2: Global Interactions - 1450-1650

Introduction

…the Europeans didn’t invent globalization. They changed and augmented what was already there. If globalization hadn’t yet begun, Europeans wouldn’t have been able to penetrate so many regions so quickly. – Valerie Hansen (Hansen, 5)

We begin our exploration of modern world history in the 15th century. From the perspective of those alive during that century there was little to suggest radical changes were brewing. From the privileged position of the present, however, we can see that a series of small and large events and processes, some connected and some not, would create cumulative effects that would help transform the human experience. It was a time in which a larger segment of the global population than ever was integrated into a still loose, but fairly robust system of interaction and exchange that stretched across large portions of Afro-Eurasia. Even within this connected world many, if not most, people could continue to live their lives unaware of or unaffected by the existence of this system. Yet, many others living in what the historian Janet Abu-Lughod has called “an archipelago of cities,” built livelihoods based on the existence of large-scale networks of interaction. These networks shifted more than goods around this world. Along with the textiles, spices, metals, animal products, and enslaved people also moved knowledge and information, techniques and technology, and styles and foodstuffs while also inspiring new desires and new ambitions. In cities like Timbuktu, Bruges, Alexandria, Jeddah, Aden, Calicut, Malindi, Malacca, Samarkand, or Hangzhou residents survived, and even thrived, by engaging with this system. Instead of a single world system, the world was a collection of individual systems that were indirectly linked together. The map shows the places where the systems overlapped, allowing for the spread of goods, people, technology, and ideas to spread among areas that did not directly interact (see map in Figure 2.1).

Figure 2.1 is a map of Afro-Eurasia that describes the system of world trade in the thirteenth century. Essentially there were three large transcontinental commercial circuits, namely European, Middle Eastern, and Asian. The European network linked the areas along the Atlantic Coast with many parts of the Mediterranean. The Middle Eastern network linked the areas between the eastern Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. The Asian network connected the Indian subcontinent with China and SE Asia. These 3 large networks are subdivided into smaller regional networks. Thus a total of 8 regional networks are shown using ovals in the map. Over the next roughly two and a half centuries, the system would only grow, and its impact would intensify, such that by 1650 CE it had become truly global. With the development of new sea routes across the Atlantic, the Pacific, and between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, direct exchange was established among all the populated continents save Australia. As a result of these new connections, the list of global cities could be expanded to include emergent European colonial settlements in the Americas including Potosí, Acapulco, Bridgetown, and Boston; major ports in East, Southeast, and South Asia like Deshima, Macao, Batavia, and Surat; and new imperial capitals such as Lisbon, Madrid, Istanbul, Isfahan, and Agra (see Figure 2.2). 

The process by which the world became tied together is complex. On the one hand, it was driven by imperial politics of conquest, domination, incorporation, accommodation, and exploitation. At the same time, it was also propelled by the efforts of smaller states which saw in the seas the potential to satisfy their ambitions for greater wealth and power. Lastly, an increasingly assertive merchant class – serving themselves, their family or clans, investors, or the state itself – helped tie together all these strands into a single system. In this chapter we will explore a world on the cusp of massive change; a world that was beginning to be defined by globalization.

Thumbnail: "Chinese woodblock print, representing Zheng He's ships," in the Public Domain.