES Islam and the West
CHAPTER 30 Industry, Empire, and the Realist Style 7575To the European mind, the benefits of Western science,
technology, and religion far outweighed the negative
impact of colonialism. But the “gift” of progress was
received in China with extreme caution and increasing
isolationism. No dramatically new developments took
place in the arts of China (nor, for that matter, in India)
during the nineteenth century; in general, there was a
marked decline in both productivity and originality. The
full consequences of Western colonialism in Asia and
elsewhere, however, would not become clear until the
twentieth century.
Social and Economic Realities
In global terms, advancing industrialization polarized the
nations of the world into the technologically advanced—
the “haves”—and the technologically backward—the
“have-nots.” But industrialization had an equally profound
impact within the industrialized nations themselves: it
changed the nature and character of human work, altered
relationships between human beings, and affected the nat-
ural environment.
Prior to 1800, the practice of accumulating capital for
industrial production and commercial profit played only a
limited role in European societies. But after this date, indus-
trial production, enhanced by advances in machine tech-
nology, came to be controlled by a relatively small group of
middle-classentrepreneurs(those who organize, manage,
and assume the risks of a business) and by an even smaller
number ofcapitalists(those who provide money to finance
business).
Industrialization created wealth, but that wealth was con-
centrated in the hands of a small minority of the population.
The vast majority of men and women lived hard lives sup-
ported by meager wages—the only thing they had to sell was
their labor. Factory laborers, including women and children,
worked under dirty and dangerous conditions for long
hours—sometimes up to sixteen hours per day (Figure
30.3). In the 1830s almost half of London’s funerals were for
children under ten years old. Mass production brought more
(and cheaper) goods to more people more rapidly, ultimate-
ly raising the standard of living for industrialized nations.
But European industrialization and the unequal distribution
of wealth contributed to a widening gap between capitalist
entrepreneurs—the “haves” of society—and the working
classes—the “have-nots.” In 1846, the British statesman
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) described Britain under the
rule of Queen Victoria (1819–1901) as two nations: the
nation of the poor and the nation of the rich.
Beginning in 1848, the lower classes protested against
these conditions with sporadic revolts. Economic unrest
prevailed not only in the cities but in rural areas as well.
The French population was two-thirds rural, largely poor,
and often reduced to backbreaking labor (see Figure 30.11).
Wealthy landowners in some parts of Europe treated their
agricultural laborers as slaves. In America, until after the
Civil War (1861–1865), most of those who worked the
great Southern plantations were, in fact, African-American
slaves. Between 1855 and 1861, there were almost 500
peasant uprisings across Europe (Figure 30.4). Reform,
however, was slow in coming. Outside of England—in
Germany, for instance—trade unions and social legislation
to benefit the working classes did not appear until 1880 or
later, while in Russia economic reform would require noth-
ing less than a full-scale revolution (see chapter 34).The process of colonization had dramatic effects on the Islamic
world. Muslims in the Middle East, India, Arabia, Malaya, and much
of Africa regarded the European efforts at colonization as an assault
on their cultures and their religious faith. Europeans, who tended
to see premodern agrarian societies as backward, looked upon
“Orientals” (a term that lumped together all Eastern people) as
inherently inferior. Unlike Japan or China, which had never been
colonized, and were therefore able to retain many of their economic
and political traditions, Islamic states were often debilitated and
humiliated by dependency on the West.
European colonization of the Islamic world began in the late
eighteenth-century. Napoleon had invaded the Near East in 1798,
bringing with him a corpus of European literature and a printing
press with Arabic type. Despite the failure of Napoleon’s campaign
in Egypt, the country made ambitious efforts to modernize. The
failure of these efforts, however, which left Egypt bankrupt, led
ultimately to British occupation.
A second instance of the Western presence in Islamic lands
occurred in Persia (renamed Iran in 1935). Strategically located
in the Middle East, Persia was forced into wars with Britain and
Russia, whose rival interests in Middle Eastern territory threatened
the autonomy of the Qajar dynasty (1794–1925). In the late
nineteenth century the Persian reformer Aqa Khan Kirmani
(1853–1896) urged Muslims to adopt a program of Western-style
modernization, to replace the shariawith a modern secular code of
law and to institute parliamentary representation. Iran’s first modern
college system would emerge in 1848. Others throughout the
Islamic world, however, opposed the intrusion of the West and
Western ways of life as a threat to Muslim traditions and religious
ideals (see chapter 36). One of the most significant differences
involved the political gulf between time-honored Islamic theocracy
and Western representative democracy. Such issues have continued
to trouble the world well into our own time.