知識就是力量

Why is the 19 century so exciting? What happened put Europe ahead of other civilizations and dominated the world? 
 

The nineteenth century was a turbulent time, and so was the world. However, if we had to choose a protagonist in the nineteenth century, it would have to be Europe. In the first half of the 19th century, the colonies of Europe and European countries were forced into the Napoleonic Wars, and the gun fired were bombing and clangorous under the seething, dust-filled sky. However, In the second half of the ninth century, Europe entered the Belle Époque (a beautiful epoch) of rapid development.[i] Europe made significant military, economic, and technological breakthroughs and played a leading role globally. The historian Norihiko Fukui once called the 19th century the Century of Europe. Goods, information, and people from Europe spread worldwide, and European ships sailed recklessly on the four oceans. This scene fully demonstrates the dominance of nineteenth-century Europe in the world.[1]

From a modern point of view, this does not seem unusual because the West has dominated the world for a long time. The cultural products of Western hegemony spread all over the world, and Europe has rapidly risen to become the power center that dominates the world order, whether social production or technological innovation, Western civilization plays a critical thrust. Before the nineteenth century, however, the image of the progress of Western civilization did not exist. The level of civilization in the East and the West was almost equal until then, and it was not until the nineteenth century that it flipped.[2] Why is this happening? What happened to put nineteenth-century Europe ahead of other civilizations and even emerge as the hegemonic civilization that dominates the world? For this question, the most common answers I have found can roughly sort into three categories: the rise of the industrial revolution, the rise of nationalism, and the reform of political thought and political system. Under the interaction of these three forces, Europe completed an iteration of human civilization and gained dominance of the world, which continues to exert influence today.

The first was the rise of the Industrial Revolution, which put Europeans far ahead of the world in technology. In the nineteenth century, the cumulative achievements of Western science finally reflect national strength. Science was no longer just theories and concepts but transformed into technologies that could implement in people's daily lives. For example, in the Industrial Revolution, the steam engine transformed Newtonian mechanics into machinery[3]. The maturity of technology allowed Europe to take the lead in developing the industrial revolution. Many machines replaced the workforce, which improved production efficiency and caused the phenomenon of oversupply for the first time in human history. The European society in the nineteenth century seemed to press the speed button, many new industries were born in a short period, including the petroleum industry, the chemical industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and the arms industry.[4] The wealth provided the European colonization of the world with substantial capital and planted the seeds for the expansion of new imperialism in the future. However, the most disruptive impact of the Industrial Revolution on human beings may not be a specific invention but the technological invention itself. The essence of all things in the universe is energy, and the nature of technology is to assist human beings in efficiently obtaining all kinds of power in the universe. According to the Kardashev Scale, the more energy levels a civilization can utilize, the higher the level of development. Therefore, whoever masters energy to the greatest extent is most likely to develop technology and acquire more resources. Obviously, nineteenth-century Europe was the winner with the most power through technology.

Then came the rise of nationalism, which set off a magnificent national independence movement and gave birth to the independence of sovereign states in the modern sense.[ii] Although Westphalian sovereignty[iii] establishes as early as the seventeenth century, the people's national consciousness was not strong. The demarcation of national boundaries and power was only determined by law. According to Eric Hobsbawm[iv], standards for the modern nation-state, the state that conforms to modernity, has yet to take shape.[5] Until the 19th century. However, the Industrial Revolution brought many advantages to Europe, the rise of Europe also created enormous pressure for survival within Europe. Every nation was afraid of falling behind and swallowed up by the surrounding countries. To consolidate its strength, they had no choice but to scramble to plunder resources and divide up the land, forcibly pull all parts of the world into their empire territory and then establish and grow their own country.[6] National identity and national consciousness are gradually strengthened and found in the competition. As the wave of European colonization swept the world, tensions between nations rose, and this "arms race" for resources and territories eventually led to world wars in the twentieth century. We all know the results of the two world wars - Germany, Italy, and Japan were defeated, the strength of Britain and France weakened, and the United States became a world hegemony through a blessing in disguise. However, the changes brought about by the world war may not only be the case. The division of territory by the battle once again caused a high level of national consciousness in the colonies, and the sense of national sovereignty continued to increase; colonies waved the banner of independence and founding, and many countries finally achieved independence after the end of World War II; the map of the modern world, is roughly finalized. However, this series of changes seems to foreshadow the expansion of new imperialism in the second half of the nineteenth century.

The last is the reform of political thought and system, which has left an important political legacy for the 20th century and even the 21st century and has profoundly impacted modern philosophy, modern politics, social movements, and ideology; among them, Marxism is the most influential[7]. Although the industrial revolution in the 19th century brought many conveniences to society, at the same time, many social problems also emerged, including labor exploitation, unemployment, and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. These social problems aroused hatred between employers and employees and made the conflicts and disputes between capitalists and workers continue. Marx said at the beginning of The Communist Manifesto: "The history of all societies up to now is the history of class struggle."[8] Regarding the exploitation of capitalism, Marx put forward the concept of "eliminating private ownership and implementing public ownership" in The Communist Manifesto, calling on people to unite against the violence of capitalism. Despite the flaws in the theory of Marxism itself, Marx's ideas caused large-scale communist revolutions in the twentieth century. Today, people still have internal conflicts in countries and rebuild social order because of his ideas. The Communist Manifesto was held up as a standard and included in the country's ideology.

Why is the nineteenth century so important? The beginning of what Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities might be a perfect commentary on the nineteenth century:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times;

it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness;

it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity;

it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness;

it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair;

we had everything before us, we had nothing before us;

we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.”[9]