Unit 2

[The SIlk Road] 2.1: Silk Roads

• Silk Roads

  • A vast network of roads that facilitated trade and the spread of cultures and ideas across Eurasia

  • Trades of goods occurred across these routes and caused cultural diffusion.

  • Luxury Items: Chinese Silk

• The Silk Roads Expand: Cause

  • Commercial practices

    • Innovations in Comperical Practices

      • Development of Money Economies

        • Paper money → Facilitated Trade

      • Increasing use of credit

        • Flying money → Expansion of trade and networks

      • Rise of Banks

        • Bill of Exchange

  • Transportation

    • Caravanserai series of inns and guest houses spaced out in the silk roads

      • Provided safety from plunderers

      • Became center of cultural exchanges and diffusion

    • Saddles

  • These practices and transportation made it more easier for Merchants to travel

• Effect #1 - New Trading Cities

  • Kashgar → Increase demand for interregional trade, it became a destination, hosting highly profitable markets and center of islamic scholarships

  • Samarkand

  • 

• Effect #2 - Increased Demand

  • Demands increased for luxury goods in all places along the silk road → increased production

  • → Silk and porcelain

  • Proto-Industrialization

    • Producing more goods than their own population could consume

• Effect #3 - Cultural Diffusion

  • Islamic merchants spread Islam and Buddhists merchants spread Buddhism

[The MONGOL Empire] 2.2: The Mongols

• Rise of the Mongol Empire

  • Mongols were pastoral nomads

    • Genghis Khan

      • He expanded and his sons continues his expansion

      • There was a phrase for the peace experienced under Mongol Rule: Pax Mongolica

• Mongols and Economics

  • The silk road were never more organized and prosperous than they were under mongol rule

  • Mongol Economics

    • Improved infrastructure

      • built bridges and repaired roads

    • Increased communication

      • Yam system - a series of communication and relay stations

• Technological & Cultural Transfers

  • Mongols has high intellectuals and skilled artisans

    • Skilled people → Transfer of technology and ideas and culture

  • Mongol Transfers

    • Medical Knowledge

      • Greek/Islamic scholars to western Europe

    • Adoption of Uyghur Script

      • To write their language

    • The Mongol Empire facilitated many cultural transfers across many parts of Eurasia

[The INDIAN OCEAN TRADE Network] 2.3: INDIAN OCEAN TRADE

• Indian Ocean Trade

  • A network of sea routes that connected the various states throughout Afro-eurasia through trade

    • Cause of Expansion

      • Collapse of Mongol Empire → Safety of travel fall

      • Commercial Practices

        • Money economy → Credit

      • Transportation technologies

        • Magnetic Compass

        • Astrolabe

        • Lateen Sail

        • Monsoon winds

        • improvement in shipbuilding → Junks

    • -

      • • Spread of Islam

• Growth of Trade-Cities & States

  • Swahili City-States

  • Malacca

    • straits of Malacca

  • Gujarat

  • (Taxed ships)

• Diasporic Communities

  • facilitate trade

• Cultural & Technological Transfers

  • Cultural and technological exchanges that occur over trade routes are just as significant as the goods exchanged over these routes

    • Religion

    • Language

    • Technology

[The Trans-Saharan Trade Network Explained ] 2.4: Exchange in Africa

• Trans-Saharan Routes Expand

  • Causes of Expansion

    • Transportation Technologies

      • Arabian Camel

    • Saddles

    • Caravanserai

  • Trans-Saharan Goods

    • Gold

    • Kola Nuts

    • Horses

    • Salt

• The growth of empires

  • Empire of Mali

    • The state concerts to Islam → Religious and economic connection in trade

    • Taxed Merchants

    • 

    • Mana Musa is rich

[Cultural Effects of Connectivity ] 2.5: Cultural Transfers!

• Trade Networks and Diffusion

  • Culture transfers → Buddhism spread

    • Syncretism: combination of two religions or beliefs

  • Literary and Artistic Transfers

    • House of wisdom → renaissance

  • Scientific and technological innovations

    • Paper making → Europe

    • Gunpowder

• Effects of Trade on Cities

  • Networks → increasing wealth and power of trading cities

    • Expansion of cities

      • Hangzhou → trade

      • Samarkand & Kashgar → Controlled trade

    • Cities in Decline

      • Baghdad

        • Capital of islamic cultural and artistic achievement

      • Constantinople

        • Political and religious capital of Byzantine Empire

• Increased Interregional Travel

  • Ibn Battuta - documented his travel

  • Marco Polo - documented his travel

  • Margery Kemp - spiritual journey

[Environmental Effects of Connectivity] 2.6: Black Death

• Diffusion of crops

  • Agricultural Transfers

    • Bananas

    • Champa Rice

    • Citrus Fruits

• Diffusion of diseases

  • Bubonic Plague: Black death