从19世纪开始，人类现代史即将拉开序幕。这是一个重大政治理念汇聚的时代，是“此在”科学化的时代，是铁路与工业的时代，是各大陆之间的大规模移民以及第一波经济和通信全球化浪潮的时代，是民族主义和欧洲帝国主义向全球扩张的时代。但同时，在今人眼 中，19世纪却已变得遥远而陌生：一个辉煌的昨日世界。本书从世界史的角度描绘和剖析了这段历史，一个欧亚美非各大洲经历剧变与全球化诞生的时代。国际历史学会前主席于尔根·科卡称此书是“德国历史写作中的里程碑”， 奥斯特哈默也因此被誉为“有关19世纪的布罗代尔”。

A monumental history of the nineteenth century, The Transformation of the World offers a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of a world in transition. Jürgen Osterhammel, an eminent scholar who has been called the Braudel of the nineteenth century, moves beyond conventional Eurocentric and chronological accounts of the era, presenting instead a truly global history of breathtaking scope and towering erudition. He examines the powerful and complex forces that drove global change during the "long nineteenth century," taking readers from New York to New Delhi, from the Latin American revolutions to the Taiping Rebellion, from the perils and promise of Europe's transatlantic labor markets to the hardships endured by nomadic, tribal peoples across the planet. Osterhammel describes a world increasingly networked by the telegraph, the steamship, and the railways. He explores the changing relationship between human beings and nature, looks at the importance of cities, explains the role slavery and its abolition played in the emergence of new nations, challenges the widely held belief that the nineteenth century witnessed the triumph of the nation-state, and much more. This is the highly anticipated English edition of the spectacularly successful and critically acclaimed German book, which is also being translated into Chinese, Polish, Russian, and French. Indispensable for any historian, The Transformation of the World sheds important new light on this momentous epoch, showing how the nineteenth century paved the way for the global catastrophes of the twentieth century, yet how it also gave rise to pacifism, liberalism, the trade union, and a host of other crucial developments.