MMW 13 Midterm

start of the Early Modern Period

1453, the Fall of Constantinople

Silk Road

Construction of extensive road networks along caravan trails. Served as primary avenue for exchange of culture, ideas, and goods across Afro-Eurasia.

Pax Mongolica

Period of stability, security, and access that allowed people to move freely through Afro-Eurasia. Facilitated cultural exchange and led to the Age of Exploration.

Mongol population movements

Deployment of conquered people into the military, displacement through expansion driving refugees to flee, and replacements through forced repopulation policy, relocation from other parts of the empire to replace dispersed peoples.

yams

traveler’s stations along the Silk Road every 20 miles

ethnogenesis

Creation of new cultural groups and practices. Contributed to cultural transformation and spread of ideas as different groups interacted with each other and adopted aspects of each culture.

Saharan commodities

Gold, salt, and enslaved people brought West Africa into closer contact with the wider Afro-Eurasian world.

Marrakesh

Strategic trade junction founded 1070 CE that moved goods across Africa to Europe and Asia and was the site of cultural interactions.

Mansa Musa

King of Mali who controlled gold trade and made a famous pilgrimage from 1324-1325. Brought attention to Mali’s wealth and commodities, increasing exchange between Africa and Eurasia. Broadened the Islamic world.

Medieval Warming Period

demographic turn

reconquest

Led to centuries-long armed struggles between Christians and Muslims, integrated Christendom with Afro-Eurasia, and created opportunities for coexistence of diverse ethnic and religious groups.

Mamluk Sultanate

“Defender of Islam”

Black Death

Pandemic of the bubonic plague, caused demographic crisis, destabilized the political and social order, realigned trade networks and strains cultural exchange.

Ottoman Empire

Oghuz - confederation of nomadic Turkoman groups

Indian Ocean trade

Red Sea Route

Southeast Asian spices

Islamic Afro-Eurasian expansion

Iberian Reconquest 

Gradual recovery of territory and spread of Christianity, caused civil war among Islamic kingdoms

micropatriotism

tolerance

ahl-al-dhimma

protected people living in conquered lands - freedom of religion for Jews and Christians as “Peoples of the Book” (dhimmi)

printing press diaspora

Fall of Constantinople

Arabic manuscripts

church time vs clock time

Humanism

Venetian trade

gunpowder

Military Revolution

rise of centralized states

Long distance oceanic exploration 

navigational treatises

sea compass

Amerindian Empires