East Asia, Islam, and the Americas

Song Dynasty China (960-1279)

• 'The Golden Age' of art, literature, and architecture.
• Early modern world history due to 'Four Great Inventions': paper, printing, gunpowder, compass.
• Agricultural and economic revolution: population boom (100 million), shift to rice and tea.
• Emperor Taizu: peace, unity, meritocracy, technological advancement.
• Grand Canal: connected Yellow and Yangtze Rivers.
• Civil service exam: leadership shifted to scholar-bureaucratic.
• Marco Polo visited in 1275, noted coal usage.
• Allied with Mongols, later overthrown, creating Yuan/Mongol Dynasty.
• Conquered Korea and Vietnam, extracted tribute.
• Influenced Korea, Vietnam, Japan (culture, civil service), rejected footbinding.

East Asia

• Japan
  • Lady Murasaki wrote The Tale of Genji (1021).
  • Feudal system: shoguns, daimyo, samurai (bushido code).
• Three Pillars of Ancient Chinese Society:
  • Confucianism: Confucius (Kong Fuzi), The Analects, rites, five relations, ren, Jen.
  • Taoism: Lao Tzu (Laozi), Tao Te Ching, nature, simplicity, “wu-wei”, yin/yang.
  • Buddhism: Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), Four Noble Truths, Five Precepts, Eightfold Path, nirvana; Theravada, Mahayana, Zen (Chan).

Dar al-Islam

• Islam: submission to Allah.
• Muhammad (570-632 C.E.): revelations in The Quran, Five Pillars.
• Sharia law: ulama and qadis.
• Sunni vs. Shia: dispute over Muhammad's successor.
• Abbasid Dynasty: Baghdad as a center of banking, commerce, and culture.
• Muslim trade: Silk Road, camel caravans, caravanserai.
• Muslim scholars: libraries, madrasas, translated knowledge.
• Saladin: Ayyubid Dynasty, Mamluks.
• Mongols ended Abbasid Dynasty in 1258.
• Al-Andalus: Islamic Spain, cultural centers like Cordoba.
• Women in dar al-Islam: inheritance, divorce, business, but patriarchal society.
• Hijab vs. burqa.

Silk Road, Spice Islands, South and Southeast Asia

• Silk Road: Han Chinese opened; Ottoman Turks closed.
• Spices: Spice Islands (Indonesia).
• Hinduism: polytheistic, Veda, samsara, atma, moksha, Brahman, karma, dharma, sattva, Bhaktis, caste system.
• Gupta Dynasty: Arab numerals, pi, chess.
• Delhi Sultanate: Muslim conquest, Urdu language, jizra tax.
• Vijayanagara Empire: Hindu revival.
• Indonesia: predominantly Muslim.
• Srivijaya and Majapahit Empires: controlled river and sea routes.
• Khmer/Angkor Empire: converted from Hinduism to Buddhism.

The Americas

• North America: Cahokia, Anasazi, Mayans.
• Aztec/Mexica Empire: Tenochitlan, maize, human sacrifice, engineering, calendar; conquered by Hernan Cortes.
• Inca/Quecha Empire: Pachacuti, Machu Picchu, potatoes, llamas, road system, quipus; conquered by Francisco Pizarro.
• Columbian Exchange: war, slavery, disease; spread of people, resources, ideas.
• Pacific Islanders: Aborigines, Maori, haka, hula, kapa, sweet potatoes.

Sub-Saharan Africa

• North Africa: part of dar al-Islam.
• West Africa: Ghana and Mali traded gold and ivory for salt and copper.
• East Africa: Ethiopia (Christian), coffee cultivation.
• South Africa: Zimbabwe, Swahili language, Great Zimbabwe, trade with Asia.
• Diviners: spiritual advisors.
• Griots: storytellers.
• Kinship networks: organized labor.

Medieval Europe and The Renaissance

• Judaism: Torah, Talmud, rabbis, synagogues.
• Christianity: Jesus, New Testament, Catholics, Protestants (Martin Luther).
• Medieval Times: fall of Rome, Charlemagne, feudalism, Divine Right Royal Absolutism, Great Schism (1054), Crusades.
• 1215 Magna Carta: limited monarch's power.
• 1453: Ottoman Turks sacked Constantinople; Christians seized Granada.
• Spanish Inquisition: persecution of Jews and Muslims.
• Renaissance: Greek and Roman classics, humanism, Florence.
• Gutenberg's printing press: literacy.
• Italian Renaissance art: Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci.
• Northern Renaissance: Durer, Cervantes, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Flemish artists.
• Medici: bankers, patrons of the arts, Popes (Leo X, Clement VII).
• Machiavelli: The Prince, realpolitik.
• 1527 Sack of Rome: end of Medici rule and Italian Renaissance.

Silk, Sand, and Sea/Spice Routes

• Connected Asia and Europe.
• Silk Road: luxury goods, camel caravans, Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta.
• Chinese junks: silk, porcelain, spices, cotton, pepper, ivory, gold, wheat, sugar, rice.
• Mali: Timbuktu, monopoly on horses and metals, taxes, rigid social hierarchy.
• Swahili city-states: Kilwa, Indian Ocean trade, Srivijaya Empire, Malacca Sultanate.

The Mongols

• Genghis/Chinggis Khan (1162-1227): general, political leader, farmers, religious tolerance, trade, composite bows, stirrups, leather armor, gunpowder.
• Yurt: traditional Mongolian home.
• Egalitarian society.
• Divided and conquered, incorporated newly conquered people.
• Ended Abbasid Dynasty, defeated Persians (assimilated), Baku defeated The Golden Horde.
• Kublai Khan: conquered China, Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368).
• Largest land-based empire.
• Ming Dynasty and Muscovy Empire on the rise after Mongol decline.

Indian Ocean Trade

• Compass, astrolabe, stern rudder, lateen sail improved navigation.
• Gujarat had iron and textiles, Malacca had spices, Kilwa had gold, ivory, and slaves.
• Ming Chinese Explorer Zheng He.
• Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator, Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco da Gama.
• Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

Trans-Saharan Trade

• Africans traded gold, ivory, hides, and slaves for Arab and Berber salt, cloth, paper, and horses.
• Camels were more popular than horses.
• Mali replaced Ghana: Timbuktu and Gao, taxes, Currencies.
• Sundiata of Mali, Mansa Musa, pilgrimage to Mecca.
• Songhai replaced Mali.

Timurid Empire

• Timur/Tamerlane: Mongol-Turkic warrior, Timurid Empire, Samarkand, 'The Sword of Islam'.
• Defeated Delhi Sultanate and Ottoman Empire.
• His descendant founded the Mughal Empire in India.
• Trade made Mahayana Buddhism popular, Zen Buddhism in Japan.
• Expansion of slavery.

Environmental Consequences of Trade

• Crop diffusion.
• Merchants spread disease, like Plague and smallpox.

Power Struggles and Wars of Religion in the East

• Chinese: Ming took power from Yuan/Mongols, Qing/Manchu took power.
  • Kangxi and Qianlong.
  • Tokugawa Japan: isolationist (Sakoku); Safavid Dynasty (Sufi then Shia Muslim).
• Ottoman Empire: Sultan Mehmed II, Suleiman l, janissaries, harem politics; Mughal Empire.
• Songhai Empire.

Absolute Monarchy in Europe

• Three Estates in France.
• Serfdom (peasants tied to the land).
• James I: Protestant (Presbyterian).
• Charles I signed the Petition of Right.
• English Civil War: Parliamentarians (Oliver Cromwell) vs Royalists.
• Restoration of the monarchy in England with King Charles II.
• King William III and Queen Mary of England signed the English Bill of Rights.
• Henry IV issued the 1598 Edict of Nantes.
• Spain's King Philip II ‘The Golden Age’.

Power Struggles and Wars of Religion in the West

• Martin Luther posted his grievances, including his opposition to the sale of indulgences, in the form of the 95 Theses.
• John Calvin spread Calvinism in Switzerland.
• King Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church to create the Anglican Church/Church of England.
• Elizabeth I became Queen of England.
• Catholic Reformation.
• Thirty Years’ War (1618-48) the 1648 Peace of Westphalia.

The Scientific Revolution

• Nicholas Copernicus’ On the Revolution of Heavenly Spheres (1543) about the Heliocentric Theory and ended with the publication of Isaac Newton’s Principia (1687) about the laws of motion/gravity.
• Galileo Galilei popularized the Heliocentric Theory.
• Isaac Newton developed the study of physics and calculus.
• Margaret Cavendish was a brilliant botanist, but she was not admitted to the British Royal Academy of Sciences because she was a woman.
• Francis Bacon, who popularized the Scientific Method, and Frenchman Rene Descartes.

Age of Exploration and the ‘Old’ Imperialism

• The three G’s: God, gold, and glory.
• Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci.
• Pope Alexander VI wrote the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas.
• Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro, defeated the Aztecs and Incas.
• Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, circumnavigate the globe.

The Columbian Exchange

• Blend of people, resources, ideas, and cultural diffusion.
• Subjugation and exploitation of colonial economies, taking resources and labor for the benefit of the mother country, is known as mercantilism.

Slavery

• Trans-Atlantic slave trade (c. 1500-1808).
• The Portuguese slave traders were among the first, last, and most impactful in enslaving people, from Angola to Brazil.
• Racial hierarchy (la casta) in their Latin American colonies.
• Triangular Trade.
• Olaudah Equiano/Gustavus Vassa, who was born in Nigeria, a slave in South Carolina, and then a freeman in England.

Dutch Trade Dominance

• The Dutch trading (not warring) ship known as the fluyt.
• The Dutch East India Company (VOC) had a monopoly on Asian trade throughout the 18th century.

Challenges to European Imperialists in Africa

• The Dahomey Empire (now Benin) had one of the fiercest responses to colonization by the French.
• Queen Ndzinga of Ndongo (now Angola) (1583-1663).
• In the 1680 Pueblo Revolt (in present-day New Mexico).
• In 1781, Peruvian Tupac Amaru II.
• In the 1739 Stono Rebellion (in South Carolina).
• Queen Nanny, originally from Asante/Ghana, led her fellow maroons against the British.

Social Hierarchies in the Russian Empire

• The Russian Romanov Dynasty.
• Czar/Tsar Peter I the Great.
• Czarina Catherine the Great (1762-96).
• Czar Alexander II abolished serfdom.