The Transformation of the World

The author examines structures and patterns. He marks turning points and continuities, commonalities and differences. The wide range of his cross-cultural depictions and analyses coalesce into a bold historical panorama that not only by far outdistances traditional Eurocentric approaches, but also has significantly more to offer than the usual historiographical paradigms such as industrialization or colonialism. Osterhammel discusses not only the emergence of various knowledge-based societies, the relationship between man and nature, and the handling of disease and otherness. He also discusses the special aspects of urbanization, the various forms of middle-class life, the contradistinctions between migration and sedentary society, adaptation and revolt, and secularization and religiosity. At the same time he repeatedly establishes relationships to the present.

This book is written with commitment and represents the latest research, but at the same time it is pleasantly unideological. While it will serve as an indispensable handbook for every historian, interested lay readers will find that the author’s vivid descriptions cast them under the spell of the 19th century, and that the significance of this brilliant period in history is explored from an entirely fresh perspective.