2.8: Chapter Summary and Key Terms

Chapter Summary 

Chapter 2 has been an attempt to describe a world still in a formative stage. Elements of this world were beginning to seem familiar to 21st-century observers. Globalization was intensifying as a result of increased trade, imperial expansion, and cross-oceanic travel and the result was a more integrated world in which more and more people had become tied together into a global web of interactions. At the same time, this was a world that was still very different than the one that would emerge with the coming of modernity:

• Communication across distance was still a slow, laborious, and often dangerous process which limited the scope of globalization 
• multiethnic empires were increasingly the norm as the idea of the nation-state was still far from becoming the dominant form of political organization
• ideas of race were beginning to circulate but had not become the primary means of understanding human difference as would be the case by the end of the 19th century
• Global power was relatively diffuse. The Ming Dynasty may have been the single most productive and powerful state in the world, but did not have the capacity or will to project its authority beyond its region. A few European states had become richer and more powerful than at the start of the period, but still lacked the means to fully assert their global ambitions 
• Capitalism still did not define the lives of most of the world’s people. Select groups in select areas were beginning to see the pursuit of profit as the main goal of economic activity, but the majority of people still led lives determined by the rhythms of the agricultural calendar, consumed locally produced goods, and produced for their own needs rather than for consumers in distant markets

As much as was covered in this opening chapter, therefore, the list above suggests that many of the processes and developments necessary for the development of global modernity still lay in the future.

Key Terms

• Globalization: the spread of similar ways of life around the globe
• Interaction: the encounter of two or more separate entities. When this occurs, one entity will influence the other in some way or, more commonly, each will influence the other
• Polycentric World System: a world system in which many autonomous centers of power existed without any one of them being dominant. This is as opposed to a system where a few  states were able to exercise their power globally
• Cahokia: The largest political formation north of Mexico before European colonization. 11th-14th centuries CE
• Ayllu: Socioeconomic kinship groups that were a common form of organization among the peoples of the Andes 
• Mapuche: a native group of what is now Chile. From the 16th century, they were able to wage a fierce resistance against Spanish colonization culminating in Felipe IV of Spain formally recognizing their independence in 1643
• Empire of Mali: West African empire that established a more expansive and transcontinental set of ambitions than any previous state in the region.
• Mansa Musa: 14th-century ruler of the Mali Empire
• Monsoons: wind system that prevails over much of the Indian Ocean, South Asia, and East Africa. Because the monsoons shift throughout the year they helped establish sailing schedules for ships traveling east or west
• Malacca: a city near the tip of the Malaysian Peninsula that became one of the most important ports of trade during the 15th century
• Estado da India: The Portuguese term for what is often referred to as the Portuguese Empire. Consisted of a series of small coastal territories throughout the Indian Ocean and East Asia.
• Zheng He: The Chinese eunuch admiral who led the Ming treasure fleets from 1405-1433 CE
• Manila: Spanish colony in the Philippines that served as the connecting point where American silver could be exchanged for Chinese manufactures. This directly linked together the Americas and Asia for the first time