A history of the world since 1300
2013
Lecture 1:
1.1 - People and Plunderers
World Created by God(s)
Most people lived in rural villages
Painting: The Corn Harvest
Living remained constant throughout the world
Life expectancy around 30-35 years globally
Height for men: 5’5, shorter lives and shorter people
Exceptions of small elites on top of social pyramids
Adam Smith’s the Wealth of Nations in 1776
Wealth: Product of human effort above and beyond what's necessary to survive
1.2 - The Wealth of Villages
The Corn Harvest: People portrayed lived in subsistence level
Villages could produce non essential goods, weapons, cloth,
Non essential: Saffron in Spain, cinnamon in Sri Lanka, pepper in India; light and expensive
Trading for others, villages produce these preciosities for others, not for their own use
Long chain of trade
China: Powerful Hub of early globalization
Hydraulic Engineering; building dams, irrigation, land reclamation (hills), sewage
Grand Canal from the North to South
Large scale deforestation, huge population doubling to 100 million
1.3 -Silk Roads (1000-1300)
Afro-Eurasia: The silk roads: Causeways for merchants and camels
Many commodities: Spices, saffron, drugs, silk
All goods of high yield, low weight
Deforestation for rice, mulberry, Elephants and megafauna were dying
Buddhism and trade connected, Buddha's message appealing
Amalgamated many faiths, could connect many peoples
Caravanserais: Cities, hubs for merchants, caravan, money dealers, stench of feces
Samarkand: Prominent city
Camels: Beasts of burden used for
Moving back and forth between lines
Had special shoes, had light bottles to store water
1.4 - Sea Lanes
Dhows, Caravels: Important ships used to transport heavier goods, much more cargo
Silk Road limited to preciosities
Charts, compasses (invented in China)
Ivory, wood
Arab merchant houses helpful to connect: brokers between culture
Arabic language of trade
Now: nepotism
1.5 - Worlds of Genghis Khan
Mongols couldn't rely on local resources, also needed predation
Expansion of Mongol cultures because of Silk Road
Genghis Khan: Connected the world’s parts in 25 years \ Impediments because of Afghanistan, India, Japan failed
Genghis Khan’s conquering: first world war
Developments of Equestrian warfare
Taking of the Khwarezm bassin from sultan of Baghdad took 125 000 horses
Turkish allies, chinese allies
Relied on fear, skulls hanging as necklaces
Element of surprise: strategic attacks of fear, public desecration, subordinate the enemy
Mongols had to travel light, had to live off the conquered land
Borrowed and adapted civilisation, fealty
Mongols didn't want to clean the slate, not destroy, wanted to absorb it into tributary system
Cyclical: Economic Captors and Capturers, running through proxies, intermarriage crucial
Not in an act of revenge
Fealty
Political transportation
ephemeral
Empire collapsed after two generations
Lecture 2: Warfare and Motion
2.1 - The Black Death
Interconnectivity: Beginning of Globalization
Movement of invisible forces, whimpers of millions of people
Portmanteau Term = combo of 2+ terms (example: smog = smoke fog)
The Black Plague devastates Afro-Asia
Population of China: 120 million to 80 million
Europe 60% Death rate of people
Unaffected areas: South, West Africa, Americas
Swahili Coast: Arabs, Buddhists, South Asians, Chinese
Build towns and coastal cities
Africa: Source of Gold
Kilawa: African Island with largest mosque made by Persians
Syncretic Cultures: Combination of different, contradictory beliefs/religions
Islam amalgamated into local beliefs
African Tradition of Slavery
African slaves for employment outside of Africa
2.2 - Reconstruction after the Black Death
New Political Systems
Especially after the
Ottoman Empire expands and fills power vacuum
Christian States needed to look for alternative routes to Asia (Columbus)
1:Dynastic Political Systems
Complicated Systems to preserve rule, more secular form of rule
2: Warfare important to legitimize authority
3: Religion Ethnic Identity
Relate to subject people
Ming Dynasty in China: Being Non-Mongolian
Revitalized relationship/connection with God using Kings as mediators
Faith Based Model of Law
2.3 - The Ming Dynasty
1350s: Reconquest of Mongols
1368: Retake of
“Ming” = brilliant
New mechanisms
Rebuild army to legitimize
Exam System for Bureaucracies
Rebuild Forbidden City (Centre of Capital)
Clashes between Middle East and Chinese Authorities
751 Du: First person to write about encounters in Africa 8th Century
Ivory, Turtle Shells, frankincense,
1300s: Trade between China and Africa
Chinese Demands for African Exports, after tribute and trade
Chinese Expansion: Developping tributary relations between subordinate people
1382: Chinese Army Captured 10 year old, Mah, became a eunich
Grew up to become a fearsome warrior
Had massive ships, 20x times the size of Santa Maria
Became **Zheng He**, travelled around the Indian
Brought back Giraffes, riches from Africa, Java,
Enters a harbour (Malabar, India)
Give elaborate gifts and negotiated long term partnership, could take months
Could have easily blasted Malabar
Tension between eunuchs and Confucian
Scholars wanted China to be Isolated
2.4 - Christendom and Islam
China: System of Integration
Europe: Polities could never overcome, opposite of China
Persistent feudalism, localism, militant rivalry
Hallmark of Europe until end of WW2
Tiny micro-kingdoms claiming they're more chosen by God
Middle East: Islamisation of Afro-Asia
Conversion Follow Commerse, Also Conquest Corridors
16th Century: Eastern Sprawl of Islam
Chinese Ports would be dominated by mosques
Kingdom of Mali, connecting Niger inland to Timbuktu
Mughal Empire: Process of reintegration after devastation of 14th century
Islamic Dynasty, conquest by Turks in today’s India
Timur or Tamerlane: Conqueror 15th Century: Restorer of gardure of Genghis Khan
1398: Invade South Asia, Attack Delhi Sultanate & absorb to Mughal Empire
Dehli had war elephants and set staw on camel’s back on fire, forcing elephants retreat
Delhi plundered and brought riches to Samarkand, capital
Integrate polyglot of Hindu, Muslim, Pagan, Buddhist beliefs in South Asia
Timur’s offspring, Babur founding Mughal Empire
Safavid Empire = Iran
Ottoman Empire: Longest lasting empire after
Turk Empires attacking weakened Christendom states
Failed Crusades
The slowly waning Byzantine Empire:
1453: Fall Constantinople
Crossroads but protected by fortification
Long siege of 200 000 troops
Refugees flee to Italy, Florence, Venice, to form Renaissance
Turns largest Christian Church until
1529: Siege of Vienna failed
1520s: Important decade, spanish in Mexico
Mehmed:Portrayed usually as barbarian conqueror
Largest Library in the world, Florence’s Iliterati
Bellini: Render Mehmed, Sagacious leader
Gateways of East and West Divided, Suez, blocked by Ottomans
Christian Europeans need to find a new way to Asia (Columbus?)
Lecture 3: Clashing Worlds
3.1 - Worlds Apart
Martin Behaim’s Globe
Americas are missing
Mesoamerican
Not developed large sailing
No large scale killing machines despite having large populations
Taking captive enemies and incorporate
Humans were more valuable than the land
1: No widespread warfare
2: Different pool of diseases, less immunity
Native American Population: 200 million people
City of Cahokia, 60 000 people
Incan Empire, Aztec Empire
3.2 - New Worlds
Mesoamerican people were speaking in the lower Andes
Inca: Internal Struggles from Aymara speaking people
didn't practice human sacrifice
Required immense tributes to Inca conquerors
Aztec Empire: More External Threats
Tlaxcalan neighbour, closer to Gulf to Mexico
Capturing enemy people to sacrifice them
Blood falls from the temple, symbolizing the rain of the Gods
1487: 20 000 - 80 000 people were sacrificed
Before Spanish Arrived
Civil war, Atahualpa won
Montezuma II became emperor, feuding between sucessors
3.3 - Old Worlds: 1450
Christendom facing two fronted conflict
East: Ottoman Expansion from Balkans
North: Searching for passages to Asia
Exploration North and East
Marriage of Castile and Aragon
Push muslim frontier out of Spain
Exploration of Atlantic Islands
Canary Islands and Azores Islands
Test subjects of first colonies, first sugar plantation, African slavery
European tapping African coast to buy gold and slaves
Equatorial Currents to travel west, discovery of trade winds
Columbus was not alone, pooling knowledge of African, Arab, European
Juan Caboto, Pedro Cabral were much more up to date than Columbus
Columbus was first ot reach landfall
Columbus and “Indians”
Brought a translator
Translation starts at the start of conquest
Hispaniola Island: First colonies, agrarian societies for someone else’s consuption
Tropical export to Europe,
Blurred lines between conquest and colonization
Legend of El Dorado, looking for even more riches in new land
3.4 - Europe Meets America
3.5 - The Columbian Exchange