Eric Hobsbawm - Age Of Revolution 1789 -1848

THE WORLD IN THE1780SConflict between Britain and France, which was also, in a sense, thatbetween the old and the new regimes. For France, though rousingBritish hostility by the rapid expansion of its trade and colonial empire,was also the most powerful, eminent and influential, in a word theclassical, aristocratic absolute mbnarchy. Nowhere is the superiority ofthe new to the old social order more vividly exemplified than in theconflict between these two powers. For the British not only won, withvarying degrees of decisiveness in all but one of these wars. They supportedthe effort of organizing, financing and waging them with relativeease. The French monarchy, on the other hand, though very muchlarger, more populous, and, in terms of her potential resources, wealthierthan Britain, found the effort too great. After its defeat in the SevenYears' War (1756-63) the revolt of the American colonies gave it theopportunity to turn the tables on its adversary. France took it. Andindeed, in the subsequent international conflict Britain was badlydefeated, losing the most important part of her American empire; andFrance, the ally of the new USA, was consequently victorious. But thecost was excessive, and the French government's difficulties led itinevitably into that period of domestic political crisis, out of which, sixyears later, the Revolution emerged.VIIIt remains to round off this preliminary survey of the world on the eveof the dual revolution with a glance at the relations between Europe(or more precisely North-western Europe) and the rest of the world. Thecomplete political and military domination of the world by Europe(and her overseas prolongations, the white settler communities) was tobe the product of the age of the dual revolution. In the late eighteenthcentury several of the great non-European powers and civilizations stillconfronted the white trader, sailor and soldier on apparently equalterms. The great Chinese empire, then at the height of its effectivenessunder the Manchu (Ch'ing) dynasty, was nobody's victim. On thecontrary, if anything the current of cultural influence ran from east towest, and European philosophers pondered the lessons of the verydifferent but evidently high civilization, while artists and craftsmenembodied the often misunderstood motifs of the Far East in their worksand adapted its new materials'Cchina') to European uses. The Islamicpowers, though (like Turkey) periodically shaken by the militaryforces of neighbouring European states (Austria and above all Russia),were far from the helpless hulks they were to become in the nineteenthcentury. Africa remained virtually immune to European military pene-25