History- Study Guide

Study Guide

World History

INSTRUCTIONS TO STUDENTS 1

LESSON ASSIGNMENTS 9

LESSON 1: FORAGERS, FARMERS, AND BUILDERS 11

LESSON 2: THE AXIAL AGE AND FITFUL TRANSITIONS 41

LESSON 3: CONTACTS, CONFLICTS, AND THE CRUCIBLE 81

LESSON 4: CONVERGENCE, DIVERGENCE, AND GLOBAL ENLIGHTENMENTS 119

LESSON 5: FRUSTRATIONS OF PROGRESS; CHAOS AND COMPLEXITY 167

SELF-CHECK ANSWERS 215

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INTRODUCTION

Welcome to your course in World History! You’re about totake an amazing journey from the earliest evidence of humanorigins to the world we all share today. The value of yourjourney will be directly proportional to how much effort youput into study and reflection. But, along the way, keep this in mind: Your knowledge of history will do more than makeyou witty at parties or prepare you to be a contestant onJeopardy. Historical knowledge will help you better under-stand current events, making you a more informed citizen. At the same time, your knowledge of history will help youbetter understand the contradictions of human nature andmake wiser life choices.

OBJECTIVES

When you complete this course, you’ll be able to

n Discuss the emergence and expansion of Homo sapiensbased on paleontological and archaeological data and thedevelopment of herding and farming following the end ofthe last Ice Age

n Describe the acceleration of social and cultural changeas organized states emerged along the great river valleysof Africa and Eurasia

n Discuss the succession of early civilizations across theglobe, including those that emerged in Asia, Africa, theMiddle East, the Mediterranean, and the central high-lands of Mexico

n Describe and discuss the major features of the axial age,including the important schools of religion and philosophyas well as the nature of the great empires, such as thoseof Persia, Rome, India, and China, in relationship tolesser states in Japan, Korea, and Mesoamerica

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n Describe and discuss forces that challenged establishedempires, such as those of Rome and China, in responseto the rise of the Muslim world and the incursions ofnomadic “barbarian” invaders from northern Europe andthe Asian Steppes

n Explain important influences that accompanied of therise of the great world religions, including Christianity,Islam, and Buddhism

n Discuss factors that prevented geographically isolatedsocieties, such as those of sub-Saharan Africa, Australia,and the Americas, from developing stable, long-termstates or empires

n Describe and discuss the impact of nomadic peoples wholived along the boundaries of the Islamic world, theByzantine Empire, and imperial China between 1000 and1200 C.E.

n Explain the impact of the Asian Mongols on Eurasiansocieties during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries

n Discuss and explain factors, such as climate change andthe bubonic plague, that adversely impacted Europe andChina, but that provided opportunities to areas beyondthe plague zone, such as in India, Southeast Asia, andwestern Africa

n Describe and outline the rise of new empires during thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries as the EuropeanAge of Discovery began an era of Western-dominatedimperialism and colonialism, consequently producing anecological revolution as new sources of wealth and foodwere transported from the New World to the Old World

n Discuss and describe the impact of revolutionary devel-opments that pitted the interests of religion against arising tide of humanism and the accelerated importanceof science in the West, thus triggering political and socialchanges across the globe during the 1600s and beyond

Instructions to Students2

n Describe and explain the era of global enlightenmentsbetween 1700 and 1800, relating Enlightenment influ-ences to urbanization and other population trends,expanded interaction between global regions, and thespread of European Enlightenment ideas beyond theirimmediate revolutionary impact on European societies

n Describe significant developments since the beginning ofthe twentieth century, including new energy technolo-gies, the rise of industrialization, new approaches toagriculture, and changes in working conditions

n Discuss and describe significant nineteenth-centuryglobal developments, including the expansion ofWestern-dominated empires across the globe, the rise ofnationalism, and new faces of radicalism in the politicalsphere

n Discuss and describe key issues of the twentieth cen-tury, including the global impact of Western science, thetwo World Wars, the Cold War, and the global trendtoward independence (decolonization) among formerWestern colonies

n Describe various forces that have led to the current eraof globalization in the context of burgeoning populationgrowth, regional conflicts impacting civilian populations,and pressing issues related to climate change and ecological destruction

COURSE MATERIALS

This course includes the following materials:

1. This study guide, which contains an introduction to yourcourse, plus

n A lesson assignments page with a schedule of studyassignments, as well as projects for the six lessonsyou’ll complete during this course

n Assignment lessons emphasizing the main points inthe textbook

Instructions to Students 3

n Self-checks and answers to help you assess yourunderstanding of the material

2. Your course textbook, Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s TheWorld: A Brief History, which contains the assignmentreading material

3. A DVD-ROM that supplements your course textbook

To complete this course successfully, you’ll need to do thefollowing:

1. Read and follow the study guide. It’s designed to complement your work with the textbook.

2. Study the assigned material in your textbook.

3. Use this guide as a tool for review and for completing the required self-checks. The 30 chapters of the textbookare divided into 10 parts. A self-check is provided foreach part.

4. Take all lesson examinations.

KNOW YOUR TEXTBOOK

Success in this course depends on your knowledge of thetextbook. For that reason, you should take some time to lookthrough it from front to back. Get a feel for how the materialis arranged and presented. The following are some of the keyfeatures of your textbook.

Front Matter

n The Brief Contents are found on page iii.

n An extended table of contents is provided on pagesiv–xviii.

n A list of maps featured in the textbook is provided onpages xix–xxi.

n “Introducing the World” on pages xxii–xxx offers insightinto the author’s approach to his textbook and acknowl-edges people and academic institutions that contributedto his work on it.


n You can learn a bit about the author, Felipe Fernández-Armesto, on page xxxi.

Content Features

n Each part of the book is introduced with engaging graphics,a list of the chapters included in that part, and two timelines—on for environmental events and another for culturalevents. You can use the time lines to keep yourself orientedas you work your way from the past toward the present.

Chapter Features

n Chapter topics are listed at the top of the first page ofeach chapter.

n A sidebar (feature box) on the next page challenges youwith a set of focus questions. Study them to betterunderstand what you should get from the chapter.

n “Making Connections” features offer information thatsupplements the main chapter content.

n Maps used for various purposes are a major feature ofeach chapter.

n Illustrations and their extended captions should be studied as carefully as the main textbook material.

n Small feature boxes pop up here and there, usually tohelp elaborate the time lines that head each part of thetextbook.

n A “Chronology” feature at the end of each chapter providesdates for the material covered in the chapter.

n At the end of each chapter, you’ll find mind-teasing questions under the heading “Problems and Parallels,”along with references to important “Documents in GlobalHistory” and a “Read On” feature that guides you toimportant historical sources relevant to that chapter.


End Matter

n A glossary is provided on pages G-1 through G-9. Youcan refer to it at any point it you become a bit hazyabout theories, concepts, or terms.

n “A Note on Dates and Spelling” is on page DS-1

n Notes for key chapter sources begin on page N-1.

n Credits for each chapter begin on page C-1.

n The textbook’s index begins on page I-1.

n A list of the contents on the DVD-ROM that accompaniesthe textbook is provided on pages DVD-1 through DVD-10.

A STUDY PLAN

Here are some time-tested ideas for getting the most fromyour course.

1. Set aside a regular time for reading and writing. Writedown your intended schedule for reading and writing.You might want to use a wall calendar to show what you need to do and when. Check off assignments as you complete them to see your progress.

2. Read everything twice, or at least review after carefulreading. No one gets everything on the first reading. Usethe questioning method (posing each topic heading as aquestion to be answered) to test your understanding asyou review.

3. Don’t look up answers in the key before you completethe self-checks at the end of a chapter. Not only is thatdishonest, it also defeats the purpose of the exercises.


4. Give yourself credit for completing each assignment.Your work and self-discipline will take you through this course. You deserve the credit. So give yourself a pat on the back as you complete each assignment.

5. If you have any questions, e-mail your instructor.


NOTES


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Lesson 1: Foragers, Farmers, and Builders

For: Read in the Read in study guide: the textbook:

Assignment 1 Pages 11–13 Pages 2–25





Examination 007678 Material in Lesson 1

Lesson 2: The Axial Age and Fitful Transitions








Lesson 3: Contacts, Conflicts, and the Crucible








Lesson Assignments10

Lesson 4: Convergence, Divergence, and GlobalEnlightenments










Lesson 5: Frustrations of Progress; Chaos andComplexity











Note: To access and complete any of the examinations in this studyguide, click on the appropriate Take Exam icon on your “My Courses”page. You should not have to enter the examination numbers. Thesenumbers are for reference only if you have reason to contact StudentServices.

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Foragers, Farmers, and Builders

FORAGERS, FARMERS

The first part of Lesson 1 includes Chapter 1, “Out of the Ice:Peopling the Earth,” and Chapter 2, “Out of the Mud:Farming and Herding after the Ice Age.” Be sure to takeadvantage of the time line found in the Part 1 openingspread.

ASSIGNMENT 1: OUT OF THEICE: PEOPLING THE EARTH Read this assignment. Then read the Part 1 opening spread andChapter 1, pages 2–25, in your textbook.

So You Think You’re Human

Humans are genetically related to anthropoid apes, such asthe chimpanzee, the gorilla, and the gibbon, as well as to avariety of related, extinct hominids. Hominids are creatureswith humanoid or humanlike physical characteristics. Theearliest evidence of physically modern humans dates to about150,000 years B.C.E (meaning “Before the Current Era”) in apart of Africa now known as Ethiopia. The most recent of ourgenetic cousins were the Neanderthals. As you’ll learn, theirphysical characteristics and their level of social developmentwere very similar to what we find in Homo sapiens. Indeed,evidence reveals that they lived more or less side-by-side with their human cousins. For reasons that remain uncertain,Neanderthals vanished from the scene about 30,000 years ago.

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Out of Africa

Current evidence suggests that our species evolved over aperiod of about 4 million years from hominids that occupiedareas around the Great Rift Valley of northeast Africa. In anycase, a peculiar fact may fascinate you. Regardless of wherewe find modern humans, anywhere on the globe, they havethe same basic genetic makeup. So, how did that happen?

See Map 1.1 on pages 10–11 of your textbook.

Based on genetic evidence, all living humans trace theirancestry to a prototypical breeding female, whom scientistshave named “Eve,” who lived in present-day Ethiopia about150,000 years ago. In any case, here’s the evidence in a nutshell: The cells of modern humans contain somethingcalled mitochondrial DNA. Female mitochondrial DNA changes(mutates) over time at a known rate. By looking at DNA samples of human populations around the planet, scientistshave been able to work out the likely track of human migra-tions out of Africa.

The Last Great Ice Age

For the last few millions of years or so, Earth has been subject to a 100,000-year cycle of cooling and warming. Anumber of ice ages and so-called interglacial periods haveoccurred over this long span of time. The peopling of theEarth occurred during a period of intense climatic challengesthat accompanied the last great Ice Age.

Study Map 1.2 on pages 14–15 to better understand how thecontinents were impacted by the Ice Age that began to thaw150,000 years ago.

As the polar cap began to shrink and the deep carpet of icebegan to retreat in the Northern Hemisphere, herds of migratingmammals extended their range northward. Humans followed theherds into the great expanse of the thawing tundra. MigratingIce-Age humans (like their Neanderthal cousins) thrived on thehigh-calorie fat from Ice-Age mammals. Ice-Age foragers, suchas Cro-Magnon man in Europe, experienced Ice-Age affluence

Lesson 1 13

in that their diet was highly nutritious. Indeed, at least interms of caloric intake, human diets wouldn’t be as nutri-tious again until well into modern times.

For archeologists and paleontologists—scientists who studythe physiology and evolution of ancient species—Ice-Age globalization refers to the fact that artifacts as well as reli-gious practices have been found to follow the same patternswherever evidence of Ice-Age humans has been found. Ineffect, the archaeological evidence indirectly supports the thesis of common genetic heritage among early humanmigrants out of Africa.

However, one of the mysteries of human migration aroundthe globe involves the peopling of North and South America.Substantial evidence suggests that humans were in the NewWorld from 8,000 to 13,000 B.C.E. However, although theissue is barely touched on in your textbook, some recentarchaeological findings seem to support much earlier humancolonization in areas as far south as Chile. In light of thatfact, you should keep in mind that all history, and certainlyhumankind’s ancient history, is interpretive and not neces-sarily exhaustive. Mysteries and unanswered questionsabound.

Study Map 1.3 on page 20 for graphical information on thepeopling of the New World.

Survival of the Foragers

As Earth’s climate warmed after the Ice Age, humans turnedaway from foraging and hunting to pursue husbandry and agri-culture. Husbandry is the herding and breeding of animals.Agriculture is the systematic planting and farming of foodcrops. Climate change certainly played a part in this process.Deciduous forests spread after the Ice Age. As that happened,sources of edible plants increased in regions that included richtemperate forest soils suitable for planting crops. Husbandry in regions previously devoted to foraging and hunting mayhave helped offset seasonal food-shortage problems related to animal migration patterns. People may also have turned to husbandry and agriculture for social reasons.

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ASSIGNMENT 2: OUT OF THEMUD: FARMING AND HERDINGAFTER THE ICE AGERead this assignment. Then read Chapter 2, pages 26–47, inyour textbook.

There are two key ideas to take away from this chapter. First,with the advent of husbandry, Darwinian natural selectiongave way to something radically different. As animals wereconsciously bred to favor particular characteristics, such asdocility among cattle and agile responsiveness among horses,natural selection gave way to managed selection. Second, asimportant a revolution as was the advent of husbandry, the advent of agriculture was, so to speak, the “really big”revolution. Complex hierarchical states, the organization ofsocieties into social classes, and the advent of imperialism allfollowed on the rise of agriculture.

The Problem of Agriculture

Around 14,000 to 15,000 years ago, permanent settlementsarose in the Middle Eastern regions that include present-dayTurkey, areas south of the Caucasus, as well as parts of Iran,Iraq, and Syria. These areas had an abundance of wild plantsand game animals such that it was possible to sustain stablevillage communities without the bother of systematic farming.In short, archaeologists have found evidence of permanenthouses and social arrangements in places where foragingremained the main way to gather food.

Study Map 2.1 on page 29 of your textbook for information onpreagricultural settlements in the Middle East.

Husbandry in Different Environments

Early on, herding tended to develop in regions where plantswere either sparse or not digestible by humans but weredigestible by animals such as goats, cattle, or horses. By contrast, where soils were suitable for farming, tillers made

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their living by farming as well as by way of husbandry. That’sthe issue in a nutshell. However, in this section, your chal-lenge is become aware of the different kinds of herding andtilling environments, which are described on pages 32–38 ofthe textbook.

Spend some quality time with the “Making Connections” feature on page 31 of your textbook. Note the significant differ-ences between the ways of life and worldviews of foragersand farmers.

The Spread of Agriculture

How did agriculture spread? Diffusion is one likely cause.Agricultural techniques and practices could have spreadthrough social or cultural contact, as seems to have been thecase for the spread of agriculture outward from Anatolia andthe Jordan valley. Diffusion could also have resulted frommigration or invasion (or both). Scenarios for diffusion offeredin your textbook include the possibility that migrants out ofAsia brought their agricultural practices with them intoEurope. The fact that the Indo-European languages foundtoday from India to England originated with these “Aryan”migrants offers some support for that diffusion hypothesis.Another possibility, of course, is that agriculture was inventedin different places at different times. In fact, it’s likely thatboth of these things happened.

Map 2.2 on pages 40–41 of your textbook deserves you carefulattention. Note the locations of swamplands, uplands, andfloodplains. Study the “Early Crop Sites” table on page 40 ofyour textbook.

So Why Did Farming Start?

You textbook offers seven basic theories as to why food production started:

n Population pressures: The advent of agriculture in anarea was often followed by population growth, which, inturn, required more effort and energy devoted to large-scale food production through organized farming. Thepopulation-pressure hypothesis is called a stress theory.

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n Ecological abundance: In areas where the fishing is goodand the living is easy, people have leisure time to experi-ment with plants. However, there’s no necessary reasonto develop agriculture in such an environment.

n Politics: When a society develops a hierarchy of socialclass and status, the people at the top tend to exhibittheir wealth and power through celebratory feasting. Asa result the “little people” have more pressure on them toproduce ever larger harvests.

n Cult agriculture: Fertility rituals represented by the cycleof planting through harvest played a part in early humansocial history. In effect, religious beliefs and practiceshave may have inspired agriculture long before it becamea practical political necessity.

n Climatic instability: Earth became hotter and drier13,000 to 11,000 years ago. In areas like the MiddleEast, drier conditions favored grasses of the sort thatproduce edible grains. As a result, people becameincreasingly dependent on edible grains and learned howto plant and harvest grass crops.

n Agriculture by accident: Your textbook refers you to acommon nineteenth-century theory that agriculture wasdiscovered by accident, probably by women, becausethey were more likely to be plant foragers as opposed togame hunters. Charles Darwin favored this theory.

n Production as an outgrowth of procurement: Improvedtechniques for obtaining edible grains from grasses couldbe a logical extension of plant foraging. In other words,the work of procuring food may show us how to producemore food.

Be sure to conclude your study of Chapter 1 with a carefulcontemplation of the Chronology sidebar on page 45 of yourtextbook.

Please complete Self-Check 1 now.

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Self-Check 1

At the end of each section of World History, you’ll be asked to pause and check yourunderstanding of what you’ve just read by completing a “Self-Check” exercise. Answeringthese questions will help you review what you’ve studied so far. Please complete Self-Check 1 now.

Indicate whether each of the following statements is True or False.

______ 1. Potatoes were first grown for food in Africa.

______ 2. Speculations that Asians may have migrated into Europe are supported by the fact that

Indo-European languages are found in early Europe.

______ 3. The last Ice Age was the last great era of what we now call globalization.

______ 4. Between 9,000 and 11,000 years ago, farming villages appeared in what is now called

Turkey.

______ 5. The Bantu-speaking peoples lived in North Africa.

______ 6. Neanderthals and Homo sapiens were essentially members of the same species.

______ 7. It’s reasonable to assume that societies were more inclined to risk men in war because

women were necessary for reproduction and the care of infants.

Fill in the blank with the correct term.

8. River deltas that renew good soil for farming on a regular basis are called _______ plains.

9. The Scythians of the Asian steppe domesticated the _______ and developed the wheel andaxle approximately 6,000 year ago.

10. Evidence supports the hypothesis that the earliest Homo sapiens occupied regions of east_______.

(Continued)

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Self-Check 1

11. Peoples of Mesoamerica developed farming that concentrated on growing maize, _______,and squash.

12. In early human tribes and groups, the role of the _________ was to act as an intermediarybetween humans and gods or spirits.

Answer each question in no more than four complete sentences.

13. What would climate instability have to do with the development of farming?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

14. What is meant by the term Ice-Age affluence?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

Check your answers with those on page 215.

Lesson 1 19

BUILDERS

The second part of Lesson 1 includes Chapter 3, “The GreatRiver Valleys: Accelerating Change and Developing States”;Chapter 4, “A Succession of Civilizations: Ambition andInstability”; and Chapter 5, “Rebuilding the World: Recoveries,New Initiatives, and Their Limits.”

ASSIGNMENT 3: THE GREATRIVER VALLEYS:ACCELERATING CHANGE ANDDEVELOPING STATESRead this assignment. Then read the Part 2 opening spread andChapter 3, pages 48–73, in your textbook.

Growing Communities, DivergentCultures

Remarkable differences separated societies that adopted agri-culture as their main source of food. Why? You can think ofit like this: Agriculture sustains denser populations—morepeople can live in a limited space. As population densityincreases, farming must be organized. Food must be availablefor the population’s day-to-day needs, and harvest surplusesmust be set aside for times when the harvest is poor. Highlevels of social organization require some kind of lawfully recognized elite—people who are empowered to decide whowill do what.

Those are the common factors that appear with increasingpopulation density. However, just as there are often severalpaths to the top of a mountain, there are all kinds of ways asociety may go about organizing itself, establishing norms ofbehavior, differentiating classes of people, or inventing sacredmyths that justify the way the society is organized.

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For example, as population densities increase, people tend to get sorted into categories. Social organization can be horizontal (hierarchical) or vertical. In a hierarchical socialorganization, people are organized into social classes, such as ruling elites, bureaucrats who administer functions of thestate, and commoners, most of whom are farmers. In a vertical social organization, people are organized by commonallegiances, such as clan membership, place of origin, orshared mythical beliefs. In most societies, there has beensome kind of mixture of these two modes of social organization.

Large cities and states developed in the regions of Peru andMexico from about 2000 B.C.E. In Eurasia, significant socio-cultural developments arose from the British Isles to areasacross Eastern Europe and beyond. The horse was firstdomesticated around 5000 B.C.E. in the region of present-dayUkraine. The first chariots appeared around 2000 B.C.E. inthe region of the southern Ural Mountains. The earliest mon-umental stone buildings have been found on the island ofMalta between Sicily and North Africa of all places! Stone circle monuments, such as Stonehenge in England and similar monumental efforts in Western Europe, certainly suggest complex societies with amazing technological skills.

Study Map 3.1 on page 55 to reflect on intensified settlementsin Western Eurasia between 5000 and 2000 B.C.E.

The Ecology of Civilization

“Civilization” has become a somewhat discredited term, inpart, because there’s no sound evidence of distinct stages insocial evolution. Even so, we can use that term to refer tosocieties that ambitiously altered their natural environment,“attempting to remodel the rest of nature to suit human pur-poses” (textbook, page 56)—for better or for worse.

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The Great Floodplains

The author of your textbook refers to the “ecology of civiliza-tion” with good reason. The four most ambitious societaldevelopments occurred where great rivers provided alluvialflood plains that enriched the soil on a more or less regularannual cycle.

The Ecology of Egypt

Egypt is the Nile; the Nile is Egypt. That’s a poetic way ofsaying that without the regular flooding of the Nile, ancientEgypt would never have existed. The Nile, originating fromthe region of Lake Victoria, flows north to the Mediterranean.Upper Egypt is defined by large measure by the rich soils andwetlands of the Nile Delta. The Pharaoh Menes is creditedwith uniting Upper and Lower Egypt around 3600 B.C.E. andthe first capital of united Egypt was Memphis, near the mod-ern city of Cairo.

Map 3.2 on page 58 of your textbook shows the sources of precious resources and the important trade routes in ancientEgypt. Gold, turquoise, copper, and ivory were a fundamentalbasis of Egyptian trade and wealth.

Egyptian agriculture was sufficient for feeding a large popula-tion, but most people ate only moderately above subsistencelevel.

The Indus Valley

The ancient Harappan civilization arose in the broad Indusdelta region. From an archaeological point of view, Harappancivilization is poorly understood. This is the case in largemeasure because the rivers of the Indus system havechanged course so many times and because the drying up ofthe Saraswati River long ago seems to have sounded a deathknell for the Harappan peoples. Archaeologists have notedthe fine workmanship of Harappan seals (see illustrations onpage 58), but their writing system has been lost to history.

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Map 3.3 on page 59 of your textbook depicts the Indus riversystem that existed mainly in present-day Pakistan. The cityof Harappa is located on one the five rivers that feed the Indusfrom the Himalayas. The largest Harappan site is located atMohenjodaro on the banks of the Indus.

Mesopotamia

Unlike the fairly consistent annual flooding of the Nile, theTigris and Euphrates Rivers (located in present-day Iraq)drain a land of climactic turbulence, regular sandstorms, anduncertain alluvial deposits from river flooding. Nevertheless,the first significant cities arose near the river’s deltas alongthe Persian Gulf. One of these, the fabled Ur, is associatedwith Abraham of the Hebrews. Later, Akkad and other citystates in northern Mesopotamia would dominate the region.

The ancient mythology of this area posited a sort of endlesstension between the Earth-mother goddess Nintu and theassertive land-managing god Enki, even as both deities wereforced to submit to the wrath of storm gods.

Map 3.4 on page 60 of your textbook illustrates the so-calledFertile Crescent that extends from the Tigris and Euphratesvalleys onto the edge of modern-day Turkey and then south-ward along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean throughmodern-day Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. Needless to say, itwas more fertile thousands of years ago than it is today.

Early China

Egypt engaged in a steady trading relationship withMesopotamia. Mesopotamian city states were in touch with and traded with the Harappan peoples. By contrast, the complex society that arose along the course of the Yellow River in China was isolated from the other great river societies. Therefore, the distinctive cultural features ofChinese society developed on their own, without significantinfluence from the outside world. As a result of isolation, the Chinese have tended to see themselves as inhabiting adistinct and central place in the world.

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The tendency of societies to see themselves as unique andspecial leads to a universal tendency toward ethnocentrismand, often, xenophobia. Ethnocentrism is the tendency to seeone’s society’s beliefs and customs as superior to those ofother societies. Xenophobia—”fear of strangers”—refers tofear, loathing, and contempt associated with “barbarian” outsiders.

The Yellow River gets its name from the loose, windbornedusts from Mongolia. Sweeping out of the west, they colorboth the soil and the river yellow. The annual spring floodingof the Yellow River arrives torrentially from the highlands ofShaanxi province. The flooding deposits immensely fertilealluvial soils—soils sufficiently productive to feed what, evenin ancient times, was one of the densest populations any-where on the globe.

The turbulent uncertainty of flooding along the Yellow Riverbrought with it the need for canals, dikes, and reservoirs asinsurance against drought. As you can imagine, these civilengineering challenges would have required a high degree ofhierarchical social organization.

The primary food grain produced by Yellow River agriculturewas millet. (Millet isn’t a single plant species but a family ofgrasses that produce edible grains. Millet is about as nutri-tious as wheat and tends to resist drought.) Over time, theattractions of rice, and somewhat milder climatic conditions,encouraged a gradual process of Chinese colonization southward toward the Yangtze River.

Map 3.5 on page 61 shows the relationship of the Yellow Rivervalley to wet-rice growing areas in the seaward regions of theYangtze River.

Configurations of Society

Patterns of Settlement and Labor

Population density encourages a greater complexity in thedivision of labor. Food surpluses permit people to engage inspecialized activities like weaving, pottery-making, carpentry,building construction, stone masonry, and metallurgy.

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Craft specialization tends to be associated with trade, espe-cially as advances in maritime technology lead to improvedtravel over lakes, rivers, and oceans. Furthermore, trade and conquest have ever tended to be associated in one way or another. In that context, for example, developments inmetallurgy have, inevitably, been associated with ever moreefficient tools and ever more lethal weapons of war.

Study the “Making Connections” feature on page 63 of yourtextbook. Compare the ecology of civilizations based on theNile, the Indus, the Tigris and Euphrates, and the Yellow River in China. Remember that the term ecology refers to the relationships of species within types of habitats (prairies, wet-lands, river valleys). In the historian’s perspective, the focus ison human relationships to an environment.

Politics

All of the great river valley civilizations lent themselves totyranny. This was the case because minutely controlled col-lective efforts of individuals were vital to agriculture aimed atproducing surpluses and handling threats by way of floodcontrol. All of the river states featured divine kingship andrigid social hierarchies that required everyone to be sub-servient to the state.

The Egyptian State

The top survival priorities for Egypt were harvest storage asinsurance against drought and flood control. The guidance orvision of the state was decreed in the sacred orders from themouth of the divine pharaoh, in some ways a representativeand in other contexts the virtual incarnation of the sun god,Ra. Egypt also featured a literate priestly caste. Priests inter-preted and decreed a divine moral code to which even thepharaoh was more or less subservient.

Interestingly, monumental Egyptian statuary and architecture,including the fabulous pyramids of Giza near present-dayCairo, were seen in a somewhat different light in Egypt’s later development. Tombs and monuments that had initially

Lesson 1 25

glorified kings increasingly represented an Egyptian concernwith moral virtue, the weighing of souls, and preparation foran afterlife that rather resembled Egypt’s earthly character.

Statecraft in Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia was composed of a number of rival kingdoms,all of which were typically represented by a single city, suchas Akkad in the north or Ur in the south. The king’s decisionswere guided by oracles provided by court augurers, who triedto foretell the future by reading messages perceived from theentrails of sacrificed animals. The king could also seek hisown oracles by sleeping in temples and awaiting messagesthrough dreams; thus the will of the king wasn’t necessarilyguided by religion or priestly decrees.

Consider the Epic of Gilgamesh to better understand thenature of Mesopotamian kingship.

The First Documented Chinese State

Along the course of the Yellow River, the first documentedChinese state was ruled by the Shang dynasty throughoutthe second millennium (2000 to 1000 B.C.E.). The Shang statewas unitary; that is, it was considered a single entity thatembraced the identities and social roles of everyone in thepopulation. As in Egypt and Mesopotamia, kingship was con-nected to the management of food and water, and, as inthose places, the Chinese king was, above all, a mediator ofthe gods. In that sense, the king replaced the shaman (spirittalker) of earlier tribal societies.

The king was charged with foretelling the future. Will therebe drought? Will the harvest be good? Will we defeat ourenemy? The means of divining the future was assigned todiviners. Diviners would read the cracks and fissures ofheated animal bones and tortoise shells in rather the samemanner as Gypsies might read messages in tea leaves. Asoracle interpretations were etched onto the bones by thediviners, they became oracle bones (or shells). Oracle bonesand tortoise shells, in turn, would provide archaeologists withrecords of kingly deeds and significant events. In any case,

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although wealth and warfare were essential to successful king-ship, success in meeting the needs of the people was alsoconsidered important.

Study the chronology of major events in the sidebar feature onpage 68. It’s important to keep time lines sorted out in yourmind as you move along in this course.

Ruling the Harappan World

A remarkable feature of Harappan ruins is the geometric consistency of urban design and the nature of building construction. The design of the largest Harappan cities(Harappa and Mohenjodaro) is echoed in the layout of themore than 1,500 villages excavated or studied throughout theHarappan lands. Scholars speculate that the rigid consis-tency of urban and village design suggests a rigid social classstructure, possibly even a caste system rather like the onethat would emerge in India. However, because there’s littleevidence of kingly palaces or even clear archaeological distinctions between rich and poor, others have speculatedthat Harappa was either a republic or a theocracy. In anycase, because we have no knowledge of the Harappan writingsystem, and because art objects are all but absent, none ofthese speculations can be grounded in solid evidence.

The Politics of Expansion

All four of the great giver states expanded their territorythrough conquest. In every case, the processes of expansionwould challenge the stability of the river valley societies.Expansion has limits imposed both by geography as well asby the finite resources available to any human enterprise.

Study the “Making Connections” feature on page 69 of yourtextbook to contrast and compare politics and state power inthe great river valley societies.

The social organization required for survival in all of the greatriver societies inclined them to tyranny—to autocratic rule.Autocratic rule is all about subjugating commoners to thewill of the elites. Over time, the gap in wealth between haves

Lesson 1 27

and have-nots leads to civil discontent. By about 1500 B.C.E.,the river states were being destabilized by revolt and resist-ance from the common people.

Literate Culture

Writing has often been thought of a necessary preconditionfor the rise of civilizations. A cuneiform system for writing onclay tablets was developed in Mesopotamia. Both in Egyptand in China, written language consisted of logograms.Egyptian hieroglyphics and Chinese characters can bethought of as icons, a bit like those we see on traffic signs,which suggested an object or a concept. All of these writingsystems were well developed. However, your textbook willchallenge you to consider three reasons why we can’t assumethat writing and advanced social development are more orless joined at the hip. These reasons are discussed on pages 71–72 of the textbook.

ASSIGNMENT 4: A SUCCESSIONOF CIVILIZATIONS: AMBITIONAND INSTABILITYRead this assignment. Then read Chapter 4, pages 74–95, inyour textbook.

Features of the great river societies, including high populationdensities, cities, intensive agriculture, and stratification, arose inother places. The overall number of developed states increasedconsiderably, manifesting a wide variety in approaches to socialorganization and resource production. Accelerating change wascharacterized by warfare and by various kinds of environmentalcatastrophes, from plague to famine to ecological destruction.

The Case of the Hittite Kingdom

The rise and fall of the Hittite Kingdom illustrates the major his-torical themes of the second millennium (2000–1000 B.C.E.). Theheartland of the Hittite Kingdom (from 1800 to 1500 B.C.E.) wasnorthern Anatolia (Turkey). The Hittites called themselves the

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“Children of Hatti.” Hittite palaces, storehouses, town, cities,and armies were all on a scale similar to that of Egypt orMesopotamia. Because the Anatolian environment was harsh,the power of the Hittites was derived from war, tribute, andtrade over an astonishing range of influence.

Map 4.1 on pages 78–79 of your textbook deserves carefulstudy. Pay attention to the trade routes as well as the kinds ofgoods that were traded, such as granite, gold, copper, and timber.

The Hittite king was seen as the sun god’s earthly messengerand was referred to as “My Sun,” just as one would callQueen Elizabeth “Her Majesty.” The king’s court featured anelaborate array of clerks, administrative bureaucrats, militaryofficials, and concubines. Communication of the king’s willwas recorded in writing and distributed throughout the kingdom. The Hittite economy was based on unifying thecontributions of both farmers and herders. That strategyhelped offset the disadvantages of the relatively harsh envi-ronment of Anatolia.

Hittites are often associated with the use of iron in warfare,which they used in weapons and chariots. However, theiriron-smelting techniques were undependable and rudimen-tary. Bronze (an alloy of tin and copper) was the basic metalused for armor, weapons, tools, and crafted metal objects. Inany case, Hittite society was male dominated and fixated onwar. Women had their voice as court diviners, healers, andseers. However, the great flocks of royal concubines weretreated as the “rivets” of the kingdom. Their charms wereoffered as good-faith “currency” in trade and to the end offorging alliances with the elites of bordering states. TheHittite Kingdom went into decline around 1300 B.C.E. andvanished from historical reference after about 1210 B.C.E.

Instability and Collapse in the Aegean

During the second millennium, two fascinating and some-what mysterious civilizations arose in the southern reaches ofthe Aegean Sea. The Minoan culture arose on the island ofCrete. Mycenae arose in southern Greece.

Lesson 1 29

Elaborate palace architecture was appearing on Crete by2000 B.C.E. The lavishly furnished palaces were the domain ofelites. Food and forage were stacked in storehouses, andmaritime trade was a vital source of Cretan wealth. However,wealth and food distribution was apparently inefficient. Theaverage commoner was likely to have a lifespan of about 40 years, just getting by on a diet barely sufficient for sustenance.

Cretan society was ravaged by natural disasters, includingearthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The great palace in theCretan city of Knossos was rebuilt several times, the last timebeing around 1400 B.C.E. Around that date, two patternsemerged. The first is evidence of warfare, some of it possiblyinternal. The second is that documents began to be written inan early form of Greek.

At that point, the Minoan and the Greek Mycenaean culturesbecame entangled. Gold-enriched royal tombs and fortifiedcities are found in Mycenae from about 1500 B.C.E. Artifactsand architecture are very like those of Crete. By 1100 B.C.E.,the cities of Crete and Mycenae had been abandoned. It’s notclear how Cretan or Mycenaean culture is connected to therise of the Greek city-states hundreds of years later.

Map 4.2 on page 83 of your textbook will help you understandthe trade and cultural contacts that occurred around the east-ern Mediterranean between 2000 and 1200 B.C.E. Notice thattrade routes extended all through Western Europe, reachingthe British Isles and Scandinavia. To the east, trade routesconnected Mycenae and Crete to Anatolia and Egypt.

A General Crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean World?

Archaeological evidence from the second half of the secondmillennium indicates repeated incursions and invasions.Because their boundary areas were reasonably hospitable forhuman habitation, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Harappa werealways subject to intermittent invasions. However, duringthis same period, outsider invasions had a significant impactelsewhere. Around 1500 B.C.E. invaders from North Africa—the Hyksos—invaded Egypt, occupying delta areas for quite

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some time before they were finally expelled under PharaohRamses III. Then, around 1190 B.C.E., mysterious seaborneinvaders called the Sea People threatened settled populationsall around the eastern Mediterranean.

These second-millennium invasions stemmed mainly fromunstable populations driven to migration by hunger. Theseeffects, in turn, resulted from competitive politics, the ecolog-ical fragility of farmed lands, and, in some cases, disease andnatural disasters.

The Extinction of Harappan Civilization

In an era when empires were rising and falling like bowling pins, the erosion and decline of the Harappan civilization was unprecedented. Later Indo-European migrants into theHarappan regions left us historical and mythological writing indocuments called the Rig Veda. Interpretations of that ancientdocument (appearing in written form around 800 B.C.E.) suggestthat, along with the drying up of parts of the region, peoplewere driven to “another land” by disease. The likely disease ina region where standing water accompanied irrigation effortswould most likely have been malaria. In any case, historiansand archaeologists continue to sift through long-abandonedruins in search of answers as to the demise of the Harappancivilization.

Conflict on the Yellow River

Empires rise and fall. That’s the way of the world. By 1100 B.C.E,the extent and power of the Shang dynasty was fading. Aroundthis time, according to the evidence, the Zhou peoples, who firstappeared in the mountains of western China, were inspiredby Shang turtle-shell oracles to take up arms and pursueconquest. Zhou herders became warriors and defeated theShang dynasty in a single battle in 1045 B.C.E. The Zhouthen annexed the lands of Shang as a colony, swore nominalallegiance to the cultural values of Shang, and establishedtheir capital somewhat to the north.

Zhou dominance in China lasted from about 1000 to 700 B.C.E. Thereafter, they would be increasingly challengedby rival states. The Zhou invented the idea that China’s

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hegemony was decreed by a Mandate of Heaven. Even thoughChina would be convulsed by warring states and politicalrivalries over the centuries, the idea of China as a unitarydomain has remained.

State-Building in the Americas

In the Americas, empires arose following many of the samepatterns we see in the Old World. Along the Andean high-lands and in central Mexico, ambitious efforts were made toalter the natural environment in favor of a human vision.Trade was a foundation of empire building.

In the Andean regions, various experiments in state-buildingamong culturally diverse peoples tended to be short-lived.However, what these peoples achieved with regard to civilengineering, urban design, and building construction isremarkable. The city complex of Chavín de Huantar is offeredas an example and is described on page 89 of your textbook.All along the Andes—from Colombia to Bolivia and beyond—one finds remarkable ruins of complex societies.

Map 4.3 on page 90 of your textbook will help you visualizethe extent of Andean and Olmec civilizations. It will also giveyou some understanding of why changes in Pacific Oceancoastal currents, wrought by El Niño once or twice eachdecade, created periods of torrential rains that posed seriousenvironment problems for Andean societies.

In Mesoamerica, in the region we now call Mexico, the OlmecEmpire arose along the swampy coastal areas west of theYucatan Peninsula during the second millennium. Around1200 B.C.E., monumental stone buildings were appearing onagricultural mounds built in drained areas of the wetlands.These became the centers of urbanized regions with relativelydense populations and sophisticated civil engineering thatincluded sewage systems, canals, and stone-paved plazasand avenues.

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Characteristics of Olmec culture would appear in laterMesoamerican states and empires. These included

n Intensive cultivation of maize, squash, and beans

n Imperial or expansionist agendas formulated by way ofshamanic rituals that guided the decisions of powerelites

n Powerful similarities in art and architecture.

Assessing the Damage

By around 1000 B.C.E., the Minoan and Mycenaean civiliza-tions were gone. The Hittites were no more. Harappan societyhad vanished. In Mesopotamia, the Sumerian peoples of Urand other sites closer to the Persian Gulf had fallen underthe sway to the Akkadian peoples of the upper regions of theTigris and Euphrates. The Akkadian language became dominant, and the Sumerian language began to fade intoobscurity.

Egypt, in contrast, was a survivor. The Hyksos were driven fromEgypt at around the same time that Biblical accounts record theemigration of Moses and the Hebrew tribes across the Sinai andonward to regions of the eastern Mediterranean. The Sea Peopleswere finally defeated. However, Egypt’s empire was weakened.Around 2000 B.C.E., Nubia was an independent state, althoughits customs, architecture, and culture were essentially Egyptian.Nubia was a source of trade, wealth, tribute, and mercenaries.However, after 1000 B.C.E., records of Nubia vanish. TheEgyptian empire, weakened by invasions, had contracted.

Be sure to spend some time studying the “Making Conn-ections” feature on page 93 of your textbook to consider theinstabilities that led to the downfall of kingdoms between 2000 and 1000 B.C.E. Also review the “Chronology” sidebar on page 94 of your textbook.

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ASSIGNMENT 5: REBUILDINGTHE WORLD: RECOVERIES, NEWINITIATIVES, AND THEIR LIMITS Read this assignment. Then read Chapter 5, pages 96–121, inthe textbook.

The end of the second millennium was marked by fadingempires and what amounted to “dark ages” in areas wherethe quality of life regressed or became stagnant. In this chap-ter, you’ll be challenged to think about how the parts andpieces of earlier cultures and empires were reassembled toaid new experiments in empire-building. You’ve already seenthat trade is a primary foundation of empire. In that context,keep in mind that during first millennium the main approachto trading with neighboring states was to colonize them.

Trade and Recovery in the Middle East

Phoenicia

By around 1000 B.C.E., Phoenician ships were traveling, tradingwith, and/or colonizing sites around the Mediterranean.Phoenicia’s heartland consisted of ports at Byblos and othercities in what is present-day Lebanon. In those days, thefabled “cedars of Lebanon” still existed in abundance. Theirtimber provided raw materials for Phoenicia’s seaworthyships as well as a vital trade commodity.

Around 500 B.C.E., a Phoenician bid for empire centered onits resource-rich colony at Carthage, in North Africa. However,the Phoenicians also had colonies in present-day Spain,Sardinia, Sicily, and even West Africa. The Carthaginian bidfor empire would peak with the fabled assault on Rome by a Carthaginian general named Hannibal. After three majorwars, Rome defeated Carthage in 146 B.C.E., and that was the bitter end of Phoenicia. Well, almost. The Phoeniciansinvented the alphabet. The Greeks, Romans, and others

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adopted this novel approach to writing. Today, the wordsyou’re reading are one result of what Phoenicia left to theworld.

Assyria

The wealth of the Kings of Assur came largely from raiding,looting, and pillaging. With the decline of Hatti, new conquestopportunities presented themselves. By around 1000 B.C.E.,Assyrian kings had forged a state along the upper Tigris. By750 B.C.E., these kings were replacing local governors, ineffect building an empire based on domination.

The massive, monumental character of Assyrian buildingsand statuary aimed at intimidation. Assyrian rulers, as illustrated by King Ashurbanipal, were self-aggrandizingimperialists who presented themselves as intimates of thegods and entitled lords of the world.

Babylon

Ancient Babylon was located on the banks of the EuphratesRiver in Mesopotamia. It was a center of trade and politicalpower that became a prized part of the Assyrian Empire.However, the people of Babylon rebelled on a regular basis.The Assyrian kings Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal, in partic-ular, responded with massacres, massive deportations, andall kinds of destruction wrought on the cityscape. But, a bitlike Lexington and Concord during the American Revolution,the name of Babylon became a rallying cry for insurgentsagainst Assyrian domination.

By the seventh century B.C.E., the Assyrian Empire wasoverextended and running low on resources. A leader by thename of Nabopolasar took advantage of that situation tomastermind a Babylonian revival. As a result, Babylonbecame an independent metropolis and reached the height of its power under the fabled king Nebuchadnezzar (605–562 B.C.E.). Nebuchadnezzar was heavily invested in restoringthe ziggurats and other monumental architecture of ancientMesopotamia. Among his achievements was one of theancient wonders of the world—the Hanging Gardens ofBabylon.

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Greece and Beyond

Early in the first millennium, at about the same time as theSea People were terrorizing the Mediterranean, migrants fromthe north poured into Greece, devastating the literate culturethat may have been the heirs of Mycenaean culture. Emergingfrom a dark age, when most Greeks were goat herders andmarginal farmers, city states arose at places like Athens andCorinth.

These cities became centers of seaborne commerce basedlargely on olives and olive oil that gave rise to a swarm oftrade-based Greek colonies around the Aegean Sea, the BlackSea, and across the Mediterranean in parts of Italy, Spain,Southern France, Cyprus, and the North Africa. Whereverthere was Greek colonialism, there were ports and settle-ments devoted to seaborne trade and impacts from Greek art,science, and culture.

Map 5.1 on pages 100–101 of your textbook depicts the MiddleEast and the Mediterranean between 1000 and 500 B.C.E.Spend as much time as you need with this map. Locate theextents of successive empires and the locations of colonies.Pay attention to trade routes. Note the locations of copper, tin,and gold mining.

Early Greek Society

Ancient Greeks declared their culture, their values and cus-toms, to be unique. Outsiders were “barbarians.” However,Greek culture was assembled from influences and outrightimitation of Near Eastern (Asian) and even Egyptian cultures.As a result, the long-treasured idea that the Greeks gavebirth to Western civilization is looked on more skepticallythan once it was.

In part, this is the case because the West would be influ-enced by Greek intellectual elites, such as Plato andAristotle, when in fact the ideals and customs of ordinaryGreeks were largely formed by myths and superstitions sur-rounding their ideas of the gods as little better thansquabbling, jealous, vengeful sociopaths. Further, eventhough Athenians did invent governance based on their ideaof democracy, Greek society was anything but liberal. Only

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privileged males were citizens. The 40 percent of Athenianswho were slaves had no voice and no choice. At the sametime, women were typically treated as little more than compli-ant property.

The Spread of State-Building and City-Building

Historical interpretation tends to be selective. Schoolchildrenlearn all about the Greeks but little or nothing about the peoplesof Thrace, Illyria, or North Africa or the fertile civilization ofthe Etruscans of central Italy. On pages 106 and 108–109 ofyour textbook, you’ll learn a bit about these vibrant culturalareas. But the main point is this: Phoenician and Greek colo-nization turned the entire Mediterranean into a highway ofcultural exchange. The sharing of wealth and ideas led tostate- and city-building all around the Mediterranean.

Study the “Making Connections” feature on page 103 of yourtextbook to compare conditions in Phoenicia, Assyria, andBabylon that led to recovery in the Middle East and theMediterranean.

Empires and Recovery in China and South Asia

In China, the realm of the Zhou became increasingly decen-tralized. Zhou rulers seemed more concerned with rituals andappeasing the gods than practical governance. As a result,subordinate kingdoms became insubordinate. Meanwhile,nomadic peoples from the western mountains continued toapply pressure along China’s northern borders.

The Zhou moved eastward into a region that had been centralto the Shang, but which now consisted of 148 Zhou relativesor nominees. That number was reduced by reconfigurationand consolidation, but by the sixth century B.C.E. China wasa hodge-podge of jostling states in an era called the Period ofWarring States. Those years were marked by more or lesscontinuous warfare between states and violent political instability within states.

In India, along the lush valley of the Ganges River, a distinc-tive cultural region was present from about 1000 B.C.E. Thesepeople seem not to have been successors of Harappan civi-lization. Yet, as in the case of Harappa, very little is known

Lesson 1 37

about the customs, economy, or governance of the Gangespeoples. However, the surviving literature of sages is bothabundant and remarkable. Among these, the Upanishadsrecount oral traditions and wisdom that appears to have originated long before they were written down around thebeginning of the first millennium.

The religious and philosophical ideas found in the Upanishadsare unique. They include a mystical belief in the unity of allbeing under a primary deity called Brahman, the illusorynature of sensory reality, and a doctrine of reincarnation. The concept of reincarnation is that people progress throughmany lifetimes to acquire virtues, gain enlightenment, andreturn to the embrace of Brahman.

To the south on the Indian Ocean, a people called theSinhalese established an urbanized trade and shipbuildingsociety covering much of the present-day island nation of SriLanka.

Study Map 5.2 on page 110 of your textbook to locate Chinaduring the Warring States Period, the area of barbarian intru-sions, the settled area of the Ganges Valley in India, and theancient Sinhalese cultural area on Sri Lanka.

The Frustrations of Isolation

Technological and cultural innovations spread across Eurasiaand around the Mediterranean because trade and culturalcontact was facilitated by similar kinds of climates, estab-lished trade routes, and navigable sea lanes and rivers. Bycontrast, radical variations in climate zones, natural barrierssuch as the Sahara Desert, and sheer distance greatlyrestricted cultural exchange in the Americas, much of Africa,and Australia.

Innovative cultural developments in North America werefound among the ancient Dorset culture that thrived in Arctic environments, the “Poverty Point” people of the lowerMississippi, the mound-builder culture of the Ohio Valley,and in the present-day American Southwest, where maize-bean-squash farming techniques of the Olmec were adopted.

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In Africa, we find several ancient areas of cultural innovationand development. Nubia, located in the present-day Sudan,abandoned the Egyptian language, adopting a Nubian lan-guage around 750 B.C.E. The Nubian cities of Meroe andNapata were centers of independently developed and sophisti-cated iron smelting and fabrication.

By 1000 B.C.E., the Bantu-speaking farmers of central Africawere expanding southward. Their agricultural productivityprovided surpluses that allowed them to trade with Nubia.

Hard-iron technology appears in West Africa (along the NigerRiver) and then in the great lakes regions of Kenya around500 B.C.E. At that time trade routes existed across the Saharafrom the slave-trading Garamantes of Libya to West Africa,possibly laying a cultural framework for the development ofmedieval African states like Mali and Songhai that were firstencountered by Europeans more than a thousand years later.

The monsoon cycles of the Indian Ocean have encouragedtrade for a long time. Important trading centers were presentin the fertile regions of the Arabian Peninsula (in today’sYemen, Oman, and Bahrain) during the period of Assyrianand Babylonian power. Trade routes across the Indian Oceanto South Asia developed and evidence indicates that trade-centered cities were present in the Horn of Africa.

Be sure to study the “Making Connections” feature on page 118 of your textbook. It will help you to compare and con-trast cultural developments and achievements in the Americas,Africa, and across Eurasia. And, of course, spend some timewith the “Chronology” sidebar on page 119 of your textbook.

Now, review the material you’ve learned in this study guide as well as the assigned pages in your textbook forAssignments 1–5. Once you feel you understand the material,complete Self-Check 2. Then check your answers with thoseprovided at the end of this study guide. If you’ve missed any answers, or you feel unsure of the material, review theassigned pages in your textbook and this study guide. Whenyou’re sure that you completely understand the informationpresented in Assignments 1–5, complete your examination for Lesson 1.

Lesson 1 39

Self-Check 2


______ 1. In the fourth century B.C.E., Aristotle speculated that the state arose from a voluntary

alliance of families.

______ 2. Most Andean experiments in civilization didn’t last very long.

______ 3. The rise of Mycenaean civilization preceded the rise of Minoan civilization on the island

of Crete.

______ 4. Through most of human history, societies were organized into social classes.

______ 5. The early Yellow Empire in China was capable of sustaining a rice-growing society.

______ 6. The common people of Egypt lived mainly on a diet of bread and grain-based beer that

provided nutrition levels only modestly above subsistence level.

______ 7. In the sixth century B.C.E., if you were a woman you would experience more advan-

tages in life if you were an Etruscan as opposed to a Greek or a Roman.

______ 8. The Harappan civilization was located in the region of modern-day Pakistan.


9. If legend can be credited, the first major _______ colony was at Carthage in North Africa.

10. The most famous relic of _______ literature is the Epic of Gilgamesh.

11. The Upanishads record how lesser gods challenged the supreme god called _______.

12. In the first millennium B.C.E., Phoenician and _______ colonization and trade turned theMediterranean into a highway of cultural exchange.

13. The Hyksos invasion of _______ around 1500 B.C.E. preceded the invasion of the mysteriousSea Peoples around 1190 B.C.E.

(Continued)

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Self-Check 2

Answer each question in not more than four complete sentences.

14. How did the Hittite kingdom manage to thrive in the rugged terrain of Anatolia?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

15. What are logograms?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

16. Describe the nature of oracles used in ancient Shang China.

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________


The Axial Age and FitfulTransitions

THE AXIAL AGE

The first part of Lesson 2 covers Chapter 6, “The GreatSchools,” and Chapter 7, “The Great Empires.”

ASSIGNMENT 6: THE GREATSCHOOLSRead this assignment. Then read the Part 3 opening spread andChapter 6, pages 122–149, in your textbook.

The axial age unfolded over a period of roughly 500 years. It’s called axial because it marked a profound shift in humanperspectives on the nature of reality. Axial-age thought is associated with highly influential and innovative ideasexpressed though religious doctrines, innovative philosophies,and approaches to scientific-analytical thought. The majorplayers during the axial age lived in China, India, Greece, andsouthwest Asia (Tibet). They were linked to each other throughtrade and cultural exchange that included the exchange ofideas.

During the axial age, religious and creeds and practicesshifted from a focus on survival to beliefs and practicesfocused on salvation and acquiring spiritual virtues, such asselflessness and compassion. There was less focus on thisworld and more concern for transcending the limitations ofmortality.

The Thinkers of the Axial Age

The key religious thinkers of the axial age are discussed onpages 126–127 and 130–131 of your textbook. You’ll learnabout Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism, Gautama Siddhartha

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and Buddhism, Confucius and Confucianism, Laozi (oftenwritten as Lao-Tzu) and Daoism (often written as “Taoism”),and Jesus and Christianity.

Innovators of what we would now call secular thought, thoughtbased on critical reason and analysis, appeared in all the regionsof the axial age, including China and India. However, forWestern Civilization, the cradle of philosophy—and of science—isancient Greece. Among the many innovative Greek thinkers,the most imposing figures are Aristotle and his teacher Plato.The quip that all Western philosophy amounts to footnoteson Plato contains more than a grain of truth. However,Aristotle’s writings, when recovered in Western Europe centuries later,would have the greater initial impact on European andWestern thought.

The Thoughts of the Axial Age

Religious Thinking

The axial age produced influential ideas about the concept ofdivinity. Your textbook details the idea of a divine creator, theidea of a single god, and the idea of an involved god, who wasengaged in the world.

n Creation: Early cosmic myths, like those of many tribalpeoples, tended to explain how the world came to be as it is. The axial age abounded in mythological narrativeattempting to explain the creation of the world. The Genesisstory, wherein the Creator said, “Let there be light,” pro-posed a divine entity who had always existed and whoproduced the universe by an act of divine mind.

n Monotheism: The idea that there’s a primary, unique, andeternal God existed in many places. However, Judaism wasrather unique in proposing a single god, Yahweh, whichbasically means “the unnamable god.” The monotheisticidea would be absorbed into all the so-called “religions ofthe book”—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Lesson 2 43

Look at Figure 6.1 on page 133 to think about the Abrahamictradition as it originated and was then adopted by Islam andChristianity.

n Divine love: The image of divine love—God’s love for hishuman creatures—was formulated late in the axial age by Judaic thinkers, mainly based on the assumption thatGod made man in his own image to serve as stewards ofHis Creation. This idea would impact the theologies ofChristianity and Islam. Similar ideas would appear inChina and by way of Greek philosophy. However, theJain sect of India declared all life sacred and all crea-tures brethren, and for Buddhists, respect for all lifedidn’t involve a god concept.

New Political Thinking

All through history there have been two opposing views ofhuman nature. Some thinkers have viewed humankind asinherently evil. Others have proposed, like Anne Frank, thatpeople are good at heart. And, of course, these two opposedpoints of view encourage rather distinct ideas about the role of governance and the proper ordering of society.Justifications for both points of view were sharpened duringthe axial age. Pages 134–137 of the textbook discusses thepolitical developments in light of these two views—politicalpessimism and political optimism—in the axial age.

Challenging Illusion

The most striking feature of axial age thought all acrossEurasia was the recognition that what we know through ourphysical senses enslaves us by way of false assumptions.You’ve already seen that the sacred literature of Indiadeclared the world a dance of illusion. In the West, Platoexpressed this idea in The Republic with his famous parableof the cave. Shackled in a cave of sensory illusion, we knownot the source of true light beyond our cave. We imagine reality to consist of the play of shadows across the cavewalls. So, in effect, reality is hidden behind our illusory imaginings.

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Mathematics

Early concepts of numeration and ratios seems first to havedeveloped as ancient sages learned to measure the periodici-ties of celestial bodies—particularly the seasonal cycles of thesun and roughly monthly cycles of the moon. During theaxial age, however, sages began to explore the concepts ofnumber and ratio as clues to the nature of the cosmos itself.Hindu sages devised the idea of cosmic cycles covering thousands of years. In the West, during the sixth centuryB.C.E. the Greek genius Pythagoras established basic con-cepts of geometry and proposed that numbers and ratios arereal in themselves as well as keys to the structure of the cos-mos. In short, the “language” of the invisible cosmos was tobe found in mathematics.

Reason

A major outcome of thinking about numbers and ratios wasrationalism. Rationalism is the doctrine that unaided reasoncan identify and establish truths. This section is a mind-bender. You’ll need to study and reflect on the ideas youencounter here. The Greek sage Parmenides (fifth centuryB.C.E.) proposed that just as the idea of a perfect triangle canexist only in the mind, the same principle applies to anythingat all perceived by the senses. What is “real” for us is actuallyan interpretive construction of the mind.

Greek, South Indian, and Chinese sages proposed concepts of logic. Logic is the proper use of reason. All sound arguments,such as those presented by prosecutor in a court of law,depend on logic. For the West, Aristotle’s concept of argu-ment through syllogisms is the paramount example of logicalrigor. Reflect on this famous syllogism:

All men are mortal Socrates is a man.Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Try creating a few syllogisms from any first premises you like.Can you come up with an invalid syllogism—one in which theconclusion doesn’t follow from the primary or derivative prem-ise?

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Science

An interesting development during the axial age was a newtendency to distinguish between the natural and the super-natural. Prior to that sort of thinking, what we might think of as natural or healing sciences were seen as magical innature. The new distinction plus the ideas that reason isfooled by the senses and that truth can result from carefulobservation and numerically accurate measurement led tothe advent of science.

In China, a prototype of scientific thinking appears to havederived from Taoist teachings. Chinese science tended to beweak on theory while being strong on practical technology.

In the West, the rise of science was a remarkable counter-current to popular culture that placated whimsical gods andassumed the existence of sprites, trolls, and nature spirits. Inthis setting, Aristotle set standards that would guide Westernscience for a very long time. For Aristotle, science was allabout gathering facts, connecting dots, and applying reasonin order to understand what can be observed.

Medicine

The notions that diseases, especially mental disorders,resulted from demonic possession, witchcraft, and the like would persist well into the eighteenth century, C.E.Nevertheless, the scientific mode of thought gained ground in the sphere of medicine during the axial age. In Greece inthe late fifth century B.C.E., followers of Hippocrates (calledHippocratics) proposed that human disease and illness resultfrom an imbalance of the vital fluids. The theory was wrong,but at least it was based on empirical observation. In India,Susutra (sixth century B.C.E.), developed a system of medicinebased on diet and drugs. In China, Xunzi (d. 235 B.C.E.) main-tained that illnesses and diseases resulted from naturalisticcauses.

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Skepticism

An outgrowth of scientific thinking led to the markedlyuncomfortable idea that the world and the universe itself aremeaningless; there’s no cosmic purpose. Several examples ofsages who espoused such views include the Greek philoso-pher Epicurus (d. 270 B.C.E.) and the first-century Chinesesage Wangchong. Epicurus was a strict materialist. The worldas he saw it was composed of nothing but impermanent partsand pieces (“atoms”) that move about in random ways. Sucha cosmos has no place for eternal spirits or immortal souls,much less divine purpose. For Wangchong, humans are para-sitic vermin who imagine a supernatural realm to givethemselves a cosmic significance that doesn’t exist.

Skeptical philosophies that weren’t based in strict material-ism included those emerging from Buddhism and Taoism inthe East and from the Greek philosopher Zeno of Citium wholived and taught the Stoic philosophy in Athens in the fourthcentury B.C.E. All of these doctrines proposed that some senseof grace and integrity required detachment or indifference tothe slings and arrows of mortal life. Stoicism was widelyadopted in Roman times. A basic Stoic idea is that nature ismorally neutral. Only human acts can be thought of as eithergood or evil. How we act determines who we are. And thoseideas would continue to influence Western elites to this day.

Axial Age-Axial Area: the Structuresof the Axial Age

Schools and sages of the axial age fell into four general, oftenoverlapping, categories:

n Professional intellectuals who sold their services asteachers, often in the context of aspiring to public or pro-fessional positions, but also to offer comfort or advice topeople in search of wealth, health and happiness

n Intellectuals who sought the patronage of monarchs andelites, often in the capacity of political advisors (forexample, Aristotle)

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n Prophets or holy men who emerged from ascetic liveswith inspired messages for society

n Charismatic sages, who sought advocates for a visionarypolitical agenda that could either attract followers or beimposed on a populace

Probably the main idea you’ll want to draw from this section isthat innovative thought happened in a dynamic context. Sagesdisputed with each other even as their disputes inspired newinsights. Teachers gathered students into schools; studentsquestioned teachers. Some “graduates” formed new schools.Intellectual advisors to kings and princes crafted clever argu-ments to sway the thought of ambassadors, wealthy merchants,and royal ministers. It’s instructive that, for the most part,Plato expressed his insights and ideas through writing out dialogues. Platonic dialogues like the Symposium read a bit like a script for a stage play.

We tend to think of schools as buildings. Actually, it’s bestto think of schools of thought as virtual pools of discourse—chat rooms without computers. Wealthy thinkers like Platofounded academies that included boarding for students. Butmore often than not, ideas were bought, sold, or repudiatedat dinner parties, in marketplaces, or in a public commons—such as the famed Agora of Athens. The word college comes from the Latin collegium, referring to an association of academiccolleagues.

Wrap up your study of this chapter with a careful study of the “Making Connections” feature on page 146 and the“Chronology” sidebar on page 147 of your textbook.

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ASSIGNMENT 7: THE GREATEMPIRESRead this assignment. Then read Chapter 7, pages 150–177, inyour textbook.

Routes that Drew the Old World Together

Sea lanes of the Mediterranean were relatively short, and“shore-hopping” was relatively easy. But the Greeks and thePhoenicians had to learn how to make headway by sailingagainst the wind in order to navigate the full length of theMediterranean. By contrast, the alternating monsoonal windcurrents of the Indian Ocean facilitated long-range naviga-tion. Mariners could sail to their destination and then getback home again. For this reason, during the period of theGreat Empires, the Indian Ocean was a vital highway of tradeand commerce from Arabia and Africa all the way to Chinaand ports of call in Southeast Asia.

In 111 B.C.E., a Chinese garrison established an outpostbeyond China’s western borders. Poetically, this region wasreferred to as the “throat of China,” where trade routes to thewest gathered like veins gather in the neck of a beast or aperson. Collectively, roads branching out from this regionwere referred to as the Silk Roads. Trade along these routesgenerally passed through series of middlemen in market centers, like Baghdad or the Persian capital at Susa, finallyarriving in regions of the Near East and all around theMediterranean. The reference to “Silk Roads” reminds us thatevidence of long-distance trade included the appearance ofsilk in places like Egypt, Greece, and Roman Britain. Thequantity and bulk of goods transported by land was far lessthan what could be transported by sea. Nevertheless, eventhough sea routes were more important to global history,land routes were also vital to trade and cultural exchangeduring the axial age.

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The key to this section, beyond enjoying the textbook discus-sion, is Map 7.1 on pages 154–155 of your textbook. Study itcarefully to understand prevailing wind currents and sea andland trade routes. Also, be sure to study the icons on the mapthat represent important trade goods. Use the map in conjunc-tion with the “Making Connections” feature on page 158 to geta good overview of trade routed and their connections.

The First Eurasian Empire: Persia

The founding of the Persian Empire is credited to Cyrus theGreat. In around the middle of the sixth century B.C.E., Cyruslaid the foundation of what would become the Persian Empireby conquering the land of the Medes, one of the larger suc-cessor kingdoms of the Assyrian Empire. Thereafter, theempire was built by way of conquest and assimilation, takingadvantage of Persia’s central location along the highways oftrade that connected east and west.

At its greatest extent, the Persian Empire, joined withMesopotamia, extended to the coast of the Aegean in thewest, across much of Egypt in the south, and onward intoparts of India beyond the Indus to the southeast. As with allempires, the lifeblood of Persia was trade and tribute. And in that regard, the Persians weren’t fools. Their 1,700 milesof roads and practices of wise governance tended to keepconquered states relatively comfortable with their Persianoverlords. For example, Cyrus the Great rebuilt the Jewishtemple at Jerusalem, garnering the gratitude of the Hebrews.

The Greeks versus the Persians: TheRise of Alexander the Great and theHellenic Empire

The Greeks looked down on the Persians, expressing con-tempt for their respect for women and the luxurious lifestyleof Persian elites. The Greeks were given to constant squab-bling among rival city states. However, they managed to unitelong enough to defeat Persian efforts to conquer Greece in490 and 489 B.C.E. The latter war featured the famous “Stand

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of the 100,” wherein a handful of Spartans delayed thePersian advance out of Asia long enough for the Greeks to rally sufficient strength to defeat the Persians.

During the period of the Persian wars, Athens was, more orless, the dominant political player in Greek affairs. Thatended in 338 B.C.E. when King Phillip of Macedon unitednortheastern Greece, including Athens, through conquest.Phillip’s next plan involved pushing the Persians out of Asia,but when Phillip was assassinated and his 19-year-old sonAlexander ascended to power, the “Persian agenda” under-went radical change.

Alexander of Macedon is, without doubt, one of the most colorful and astonishing characters of the axial age. Hisambition had no bounds. Alexander and his Greeks conquered Persia in three short years. Wisely, he left the efficient, well-run state to continue to operate as it had.Persia was, in effect, assimilated, but under the rule ofAlexander’s lieutenants. Alexander then moved on to conquerLower Egypt, Bactria, and various states and tribes in andaround modern-day Iran and Afghanistan. His efforts finallycame to a halt in India, at which point the Greeks were justabout ready to hang it up and go home. Also at that point,Alexander was suffering from delusions of grandeur, and hisrule had become cruel and arbitrary. Be that as it may, atage 32 Alexander was dead of unknown causes. Thereafter,Alexander’s lieutenants would rule a loosely joined HellenicEmpire of mixed Asian and Greek influences. In Egypt, Hellenicand Egyptian influences fused under the long rule of Ptolemy(one of Alexander’s lieutenants) and his successors, the lastof which was Cleopatra.

The Rise of Rome

The history of the Roman Empire is, in effect, the history of the foundations of Western civilization. However, becausethe Romans annexed Greece and were heavily influenced byGreek thought, arts, and architecture, scholars often refer to Greco-Roman civilization. In any case, because Western civilization would come to dominate the globe, a student whowants to understand our world will make an effort to exploreall the things that made up the “glory that was Rome.”

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Rome started out as a provincial region of dirt farmers andgoat herders on the banks of the Tiber River, scattered overthe seven hills that would one day be covered by the monu-mental architecture that characterizes Rome to this day.Early Roman society no doubt borrowed some cultural elements from the Etruscans, but Roman culture had a distinct character based on martial virtues. The requiredlength of military commitment to Rome ranged from 16 to 25 years. In fact, as the Empire expanded to make theMediterranean a “Roman pond,” the retirement cities ofRoman legionaries (soldiers), scattered from Britain toAnatolia to Egypt to Palestine, became the templates forarchitecture and Roman (or Greek) ideas over the lands ruled directly or indirectly from the “eternal city” (Rome).Across the empire, the expression “all roads lead to Rome”held more than a grain of truth.

A major tool of Roman expansion was civil engineering. TheRomans invented cement. Cement permitted the construction of such wonders as aqueducts, the ruins of which are yet seenall around the Mediterranean and as far west and north as thelands Romans called Gaul (France) and Britannia. The Romanlegionaries spent as much time building roads and bridges asthey did striking down foes on battlefields. Another major tool of Roman expansion was managed assimilation. Provinces wereallowed to follow their own customs and practice their local religions, under the sway of local Roman governors. Also,encouraging loyalty to Rome, people in conquered areas weregranted the rights and privileges of Roman citizenship.

Roman history can be roughly divided between republicanand imperial eras. The Republic featured elected consuls, an aristocratic assembly called the senate, and tribunes whorepresented ordinary citizens. However, Rome was an empirebased on conquest. Thus, central government by temporarywartime leaders called dictators resulted from the need forcentral command of the Roman legions. The dividing linebetween the Republic and the Empire was the electionAugustus in 27 B.C.E. He was to rule as princeps (chief) ofRome for life. In effect, Augustus was Rome’s first emperor.

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The chronic insecurity of Rome was generated by its long andbarely manageable northern and eastern borders. Underthese conditions, the “Romanizing” of barbarian peoples wasa chancy game. After fierce resistance, the Celtic peoples ofGaul became enthusiastic participants in the expansion ofthe Roman Empire. By contrast, the Germanic peoples livingbeyond the Rhine River were left to fume, propagate, andeventually pose a lethal threat to the empire.

Study Map 7.3 on page 163 of your textbook in conjunctionwith the “Roman Expansion” chronology sidebar on page 165to get an overall sense of Roman wars and conquests over theperiod of imperial expansion.

The Beginning of Imperialism in India

As a response to the shock of Alexander’s incursions into the Indus valleys, the states of the Ganges valley began toorganize into a defensive confederation. Available sourcesname a leader called Candragupta in regard to this politicaldevelopment. However, little is known about what was goingon in India up to the time that Asoka founded the MauryanEmpire in the 260s B.C.E.

Asoka’s roughly 45-year reign was remarkable by its resultsand by its unique character. Like other imperial monarchs,he expanded his empire over nearly most of the Indian sub-continent by way of conquest. Imperial governance includedefficiently organized trade, an extensive road network, andeffective irrigation and land management. His decrees wereinscribed on stone throughout the Ganges valley and onstone pillars in the Deccan. (The Deccan refers to the south-ern part of India.)

Empire management requires literate communication, typicallyorganized within state bureaucracies. In India, literacy wasmore or less the sole province of Buddhists priests andmonks. Therefore, Asoka had to rely on Buddhist scribes and clerks to get things done. But Asoka did more thanexploit Buddhist literacy. He also, and increasingly, relied on Buddhist teachings to impose moral and civil order overhis domain. This tendency led Asoka to the remarkable conclusion that further expansion of the empire by conquest

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was immoral. Instead, conquest of “hearts and minds” shouldproceed by spreading Buddhist teachings across the subcon-tinent and beyond—even unto foreign lands.

Paradoxically, Asoka’s moral sentiments would weaken theempire. Empires have to expand or die. That’s the generalrule. With the political boundaries of the Mauryan Empireclosed, political and military factions turned on each other,and about 25 years after Asoka passed from the scene in 232 B.C.E. India broke up into rival states. Be that as it may,Mauryan habits of environmental adaptation and much ofMauryan infrastructure remained to be revitalized here andthere over time. At the same time, evidence suggests thatIndia’s oppressive caste system was being etched into thefabric of Indian society during this period.

Chinese Unity and Imperialism

After 500 years of division and strife among warring states,there was still a Chinese ideal of imperial unity. With thatideal in mind, a marginal society called the Qin, a bit like theprovincial herders and farmers of early Rome, began anagenda aimed at actually doing away with any notion ofempire. Qin rulers discontinued all the old imperial rites,thus seeming to dissolve the imperial ideal. However, a bitlater, a new king of Qin, Shi Huangdi, declared that the dismantled empire should be replaced. To that end, he led a25-year campaign of isolating and conquering all the rivalstates. Shi Huangdi then declared himself first emperor andsole ruler of a new, unified, China. Shi Huangdi intended toget rid of the Chinese aristocracy, abolish slavery, and outlawinheritance practices that concentrated wealth in the handsof the few at the expense of the many. Now China was to beruled through a uniform system of civil and military districtsunder his control. Uniformity was the key theme. Laws,coinage, and standards of measurement were to be the sameall over China.

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Shi Huangdi was responsible for piecing together the GreatWall. His funerary tomb included a buried army of terracottawarriors, which today is a major Chinese tourist attraction.At the same time, the first emperor’s reign was oppressive.The Chinese social motto might have been “conform or burn.”

By the time Shi Huangdi died in 210 B.C.E., his son and heir wasdeposed by rebels. The power vacuum was all but immediatelyfilled with what amounted to a revival of the Period of WarringStates. However, one of the rebel princes, Liu Bang, emergedfrom this winner-take-all political storm as the first ruler of theHan dynasty. Chinese expansion under the Han (206 B.C.E. to220 C.E.) would unify the Chinese people. Indeed, they began tocall themselves “Han.” During this roughly 400-year period, theChinese population trebled and the central axis of Chinashifted from the Yellow River, south to the valley of theYangtze.

A major threat to the relative peace and prosperity of HanChina was the Xiongnu people who lived in the steppes northof the Great Wall and just beyond where the Silk Roads gathered (in the “throat of China”). The Xiongnu were all but born on horseback and were renowned for their skills as mounted archers. The Han policy toward these steppenomads, as advised by Confucian sages, was mainly one of appeasement. That worked to some extent. But at last,around 120 B.C.E., the Han mounted operations to secure the western flank of the Great Wall and to fortify the SilkRoads. After that, due in part to internal factions and civilwar among these steppe nomads, the threat posed by theXiongnu faded away.

Beyond the Empires

Significantly advanced societies hovered around the border of the Great Empires. Your textbook discusses developmentsin Japan and Korea, the western Eurasian steppe, andMesoamerica on pages 172–174.

As you conclude this chapter, note that the axial age left threeenduring legacies: a durable heritage of ideas; lengthening,although insecure, trade routes; and a group of empires.


Lesson 2 55

Self-Check 3


______ 1. Jews were expected to convert non-Jews to believe in and worship their god, Yahweh.

______ 2. Stoicism was a religion that appealed to Roman elites.

______ 3. Historians strongly agree that Alexander set out to conquer the world to avenge his

father’s assassination.

______ 4. The Romans recognized the Celtic people they encountered in Gaul as being civilized.

______ 5. Mozi, an opponent of Confucius, preached a secular doctrine of universal love

400 years before the time of Christ.

______ 6. The Romans undertook the Punic Wars against Carthage because they were

enthusiastic sailors and navigators.

______ 7. In India, Asoka rejected the teachings of Buddhism in the latter part of his reign.

______ 8. According to Hippocrates, the balance of four vital fluids—blood, phlegm, black bile,

and yellow bile—determined health or illness.


9. Among axial-age sages, those who embraced the idea that truth could be found by unaidedreason are called _______.

10. A major factor in early Greek history was their wars with the ________ Empire.

11. In India, the spiritual leader popularly called Mahavira founded a religion that called fordetachment from the world, chastity, truth, and charity called _______.

12. The Academy of Athens, founded in 380 B.C.E., was established by _______.

(Continued)

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Self-Check 3

13. Posing a threat to imperial China in the north, the Xiongnu were natives of the Asian_______.

14. In China, the _______ opposed the teaching of ethics and insisted that society should bebased only on obedience.

15. With their invention of _______, the Romans were able to excel as builders and engineers.


16. Using an example, briefly explain the concept of a syllogism.

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

17. Why was the Indian Ocean such an important highway of trade?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________


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FITFUL TRANSITIONS

The second part of Lesson 2 covers Chapter 8, “Post-Imperial Worlds: Problems of Empires in Eurasia and Africa, ca. 200 to ca. 700 C.E.”; Chapter 9, “The Rise of WorldReligions: Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism”; and Chapter10, “Remaking the World: Innovation and Renewal onEnvironmental Frontiers in the Late First Millennium.”

ASSIGNMENT 8: POST-IMPERIAL WORLDS: PROBLEMSOF EMPIRE IN EURASIA AND AFRICA, CA. 200 TO CA. 700 C.E.Read this assignment. Then read the Part 4 opening spread andChapter 8, pages 178–209, in your textbook.

During the axial age, the Maya civilization occupied Guatemalaand the Yucatan Peninsula. In the same period of the axialage, in the highlands around present-day Mexico City,Teotihuacan developed an imperial state. It lasted into aboutthe mid-800s C.E., at which time fire marked a catastrophethat shattered the empire. In this section, think about the relationships between the Maya and the peoples ofTeotihuacan. In particular, consider how the rise and fall of Teotihuacan echoed similar patterns of rise and fall in the Old World.

The Western Roman Empire and Its Invaders

We often speak of the fall of the Roman Empire as though it were a singular event. In fact, the gradual decline of theempire was a complicated process that extended over severalhundred years.

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The reign of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161 to 180 C.E.)marked the high tide of imperial expansion. But before andafter Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Empire faced many chal-lenges. Relations with the powerful Persian Empire were moreoften hostile than not. Not infrequently, the Roman legionswere inclined to fight each other, backing successive imperialcandidates they supported. The long boundaries of theempire were porous, and problems with foreign incursions ormigrations were a constant imperial headache. Indeed, dur-ing the third century C.E. Germanic invasions threatened thesurvival of the Roman Empire.

Another Roman headache was the spread of Christianity.Conservative Romans viewed the Christians with distrust at bestand lethal hostility at worst. Most Romans still worshiped theold ways and the old gods. The “Christian problem” would beresolved in the fourth century under the Emperor Constantine.At that point, the Empire established a pattern of co-emperors:one in the West at Rome and one in the East with a capitalfounded by Constantine and named Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul). Aiming to unite the empire around a commoncore of values and beliefs, Constantine and his co-ruler atRome drafted a letter of toleration called the Edict of Milan in328 C.E. Christianity was to be tolerated. However by 380,Christianity was declared the official imperial religion, and,thereafter, for centuries all of Western Europe was known asChristendom.

Map 8.2 on pages 186–187 of your textbook gives you anoverview of the Western Roman Empire and its invaders.Study it long enough to sort out the paths of incursions by various barbarian migrants, including Huns from the steppesand Germanic peoples that included the Ostrogoths, Visigoths,Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. The Franks were Celts from Gaul.The Visigoths would sack Rome in 410.

Steppelanders and Their Victims

Environmental crises, including climate change, drought, andplague, coupled with migrations related to these problems,attracted displaced peoples of Eurasia to the borders of thegreat empires.

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In China, by the end of the Han dynasty in 220 C.E., steppepeoples were extending their influence south of the YellowRiver valley. In that context, plagued, as always, by inade-quate procedures for royal succession, China reverted to theold pattern of warring states. Particularly in the north, theland was troubled by strife and warfare as a large number ofpetty states and empires rose and fell. However, near the endof the 400s C.E. an ascendant ruler of the barbarians intro-duced Chinese rites and adopted the state cult of Confucius.In short, just as Germanic invaders become more or less“Romanized,” the invaders of China adopted and were gradually absorbed into Chinese culture. That was China’sstrength. Subject peoples tended to embrace Chinese iden-tity. At the same time, China’s enormous internal economymade the empire self-sufficient. As new people became part ofChina, they simply tended to increase internal trade and cre-ate wealth.

In India, Hun invasions and incursions into northwest Indiawere resisted by the efforts of a ruler who called himselfChandra Gupta. Gupta founded a dynasty aimed at unifyingthe Indian subcontinent. The Gupta Empire covered much ofIndia, but governance was not well organized, and emperorsof the dynasty favored brutality and a rigid class system thatdidn’t do much to win the hearts and minds of the people. Infact, public sentiment often favored the invaders.

Map 8.3 on page 190 of your textbook deserves your attention.So does the “Making Connections” feature on page 191. It willhelp you compare and contrast China and Rome with respectto their geography, cultures, and economies.

New Frontiers in Asia

While barbarian incursions brought tumult and trouble tothe major empires of India and China, the times also pre-sented opportunities for developing states both within andalong the margins of imperial boundaries. India became ahodge-podge of diverse states, including one that was hometo Huns. North of China the state of Koguryo was emergingin eastern Siberia and in the north of the Korean peninsula.Koguryo became a refuge for Chinese people fleeing the

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barbarian invasions. In areas around the Gulf of Thailand, a state called Funan prospered. Their culture seems to havebeen borrowed from India, and Chinese visitors found it to bea place of learning, refined tastes, and considerable potentialas a trading partner.

The Rise of Ethiopia

Ethiopia was an African state that prospered at the far west-ern end of the monsoon-driven trade routes of the IndianOcean. The magnificent capital of the Ethiopian Kingdom,Axum, was some 7,000 feet above sea level, making it easy to defend. Also, the local soil was rich and easy to farm, andthe temperate climate at that altitude gave the kingdom self-sufficiency in food production. The primary interest ofEthiopians was farming. However, trade was a profitable sideline that made Axum a wealthy and cosmopolitan city. Intime, the attractions of trade impelled imperial ambitions.Early in the sixth century, King Caleb launched an expedi-tion to conquer southern Arabia, the location of major IndianOcean trading ports. The invasion succeeded and Ethiopiawould occupy that region for the balance of the century.Interestingly, Ethiopia adopted Christianity during the 340s.So, in fact, Ethiopia was a Christian state before Europedeclared itself Christendom.

The Crises of the Sixth and Seventh Centuries

Assorted crises swept Eurasia in the sixth and seventh cen-turies. In 535 C.E., a monster volcanic eruption separated theislands of Sumatra and Borneo. Untold tons of volcanic ashswept around the globe, lowering temperatures and dimmingsunlight. All over Eurasia, growing seasons were disrupted.At about the same time, plague swept across various regions.Crop failures, plague, and resulting emigrations were primaryfactors that ended Ethiopian domination of southern Arabia.Elsewhere, plagues ravaged Constantinople and Japan.There’s also evidence of a decline in health in Mesoamericaaround this time.

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However, these crises offered opportunities for rallying andreforming weakened states. In the 600s, that was the agendaof India’s King Harsha. Over a 41-year reign, he managed tounify much of the Ganges Basin while garnering tribute fromneighboring states like Punjab and Nepal. However, Harsha’sreforms didn’t survive his passing.

Justinian and the Eastern Roman Empire

The Western Roman Empire was officially dead after 476.Germanic and other barbarian peoples ruled the fragmentedempire. Meanwhile, the Eastern Empire (renamed theByzantine Empire by historians) would last into the eleventhcentury. At the outset, the inhabitants of the Eastern Empireconsidered themselves “Romans” even though the primarylanguage of Byzantium was Greek and eastern culture wasdistinctly “eastern.”

The Byzantine Emperor Justinian had some success inrestoring territories that had been part of the Roman Empire.Over his reign, from 527 to 565, Justinian also managed tofend off most barbarian marauders, mediate disputes amongChristian Church fathers, build the magnificent Hagia SophiaCathedral (twice), and institute a legal code which would seta template for European law.

Justinian was furiously energetic, impulsive, and overlyambitious. Justinian’s rule was heavily influenced by hiscontroversial co-ruler, Theodora. She had once been anactress and a performer in a live bear act (where she mayhave grasped the nature of politics). Regardless, the jadedand worldly Theodora had a level head, a sharp wit, and anunbridled capacity to influence and guide imperial policies—through her spouse or on her own.

The New Barbarians

Barbarian invasions continued to plague Europe. TheGermanic Lombards invaded northern Italy in 568. To theeast, the peoples of the steppes called Bulgars crossed the

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Danube and set up a state that extended from the northernBalkans almost all the way to Constantinople. During theseventh and eighth centuries, Slavic peoples occupied muchof Eastern Europe, from the Baltic to southern Greece.

The Arabs

Before the seventh century, the nomadic Arabian peopleswere mainly known as nuisance marauders who troubledtrade routes, because Arabia sat astride trade routes betweenthe east and the Romanized west. During the 620s and 630s,Arabia was transformed by the appearance and compellingteachings of the Prophet Muhammad. He was a charismaticleader whose influence touched every aspect of Arab life andthought.

Muhammad was the founder of Islam, a word that means “submission” (to the will of Allah). Claiming to have received his teachings from the mouth of the Angel Gabriel, Muhammadfirst spoke then scribed the holy book of Islam, the Quran.Islam is a unique blend of Judaic and Christian ideas seasonedwith a touch of traditional Arabic paganism. The religion recognizes Jesus as a prophet. The religion also sanctifiedArabian militarism, thus justifying the conquest of infidels(nonbelievers).

The time of Muhammad was ripe for conquest. The PersianSasanian Empire and the Romans had exhausted each otherin warfare, leaving the Persian Empire open for Arabian con-quest during the seventh century. By the eighth century, thepopulous and most prosperous of erstwhile Roman colonies—in Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa—had also fallento Arabian or Arabian-led conquest. By the mid-eighth cen-tury, the Muslim world extended across North Africa all theway to northern Spain

Map 8.4 on page 198 of your textbook shows the extent of theMuslim Empire.

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The Muslim World

The Muslim Empire was too big for central unified rule. After Muhammad’s passing, different regions were ruled bycaliphs. A caliph was considered a successor of Muhammadwho served both as a secular and spiritual leader. (As aWesterner quipped, a caliph was both pope and king.)However, there was a cleavage of attitudes about who couldbe considered a proper successor of the Prophet. The Shiamaintained that the caliphate must reside in the hands of the bloodline of Muhammad, through his son Ali and Ali’smother, Fatima. The Sunni held that any member ofMuhammad’s tribe could be made a caliph. The Shia-Sunnidivide would lead to rival caliphates and secessionist states.This basic split remains. (Iran and southern Iraq are predom-inantly Shia. Saudi Arabia, where the sacred cities of Meccaand Medina are located, is Sunni.)

Muhammad aimed at establishing a religion that shaped everyaspect of daily life. The Muslim world was to be a theocracy.Civil and religious life was to be woven into a single tapestryreflecting the will of Allah. However, Muhammad’s efforts in fulfilling that agenda were incomplete. As a result, Islamicsages forged a body of sacred-secular law called Sharia,which literally means the desert-dweller’s “way to water” (see page 198 in your textbook). The diversity of the Muslimworld today is largely a reflection of the extent to whichSharia law is endorsed and applied.

Study the “Making Connections” feature on page 199 of yourtextbook to compare the strengths and weaknesses of empiresin Mesoamerica, the Roman world, China, India, and Persia.

Recovery and Its Limits in China

With the barbarians held at bay and internal conflicts the mainproblem, China recovered more easily from sixth-century troubles than some of its neighbors. Seasoned by war againstinvaders from the steppes, the military leader Yang Jian (r. 581–605) purged assorted princes from the empire he’d once served and set about re-creating China’s empire. Jianembraced a law-and-order agenda through brutal force, hands-on administration, fits of temper, and frugality.

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That approach was probably best for restoring the empire.However Jian’s successor, Yangdi, felt it best to restoreclemency over sharp-edge justice, restore Confucian learning,and return China to revered ancient standards of civil order.His great achievement was reintegrating the Yellow andYangtze River systems by constructing a Grand Canal, whichwas, in fact, a network of canals. The potential glory ofYangdi’s civil engineering legacy was shadowed by the hightaxes and forced labor needed to build the canals, coupledwith a bad case of overextension marked by a ruinous cam-paign to conquer Korea.

In 617, as Yangdi’s reign ended, the most respected lineage of China, the Li, mounted a rebellion, one of several thatcropped up at this time. By 624, under the rule of the Li family patriarch, Li Yuan, the Yang dynasty was born at atime when the exhausted Chinese longed for a period ofpeace. The second emperor of the Yang dynasty, Taizong, wasa reformer. He opted for a scientific-skeptical worldview and ameasure of contempt for traditional ways. As a practicalruler, he established a professional civil bureaucracy basedon a civil service exam, as opposed to political connections ornepotism.

Taizong’s reforms were successful in stabilizing the empire, inpart by working out a relatively painless formula for dynasticsuccession. However, in 690 a remarkably cold-blooded and ego-maniacal woman named Wu Zhao successfully employedmurderous wiles to become emperor. Empress Wu was whatmodern psychologists would call a psychopath. (Psychopathsare often highly intelligent. Wu was both smart and beauti-ful.) She viewed torture and brutality as basic to effectivegovernance. The gradual result, even under Wu’s less brutalsuccessors, was a subtle weakening of the empire.

By the mid-eighth century, China was suffering significantdefeats by steppe nomads. The imperial court, seeking ascapegoat, targeted a general named An Lushan. Lushan, in turn, sired a rebellion. As a result, civil war broke out that pushed China toward militarism and fragmentation.Provinces attained relative independence, and the empire lost effective control of all but the Yangtze Valley.

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In the Shadow of Tang:Tibet and Japan

The mountainous highlands of Tibet have had a long antagonistic relationship with China. In that context, Tibet was a militaristic state from about the time in the fifth century,when barley production began to provide food surpluses suffi-cient to mount armies. By the seventh century, under the king Songsten Gampo (r. 627–650), Tibet was a power to bereckoned with. In 640, the Tang were forced to pay tribute toTibet in exchange for honoring China’s territorial boundaries.

For a period of 250 years, Tibetan aggression subjugated Nepaland parts of central Asia. Tibetan cities grew rich and cosmopol-itan through trade and cultural exchange. However, by the ninthcentury, surrounded by enemies, Tibet was losing ground. Thelast king of the Tibetan state was assassinated in 842.

Japan began falling under the influence of Korean andChinese culture around the year 400. Much of that influencehad to do with the arrival of Buddhist monks and scholars.Around the year 475, the most prominent Japanese state wasYamato. As a maritime state, its rulers were interested incourting China as well as expanding their influence into Asiaand other parts of Japan. Direct Japanese contact withChina would begin in the 600s.

An interesting feature of Japanese governance was the influ-ence of women. To ease the threat to stability posed by thetransfer of power between rulers, women were acknowledgedas fit to rule. Thus, the pool of eligible imperial candidates wasexpanded, and many of Japan’s early emperors were women.

See Map 8.5 on page 201 of your textbook to consider theextent of Tang China, Tibet, and Japan ca. 750 C.E. Check out the “Making Connections” feature on page 205 to comparedeveloping frontier states. Finally, be sure to study the“Chronology” sidebar on page 206.

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ASSIGNMENT 9: THE RISE OF THE WORLD RELIGIONS:CHRISTIANITY, ISLAM, ANDBUDDHISMRead this assignment. Then read Chapter 9, pages 210–235, inyour textbook.

Commerce and Conflict: Carriers of Creeds

The word jihad can be translated as “holy war,” even thoughMuhammad used the word in different contexts. In practice,as the Islamic Empire grew, it tended to mean that Christiansand Jews could either convert or a pay a poll tax for continuingtheir religious practices. In any case, given the social atmos-phere of our time, it should be recalled that religious faithshave long been bent and twisted to justify armed aggressionand conquest. That was the case as Charlemagne expandedthe Frankish Empire in the eighth and ninth centuries, and in India, where Buddhist ideals were “spun” to justify armedconquest by Asoka and his successors. For example, theBuddhist and Hindu concept of dharma (duty to god) wasused in rather the same way as the Islamic concept of jihad.In any case, as you’ll learn in your textbook, trade was atleast as important as war in spreading religious doctrines.

A doctrine called Manichaeism was adopted by a pastoral,Turkic-speaking people of the steppes called the Uighurs. It originated under a teacher named Mani in third-centuryPersia. During the eighth century, it became a rival of Buddhismin some places. Manichaeism resembles Zoroastrianism inpositing an eternal conflict between good and evil. It resem-bled Buddhism in embracing the sanctity of life and the merit of good deeds. The religion never caught on in a bigway, but it’s worth knowing about because some of its ideaswould influence early Christian church fathers and becomeknown as the “Manichean heresy.”

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Christians didn’t have much of a presence along the SilkRoads. However, followers of Nestorius, a fifth-century Bishopof Constantinople, had some influence across the tradingroutes of Eurasia. Nestorian Christians viewed Jesus asbeing human, not divine. Thus, it’s but a ghostly footnote in the history of Christianity.

While Buddhism dominated the land trade routes across thesteppes, Islam was spread at least as effectively by way ofIndian Ocean sea lanes and trade routes that crossed theSahara. Indeed, Islam would become a dominant religiousinfluence in West Africa.

Monarchs and Missionaries

Constantine

A pivotal figure in the rise of Western Christianity was theByzantine Emperor Constantine. In your textbook, you’lllearn a bit about what seems likely to be myth. In Italy, leading an army aimed at ousting a usurper to the Westernimperial throne, Constantine was supposed to have seen asign in the sky—a sunlit cross with the accompanying text,“By this sign conquer.” In fact, Constantine was a Romanizedpolitician, not a religious ideologue. (He was actually a sunworshiper who would only formally adopt the Christian faithon his death bed, and even that may have been a politicalact.) Many historians argue that Constantine’s patronage ofthe Christian Church was more about stabilizing the empirethan devotion to the Christian faith. Constantine did, in fact,get together with his Roman co-ruler Licinius in 313 to issuea letter of religious toleration which would be called the Edictof Milan. And Constantine did, in fact, preside over the delib-erations of Christian Church fathers at the Council of Nicaeain 325, from which would emerge the Nicene Creed and theofficial doctrine of the Trinity. However, Christianity wouldn’tbecome the official state religion of the Empire until 380under the Emperor Theodosius I.

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Here are a few tips for negotiating this rest of this section.Notice two main points: (1) Religious allegiances tend to shiftalong with political agendas. (2) Attaining the patronage of monarchs is a common strategy among religious missionaries.

Ezana

King Ezana presided over the royal court at the Ethiopiancapital of Axum. His conversion to Christianity in the 340swas marked by radical changes in his approach to gover-nance. Where once he had identified with a war god, he nowjustified his reign with reference to the “Lord of heaven” andthe Christian Trinity.

Trdat

Trdat was a king of Armenia. His story is reminiscent of thechange of heart recorded in the New Testament when Saul of Tarsus became Paul the Apostle. Somewhere around theyears 301–314 he switched from cruel persecutor of Christianityto pious advocate. Around 314, Constantine was acting as anadvocate of Christianity, so the latter date is more likely.

Diplomatic Conversions

Diplomatic conversions occurred here and there around theCaucusus. The Georgian kingdoms of Iberia and Lazica, influenced by priests from Constantinople, found it helpful to ally with Christianity, and thereby Rome, as opposed toPersia. The rulers of the Khazars shifted religious allegiancesdepending on the winds of power politics, alternately adopt-ing Judaism, Islam, and Christianity in efforts to maintaintheir political independence.

Buddhist Politics

Buddhist politics impacted Chinese society in large partbecause some Chinese emperors looked to Buddhist ideals to justify their reign. Thus, even as Chinese loathing of for-eign religious ideas flared up from time to time, Buddhist

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monasteries popped up all over China. As a result, Buddhismmanaged to imprint cultural influences on the face of Chinathat would coexist with the teachings of Confucius.

Korea

In Korea, the kingdom of Koguryo absorbed Buddhist teach-ings as Chinese refugees fled barbarian invasions in northernChina. Initially, because state formation in Korea was basedon extending uniform religious rites from one community toanother, the rest of Korea resisted Buddhism. Eventually,however, Buddhism was accepted as a royal religion in thesouthern Korean kingdoms of Paekche and Silla.

Japan

Korean missionaries introduced Buddhism to Japan. Afterthe usual period of resistance, the Japanese graduallyworked out a fascinating blend of a universal religion,Buddhism, with the indigenous religion, Shinto. Shinto pre-served imperial prerogatives and traditional rites; Buddhisminformed ideals of moral behavior and spiritual discipline.

Tibet

In Tibet, Buddhism arrived along with migrating Buddhistmonks out of India. However, Tibet wasn’t a Buddhist country. For some time, Buddhism contended with a rivalTibetan religion called Bon. Oddly, Bon was very similar toBuddhism in its teachings, even though it recognized Shen-rab as the original Buddha.

In 792, a Tibetan king, Trisong Detsen, presided over a greatdebate between Indian and Chinese Buddhist sages. TheIndians endorsed Theravada Buddhism, which taught thatthe progress of the soul to perfection could only progress inbaby steps over many lifetimes. The Chinese, by contrast,endorsed Mahayana Buddhism, which maintained that a soul could reach perfection in a single lifetime. MahayanaBuddhism would become dominant in China and Japan.

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India

In India, where Buddhism was founded, it became a minorityreligion in favor of Hinduism. Hindu rites, teachings, anddoctrines were derived from ancient writings, such as theUpanishads. Hindu social traditions tended to endorse con-servative traditions, including the oppressive caste systemand unpleasant rites that included blood sacrifice and sati.Sati is the practice of requiring a wife to join her husband on his funeral pyre.

The Margins of Christendom

Along the margins of Christendom, royal conversions toChristianity seem to have been all the rage in the late tenthand early eleventh centuries. Poland, Denmark, and Norwayadopted Christianity by way of royal conversions in the late900s. The Slavic Magyars became Christians with the ascendance of Stephen of Hungary to the throne in 1001.(Hungarians call themselves Magyars.) An interesting excep-tion occurred in the year 1000 when the Norse people ofIceland held a vote and Christianity won a narrow victoryover Norse paganism.

Vladimir and the Rus

Vladimir was the ruler of Kiev (in present day Ukraine) in thelate 900s. He ruled a people called the Rus. In fact, Vladimircounted a Norse (Rus) prince among his ancestors. In anycase, he was a brutal sovereign who would later be styled asaint. After sampling Christian rites among the Germans and the Slavs, his eyes were opened, so to speak, when heencountered Greek Byzantine Christianity in the HagiaSophia of Constantinople. Thus “spiritually enlightened,” he went forth to convert the Rus to Christianity by force.However, he did sugar the enforced conversion by translatingGreek liturgy into the Slavonic language of the Rus, and thus was born the Russian Orthodox Church.

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Islam and the Turks

Countering the magnetism of Christianity along the marginsof Christendom, the Turks adopted Islam. Given the fierce,warlike character of these people, it’s hard to say just whythis happened. But it did. Thereafter, Turkic states inAnatolia and Afghanistan would lay down foundations of considerable importance to later historical developments.

Trickle Down: Christianization and Islamization

The “trickle-down” idea refers to the fact that the spread ofthe universal religions—Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity—has been related to advocates among rulers, forcedconversions, and penalizing of nonbelievers.

A key to this section is the “Making Connections” feature onpage 225 of your text book. Study it to see how war, trade,missionaries, and the influences of elites were factors in thespread of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.

Religious Lives: The World of Monks and Nuns

The spread of Christianity and Buddhism was greatly encour-aged by people who adopted a monastic life. Monks and nunsadopted solitary, ascetic lives associated with meditation, con-templation, and mysticism. Many Christian saints were monksor nuns. At the same time, both Christian and Buddhist monas-teries were often centers of learning and scholarship that alsogathered and enhanced secular learning.

Monasticism wasn’t endorsed by Islam. Nevertheless, Islamic ascetics and hermits, perhaps inspired by Christianascetics, gathered in monastic colonies devoted to scholar-ship, meditation, and the quest for deep, direct spiritualexperience (mysticism). These Islamic ascetics and mysticswere called Sufis. As it turned out, Sufi thought and poetryserved to spread Islamic ideas.

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ASSIGNMENT 10: REMAKINGTHE WORLD: INNOVATION ANDRENEWAL ON ENVIRONMENTALFRONTIERS IN THE LATE FIRSTMILLENNIUMRead this assignment. Then read Chapter 10, pages 236–259,in your textbook.

Where human populations have been concentrated withinstates and empires, resources for sustaining their societieshave tended to exhaustion. Intensive farming depletes soilnutrients and amplifies water erosion. In times of draught,wind erosion can turn a fertile prairie into a dust bowl. Aswoodlands are stripped away for fuel or building materials,erosion and soil loss become problematic.

During the last part of the first millennium C.E., betweenabout 700 and 1000, environmental problems of this sortplagued much of the globe, especially across the dense popu-lation belt of Eurasia. All of this was further aggravated asnomadic peoples trickled or poured across imperial borders.

These environmental challenges could lead to developmentaldecline, and in some places that was the case. Areas ofancient habitation have, in many times and in variousplaces, been abandoned. However, change also inspires inno-vation, and therein is a central theme of this chapter. Just as plants and animals can adapt to new environments, so canhumans. People can envision goals, assess failures, and learnfrom observation and experimentation. People can find betterways to manage and benefit from their environment.

Isolation and Initiative: Sub-SaharanAfrica and the Americas

Africa’s geography presents formidable barriers to trade and cultural exchange. The great expanse of the Sahara separatessub-Saharan regions from North Africa and the Mediterranean.

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River access to interior regions of sub-Saharan Africa is lim-ited by way of poor navigability on the one hand and malarialtropical forests on the other.

The two culturally sophisticated areas of first-millenniumAfrica—Ethiopia and West Africa—are at opposite ends of thebroad grasslands of the Sahel that extends east and westacross the continent south of the Sahara. However, avenuesof cultural exchange like those that crossed the Asiansteppes didn’t develop between these two regions. Ethiopia,like cities and states that arose in East African coastalregions, was linked to Indian Ocean trade. The early statesthat arose in West Africa—Gao and Ghana—developedindependently in step with improvements in rice and milletfarming.

West African states were based on tribal and clan kinshiporganized under the rule of divine kings. Trade routes linkedthese resource-rich states to North Africa and other regionsdominated by Islamic influence. For this reason, West Africanstates would absorb Arab influences, with Islam becomingthe dominant religion of later West African states.

Study Map 10.1 on page 239 of your textbook. Notice how villages and cities are joined by trade routes.

The geography of the Americas also restricted cultural exchange.Nevertheless, fascinating and socially complex states arosealong the Andes ranges that define South America’s westernregions, as well as in Central American and Mexico. A desertregion between the Pacific and the Andean highlands innorthern Peru was the site of two civilizations that lasted for several centuries, the Nazca and the Moche. The formersociety is famous for its elaborate and fascinating works ofart. The so-called “Nazca lines” are spread across desertplateaus and are recognizable only as spiders or humming-birds, or what-have-you, from airplanes. The “Nazca lines”remain one of “history’s mysteries.”

Probably the most fascinating among Mesoamerican civilizationswere the ancient Maya, a people whose descendants are stillfound in Guatemala and the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula. Thethemes of all the cultures that either predated or postdated the Mayan are remarkably similar. We find sophisticated monu-mental architecture, rituals of blood sacrifice associated with

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divine kings, and related forms of writing. Mayan writing andmathematics served two purposes: tracking and predictingastronomical cycles and recording the histories of royaldynasties. Interestingly, the Mayan calendar was more accurate than any known calendar up until modern times.

Map 10.2 on page 240 of your textbook offers informationabout Mesoamerican and Andean societies between 300 C.E.and 1000 C.E. Pay special attention to the inset focus maps tonote the significant extent of the Mayan cultural region as wellas regions of Huari, Nazca, and Tiahuanacan cultures inregions of Peru and Bolivia—cultures that developed in thehigh Andes.

As you study this assignment, recall that a basic theme ofthis chapter is ecological innovation. The relatively fragileAndean and Mesoamerican cultures coped through success-ful experiments in farming. In the high Andes, for example,hybrid varieties of potatoes were bred for microclimates atdifferent altitudes. In Mesoamerica, agricultural mounds(called milpas), which were often linked to some kind of irrigation system, produced rich harvests of beans, squashes,maize, and peppers. In North America, new crops and tech-nologies developed along the northwest coast, as well as inareas of the Mississippi and Missouri valleys and along theOhio River valley. A vital “frontier” in these latter two caseswas maize development.

Study the “Making Connections” feature on page 246 of yourtextbook to compare expanding states in the Americas from200 to 800 C.E.

The Islamic World and theEnvironment

According to a quip attributed to the Emperor Napoleon, “An army travels on its stomach,” but Napoleon’s quip alsoapplies to states and civilizations. In that context, note that amajor aspect of the expanding Muslim world was the develop-ment of new crops and the introduction of known crops intonew environments.

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Study Map 10.3 on page 247 of your textbook to understandthe enormous range of sources for new crops adopted andadapted to different regions of the Muslim world. Study theicons to consider the different kinds of crops. Notice how manynew crop plants came from India, Southeast Asia, and evenChina.

Muslim rulers encouraged the search for new plants thatcould add spice to the table or provide balm for differentkinds of ailments. Royal gardens employing professionalagronomists became favored projects.

Islamic law favored farmers. Landowners could use and dispose their property in whatever way they preferred. As aresult, the most productive farmers tended to acquire moreland as food production increased.

Adapting new plants to new environments encouraged thedevelopment of better ways of watering and cultivating crops,including the use of fertilizers. As a result, farming began to make use of marginal lands, and acreage devoted to foodor fiber crops expanded.

Frontier Growth in Japan

In Japan, various efforts were undertaken to expand foodproduction. In 711, an imperial decree permitted landed aristocrats to apply to provincial governors for the right tocultivate virgin lands. Later, farmers were granted rights ofownership of their cultivated land for three generations iftheir lands were irrigated by way of new ditches or ponds.Then, by 1743, farmers were granted absolute ownership of their land.

Significant efforts to pioneer new land were pursued by “freelance” holy men, such as the Buddhist monk Gyoki. Atthat point, the Japanese weren’t enthusiastic about Buddhistpractices, such as cremation of the dead, but they liked themanner in which Gyoki organized work on digging ponds,creating roads, and building bridges.

Colonization opened new lands for development on the majorJapanese island of Honshu. Of course, as seems always to be the case, this was accomplished by displacing or otherwiseeliminating indigenous peoples.

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China and Southeast Asia

Even when imperial rule was shaky and uncertain, efforts to make use of marginal lands to expand food productiontook place in India and China. From 700 to 1000 C.E., statesdeveloped all over mainland and island regions of SoutheastAsia.

In China, from the seventh century on, imperial policies,such as the development of the Grand Canal system, encouraged expanded food production. Population growthstimulated new agricultural techniques, which, in turn, stimulated population growth. A major aspect of Chineseimperial policies was southward colonization into regions that favored rice production. By the mid–eighth century, one-third of China’s burgeoning population inhabited theHuai and Yangtze Valleys. By the eleventh century, half of China’s population would inhabit this same region.

A southward growth of population based on expanded food production also gave rise to new states in mainlandSoutheast Asia and beyond.

Study Map 10.4 on page 252 of your textbook. It will help you to (1) understand the extent of the canal system in China, (2) locate the densest population regions of China, (3) trackmaritime trade routes, and (4) locate cultural regions identifiedwith Viet, Champa, Cambodian (Khmer), and Malayan-SumatranSrivijaya societies.

The Pacific

The most remarkable aspect of human colonization in thePacific is the Pacific Ocean itself. Archaeologists continue tomarvel at how humans reached the Solomon or the Carolineislands over such ocean expanses. In that regard, the territo-rial expansion of the Polynesian peoples from New Zealand to Samoa to the Hawaiian Islands stands out. Polynesian navigators were capable of managing thousand-mile voyagesby tracking the stars of the Southern hemisphere and liter-ally “feeling” their way through changing ocean currents.

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The Expansion of Christendom

In Western Europe, the idea of the Roman Empire informedall the former lands of the Western empire, now deemedChristendom. However, by the eighth century Europeanboundaries were being expanded well beyond the boundariesof the old Western Roman Empire.

In Western Europe, the key player was the Frankish kingCharlemagne. (The name Charlemagne was the medievalFrench equivalent of “Charles the Great.”) Charlemagne didwhat Julius Caesar dared not. In 1800, Pope Leo III crownedCharlemagne “Emperor and Augustus” of the Germanic HolyRoman Empire. By 1802, Charlemagne had completed hisconquest of the Germanic peoples of Saxony.

Meanwhile, as Christian monks found nests in the netherrealms of Scotland and Ireland, rival empires were emulatingCharlemagne in the east, contending for the title of “HolyRoman Emperor.” In the early 800s, Mojmir I established aFrankish-like Slavic state in Bohemia (a region of the pres-ent-day Czech Republic). In 864, creating a buffer betweenEurope and the Byzantine Empire, the Bulgars converted toChristianity and entered the list as a rival claimant for“Roman” imperial rule.

To the North, the peoples of Scandinavia were building theirViking long ships and setting out on trade and conquest ventures that would rattle all of Europe well into the eleventhcentury. To the east, the Scandinavian Rus help establish adynasty that would rule people who would call themselvesRussians. To the west, Norse explorers would colonize Icelandand found settlements that would deposit Iron Age artifacts from Greenland to Newfoundland, which theycalled Vinland. Initially, the Norse people weren’t exportingChristianity. However, by the tenth century, Scandinavianstates were adopting Christianity.

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Now, review the material you’ve learned in this study guide as well as the assigned pages in your textbook forAssignments 6–10. Once you feel you understand the mate-rial, complete Self-Check 4. Then check your answers withthose provided at the end of this study guide. If you’vemissed any answers, or you feel unsure of the material,review the assigned pages in your textbook and this studyguide. When you’re sure that you completely understand the information presented in Assignments 6–10, completeyour examination for Lesson 2.

Self-Check 4


______ 1. The Korean state of Koguryo benefitted from the influx of refugees from China who

were fleeing nomadic invaders.

______ 2. The literal meaning of the Arabic word jihad is “service.”

______ 3. In Japan, the conquest of new environments was the province of freelance holy men

as well as an agenda of state.

______ 4. When Buddhist leaders from India and China met in Tibet to debate the doctrines of

Buddhism, that mountainous kingdom had long been a Buddhist state.

______ 5. The expansion of the Islamic domain was marked by the gathering, cultivation, and

transplanting of a variety of new foods.

______ 6. The Mayan civilization depended on the unified, peaceful cooperation of city states.

______ 7. The body of Islamic law called sharia literally means “the way to water.”

______ 8. In Tibet, divine monarchs could be sacrificed when they were no longer useful.

(Continued)

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Self-Check 4


9. Followers of the female mystic Rabia al-Adawiyya, who established a mystical body of thoughtand practice within the religion of Islam, were called _______.

10. The sixth-century Byzantine Emperor _______ was the last emperor to undertake a partlysuccessful campaign to restore control over previously Roman territories.

11. As a mediator over disputes among early Christian church fathers, the emperor ________ was instrumental in establishing Christianity in the Roman Empire.

12. In the Pacific, _______ navigators were able to pursue long voyages by detecting changes inocean currents.

13. Although it was the birthplace of Buddhism, _________ became the dominant religion inIndia.

14. Influenced by Jewish monotheism, Christianity, and traditional pagan themes, the _______became the sacred scripture of Islam.

15. Vladimir, ruler of Ukraine, impacted the history of the Slavs when he adopted Christianity after visits to the _______ Empire.


16. What is the difference between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

(Continued)

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Self-Check 4

17. Why were eunuchs favored to serve in imperial administrations in China and Rome? Was thispolicy always a good idea?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

18. In what ways does geography isolate sub-Saharan Africa?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________


Contacts, Conflicts, andthe Crucible

CONTACTS, CONFLICTS

The first part of Lesson 3 covers Chapter 11, “Contendingwith Isolation: c.a. 1000–1200,” and Chapter 12, “TheNomadic Frontiers: The Islamic World, Byzantium, andChina, c.a. 1000–1200.”

ASSIGNMENT 11: CONTENDINGWITH ISOLATION: CA. 1000–2000 Read this assignment. Then read the Part 5 opening spread andChapter 11, pages 260–285, in your textbook.

American Developments: From the Arctic to Mesoamerica

Two fascinating cases of exploration and migration were tak-ing place around the year 1200. Beginning around 1000, theThule Inuit, ancestors of the Inuit peoples who inhabit Arcticareas all the way from Alaska to Greenland, managed atranscontinental migration from Alaska to the northeasterncoast of Greenland and northern regions of Labrador. Theirtechnologies and social organization were pretty much whatEuropeans would encounter as they made contact with thepeople they called “Eskimos” hundreds of years later. TheThule navigated open waters in canoes of walrus hide, thriving on a fat-rich diet of Arctic caribou, walrus, seals, and whales.

At around the same time, Norse explorers from Scandinaviawere voyaging across the North Atlantic, hopping off fromIceland to make their way to Greenland and beyond. Like thecanoes of the Inuit, the Norse long ships had a shallow draft

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that allowed them to navigate near ocean shores and easilymake their way into inlets and rivers. The farthest reach ofthe Norsemen into North America remains archaeologicallyuncertain. But evidence confirms that Norse settlements were established in Labrador and Newfoundland.

Study Map 11.1 on page 265 of your textbook to consider theThule Inuit and Norse Migrations. Note the extent of the Inuit terri-tories, recognizing that Norse explorations in North American mayhave put them in touch with Native Americans, including theThule Inuit.

In more southerly parts of North America, archaeologistshave revealed two outstanding instances of societies that tookon characteristics of states.

In the American Southwest, in areas of Colorado, NewMexico, and Arizona, we find remains of a canyon culture,with an urbanized center in the Chaco Canyon region. Itlasted for several hundred years, extending at its height tocover some 57,000 square miles. The Chaco Canyon peopleswere organized under central, imperial rule. Evidence of thatincludes a network of roads, up to 12 yards wide, suggestingthat they were avenues for armies. The demise of the canyonculture appears to have been related to drought conditionsthat increased in severity during and after the 1100s.

The Chaco Canyon state seems to have arisen in relative cultural isolation. That wasn’t the case for the Mississippiancultures that arose in the present-day southeast UnitedStates. Many of the cultural themes of Mesoamerica werepresent in Mississippian societies. Seaborne trade trans-ported ritual practices, ball games, social class stratification,and modes of urban construction reminiscent of Mesoamericancultures. The most impressive Mississippian urban site wasCahokia, a city that could have had a population of 10,000people. The site, featuring lavish tombs, is located east ofpresent-day St. Louis.

Map 11.2 on page 267 of your textbook will help you locate theCanyon and Mississippi cultures. Consider the impact of traderoutes emanating from Mesoamerica, including a connectingroute to the Mississippian peoples. Notice the location ofCahokia on the northern boundary of Mississippian influence,along the Missouri.

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Around the Indian Ocean: Ethiopia,the Khmer, and India

Ethiopia

As you’ve learned, the East African Ethiopian Empire wasprimarily reliant on indigenous farming. The magnificence ofAxum was a sort of cultural anomaly resulting from outsidecontacts and trade. Be that as it may, Ethiopia was cosmo-politan in the context of widespread cultural exchange. At thesame time, Ethiopians were fiercely dedicated to remainingpolitically independent.

Toward the latter half of the 1200s, imperial propagandatended to grandiosity. It became fashionable for Ethiopianelites to associate Ethiopia with the Biblical Queen of Sheba,Solomon’s concubine, or with Solomon himself. In 1270,“Solomid” aristocrats seized control of the imperial throne.

Khmer

India stood in the middle of the broad region of Indian Oceantrade. Until the eleventh century, Indian culture had a per-sistent and widespread influence in the societies of Asia andSoutheast Asia. Thus, it’s not surprising that the KhmerKingdom, located in present-day Cambodia, reflectedBuddhist and Hindu cultural influences.

Khmer power and influence in the zone of Indian Ocean tradewas directly related to fertile soils that produced rich rice harvests. The magnificent city of Angkor was expanded andembellished in step with increased wealth based on rice exports. In that context, the rise to power of the Khmer KingSuryavarman II (r. 1113–1150) marked a new era of imperialexpansion and architectural achievement. The largest temple inthe world, Angkor Wat, was a product of Suryavarman’s reign.It was meant to celebrate the onset of a long era of prosperitypredicted in Hindu mythology. However, Suryavarman’svisionary exultation ended along with his reign in 1150.Ambitious building programs and a remarkable public

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health system continued under subsequent kings. A signifi-cant factor in Khmer history during the late twelfth centurywas the adoption of Buddhism as the state religion.

India

After the eleventh century, India’s cultural impact beyond itsborders began to fade as political dissolution reduced the qualityof arts and learning. In the north, Hindu temples were attackedby Muslim raiders from Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the subconti-nent became a patchwork of squabbling rival states. In spiteof these troubles, the economy was booming in some parts of India. Rajasthan became a bustling center of internationaltrade. Interestingly, merchant family dynasties enlistedarmies to aid their competitive struggles with Muslim rivals.

Although political chaos was the texture of much of centraland northern India, the situation in the south was anothermatter. The southern Chola Kingdom (1070–1122) was centered in the rice-producing heartland of the interior.However, Chola power was based on a fusing of royal impe-rial designs with the interests of “merchant-warrior”dynasties centered in coastal ports. For the most part, Cholaimperialism amounted to raiding. Even so, Chola garrisonshad footholds in Sri Lanka, the Maldive Islands, and a pres-ence in Malaysia significant enough to weaken Khmer controlof its tribute domains.

Map 11.3 on page 274 of your textbook will give you someinsights into the trade and cultural connections spread aroundthe boundaries of Indian Ocean navigation.

Eurasia’s Extremities: Japan and Western Europe

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Western Europeand Japan had benefitted sufficiently from cultural exchangeacross Eurasia to begin to emerge from isolation.

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Japan

Between 838 and 1070, the doors of Japan slammed shut. Alltrade with the outside world was forbidden. Buddhist monkshad to get imperial permission go on pilgrimages abroad.Japanese uniqueness and isolation were celebrated as virtues.In this social atmosphere, the center of political and literaryinterest was the imperial court. Peasants oppressed by diseaseand hunger were of no interest. Imperial courtiers appointed toprovincial governorships were viewed as having been dis-graced. As a result, provincial governors were left to theirown devices. Among those devices was empowering thugs asbodyguards and enforcers.

The relegation of the provinces to uncertain fate turned outto be an imperial error with major consequences. By the1070s, provincial governors began limited trade with Chinaand Korea, pursuing their self-interest. Out of this context,direct relations with China were restored. As trade continued,some provincial rulers began to acquire wealth and influencethat cast a deep shadow over the authority of the imperialcourt. In 1160, the provincial Taira clan ascended to powerover rival provinces. In that guise, the ruler of the Taira clanbecame the protector of the emperor—the shogun. TheMinamoto clan replaced the Taira in 1185, installing a newshogun. Thereafter, the effective ruler of the empire was theshogun and the power of the imperial court faded to nearirrelevance.

As you study this section, consider a paradox: During thisperiod, as Japan claimed to be a unique power unto itself,the influence of Chinese culture and language was pervasiveamong intellectuals and aristocrats.

Western Europe: Economics and Politics

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, WesternEurope entered a twilight of decline traditionally referred toas the Dark Ages. Charlemagne’s imperial achievements fellapart as Europe became a jumbled patchwork of minor rivalstates that were often little more than landed estates. Viewedfrom the perspective of the Muslim world, Western Europewas a backwater. However, as it turns out, the medieval

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period, in particular the period from 1000 to 1200, was a period of adaptation and innovation. Consider a few highlights.

By fits and starts, advances in agriculture initiated in theMuslim world trickled into Europe. Farming became moreproductive through the adoption of heavy iron plows, wind-mills, waterwheels, and improved irrigation techniques. As a result, the population of Europe doubled between 1000 and 1200.

Marginal lands were explored and developed both along themargins of Europe as well as within Europe. Forests werecleared, bogs were drained, and marginal lands were devel-oped. Motivation for much of this activity was inspired byefforts to spread Christianity to pagan lands within Europeand the British Isles.

As populations increased and new cities and towns began to dot the landscape, opportunities for trade were alsoincreased. The city of Lübeck, founded in 1143, became thenexus of a federation of trading states and cities called theHanseatic League. A bit later, Mediterranean states and citiessent their ships through the Straits of Gibraltar to expandtrade across the whole of Europe.

In Italian city-states, experiments in governance included theconcept of the commune. As a body representing the body ofordinary citizens, the commune idea harkens back to theRoman Senate. (Concepts from Roman law, including ideasabout citizenship and civic responsibility, would, in time,become a major theme in Western political discourse.)

Western Europe: Religion and Culture

Efforts to purify the Roman Catholic Church were evoked by the rise of dissenting heresies. As the burning of heretics gained favor, the evangelical fervor of these efforts was amplifiedduring the reign of Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073–1085). Under theGregorian Reforms, more exacting standards were imposed onclergy, even as clergy become more focused on converting thecommon people.

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The teachings of medieval philosophers such as Abelard andSt. Anselm elevated the level of discourse among studentsand scholars in favor of the power of reason over blind super-stition. Later in this period, Europeans began to adopt thelearning and technologies of the Muslim world. Especiallyfrom Moorish Spain, but also from the Near East, Europeansgained access to classic texts of the ancient world, includingthose by Aristotle and the Roman poets, which had beentranslated into Arabic.

Other gifts to Europe, typically by way of the Muslim world,included paper manufacture, improved techniques in metal-lurgy, the compass, gunpowder, and algebra. Amongeducated elites, attitudes toward the natural world wereshifting in favor of empirical observation and principles ofscientific analysis.

Study the “Making Connections” feature on page 280 of your textbook to think about how different global regions coped withisolation. Conclude your study of the chapter assignment with acareful consideration of the “Chronology” sidebar on page 284.

ASSIGNMENT 12: THE NOMADICFRONTIERS: THE ISLAMICWORLD, BYZANTIUM, ANDCHINA, CA. 1000–1200Read this assignment. Then read Chapter 12, pages 286–311,in your textbook.

The Islamic World and Its Neighbors

Threats to the Islamic world arrived from the Sahara and theAsian steppes.

The Coming of the Steppelanders

In 1055, Seljuk Turks conquered Baghdad and turned thereigning Caliph into a puppet. Mahmud of Ghazni, anotherTurk, declared himself the self-appointed guardian of Islam

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in Afghanistan. Mahmud’s minions raided northwest India,gathering so many captives that slave market prices slumped.This could have meant the end of Islamic reign in the MiddleEast; but instead, beginning with the Seljuk Turks, theinvaders absorbed Islamic culture. The newly Islamic Turksdidn’t abandon their warlike ways and were instrumental inexpanding the Islamic Empire through military conquests.

The Crusades

From the Western perspective, the Christian Crusades areusually given a lot of attention. Europe was on the move,making “holy war” beyond its borders to reclaim “Christian”lands. From the Islamic perspective, however, the Crusadeswere a minor nuisance. The Near Eastern Christian statesfounded by the Crusaders were small, rather unstable, andfairly easily contained by the fierce flickering of Turkic-Saracen blades.

In the 1090s, Christian fanatics initiated “Crusade fever”—the Holy Lands should be returned to Christendom. However,Pope Urban II’s primary political goal was to unite squabblingmedieval knights and petty lords under the leadership of theRoman Catholic Church.

Culturally speaking, the Crusaders were babes in the woods.They misunderstood both Islamic culture and the Greek-Byzantine Christian cultures they encountered en route toSyria and Palestine. In that context, they seriously upset the relatively peaceful co-existence of Christians, Muslims,and Jews already present in the Muslim world.

The Crusaders seized Jerusalem in 1099 and establishedsmall Crusader-ruled states around ports along the easternMediterranean, from Antioch to Tyre. Italian merchantsoffered some support to the Crusaders, mainly in the interestof benefitting from trade.

Around 1150, Zangi, a Turkish chief, declared jihad against infidels and Shiites in the Near East. By 1170, Zangi’s Empirewas seized by Saladin, a Kurdish leader with formidable militaryskills. Saladin would overthrow the Crusader Kingdom ofJerusalem in 1187.

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To the Muslim world, the most significant conclusion oftwelfth-century conflict in the Near East wasn’t ousting theCrusaders. More important was the defeat of the ShiiteFatimid Caliphate in favor of the Sunnis. The Crusaders’defeat in the Near East awakened a recognition that WesternEurope lagged behind the Muslim world in all kinds of ways.

The “Making Connections” feature on page 292 of your text-book provides an overview of the Crusades in terms of theirhistorical background and their consequences in Europe andthe Eastern Mediterranean.

The Invaders from the Sahara

The Muslim situation in Spain in the eleventh country wasprecarious. Muslim rulers had their hands full trying to con-trol Christian populations. Warfare with the Christians waschronic, and the outcomes were increasingly uncertain as theso-called “Spanish Caliphate” dissolved into a patchwork ofrival kingdoms. Taking advantage of that situation, northernChristian kingdoms began conquering Muslim territory. Inresponse, Muslim rulers called on the Almoravids of Africa forhelp. Their request was honored.

The Muslim Almoravid peoples of North Africa were nomadic,pastoral warrior-ascetics. Their domain was, basically, analliance of pastoral bands. By the 1100s, their domain extendedover the Sahara, extending from Morocco and parts of present-day Algeria, deep into West Africa. Arriving in Spain, theAlmoravids succeeded in beating back the Christians. However,in that process they also swept away and occupied the SpanishMuslim kingdoms. In the 1140s, as the Almoravids were cor-rupted by power, they would be displaced by another alliance of warrior nomads from Africa—the Almohads.

Examine Map 12.1 on pages 290–291 of your textbook andthink about power politics around the Middle East and theMediterranean between 900 and 1100 C.E. Map 12.2 on page 295 illustrates the extent of Almoravid power in WestAfrica and southern Spain. It also shows the extent ofAlmohad power in Spain. Note the location of the indigenousAfrican Kingdom of Ghana. Muslim influence in Ghana wouldremain after that kingdom declined, and Islam remained thedominant religion of West Africa throughout the Middle Ages.

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The Progress of Sufism

The essence of mysticism is that it’s a direct experience oftranscendent states of consciousness. Prior to the axial age,shamanic mysticism employed trance techniques and drugsto produce insight and visions. Within the universal religions,selfless service to others, prayer, and meditation more oftencharacterized mystical spiritual ideals. One was to live in theworld without being of the world.

Sufism is, in effect, the mystical branch of Islam. Its rich literature and poetry simply can’t be summed up in anoverview course in global history. However, you can under-stand why Sufism was popular with the common people evenas it was repudiated by power elites. Sufi doctrines extolledcompassion and mercy over legalism. Sufi teachings andpractices were indifferent to social station and tolerant of different beliefs and cultures. Sufi ideas satisfied the commonpeople’s craving for saints. For reasons like these, Sufisbecame Islam’s most effective missionaries.

The Byzantine Empire and its Neighbors

Byzantium and the Barbarians

The Byzantine Empire was threatened by Arab expansion aswell as by Slavic expansion into the Balkans and the loomingpresence of the Russians. Byzantium became increasinglyless Latin, more Greek, and a more distinct cultural region.The main focus of the discussion here is on how the Byzantinesused diplomacy and intimidation mixed with a selective useof military force to maintain its imperial identity. Note that a major success of Byzantium in this era was effecting theconversion of Russia to Christianity.

Basil II

Even as Byzantium maintained its influence over the Balkans,Russia, and the Caucasus, there were clouds on the horizon.The Muslim Arabs to the south and west were immune to

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Byzantine intimidation. Meanwhile, sandwiched as it wasbetween the Balkans and the Turks, Constantinople seemedto be at the eye of a nomadic storm building up over thesteppes.

In 976, having arisen from less than advantaged circum-stances, Basil II ascended to the imperial throne. Basil’sidiosyncratic reign is hard to characterize. He made peacewith the Arabs, thus evading their power. He (it’s reported)blinded 14,000 Bulgarian solders to send the Balkans a mes-sage. Thereafter, adhering to no rules or conventions save hisown, he waged a campaign to endear himself to the domain’speasants while taxing the aristocratic landowners. Heattempted to weaken the aristocracy through oppressive taxa-tion to finance his armies. While administering rough justicewherever opposition reared its head, Basil also made nice tosubjugated Greek and Balkan states in order to retain theirallegiance.

The Era of Difficulties

Basil’s rough and impulsive style of rule centered on forcingthe aristocratic landowners to pay oppressive taxes inexchange for providing military protection against Turks andother invaders. However, after Basil died in 1025, thingsbegan to fall apart. Byzantine decline was a gradual processrelated to several factors.

Due to aristocratic squabbles, the imperial court sufferedfrom in-fighting that distracted them from affairs of state andforeign policy. A prime example was the reign of Basil’s nieceZoe and her jaded sister Theodora.

A schism (split) between church doctrines enlarged the riftbetween the Latin-Roman Church and the Greek ByzantineChurch. Even as the Roman Pope attained to imperialregency, the Greek Church refused to acknowledge the ecclesiastical primacy of the Pope. Instead, the Patriarch and bishops of the Byzantine Church were content to preside under imperial power.

In the West, Turkish incursions into Armenia and Anatoliacut into the Byzantine food supply. In the east, Normanswere menacing the Pope’s political independence and ousting

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the Byzantines from their last remaining territory in Italy.(The Normans were descended from Norse people who settledin the western France.) In 1071, the Byzantine Romanemperor was defeated at the Battle of Manzikert.

To sustain its wealth and influence as borders shrank,Byzantium turned increasingly to trade and commerce. Inthat context, Constantinople became a rich and bustlingmetropolis. And, as that happened, the Italian city state ofVenice became an “overnight” power as Venetians acquiredresources to build ships and enter into a trade relationshipwith Constantinople.

Byzantium and the Crusaders

Toward the end of the 1190s, Europeans were clamoring for aFourth Crusade to recapture Jerusalem. The Venetiansoffered to provide ships for transport, but the price was high.The Byzantine prince Alexius IV, a pretender to the Byzantinethrone, sent an emissary to offer Crusader armies a land detourthrough Constantinople in exchange for supporting Alexius’ bidfor the throne. Most of the Crusaders agreed to the deal. TheFourth Crusade, launched in 1202, brought the Crusaders to a Constantinople glittering with wealth and reeking of politicalvulnerability. The Fourth Crusade to recapture Jerusalem endedwith the spilling of Christian blood at Christian hands as theCrusaders sacked Constantinople in 1204. The remnants ofthe Byzantine Empire in Europe were divided up among thevictors. In what was left of Byzantine Anatolia, rival dynastiesvied for the imperial throne. In this context, Venice acquireda big chunk of Byzantine territory to acquire a virtual monopolyof the Byzantine-European trade routes.

Map 12.3 on page 299 of your textbook shows the extent of theByzantine Empire and the maximum extent of Crusader kingdoms.

Throughout most of this period, Byzantine art and learningcontinued to flourish. Scholars and poets drew on the classictexts of Greco-Roman civilization as well as the learning andliterature of the Islamic world. Indeed, the recovery of ancient

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arts and texts in Western Europe relied primarily on the flowof cultural influences from Byzantium and from Moorish(Muslim) Spain.

China and the Northern Barbarians

The End of the Tang Dynasty

The situation in China paralleled those of Byzantium and the Muslim realm. All struggled to contain, evict, or managewave after wave of nomadic barbarian migrations and outrightinvasions. All three realms attempted to use diplomacy, intimi-dation, and bribery to manage the invaders. All attempted toabsorb the invaders into their culture.

The Rise of the Song and the Barbarian Conquerors

In China in 879, the bandit leader Huang Chao seized theChinese imperial court to initiate a period of brutality andcarnage. In 907, Huang’s successor, Zhu Wen, emerged fromthis political chaos to claim power and effectively terminatethe Tang dynasty. Zhu Wen’s reign was buried, in turn,under the assault of Turkic nomads in 923. Thereafter, theChinese Empire dissolved into several rival kingdoms.However, the ideal of Chinese unity under a “Mandate ofHeaven” wasn’t lost. China would survive even though muchof its northern territory was lost to nomadic peoples withdivergent political agendas. In 960, a general of one of themutinous armies was declared emperor. He would be the first emperor of the Song dynasty, initiating a new imperialera in China.

Map 12.4 on page 305 of your textbook shows the extent of theSong Empire from 1050 to 1234 C.E.

A major point to keep in mind is that regions north of Songcontrol spawned a number of states rooted in the Asiansteppes. Among these, the Jurchen conquered and gainedcontrol of pretty much all of China north of the Huai River.The Jurchen also adopted essential aspects of Chinese culture, such as a Confucius-based civil service and Chinese-

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style urban planning. In that light, the Song Empire wasforced to grant Jurchen sovereigns imperial rights under the traditional Chinese notion of the Mandate of Heaven.

Economy, Society, and Arts and Learning under the Song

As the Song were forced to coexist with Jurchen rule in thenorth, the axis of Song China shifted to the Yangtze valley. Atthat point, the population of China was around 100 million, so the empire had labor resources. What it needed was more territory for food and fiber farming. To that end, Chinese colo-nization was aimed at the underpopulated lands of Sichuan to the southwest. Natives were “pacified” as forests were clearedfor tea plantations and mulberry cultivation to support the silkindustry.

As internal colonization proceeded, bogs were drained, roadsand bridges were built, and cities sprouted across the landlike mushrooms (following patterns found in Europe). In thelater years of the Song dynasty, an enlarged China was brim-ming with wealth.

The Song era left an enduring intellectual and artistic legacy.Take note of Ouyang Xiu’s philosophy of learning and morality.Consider the ways by which Wang Anshi’s ideas impacted statepolicies. Think about why Chinese painters of this era createdsome of the world’s most admired and imitated images. StudyThe Night Revels painting depicted on page 308.

Conclude your study of this chapter with a few moments ofserious attention to the “Chronology” sidebar on page 310 of your textbook.


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Self-Check 5


______ 1. In regions were Christians and Muslims had coexisted cooperatively, the Crusaders

wanted the Muslims and Christians to demonize each other.

______ 2. Under the rule of Basil II, the Byzantine Empire made peace with the Arabs while first

terrorizing Bulgaria and then cooperating with Bulgarian elites.

______ 3. After the fall of the Tang dynasty, the Song dynasty made no concessions to invaders

from the steppes.

______ 4. A political network that covered 57,000 square miles of Colorado, New Mexico, and

Arizona probably wasn’t associated with the Chaco Canyon society.

______ 5. The Norsemen who voyaged across the Atlantic were trying to escape poverty and lack

of social opportunity.

______ 6. Cahokia, which was located east of present-day St. Louis, represented a culture that

featured many aspects of Mesoamerican civilization.

______ 7. The Crusader kingdoms along the coast of the eastern Mediterranean got support from

Italian merchant communities that welcomed access to trade.


8. In the Khmer kingdom, the city of _______ was designed to express both Hindu and Buddhistbeliefs.

9. In _______, the Chola kings expanded their territories through ruthless exploitation coupledwith the ambitions of merchant communities along the coast.

10. The _______ of Japan were supposed to be guardians of the emperor and protectors of theempire.

(Continued)

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Self-Check 5

11. In Italy, the term _______ referred to citizen bodies that would become institutions of civicgovernment in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries.

12. The Hanseatic League was a network of ports along the North Sea and the Baltic that collaborated to promote _______ with other parts of Europe.


13. Summarize some of the technological advances that occurred in Europe from about 1200 tothe 1300s, differentiating those originating in Europe from those that were imported fromabroad.

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

14. Briefly outline major factors that divided Western Christianity from Eastern Christianity.

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________


Lesson 3 97

THE CRUCIBLE

The second part of Lesson 3 covers Chapter 13, “The Worldthe Mongols Made”; Chapter 14, “The Revenge of Nature:Plague, Cold, and the Limits of Disaster in the FourteenthCentury”; and Chapter 15, “Expanding Worlds: Recovery inthe Late Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.”

ASSIGNMENT 13: THE WORLDTHE MONGOLS MADERead this assignment. Then read the Part 6 opening spread and Chapter 13, pages 312–341, in your textbook.

The Mongols Reshaping Eurasia

Mongol-speaking peoples of the steppes are first noted in sev-enth-century Chinese historical records. But the story of theMongols is no footnote. As Mongol chiefs made contact withtheir wealthier neighbors, mainly as raiders or mercenaries-for-hire, chiefs got rich on loot. As a result, a gap betweenrich and not-rich appeared in Mongolia, which led thewealthier clan chiefs to seek control over other clans.

As you’ve already learned, the rowdy, violence-prone peoplesof the steppes had a long history of raiding and looting theirwealthier sedentary neighbors. What made the Mongols dif-ferent was the sheer, mind-bending scale of their conquests.In the year 1206, a Mongol chief named Temujin united theMongol clans and declared himself the ruler of “all who dwellin the felt tents.” He would be known to history as GenghisKhan. At its greatest extent, the realm of the Great Khan wouldextend over more than 90 degrees of longitude, swallowingPersia, Russia, China, and the Silk Roads.

Map 13.1 on pages 318–319 of your textbook is a key resourcefor getting the most from this chapter. Study it carefully totrack the Mongol campaigns of the thirteenth century.

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You can think of the Mongol Empire as proceeding throughthree stages. At the outset, the Mongols under Genghis Khandid what they were used to doing. They arrived on the hori-zon like a plague of mounted locusts to loot, rape, slaughter,and pillage. The second stage featured offering conqueredpeasants a deal they couldn’t refuse—protection in exchangefor taxation. The third stage saw Genghis Kahn transformedinto an enlightened lawgiver whose advisors from many landsaided him in administering the Mongol lands. This latterstage gave rise to a brief but genuine Mongol Peace, a bit like the Pax Romana (Roman Peace). In effect, the Mongolsbecame “highway police” across the 3,000 miles of the empire.

Check out Map 13.2 on page 322 of your textbook to considerEuropean travelers of the Mongol roads between 1246 and 1295.Take some time to study the typical “Mongolian Passport” shownon page 323.

In the last part of this section, you’ll get some insight intoMongol society. As you enjoy the tour, take note of severalsignificant points. The successors of Genghis Kahn tended tobe tolerant, pliable, and adaptable to new situations. Forexample, rulers like Temujin’s grandson—the fabled Chineseemperor Kublai Khan—held a belief in one god expressed dif-ferently in the different religions. Above all, recognize that theMongol Peace permitted the adventurous explorations ofMarco Polo and a historically crucial period of culturalexchange.

The Mongol World Beyond theSteppes: The Silk Roads, China,Persia, and Russia

The Mongols were partial to merchants and encouraged tradealong the Silk Roads. However, these trade routes weren’t atall like interstate highways. Geographic obstacles includedthe 1,800 mile stretch of the Taklamakan Desert, scarcefreshwater sources, and rugged mountain terrain. Humanobstacles included getting lost and running afoul of bandits.Marco Polo’s journey from Venice to China took three and ahalf years.

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European journeys to the East were fairly common duringthe Mongol Peace. However, few Chinese subjects had muchinterest in journeying to the West. An interesting exceptionwas a Chinese subject by the name of Rabban Bar Sauma.Bar Sauma was a Nestorian Christian who passed on fasci-nating records of visits that took him as far as Rome andParis.

Map 13.3 on page 327 of your textbook traces the travels ofRabban Bar Sauma from 1275 to 1288. Use the map to locatethe boundaries of the four major divisions of the MongolEmpire after the reign of Genghis Khan. Note the lands of theKhanate of the Golden Horde, which extended from centralAsia all the way to Ukraine and the Balkans.

China

The Mongol conquest of Song China took a while. China wasthe most powerful state the Mongols encountered, and it washighly defensible. It took the mighty resources of the MongolEmpire to conquer China bit by bit. Armies were importedfrom the steppes. Persian engineers built the siege enginesthat helped capture cities in southern China. The final battlewas at Changzhao in 1275. For the Chinese, the Mongol con-quest stank of death and despair. Suicides were common.

Kublai Khan (1214–1294) was China’s emperor when MarcoPolo arrived there. Marco Polo noted that the emperor’s gov-ernance was loathed and hated by the Chinese. The Khan’slords and enforcers were “barbaric” steppelanders who con-sidered mare’s milk akin to the nectar of the gods. Also, mostof them were Muslims. In any case, the “China Project”absorbed so much of Kublai Khan’s resources and attentionthat his bid to assume his grandfather’s role was honoredonly in word, but not in deed, by Mongol rulers in the farwest who called themselves Il-Khans (subordinate Khans).

Persia

The Il-Khans of Persia gradually broke away from traditionsof the steppes, eventually rejecting Genghis (and Kublai)Khan’s toleration of religious diversity. In the context ofabsorbing Persian culture, they converted to Islam in 1295.

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That turned out to be problematic. The Muslims of Persia(Iran) were Shiites. The bulk of Arabs were Sunnis. Moreimportant, as Mongol Persia became Muslim, it adopted the militarism and religious intolerance of the Muslim world.Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and others were no longer wel-come. In any case, Mongol rule in Persia came to an abrupthalt in 1343 when the last Il-Khan died without appointingan heir.

Russia

Mongol governance in Russia was exercised by terror and byextracting tribute. The Russian princes were allowed to runprovincial and local affairs in traditional ways. However,Russian princes had to show up at the Mongol imperial courton the lower Volga to unload copious tribute and submit tohumiliation on a regular basis. The situation was barely tolerated by the Russians. Revolts, which were suppressed by mass slaughter, weren’t infrequent. In fact, the Russianprinces mainly tolerated Mongol rule because they werecaught between a rock and hard place. To the west, powerfulEuropean monarchies in Poland, Sweden, and Latvia wereflashing swords and agendas of conquest along the Russianborder. It was all the Russians could do to keep these fanaticalEuropean knights at bay. They couldn’t do that and contendwith the Mongols at the same time.

The Limits of Conquest: Mamluk Egypt and Muslim India

Saladin’s heirs ruled Egypt after 1192, more or less success-fully contending with pastoral invaders out of North Africa.They went about this with the armed assistance of a slavearmy called the Mamluks. The Mamluk saga is historicallypeculiar. The slaves were predominately young Turkic boyswho were captured and sold to Saladin’s domain by Mongolrebels. The boys were raised in military barracks and trainedin martial skills. With no access to escape routes, theybecame absorbed into a unique Mamluk warrior culture. Fora time, they served as an effective military arm of Saladin’ssultanate.

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In Egypt in the 1250s, the Mamluks rebelled, taking effectivecontrol of the Sultanate. In 1260, the Mamluks met anddefeated a Mongol army at the Battle of Ain Jalut in Syria. Itwas the first time a Mongol army had met defeat. Later,between 1268 and 1291, Mamluks wiped out the last of theCrusader states in Syria and Palestine. However, the Battle ofAin Jalut was more historically important because it kept theMongols out of Africa. As a result, Egypt became a Muslimthreshold into Africa. Muslim influence would seep into theSudan and trickle all the way west to Nigeria.

Muslim India: The Delhi Sultanate

In the 1190s, Turkic Muslims of the Ghaznavid Empire wereinvading Hindu India to extract tribute and set up militarygarrisons. One of their strongest garrison outposts was atDelhi in northwest India. Iltutmish, a Muslim military adven-turer, took command there in 1211. By avoiding war with the Hindus, as instructed by the Ghaznavid rulers, and bybuilding up his local resources, he felt emboldened to declarehimself an independent ruler in 1216. Over the next 12years, he manipulated the rivalries of Muslim commanders toconstruct what would be called the Delhi Sultanate, which by1236 extended across India, from the Indus to the Bay ofBengal.

Study Map 13.4 on page 332 of your textbook to see the extentof the Delhi Sultanate. Note its area of influence over nearly allof the Deccan (southern India).

Over most of the thirteenth century, Mongols threatenedIndia’s northern frontiers. However, India’s Delhi Sultanateheld fast despite having to tolerate a Mongol state west ofDelhi.

Europe

The era of the Mongols posed a looming threat alongChristendom’s eastern boundaries. Venice lost its Byzantinewindfall. Even as the Crusaders were driven fromConstantinople by the Byzantine emperor in the 1261, the former Byzantine Empire was more nostalgia than fact. Meanwhile, Latin Christendom was gaining ground.

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The pagan worlds along the Baltic, from Finland and Prussiato Livonia and Estonia, were conquered by Christian armies.Christians also gained control of Castile and Portugal, forcingthe Moors back into southern Spain.

Meanwhile, the European acquisition and adaptation of technologies from the East accelerated. Paper, invented inChina, was being produced on a large scale by the thirteenthcentury. Gunpowder and blast furnaces (also invented inChina) helped transform both warfare and metallurgy.Although European maritime technology lagged behind that of developed Eurasia, a framework for correcting thatsituation was developing. Today we recognize that frameworkwith a single word—science.

European science developed in unique ways that combinedthe interplay of several factors. Scholars were retrieving classic works of the Greco-Roman period as well as craftingnew manuscripts and ideas. In an era when nature wasincreasingly seen as God’s “beneficent architecture,” thought-ful people increasingly turned to empirical observation andmeasurement, attempting to study “God’s handiwork” upclose and personal. A lot of the work of these new naturalphilosophers took place in the context of universities crop-ping up in Paris, London, Milan, and other places acrossWestern Europe.

An outstanding thirteenth-century example is Thomas Aquinas,who wrote major works in both theology and secular thought.Another major intellectual figure was St. Francis of Assisi.You’ll want to think about how and why the Franciscanmonks and nuns helped spread the ideas of St. Francis of Assisi throughout Christendom.

Europe led the world in two technological areas: glass manufacture and the development of clockwork. Efforts to create stained glass for cathedrals (a project invited by inno-vations in church architecture) led to other ideas, such asfabricating ground lenses. In turn, glass lenses led to thedevelopment of microscopes and telescopes. In turn, the marriage of magnification to precise measurement providedby clocks led to startling discoveries, ranging from the identification of microorganisms to mathematically preciseobservations of heavenly bodies.

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All in all, Europe was birthing a new worldview. Over time,that Western worldview would impact the entire planet.

Study Map 13.5 on page 334 of your textbook. Notice the sitesof universities and of churches featuring stained glass.Conclude your study of this assignment by spending time withthe “Making Connections” feature on page 337. Use the tableto think about European innovations and transformations inthe thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Next, study Map13.6 on pages 338–339 to think about the importance of grass-land environments, contrasting the Eurasian steppes withgrasslands on the other continents. Study the “Chronology”sidebar on page 340.

ASSIGNMENT 14: THE REVENGEOF NATURE: PLAGUE, COLD,AND THE LIMITS OF DISASTERIN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY Read this assignment. Then read Chapter 14, pages 342–373,in your textbook.

Climate Change

Humankind emerged and developed as the last major ice ageended and the planet entered a relatively warm interglacialperiod. Today, we’re still living in that interglacial period at atime of accelerated climate and ecological change resultingfrom human activity. However, from a historical perspective,the most significant period of climate change is what’s calledthe Little Ice Age. As you read, note three things: First, thecold periods weren’t full-blown ice ages; Earth’s temperaturevariations in that period were within interglacial parameters.Second, there were oscillations of colder and warmer periodsover these centuries. Third, although the Little Ice Age isassociated with severe setbacks, such as plague and drought,it was also a period when people adapted to changed climatesin innovative ways.

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Study Figure 14.1 on page 344 of your textbook to track globalclimate change through the Little Ice Age that extended fromthe mid-1300s through the early 1800s. Map 14.1 on pages346–347 offers a global overview of climate change during thefourteenth century. Notice the locations of major volcanic eruptions.

The Coming of the Age of Plague

The long period of relative global cooling coincided with theoutbreak of plague in various parts of the world. Why thiswas the case remains unknown or speculative. Some expertssuggest that the cooling patterns encouraged the adaptiveselection (mutation) of warm-era pathogens into new forms.

In any case, conventional ideas about the nature of theplague, or plagues, are at best sketchy. Bubonic plague,which was spread by infected rats, was no doubt a significantfactor in what came to be called the Black Death. However,evidence suggests that several kinds of diseases were affect-ing various populations.

Study the “Making Connections” feature on page 348 of yourtextbook for a summary of climate change in Eurasia, Africa,and the Americas.

The Course and Impact of the Plague

The era of plague began in China. However, it’s not clear howdisease outbreaks there were transferred to the west over theAsian steppes. In this section, you’ll learn about variousplague experiences in different places. Note the astonishingdecline in populations in areas impacted by the Black Death.

Map 14.2 on pages 352–353 of your textbook shows sites withrecorded outbreaks of the Black Death between 1320 and1355.

Moral and Social Effects

When devastation strikes, people have a tendency to seek out moralistic explanations and/or find someone to blame.The most striking moralistic response to the Black Death

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in Europe was the widespread appearance of Christian flagel-lants. Viewing the plague as divine punishment for the sinsof the people, flagellants would literally rip their backs tobloody shreds with flails tipped by iron “claws.” Theseextreme penitents saw themselves as recapitulating Christ’scrucifixion in order to “heal the sins of the world.” However,both the French king and the Pope outlawed these practices.

A relatively positive outcome of the era of plague was theapplication of science and reason to understanding the dis-ease(s) and seeking cures. In contrast, a negative outcomewas the brutal persecution of the Jews.

The Jewish people of medieval times tended to inhabit urbanareas and were often engaged in trade and banking. The lat-ter occupational tendency was related to medieval strictureson lending money at interest, a practice called usury. Ineffect, Jews served a vital economic function because loanswere in high demand and many Christians didn’t want todirty their hands by engaging in commerce. (In that respect,medieval Christians reflected similar Confucian attitudes.) Inany case, as the Black Death spread, Europeans turnedagainst the Jews, typically citing that age-old ruse that theJews killed Christ. Because medieval law usually forced Jewsinto walled ghettos, they were easy targets.

Map 14.3 on page 355 of your textbook shows the major cen-ters of Jewish settlement and the path of the Diaspora, thedispersion of the Jews from their original Semitic homelands.The map covers the period from 1100 and 1400. Suggesting an eerie foretaste of modern history, note the virulence of anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria, as indicated by massacres of Jews during this period.

The Limits of Disaster: Beyond thePlague Zone

India

Areas beyond the Eurasian plague zone benefitted from rela-tive advantage. In India, the Sultanate of Delhi got a boostfrom the Mongol decline. Sultan Muhammad Ibn Tughluq

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(r. 1325–1351) pursued an agenda of conquest that took injust about the entire subcontinent. At first, he wisely prac-ticed religious tolerance, which was good idea in a land thatwas mostly Hindu. However, his basic policy of conquest andplunder didn’t make for a stable empire. For one, he wasdependent on Turkic fighters, which was expensive. When hebegan to default on his payments, his steppelanders began tosecede. Meanwhile, hard-line Islamists kept badgering him toenforce Islam by force. Eventually, Ibn Tughluq declaredHindus to be infidels. As a result, a Hindu empire arose inthe south that resisted further Muslim advance. The Sultanatewas weakened, and provincial states began dropping out ofthe empire.

Southeast Asia

Recall that the island of Java had been high on the list ofimperial objectives for Kublai Khan. There was a reason forthat. The strait running between Malaya, Java, and Sumatrawas vital to Chinese trade in the region. The region was dominated by a powerful state centered around the city ofMajapahit on the island of Java.

As the Mongol threat eased due to the Black Death, the influ-ence of Majapahit expanded. In the 1340s, under King HayanWuruk, Majapahit’s garrisons appeared on the islands of Baliand Sumatra, as well as on the Malay Peninsula. Recordsindicate that Majapahit’s influence was felt in ports acrossmainland Southeast Asia. The basis of Majapahit’s influencewas the rich variety of spices and other trade goods producedin this part of the world.

Study Map 14.4 on page 359 of your textbook. In India, notethe extent of the influence of the Delhi Sultanate. In SoutheastAsia, note the regions where Majapahit claimed tribute.

Japan

During the fourteenth century, Japan was outside the zone ofthe Black Death. Thus, with the easing of the Mongol threat,Japanese society was free to develop in relative isolation.

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The shogun’s role was supposedly to defend the rule ofJapan’s emperor. In fact, as you may recall, real power wasin the hands of the shogun. Be that as it may, fourteenth-century Japan was a violent tapestry of competing warlords.The emperor’s actual power was limited. Emperor Godaigomounted efforts to restore central imperial governance in1318.

A turning point in this political situation occurred when, in1335, the powerful warlord Ashikaga Takauji claimed the role of shogun against the wishes of the emperor. Godiago’ssupporters rose up in his support only to be defeated byAshikaga at the Battle of Minato River in 1336. The Ashikagadynasty remained in power for the rest of the century, mainlyby avoiding excessive intervention in the affairs of major warlords.

Because central governance was either weak or absent, peasants were left to tend to their business under the osten-sible rule of provincial aristocratic or warrior landlords. As aresult, Japanese peasants were able to improve their farmingtechniques, often extending them to marginal lands in aprocess of internal colonization.

Largely because of an influx of Chinese Buddhist Monks fleeing hard times in China, a mystical branch of Buddhism,called Zen, was introduced into Japan. Zen practice focuseson approaching transcendence though the mind throughruthless discipline and an attitude of detachment from “theslings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” The Japanese warrior class, the samurai, found this kind of discipline amiable and appropriate to the business of war.

Japanese women lost ground during this period. Whereasearlier customs gave women relative equality in marriagesbased on love and sex, marriage now became a game of political alliances between rival political and warring factions.In that context, women became viewed as male property.

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Mali

According to legend, a heroic figure by the name of Sundiatafounded the independent Islamic kingdom of Mali in the early1200s. His realm featured rich resources, armored cavalry,and well-administered courts and cities. Mali’s great age ofconquest took place in the 1260s and 1270s.

A king of Mali was addressed as “Mansa.” The most famousof the kings of Mali was Mansa Musa. Scholars and poetsfrom Spain and North Africa were counted among hiscourtiers. Following the practice of his predecessors, MansaMusa made the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca. He spent threemonths of his journey in Egypt; while there, he endowedcountless mosques and gave so many gold coins to theMamluk Sultan that the local value of gold currency wasdeflated.

In foreign eyes, gold was the color of Mali’s glory. What’sinteresting is that Mali’s merchants and officials were basi-cally intermediary handlers of gold from secret mines beyondMali’s borders. Its value in Mali proper, aside from glorifyingthe realm, was as a commodity that was exchanged for salt.Salt was a scarce resource in Mali. In any case, tales of goldassociated with Mali glittered in the imaginings of Europeans,helping to prompt voyages of exploration. The sources ofAfrican gold weren’t found until much later, but the voyageswould yield other rewards.

The Pacific: Societies of Isolation

This part of the chapter offers a brief tour of societies isolatedwithin and along the boundaries of the immense expanse ofthe Pacific Ocean. As your read, consider the following questions:

n How did the Polynesian peoples of remote Easter Islandmanage a resource-limited environment in ways thatappear to have ended badly?

n How is it that the Polynesians who settled New Zealand(known as the Maori) went through a process of socialevolution that converted hunters into pastoralists underthe increasing power of warrior chiefdoms?

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n How did the Ozette people of North America’s PacificNorthwest develop such a sophisticated society in conditions of serious isolation?

n Why was the relatively advanced expansionist state ofthe Chimú people of Peru’s coastal desert region so culturally distinct from the Moche culture found in thatregion in much earlier times?

In the concluding “Perspective” part of this chapter, study thecomparative populations of Europe, China, and the IslamicWorld from 100 to 1500 C.E. in Figure 14.2 on page 371 ofyour textbook.

ASSIGNMENT 15: EXPANDINGWORLDS: RECOVERY IN THELATE FOURTEENTH ANDFIFTEENTH CENTURIESRead this assignment. Then read Chapter 15, pages 374–407,in your textbook.

Fragile Empires in Africa

East Africa

In East Africa, Ethiopia reemerged and expanded, benefittingfrom its domination of the Great Rift Valley. In 1403, aimingat expanding Indian Ocean trade, Ethiopia recaptured theport of Massaweh. However, by 1469 efforts to expand theborders of the empire ended, even as internal expansion continued. As you’ve seen in other cases, internal expansionwas largely focused on developing marginal lands for foodand fiber production.

Further to the south, between the Zambezi and LimpopoRivers, archaeological evidence attests to participation inIndian Ocean trade. Along this eastern flank of Africa, portcities developed along the coast. However, the centers of

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wealth and power were located inland in fortified stone-crafted administrative centers called zimbabwes. The mostimpressive of these was the Great Zimbabwe. It would serveas the center of a kingdom founded by a leader who calledhimself the Mwene Mutapa, which means “lord of the tributepayers.”

West Africa

Developments in West Africa included the emergence of sev-eral new kingdoms. As the kingdom of Mali fell into decline,Songhay emerged as the most powerful of the West AfricanStates. Like Mali, Songhay benefitted from trans-Saharantrade, but not to as great an extent as did Mali under MensaMusa. Other significant West African kingdoms includedBenin, which benefitted from the easily navigable Niger River,and the Kingdom of Kongo in the delta region of the CongoBasin. The latter society rapidly adopted the culture and religion of visiting Portuguese traders.

To understand what was going on in Africa between 1400 and1500, study Map 15.2 on page 380 of your textbook. Afterlocating the various states, note the trans-Saharan traderoutes as well as the Indian Ocean sea lanes between Africaand India.

Ecological Imperialism in the Americas

The Inca Empire

Beginning in about the mid-1400s, the Inca Empireexpanded in much the same way as had earlier Andeanstates. Tribute domains were established to take advantage ofthe many microclimates, ranging from high plateaus toPacific coastal regions and even into rainforest climes east ofthe Andean ranges. The basic imperial strategy was estab-lishing trade and tribute zones such that crop failures in one microclimate could be offset by good harvests in othermicroclimates.

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Establishing their capital at Cuzco (in Peru), the Inca expandedin a rather haphazard way to embrace a long, thin imperialregion that extended from Ecuador to Chile. The high Inca,invested with authority as the “Great Sun,” demanded sub-servience and tribute through brutal militarism. Wholepopulations were relocated or slaughtered in the name ofimperial expansion.

The Aztec Empire

Around the same time as the Inca Empire, and also based onexploiting diverse climate zones, the Aztec Empire emerged.The Aztec state was supported by conquest and tribute.However, the many tribute communities were left to managetheir own internal affairs, which permitted a flow of tradewithin and between imperial domains. Although the Azteccivilization was literate and complex, people tend to remem-ber their penchant for human sacrifice. One of the mainitems of tribute was slaves. On ceremonial occasions, slaveswere offered as human sacrifice to the Aztec’s rather bad-tempered gods.

Study Map 15.3 on page 383 of your textbook to better under-stand the Inca and Aztec Empires. In the case of the Inca, notethe long chain of towns and cities extending north and southfrom Cuzco. The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, was built in andaround a lake (Texcoco). Today, the lake is mostly memory, and the ruins of Tenochtitlan lie beneath modern-day MexicoCity. Recall that both the Inca and the Aztec saw themselves as inheritors of the legacies of earlier civilizations—Teotihuacanand Tula for the Aztecs and Tiahuanaco for the Incas.

New Eurasian Empires

The Russian Empire

In the 1400s, the princes of Moscow established a domaincalled Muscovy. It would give rise to the first stable empire toappear in this region of Eurasia, in large measure because itcontrolled the trade artery of the Volga River. Under the reignof Ivan the Great (r. 1462–1505), the Russian Empire

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extended from the Arctic Ocean to the Caspian, casting shadows on Poland, Lithuania, and Sweden. With the con-quest of Constantinople by the Turks, Ivan aspired to replaceByzantium as the “Third Rome.” That was mostly hubris, butIvan did import Italian technicians and marry a Byzantineprincess to substantiate his claim.

Study Map 15.4 on page 387 of your textbook to consider thebroad extent of the Russian Empire.

Timurids and the Ottoman Empire

The best way to think about the Timur and Ottoman Empiresis by comparing them. For example, both were Islamic pow-ers, and both inherited the traditions and worldview of thesteppes. However, there the commonalities end. Timur theLame (known to the West as Tamerlane) would emulateAlexander the Great and Genghis Khan, aiming for no lessthan world domination. At its height, the Timur Empireextended from the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire, across Iran (Persia) and Iraq and deep into northwest India.However, after he died in 1406 en route to conquer China,the Timur Empire fell apart. In India, Tamerlane had a far-reaching impact on the Delhi Sultanate, with one ofTamerlane’s heirs founding India’s Mogul Empire.

The Ottoman’s started out with the steppe worldview.However, they soon absorbed the cultures of the peoples theyconquered. They adopted gunpowder-based warfare, makingeffective use of heavy artillery against city walls. They eventook to the sea, becoming a dominant maritime power in theMediterranean. In 1451, Mehmet conquered Constantinople.Thereafter the Ottomans, like the Russians, aspired tobecome the Third Rome. That didn’t happen. However, suc-cessful Ottoman invasions did manage to conquer Greece aswell as large chunks of the Balkans and areas along thelower Danube, including much of Romania.

Study Map 15.5 on pages 388–389 of your textbook and con-sider the extent of the Timur and Ottoman Empires. Noticetheir relationship to the Mamluk Sultanate. Also, use the legend to track the major Timur campaigns and their dates.

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The Limitations of Chinese Imperialism

In the middle of the fourteenth century, China’s peasantsbore the brunt of bad times. Plague continued to flare up,and would do so as late as the 1350s, when people began toacquire natural immunities. Major flooding the Yellow Riverrequired exhausting peasant labor to restore the Great Canalsystem. A sustained drought followed the flood, wreakinghavoc on farming.

In bad times, the common people tended to look heavenward insearch of antidotes to despair. Millennial prophecies appeared.Often these popular mythologies proclaimed the imminentend of the world and/or the arrival of a great hero who wouldstrike down oppressors and seed justice across the land. The world was going to end or be reborn. In China, peasantfolklore looked backward to a supposed golden time underthe Song dynasty, before the arrival of Mongol overlords. Afavored myth of deliverance foretold the return of the lastBuddha, Lord Maitreya, who would make everything better.

In 1351, a pretender to the throne claiming descent from theSong was murdered by the Mongols. His peasant followersmounted a violent rebellion. The fever spread. Out of thechaos of armed rivalries, Zhu Yuanzhang emerged as theleader of the rebellion. By cleverly managing a coalition ofrivals that boosted him to power, he renounced the cult ofMaitreya to proclaim himself the first emperor of the Mingdynasty. His propaganda declared that he himself was thepromised savior. The adoption of the word Ming flavored thatassertion, because Ming (meaning “bright”) was associatedwith the Lord Maitreya.

Zhu Yuanzhang was a self-made, self-educated man. Althoughhe retained most of China’s traditional administrative andgoverning institutions, he scorned Confucian ideals. Confuciansmaintained that proper governance should focus on the wel-fare of the people and steer clear of foreign entanglements.Zhu Yuanzhang was interested in imperial expansion. As aresult, his son, the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–1424) initiated abrief but consequential period of Chinese expansion. It’s inthat context that you’ll learn about the amazing voyages andventures of the Muslim eunuch Admiral Zheng He. Beginningin 1405, he led the first of a series of naval ventures that

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imposed Chinese influence all across the Indian Ocean trad-ing zone. Under Zheng He, the largest tribute-collectingvessels imaginable (before the era of oil tankers) plied theMonsoonal currents as far west as Africa and as far southand east as Java and Sumatra.

In the end, China’s dalliance with maritime imperialism wasterminated. Zheng He’s next proposed voyage was cancelled,and Chinese policies turned inward.

Study Map 15.6 on page 393 of your textbook to better under-stand Ming China and the voyages of Zheng He.

The Beginnings of OceanicImperialism

Europeans recognized the wealth and profits to be gainedthrough access to the great Indian Ocean trade zone. But theMuslim world controlled overland access to Indian Oceanports. So, what to do?

Europe’s only feasible access to seaborne exploration andtrade was the Atlantic Ocean. Recognizing this fact, someEuropeans began a trial-and-error process of mounting voy-ages into the Atlantic. John Cabot (an Italian) discovered arelatively unreliable route across the North Atlantic. But itwas mainly the Portuguese, with help from Italian bankers,who made the most initial progress. In the 1480s, Portuguesevoyagers had made trade contact along the coast of WestAfrica, as far south as the Kingdom of Kongo. By 1500, Vascoda Gama and Cabral had reached India.

Meanwhile, with the backing of Italian bankers and Spanishmonarchs (Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon)Columbus made his way to the Caribbean in 1492. Thereafter,mainly flying the flag of Spain, Europeans learned thatalthough the New World wasn’t the Indies, it offered brandnew shores for conquest and rich resources for export. Silverand gold mines in Spanish-controlled regions of Mexico andBolivia flooded Europe with precious metals, thus providing“hard cash” to fund trade, exploration, and conquest.

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Examine Map 15.7 on pages 396–397 of your textbook. Thekey to where one could sail and safely return depended onrecognizing wind and ocean currents. As you study this map,imagine that you wanted to sail from Europe to the Caribbeanand back again. How would you chart your course? Map 15.8on pages 400–401 offers an overview of European oceanicexploration up to 1500.

The European Outlook: Problems and Promise

Renaissance means “rebirth.” Traditional notions of theEuropean Renaissance have tended to focus on flourishinginnovations in philosophy, literature, science, and the artsthat mainly started in Italy in the 1300s while Byzantiumwas still a major cultural influence. Thereafter, similar inno-vations spread northward to Flemish, Germanic, and Englishrealms well into the 1600s. Your textbook emphasizes a morerecent historical perspective; namely, that aspects of “rebirth”were cropping up as early as the 1200s or even a bit earlier.

A major aspect of the Renaissance was a philosophical world-view called humanism. Humanism can be thought of as aworldview that places humankind and human experience atthe center of reflections and speculations on the naturalworld and human destiny. Humanistic perspectives showedup in various ways, impacting art, literature, philosophy, science, and even music and drama. In the arts, for example,ordinary people began to replace mythical gods and heroes assubjects. At the same time, benefitting from improved under-standings of perspective, artistic renderings became morelifelike and realistic.

Chivalry was an imposing aspect of popular culture bothbefore and during the Renaissance. The code of chivalryemerged in the context of romantic ballads, tales of unre-quited “Platonic” love, and dragon-slaying heroes saving fairmaidens. In the fifteenth century, romantic chivalric loreinspired adventurers to honor their idealized fair maidenswith daring feats.

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Now, review the material you’ve learned in this study guide as well as the assigned pages in your textbook forAssignments 11–15. Once you feel you understand the material, complete Self-Check 6. Then check your answerswith those provided at the end of this study guide. If you’vemissed any answers, or you feel unsure of the material,review the assigned pages in your textbook and this studyguide. When you’re sure that you completely understand theinformation presented in Assignments 11–15, complete yourexamination for Lesson 3.

Self-Check 6


______ 1. For Marco Polo and other Western travelers of the Silk Roads, the Taklamakan Desert

was a major geographic obstacle.

______ 2. Emperor Yongle sought contact beyond China’s empire, which led to the amazing

voyages of Zheng He.

______ 3. Vasco da Gama managed to round Africa and complete a voyage to India shortly before

Columbus reached the New World in 1492.

______ 4. The rulers of the Aztec Empire mainly left communities alone as long as they paid

tribute.

______ 5. In 1260, the Turkic Mamluks, who had taken over rule of Egypt, delivered the first

significant defeat to the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut.

(Continued)

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Self-Check 6______ 6. The rulers of the African Kingdom of Kongo were repulsed by Portuguese visitors and

their strange Christian religion.

______ 7. The Empire of Genghis Kahn encompassed the steppes of central Asia, Russia, Persia,

China, and Japan.

______ 8. In Persia, the Il-Khans eventually adopted Buddhism instead of Islam.


9. The legendary leader Sundiata founded the kingdom of _______ in the 1300s.

10. Although global ________ change occurred along with the arrival of the age of plague in thefourteenth century, it’s not clear how the two may have been linked.

11. During turbulent times, _______ religious prophecies proclaim an imminent major cata-strophic change that will punish the sins of the rich and empower the poor.

12. Metaphorically, the Ottoman Empire was to a monsoon as the Timur Empire was to a_______.

13. As a Franciscan friar and a professor at the University of Paris, Roger Bacon maintained thatempirical science should question traditional religious or secular beliefs. Bacon was influencedby St. _______ of Assisi, who taught that the world made God’s creation manifest.

14. The idealistic and romantic code of _______ was even more important than humanism instimulating overseas exploration.

15. Muscovy was the original name of the _______ Empire.

16. In the thirteenth century, northern India was ruled by the Muslims under the _______Sultanate.

(Continued)

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Self-Check 6


17. Who was Rabban Bar Sauma, and why is he an interesting historical figure?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

18. What were zimbabwes?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

19. What was Zen, and why did it flourish in Japan during the fourteenth century?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________


Convergence, Divergence, and GlobalEnlightenmentsThe first part of Lesson 4 covers Chapter 16, “ImperialArenas: New Empires in the Sixteenth and SeventeenthCenturies”; Chapter 17, “The Ecological Revolution of theSixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries”; Chapter 18, “MentalRevolutions: Religion and Science in the Sixteenth andSeventeenth Centuries”; and Chapter 19, “States andSocieties: Political and Social Change in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.”

ASSIGNMENT 16: IMPERIALARENAS: NEW EMPIRES IN THESIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTHCENTURIESRead this assignment. Then read the Part 7 opening spread andChapter 16, pages 408–433, in your textbook.

Maritime Empires: Portugal, Japan,and the Dutch

The economic purpose of early empire-building was gainingcontrol of lands and the peoples who produced valuableresources. That was the case up until about 500 years ago.Later, empire-building involved additional motives.

Study the “Making Connections” feature on page 413 of yourtextbook to compare land and maritime empires. All of thenations discussed in this section were engaged in maritimeimperialism.

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The Portuguese Example

As European shipbuilders gained new skills, access to theIndian Ocean trade zone became firmly established. Portugalhad an advantage because it had Atlantic ports in southernEurope. Portugal established direct trade relations with pepper-growing regions of India by 1500. By 1510, it hadestablished a trade center at Goa on the west coast of India.It established trading connections with regions all over EastAsia as far as Japan.

By the 1600s, Portugal proclaimed its own Indian state,which was a string of trading ports along India’s westerncoast. An interesting aspect of Portuguese colonialism wasintermarriage with Indian and African women. Although pondering what that might have meant in terms of culturalinteractions, keep in mind that the European traders weremotivated by an immensely profitable access to textiles, medicines, and spices that weren’t otherwise available toEuropeans.

Take a look at the illustration on pages 414–415 of your textbook for a European perspective on Goa.

Asian Examples

In Asia, Japan’s governance and foreign policies are well illus-trated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the warlord who took over Japanin 1585. Hideyoshi proclaimed himself the gods’ choice for rulerof the world, sending intimidating messages to the Chinese andthe Spanish governor of the Philippines at Manila. His efforts to subjugate Korea failed. However, Hideyoshi did succeed inmaking Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands Japanese dependen-cies. By the mid-1600s, Japan was contending with Russia overterritorial claims in the region of Manchuria. In the end, thatuncertain contest led to Japanese policies of containment, evenprohibiting Japanese people from traveling abroad.

Map 16.1 on page 416 of your textbook will help you under-stand maritime imperialism and trade routes over the period1500 to 1700.

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An important economic and social aspect of this period wasChinese and Japanese migration. As “economic refugees”fleeing poverty and oppression in their native lands, theystreamed into many regions of Southeast Asia, including ter-ritories under the political control of the Dutch and Spanish.

The Dutch Connection

After their arrival in 1498, for about 100 years the Portuguesemanaged to fit into the Asian-dominated regions they settledin the name of trade. From about the 1620s onward, as theEnglish, French, Dutch, and other Europeans were contendingagainst dug-in Portuguese interests, Asians grew impatientand hostile. In particular, because Portuguese Christianswere intolerant of Muslims and Jews, Asians saw fit to liquidate their influence by force or through intimidation.

In this maelstrom of European competition for trade advan-tages, the Dutch would rise to regional ascendancy. You’ll beinvited to think about how this happened.

Unfortunately, the story is complicated. At the outset, theNetherlands was a patchwork of rival petty states that identified themselves with the peculiar environment of the LowCountries and a common resentment of their official monarch—the King of Spain. The rise of the Dutch, culminating in thefounding of the Dutch Republic, was all about gaining thesame kind of advantage that had initiated Portuguese mar-itime ambitions while struggling to overcome the power ofSpain and managing internal civil war.

In the end, the Dutch supplanted the Portuguese and bestedother European rivals for at least four reasons. In navigationalterms, Dutch maritime routes were more direct and efficient.The Dutch benefitted from the loss of Portuguese hegemonyin India and across Southeast Asia. Brutal military force wasemployed selectively to gain or sustain political control. Ineffect, the Dutch shifted from maritime imperialism to territorialimperialism. Finally, the Dutch had a favored trading partner-ship with the Japanese. At that time, Japan was a crucialsource of silver. The Dutch could buy silver cheap, buy mer-chandise elsewhere at bargain rates, and reap serious profits.

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A key financial innovation also figured into the Dutch imperialadvantage. Based on a proposal drafted by Jan van Linschoten,an archbishop at Goa, the merchants of Amsterdam organizeda joint stock company aimed at creating a Dutch monopoly ofAsian trade. Thus was born the Dutch East India Company.

Land Empires: Russia, China, Mughal(Mogul) India, and the Ottomans The word Czar is the Russian version of “Caesar.” The RussianCzars’ quest for empire entailed interwoven aspects. Control ofthe entire length of the Volga River from near Finland to theCaspian Sea assured domination of trade routes. Conquest ofthe trade routes assured exclusive Russian access to the track-less expanse of Siberia and the highly profitable fur trade.Russian adoption of Western military technology greatlyassisted the domination of lightly armed Siberian states andtribes.

Russian expansion was checked as Russians encounteredChinese armies along the Amur River. In 1689, Chinese andRussian emissaries drafted the Treaty of Nerchinsk to formal-ize a boundary that continues to this day.

Meanwhile, Chinese imperial expansion involved claimingand settling Mongolia to the north and Sichuan to the south.To a greater extent than was the case in Russia, Chineseimperialism aimed at absorbing conquered territories intoChinese culture.

In 1526 a warrior prince by the name of Babur abandonedefforts to restore the Timur Empire and settled for conqueringDelhi in northwest India. Babur’s state, with its capital atDelhi, remained fragile until his grandson Akbar ascended topower (r. 1556–1605). The Mughal Empire in India followedthe old-fashioned imperial recipe. Its main occupation waswar. To sustain its armed might, dominated states andprovinces were allowed to maintain their local customs, reli-gions, and modes of governance as long as they surrenderedtribute and paid hefty taxes. Akbar’s reign was mottled byrebellion. Nevertheless, Mughal power continued to spreadand under the emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1656–1707) coveredmost of the subcontinent.

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The Ottomans’ heartland was the resource-rich Anatolianplateau (Turkey), and they are considered among the mosteffective empire-builders in history. The domains of their con-quests were so diverse that citizens were exposed to as manyten different languages. Their empire encompassed threewaterways: the eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the Tigris–Euphrates river system. Geographically, particularly under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566), Ottoman Sultans ruled Egypt, great stretchesof territory on either side of the Red Sea, North Africa as faras the Barbary Coast, the Near East, Greece, and theBalkans a bit beyond Belgrade.

New Land Empires in the Americas

From the late 1600s and into the 1700s, the French, theEnglish, and the Dutch were making inroads into NorthAmerica, setting up colonies near coasts or around water-ways. The Portuguese and the Dutch were making inroadsalong the coast of Brazil, but the earliest and most remark-able tales of conquest were spoken in Spanish.

Columbian conquests of parts of the Caribbean took placeafter 1492. Columbus’ conquest of Hispaniola (1495–1496)was the opening round of a period of Spanish conquest thatwould subjugate the most densely populated regions of theNew World by the mid-1500s.

One can’t but wonder how virtual handfuls of Spanish conquistadores could have pulled this off. Even thoughSpanish terrorism against Native people in Mexico and Perugets a lot of press, the process of subjugating Native peoplesunder the flag of Spain was mainly peaceful. Why? Spanishweapons were a factor, but not the main one. Native vulnera-bility to European disease pathogens was a factor, but notthe main one. It seems the main factor was being in the rightplace at the right time. Both the Aztec Empire in Mexico andthe Andean Empire of the Inca were being torn asunder by civil war when the Spanish arrived. From the Native perspective, the Spanish were vital allies in overthrowinghated Aztec and Inca overlords. In short, the Native peopleswere primed and ready for alliances with the Spanish that

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would aid their cause. Another interesting factor is the so-called stranger effect. Among peoples like those ruled by theAztec and the Inca, it was customary to honor strangers—outsiders—as a source of knowledge and as potentialintermediaries for settling their internal disputes.

Map 16.3 on page 427 of your textbook will help you locateand identify Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and Dutchpossessions in the New World. The Dutch made a deal withthe English to trade New Amsterdam for Surinam around1664. At that point, New Amsterdam was renamed after theDuke of York to become New York.

Making the New Empires Work

The focus of this section is on attitudes toward NativeAmericans under differing imperial regimes. In the Spanishcolonies, the dense indigenous populations were the eco-nomic foundation of the imperial economy. Thus, Spanishpolicy dictated preserving the Native population. This was not the case elsewhere. In Brazil and some parts of NorthAmerica, Native Americans were used as slave labor. But theBritish domains illustrated the more dominant pattern.Adopting the rationalization that indigenous peoples wereheathens and savages, they were massacred or driven fromtheir lands.

The Global Balance of Trade

Two topics make up this brief section. First, we’re remindedthat patterns of precolonial internal trade—referred to ascountry trades—continued. An example was the internaltrade in furs and pelts that linked Native American tribeswith French trappers. The second topic addresses howseaborne trade in this period gave rise to the need for explo-rations in search of new routes as well as the development ofnew inland and port cities related to the global expansion oftrade.

The “Chronology” sidebar on page 431of your textbook canhelp you identify key dates.

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ASSIGNMENT 17: THEECOLOGICAL REVOLUTION OFTHE SIXTEENTH ANDSEVENTEENTH CENTURIES Read this assignment. Then read Chapter 17, pages 434–461,in your textbook.

The Ecological Exchange: Plants and Animals

On a high plane of the Colombian Andes, 8,600 feet abovesea level, lies the city of Bogotá, Colombia’s capital. As thesun sets and the chill of high altitude makes the air sharpand crisp, the scent of eucalyptus smoke teases the senses.That wouldn’t have been the case a thousand years ago for asimple reason: Eucalyptus trees are native to Australia.

Over millions of years, natural selection differentiated speciesaround the globe. And then along came humankind with itsproclivity for selective selection. The ecological revolution ofthe sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the most signifi-cant instance of human agency ever wrought by humans. Anancient pattern was reversed as people began to exchange lifeforms from continent to continent in what historians now callthe Columbian Exchange. On pages 436–442 of your textbook,you’ll learn about some of the more important plants andanimals that were part of this exchange and their impacts onthe larger human population.

Map 17.1 on pages 438–439 of your textbook summarizes a lotof information you’ll want to think about, including major routes ofecological exchange and genetic differences among populationsrelated to immunities and vulnerabilities to microbial pathogens.

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The Microbial Exchange

Demographic Collapse in the New World

Ecological and microbial (germ) exchange were significant fac-tors in the rise of a new global order. On the whole, ecologicalexchange tended to make people healthier, but there weredefinitely winners and losers. Within the latter category, thehorrific die-off of Native Americans is, without doubt, themost shocking.

The peoples of the Americas had been separated from theirhuman cousins for thousands of years. When the Europeansarrived, they had no immunity for diseases that were com-mon among European populations. Smallpox seems to havebeen the major killer in Mesoamerica. Influenza was unwit-tingly spread to Native peoples by French visitors to the St.Lawrence region of Canada. No one knows how many died.Measles and smallpox combined to kill of very large numbersof Native American who made contact with British colonists.Modern mortality estimates suggest that between 60 to 90percent of Native peoples of the New World succumbed toEuropean diseases.

Study the feature box on page 445 of your textbook to thinkabout the Colombian Exchange.

Plague and New Diseases in Eurasia

Microbial evolution brought about more virulent strains ofknown diseases, like plague, as well as new diseases. In the1680s, it’s estimated that 80 percent of the tribal populationsof eastern Siberia died from exposure to outsiders from thedeveloped world. Tuberculosis arose from somewhere andbecame a major European killer in the sixteenth century.Strains of venereal disease, possibly gifts from the New World to the Old, appeared in Europe after contact with theAmericas. Plague continued to trouble regions of southernEurope, such as Venice, during the sixteenth and seven-teenth centuries. People continued to die from typhus anddysentery due to a lack of understanding of public sanitation.

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As Europeans found their way into tropical lands, they metwith lethal tropical diseases such as cholera, yellow fever,and malaria.

Labor: Human Transplantations

Colonies in the Americas suffered from nagging labor shortages.Aside from their tendency to die from European diseases,Native Americans weren’t well suited for work as field hands,house servants, or miners. And even though Europeans wereimported as indentured labor, these efforts didn’t provide asmany workers as were needed. Of course the fact that newarrivals in the Americas tended not to live very long didn’thelp matters.

As early as 1500, the Spanish colonies began importing laborfrom a source what was, in terms of ocean navigation, rela-tively close at hand—Africa. By the 1570s, Spaniards wereimporting about 2,500 African slaves a year. Over the nextcentury and a half, slave importation to Spanish andPortuguese American ranged around 3,500 slaves per year.For a while, Spanish and Portuguese control of the Africanslave trade denied slaves to the other European powers. Thatsituation changed gradually as pirates had their way and asagreements were reached with the Dutch, the English, andthe French. In the final quarter of the 1600s, some 24,000slaves were being shipped from Africa every year.

African slaves became the fundamental labor force on plantations in subtropical North America as well as in theCaribbean and in South America. This was largely due to the fact that sub-Saharan Africa had long been exposed toEuropean pathogens and because Africans could deal withthe climate.

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Wild Frontiers: Encroaching Settlement

Northern and Central Asia: The Waning of Steppe Imperialism

The influence of the steppelanders declined after 1600.Aspirations to emulate Genghis Khan simply didn’t material-ize, perhaps because Persians and other peoples borderingthe steppes adopted gunpowder and better-engineered fortifications. This development is referred to as the militaryrevolution. In addition, nomadic pastoralists of the steppesbegan to give up pastoral life in favor of life in settlements.

A paradoxical exception to Mongol decline occurred in China.In the 1640s, a Manchu Army composed of steppelanderswas charged with serving the Chinese Empire as defendersagainst Mongol intruders. However, when civil war broke outin China, the Manchu stepped in to settle the matter by over-throwing the last Ming emperor in 1644. The Manchu, whodeclared themselves the Qing dynasty, would eventuallyabsorb Chinese culture and end up overthrowing Mongol rulein Tibet. Qing rule would last until 1912.

Map 17.2 on page 447 of your textbook will help you track andlocate imperialist ventures and settlement in Eurasia from1600 to 1725.

Pastoral Imperialism in Africa and the Americas

Pastoral ways of living based on managing herd animals con-tinued in some regions of the globe, such as North Africa andthe African Sahel. At the same time, hunting and gatheringlife-ways continued among Australian Aboriginals and amongtribes scattered from the Great Basin to California in whatwould become the United States.

Pastoral imperialism appeared in North Africa when in 1588the Moroccan Sultan Al-Mansur successfully conquered the West African kingdom of Songhay. In the Americas, something akin to pastoral imperialism appeared over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as great herds ofcattle, sheep, and cattle were transported to Spanish andPortuguese America and to the Pampas of the Argentine.

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To a degree, expanded ranching encroached on sedentaryindigenous natives. And, having adapted horses to their way of life, pastoral indigenous peoples of the Pampas even threatened European domination for a time.

Imperialism and Settlement in Europe and Asia

When the Russians conquered Kazan, they gained access to the rich black soils of the lower Volga River. Thereafter,Russian colonization expanded farming regions, pushingnomadic steppelanders out of the way. In the British Isles,struggles to gain control of farmable lands pitted Scotsagainst Irish, Celts against Saxons, and Protestants againstCatholics in a merry mélange of bloodletting and culturalexchange. The same sort of thing took place in Japan as settlersexpanded into arable lands, displacing the indigenous peoples of Hokkaido.

China was a major player in the game of colonizing newimperial territories, including the large island of Taiwan.Overall, the pattern was about increasing access to arableland that could be exploited for food production. However, as you’ll see in your textbook assignment, the case of Chinainvolved a complex interplay of conquests, fleeing migrants,political maneuvering, and outbreaks of civil war.

Developments in India followed the same trends. Imperialexpansion—extending as far as Burma—fostered new settle-ments that increased the range of farming and amplified theexploitation of natural resources. However, in the MughalEmpire official deforestation policies were a tool of conquestthat had major ecological repercussions.

New Exploitation in the Americas

The Spanish Empire

Clues to understanding the character of the enormousSpanish colonial empire are revealed in any of the majorMesoamerican cities that became pieces of the Spanish

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dominion. Again and again one finds Spanish cathedrals andother public buildings superimposed on stone foundationsbuilt by Aztecs, Incas, and other native societies.

Spanish elites replaced Native elites. Spanish technologies,such as the iron plow, were adopted by Indian peasant farm-ers. Spanish bureaucrats oversaw local indigenous economiesthat continued to produce maize, beans, squash, potatoes,cocoa, coca, and cotton. Catholic missionaries, priests, andbishops superimposed Christianity on native populations,resulting in a weird blend of heathen traditions, plastersaints, and crucifixes. Meanwhile, in an often heavy-handedfashion, Spanish overseers harnessed native labor to minethe many tons of silver and gold that would literally floodSpain and then the rest of Europe with precious metal currencies.

Map 17.3 on pages 452–453 of your textbook packs a widerange of information. Study it carefully to better understandEuropean land exploitation in North and South America. Notethe enormous extent of the Spanish Empire. Also, think aboutthe opposing French and British territories in North America.

Brazil

The Portuguese presence in Brazil began with sugar cane plantations and the importation of African slaves. Coastal Brazilcouldn’t provide the Europeans an economic foundation like thatoffered the Spanish in the Andes and Mexico. Also, Portugueseexpansion to the West was obstructed by the massive rainforestsof the Amazon Basin. Such expansion as did occur was inresponse to two factors: Spanish domination in South Americaand the promise of mineral wealth. The latter was revealed bySpanish and the Portuguese explorations of the mighty Amazonand its countless tributaries. In particular, discovery of gold anddiamonds in the Brazilian province of Minas Gerais in the 1680sspurred Portuguese expansion westward.

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British North America

English colonies from the mid-Atlantic to the subtropicalsouth were mainly focused on cash crops for export. Thecolonies of New England had little to export beyond harvestsfrom rich stands of timber. However, those hardwood forestsbecame raw materials for shipwrights, and therein lay theseeds of colonial prosperity. The New Englanders took to the seas in sturdy, state-of-the-art sailing ships, building amaritime dominion that would eventually reach from theCaribbean all the way to China. This East India tradebrought prosperity to American shores and laid the founda-tion for importing the fruits of the Industrial Revolution.

Home Fronts in Europe and Asia

Beginning in the late 1500s, worldwide, imperial rulers andmonarchs became systematic about evaluating food production.Lands were carefully surveyed. The productivity of farm acreageswas tallied. Commodity prices were calculated. In both Japanand India, peasant farming practices were officially establishedto maximize productivity, and uncooperative land owners weresummarily executed.

New energy resources were discovered as environments wereexplored and exploited. Whale oil was harvested for lampsand lotions. Peat from the bogs of Holland was harvested tobe burned as fuel. Timber was systematically harvested forfuel all across Eurasia. However, especially in the BritishIsles and parts of Western Europe, diminishing supplies ofwood resulted in ever increasing reliance on coal. By 1700,Londoners were hard put to evade the cloying drift of ash anddust from burning coal.

Land reclamation efforts were directly associated with theneed to protect and expand arable land for farms and village.In Japan, the systematic draining of wetlands increasedJapanese food production by 82 percent between 1600 and1720. The most striking example of land reclamation tookplace in the Netherlands. Employing ever more efficient systems of canals and windmills, the Dutch added some370,000 acres of farmland to their realm between 1610 and 1700.

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Frontiers of the Hunt

This section on pages 456 and 457 of your textbook high-lights the impact of European expansion and technology on resource utilization and agriculture by Native Americans,specifically the Iroquois.

See the “Making Connections” feature on page 458 of yourtextbook to compare new ways of exploiting the natural environment in different regions of the globe between 1500and 1700. Spend some time reflecting on the “Chronology”sidebar on page 459.

ASSIGNMENT 18: MENTALREVOLUTIONS: RELIGION ANDSCIENCE IN THE SIXTEENTHAND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES Read this assignment. Then read Chapter 18, pages 462–487,in your textbook.

Christianity in Christendom

Emerging from the medieval period, many European back-waters still clung to pagan ways. Even though Christianitywas the official religion of Europe, its actual presence overthe land was a bit like a thin veneer. Clergy were expected to repudiate pagan superstitions such as fortune-telling, folk-healing, and magic. These efforts weren’t entirely successful.Many provincial people continued to cling to local “folk wisdom,” leaving fertile ground for intermittent outbreaks ofwitch-hysteria.

Over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the CatholicChurch was heavily invested in controlling people’s sexualbehavior. The idea that “sex = sin” became a persistent reli-gious standard.

Meanwhile, lay people were demanding greater access to Holy Scriptures and knowledge about the sacraments. Localpriests tended to offer selective bits and pieces of scripture

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to laity, partly because so many of them were illiterate.Martin Luther (1483–1546) got people’s attention because he was good at explaining the Christian message to themasses. He was also pretty blunt about pointing out the corruption then present in the Catholic Church. As it turned out, his agenda of reform ended up gaining its most important support from Germanic princes who had avested interest in gaining secular control over the clergy.

Luther triggered the Protestant Reformation, which, in turn,triggered major house-cleaning in the Catholic Church and afierce Counter-Reformation effectively led by the Jesuit Orderfounded by Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556) in 1540.

Christianity beyond Christendom:The Limits of Success

Wherever European imperialism went, Christian missionariesfollowed. In this context, the sheer extent of Spanish dominionsmeant that Catholicism had the greatest global impact. In the Far East, Spanish Catholicism was the religion of thePhilippines. In Japan, Catholic Jesuits and Franciscansenjoyed a season of missionary zeal. By the 1630s, about100,000 Japanese had been baptized. However, Japan’srulers viewed Christianity with unqualified suspicion. And,after a period of persecution, Christianity was banned inJapan. In China, mandarins and scholars were interested in the Jesuit’s scientific learning, but efforts to convert theChinese to Christianity fell flat.

The Missionary Worlds of Buddhismand Islam

As you’ve already seen, Buddhism was supplanted byHinduism and Islam in most of India. However, it took root in China and Japan as well as in areas of Central andSoutheast Asia. In China, Buddhism coexisted with Taoismand Confucianism. Under Chinese emperors of the sixteenthcentury and later, Buddhism became acceptable as “a reli-

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gion one could practice at home.” Something similar tookplace in Japan, where Buddhist teachings took on aJapanese twist and coexisted with Shinto.

The Buddhist influence in Mongol lands of Central Asia was revitalized in the late sixteenth century at a time whenMongolia was under the political sway of emperor Altan Khan(1530–1583). At that point, Tibet was a Buddhist theocraticstate. The ruler of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, was invited toMongolia. It must have been quite a visit, because Mongoliaconverted to Buddhism.

As you’ve seen, Islam was spread by jihad (holy war). Islamicleaders tolerated infidel Christians and Jews simply to maintainorder within their domains. Meanwhile, Africa was heavilyinfluenced and impacted by the Islamic faith. Initially, muchof that process was mainly a matter of exposure as opposedto armed intimidation. Islam accompanied Muslim traderswherever they went, introducing the Quran and Islamic life-ways by example and persuasion.

Map 18.1 on page 471 of your textbook shows the spread ofChristianity, Islam, and Buddhism in Asia by 1750. Map 18.2on page 473 offers a geographic overview of the spread ofIslam in Africa around the year 1700.

The Resulting Mix: Global ReligiousDiversity—American and IndianExamples

Just as the Japanese shaped their versions of Buddhist prac-tice to fit their culture, something similar happened in otherlocations. However, the Japanese share a common, uniformculture. In the Americas and in India, religious diversity hasbeen shaped by ethnic, racial, religious, and class conflicts,as well as by historical factors.

The religious attitudes and practices of black Americans havebeen, and still are, distinct from the religions of white people.In Brazil, black Catholics drew on aspects of West Africanculture to develop a distinctive subculture. Within that sub-culture, black Catholic laypeople formed confraternities,

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which were characterized by charitable activities and cultlikedevotion to particular saints. In North America, black reli-gious organizations eventually became hotbeds of politicaldissent and activism.

White religions of the British colonies were characterized bytwo themes: flight from religious persecution in the Old Worldand apocalyptic fervor. The Puritans of New England wereProtestant extremists who felt destined to re-create a godly“city on a hill.” Similar fervor characterized other Christiansplinter groups. The Anabaptists, for example, were intenselydogmatic in their belief that only adults should be baptized.

For Christians, the term apocalypse refers to the end of daysand/or the dramatic redemption of the faithful. Prophecies oflooming apocalypse are said to embrace a millenarian doc-trine. Millenarian ideas cropped up all over the place in thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries in both Catholic andProtestant regions.

India was rife with conflicts between Muslims and Hindus.That would be the case well into the twentieth century andbeyond. However, in the 1600s, a new religion—Sikhism—arose that was tailored to accommodate both Muslim andHindu customs, practices, and beliefs. The founder of thereligion, Guru Nanak (1459–1539) proclaimed that the pathto God was neither Hinduism nor Islam, but a creative paththat consulted both sets of beliefs and practices.

The Renaissance “Discovery of the World”

Two topics are discussed in this section: the spread of theItalian Renaissance and European efforts to adapt to the discovery of alien cultures and peoples in the Americas.Present-day historians are inclined to see evidence of aEuropean renaissance (rebirth) modifying Western thought as early as the thirteenth century, during the time of ThomasAquinas. Nevertheless, the traditional notion of a fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Renaissance birthed in Italy has meritfor two reasons. First, the recovery of the classics of the Greco-Roman world and the influences of humanism producedunprecedented advances in art, architecture, literature, and

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science in Italy. Second, the rest of Western Europe was heavily impacted by what was flowing out of Milan, Florence,and Rome.

The second theme of this section encourages you to thinkabout the mind-blowing impact of what has been called theAge of Discovery. Beginning with Columbus’ encounters withthe gentle Carib “Indians,” the Spaniards were confrontedwith what psychologists call cognitive dissonance—an innerstruggle with contradictory ideas. Are these people human orsubhuman? (That issue would be settled by a Papal decreeallowing that Native Americans were indeed human beings.) If they’re subhuman or inferior, how could they have con-structed temples and monuments that rivaled anything foundin Europe? And then there was the shock of encounteringchimpanzees and gorillas in Africa and orangutans in SoutheastAsia. A nagging question was born. What is it that makeshumans different from these apes?

The Rise of Western Science

In the context of the spreading Renaissance, key players inthe rise of Western science appear all over Western Europeand the British Isles. And virtually all of them were wander-ing about in a sort of mental spiritual limbo somewherebetween “hidden magical secrets” and the ever more sharplydefined universe that could be observed, weighed, and measured. For example, both Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727)and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646–1716) invented calcu-lus. Newton’s Principia Mathematica (containing his laws ofmotion and of gravity) would become the cornerstone of mod-ern empirical science. Yet Newton was obsessed with alchemyand never gave up a compulsive struggle to find empiricalevidence of God’s existence. Leibnitz was obsessed withKabalistic and Egyptian mysticism.

Following on the earlier discoveries of Polish astronomerNicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), Johannes Kepler (1646–1716)confirmed a heliocentric (sun-centered) understanding of the solar system. With Earth demoted from center stage, the impact of the work of Newton and Leibnitz would graduallybe distilled into the rationalist methodology of modern empir-ical science. Key players in this process included Rene

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Descartes (1596–1650) and Francis Bacon (1561–1626).Descartes declared an unbridgeable gap between mind andmatter, thus establishing an uncertainty principle into deliberations on epistemology. (Epistemology is the study of how we can know what we know.) Bacon established therules of scientific inductive reasoning, whereby scientistsgather multiple observations, hypothesize connections amongwhat they observed, and test their hypothesis by way ofempirical experiments. In time, whatever couldn’t be weighedand measured was no longer of any interest to science, thusopening a divide between science and religion.

Western Science in the EastPrior to the ascendancy of Western science, China was theglobal center of practical technological innovations. Blast fur-naces, advanced metallurgy, gunpowder, papermaking, andadvanced shipbuilding technologies, such as the rudder, wereinvented in China.

East Asians tended to view the West as beastly and provin-cial. Initially, Western scientific thought found few places tonest in the Orient. Eventually, however, Western sciencewould make its way to the East. In the case of China, themain harbingers of new ideas, especially about the age ofastronomy, would be Jesuit missionaries.

Use the chapter’s concluding “Chronology” sidebar on page 485 for a time line of the many events over this period.

ASSIGNMENT 19: STATES ANDSOCIETIES: POLITICAL ANDSOCIAL CHANGE IN THESIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTHCENTURIESRead this assignment. Then read Chapter 19, pages 488–513,in your textbook.

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Political Change in Europe

The European state system of the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies halted dreams of unification. The possibility of creating a new European Roman Empire ranged from zero to nil. Your textbook offers three reasons for this situation.

First, European states were asserting their political independ-ence at the same time that they were increasing their controlover citizens. As a last desperate effort at unification, KingCharles V was invited to rule a mainly Germanic empire toresurrect the earlier Holy Roman Empire. That idea fadedafter Charles V left the scene. (In any case, as historians liketo quip, the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman,nor empire.)

Second, monarchs continued to gain and impose power overrival political claimants and ordinary citizens. The Treaty ofWestphalia (1648) gave state rulers the right to impose astate religion on their subjects. In this context, cities andchurches were forced to surrender their rights to self-government.

Third, for various reasons, no European state was in a posi-tion to pursue and agenda of imperial unification. EvenSpain, for all its wealth, couldn’t suppress rebellion in theNetherlands or gain a real toehold after invading France.

Map 19.1 on page 491 of your textbook will help you visualizethe scattered extent of the Hapsburg dominions of Charles V.Map 19.2 on page 492 offers a global view, including a handytime line, for grasping the extent of the Spanish Empire.

Western Political Thought

The concept of state sovereignty was formulated by theFrench political philosopher Jean Bodin in 1576. His ideawas that a sovereign state had the sole right to make lawsand afford justice to its subjects.

Following on that idea were the radical notions of an Italianoffice-seeker by the name of Niccolò Machiavelli. His hand-book for rulers, The Prince, was published in 1513. It gainedinfluence. Some would say it was a dreadful influence.Machiavelli proposed that the sole considerations of a prince

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were serving his (or her) self-interests and holding ontopower. The Prince introduced rulers to the concept of realpolitik; namely, that the state is intrinsically amoral.Anything the state does in pursuit of self-interest is justified.

The notion of laws-of-nations was first identified in the writings of Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Theywere crystallized under the pen of the Dutch jurist HugoGrotius in 1625. In his view, nations were required undernatural law to respect the sovereignty of other nations.Failure to abide by international treaties was just cause forwar.

Western Society

In the West, the modern social class system featuring an eliteupper class, a middle class, and a working class arose with theIndustrial Revolution. In sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuryEurope, vague social class distinctions were superimposed onthose based on occupation, clerical status, and aristocraticstatus. Tradesmen were organized under a guild systemrequiring apprenticeships before one could ascend to the titleof journeyman or guild master. Merchants and bankers hadtheir own guilds. Priests, bishops, arch-bishops, and so onidentified with the church hierarchy—the ecclesiastic estate.Nobility (the “blue-blood” estate) was recognized as a socialstatus that lumped wealthy aristocrats with impoverished,but titled, landlords.

As social change reshaped European society, the status of the family changed. In the High Middle Ages, a familydwelling amounted to a large common room sufficient toshelter kin, retainers, cousins, and maybe a pet goat or ababy pig. Private bedrooms? Forget about it. Gradually, fami-lies began to have living rooms apart from the commons halland private chambers appeared. Gradually, the concept offamily began to refer to spouses and their offspring residingin a separate dwelling.

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An east-west gap appeared in Europe. To the west, peasantscould manage their own labor and even negotiate commodityprices. To the east, landlords tended to treat farm labor asproperty attached to the land. In the west there were peasants; in the east, serfs.

Woman’s status changed, sort of. Women became monarchsin unprecedented numbers, despite voices of outrage hereand there. Queen Elizabeth I became an icon of British sover-eignty and power. However, women were routinely beaten bytheir husbands and deprived of justice by the courts.

See Figure 19.1 on page 493 of your textbook, which comparessocial identities and concepts of social class in modern soci-eties versus those of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.Read the “Making Connections” feature on page 496 and thinkabout the factors that contributed to European state-building.

The Ottomans

The sparkling center of Ottoman power was the fortified and sanctified Topkapi Palace in Constantinople, where theruling sultan autocratically dispensed laws and decrees atwill. The inner circles of power, often guided by concubinesand eunuchs, schemed and plotted to place their favorites on the throne, because no adequate system for appointingheirs was in place. Indeed, it wasn’t uncommon for the rulingsultan to murder or imprison his brothers to neutralize theirimperial aspirations.

You should already be familiar with some of what you’llencounter here. Recall that the Ottoman Empire was as efficiently run and as technologically up-to-date as wereEuropean powers of that period. Also, remember the eliteJanissaries who were recruited from Christian families while still young boys.

The sultan’s grip on central control was limited. Provincialgovernors were often corrupt, and rivalries between provincescould be violent and destructive. Onerous tax burdens forcedmilitary deserters and unhappy peasants into banditry.

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During and after the seventeenth century, the OttomanEmpire ceased its expansion into European territories. Thisdidn’t result from a decline in government efficiency so muchas it did from a shortage of people. As populations in China,India, Japan, and Europe were increasing, Ottoman popula-tions were shrinking.

Mughal India and Safavid Persia

Mughal India and Safavid Persia were basically tributeempires. The Mughal justified their sovereignty by seeingthemselves as heirs of the Timur Empire and, ultimately,Genghis Khan. The Safavid fiercely embraced the Shiitebranch of Islam to justify their rule, even thought the Safavidaristocracy was quite lax in observing Islamic ideas aboutdrink and sex. The Safavids benefitted from the flow of tradeacross Eurasia. The Mughal Empire retained power throughpolicies of continuous war and expansion.

Map 19.3 on page 500 of your textbook shows the SafavidEmpire sandwiched between the Ottoman and MughalEmpires between 1501 and 1736. Spend some time with the“Chronology” sidebar on page 501 for an overview of keydates and events in the three Islamic empires: Ottoman,Safavid Persian, and Mughal Indian.

China

In China, the emperor’s ostensible unlimited authority waschanneled through a bureaucracy composed of thousands of scholarly mandarins who embraced Confucian doctrines.They basically ran the administration of the empire. In thatcontext, mandarins extolled the emperor’s role in rituals andceremonies while insisting on policies of peace and stability.Foreign adventuring was frowned upon, and mandarin con-trol was such that the emperor was forbidden from leavingthe capital.

A grave crisis arose in 1587 when the emperor Wanli (r. 1572–1620) decided to defy the mandarins. His ten-yearstruggle ended in the mandarins’ victory. Thereafter, theMing dynasty was a “paper tiger,” unable to cope with ecolog-

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ical disasters, peasant revolts, and the dissolution of the landinto civil war. What followed was the rise to power of unitedManchu forces and the founding of the Qing dynasty in 1644.

Chinese society had no traditions of “people power” as repre-sented in republics or democracies. Thus, peasant rebellionsmainly rendered China into a patchwork of peasant landholders.Qing strategy in this situation favored Manchu aspirants to rankand power in the military or within the imperial administration.At the same time, the Qing rulers were diligent in appeasingthe mandarins and declaring the importance of Confucian traditions.

Tokugawa Japan

With the doubling of food production and an expansion oflegal and illegal trade with China and Korea, Japan experi-enced a period of peace and prosperity under the Tokugawashoguns residing in Edo (the original name for Tokyo). Thebig winners were peasants and merchants offering food andmerchandise to an expanding internal market. The loserswere the traditional warrior class, the samurai. Many of theseout-of-work warriors became underpaid ronin—freelance mercenaries employed by petty landlords called daimyo.

Map 19.4 on page 504 of your textbook shows the daimyoboundaries and the Tokugawa domains after 1614. The“Making Connections” feature on page 505 summarizes factors of stability and change in China and Japan.

The New World of the Americas

Colonies in the New World featured a mixture of transplantedOld World norms and values with new ways of life required for adapting to new frontiers. In Spanish America, Europeanswere far outnumbered by indigenous peoples. Not surprisingly,Spaniards intermarried with Indians to create “Creole conscious-ness.” To be Creole was to be not quite Old World and not quiteNew World. Creole identity was pride in being something new.

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In Spanish Mexico, young Aztec boys, called ladinos,attended mission schools to learn Spanish and Spanishways. Having gained the trust of the Spaniards, ladinos couldfind a place in the new social order. Intermarriage betweenEuropeans and Mexicans produced generations of mestizoswho would be counted as citizens of what would one day becalled the Nation of Bronze.

Elsewhere in the Americas, the unprecedented extent of slavery was another “frontier” factor. Especially in Brazil and,a bit later, in North America, intermarriage would produce aspectrum of racially mixed people. However, in Brazil, therewas a tolerance of mixed-heritage people that wouldn’t befound in the southern areas that would be part of the UnitedStates.

An interesting development in the Americas was a proliferationof runaway-slave communities. Calling themselves maroons,they transplanted elements of West African culture to variousparts of Americas.

Map 19.5 on page 508 of your textbook will help you locatemaroon communities in the Americas. Notice the locations ofthe Esmeraldas kingdom in Colombia and the backcountrymaroon state founded in Dutch Surinam.

Africa

This section touches on the social and political impact of theslave trade in Africa. Several main points stand out. Thegreat majority of slaves delivered into the hands of Europeanslavers were rounded up and captured by black Africans. Inthat context, some African tribes or states were activelyengaged in slaving for economic and political reasons. Amongthese were Akwamu and Kongo.

Over 1.5 million black slaves had reached the Americas by1700. Six million more arrived over the eighteenth century.Indeed, some populations of the West African coast werealmost entirely depleted. At least 400,000 captured slavesdied (or were murdered in some cases) during the infamousMiddle Passage. They never reached the Americas.

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Spend some time studying Figure 19.2 and the date-event boxon page 509 of your textbook. Note the intense escalation ofslaving activity over the eighteenth century. Map 19.6 on page 510 depicts West and West Central Africa around 1750.Use it to locate the African states described in the textbookand the Portuguese possessions and Dutch settlements relatedto the slave trade.


Self-Check 7


______ 1. In the context of ecological exchange, it’s an odd fact that the sweet potato had no

impact on China.

______ 2. The Dutch East India Company had a government-granted monopoly on trade between

Holland and Asia. However, the Chinese viewed the Dutch role in Batavia as a

subordinate one.

______ 3. In the context of the rise of Western science, epistemology is the doctrine that reality

is observable and verifiable through the senses.

______ 4. Efforts by the Roman Church to stamp out popular religious beliefs and superstitions

were aimed at weaning people away from a religion of worldly survival to one of

salvation in the afterlife.

______ 5. To a large extent, the Portuguese were accepted in Asia because their trade activities

and their work as shippers were good for local economies.

(Continued)

Lesson 4 145

Self-Check 7______ 6. Peaceful conditions in Tokugawa Japan encouraged unemployed samurai to become

freelance mercenaries called ronin.

______ 7. Sixteenth-century demographic collapse in the New World was mainly the result of

armed conquest and only secondarily an effect of microbial exchange.

______ 8. In China, under emperors such as Zhu Hong and Han Shan, Buddhism was presented

as a religion that could be practiced at home without requiring the mediation of priests.


9. In British North America, _______, introduced to Virginia in 1614, was the first crop thathelped sustain the colonial economy.

10. Residents of communities and “mini-states” created by runaway slaves in the Americas werereferred to as _______.

11. In 1662, leading merchants in the Dutch city of _______ formed a joint stock company aimedat monopolizing trade with Asia.

12. The most important crop in transoceanic trade between the Americas and Europe was_______.

13. The _______ theologian Martin Luther was more successful in communicating his ideas aboutChristianity to secular rulers than to fellow priests.

14. As derived from the writings of Machiavelli, the concept of ________ maintained that thestate wasn’t subject to moral laws and that state policies should be dictated solely by self-interest.

15. Within the arena of Indian Ocean trade, some local and regional exchanges never reachedEurope. These were referred to as _______ trades.

16. The religion called Sikhism blended _______ and Muslim traditions.

(Continued)

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Self-Check 7


17. What is the stranger effect, and what did that have to do with the Spanish conquest of theAztecs?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

18. Considering both Africa and the Americas, what is meant by the expression “pastoral imperialism”?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

19. What was Creole consciousness?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________


Lesson 4 147

GLOBAL ENLIGHTENMENTS

The second part of Lesson 4 covers Chapter 20, “Driven byGrowth: The Global Economy in the Eighteenth Century”;Chapter 21, “The Age of Global Interaction: Expansion andIntersection of Eighteenth-Century Empires”; and Chapter 22,“The Exchange of Enlightenments: Eighteenth CenturyThought.”

ASSIGNMENT 20: DRIVEN BYGROWTH: THE GLOBALECONOMY IN THE EIGHTEENTHCENTURYRead this assignment. Then read the Part 8 opening spread and Chapter 20, pages 514–537, in your textbook.

Population Trends

Population growth took place as people were dispersed ontounderexploited marginal lands or were concentrated inurbanized areas. Putting aside considerations of overall general population increase across the globe, towns, villages,and cities sprouted in increasing numbers. China, India, and Japan had the greatest numbers of new urban centers.Among these, the proportion of people living in cities wasgreatest in Japan.

In Western Europe, urban growth was concentrated in several large cities. Eighteenth-century London had a population of around one million. Paris had a population of about 500,000, as did the port city of Naples in southernItaly. Moscow, Vienna, Amsterdam, and St. Petersburg hadpopulations of around 200,000.

This section explores the possible causes of the eighteenth-century population growth spurt. Historians have offered avariety of explanations. Some believe that nutrition improvedas a result of global ecological exchange. However, nutritionlevels actually declined among the poor, many of whom

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hovered around the large urban centers. Improved hygieneseems to have played a part, but sanitation in large cities ofthis period was anything but ideal. In London, ditches filledwith raw sewage flowed into the Thames. Typhus outbreaksand acute diarrhea were common in all large cities.

Improvements in scientific understandings of disease andcures had a couple of significant impacts. Scurvy, long thescourge of sailors, was basically eradicated once it wasdemonstrated that sources of vitamin C (lemons, oranges)offered protection. More important, knowledge of inoculationsagainst smallpox, which had already been developed in theFar East, finally spread to Europe. By 1796, Edward Jennerdiscovered that cowpox inoculations conferred immunityagainst the disease, with few, if any, side effects.

However, for the most part, Western medicine remained gluedto outdated ideas that were either useless or actually harmful.In the final analysis, it isn’t clear why plague burned itselfout, or why, in general, people seem to have developed partialor complete immunities to a variety of other diseases, suchas measles and chicken pox.

Map 20.1 on pages 520–521of your textbook shows the com-parative growth of populations in different regions across theglobe. You’ll see that the greatest population gains are inEurope and Asia. The inset graph, (The World) shows theaccelerating curve of human population growth from 10,000 B.C.E. to 1800 C.E.

Economic Trends: China, India, and the Ottoman Empire

Economic vitality is tightly associated with increasing popula-tions. Therefore, it’s not surprising that China’s immensepopulation provided a huge internal market. For a time, QingChina was top dog when it came to the manufacture of silkfabrics, porcelain, tea, and paper. The West clamored foraccess to China’s trade goods, but China was more or lessuninterested. It boasted a full-employment economy and littlemotivation to deal with Western “barbarians.”

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When the British East India Company imposed a monopolyon India’s poppy production, Westerners finally had a com-modity that generated high demand in China. China’sfavorable balance of trade could start to be reversed. Ofcourse, Western expansion of alternative sources of desiredtrade goods in India and Southeast Asia had its effects, butthe clincher was a Western productivity leap based on mechanization. China was caught in what has been called ahigh-level equilibrium trap. China had an economy based onsurplus labor meeting high demand with traditional technol-ogy. Therefore, Chinese manufacturers had no motivation foradopting mechanization.

Map 20.2 on page 525 of your textbook shows the extent of theQing Empire as of 1770.

The situation in India was similar to that in China in manyrespects. The Indian economy was vibrant and richly produc-tive. However, while China would remain a power to bereckoned with after its global economic clout declined, theIndian economy would simply collapse. India would end upas a de facto tribute state of the British Empire. At least twofactors contributed to this turn of events. The decline of theMughal Empire accelerated due to Persian invasions, internalconflicts, and rebellion. However, the main factor seems tohave been the clever manipulation of markets and commodi-ties by agents of the British East India Company.

As for the Ottomans, their story seems to have amounted to alack of mechanical inventiveness and an inability to competewith dynamic competition from Britain, France, and Italy.

Use the inset table, “Global Population and Economic Trends,”on page 528 to review what you’ll have learned to this point inthe chapter.

The West’s Productivity LeapThe rise of industrialism was influenced by science. You’ll see a long list of the names of scientists and their innovations onpage 529 of your textbook. All of these people tended to think ofthemselves as natural philosophers. And all of them representedthe spirit of an age of curiosity and discovery. Although sciencedidn’t cause the Industrial Revolution, it certainly paralleled andencouraged it.

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Most of this section focuses on Great Britain—with good reason. The heart and center of the rise of the industrial age was in England and Scotland. You’ll want to think aboutwhy that was the case. Several ideas are offered on pages529–532 of your textbook, although none of them are neces-sarily a full explanation.

Map 20.3 on page 531 of your textbook will help you betterunderstand what was going on in Britain as the IndustrialRevolution gained steam. Keep on mind that industrializationwas an outgrowth of a general effort, expressed around theglobe, to maximize the uses of land and other naturalresources.

The Expansion of Resources

This section on pages 532–536 of your textbook is rich withfascinating detail, particularly with respect to developmentsin the Pacific. Take time to enjoy the tour. Before you do, pre-pare to digest a few central ideas, particularly the concepts of“global gardening” and “New Europes.”

Global gardening was a major aspect of ecological exchangein the eighteenth century. Immense, scientifically managedgardens, such as the Royal Botanical Kew Gardens in London,became plant-life “research laboratories.” Spin-offs of botani-cal research in these places were complemented by “fieldexperiments,” such as those conducted by Pierre Poivre inFrance’s Indian Ocean colonies.

Europeans wanted to establish colonies in parts of the worldwhere climatic and environmental conditions would permitthe transplantation of European-style economies and life-ways. Two prominent examples of such “New Europes” in the Pacific are New Zealand and Australia. Both of these, ofcourse, would become part of the British Commonwealth.

Use the inset table, “Economic Revolution in the West,” on page 535 to review key events in the rise of the rise of globalWestern influence. Then study the “Chronology” sidebar on page 536 for an overview of key events between 1500 and 1800.

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ASSIGNMENT 21: THE AGE OFGLOBAL INTERACTION:EXPANSION AND INTERSECTIONOF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURYEMPIRESRead this assignment. Then read Chapter 21, pages 538–561,of your textbook.

Asian Imperialism in Arrest orDecline: China, Persia, and theOttomans

China under the Mongol Qing dynasty was the fastest-growing empire in East Asia. The Qing emperors over-whelmed Tibet and conquered chunks of Mongolia, Russia,Burma, and Vietnam.

In this same period of the eighteenth century, by way of massive Chinese migrations to the south, Chinese traders,merchants, and peasants became significant parts of themany populations in Southeast Asia, including the SpanishPhilippines. However, by the last years of the reign of theChinese Emperor Qianlong (r. 1735–1796) Chinese imperialexpansion ground to a halt. The empire had reached the limits of its resources and technologies.

Both the Persian and Ottoman empires were disadvantagedby population decline relative to other regions of Eurasia. Inthis context, the Safavid Persian Empire became a “play-ground” for invading Afghan warlords and fell apart by 1722.The Ottoman Empire retained some degree of control over itsheartlands in Turkey as its empire shrank. With the rise ofWahhabism, Arabian states seceded, and the Ottomans lostcontrol of that region. Meanwhile, by 1774, the Ottomanshad ceded their holdings along the Black Sea to Russia, evenas the vitality of Ottoman trade was being drained away byEuropean competition. And, following Napoleon’s brief

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invasion of Egypt and Syria in 1798–1799, North Africanstates from Egypt to Algeria to Morocco essentially becameautonomous.

Map 21.1 on page 544 of your offers a geographic view of theexpansion of Wahhabi domination in the Arabian Peninsula.

Imperial Reversal in India: MughalEclipse and British Rise to Power

Starting around 1719–1720, the Mughal emperor began making concessions to petty Hindu princes called Marathas.Thereafter, Mughal control was reduced to a nominal or titular role, as one Muslim ruler declared himself ruler of anindependent central Indian state of Hyderabad and HinduMarathas princedoms more or less ignored imperial influ-ences, even as they stopped short of a full-blown effort tooverthrow the ghostly remains of the Mughal Empire.

See Map 21.2 on page 545 of your textbook for a geographicview of the Marathas’ impact.

The British East India Company was founded in 1600, atabout the same time as the Dutch East India Company.However, although the Dutch weren’t averse to using force asneeded to control their colonial domains, the British policywas ostensibly only about trade—not war. As late as 1750,major British coastal colonies acted as administrative centersof various “presidencies” at the ports of Bombay (Mumbai)and Madras (now Chennai). However, armed French expedi-tions into India changed the rules of the game. Robert Clive,a clerk with the Presidency of Madras, led a “punitive expedition” into Bengal in 1756. His aim was to neutralize aFrench military incursion. Although heavily outnumbered,Clive achieved a British victory, and his “punitive expedition”became a bit like Pizarro’s conquest of Peru. The French werebloodied, and Bengali resistance collapsed like a house ofcards. Abruptly, the richest province of the erstwhile MughalEmpire fell into British hands.

Bengal’s wealth was sufficient to fund further military expedi-tions, and the rest, as they say, is history. By the outset ofthe nineteenth century, India was a major piece of the BritishEmpire.

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The Dutch East Indies

The Dutch, unlike the Spanish or the British, were short ontwo kinds of resources. They had little or no control overregions that produced silver and gold; that is, they lackedhard cash. Also, they were short on manpower. In short, theDutch were in no position to launch campaigns of territorialconquest. In the end, the Dutch used force and manipulationof local princes and populations to monopolize the spicetrade. However, until the Dutch got serious about developingcoffee plantations on Java, their colonial trade ventures weremore loss than profit.

Examine Map 21.3 on page 546 of your textbook. It will helpyou understand the impact of European colonial expansion inSouth and Southeast Asia around the year 1800.

Africa, the Americas, and the Slave Trade

At this point, you’re already familiar with the impact of theslavery on the global economy. In this section, aspects of theslave trade and its impacts on European and African statesare fleshed out with a bit more detail.

Although simple principles of economics maintain that forcedlabor is inefficient and not normally profitable, slavery in theAmericas may have been economically viable for a couple ofreasons.

In Spanish and French America, slaves were granted theright of marriage and assurances that spouses wouldn’t beseparated. Within the constraints of plantation life, even inNorth America black slaves were able to sustain aspects oftheir native cultures and maintain their own social worlds.However, given the dreadful conditions of slavery, infant mor-tality plus low birth rates tended to keep slave populationssmaller than they might otherwise have been.

The slave trade was very profitable for Europeans. Therefore,with the exception of limited coastal incursions, mainly bythe Portuguese, Europeans weren’t interested in contendingwith the natural obstacles of invading the African interior.

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African geography plus malaria kept Europeans out of mostof Africa before the virtues of quinine were discovered in thenineteenth century. A notable exception was in South Africa.There, Dutch settlers (the Boers) pushed the native Xhosanorthward in a series of wars that ended in 1795. Thereafter,the Boers entered a period of internal conflict as the Britishseized Cape Town from the Dutch East India Company.

In West Africa, an Islamic extremist, Usuman da Fodio,claiming to be the forerunner of the Mahdi (the Muslim messiah), founded and expanded a pastoral Fulani Empirewith its capital at Sokoto. It would last until the British conquered it in 1906.

Study Map 21.4 on pages 550–551 of your textbook. It’s vitalto your understanding of the global impact of the world slavetrade around the year 1800. Map 21.5 on page 553 offers adetailed look at the extent of the Sokoto Fulani Kingdomaround 1820.

Land Empires of the New World

The Araucanos and the Sioux

On the prairies of the Argentine Pampas, pastoralist nativeswere able to draw on the military and organizational expertiseof the Araucano chiefdom to enter into trade with Chile. Intime, having developed governance under hereditary warchiefs, they became powerful enough to threaten BuenosAires. Something roughly similar happened across theAmerican Prairies. The Sioux (Lakota), who had been gradu-ally pushed west by European expansion, developed a uniqueculture that lasted until around the 1870s, when the last ofthe Plains tribes were “pacified” and confined to reservations.Lakota plains culture was based on buffaloes, horses, andthe conquest of rival tribes.

Portugal in Brazil

As Portugal surrendered much of its earlier maritime colonialempire elsewhere, it began to develop a rich and complexsociety in Brazil based, in part, on the gold and diamonds of

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Minas Gerais. The Portuguese were able to push the Spanishwestward across the Amazon Basin to roughly the language-division boundaries that exist today.

Spanish America

Spanish America expanded mainly by negotiating with NativeAmericans, inviting them under the umbrella of the Spanishmonarchy. That this strategy was effective is marked by theextent of Catholic missions from California through CentralAmerica and Andean South America all the way to the SouthAmerican cone formed by Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, andmost of the region that would become Argentina.

Your textbook discussion of Creole mentalities refers to thefact that Latin American cultures began to adopt their ownregional identities. Colombians and Peruvians and othersbegan to see themselves as citizens of distinct New Worldnations. At the same time, Creole consciousness assertedthat Latin American cultures and sciences were actuallysuperior to those of the Old World. A similar shift in culturaland regional identities would transform the British coloniesof North America. The American colonials who rose upagainst England were citizens of a new kind of society—mainly young, impulsive, and primed to affirm the vexationsand grievances that had driven them to the New World in thefirst place.

Toward Independence

We’re now in historical territory with which you’re likely toalready have some knowledge, at least with respect to NorthAmerica. With respect to the causes of the AmericanRevolution of 1775–1783, you might want to rethink whatwas called the French and Indian War that concluded in1763. What was regional in North America was actually theculmination of the long, exhausting worldwide Seven Years’War between France and England (1756–1763). The Britishvictory effectively evicted the French from North America(with the notable exception of Quebec). At that point, adrained British treasury caused Parliament to seek ways

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to better control and more heavily tax the American colonies.As you probably know, the immediate cause of rebellion inthe Atlantic colonies was onerous taxation.

Taking a global view of the period, think of it as an era of revolutions. The French Revolution of 1789 followed theAmerican Revolution and was related to it in terms of ideologies and citizen aspirations. The same could be said,paradoxically enough, of the successful revolution of blackHaitians against the French in 1791–1802. In Latin America,Creole consciousness was giving rise to rebellions throughoutthe 1770s and 1780s. Spanish reforms suggested throughthe superb scientific work of Alessandro Malaspina were inthe end ignored and repudiated. Instead, in response to theFrench Revolution, the Spanish monarchy did exactly whatwas needed to assure the successful rise of South Americanliberators like Simon de Bolivar in Grand Colombia.

Study Map 21.6 on page 559 of your textbook to see the wideareas of the Americas that declared and gained independencefrom European powers as of 1828. Conclude your study of this assignment with a careful inspection and review of the“Chronology” sidebar on page 560.

ASSIGNMENT 22: THE EXCHANGEOF ENLIGHTENMENTS:EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY THOUGHTRead this assignment. Then read Chapter 22, pages 562–585,in your textbook.

The Character of the Enlightenment

In a sense, the character of the Enlightenment was a reactionto the sterile clockwork universe implied by Isaac Newton’sgenius. As people confronted nature up close and personal orbeheld the stars and planets in their courses, they couldn’tbut sense that not everything of importance could be weighedand measured. In effect, the Enlightenment was about fittinghuman experience into the mysteries of existence.

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The Enlightenment in Global Context

This section focuses on how Westerners viewed and wereinfluenced by other global civilizations.

China

In the mid-eighteenth century, China wasn’t only the fastest-growing empire in the world, it was the most modern and thebest-educated society on the planet. The influential Frenchthinker and sharp-witted social critic Voltaire expressed glowing admiration for China. Following a pattern that would be taken up elsewhere, he was engrossed by the wisdom of Confucius. Of course, that was partly becauseVoltaire (1694–1778) despised Western organized religion.Echoing Voltaire’s fascination with the Orient, Western elites,literati, and prominent artists were entranced by Chinese culture. It was all the rage to design interiors in Chinese style as it became possible to import Chinese wallpaper andfurniture.

By contrast, the Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755) viewedChina as a cruel autocracy that ruled by fear and offendedthe inner spirit of human nature. Montesquieu authored TheSpirit of Laws, a work that would have an immense impact inthe framers of the United States Constitution. He maintainedthat government should serve to ensure the maximum free-dom of the governed.

Japan

Japan was mainly a mystery to the West at this point. TheJesuits had nothing good to say about Japan, having beenevicted from Japan along with Christianity. The Dutch traderelationship with Japan served as the West’s only window onJapanese society. In that context, an employee of the DutchEast India Company characterized Japanese society asorderly, peaceful, and prosperous even as its people werebound in “submission and slavery.”

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India

Voltaire saw India as a progenitor of Western culture, theland of the first philosophers, theologians and lawgivers. In1786, in England Sir William Jones recognized that Sanskritwas related to both Greek and Latin. Jones’s work led to thediscovery that most European languages were branches of alarge family of Indo-European languages.

The Islamic World

The influence of the Islamic world on Western art and ideaswas mixed. Earlier views of Turkey and the Ottomans reflectedadmiration. Playwrights adopted Turkish settings for comedicor satirical dramas. Persian sages engaged the Western imagination. Informed travelers expressed positive views ofOttoman religious tolerance. Later, Western pundits voicedcritical views of Ottoman autocracy, administrative corrup-tion, and slavish public submission to the whims of sultans.

The Enlightenment’s Effects in Asia

The Enlightenment and China

The Chinese continued to see China as the center of theworld. China had long outpaced the West in social and tech-nological development. However, especially through theinfluence of visiting Jesuits, China’s emperors were ready toabsorb Western advances in mathematics, geometry, andastronomy. Above all, they were keen on adopting Westernmilitary technology. Jesuit-designed artillery was used inChina until the mid-nineteenth century.

Western Science in Japan

Japan was a bit more open to Western ideas than was China.Translations of Western books were allowed to circulatethrough the empire. Western advances in studies of humananatomy were recognized and applied. However, the mostimportant sources of new developments in Japan were internalreactions to Confucianism. In particular, we find a case of

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“parallel invention.” Independently, Japanese thinkers beganto reach the same conclusions as Western natural philoso-phers as to the role of reason and empirical observation inmaking sense of the world. Somewhat similar reactions toConfucianism occurred in Korea and Vietnam.

The Ottomans

The Islamic world was slow to adopt Western developments in science and philosophy. India and the regions around the Ottoman domain waxed enthusiastic about Western ideasonly in the nineteenth century, mainly as a reaction to theobvious superiorities of Western military technology.

The “Making Connections” feature on page 571 of your text-book summarizes Enlightenment influences in Asia.

The Enlightenment in Europe

In France, Denis Diderot (1713–1784) masterminded the creation of the 17 volumes of text and 11 volumes of illustrationentitled Encyclopedia: A Reasoned Dictionary of the Sciences,Arts, and Trades. By 1779, 25,000 copies of this hyper-tome hadcirculated throughout Europe. Its impact, including its critical views of monarchies and aristocracies, was enormous.Under this influence, the writings of the Englishman John Locke(1632–1704) got a lot of attention. Locke would give the Westseminal ideas about “inalienable natural rights,” humanequality, and constitutional guarantees of “life, liberty, and thepursuit of property.” (The American founding fathers, followingThomas Jefferson’s lead, substituted “happiness” for “property.”)

In this section, you’ll be introduced to four fundamental features of Enlightenment thought: belief in progress; neweconomic thought; ideas of social equality, particularly ofwomen; and anticlericalism. These topics are discussed in-depth on pages 572–575 of your textbook.

Enlightenment thinkers embraced a belief in progress. Thelong contest between good and evil in human affairs could beviewed as a very long road from tyranny and ignorance to anew social order designed to undo the damage summed up in

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a (paraphrased) quote from the French philosopher andsocial critic Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778): “Man isborn free yet everywhere we find him in chains.”

New economic thought paralleled economic realities emergingto create the foundations of the rise of capitalism and indus-trialism. French philosophers coined the doctrine of laissezfaire—“leave the market alone.” The British economist DavidRicardo proposed that wages naturally rise or fall as a func-tion of supply and demand and should never be regulated bygovernment legislation. However, the blockbuster work inpolitical economy arrived from a Scot moral philosopher bythe name of Adam Smith. Smith published the Wealth ofNations in 1776. Indeed, his notions about self-regulatingmarkets and the natural human proclivity to “trade, truck,and barter” would inform the content of the Declaration ofIndependence.

Social equality was a theme in Locke’s writings. He pro-claimed an idea that would appear in the Declaration ofIndependence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident . . .that all men are created equal . . . .” Given that more than half of “men” are in fact female, feminist writings were a predictable outcome of the social-equality concept.

Anticlericalism reflected both a political and a philosophicalrebellion. The corruption and power of the church invitedpolitical revulsion. The rise of science and faith in reasonchallenged the dogmatic perspectives of organized religion—Protestant or Catholic.

The Crisis of the Enlightenment

The idea that nothing of transcendent importance could bedetected or understood beyond the boundaries of hard science is called scientism. Science as a way of understandingnature becomes an all-encompassing worldview. What can’tbe weighed and measured, which includes the ultimatenature of consciousness itself, is beyond what we can know.

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Humans can employ thinking and reason to know things.But in actual experience, feelings and intuitions (hunches)also matter. People want to feel that the universe is friendly.They also feel the need for a moral compass, some way to tellthe difference between good and evil. Religion either can orshould serve these purposes. By contrast, unadulterated scientism has little to say about morality and nothing at allto say about spirituality. Thinking about these ideas will helpyou understand the crisis of the Enlightenment.

Religious revivals, in both Catholic and Protestant domains,jumped over the heads of the intellectual elites to appeal tothe masses of less educated people. In this context, religiousappeals tended to be anti-intellectual, sometimes starkly irrational as in the case of millennial movements.

The cult of nature and romanticism served as an escape fromcold scientism and produced alternative perspectives on bothhuman nature and spirituality. As artists and poets turned tonature to seek meaningful experience, nature itself became asort of open-air spiritual sanctuary. In the case of the greatestscientist of the age, Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859),explorations of the Americas and of ocean currents wereinformed by a romantic view of nature.

Rousseau extolled the superiority of natural passions overcultivated refinement. Rousseau’s notion of general will pro-posed that society is a sort of organism. Individual identitiesshould be subsumed within this collective consciousness.Therefore, maximum freedom within a state can be attainedonly to the extent that all conform to the general will—thewill of the majority. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant(1724–1804) responded to this self-contradictory logic with alengthy treatise, arguing that universal principles of moralitycan be established through reason.

Especially as a result of the exploratory voyages of CaptainJames Cook all over the Pacific, Europeans were exposed toisolated and alien cultures. That people like the Maori of NewZealand or the Hawaiians could have admirable traits in theabsence of Christianity or Western notions of civilization was an eye-opener. The notion of the “noble savage” gainedcurrency.

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The Huron tribe in Native America was romanticized beyondmeasure. The Huron were held up as examples of the “noblesavage,” excelling in hunting, love, and war. However, amongthe Huron’s chief entertainments was torturing captives fromneighboring tribes. Understandably, the Huron were utterlydespised by their Iroquois neighbors. As it happened, theHuron were wiped out by disease before objective reportingon these people could tarnish their romantic image.

The French Revolution and Napoleon

History is full of paradox and irony. The American Revolutioncouldn’t have succeeded without the help of the French andeven the Dutch. George Washington couldn’t have defeatedCornwallis at Yorktown in 1783 had French naval forces notblockaded the British garrison and a fair number of Frenchground forces filled out the ranks of Washington’s ContinentalArmy.

Ben Franklin’s canny diplomacy managed to grab evergreater handfuls of treasure from French coffers, such thatKing Louis XVI (r. 1774–1792) was forced to impose oneroustaxes on the French people. The French people rebelled.France’s Independence Day is July 14. It commemorates thestorming of the Bastille prison in Paris in 1789. The activismthat led to open revolution actually got underway in June of1789. For the first time since 1614, King Louis felt compelledto convene the medieval Estates General. The delegates ofthat body were, at that point, mostly members of the Frenchintelligentsia who embraced Enlightenment ideas.

What began with idealistic fervor, turned into a bloody mess. The monarchy was overthrown in 1792. In March ofthat year, France was invaded by Austria and Prussia. In thefirst global example of total war, the French people rallied todefeat the assault. The royal family was executed in 1793.The worst of what would be called the Reign of Terror tookplace in June and July of 1794. In Paris, 1,584 heads rolledfrom the bloody guillotine into baskets. Thousands of peas-ants, clerics, aristocrats, landlords, clerks, and whoever elseoffended the self-appointed “citizen tribunals” were murderedin other cities and in the provinces. Chaos reigned.

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In the midst of this chaos, in 1799 a young French officer, a Corsican colonel of artillery by the name of NapoleonBonaparte, appeared on the scene. He led a military coup tooverthrow the French Directorate, declaring himself FirstConsul of the Republic. His agenda was simple: conquer andunite Europe.

A summary of key dates of the French Revolution is providedin the box on page 583 of your textbook.

Napoleon (1769–1821) was a military genius. Before and afterhe crowned himself Emperor of the French in 1804, hescored victory after victory against the Prussians, Austrians,and Italians. He gained control of Spain. He might have com-pleted his agenda of European unification had he not madethe same mistake made by Adolph Hitler in the twentiethcentury. In 1812 he attacked Russia. His Grand Army wasdefeated by Russia’s sheer size and the Russian winter. Hewould meet his final defeat at the hands of the British in1815.

Map 22.2 on page 582 of your textbook provides an overviewof the impact of the Age of Napoleon. The “Chronology” sidebarthat ends this chapter is long and complex. Use it to review theinformation in this chapter.

Now, review the material you’ve learned in this study guideas well as the assigned pages in your textbook forAssignments 16–22. Once you feel you understand the material, complete Self-Check 8. Then check your answerswith those provided at the end of this study guide. If you’vemissed any answers, or you feel unsure of the material,review the assigned pages in your textbook and this studyguide. When you’re sure that you completely understand theinformation presented in Assignments 16–22, complete yourexamination for Lesson 4.

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Self-Check 8


______ 1. The Wahhabi reform movement called for a return to traditional and purist interpreta-

tions of the Quran.

______ 2. Napoleon imposed a uniform legal code on the lands he conquered, and the Code

Napoleon remains the basis of law in much of Europe, Africa, and Latin America.

______ 3. The decline of the population in the Ottoman Empire relative to that of Europe con-

tributed to a decline in Ottoman power.

______ 4. Like the British, the Dutch colonialists successfully expanded mainland interests in the

Dutch East Indies.

______ 5. In Japan, Enlightenment science had less impact than did internal struggles against

Christianity.

______ 6. The development of Western science both preceded and caused the Industrial

Revolution.

______ 7. China was the world’s fastest-growing empire of the eighteenth century.

______ 8. Under plantation life in the Americas, black slaves lost all control over domestic

practices and any other efforts to craft their own social worlds.


9. Immanuel Kant questioned Rousseau’s concept of the general _______, recognizing that itinvited the tyranny of majorities.

10. New Zealand was an outstanding example of what Alfred Crosby called a “new _________”because its environment was adaptable to a Western style of living.

11. Inspired by the Arabian Wahhabist movement and claiming to be the forerunner of the MuslimMahdi, Usuman da Fodio founded the _______ Empire with its capital at Sokoto in the WestAfrican Sahel.

(Continued)

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Self-Check 8

12. The British economist David _______ recognized that labor contributed value to products.

13. Scientific measurements gathered by the French scientist Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuisconfirmed that the earth bulges at the _______.

14. Based on massive hunting of buffalo, trade, and conquest, the _______ of North Americaestablished a short-lived land empire.

15. Galileo Galilei was to the ________ as Anton van Leeuwenhoek was to the microscope.

16. As prelude to the French Revolution of 1789, the medieval Estates General called to assemblyby Louis XVI, declared itself a/an _________ Assembly empowered to interpret the generalwill of the public.


17. What part did the Kew Gardens in London and similar gardens in Spain and elsewhere play in the expansion of resources?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

18. What were the four main themes of the Enlightenment in Europe?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________


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NOTES

Frustrations of Progress;Chaos and Complexity

FRUSTRATIONS OF PROGRESS

The first part of Lesson 5 covers Chapter 23, “Replacing Muscle:The Energy Revolutions”; Chapter 24, “The Social Mold: Workand Society in the Nineteenth Century”; Chapter 25, “WesternDominance in the Nineteenth Century: The Westward Shift ofPower and the Rise of Global Empires”; and Chapter 26, “TheChanging State: Political Developments in the NineteenthCentury.”

ASSIGNMENT 23: REPLACINGMUSCLE: THE ENERGYREVOLUTIONSRead this assignment. Then read the Part 9 opening spread andChapter 23, pages 586–613, in your textbook.

Global Demographics: The World’sPopulation Rises

Despite the challenges wrought be disease and ecologicalpressures, the global population increased enormously during the nineteenth century.

Map 23.1 on page 592–593 of your textbook is an extension of a similar map you studied earlier. Notice that along withcontinued increases in population growth in Europe and Asia,a “spike” in population growth occurs in the Americas andAustralia by 1900.

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Food: Transition to Abundance

Improvements in food production outstripped populationgrowth, and increased use of fertilizers helped raise harvestyields. Particularly in Europe and North America, farmingbecame more business oriented. As a result, larger farmsthat could benefit from economy of scale began to replacesmall farms. As that happened, more money was invested inscientific agronomy.

Industrialization revolutionized food processing, food preser-vation (through canning technologies), and the ability totransfer foods to markets over great distances. The advent ofrefrigeration was a major factor in extending the range offood transport. As manufacturers took to the tasks of foodprocessing, the scale and geographic range of food marketingincreased greatly.

Due to industrialization, food production increased with rela-tively little addition of human labor. The result was a large,well-fed population to engage in trade and other industries.In that context, new cities appeared and urban centers sawgains in population.

Map 23.2 on page 595 of your textbook gives a geographicoverview of patterns of industrialization, technology, and foodproduction in the nineteenth century.

Energy for Power: Militarization and Industrialization

A nineteenth-century trend was the creation of ever-largerstanding armies. The trend began in Europe in the 1790s asa response to the French Revolution. The main idea wasn’tthe militarization of society; it was simply enlarging the con-cept of citizen armies that harkened back to Roman times. Inany case, with the institution of drafts nations could mobilizetruly enormous armies. In this context, military theorist Karlvon Clausewitz (1780–1831) conceived the concept of “totalwar.” What that meant, in effect, was that wars would now befought between massive armies representing entire nationalpopulations, who, in turn, were expected to support nationalwar efforts.

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The interaction of militarization with industrialization wasinevitable, because the new armies demanded immenselycomplex logistics. Massive industrial mobilization wasrequired to produce weapons and munitions as well as vehicles.

From the beginning, fossil fuels drove industrialization. Atthe outset, the vital fossil fuel was coal. Coal and steam characterized industrial growth during the nineteenth cen-tury. Even less industrially developed regions like India,China, and Japan were familiar with railways, steamships,and the electric telegraph. Indeed, railways and steamshiproutes provided the framework of a new global system.

Study the sidebar table “Population, Food, and Energy” onpage 600 of your textbook. Then consider the “MakingConnections” feature on page 601 and consider the militaryadaptations of industrial developments and their consequenceswith respect to food technology, fossil fuels, new transportationtechnologies, and electricity.

Industrializing Europe

Industrialization gained ground fastest in Europe. All theEuropean nations were crisscrossed by rail lines. Also,between 1815 and 1914, major cities gained population evenfaster than the new armies. By 1900, nine European citieshad populations exceeding one million. However, industrial-ization tended to be concentrated in particular regions, suchas Belgium and the Ruhr region of Germany. However, theNetherlands remained almost entirely agricultural. This pat-tern of interlaced agricultural and industrial regions createdan efficient economic ecology. Regions specializing in foodproduction fed industrial regions, which, in turn, marketedmanufactured goods to regions specialized in agriculture.This pattern spread around the world. Some nations special-ized in producing raw materials and food for industrializednations while industrial regions marketed manufacturedgoods to the less industrialized nations.

Map 23.3 on page 602 of your textbook provides an overviewof the development of industrialization in Europe by 1914.

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Industry in the Americas

In the Americas, significant industrial development occurredalmost entirely within the United States. And, within theUnited States, most development was in the Northeast andMidwest. By the 1890s, U.S. manufacturing levels were twicethose of Great Britain and half as much as the whole ofEurope and Britain combined. Reasons for this spectacularindustrial growth included a wealth of resources, adequatelabor forces, and an extensive fleet of merchant marine ves-sels plying the world’s sea lanes. Meanwhile, the economy inthe U.S. Southeast, with a few exceptions, remained bound toplantations, agricultural exports, and the exploitation ofblack labor. Even though slavery became illegal after 1865,former slaves who hadn’t migrated to the North or West hadfew options beyond sharecropping and plantation labor.

Throughout Latin America a dismal pattern dimmed prospectsof industrialization. Latin nations might have formed resource-rich trading blocs that would have provided significant internalmarkets, but they didn’t. Rancorous political and boundary disputes defeated nationalist agendas. Meanwhile, foreigninvestment in Latin America gained control of resources,exploited local labor, and exported profits to the industrial-ized nations. That pattern would continue throughout thetwentieth century—not just in Latin America, but around the world.

Japan Industrializes

This section begins with a description of U.S. imperialism inthe mid-nineteenth century. It briefly describes the arrival ofCommodore Perry in Tokyo Bay with a flotilla of battleships.Perry’s “gunboat diplomacy” was aimed at awakening theJapanese “backwater” to Western ways, thereby forcingJapan to open its ports to foreign trade. That was achieved.In fact, it could be achieved because Japan had been carefullyand selectively acquiring and adapting Western industrial technologies even under the Tokugawa shoguns.

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At the outset, following typical Western practices of “businessimperialism,” Japan was forced into unfair deals that tippedthe balance of trade in favor of foreign interests. However, ina remarkably brief period, between about 1884 and 1889,Japan managed to reverse the terms of its trade treaties infavor of Japan’s interests. In part, this happened becauseJapanese industrialists partnered with the state to effectivelyexpand Japanese industrialism in the interests of Japan. Italso happened because Japan rapidly became a militarypower that would defeat China in 1895 and force foreignersto view Japan in a new light.

China and Industrialization

Nineteenth-century China felt the impact of Western industri-alism. Its trade advantages dwindled as the military balanceof power shifted to the West. However, internal problems andforeign incursions made Chinese efforts at industrializationslow and painfully awkward. Peasant revolts drained Chineseresources. An Anglo-French military expedition occupiedBeijing. China’s militarization efforts were shown to be lack-ing when Japan defeated Chinese naval forces in a struggleover Korean domination during the Sino-Japanese War of1894–1895.

Beginning in 1861, the Chinese response to its troubles was the development of self-strengthening policies. Railroadswere built. Telegraph lines were strung. Capital investmentattempted a focus away from munitions and iron ships todomestic manufacturing of trade goods such as textiles (especially silk). However, by 1880 China was a preindustrialexporter of food and fiber goods to the industrial “core”nations of the Northern Hemisphere.

India and Egypt

During the nineteenth century, India deindustrialized. Its for-mer centers of manufacturing collapsed along with the fadedpower of Mughal rule. Indians were mainly reduced to peas-ant farmers who paid taxes to British overloads. Britishcapitalists took control of India’s manufacturing capacity,

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and India became a source of raw materials for the BritishEmpire. For example, the British imported raw cotton fromIndia and North America. Britain’s textile mills processed thecotton into finished fabrics for export to the world, and theBank of England bulged with the profits.

Reflect on Map 23.4 on page 609 of your textbook and con-sider the politics of cotton.

In most of the world, nonindustrialized nations clamored forWestern arms and munitions. In addition, they often invitedforeign capital for the construction of railways and dams andso forth. Domestic interest in creating industrial economieswas all but absent.

Egypt was an exception. Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition in1799 had an impact on Egyptian rulers and administrators.At that point, recall that Egypt was nominally part of theOttoman Empire. In fact, it was a politically independentstate ruled by Mehmet Ali (1769–1849). Indeed, Mehmet Alifounded the dynasty that would rule Egypt until 1953.

Egypt exerted vigorous efforts to industrialize Egypt after1805. However, because the Suez Canal, which was con-structed by Europeans, was in Egyptian territory, the West,and Britain in particular, was less than enthusiastic aboutEgypt becoming a “European-like” state. After a militaryintervention in 1881, Egypt became a British protectorateand Egypt’s monarchy became a puppet government. Egypt’sindustrializing agenda was thwarted by European interests.

Conclude your study of this chapter with a careful study of the“Chronology” sidebar on page 611 of your textbook.

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ASSIGNMENT 24: THE SOCIALMOLD: WORK AND SOCIETY INTHE NINETEENTH CENTURY Read this assignment. Then read Chapter 24, pages 614–637,in your textbook.

The Industrialized Environment

Palaces of Work: The Rise of Factories

Imagine a village somewhere in Europe in the fifteenth cen-tury. During an ordinary day of an ordinary life, you mightchat with the baker, greet the local landlord, or visit the village priest. People of different social stations weren’tunaware of differences in wealth or learning, but social identities were strongly associated with parentage, occupa-tions and trades, religious life, and the turns of the seasons.A walk beyond the village would take you into open meadowsor forests. Children gathered to frolic in a local pond. Naturewas a neighbor.

Now imagine rows of shoddy dwellings in a crowded factorytown in nineteenth-century England or Belgium. Stench andgloom pouring from factory smokestacks hangs in the air.From dawn to dusk, your companions and peers are fellowworkers. You seldom even glimpse the people who own thefactory or, in all likelihood, your modest home. The “rich people” live in other places. You, and even your work super-visors, own little other than the value of your labor. However,you have little or no control over work conditions, the hoursyou’re expected to work, or how much you’re paid. And, especially if you happened to be a miner, nature was morelike your daily tomb than a neighbor.

Critics of Industrialization

The rise of industrialism radically altered patterns of socialorganization. Social identities became almost entirely definedby relative wealth. The varieties of social stations gave way to

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the concept of social class. Social class can be defined asone’s relationship to the means of production. The workingclass owned nothing but their labor. The capitalist classowned the means of production and, in effect, the lives ofworkers. The middle classes served the purposes and inter-ests of the capitalist class.

Adam Smith, the author of Wealth of Nations, saw both sides of the rise of capitalism. On the one hand, he observed—correctly—that industrialism in the hands of “captains ofindustry” generated unprecedented levels of wealth. On theother hand, he recognized the wretched conditions imposed onworkers and their families. In that light, he felt that the neweconomic system should require a level playing field for aspir-ing entrepreneurs, equal access to information about markets,and adequate government regulation to prevent abuses of laborand concentrations of wealth based on monopolies. Smith was,after all, a professor of moral philosophy.

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was the sharpest and by far the mostinfluential critic of the capitalist system. As a tireless scholarand radical journalist in his German homeland, Marx’s evaluations of the nature and contradictions of capitalism wereessentially correct. For example, his observation that workersfelt alienated by the harsh conditions of factory life and havingno meaningful sense of accomplishment from performingtedious factory work was correct. However, his theory of history as a record of class struggle was at best incompleteand at worst, wrong. Marx proposed that the opposed interestsof the proletariat (workers) and the bourgeois class (capitalists)would lead inevitably to revolution. The proletariat would overthrow the capitalists to establish a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” which, in turn, would give birth to a communistworld order based on equality and social justice.

As you may know, the Communist experiment in Russia turnedout to be little more than a new approach to totalitarianism.However, the influence of worker rebellions, partly informedby the international labor movement, did lead to improvementsin workers’ rights and working conditions in the UnitedStates and elsewhere.

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Urbanization

Urbanization—the growth of cities—took place in both indus-trialized and nonindustrialized nations. As trade stimulatedeconomic activities around the globe, cities tended to grow uparound ports or, inland, around centers of production andtrade. As all this happened, the grim, crime-infested conditionsof eighteenth-century cities gave way for much improved city planning, including more rational street layouts andimproved sewage systems. At the same time, public invest-ment in schools improved literacy rates and helped trainworkers for industrial jobs.

Check out the “Most Populous Cities in 1900” table on page 620 of your textbook. Take a look Map 24.1 on the samepage to consider the growth of Manchester, England. The“Making Connections” feature on page 621 summarizes industrial transformations in the nineteenth century.

Beyond Industry: Agriculture and MiningIndustrialization changed the global social and economic picture even though extensive regions of the world remainedrural. In particular, patterns of relationships between landand people were changing. For example, in Australia, Argentina,and the American Midwest, mechanized farming increasedproduction of grains and meat with less labor. As a result,people left farms to take up other kinds of occupations, often in urban areas.

The Ottoman Empire became an enormous net exporter ofproduce like grapes and opium, as what had been peasantlands increasingly fell under the private ownership of localchiefs, merchants, moneylenders, and public officials. Oftenthe new private landowners were outsiders from places likeGreece or Armenia.

In India under the British, the traditional caste systembecame a justification for favoring the upper castes, such as the Brahmans, as landholders. As a result, many lower-caste peasant-farmers were thrown into poverty.

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In nonindustrialized regions of Africa, peasant and village lifewas heavily disrupted by European ventures. In areas ofPortuguese control, like Angola, illegal slaving continued into the twentieth century. In South Africa, the discovery ofdiamonds led to the virtual enslavement of native Africansrecruited for mining.

Study the “Making Connections” feature on page 621 of yourtextbook for a summary of industrial transformations in thenineteenth century.

Changing Labor Regimes

Your textbook reminds you that slavery was both commonand socially acceptable in most areas of the pre-industrialworld. Slavery was an economic foundation of the Greco-Roman world. Serfdom persisted in Russia and EasternEurope into the early nineteenth century. However, with therise of industrialism, both slavery and serfdom vanished from North America and Europe. Evangelical Christianity,Enlightenment concepts of egalitarianism, and neo-liberalbeliefs that people were more productive if they worked forwages were major factors in this trend.

The inset table on page 625 of your textbook, “Slavery in theNineteenth Century,” provides a summary of benchmarks inthe history of the slave trade.

Yet, as slavery and serfdom were abolished, the need forcheap labor accelerated. Traditional forms of forced laborfaded away to be replaced by various forms of labor exploita-tion. Massive migration out of China provided so-called“coolie labor” that would help build American railroads.Women and even children filled elites’ demands for cheaplabor in Ottoman textile factories and British tea plantations.Australia’s version of cheap labor was supplied by convictsfrom other parts of the British Empire. Massive immigrationfrom Europe was a vital source of cheap labor for the UnitedStates and Canada.

Map 24.2 on page 627 of your textbook offers a geographicoverview of the movement of indentured labor in the nineteenthcentury.

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Hunters and Pastoralists

People were still pursuing ancient, traditional life-ways during and after the nineteenth century. However, across the planet, the lot of indigenous tribal peoples ranged fromtragic or terminal to transformed. In the United States andCanada, Native Americans were mainly pushed onto reserva-tions. The free-ranging lifestyles of the Plains Indians weremainly a memory by the 1870s. Basically, the only places wherehunters and pastoralists survived were in areas that were too remote or isolated to get much attention from Europeans.The Arctic Inuit peoples, the Australian Aboriginals of theoutback, and isolated tribal peoples of the Amazon are exam-ples. Particularly beyond the Old World, disease and outrightviolent eradication greatly reduced indigenous populations. In the Old World, the more typical pattern was inducingnomadic pastoralists to adopt modern ways of life.

Elites Transformed

If it can be said that the common people of the world wereoften brutalized or traumatized by social and economicchange during the nineteenth century, it was also the casethat traditional aristocracies took a beating. Disparities inwealth characterized the emergent social class system of theindustrialized world. In Europe, for example, the traditionalbasis of aristocracy had been landed estates. With the rise ofcapitalism and industrialism, wealth, power, and influencefell increasingly into the hands of successful entrepreneurswhose ancestors were more likely to be merchants or trades-men than blue-bloods with long pedigrees. In North America,where traditional aristocracy was largely nonexistent, wealthycaptains of industry became the founders of socially promi-nent families with names like Roosevelt, Vanderbilt, Carnegie,and Rockefeller.

A major key to this chapter is Map 24.3 on pages 632–633 ofyour textbook . Notice the multiple streams of immigration flowinto the United States from Europe and Asia. Also, an insetmap on page 632 offers a fascinating map of Manhattan ethnicneighborhoods in 1920.

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Industrialization imposed a considerable degree of uniformityon Western society. However, an immense gap between devel-oped and developed countries emerged, largely characterizedby a commensurate wealth gap. These conditions remain,characterizing many of the problems of the twenty-first century.

The “Chronology” sidebar that concludes this chapter is longand complex. As you use it for review, make sure you take the time you need to ponder key events and their dates.

ASSIGNMENT 25: WESTERNDOMINANCE IN THENINETEENTH CENTURY: THEWESTWARD SHIFT OF POWERAND THE RISE OF GLOBALEMPIRESRead this assignment. Then read Chapter 25, pages 638–663,in your textbook.

The Opium Wars

In 1839, the emperor of China appointed Commissioner Linto oversee new, harsh penalties for dealing in or using opium.In that context, Lin gathered up all the opium he could findin China and dumped it into the sea. The British weren’tpleased, because they dominated and profited from theopium trade. In 1840, declaring a principle of internationalfree trade, British naval forces blockaded and sacked Chineseports, forcing a reopening of trade. Under the Treaty ofNanjing, China ceded Hong Kong to Britain and opened otherports to British trade. Soon thereafter, the United States,France, and Sweden forced similar trade deals from theChinese. In 1860, with China all but paralyzed by the TaipingRebellion, French and British forces marched to the Chinesecapital at Beijing, burned the imperial summer palace, andforced new trade concessions from China.

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The Opium Wars were all about arriving at a balance of tradewith China that favored the British. That’s the immediate significance of the Opium Wars. The broader significance ofthis tale of Chinese woe is what it tells us about the globalbalance of power. Mainly due to superior military technology,the nineteenth century witnessed a westward shift in power.China was no longer the central global superpower it hadbeen for many centuries.

The White Empires: Rise andResistance

The end of China as a dominant power coincided with therise of Western imperialism. That’s what you’re exploring inthis section. Frankly, the key to this section is reading thetextbook while studying the map. Take note of two significantfactors in the ascendance of Western power. One was popula-tion. The population in Africa was shrinking dramatically.The population of Western states had expanded considerablyrelative to the dense populations of Asia. Second, whatWestern powers lacked in manpower they made up for withindustrial capacity and superior technology.

Map 25.1 on page 642 of your textbook can help you grasp theextent and geographic focuses of foreign imperialism in Eastand Southeast Asia between 1840 and 1910. Study it in con-junction with Figure 25.1 on page 643 to contrast areas andpopulations controlled by European empires by 1939. NoteGreat Britain’s considerable predominance. Map 25.2 on pages 644–645 is a global map of the imperial world as of1900. Refer back to it as you work with the textbook discussions.

The “Making Connections” feature on page 648 challenges youto think about relationship between technological developmentand imperialism. The discovery and use of quinine to combatmalaria and the development of steam power are examples.

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Methods of Imperial Rule

The focus of this section is on how the massive populationsof the European empires were controlled by relatively smallnumbers of colonial administrators. The key word here is collaboration. For example, British India was administered bycollaboration between local British and native Indian gover-nors and administrators. In that context, substantial regionsof India were ruled by Indian princes. British armed forces ofthe Raj (British India) depended heavily on Indian troops,such as the famed Bengal Lancers. In Belgian Rwanda, Tutsitribesman were schooled and trained to serve as bureaucratsand administrators. French protectorates in Morocco andTunisia were ruled by puppet Arab monarchs while nativesultans ruled autonomously in parts of the Dutch EastIndies.

Business Imperialism

Nineteenth-century imperialism was aimed at combiningmaritime and land dominance. In economic terms, thatmeant controlling both trade and production. However, theprofit surpluses of Western business corporations created thepossibility of straight-out business imperialism. The formulais simple: Deals are made with local governments allowingforeign capital investments in land and resources. The dealsare sweetened by giving local elites a cut. As foreign investorscapture some or most of the local economy, native labor isexploited and local government policies are shaped through acombination of bribes and intimidation. Meanwhile, corporateprofits fly back to the foreign investors and foreign bankaccounts. The concept of a “banana republic” characterizesthe final stage of business imperialism, although in cases likeChile you would substitute “copper” for “banana.”

Following on the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, the United Statesdeclared exclusive trade (and intervention) rights in theWestern Hemisphere. European and other powers were tokeep out. Thus, the primary arena of U.S. business imperial-ism was resource-rich Latin America.

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The “Chronology” sidebar on page 653 of your textbook willhelp you associate key events in the context of new Europeanimperialism in Africa and Asia. Map 25.3 on page 654 pro-vides a geographic overview of the manner in which Africawas divided up into European colonial possessions. Make apoint of locating the sole exception to this process—Ethiopia.Ask yourself how this nation’s history may have accounted forits successful resistance to European territorial designs.

Imperialism in the “New Europes”

Europeans sought colonies with climates and ecologies where European-style societies could thrive. Most of the “New Europes,” such as Australia, New Zealand, and Canada,were part of the British Empire. South Africa had been conceived as a European-style nation while the Dutch (Boer)dominated it. When the British took control, after 1902, Boerpopulations were accommodated and the character of SouthAfrica remained much as it had been. The French, meanwhile,attempted to recast Algeria as an extension of France.

A significant aspect of nearly all of the New Europes, includingArgentina and Uruguay, was the relocation or eradication ofindigenous peoples. South Africa was an exception in thatnative Africans were allowed to live, if only to provide theirlabor for white elites.

Empires Elsewhere: Japan, Russia, and the United States

The British were top dog among global imperialists. However,Japan, Russia, and the United States were also engaged inimperial ventures.

In East Asia, Japan’s imperial sentiments were spurred byanxious awareness of Western and, in particular, Russianimperial agendas. Between 1870 and 1910, Japan consoli-dated its control of the Japanese islands and gained controlof Korea and Taiwan.

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Russian expansion in the east included extending its Siberianboundaries and occupying Manchuria between 1900 and1905. Expansion in Central Asia embraced mainly Muslimstates downward to the borders of Mongolia, Afghanistan,and Persia (Iran). Westward expansion swallowed Finland,Ukraine, and areas south of the Caucasus.

U.S. imperialism got underway with the acquisition ofThomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase (from Napoleon)around 1801. But the big push took place during Jackson’spresidency in the 1830s as Native Americans were pushedtoward Oklahoma. The relocation was brutal. The Cherokeereferred to it as the “Trail of Tears.” The Mexican War of 1846overturned Mexico’s claims in the Southwest. U.S. forcespushed the Mexican border southward to the Rio Grande.Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867. American tradersoverthrew the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893. Finally, as aresult of the Spanish American War of 1898, the UnitedStates took possession of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Philippines, while establishing a de facto protectoratein Cuba. In 1904, after enabling Panama to secede fromColombia, the United States took control of the PanamaCanal Zone.

Map 25.4 on page 657 offers a geographic overview of Russianand Japanese imperial expansion between 1868 and 1918.

Rationales of Empire

People like to justify their aggressive actions. In that respect,empires are like overgrown people. Therefore, it was inevitablethat Western imperial agendas would proclaim narrativesthat justified conquest. Looking at the big picture, there weretwo fundamental rationalizations for Western imperialism.The most important was spun from scientific studies in biol-ogy. A close second was the zeal of Christian missionaries.

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Doctrines of Superiority

The publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859ignited a firestorm of controversy on the one hand and a “bible”for social theorists on the other. Darwin drew conclusions thatremain cornerstones of modern biology: (1) New and divergentspecies arise from common ancestors. (2) This process hasbeen going on for a very long time, as less complex organismshave evolved into more complex organisms. (3) The mechanism by which species adapt to their environ-ments is natural selection. In effect, animals or plants thatare better adapted to their environments are more likely toreproduce and pass on these nature-preferred adaptive traitsto their offspring. This is what Darwin meant by “survival ofthe fittest.”

Darwin can’t be blamed for all the bent and twisted wayspolitical theorists and quasi-scientists would interpret hisidea about “more evolved species” or “survival of the fittest.”He wasn’t entirely responsible for notions that white peoplewere “superior” (more highly evolved) than black or brownpeople. And most certainly be can’t be blamed for the ideas of social theorists like Herbert Spencer. Spencer purloinedDarwin’s concept of “survival of the fittest” to justify the radical social disparities of capitalism and the agendas ofimperialism. He gave birth to what we now call socialDarwinism.

The second motivator and justifier of imperialism was theever-so-well-intentioned desire to introduce heathen souls to Christianity. As noted earlier in this course, whereverEuropeans claimed new lands in the name of (name yourfavorite monarchy), priests or pastors were there to bless theoccasion. Wherever there were imperialist conquests, therewere missionaries. And, lest you forget, keep in mind thatmissionaries equated Christianity with civilization.

Once again your assignment concludes with a “Chronology”sidebar on page 662 of your textbook.

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ASSIGNMENT 26: THECHANGING STATE: POLITICALDEVELOPMENTS IN THENINETEENTH CENTURYRead this assignment. Then read Chapter 26, pages 664–689,in your textbook.

Nationalism

What we call modernization is actually Westernization. That’sthe case because the features of states around the world,even including the adoption of Western styles of dress bypower elites, were developed among the great Western pow-ers. Powerful forces that shaped Westernized states includenationalism, constitutionalism, and centralization accompa-nied by militarism.

In a sense, nationalism can thought of as a romantic fabrica-tion. Nationalism is based on the assumption that people whospeak the same language, share similar customs, and livewithin distinct regions share a common “nationality.” Thisassumption is flawed. The French Revolution and theNapoleonic Wars, for example, spread the idea that all thepeoples of France were French. In fact, not unlike the UnitedStates, French borders embrace several “nationalities,”including people of southern France who speak Provençal.The cantons of Switzerland include French and German ethnic populations.

Study Map 26.1 on page 667 of your textbook. In particular,study the patchwork of nationalities contained solely with theboundaries of the Hapsburg Empire. Simply imagining possiblenationalist stresses within the Hapsburg domain will give youa clue as to why this region has long been a hotbed of politicalfirestorms.

Europeans and politicians embraced the concept of nationalism,especially in the context of efforts to unify countries thatwere patchworks of distinct regions, such as Italy or whatwould become Germany under the influence of the statesmanOtto von Bismarck in the late nineteenth century.

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The Case of the Jews

As nationalism became a patriotic buzzword and a key concept of citizen identity, the Jews scattered across Europewere caught in a dilemma. Since medieval times, the Jewshad had no distinct “nationality.” There were Italian Jews,German Jews, Polish Jews, and so on. As the age-oldEuropean disease of anti-Semitism reared its head, only twooptions seemed viable: establishing a Jewish homeland orassimilation. The movement that would come to be calledZionism called for establishing a Jewish homeland, perhapsin Africa or Palestine. However, most Jews took the secondoption and attempted to assimilate into whatever nation theywere living in. Indeed, before World War II, German Jewswere, for the most part, completely assimilated into Germanculture, making significant contributions to the German stateas scientists, artists, and even as politicians.

Nationalism beyond Europe was almost entirely a product of reaction and resistance to Western imperialism. Your text-book offers numerous examples of such instances in thenineteenth century. But in fact, nationalist sentiments con-tinue to inform rebellion and resistance to Westernization incurrent times.

Map 26.2 on page 669 of your textbook will help you locatecenters of global resistance to European and United Statesimperialism between 1880 and 1920.

Constitutionalism

Constitutionalism embraces the idea that the rulers and citizens of a state should be mutually bound by laws andrules acceptable to the governed. Think of the opening line of the United States Constitution to get a sense of that idea:“We the people of the United States of American, in order toform a more perfect union . . . .”

In fact, responses to sentiments endorsing constitutionalismin Europe had a minimal impact on the realities of governance.The nineteenth century was an age of monarchy. However,gradually and painfully, monarchs began to accept limitedrepublican ideas, either by accepting constitutions for theirrealm or granting decrees or charters of citizen rights.

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In that context, the British Parliament was gradually trans-formed from an aristocratic club to a legislative body withmiddle-class and even working-class members.

Beyond Western Europe, Russia and the Ottoman Empirewent to great lengths to stave off demands for constitutional-ism. However, constitutionalism did spread to Japan. Thatnation’s 1882 constitution offered some concessions to themiddle class while maintaining that Japanese sovereignty laysolely in the hands of the emperor. Latin American statesalso adopted constitutions. However, because de facto rulewas in the hands of military strongmen, Latin American con-stitutions were mainly window dressing. They imposed noreal constraints on what amounted to autocratic, dictatorialgovernance.

Centralization, Militarization, andBureaucratization

Bureaucracy is a basic feature of Western and westernizedstates. A bureaucracy is a hierarchical organization that specifies the roles of its personnel through formal, writtenguidelines and rigid lines of authority. The centralization ofpower in modern states is dependent on bureaucraciesdesigned to manage such things as census information, taxation, and the administration of public facilities, trade,education, and so on. Militarization, a phenomenon you’vealready considered, is organized in the manner of bureau-cracies designed to manage logistics (supply and transport),military operations, intelligence gathering, and personnelthrough strict chains of command. You can get a sense of therationality and organization of bureaucratic organizations—civil or military—by thinking of them as social expressions ofmechanization. A state bureaucracy or an army is a sort ofhuman machine. The military version of these machines isdesigned to destroy other such machines and their capacityto function. A basic principle of modern militarism is absolutedestruction of an enemy’s capacity to make war. The aim istotal victory and unconditional surrender.

Beyond the industrializing world, one might think that theseWestern ideas would be considered alien. In fact, however,exposure to Western ways of governance and waging war was

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an inevitable effect of colonization and imperialism. One ofthe first things nonindustrial nations tended to emulate intheir efforts to resist Western dominance was Western waysof war. Interesting examples of resistance to Western powerin the Islamic world are offered in your textbook. Also, thecase of Thailand is fascinating because that nation adoptedprogressive, liberal reforms precisely by being able to evadeconquest by European powers.

The “Making Connections” feature on page 677of your textbooksummarizes key factors in state modernization over the nine-teenth century: nationalism, constitutionalism, centralization,militarization, and bureaucratization.

Religion and Politics

The nineteenth century provided stages for all kinds of dramasinvolving religion and the state. In Japan, the emperor styledhimself the chief priest of a reorganized approach to Shinto, anancient and traditional Japanese religion that was a mix ofnature and ancestor worship. His objective was to emulateWestern success in exercising state control over religion. The situation in the West wasn’t as simple.

In Europe and the Americas, church-state competition was atheme of the age. In Catholic domains, with the exception ofPope Leo XIII (r. 1878–1903), who was a progressive reformer,the Catholic Church stood fast against change of any kind. Innearly all of Latin America, Catholicism was the state reli-gion—period. Mexico would eventually overthrow the power ofthe Catholic Church, but that was an exception to the rule.

Elsewhere in the West, contests between church and state tooka variety of forms. In the United States, the U.S. Constitutionespoused religious toleration and the separation of church andstate. But that didn’t do much to stem the zeal and appeal ofall kinds of Christian evangelical movements. In both Europeand America, organized religion fell under shadows of doubt.Mainly in the Northeast United States, educated Americanswere influenced by the Transcendentalist movement espousedby thinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry DavidThoreau and poets like Walt Whitman. Transcendentalist

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thought absorbed aspects of Eastern mysticism. By contrast,educated people influenced by Darwin and science in generalwere often inclined to embrace atheism.

The Muslim world featured a number of Islamic reform move-ments, especially in Africa. Among the most remarkable ofthese was the rise to the Mahdist State of Sudan proclaimedby Muhammad Ahmad in 1881. It’s called “Mahdist” becauseAhmad saw himself as a Mahdi, an inheritor of the mission of the Prophet Muhammad. The Egyptian and British govern-ments were unable to contain Ahmad’s jihad until 1898 atthe Battle of Omdurman.

Map 26.4 on page 679 of your textbook locates Muslim reformmovements in Africa and Arabia over the nineteenth century.

New Forms of Political Radicalism

The United States was an unprecedented (radical) experiment indemocracy, and the idea of government “of, by, and for the peo-ple” was an American invention. In spite of unresolved issueslike slavery and states’ rights, the U.S. Constitution and theDeclaration of Independence provided templates for democracyall over the world. That doesn’t mean that American-styledemocracy swept the world during the nineteenth century. It didn’t. But ideals of democracy became seeds that wouldcontinue to sprout in the twentieth and early twenty-firstcenturies.

Even in places where democratic reform wasn’t on the horizon, there was another radical development during thenineteenth century. Namely, in pubs, parks, barber shops,union halls, and parlors people gathered to ponder anddebate public concerns and issues. Historians refer to thisphenomenon as the broadening of the public sphere. Wherethat sphere was best developed, mainly in North America and parts of Europe, democratic reform was most likely tofollow—sooner or later.

Lesson 5 189

Western Social Thought

The opposition of haves and have-nots has always been adynamic factor in the rise and fall of states and empires.

However, in the West during the nineteenth century ideals ofdemocratic reform and the broadening of the public spheregave rise to a spectrum of radical political ideologies.

An ideology is a more or less consistent system of ideas abouthow the world ought to be. Important political ideologies of thenineteenth century included socialism, anarchism, capitalism(including social Darwinism), utilitarianism, and libertarianism.Socialism in all its varieties represents the interests of work-ers and ordinary citizens. Socialist agendas focus on socialequality and economic equity. Anarchists want governmentsabolished; they set fires and throw bombs. Capitalism is anideology of economic elites. In the United States, capitalismand nationalism are joined at the hip. Capitalists pretty muchdominate the shaping of public opinion and government policies.Utilitarianism, which is associated with the British reformerJeremy Bentham (1748–1832), called for reforms that wouldprovide “the greatest happiness to the greatest number.”Libertarianism is associated with Bentham’s protégé, JohnStuart Mill (1806–1873). Mill called for institutional reforms that would give individuals the greatest degree of autonomy and liberty. In that context, he embraced feminist causes.

The faces of social and political ideologies include religion,utopianism, democracy and political radicalism. Key peopleand events associated with these ideologies are provided inthe inset box page 686 of your textbook. Also, consult the“Chronology” sidebar on page 687.


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Self-Check 9


______ 1. With the collapse of its traditional industries, India underwent a process of innovative

industrialization.

______ 2. The Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz maintained that militarization made

wars worse and, therefore, they should be avoided in favor of diplomacy, save in cases

when a state was directly attacked.

______ 3. The first step in the transformation of the North American prairies toward greatly

expanded food production was the increase of lands devoted to grazing.

______ 4. Under British rule, India’s caste system was largely eliminated.

______ 5. As industrialization produced generations of the new rich in Britain, expensive new

“public” schools arose. They were called “public,” even though they were private, to

infer that the new universities had public importance.

______ 6. During the era of European industrialization, Belgium and Holland developed

complementary agricultural-industrial economies.

______ 7. Outside of Europe, nationalism was directly related to resistance to European

imperialism.

______ 8. Mainly through rebellion, African slaves in the Americas played a major role in their

gradual liberation.

______ 9. Rising anti-Semitism occurred in Europe at the same time that European Jews were

seeking to assimilate into Western society.

(Continued)

Lesson 5 191

Self-Check 9


10. In the view of Karl Marx, the rise of industrialization and capitalism created inevitable antagonism between the bourgeois class that owned the factories and the worker class hecalled the _______.

11. In the context of advances in food preservation, bottling and canning were based on simultaneous sealing and ________ processes.

12. Laborers called _______ were imported into the Americas from China and India to serve aspoorly paid workers in mines, plantations, and wherever railways were under construction.

13. A nineteenth-century development in the West was a broadening of the _______ sphere aspeople more often gathered to exchange ideas and opinions in clubs, pubs, civic associations,and places of worship.

14. As a general principle, the pace of commerce is a direct function of the size of the _______.

15. Social _______ was an ideological misinterpretation of the concept of the “survival of thefittest.”

16. China’s response to Western industrialization and the erosion of China’s dominant role in theglobal economy, was a program of reforms they called _______-_______.


17. What were some basic factors that help explain why people left farms to work in factories?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

(Continued)

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CHAOS AND COMPLEXITY

The second part of Lesson 5 covers Chapter 27, “TheTwentieth-Century Mind: Western Science and the World”;Chapter 28, “World Order and Disorder: Global Politics in theTwentieth Century”; Chapter 29, “The Pursuit of Utopia: CivilSociety in the Twentieth Century”; and Chapter 30, “TheEmbattled Biosphere: The Twentieth-Century Environment.”

At this point, we’ve crossed over threshold into the world allof us share—for better or for worse. Names, if not dates, willbe more familiar to you. World events, like the World Warsand the Cold War, will be easier to connect to the world weknow today. In that light, your study tips for these finalchapters will focus less on details and more on generalizedoverviews and commentaries.

Self-Check 9

18. During the era of white imperialist expansion, what made Ethiopia different?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

19. Briefly explain the main idea embraced in Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism and where it stoodin the spectrum of nineteenth-century political ideologies.

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________


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ASSIGNMENT 27: THETWENTIETH CENTURY MIND:WESTERN SCIENCE AND THEWORLD Read this assignment. Then read the Part 10 opening spreadand Chapter 27, pages 690–717, in your textbook.

As Western science became an overwhelming, transformingforce around the world, it shattered worldviews and createddeep uncertainties. It seemed that every scientific advancehad side effects. Every advance in military technology madewar more horrifying. Every advance in medicine was accom-panied by side effects that raised ever greater uncertaintyabout the causes and treatment of disease even as publicdemand for “medical miracles” was feverish. Every advance inmanufacturing and mass production seemed to steal the dignity of craft and trivialize individual lives.

Western Science Ascendant

In China, the revolution of 1911 ended the Qing Empire andthe birth of a Chinese Republic. Western ideologies informedthe revolutionaries, and after the formation of the ScienceSociety of China in 1914 Western science became increas-ingly influential.

In 1899, British Viceroy Lord Curzon proclaimed a Britishmission to bring the gifts of Western law, literature, religion,and science to India. Thereafter, with British support andfunding, Indians were educated and trained in various areasof medicine and science. Similar, if less ambitious, agendas,especially with respect to medical training, unfolded in theDutch East Indies.

Adoption of Western science was weakest in the Islamic world,but there were notable exceptions. Scientific interpretations ofthe Quran were popular in some regions. In Turkey, KemalAtatürk (1881–1938) transformed that nation into a secular,European-like state. A similar development occurred in Iran.In both cases science gained ground.

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Scientific encroachments into Africa were weak or limited.The Swiss theologian and physician Albert Schweitzer(1875–1965) devoted his life to bringing Western medicine to West Africa.

Map 27.1 on pages 696 and 697 summarizes the spread ofWestern science and learning by noting some key events in different places across the globe.

The Transformation of Western Science

The advancement of science presents a paradox. Even as science has made astonishing advances, ever greater areas ofuncertainty have raised doubts and questions. Imagine anexpanding circle. Within the circle resides all science hasconfirmed through observations and experiments. Yet, as thecircle expands, the circumference of the circle also expands,and the boundary between the known and the unknown orunknowable increases proportionally.

Physics, accompanied by astronomy, has led the way inunveiling uncertainties and baffling observations that defythe imagination. Under Einstein’s theory of relativity, timebecomes variable as a function of velocity, and matter is buta form of energy, or vice versa. Under his General Theory,gravity warps space, not to mention time.

In the field of quantum mechanics, Heisenberg’s uncertaintyprinciple suggests that what’s observed and what an observerchooses to observe are entangled. Mind and matter are corre-lated, or perhaps consciousness precedes manifestation andPlato was right after all. What we call atomic particles (likeneutrons and protons) turn out to be composed of not-thingscalled fermions, which include electrons and quarks. Thesenot-things vibrate as circular standing waves that are bothlocal and “everywhere” at the same “time.” The implication isthat everything is connected to everything else under a phenomenon called nonlocal connection. As one physicist putit, “Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it’sstranger than we can imagine.” Or, as another great physicistsuggested in the 1930s, the universe appears to be more likea great thought than a great machine.

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The life sciences, particularly molecular biology and genetics,have offered the world remarkable advances in medicine andfood production. The problematic side effects there have to dowith unequal access to hi-tech medicine and as yet unknownecological side effects of genetically modified seeds andplants. Also, moral issues related to cloning loom on ourhorizon.

The cybernetic sciences, along with related advances in electronics, have transformed modes of communication. Thegreat moral and philosophical issue related to computers isthe search for artificial intelligence (AI). Can a machine“think”?

The human sciences—anthropology, sociology, and psychology—have opened eyes and raised troubling issues. For example,the concept of cultural relativism posed by anthropologistsmaintains that cultural worlds must be evaluated in terms oftheir unique norms, values, and worldviews. That sort of ideais a slap in the face to people struggling to protect and pro-mote human rights around the world. How can culturalrelativism and concepts of universal human rights be recon-ciled? Meanwhile, advances in psychology that began withSigmund Freud raised a problem. If, as seems apparent fromclinical research, many of our motivations are subconscious,how can we apply laws based on the assumption that peopleare rational actors who are automatically able to differentiateright from wrong if they are judged sane?

Philosophical responses to Western science—some of themnot all that interested in understanding actual science—havereflected the gloom that has attended the bloodiest centuryknown to human history. European philosophers declaredthat we live in an age of alienation, others that we live in ageof anxiety. Existentialists like French philosopher Jean PaulSartre (1905–1980) maintained that there’s no reality but theone we create for ourselves.

Study the sidebar box on page 709 of your textbook to check outkey dates in the diffusion and transformation of Western science.Refer to the “Making Connections” feature on pages 710–711. Itlists key scientific disciplines and summarizes new theories andtheir effects on society.

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The Mirror of Science: Art

The main theme here is the idea that art changes in stepwith advances in the sciences. And most would agree thatseems to be the case. The French impressionists viewed aworld dissolved into sensory impressions. Abstract painterslike Kandinsky and Picasso created images that dissolved the objective world into alien geometries. Surrealists likeSalvador Dali created dreamlike landscapes where watchesmelted. Marc Chagall gave us an image of lovers seeming tofloat in a bizarre interior. One of the most interesting obser-vations here is the rise to prominence of fantasy art—art thatescapes the hard-edged materialist modern world.

The Turn of the World

During the second half of the twentieth century, apparently inreaction to perceived flaws in Western thought and Westerninstitutions, there arose something now referred to as the“counterculture,” the age of hippies and flower power.However, even as that era of the fabled sixties began to fade, we may recognize that what began in the era of psychedelics and antiwar protestors was the vanguard of a wider phenomenon.

Today, there continues to be a very wide and diverse interestin Eastern wisdom, alternative methods of healing, and alter-native paths to spirituality. A lot of this has to do with aparallel concern about ecological and social damage thatbegan to arise in public awareness around the time of thecounterculture.

Review the “Chronology” sidebar on page 716 of your textbook.

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ASSIGNMENT 28: WORLDORDER AND DISORDER:GLOBAL POLITICS IN THETWENTIETH CENTURYRead this assignment. Then read Chapter 28, pages 718–747,in your textbook.

The World War Era, 1914–1945

The First World War began in August of 1914 and ended in November of 1918. The initial German invasion throughBelgium quickly ground to a halt, and the fields of combat on the Western Front, mostly in France and Belgium, wererelatively stagnant. Movement by either side was likely togain only limited ground, which might be taken back again in the next round of carnage. This situation led to the horrorand misery of trench warfare as the static line widened to runfrom the border of Switzerland to Calais. The indescribable car-nage of the war was due to insane tactics that sent massedinfantry against artillery fire, barbed wire, and machine guns.The first stage of an assault was typically marked by massiveartillery barrages that could continue for days. Thousands ofmen not shredded by shrapnel drowned in mud. Efforts tobreak out of the stalemate led to the use of poison gas andthe development of the first tanks. By 1918, ten million menhad died in combat. Millions more died from disease or themisfortune of being a civilian in the wrong place at the wrongtime. The best and brightest of an entire generation went tosudden graves.

Take a look at the box at the bottom of page 721 of your textbook to compare figures for dead and wounded among the various states involved in the First World War. The warinvolved states with roughly similar ideologies.

The Western Allies included Britain (including theCommonwealth states of, Australia, Canada, and NewZealand), France, the United State, and Russia. The CentralPowers included the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany,

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the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria. Italydropped out of its earlier alliance with the Central Powersand ended up fighting against the Austro-Hungarian Empireand Germany.

The War ended the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empiresand, overall, the political map of much of the world wasredrawn. Colonies switched hands in Africa. Most of Irelandgained independence from the British Empire.

Map 28.1 on page 722 of your textbook shows Europe, theMiddle East, and North Africa in 1914 and then again in 1923.Notice that the changes are mainly characterized by the emergence of new nation states.

Under President Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924), the UnitedStates initially adopted an isolationist stance. It took Germansubmarine attacks on neutral shipping, including Americanshipping, to change public sentiment. In 1917, two crucialevents altered the course of the war. Russia withdrew fromthe war as the Bolshevik Revolution overthrew the RussianCzar. In the same year, the United States entered the war onthe side of the Allies. With Russia out of the picture, Germanyturned its main efforts to the Western Front. But it was toolittle too late. The arrival of the “Yanks” decisively shifted the balance of power in favor of the Allies.

At least in America, the Great War, as it was called, was heralded as the war to end wars. But postwar disillusionmentset in quickly. A major aspect of that disillusionment was the failure of Wilson to establish a League of Nations. The initiative was doomed when the U.S. Senate refused to ratifythe treaty. After that, the League was basically a party wherenobody showed up.

Another important side effect of the war took place in India. Asthe British continued to impose wartime measures on India in1919, riots broke out and the British suspended civil liberties.Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948) organized resistance under hisphilosophy of satyagraha. His leadership of nonviolent resist-ance eventually led to Indian independence in 1947.

The foundations for further conflict in Europe began as the Treaty of Versailles (1919) divided up pieces and parts of Europe while imposing harsh demands for reparations on Germany. Then came the worldwide Great Depression.

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Hard times rolled over America and Europe. Labor unrestgrew everywhere and, in Europe, desperation helped lay thegroundwork for the rise of totalitarian ideologies. Out ofRussia, Communism was one of them. In Italy, BenitoMussolini (1883–1945) rose to power in Italy in 1922. Hedeclared the birth of fascism, a movement partly based ongaining the support labor on the one hand and powerful cor-poratists in the other. To the north, a charismatic firebrand,Adolph Hitler gazed at Mussolini’s fascist movement withadmiration. He adopted his version of fascism in the samemanner as Mussolini—hoodwinking labor and negotiatingwith powerful industrialists. Hitler’s agenda called for declar-ing eternal enmity against Communists and the Jews, whohe blamed for the humiliation of Germany after the FirstWorld War. In his view, his National Socialist GermanWorkers’ Party—Nazi Party for short—would lead Germanyinto a new world order and establish a thousand-year ThirdReich.

Meanwhile, in Japan, as Japanese armies were busy trying toconquer China, the cult of Shinto was co-opted to give rise toa resurrected samurai mythology. In that context, Japanesemilitarists insisted that Japan must gain control of needednatural resources, such as petroleum and rubber, by takingcontrol of British and Dutch colonies in Asia. Of course thefact that the United States had imposed an embargo onexporting vital resources to Japan didn’t help matters much.

After he became German Chancellor in 1933, the preface tothe rise of Hitler’s Reich amounted to grabbing pieces ofEurope that he claimed as ethnically German lands, such asBohemia in Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland, and Austria.This was the era of appeasement as European leaders triedplacate Hitler by conceding to his demands. The onset of warin Europe began in 1939 as the German Wehrmacht rolledinto Poland. Britain had a mutual defense treaty with Polandand the new Prime Minister, Churchill, demanded thatParliament declare war on Germany. The onset of war in thePacific began on December 7, 1941, with a devastatingJapanese aerial attack on the U.S. naval fleet anchored inPearl Harbor at Oahu, Hawaii.

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The Second World War was a terribly complex and brutalglobal drama that ended in the deaths of around 60 millionpeople. The Allied victory in Germany was, in large measure,a result of incredibly bloody contests between the GermanWehrmacht and the Red Army under Josef Stalin. It’s not atall clear that the Allied invasion of Europe in 1944 wouldhave succeeded had Germany not attacked Russia. TheGermans met devastating defeats in the snowy ruins ofStalingrad and, even more decisively, at Kursk, in the largesttank battle in history. The scale of the contest in Russia canbe deduced from a single number: Russian losses exceeded20 million.

The victory over Japan, which came several months after thevictory in Europe, was probably inevitable. The Japanesehigh command never had many illusions about that. Butafter the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki inAugust 1945, the Japanese had finally had enough of war.

The sidebar on page 728 of your textbook summarizes keydates and events of the World War era. The “Making Connections”feature on page 729 can be helpful to you in sorting out theactors, conflicts, causes, and the outcomes of the World Warera. Map 28.2 on page 730 provides an overview of World War II conflict boundaries across the globe.

The Cold War Era, 1945–1991

At the end of the World War II, Stalin was anxious to securethe Soviet Union’s western boundaries. To that end, theUSSR established control of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,Romania, Bulgaria, and the eastern portion of Germanyunder the Warsaw Pact. Berlin was partitioned among theAllies. The fact that East Germany surrounded Berlin becamean immediate and ongoing source of tension between the twonew world superpowers—the United States and the SovietUnion. In 1947, in a famous speech delivered in Missouri,Winston Churchill declared that an “Iron Curtain” had fallenacross Europe. The Cold War was underway.

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Under the guidance of General Douglas MacArthur, Japanwas transformed from a defeated militarist state into a pro-gressive demilitarized constitutional democracy and a firmally of the United States.

In 1947, the United States initiated the Marshall Plan, named after then Secretary of State George Catlett Marshall(1880–1959). The strategic aim of the plan was to rebuild theEuropean economy in order to forestall the advance ofCommunist interests in Europe. It was, overall, hugely successful.

By 1947, Mao Zedong had established the Communist People’sRepublic of China. Neither the United States nor the Sovietsgreeted the development with enthusiasm. Stalin and Maodidn’t see eye-to-eye.

In 1949, the USSR exploded an atomic bomb. The Cold Wararms race began in earnest.

In 1950, forces from Communist North Korea crossed the38th parallel on the Korean peninsula into semi-WesternizedSouth Korea with the objective of uniting all of Korea underCommunist rule. The U.N.-sponsored armed resistance wasled by the United States. After communist China came to theaid of North Korea, the war ended in a stalemate along thetense boundary marked by the 38th parallel.

In China, the abject failures of Mao’s economic reforms and hisbrutal Cultural Revolution markedly weakened China’s economyand Chinese society. In this context, between 1969 and 1972,U.S. President Richard Nixon (1913–1994) managed to persuadeChinese leaders to endorse trade agreements linking the Chineseeconomy to trade with the West. The upshot of that would bethe advent of Chinese-style capitalism.

In the wake of French expulsion from Indochina in the 1950s,Vietnam was partitioned between a Communist North underHo Chi Min and a non-Communist South Vietnam under thecorrupt Diem brothers. Civil war broke out between north andsouth. The Kennedy administration attempted limited interven-tion on behalf of the south. However, after both Diems andPresident Kennedy were assassinated (in 1962 and 1963,respectively), the new U.S. president, Lyndon Johnson,elected to expand the war. Richard Nixon continued thatagenda to the extent of illegally carpet-bombing Cambodia.

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The overall result was a 10,000-day war that sparked anti-war protests across the land and ended in abject U.S. defeatin 1975. Somewhere in excess of three million Vietnamese,Cambodians, and Laotians died—about two million of themcivilians. Some 58,000 Americans were killed.

The end of the Cold War was associated with two world lead-ers. In the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev (b. 1931) saw the writing on the wall. He initiated policies to dismantle theinefficient command economy and eventually agreed to demo-cratic reforms demanded by the USSR’s ethnic minorities. In the United States, Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) had beenbusy accelerating the arms race, trying to bankrupt the SovietUnion in the process. After previously declaring the Soviet Unionthe “evil empire,” he met face-to-face with Gorbachev to rethinkU.S. interests. Accords were reached. What followed next wasboth inevitable and shockingly unexpected. In 1989, the BerlinWall collapsed and the Warsaw Pact states dismantled their alle-giances to the Soviet Union. By 1991, the Soviet Union washistory and the Russian Republic was born.

Map 28.3 on page 733 of your textbook offers a globaloverview of the alliances of the Cold War.

Decolonization

Two major themes played out around the globe in the wake of World War II. Both of them would complicate the grandchessboard objectives of the Soviet Union and the UnitedStates. First and foremost was wave after wave of decoloniza-tion. Second was a trend toward democratic reform.

Despite the benefits of decolonization, the resulting problems have been many and continuous. The discussionon pages 738–741 details many of the problems of decoloniza-tion in different parts of the world.

In addition, the world experienced two so-called revolutions:the green revolution and the information revolution, whichboth had huge global impacts. As a result of the “green revo-lution,” grain production swamped demand and grain pricesplummeted. Agrarian “third world” states bore the brunt offalling commodity prices. Beginning in the 1970s, an elec-tronic information revolution introduced Western states into

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a postindustrial age. In this context, manufacturing andother traditional industries were displaced to undeveloped ordeveloping states as Western multinational corporationssought cheap labor. As a result, both within and outside ofthe former imperial states, the gap between haves and have-nots has widened tremendously.

Map 28.4 on page 740 of your textbook offers a global look at decolonized regions in Africa and across South andSoutheast Asia. The map is color-coded to give you an overalltimeline from before 1950 to post-1956.

The New World Order

We’re now exploring an era of history that will no doubt bendand sway with revisionist perspectives. The new world orderemergent since the end of the Cold War offers good news andbad news. The good news includes global activism aimed atprotecting human rights. That trend, in turn, has accompa-nied the termination of autocratic regimes in favor of newdemocracies around the world. Also in the good-news column, with some reservations, has been the rise of theEuropean Union (EU). The initial economic boom broughtabout by loosening of trade and travel barriers amongWestern Europe’s stronger economies was good news.However, problems have arisen as less economically vibrantstates, such as Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal, havejoined the EU.

The bad news has come from ethnic tensions in the devel-oped nations and the rise of antidemocratic forces in parts ofthe Muslim world and Latin America. Unfortunately, often inthe interests of business imperialism, U.S. foreign policy hassupported a number of antidemocratic regimes in the MiddleEast and Latin America. Another item in the bad-news col-umn derives from migrations from poor to rich countries. In Europe, Muslim immigration has created ethnic tensions.In the United States, Latin American immigration, especially

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from Mexico, has created ethnic stereotyping and resent-ments on the part of whites. In both cases, the issues havebeen complicated by nationals willing to exploit immigrantlabor.

Conclude your study of this chapter by examining the“Chronology” sidebar on page 745 of your textbook.

ASSIGNMENT 29: THE PURSUITOF UTOPIA: CIVIL SOCIETY INTHE TWENTIETH CENTURY Read this assignment. Then read Chapter 29, pages 748–773,in your textbook.

The Context of Atrocities

The twentieth century was a century of war. Periods of warare, and always have been, punctuated or accentuated byatrocities. However, as technological and industrial progressglittered and a sunny utopian world seemed attainable, people killed each other at unprecedented rates. The chapteropens with an account of the Rape of Nanjing by Japanesesoldiers in 1937.

The most systematic and ruthlessly efficient genocide of thetwentieth century was the Nazi Holocaust attendant to WorldWar II. Around 12 million people were slaughtered, includinghomosexuals, the mentally disabled, political dissenters,Gypsies, and some 6 million or more European Jews. TheArmenian genocide by Turks in 1915–1917 resulted in themurder of 1.5 million men, women, and children and hasnever been officially repudiated by the Turkish government.In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the Khmer Rougeregime in Cambodia slaughtered 1.7 million men, women,and children between 1975 and 1979. The Khmer Rouge continues to have a political presence in Cambodia. Latetwentieth-century genocides, styled as “ethnic cleansings,”included the Rwandan genocide of 1994 (800,000 dead) and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina (200,000 killedbetween 1992 and 1995).

Lesson 5 205

Map 29.1 on pages 752–753 of your textbook offers a globaloverview of genocides and atrocities between 1900 and the present. The topic is troubling at best, terrifying at worst. But ifcivilized societies are to survive, the causes and nature of thesehellish events must be better understood and effectively pre-vented. An inset map shows the locations of Nazi concentrationcamps and the relative percentages of Jewish populationsexterminated in different European countries.

The Encroaching State

Efforts to understand the horrific social pathologies of thetwentieth and the early twenty-first centuries have, at best,been incomplete or inconclusive. However, some generalobservations appear to be relevant.

The power of the state has increased steadily over the twentiethcentury. In that context, state control over economic policies,education, medicine, law, and public information haveinclined people to accept, or at least tolerate, collectivizationand regimentation. This sort of phenomenon was clearly evident in Hitler’s Germany, the Soviet Union, and Mao’sChina. In the United States, the power of the state was rallied to cope with the Great Depression (1929–1933). Under President Franklin Roosevelt, a “New Deal” was aimedat suppressing the predations of laissez-faire capitalismthrough programs like Social Security and public works programs designed to create jobs. Through the 1950s and1960s, the U.S. federal government was also active inaddressing the era of social reform that began with the civil rights movement. Integration got federal support underEisenhower. A bit later, as hippies brandished flower power,the Johnson administration oversaw the passing of civilrights legislation and a federally funded “War on Poverty”

Unplanning Utopia: The Turn toward Individualism

In the last quarter of the twentieth century there was amarked rise in individualism. Contributing to this shift werethe rise of postindustrial economies and the information

World History206

economy, which resulted in the creation of a “knowledgeclass.” An additional factor was the global turn toward conservatism. The impact of the rise of individualism wasdramatic, particularly with regards to the generation gap that emerged.

Counter-colonization and Social Change

The era of decolonization that followed World War II wasaccompanied by an immense wealth gap between undevel-oped and developing states. At the same time, as populationlevels soared in the nondeveloped and marginal states, populations in Western and Westernized states was eitherstabilizing or declining. In this context, migration from theso-called Third World accelerated. In the United States,migrants poured in from India, the Philippines, and SoutheastAsia. The heaviest drift toward multiculturalism in the UnitedStates resulted from Latin American immigrants, mainly from Mexico.

Map 29.2 on page 758 of your textbook gives you a globaloverview of streams of migration and the relative impact ofmigrant populations in different regions ca. 2005.

Globalization and the World EconomyJust as global populations were being intermingled, so werenational economies. Today, a product marked “Made inJapan” may actually include parts and pieces manufacturedin India, Indonesia, and Taiwan. Major Japanese automakershave factories in Kentucky and Alabama. An enormous per-centage of American consumer goods are now manufacturedin China. Giant corporations like Coca-Cola (headquarteredin Atlanta) operate through subsidiaries all over the world.McDonald’s restaurants are popular in Paris and Moscow. Inthe new global economy, concentrated wealth doesn’t respectinternational boundaries. The largest concentration of billion-aires is in Moscow. In this context, access to global marketscan spawn “overnight” corporate success in places far fromNew York or Tokyo. Nokia mobile phones out of Finland areused around the globe.

Lesson 5 207

Map 29.3 on page 764 of your textbook show you internationaltrade flows as of 2004.

Culture and Globalization

Particularly as an effect of the World Wide Web and the Internet,anybody, anywhere can be found in a computer chat room withanyone, anywhere. Otherwise, the global influence of Americanmedia is global. Hollywood films are popular from Japan toSlovakia to . . . you name it. In this light, perhaps the mostproblematic impact of media-driven cultural diffusion is thespread of consumerism. Your textbook definition of consumerismis on the money: “Consumerism [is] . . . a system of valuesthat puts consumption and the ownership of consumer goodsat or near the top of social values [like] . . . social obligations,spiritual fulfillment, or moral qualities.”

Study Figure 29.1 on page 766 of your textbook to consider theaccelerated upward curve of worldwide telephone lines andInternet users. Spend some time with the “Globalization” boxon page 767 to check out technological and economic-politicalevents between the 1950s and 2001.

Secularism and Religious Revival Secularism can be thought of as any kind of worldview thatputs reason above feelings and solutions above sentiments.Paradoxically, secularism is largely based on interpretationsof science that support materialism. Materialism maintainsthat reality is simply matter and energy governed by randomchance. Nothing is real that can’t be weighed and measured.Thus, consciousness itself is reduced to molecules-in-motion.The paradox here is revealed at the leading edges of actualscience. Maybe you’ll recall the brief discussion of the natureof modern physics and the discovery of such things as non-local connection. Here’s another example of science echoingancient ideas about humankind’s apparent spiritual dimen-sion. It turns out that the universal constants that make lifehuman life possible are uncannily and precisely balancedthroughout the universe. In that light, a hypothesis called

World History208

the anthropic principle asserts that the universe is arrangedto allow the emergence of human existence. In the words ofone astrophysicist, “The universe saw us coming!”

Of course, it may be quite a long time before science and reli-gion share coffee and gossip. In the meantime, the historicalactuality of reactions to secularism has taken the form ofreligious revivals. Some of these revivals have found ways toreconcile science and religion. But, overall, those have beenmarginal developments. More typical religious revivals haveturned back to traditional values of organized religionsinformed by political agendas. In the Muslim world, religiousrevivals in states like Iran are largely focused on rejectingWestern hegemony and Western materialism.

In the United States, many of the loudest voices of religiousrevival have been marked by anti-intellectualism and a radi-cal rejection of science. So, while the reaction to secularismand materialism may echo the stirring of deep human long-ings for a meaningful universe, the wholesale rejection ofscience by some fundamentalists is problematic. For onething, scientific understanding is required for understandingand coping with our current era of global climate change. For another, science devoted to the common good can be afaithful servant as opposed to a cold and heartless master.

Carefully study the “Chronology” sidebar on page 771 of yourtextbook.

ASSIGNMENT 30: THEEMBATTLED BIOSPHERE: THETWENTIETH-CENTURYENVIRONMENT Read this assignment. Then read Chapter 30, pages 774–796,in your textbook.

This chapter will introduce you to a host of environmentalissues that are now shaping and will continue to shape historical conditions for the foreseeable future.

Lesson 5 209

The lead-in to the chapter discusses the problems of theAfrican state of Burkina Faso. Located on the margins of theSahara, it faces environmental problems that have been partof this region for thousands of years. But most of the localproblems have to do with human actions resulting from toomany people trying to live off land being depleted by over-farming and overgrazing. Further, though, the problems ofsuch impoverished places around the planet—as you’ll see—can only be understood in terms of globalization and itsworldwide effects.

Map 30.1 on page 777 of your textbook shows a stylized worldmap wherein the area of nations or regions is proportional tothe size of their population. Note that most of the world’s people line in China, India, and immediately adjacent nations,like Pakistan and Bangladesh. Map 30.2 on page 778 featuresa color-coded world map. The color codes show you the com-parative wealth of global regions. Note that the wealthiestnations are in North America, Western Europe, and Australia.

Fuel Resources

From the outset of the Industrial Revolution, ever-increasingenergy demands have depended on fossil fuels. Coal was thebasic energy source during the age of steam. Petroleumbecame a critical energy source with the arrival of the inter-nal combustion engine. Coal is still a major energy source,especially in developing nations like China.

The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into theatmosphere. While carbon dioxide is a normal component ofair, its typical level at the end of the Ice Age was around 200 parts per million (ppm). By the 1880s, the level was 280 ppm. Presently, the level is around 380 ppm and risingsteadily. The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere isdirectly proportional to the capacity of the atmosphere toretain heat from solar radiation—a process called the greenhouse effect. As you may or may not know, the scientificcommunity worldwide has, for some time now, made it clearto all with ears to hear that the primary source of increasedcarbon dioxide in the atmosphere is human activity. You’llwant to keep this in mind as you pursue your textbook’s

World History210

discussion of the global environmental situation and theuncertainties we all face. For example, can the developmentof renewable and sustainable sources of energy offset the ris-ing energy needs of more than six billion people on a planetwith finite resources?

Food Output

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go askew,” notedthe poet Robert Burns. Modern efforts to increase food pro-duction appear to feature a catalogue of “best laid plans.”Dams, such as the Hoover Dam in the United States and theAswan Dam in Egypt, may be engineering marvels, but theend result of dam building has been the disruption of agri-cultural production and an increase in desertification.

Fertilizers became inexpensive and plentiful after the Germanchemist Fritz Haber invented a process for extracting nitro-gen from the air in 1909. Nitrogen is the foundation ofagricultural fertilizers. The problem is that nitrogen from synthetic fertilizers is expelled in runoff from farms, pollutinggroundwater reservoirs (called aquifers). At present abouttwo-thirds of U.S. aquifers are contaminated from fertilizerrunoff.

The green revolution was a convergence of innovations in theuses of hybrid seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. The increasein food production saved millions. However, surpluses ofwheat and rice swamped global markets. As grain prices wentdown, farmers took a beating. Following on the success of thegreen revolution, some scientists have trumpeted the promiseof genetically modified (GM) foods. However, GM foods must,by their nature, alter their environment. As this happens,unforeseen side effects are inevitable. Fearing threats to ecological sustainability, European nations have resisted theintroduction of GM seeds and the importation of GM foods.

Urbanization

Our era has seen the rise of what might be called “mega-cities.” The population of both Mexico City and Sao Paulo are pushing toward 20 million. The phenomenon is global.

Lesson 5 211

Your textbook’s analysis suggests that unsustainable urbangrowth may begin to recede through the opening of new markets for exotic foods. Perhaps this will be the case. Butfor the present, looked at in the broadest sense, Earth hasbecome what demographer James Davis calls “a planet ofslums.”

Map 30.3 on page 785 of your textbook provides an overviewof relative levels of urbanization in different regions.

As for the Rest . . .

Historical analysis tends to get sharper when aided by hind-sight. In the final discussions offered in your textbook, theauthor can’t have that benefit. As pundits have remarked, it’sdifficult to make predictions, especially about the future.

Your textbook discussion will introduce you to apparent relationships between burgeoning human populations andecological destruction. In a nutshell, human activity isdestroying other species at an alarming rate. Some climatescientists and ecologists have begun referring to the currentlevel of species die-off as the anthropocentric, or human-centered, extinction event—the end of what geologists call theHolocene Era. The last such event, some 65 million yearsago, appears to have resulted from Earth’s encounter with anasteroid in the vicinity of the Yucatan Peninsula.

The author of your textbook offers a basic point for you toponder. Namely, regardless of what humans do or fail to do,there are environmental and ecological variables over whichhuman have no control. Beyond metaphysical speculations tothe contrary, humans didn’t make the rules of ecology, genet-ics, or physics. Those rules are built into what you might callEarth’s “programming.” Again and again, Earth has adaptedto radical environmental changes over the roughly four billionyears of its existence. It will continue to do so. If a significantproportion of Earth’s human population succumbs to somenew plague-like pathogen, Earth will adapt. If currentdeclines in the oceanic food web become lethal for many ofthe planet’s species, Earth will adapt.

World History212

Perhaps, as the futurist Arthur C. Clarke suggested, ourimpulsive, predatory, juvenile species will find new paths tosustainability and cooperation. We’ll greet and pass thethreshold of our “childhood’s end.” But if we don’t, andhumankind passes from the scene, Earth will remain andEarth will adapt.

The “Chronology” sidebar on page 793 of your textbook willhelp you review key events and dates related to the currentenvironmental crisis.

Now, review the material you’ve learned in this study guide as well as the assigned pages in your textbook forAssignments 23–30. Once you feel you understand the material, complete Self-Check 10. Then check your answerswith those provided at the end of this study guide. If you’vemissed any answers, or you feel unsure of the material,review the assigned pages in your textbook and this studyguide. When you’re sure that you completely understand theinformation presented in Assignments 23–30, complete yourexamination for Lesson 5.

Self-Check 10


______ 1. The secularism imposed by the Shah of Iran during the 1960s led to an Iranian

revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power in 1979.

______ 2. In India, the expansion of scientific education and research was encouraged and even

funded by the British government.

______ 3. During the period of counter-colonization after World War II, population growth in the

former colonial regions declined while populations in develop countries increased.

______ 4. By the year 2000, the most commercially popular art focused on fantasies adaptable to

computer-generated imagery.

(Continued)

Lesson 5 213

Self-Check 10______ 5. The Second World War encouraged regimentation and collectivism.

______ 6. During the era of globalization, the United States was able to declare free trade where

it was in its interest to do so and to impose tariffs where it wasn’t.

______ 7. During the Cold War, China allied with Russia as an enemy of the West.

______ 8. The League of Nations charter gained only limited influence after World War I, when it

was finally ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1920.

______ 9. Having abandoned militarism, Japan ended up with the highest per capita income in

the world.


10. The school of philosophy called _______ was invented by William James, an American apologist for Christianity, who maintained that a concept could be considered true if it couldbe used to produce socially useful results.

11. In World War I, the most powerful states of the central powers were Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The three most important Allies were the United States, Britain, and_______.

12. The idea that Biblical truths can’t be questioned by critical inquiry or scientific evidence iscalled _______.

13. In the years leading to World War II, Japan had become devoted to militarism in the contextof its war with _______.

14. In 1929, the use of a powerful telescope by astronomer Edwin Hubble proved that the visibleuniverse was _______, an observation that would lead eventually to the Big Bang theory.

15. _______ can be defined as a system of values where people put having and buying goodsabove social obligations, moral values, or spiritual fulfillment.

16. After World War II, a generous foreign aid program called the _______ Plan was launched torebuild Western Europe.

17. The doctrine that cultures must be evaluated by their own standards and not those of outsideobservers is called cultural _______.

(Continued)

World History214

NOTES

Self-Check 10


18. What are some basic reasons why Western science was ascendant even as much of the worldseethed with resentment at Western hegemony?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

19. As briefly as you can, explain how socialism can be associated with the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

20. What is the greenhouse effect, and why does it pose challenges to human life?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Self-Check 11. False

2. True

3. True

4. True

5. False

6. False

7. True

8. alluvial

9. horse

10. Africa

11. beans

12. shaman

13. In places like the Middle East, changes in climate favoredthe growth of grasses that bore grains. Gatherers whopaid attention to plants could have experimented to seeif they could plant and harvest certain type of grasses,like wheat, to increase their food supply.

14. As the ice sheets retreated, early hunters in the tundrawere able to hunt and feed on herds of animals like caribou, horses, and Arctic hares. Animals of the tundrastored ample, highly nutritious body fat. Therefore, Ice-Age hunters were better fed than most people would beuntil modern times.

Self-Check 21. True

2. True

3. False

4. False

5. False

6. True

215

An

sw

er

sA

ns

we

rs

7. True

8. True

9. Phoenician

10. Mesopotamian

11. Brahman

12. Greek

13. Egypt

14. The Hittites organized farmers and herders into a unifiedeconomic system. Livestock provided fertilizer for farmers,and farmers weren’t enslaved, as was the case in otherplaces. Independent peasants raised healthy familiesthat provided manpower for Hittite armies.

15. Logograms were used in Chinese and Egyptian writing.Logogram figures are like little pictures or icons that helpreaders and writers represent an object or a concept.

16. In Shang China, the king was, above all, a mediator withthe gods. To manage this duty he depended on oraclesand diviners. Animal bones were heated until theycracked. The diviners then interpreted the cracks,inscribing notes on the bone. In this way, the king waspresumed to be able to foretell the future and make decisions accordingly.


2. False

3. False

4. True

5. True

6. False

7. False

8. True

9. rationalists

Self-Check Answers216

10. Persian

11. Jainism

12. Plato

13. steppe

14. Legalists

15. concrete

16. The Greek philosopher Aristotle maintained that validarguments could be made by proposing two premisesthat, if self-evidently true, could establish a valid conclu-sion. In a famous syllogism, the first premise is, “All menare mortal.” The second premise is, “Socrates was aman,” and the concluding statement is, “Socrates wasmortal.”

17. Seafaring in the Indian Ocean was encouraged by itsseasonally variable monsoonal wind system. In the winter, the wind currents are consistently northeasterly.During the summer, the wind currents shift to blow consistently to the south and west. This fact allowed seavoyagers to get to where they wanted to go, from Africato Southeast Asia, and still get home again.

Self-Check 41. True

2. False

3. True

4. False

5. True

6. False

7. True

8. True

9. Sufis

10. Justinian

11. Constantine

Self-Check Answers 217

12. Polynesian

13. Hinduism

14. Quran

15. Byzantine

16. Theravada Buddhism maintained that the perfection ofthe soul could be achieved in tiny steps over many life-times. It’s dominant in India. Mahayana Buddhismteaches that perfection can be reached in one lifetime.It’s dominant in China.

17. In both Rome and China, constant plots, intrigues, andviolence surrounded the selection of imperial heirs.Eunuchs couldn’t sire families. Therefore, in both Romeand China they were seen as perfect servants becausethey couldn’t have children who would become pre-tenders to the throne. However, in the end eunuchscreated factions and did sometimes rise to power.

18. The broad expanse of the Sahara Desert isolates sub-Saharan Africa from the Mediterranean and from readyaccess even to the Middle East. Further, sub-SaharanAfrica has very few navigable rivers, and many inlandrivers never reach the sea at all. Also, dense, malarialtropical forests obstruct inland communication.

Self-Check 51. True

2. True

3. False

4. False

5. True

6. True

7. True

8. Angkor

9. India

10. shoguns


11. commune

12. trade (commerce)

13. Original European technological advances of this periodincluded windmills, clocks, and ground lenses. Importedinnovations included paper, the compass, firearms, and,later in this period, blast furnaces. The latter permittedthe adoption of heavy iron plows that made it easier tofarm marginal lands.

14. Latin was the language of the West; Greek was the language of the East. For that reason alone, Christiancreeds, dogmas, and practices diverged. Meanwhile, asthe Pope at Rome claimed sovereignty over Europeanstates, the Pope wasn’t recognized as the supreme headof the Church. In Byzantium, Russia, and elsewhere inthe east, church leaders acceded to the power of thestate.

Self-Check 61. True

2. True

3. False

4. True

5. True

6. False

7. False

8. False

9. Mali

10. climate

11. millenarian

12. hurricane

13. Francis

14. chivalry

15. Russian


16. Delhi

17. Bar Sauma was a Nestorian Christian and Chinese subject.At a time when many from the West were taking longtreks across Mongol-policed Silk Roads to the East, BarSauma was an exception. He undertook a documentedexploratory journey to the West. After getting as far asMuslim Azerbaijan, he was appointed as the Mongolambassador to the Christian kingdoms of the West, traveling as far as Rome and Paris.

18. Zimbabwes were fortified, stone-built administrative centersin East Africa. They served the purposes of African societieslooking to benefit from Indian Ocean trade. The mostfamous of the zimbabwes was the Great Zimbabwelocated not far from the Limpopo River in Mozambique.The “golden age” of Zimbabwe extended from the latefourteenth into the fifteenth century.

19. Zen was a branch or school of Buddhism that focused on“burning away” the ego through direct mystical experi-ence. It gained influence in Japan as Chinese Buddhistmonks fled Mongol violence on the mainland. Just asimportant, especially under Shogun rule, Zen appealedto the ancient code of the warrior class, the samurai.


2. True

3. False

4. True

5. True

6. True

7. False

8. True

9. tobacco

10. maroons

11. Amsterdam


12. sugar

13. German

14. realpolitik

15. country

16. Hindu

17. In some cultures, there’s an inclination to cooperate withand defer to outsiders. This was the case in Mexico afterthe arrival of the Spaniards. Native peoples readilyturned to Spanish friars as arbiters of disputes, healers,and holy men. This “stranger effect” helped the Spanishrally support from tributary tribes under Aztec oppres-sion and successfully bring down their empire.

18. In the Americas, the introduction of herd animals suchas sheep, cattle, and horses led to colonial economiesbased on herding. In Brazil, for example, land for grazingencroached on lands occupied by sedentary native peoples. In sub-Saharan Africa, in regions of the Sahelespecially, pastoral economies were dominant in stateslike Songhay. In this context, the Moroccan conquest ofSonghay in the late sixteenth century displaced pastoralistimperialism for only a few decades.

19. In Spanish colonies, the first generation of Europeansborn in the New World tended to identify with the NewWorld, not Spain or Europe. Intermarriage was accepted,and the Creoles took pride in having Native ancestry,particularly if they could claim descent from indigenousroyalty. A theme in Creole consciousness was the superi-ority of New World colonial cultures over their Europeancounterparts.

Self-Check 81. True

2. True

3. True

4. False

5. False


6. False

7. True

8. False

9. will

10. Europe

11. Fulani

12. Ricardo

13. equator

14. Sioux

15. telescope

16. National

17. The Royal Kew Gardens, along with similar gardens in Paris, Madrid, and the University of Leiden in theNetherlands, served as botanical “laboratories” for studying and breeding plants from around the world.Europe had an advantaged position in adapting plants todifferent environments because their colonial territoriesencompassed a wide variety of climate conditions.

18. There was a widespread belief in progress; human natureassured that ever more technological, scientific, andsocial progress was inevitable. A doctrine of laissez-fairemaintained that free trade across borders with minimalrestrictions imposed by governments was better than theolder system based on states hoarding wealth. Ideals like“All men are created equal” led to a surge of feministideals based on the assumption that all men and womenare created equal. Finally, the power of the church andof religion was questioned and repudiated.


2. False

3. True

4. False


5. True

6. True

7. True

8. False

9. True

10. proletariat

11. heating

12. coolies

13. public

14. market

15. Darwinism

16. self-strengthening

17. For the most part, people had no choice. Mechanizationof agriculture meant that fewer people were needed to produce food. Global specialization shifted the production of food and raw materials away from theindustrializing countries. Meanwhile, factory owners inindustrial countries were competing with each other toattract factory workers.

18. Although the Maori of New Zealand managed to fight offBritish rule nearly thirty years, the case of Ethiopia wasunique. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, theEthiopian Emperor, Menelik III was busy modernizingand strengthening the black Empire. The empire not onlyexpanded, its forces managed to utterly defeat an Italianinvasion. Ethiopia was the only African state to stand upto and evade the European scramble for Africa.

19. Jeremy Bentham was opposed to socialism. He alsorejected authoritarian law-and-order ideologies based ona negative view of human nature. Bentham felt that thesocial good could be defined as a surplus of happinessover unhappiness. In that light, he proposed institutionalreforms that would produce the greatest happiness forthe greatest number of people.


Self-Check 101. True

2. True

3. False

4. True

5. True

6. True

7. False

8. False

9. True

10. pragmatism

11. France

12. fundamentalism

13. China

14. expanding

15. Consumerism

16. Marshall

17. relativism

18. Western science was adopted because it worked. It transformed communications, transportation, business,education, and even how people spent their leisure time.Also, Western science offered knowledge that accountedfor observation, provided an experimental method fortesting suppositions, and permitted accurate predictionwithin definable limits.

19. Socialism has had both democratic centrist and militantschools. With the rise of the Soviet Union after 1917, mili-tant socialism and brutal authoritarianism characterizedthe regime of Josef Stalin. In Italy, Mussolini invented fascism after having been a militant socialist. In Germany, lip service was given to socialism, but in both Italy andGermany fascism was an alliance of the state with powerfulcorporate interests, and communists were seen as archene-mies in both fascist states.


20. When solar radiation strikes the earth, a portion of it isbounced back toward outer space. As the carbon dioxidelevel in the atmosphere increases, less radiation isbounced back toward space, and the lower atmosphereabsorbs more heat in what’s called a “greenhouse effect.”As carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increasedrapidly since 1750, global warming and climate changehave accelerated, posing unpredictable threats to humancivilizations.
