Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Empires of the Weak: The Real Story of European Expansion and the Creation of the New World
    Empires of the Weak: The Real Story of European Expansion and the Creation of the New World
    Empires of the Weak: The Real Story of European Expansion and the Creation of the New World
    Audiobook6 hours

    Empires of the Weak: The Real Story of European Expansion and the Creation of the New World

    Written by J. C. Sharman

    Narrated by John Lee

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    What accounts for the rise of the state, the creation of the first global system, and the dominance of the West? The conventional answer asserts that superior technology, tactics, and institutions forged by Darwinian military competition gave Europeans a decisive advantage in war over other civilizations from 1500 onward. In contrast, Empires of the Weak argues that Europeans actually had no general military superiority in the early modern era. J. C. Sharman shows instead that European expansion is better explained by deference to strong Asian and African polities, disease in the Americas, and maritime supremacy earned by default because local land-oriented polities were largely indifferent to war and trade at sea.

    Europeans were overawed by the mighty Eastern empires of the day, which pioneered key military innovations and were the greatest early modern conquerors. Against the view that the Europeans won for all time, Sharman contends that the imperialism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a relatively transient and anomalous development in world politics that concluded with Western losses in various insurgencies. If the twenty-first century is to be dominated by non-Western powers like China, this represents a return to the norm for the modern era.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 14, 2019
    ISBN9781400122042
    Empires of the Weak: The Real Story of European Expansion and the Creation of the New World

    Related to Empires of the Weak

    Related audiobooks

    Politics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Batavian Revolt

      Sep 21, 2021

      The Batavian Revolt
      9 min read

    • Article

      Hidden Histories

      Nov 25, 2021

      Edgar Mittelholzer was a Guyanese novelist who should be remembered not just for the quality of his writing, but as the earliest recorded writer from the Caribbean to make his living from the profession. I studied Caribbean literature at university,

      3 min read

    • Article

      Anatomy Of A Revolution

      May 9, 2018

      Despite their claim to being something new under the sun, revolutions have their own histories complete with predictable patterns of decline and fall. A classic example is the one that took place in France as the 18th century was ending with a bang.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Theories Of Conspiracy Theories

      Jun 16, 2022

      TO SEND REVIEW COPIES, CONTACT THE BOOK REVIEWS EDITOR AT DVBARRETT@FORTEANTIMES.COM Modern Myths, Conspiracy Theories and Pseudo-History Ronald H Fritze Reaktion Books 2022 Hb, 272pp, £20, ISBN 9781789145397 There has been growing interest in recent

      3 min read

    • Article

      Deconstructing Decolonisation

      Jan 26, 2023

      LAST OCTOBER, THE ACTING vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, Dr Anthony Freeling, made a confession, widely reported in the press. He confessed that he is baffled by “decolonisation”. The word, he said, “has been misused to such an extent that I

      12 min read

    • Article

      Seeing The Big Picture

      May 26, 2022

      IBN KHALDUN (1332-1406) WAS A PIONEERING Arab scholar and one of the most important historians of the Middle Ages. He is best known for his three-volume masterwork the Muqaddimah, written in 1377, which integrated politics, sociology, economics, demo

      7 min read

    • Article

      Bollocks to Babel

      Oct 28, 2021

      IN A LONG CAREER OF UNIVERSITY TEACHING (1968-2014) many of the most interesting and satisfying moments involved overseas students. There was the robust Finnish girl bursting into my room demanding clarification of what I had said about rowing in my

      5 min read

    • Article

      Weak, Flawed, Limited; An Opportunity Missed

      Mar 28, 2024

      DOUBTLESS KINDNESS LAY BEHIND Penguin’s absence of response to The Critic’s repeated requests for a review copy for me of this book. My request also failed, but I have gone out and bought a copy, and now understand. Possibly Penguin felt I might be u

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Good Ancestor

      May 21, 2023

      The Good Ancestor
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Good Ancestor

      May 21, 2023

      The Good Ancestor
      2 min read

    • Article

      2022 Books Of The Year

      Nov 24, 2022

      2022 Books Of The Year
      14 min read

    • Article

      Where Will Your Reading Take You?

      Aug 11, 2023

      Michael Hawkes & Susan Hawkes, with Stephen WunderliBorn to unmarried Irish parents in 1961 in London, author Michael Hawkes would become one of the tens of thousands of Irish babies to grow up denied the knowledge of and care of their birth families

      7 min read

    • Article

      Good Riddance to the Roman Empire

      Jan 23, 2020

      WALTER SCHEIDEL MAKES a dramatic claim in Escape From Rome: The collapse of the Roman Empire made the modern world possible. The release from imperial governance, he argues, had an outcome in Europe that was not replicated elsewhere. That in turn exp

      5 min read

    • Article

      Past & Present Tensions

      Jan 29, 2024

      Past & Present Tensions
      8 min read

    • Article

      The New History Wars

      Oct 30, 2022

      The New History Wars
      17 min read

    • Article

      Ancient China’s Impact On History

      Apr 21, 2022

      Dr Roel Sterckx is the Joseph Needham Professor of Chinese History, Science and Civilisation at Cambridge University, and a fellow of Clare College. He served as Secretary-General of the European Association for Chinese Studies 2006-12 and was electe

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Empires of the Weak

    4/5

    13 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Appreciated the premise of the book but his presentation left much to be desired. Spent much of the book talking about what he was going to say.