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Unlocking the World: Port Cities and Globalization in the Age of Steam, 1830-1930
From the acclaimed historian of global empire, the dramatic story of how steam power reshaped our cities and our seas, and forged a new world orderSteam power transformed our world, initiating the complex, resource-devouring industrial system the consequences of which we live with today. It revolutionized work and production, but also the ease and cost of movement over land and water. The result was to throw open vast areas of the world to the rampaging expansion of Europeans and Americans on a scale previously unimaginable.Unlocking the World is the captivating history of the great port cities which emerged as the bridgeheads of this new steam-driven economy, reshaping not just the trade and industry of the regions around them but their culture and politics as well. They were the agents of what we now call 'globalization', but their impact and influence, and the reactions they provoked, were far from predictable. Nor were they immune to the great upheavals in world politics across the 'steam century'.This book is global history at its very best. Packed with fascinating case histories (from New Orleans to Montreal, Bombay to Singapore, Calcutta to Shanghai), individual stories and original ideas, Darwin's book allows us, for better or worse, to see the modern age taking shape.'A fine, important and original book ... wonderful' Paul Kennedy, Literary Review
496 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2020
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410 people want to read
About the author
John Darwin
30 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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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
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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