One of the most noticeable phenomena in the world history of the last two or three hundred years is the subjugation of Asia by Europe. Asiatic civilization and institutions have in the shock of conflict with European civilization and European institutions either succumbed or have been made to suffer great modifications. In some instances political control has passed from Asiatic to European hands. In others, while Asiatic rulers have been able to maintain themselves in at least nominal control, their freedom of action has been curtailed by treaties forced from them by the fear of the loss of political independence.

Furthermore, in those few cases of contact between the European and the Asiatic in which the latter has not suffered a serious loss of independence, European commercial and industrial organization has exercised a remarkable influence over Asiatic life. The steamship and the railway, both European inventions, have bound together the East and West in bonds so strong that it is futile to think that they will ever be broken, and have at the same time given to most Eastern countries means of transportation which are surely and with continuingly increasingly rapidity transforming the conditions of Eastern life.