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I suppose I am showing my ignorance of history, but I was rather surprised to see Netherlands listed as the hegemon antecedent to the UK. Not to dismiss the ma

I suppose I am showing my ignorance of history, but I was rather surprised to see Netherlands listed as the hegemon antecedent to the UK. Not to dismiss the many achievements the Dutch had in finance and trade in the 16-17th centuries, but I suppose my US-centric education just never focused on them as a world-wide economic center to the same extent as the British Empire, current US, etc. Interesting. I actually find the theory, and its focus on production networks vs. trade networks to be rather intriguing. Wallerstein's 1974 publication "The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System"[1] definitely seems to use the World-Systems viewpoint to predict (in a loose sense of the word) the economic shifts ongoing since that time, but I'd have to do more reading to have any idea as to whether he was merely stating the obvious to back up his outlook. [1]http://bev.berkeley.edu/ipe/readings/Wallerstein.pdf http://bev.berkeley.edu/ipe/readings/Wallerstein.pdf

vorg 12y ago
Perhaps historians generally consider the Dutch to be a short-lived prelude to the British Empire. I'd say even considering the British Empire and the United States to be two separate hegemons could be wrong. They both speak English, and the British were the main land-owning settlers to North America. People like Washington, Jefferson and Franklin had British surnames. The revolution was simply another step in shifting the capital of the English-speaking people from London to Washington. Another step was World War Two when the US let the British go broke fighting the Germans, then stepped in in 1941 to save the day, taking control of the world's sea lanes from Britain. So before the revolution we had the "British Empire and its American colonies", nowadays we have the United States of America in a "special relationship" with the United Kingdom, via defence and security treaties such as UKUSA and ABCA. The movement of the English-speaking people's power center from London to Washington thus took 150 years, longer than the ongoing Russian move from St Petersburg to Moscow, but shorter than the Song move from Xian to Hangzhou.
- saraid216 12y ago
  Hm. I don't know about your assessment of the Dutch (my world history isn't up to scratch to agree or disagree), but if the Dutch was a prelude to the British, and the American just a continuation of the British (which I entirely agree with, though I'd emphasize things differently than you have), Has there been more than one world hegemon at all?
  - vorg 12y ago
    I'd say the Chinese have been fairly separate from the West, with 3 primary peaks in power (Han dynasty, Tang-Song, and Ming-Qing), with perhaps a 4th (PRC) on the way. So there's been at least two separate hegemons. But in the West it's hard to say when one hegemon is different to another. The Romans spoke a different language from the Greeks, took over by conquest but let the Greek language be spoken in their empire, until the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman (Byzantine) empire "evolved" from the Roman Empire. So you could say the Greeks ruled for 2000 yrs from Alexander the Great (400BC) to the fall of Constantinople to the Turks (1500AD), though the Romans ran things for 500-odd years in the middle. So there's certainly many complications.

vorg 12y ago

Perhaps historians generally consider the Dutch to be a short-lived prelude to the British Empire. I'd say even considering the British Empire and the United States to be two separate hegemons could be wrong. They both speak English, and the British were the main land-owning settlers to North America. People like Washington, Jefferson and Franklin had British surnames. The revolution was simply another step in shifting the capital of the English-speaking people from London to Washington. Another step was World War Two when the US let the British go broke fighting the Germans, then stepped in in 1941 to save the day, taking control of the world's sea lanes from Britain. So before the revolution we had the "British Empire and its American colonies", nowadays we have the United States of America in a "special relationship" with the United Kingdom, via defence and security treaties such as UKUSA and ABCA. The movement of the English-speaking people's power center from London to Washington thus took 150 years, longer than the ongoing Russian move from St Petersburg to Moscow, but shorter than the Song move from Xian to Hangzhou.

saraid216 12y ago
Hm. I don't know about your assessment of the Dutch (my world history isn't up to scratch to agree or disagree), but if the Dutch was a prelude to the British, and the American just a continuation of the British (which I entirely agree with, though I'd emphasize things differently than you have), Has there been more than one world hegemon at all?
- vorg 12y ago
  I'd say the Chinese have been fairly separate from the West, with 3 primary peaks in power (Han dynasty, Tang-Song, and Ming-Qing), with perhaps a 4th (PRC) on the way. So there's been at least two separate hegemons. But in the West it's hard to say when one hegemon is different to another. The Romans spoke a different language from the Greeks, took over by conquest but let the Greek language be spoken in their empire, until the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman (Byzantine) empire "evolved" from the Roman Empire. So you could say the Greeks ruled for 2000 yrs from Alexander the Great (400BC) to the fall of Constantinople to the Turks (1500AD), though the Romans ran things for 500-odd years in the middle. So there's certainly many complications.