Power over peoples technology environments and western imperialism 1400 to the present review

Power over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present (Princeton Economic History of the Western World) by Daniel R. Headrick (Author). For six hundred years, the nations of Europe and North America have periodically tried to coerce, invade, or conquer different societies. They've relied on their superior technology to take action, yet these applied sciences haven't always assured success. Power over Peoples examines Western imperialism's advanced relationship with know-how, from the first Portuguese ships that ventured down the coast of Africa within the 1430s to America's conflicts within the Center East today.

Why did the sailing vessels that gave the Portuguese a century-lengthy benefit within the Indian Ocean fail to beat Muslim galleys within the Red Sea? Why had been the same weapons and methods that the Spanish used to overcome Mexico and Peru ineffective in Chile and Africa? Why didn't America's overwhelming air power to guarantee success in Iraq and Afghanistan? In Energy over Peoples, Daniel Headrick traces the evolution of Western technologies--from muskets and galleons to jet planes and sensible bombs--and sheds gentle on the environment and social factors which have introduced victory in some circumstances and unexpected defeat in others. He exhibits how superior know-how interprets into a larger energy over nature and generally even different peoples, but how technological superiority is no guarantee of success in imperialist ventures--as a result of the technology solely delivers results in a selected atmosphere, or as a result of the society being attacked responds in surprising ways.

Breathtaking in scope, Power over Peoples is a revealing historical past of technological innovation, its promise and limitations, and its central role in the rise and fall of empire.

The creator's conclusion at the end is admittedly thought provoking. He says, that ever enhancing expertise ensures that political and military defeats will come later, and at higher price" (p. 364), quoting Murray and Scales. One may partly agree. However, being aware, that the states, which own modern applied sciences, also can at present win wars over peoples, which do not possess them, as effectively as did Cortés in Tenochtitlán. The difference is, that the peoples are more interlinked than ever, which renders any act of barbarism in comparative and historical perspective of earlier centuries, hardly imaginable.

All in all, a very fascinating ebook, which enlarged my horizon about imperial conquests from the most attention-grabbing perspective. 

Power over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present (Princeton Economic History of the Western World) 

 Daniel R. Headrick (Author)

416 pages

Princeton University Press; 1ST edition (November 9, 2009)

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