The Global Tapestry Study Guide

Columbus's legacy debate

Challenged heroic reputation with a focus on death, slavery, racism, and exploitation following his voyage.

Columbus's voyages as a historical turning point

Marked a major turning point in world history and arguably the most important event of the 15th century.

Scope of 'The Global Tapestry' chapter

Explores the varieties of Eurasian and American civilizations before Columbus's voyages brought them together.

Perception of the past

Serves as a reminder that the past is just as unpredictable as the future.

Eurasian and American civilizations

Examined in the centuries immediately preceding Columbus's arrival and the convergence of worlds.

Song Dynasty rule (960-1279)

Ruled large parts of ancient China and established patterns of Chinese life lasting into the 20th century.

Song Dynasty golden age

Regarded as a cultural golden age characterized by remarkable achievements in arts and literature.

Song politics and administration

Created six major ministries, the Censorate for surveillance, and revived the civil service examination system.

Song examination system impact

Staffed the bureaucracy, proliferated schools, and provided modest social mobility within a hierarchical society.

Economic revolution under the Song

China became the richest, most skilled, and most populous country on Earth with rapid population growth.

Capital city of Hangzhou

Home to over a million people, making China the most urbanized region in the global world at the time.

Industrial and technological advances under Song

Boosted metallurgy via coal, invented woodblock and movable print, gunpowder, and advanced navigation/shipbuilding.

Market-based production in Song China

Cheap transport allowed specialized crops; cash taxes were required, fueling the growing use of paper money.

Women in the Song Dynasty

Displaced from large-scale textile production; tightening patriarchy brought foot binding, though property and education rights expanded.

Korea's relationship with China

Maintained political independence through multiple dynasties while participating in a tributary relationship and adopting Confucianism.

Korean cultural innovations

Developed a unique phonetic alphabet known as hangul during the 1400s.

Vietnam's relationship with China

Elites borrowed Chinese governance and exams, but popular culture retained distinct features, female deities, and chu nom script.

Japan's voluntary cultural borrowing

Never conquered by China; borrowed Buddhism, writing, and art during the 7th-9th centuries while developing decentralized feudalism and samurai.

Islamic empire expansion by 1200

A dynamic, expanding Islamic empire was established as the Abbasid caliphate's political grip slipped away.

Turkic-speaking pastoralists in Islam

Arrived around 1000 C.E. and became major sustainers and expanders of Islam through empires like the Seljuk and Ottoman.

Ottoman Empire legacy

Lasted from the 14th to early 20th century; sultans claimed the caliph title, bringing unity and military power to the Islamic Middle East.

Turkic invasion of India

Began around 1000 C.E. with violent temple destructions, later systematized by the Sultanate of Delhi (founded 1206).

Conversion to Islam in India

Attracted Buddhists, low-caste Hindus, and newly agrarian peoples; Sufis encouraged conversion, reaching 20-25% at its peak.

Vijayanagar Empire

A flourishing Hindu state in southern India (1336-1646) that sustained peaceful Hindu-Muslim interactions.

al-Andalus (Muslim Spain)

Conquered by Arab and Berber forces in the early 8th century; featured high interaction among Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

Breakdown of religious toleration in al-Andalus

Increased war with northern Christian states and puritanical North African influences led to rising limitations and eventual expulsion.

End of al-Andalus (1492)

Completed Christian reconquest; Muslims were given a choice of conversion or exile, and 200,000 Jews were expelled.

Seljuk Turkic Empire

11th- and 12th-century empire where Turkic sultans claimed the title 'caliph' and expanded Islamic rule.

Christendom contraction and expansion (1200-1450)

Byzantine Empire declined while Western Europe grew into a dynamic civilization combining Greco-Roman-Christian and Germanic-Celtic cultures.

Byzantine Empire inheritance

Continuation of the Roman Empire, preserving classical Greco-Roman civilization with its fortified capital of Constantinople (est. 330 C.E.).

Caesaropapism in Byzantium

The emperor was head of both state and church, appointing the patriarch and deeply intertwining Eastern Orthodox Christianity with daily life.

Tensions between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism

Culminated in the Great Schism of 1054, worsened by the Crusades and the Western seizure of Constantinople in 1204.

Conversion of Kievan Rus

Prince Vladimir of Kiev converted in 988 in a top-down process, bringing the Rus into Eastern Orthodoxy and adopting Byzantine culture.

Fall of the Byzantine Empire

Began declining in 1085 and finally fell in 1453 when the Turkic Ottoman Empire seized Constantinople.

Feudalism and Manorialism in Western Europe

Highly fragmented, decentralized society where landowning warrior elites and lords exercised power over serfs.

Political fragmentation and interstate rivalry in Europe

Competing powers caused frequent wars, stimulating technological development in shipbuilding, navigation, and state-building.

Role of the Roman Catholic Church (1200-1450)

The only pan-European organization with a shared Latin language, functioning as a rival power center to rulers while fostering early capitalism.

High Middle Ages agricultural breakthroughs

Heavy wheeled plow, use of horses instead of oxen, and the three-field crop rotation system boosted food production.

European towns, cities, and guilds

Urban populations rose (e.g., Venice), bringing new occupational specializations organized into merchant and artisan guilds.

Women's roles in High Middle Ages Europe

Urban professions initially open to women, but opportunities declined by the 15th century, much like opportunities in religious life by 1300.

The Crusade Movement (beginning 1095)

Pope-authorized holy wars offering indulgences; aimed to regain Jerusalem, establish Mediterranean states, and expand into Iberia and the Baltic.

Impact of the Crusades on Europe

Europeans developed a taste for Eastern luxuries, learned sugar production via slave labor, and absorbed scholarship while hardening cultural barriers.

Rise of European Universities

Created from cathedral schools after 1000, offering intellectual freedom and applying human reason to law, medicine, and natural philosophy.

Impact of Aristotle on European thought

Recovered texts from Byzantium and the Islamic world dominated Western university education between 1200 and 1700, laying foundations for the Scientific Revolution.

The European Renaissance

Reclamation of Greco-Roman traditions in Italian commercial cities (ca. 1350-1500), emphasizing naturalism in art and secular topics.

Rugged terrain of the Americas

Mountainous landscapes in Mesoamerica and the Andes created diverse microclimates, linguistic variety, and complex states.

Common Mesoamerican cultural traits

Intensive agriculture, market economies, similar religions, a shared ritual calendar, and hieroglyphic writing.

Maya Civilization (250-900 C.E.)

Dominated Guatemala and Yucatán with monumental architecture, an advanced writing system, and mathematics until rapid collapse around 900 C.E.

Rise of the Aztec Empire

The Mexica migrated south, established Tenochtitlán on Lake Texcoco (1325), formed the Triple Alliance (1428), and rapidly conquered Mesoamerica.

Aztec Empire structure and tribute

A loosely structured, unstable conquest state of 5-6 million people where conquered populations paid regular tribute and provided labor.

Human sacrifice in the Aztec Empire

Highly prominent religious practice promoted by Tlacaelel to sustain the sun and stave off darkness through captured war prisoners.

Inca Empire scale and geography

Quechua speakers established a 2,500-mile-long empire along the Andes mountains encompassing around 10 million subjects.

Inca bureaucratic control

Absolute divine emperor, state-owned land, provincial governors, inspectors, population tracking via quipus, and forced resettlements.

Inca cultural integration

Conquered leaders had to learn Quechua, sons were educated in Cuzco, and subjects acknowledged major Inca deities while keeping local traditions.

The Mita system in the Inca Empire

Mandatory labor service for almost all subjects (farming, mining, military, construction) offset by state-provided feasts and disaster relief.

Gender parallelism in Aztec and Inca civilizations

Men and women operated in separate but equivalent spheres with parallel religious cults, political hierarchies, and valued household tasks.

Spanish conquest of the Americas

Aztec and Inca empires were decimated in the 16th century by Spanish conquistadors and introduced European diseases.

Ambiguity of premodern 'civilizations'

While producing inspiring art, technologies, and writing, they also generated massive inequalities, state oppression, slavery, warfare, and patriarchy.

Criticisms of the term 'civilization'

Scholars object because it implies overly clear-cut boundaries, whereas most premodern people identified more locally by occupation, village, or region.

Historians' use of the term 'civilization'

Used purely as a descriptive term designating human societies with cities and states, without implying moral superiority, inferiority, or value judgments.