The Netherlands may have been the region in which the bourgeoisie as a class developed its defining characteristics.  But for more than a century - the century of industrial transformation - it was the UK that pulled ahead, dominated, and became the envy of all the other capitalist powers - and was therefore the hegemon of global imperialism.

By the late 19th century, however, the United States of America had grown into the world's greatest industrial power - perhaps not a surprise, since the USA had almost double the population of the UK by the turn of the century (USA was around 76 million, UK around 44 million).  But this heralded a profound shift, not only in global supply chains, but in the character of imperialism and geopolitics.  And the peripheral countries of the global capitalist system recognized this shift, and saw in it both new challenges and new opportunities.  It may have taken a global crisis in imperialism (1914-1948), but by its end, the world had fully entered into the postmodern age.

An example is Iran.  

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