reading 4 (week 2) Flashcards
'’age of discovery’’
- 1400-1500s
- Europeans began to explore, encounter, exploit territories Asia, Africa and America
research past 25 years: age of discovery was rooted in extensive contact among peoples across Eurasia long before
e.g. Vasco da Gama in Calicut: Da Gama selected a convict to go ashore first, locals officials recognized Nunez as someone from Iberia + took him to north Africans speaking European languages
conclusion: cosmopolitan character Asian commercial centers + prevalance of long-distance travel long before the period of European expansion
Asia 1250-1350
- relatively peaceful -> adventurers and missionaries (not just Europeans) could venture rather far
empire building Eurasia ~ 1400-1500
not just expansion European countries:
- Muslim empires: Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal Empires
- great Ming (and later Qing) dynasty (China) expanded
- Russia emperors created an immense north Asian empire (Siberia-Pacific Ocean)
! this empire building led to global contacts + era world history with cross-cltural interaction
world history: era 1400-1800
early modern period
characterized by cross-cultural interaction among peoples from around the globe
*cross-cultural contact was always there, but now: regularity + worldwide scale (all continents except Antarctica)
caused by empire building European + other countries/entities
Industrial revolution
western nations technical capacities that enabled them to dominate world affairs 19th + 20th centuries
= age of imperialism with direct colonial rule or more veiled political rule
empire building early modern age
forms of interaction
empire building early modern age -> 4 central forms of interactions:
- new commercial exchange networks
- large-scale migration streams
- worldwide biological exchanges
- transfers of knowledge across oceans and continents
!not ONE region dominating all the rest, rather a host of entities clashed and competed, but also cooperated, leading ultimately to the integration of global space
why did so many empires develop throughout Eurasia in the 1400s and 1500s?
link all particular empire building took place = rise and fall Mongols 1200s and 1300s
followed by Timurid empires (Turkish leader Timurlane invaded Mongol territories from the Black Sea to the Indus River)
decline Timurid empires -> powerful pull on expansion-minded Asian dynasties
- Muslim empires came to power directly in response to weak Mongol-Timurid regimes (they were successor states to Mongol-Timurid rule)
- Mughal dynasty (India) represented the continuation of a Mongol-Timurid kingdom (the founder (Babur) claimed descent from Chinggis Khan and Timurlane)
- expansion Russia and China across northern and central Asia:
Russian tsars conquest when Mongol territories broke appart late 1400s + 1500s expansion at expense of Tatar territories
China: 1368 Ming dynasty throws off Mongol rule + focus on the west (Mongols and other groups threatened Chinese society), e.g. by extending the Great Wall. struggle against Mongol tribes -> Chinese conquest central Asia 1600s and 1700s (!gov. turned away from maritime Asia, limiting contact with foreign traders) - Europe: Mongol empire open policy for outsiders -> many stories and travelers creating a (false (magical, untruthful)) narrative -> wish to find better/quicker routes to the Mongol Emire
Mongol Empire
Mongol empire = largest in world history (1/3 world), leadership Chinggis Khan
- fierce fighters
- reason for succes = horsemanship
- brutality: laying waste to conquered cities, capturing children and women, killing men
- once they conquered: promoted trade, diplomacy, and travel
began to break apart mid-late 1300s -> Turkish leader Timurlane invaded Mongol territories (from Black Sea to the Indus River) -> Timurid dynasties
(the Golden Horde)
1230s: Golden Horde pushed into Russia
- made Russia a vassal state for 200+ years : exacting tribute from princes and cities
Golden Horde went into decline in the 1400s
Tatars = Mongol and Turkic peoples some of whom had belonged to the Golden Horde, came to rule over a patchwork of territories as te Mongol states crumbled and the Grand Prince of Moscow declared independence
!!! the rise and fall of the Mongol and Timurid empires prompted 4 critical Eurasian developments:
- establishment of extensive Muslim empires from the Mediterranean Sea to the Ganges River basin
- Russian conquest of Siberia to the Pacific Ocean
- inland, western push of the Ming and Qing dynasties
- European voyages of exploration
European exceptionalism
focus in the history discipline (that was developed in mid1800s, early 1900s) on Western values and seeing Western culture as expression of human achievement + seeing other areas as backward
’'’traditional historical writing presented world history as a narrative about the inevitable rise of western civilization over Asia, Africa, and America, whose insularity bound them to outmoded patterns of thought’’
came to be contested in the 1960s
- cause: increase faculties (also in non-European regions) + stressing utility of social science disciplines (esp. sociology and anthropology)
- scholars in non-western fields began to expose the depth of Eurocentric assumptions about the past (e.g. Hodgson: European achievements actually originated in the eastern hemisphere)
global perspective in the field of history
helps move past short-sighted interpretations that treat civilizations as self-contained categories
methods e.g. =
- comparative study of similar patterns in different parts of the world (-> visible that e.g. economic vitality east Asia paralleled European levels + that some religious and political aspects were the same)
- focus on points of contact between different societies (external interaction groups plays role in internal changes in societies)
'’early modern’’ periodizeration
how does it make sense?
What does it apply?
- it comes directly out of European history
- has been used to describe same period in other regions (!without imputing western characteristics)
in world history, the term describes (John Richards): the creation of global sea passages, the emergence of a world economy, the growth of centralized states, the rise of world populations, the intensification of agriculture, and the spread of new technology
= aka a comprehensive framework to study world history from the aftermath of the Mongol Timurid empires
