The world system was under enemy controlled by the industrialized states of Europe, which had been feeble and marginal powers just a few centuries before. In the 19th century, however, fast industrialization gave European states massive economic and military power. By 1910, they ruled India and most of Africa and Southeast Asia. Japan controlled Korea and Taiwan, …show more content…
But it was now tear into competing blocs headed by two new superpowers, the US and the USSR. The positive faith in progress, reason, and open-minded liberal government that had dominated the thought of educated people in the later 19th century was gone.
The Nature of Pre- 1945 World Order
• Imperialist world order is a logical & natural outcome of capitalist development
• Euro centered multi-polar system/ dominated by a handful of countries
• Created and maintained by force, conquest, pillage slavery and extermination
• In Mexico alone in a little over a century, Indian population fell from 25 million to 1.5 million
• Ideological justifications used to conceal the reality to civilize barbarians, conversion to Christianity, promote freedom, liberty and later democracy
• Created a center periphery relationship among nations
• Superimposed political, economic, social and cultural values and ideals of the centre over the periphery.
• Rivalry among colonial powers for world hegemony which often led to war with one another.
Collapse of the pre- 1945 World order
• Weakening of the Imperial world