This book studies the interaction between the empire-building West and the rest of the world.

This book is a study of the interaction of the Western societies of Europe and America with others around the world in the past two centuries - the age of European empire. It deals with the European threat and the non-Western response, but the focus is on the ways in which people in Asia, Africa, and Indian America have tried to adapt their ways of life to the overwhelming European power that existed in this period. The challenge and the response are presented through a series of selected and widely scattered case studies. They vary from those of the Maya and Yaqui of Mexico, to millennial responses as varied as the Ghost Dance or the cargo cults of Melanesia, as well as those of major players like the Ottoman Empire and Meiji Japan.