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> when the "world" for all practical purposes included only European powers Why though? I think even China alone had almost as large a population in 1800 (300M
by dataflow 4y ago
> when the "world" for all practical purposes included only European powers
Why though? I think even China alone had almost as large a population in 1800 (300M) as the US does right now so I'm confused what this is supposed to mean? Japan also had some 30M, Russia 35M. (I haven't checked other countries.)
We're defining "the world" in 1800 to be "European powers" so that we can claim the first world war was actually before World War I?
- jcranmer 4y agoSorry, I should have clarified further. This is "world" in terms of European political discourse--as far as Europe was concerned, if you weren't a European power (and Russia most certainly was a European power), you weren't really a country worth caring about, just fodder for imperialism and colonization.
- dataflow 4y agoOkay sure I guess, but what is this meant to imply? Even taking it at face value, this clearly still didn't cause Europe to call that war the first World War, so what conclusion are we drawing from this?