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解鎖世界：從口岸城市看蒸汽世紀如何打開技術、商業、文化、意識形態、地緣政治、環境等全球化的關鍵發展與影響
蒸汽機改變了地緣政治的形貌
強化中國、印度、澳大拉西亞、美洲、北亞和中亞的大陸開放態勢
這把鑰匙如何打開世界？「全球化」又從哪裡開始？
英國皇家海軍的大戰略家，外號「傑基」的英國海軍上將費雪，曾說「五把鑰匙鎖住世界」，分別是新加坡、好望角、亞歷山卓、直布羅陀、多佛。在英國控制下，它們扼守歐洲與世界其他地方之間的海路，使這些海路不受任何敵對強權的艦隊威脅：不久，此一計畫就受到德國潛艇戰的破壞大考驗。英國將其「大艦隊」駐守在奧克尼群島，徹底實現費雪的構想，封住從北海進入大洋的最後一個出口。
本書徹底轉變費雪的比喻，打開他所「鎖住」的大部分地方，解鎖十九世紀這個輝煌的時代，各個海岸和口岸不再拒斥外界與封閉；遼闊的大陸內陸從此擺脫高昂陸路運輸成本所導致的與外隔絕；原本因為危險和湍急而難以逆流而上的河川，因為技術改進和蒸汽動力航行而暢行無阻。而「蒸汽動力」和「口岸城市」扮演了何種重要角色：
蒸汽動力
▍促使自由貿易發展、憑武力或利益打開歐洲以外世界
▍拉近舊世界到新世界的距離，帝國因此向外擴張建立
口岸城市
▍在非西方國家是接收歐洲影響力的第一站
▍外來力量前進「有前景」腹地的橋頭堡
▍商人收集本地資訊，吸收本地盟友的聚點
作者動筆撰寫此書，源於想探索全球化歷史、尤其是「蒸汽全球化」歷史。本書以此關鍵假設為架構：「我們」自一九九○年起的全球化並非獨一無二，而只是一連串全球化裡的最近一次；透過了解先前的幾次全球化，最能充分理解此全球化與眾不同之處；全球化趨勢愈是積累，卻也受到危機和逆勢的衝擊；不可把全球化理解為純經濟現象（我們常這麼認為），而必須視之為技術、商業、文化、意識形態、地緣政治、環境等諸方面改變的關鍵時刻，這些都將賦予每一次全球化有別於其他全球化之處。因為我們在全球化裡所交易的物品，不只貨物，還有錢、人、觀念、資訊、消費習慣──以及生物群系，即動物、植物、微生物。每次全球化的「性質」，都是透過它們之間的複雜互動形成。因此，全球化的催化劑，即全球化的「調節閥」（套用蒸汽技術的術語），在邏輯上，係屬機動性，即有形、無形之物能從世界一端橫越遼闊空間到另一端的輕易程度和速度。
蒸汽世紀於一九三○年步入尾聲時，世界上幾乎每個人口稠密的地區，已能享有按照時刻表定期行駛的汽輪和火車提供的便利，以及笨重、低成本貨物的交換。這是世界史上最翻天覆地的變革，更造就了今日的世界。
強化中國、印度、澳大拉西亞、美洲、北亞和中亞的大陸開放態勢
這把鑰匙如何打開世界？「全球化」又從哪裡開始？
英國皇家海軍的大戰略家，外號「傑基」的英國海軍上將費雪，曾說「五把鑰匙鎖住世界」，分別是新加坡、好望角、亞歷山卓、直布羅陀、多佛。在英國控制下，它們扼守歐洲與世界其他地方之間的海路，使這些海路不受任何敵對強權的艦隊威脅：不久，此一計畫就受到德國潛艇戰的破壞大考驗。英國將其「大艦隊」駐守在奧克尼群島，徹底實現費雪的構想，封住從北海進入大洋的最後一個出口。
本書徹底轉變費雪的比喻，打開他所「鎖住」的大部分地方，解鎖十九世紀這個輝煌的時代，各個海岸和口岸不再拒斥外界與封閉；遼闊的大陸內陸從此擺脫高昂陸路運輸成本所導致的與外隔絕；原本因為危險和湍急而難以逆流而上的河川，因為技術改進和蒸汽動力航行而暢行無阻。而「蒸汽動力」和「口岸城市」扮演了何種重要角色：
蒸汽動力
▍促使自由貿易發展、憑武力或利益打開歐洲以外世界
▍拉近舊世界到新世界的距離，帝國因此向外擴張建立
口岸城市
▍在非西方國家是接收歐洲影響力的第一站
▍外來力量前進「有前景」腹地的橋頭堡
▍商人收集本地資訊，吸收本地盟友的聚點
作者動筆撰寫此書，源於想探索全球化歷史、尤其是「蒸汽全球化」歷史。本書以此關鍵假設為架構：「我們」自一九九○年起的全球化並非獨一無二，而只是一連串全球化裡的最近一次；透過了解先前的幾次全球化，最能充分理解此全球化與眾不同之處；全球化趨勢愈是積累，卻也受到危機和逆勢的衝擊；不可把全球化理解為純經濟現象（我們常這麼認為），而必須視之為技術、商業、文化、意識形態、地緣政治、環境等諸方面改變的關鍵時刻，這些都將賦予每一次全球化有別於其他全球化之處。因為我們在全球化裡所交易的物品，不只貨物，還有錢、人、觀念、資訊、消費習慣──以及生物群系，即動物、植物、微生物。每次全球化的「性質」，都是透過它們之間的複雜互動形成。因此，全球化的催化劑，即全球化的「調節閥」（套用蒸汽技術的術語），在邏輯上，係屬機動性，即有形、無形之物能從世界一端橫越遼闊空間到另一端的輕易程度和速度。
蒸汽世紀於一九三○年步入尾聲時，世界上幾乎每個人口稠密的地區，已能享有按照時刻表定期行駛的汽輪和火車提供的便利，以及笨重、低成本貨物的交換。這是世界史上最翻天覆地的變革，更造就了今日的世界。
568 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2020
8 people are currently reading
406 people want to read
About the author
John Darwin
28 books69 followersGareth John Darwin, CBE, FBA, is a British historian who from 1984 to 2019 was the Beit Lecturer in Commonwealth History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. Prior to his appointment there he was a lecturer in history at the University of Reading between 1972 and 1984.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 23, 2022
Port Cities and Globalization in the Age of Steam, 1830-1930
In his preface, Darwin explains that he has chosen to look at port cities in the steam age as a way to examine globalisation, which he suggests is not a new phenomenon but one that has happened in waves throughout history, influencing how various societies developed, rose and fell over time. He concentrates on European-led globalisation, and includes the Americas in that since they were connected to and influenced by Europe. However, since the various European empires claimed territory in so much of the world, the book roams widely over the entire globe, showing that the interconnectedness we sometimes think of as “modern” is in fact merely a continuation of historical trends.
Darwin starts with a clear explanation of port cities, what differentiates them and how they first developed far back in history. He is excellent at explaining things simply enough for non-specialists to understand, and uses his early chapters to give the relative newcomer to the subject the background knowledge that will help when, in the later chapters, he discusses specific port cities in more detail. So he explains how some ports developed as entrepôts because of their geographical location, making them convenient places for the exchange of goods, while staple ports grew up to facilitate trade in a specific local produce or manufacture, such as wool, spices and, later, rubber, etc.
He explains how shipping operated pre-steam when its reliance on trade winds to a large degree determined routes, and how physical restrictions on moving goods and produce across land meant that the hinterland on which a staple port could rely was restricted in size. This background makes it easier to comprehend how revolutionary steam was, enabling ships to make more direct journeys in shorter times, while on land railroad-building could mean the difference between a port’s rise or fall. He also discusses the impact of the building of the Suez canal on port cities, some of which benefited from the new routes available, while others lost their geographical advantage. Steam power brought its own restrictions – the need for coal and, in the case of trains, a fairly flat accessible landscape.
While I found all this background informative and useful, the real interest of the book came for me when Darwin reached “modern” times – from the pre-Columbian years of the 15th century, when the European empires were tentatively beginning to reach out across the globe, discovering new worlds to trade with, and sometimes to conquer. Darwin makes it clear, however, that in many cases conquering wasn’t necessary as a means to develop trade, and that often port cities and their hinterlands remained firmly in the control of local magnates although the Europeans largely controlled the transport of goods.
The arrival of steam reduced journey times and therefore the costs of travel and of imports and exports, fuelling the industrial growth of western European nations and expanding their imperial reach and ambitions. Darwin quotes a statistic which, while I’m sure it will be correct, I still find quite unbelievable – that “By 1899 all but 2 per cent of the world’s manufactured exports came from nine Western countries.” The massive inflow of raw materials and outflow of finished products created an immense global economy, where catastrophes in one part of the globe could have an impact half a world away. Speed of journey times also meant that it was easier for people to move around the globe, so that colonisers no longer had to spend most of their lives cut off from their home nation, and there was a huge growth in passenger transport as a result. News, too, could travel more quickly, especially with the development of cable, so that the world economy began to react more quickly to events.
The latter two-thirds or so of the book takes us around various of the major port cities of the 19th century, giving a more detailed look at how and why they rose, developed and, where relevant, fell. Darwin starts in North America, for example, discussing New Orleans and its growth on the back of the cotton trade underpinned by the slave trade, and later giving way to New York, which had harbourage more suited to the larger ships of the steam age, and which was an entry point for mass immigration as well as produce. Montreal is an example of a port that initially relied primarily on its local hinterland for its staples – fur and lumber – although it gradually extended into the interior by the ambitious building of transcontinental railroads. From North America, Darwin follows the same format for ports in India, Asia and, of course, in Europe itself. Highlights for me were the ports about which I knew least and which seemed most “exotic” to me – Singapore, Calcutta, Shanghai, etc.
In each case, Darwin gives an idea of the power structures and economic features of the port, and the culture of those who lived there. He concentrates less on the politics and more on the practicalities of how empires operated as huge trading enterprises, and how the port cities they used for this also acted as melting pots of ideas and cultures, and often too as spreaders of diseases across the globe. Since length restrictions mean that each port only gets a shortish entry, a lot of information is packed into a few pages, and Darwin often assumes that the reader will be aware of the background history, especially of the various empires which claimed ownership of the territories under discussion. For a newcomer to the subject, I’d highly recommend reading Darwin’s own earlier wonderful history of the British Empire, Unfinished Empire , which provided me with most of the background I needed to fully appreciate this more targetted history.
(Bookish aside: I spent a lot of time while reading this thinking back to various books I’ve read – Heart of Darkness, The African Queen, etc. – where steam and empire played a part. It occurred to me that this will be a great book to refer back to any time I’m reading a colonial-era novel set in one of these ports, to remind me of the local culture of the time and the port’s place within the history of empire.)
A great read – Darwin has the ability given to few historians of making his books eminently readable by the non-historians among us, bringing his subject to life and explaining the context as well as giving us the facts. The book contains many maps of regions, routes and ports which help to clarify the text, and also has illustrations of some of the ports in the form of photographs or drawings from the time. Highly recommended!
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Allen Lane.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
In his preface, Darwin explains that he has chosen to look at port cities in the steam age as a way to examine globalisation, which he suggests is not a new phenomenon but one that has happened in waves throughout history, influencing how various societies developed, rose and fell over time. He concentrates on European-led globalisation, and includes the Americas in that since they were connected to and influenced by Europe. However, since the various European empires claimed territory in so much of the world, the book roams widely over the entire globe, showing that the interconnectedness we sometimes think of as “modern” is in fact merely a continuation of historical trends.
Darwin starts with a clear explanation of port cities, what differentiates them and how they first developed far back in history. He is excellent at explaining things simply enough for non-specialists to understand, and uses his early chapters to give the relative newcomer to the subject the background knowledge that will help when, in the later chapters, he discusses specific port cities in more detail. So he explains how some ports developed as entrepôts because of their geographical location, making them convenient places for the exchange of goods, while staple ports grew up to facilitate trade in a specific local produce or manufacture, such as wool, spices and, later, rubber, etc.
He explains how shipping operated pre-steam when its reliance on trade winds to a large degree determined routes, and how physical restrictions on moving goods and produce across land meant that the hinterland on which a staple port could rely was restricted in size. This background makes it easier to comprehend how revolutionary steam was, enabling ships to make more direct journeys in shorter times, while on land railroad-building could mean the difference between a port’s rise or fall. He also discusses the impact of the building of the Suez canal on port cities, some of which benefited from the new routes available, while others lost their geographical advantage. Steam power brought its own restrictions – the need for coal and, in the case of trains, a fairly flat accessible landscape.
While I found all this background informative and useful, the real interest of the book came for me when Darwin reached “modern” times – from the pre-Columbian years of the 15th century, when the European empires were tentatively beginning to reach out across the globe, discovering new worlds to trade with, and sometimes to conquer. Darwin makes it clear, however, that in many cases conquering wasn’t necessary as a means to develop trade, and that often port cities and their hinterlands remained firmly in the control of local magnates although the Europeans largely controlled the transport of goods.
The arrival of steam reduced journey times and therefore the costs of travel and of imports and exports, fuelling the industrial growth of western European nations and expanding their imperial reach and ambitions. Darwin quotes a statistic which, while I’m sure it will be correct, I still find quite unbelievable – that “By 1899 all but 2 per cent of the world’s manufactured exports came from nine Western countries.” The massive inflow of raw materials and outflow of finished products created an immense global economy, where catastrophes in one part of the globe could have an impact half a world away. Speed of journey times also meant that it was easier for people to move around the globe, so that colonisers no longer had to spend most of their lives cut off from their home nation, and there was a huge growth in passenger transport as a result. News, too, could travel more quickly, especially with the development of cable, so that the world economy began to react more quickly to events.
The latter two-thirds or so of the book takes us around various of the major port cities of the 19th century, giving a more detailed look at how and why they rose, developed and, where relevant, fell. Darwin starts in North America, for example, discussing New Orleans and its growth on the back of the cotton trade underpinned by the slave trade, and later giving way to New York, which had harbourage more suited to the larger ships of the steam age, and which was an entry point for mass immigration as well as produce. Montreal is an example of a port that initially relied primarily on its local hinterland for its staples – fur and lumber – although it gradually extended into the interior by the ambitious building of transcontinental railroads. From North America, Darwin follows the same format for ports in India, Asia and, of course, in Europe itself. Highlights for me were the ports about which I knew least and which seemed most “exotic” to me – Singapore, Calcutta, Shanghai, etc.
In each case, Darwin gives an idea of the power structures and economic features of the port, and the culture of those who lived there. He concentrates less on the politics and more on the practicalities of how empires operated as huge trading enterprises, and how the port cities they used for this also acted as melting pots of ideas and cultures, and often too as spreaders of diseases across the globe. Since length restrictions mean that each port only gets a shortish entry, a lot of information is packed into a few pages, and Darwin often assumes that the reader will be aware of the background history, especially of the various empires which claimed ownership of the territories under discussion. For a newcomer to the subject, I’d highly recommend reading Darwin’s own earlier wonderful history of the British Empire, Unfinished Empire , which provided me with most of the background I needed to fully appreciate this more targetted history.
(Bookish aside: I spent a lot of time while reading this thinking back to various books I’ve read – Heart of Darkness, The African Queen, etc. – where steam and empire played a part. It occurred to me that this will be a great book to refer back to any time I’m reading a colonial-era novel set in one of these ports, to remind me of the local culture of the time and the port’s place within the history of empire.)
A great read – Darwin has the ability given to few historians of making his books eminently readable by the non-historians among us, bringing his subject to life and explaining the context as well as giving us the facts. The book contains many maps of regions, routes and ports which help to clarify the text, and also has illustrations of some of the ports in the form of photographs or drawings from the time. Highly recommended!
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Allen Lane.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
August 24, 2020
After Tamerlane, John Darwin’s global history of empires was an invaluable resource when I studied imperialism and I can easily see his masterly new book, Unlocking the World becoming the same for anyone interested in nineteenth century imperialism. Darwin takes as his theme the part port cities played in globalisation, specifically focusing on the period between 1830 and 1930 when steam power dramatically accelerated the movement of goods, information, money, ideas and labour across the world.
Darwin shows that steam globalisation, precursor to our 21st century globalised world, wasn’t uniform and how it took different forms at different times and in different places. The port cities he uses in detail to illustrate his argument include: New Orleans, Montreal and New York in North America; Mumbai, Kolkata, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai in Asia; Marseilles, London, Liverpool, Rotterdam and Hamburg in Europe. Many others, such as Montevideo, Smyrna and Trieste also feature. Looking at the list of busiest ports today, only the Southeast Asian ports still remain among the busiest 10 in the world with Rotterdam and Hamburg in the top 20. And while the world today is very different, Unlocking the World is still very relevant, “’Globalisation’ implies a free-trading, free-moving world in which economic efficiency is the key to wealth and power.” says Darwin, leading into a discussion of how steam globalisation was an age of coercion, racial exclusion, nationalism and gross inequality – ring any bells?
There is so much excellent material here, I particularly liked Darwin’s summary of the economic consequences of WW1 on France and Britain (rather than on Germany and being one of the causes of WW2) and how he brought to life the vibrant migrant communities of merchants, for example Parsis in India and mainland Chinese in Singapore.
Unlocking the World is a fantastic book, one that I’ll be buying in paper once published. Highly recommended for anyone interested in how we got to today’s messed up world.
I’m very grateful to Penguin, Allen Lane and Netgalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of Unlocking the World.
Darwin shows that steam globalisation, precursor to our 21st century globalised world, wasn’t uniform and how it took different forms at different times and in different places. The port cities he uses in detail to illustrate his argument include: New Orleans, Montreal and New York in North America; Mumbai, Kolkata, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai in Asia; Marseilles, London, Liverpool, Rotterdam and Hamburg in Europe. Many others, such as Montevideo, Smyrna and Trieste also feature. Looking at the list of busiest ports today, only the Southeast Asian ports still remain among the busiest 10 in the world with Rotterdam and Hamburg in the top 20. And while the world today is very different, Unlocking the World is still very relevant, “’Globalisation’ implies a free-trading, free-moving world in which economic efficiency is the key to wealth and power.” says Darwin, leading into a discussion of how steam globalisation was an age of coercion, racial exclusion, nationalism and gross inequality – ring any bells?
There is so much excellent material here, I particularly liked Darwin’s summary of the economic consequences of WW1 on France and Britain (rather than on Germany and being one of the causes of WW2) and how he brought to life the vibrant migrant communities of merchants, for example Parsis in India and mainland Chinese in Singapore.
Unlocking the World is a fantastic book, one that I’ll be buying in paper once published. Highly recommended for anyone interested in how we got to today’s messed up world.
I’m very grateful to Penguin, Allen Lane and Netgalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of Unlocking the World.
October 6, 2022
Um mergulho interessante no processo histórico e econômico que levou à formação tanto das grandes cidades portuárias no século XIX quanto do sistema econômico global, até sua derrocada com a Primeira Guerra Mundial. Traz uma compreensão holística e comparativa sobre todas estas cidades, com um tensionamento interessante com a contemporaneidade, inclusive descrevendo como a globalização foi um dos mecanismos que gerou o nacionalismo. Destaque vai para as histórias das grandes cidades portuárias asiáticas, principalmente Singapura, Xangai e Hong Kong. No entanto, a leitura pode acabar sendo um pouco seca por conta do estilo do autor, com muita densidade de informação.
June 14, 2022
This book is more interesting than you'd expect. Darwin points out that globalisation isn't anything new, although the scale has dramatically increased since steam opened up much of the globe.
You come away with the impression that things can change quite dramatically for individual port cities and that everything is on the move in all aspects. I enjoyed this book, but felt that it did run out of steam 50 pages or so before the end.
You come away with the impression that things can change quite dramatically for individual port cities and that everything is on the move in all aspects. I enjoyed this book, but felt that it did run out of steam 50 pages or so before the end.
July 4, 2023
I much enjoyed John Darwin's encyclopaedic review of the turbulent century of steam power. I especially appreciated the pivotal role of 'port cities' in this saga, and how they have been crucial - where geography permitted - to the economic development of islands and coastal territories.
September 2, 2021
10,000 dead from Cholera in one year in Hamburg near the end of the 19th century. 50 to 60 Celsius working conditions in the bowels of great steamships, rampant suicide. Cramped streets with the dual function of sewers in Mumbai. Prostitutes in Singapore, suicide was one of the better ways to go. The scramble for Africa in details meant corporate interests being told by governments "just do what you want."
It might be common knowledge nowadays of post colonialism this post colonialism that, but Darwin is perhaps the most thorough and comprehensive in terms of statistics, numbers, and episodes of daily life on the streets of just how bad colonialism was. Or more generally "progress" itself.
What started as a system to make sure elite Europeans can have black pepper in every meal eventually lead to today's transnational corporate capitalism. Was it worth it? Is this leading in a good direction? Darwin invites reader to think.
It might be common knowledge nowadays of post colonialism this post colonialism that, but Darwin is perhaps the most thorough and comprehensive in terms of statistics, numbers, and episodes of daily life on the streets of just how bad colonialism was. Or more generally "progress" itself.
What started as a system to make sure elite Europeans can have black pepper in every meal eventually lead to today's transnational corporate capitalism. Was it worth it? Is this leading in a good direction? Darwin invites reader to think.
September 1, 2025
Unlocking the world is a worthwhile read on how different cities developed, got disrupted and eventually thrived or faded on the back of the invention of steam and the industrial development that followed. Luck, as always, plays a much larger part in this then initially foreseen as for example Hong Kong would have never blossomed if not for the opium trade and the Taiping rebellion. Similar for Singapore, luck was on its side with the British transforming it to a critical ‘entrepot” port with the backdrop of Raffles’ imperial ambitions vs the Dutch in South East Asia. Each region/ port city has an interesting narrative, and the book is definitely worthwhile reading but the writing style remains a bit dry, making it a more academic and less engaging read then it could have been. For an overall academic approach to the development of port cities it is certainly well written/ researched and worthwhile reading
Want to read
December 13, 2020Tyler Cowen: I felt I knew a good bit of this material already, still this is a well-researched and very solid take on one of the most important factors behind the rise of globalization and international trade, namely the fast steamship and how it enabled so much urban growth for ports.
May 27, 2021
Very interesting
August 8, 2021
Interesting but heavy going. Quit 100 pages from the end after dipping in and out for seven months. For a leisure read, simply too much for me.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews