Chapter 12: 15th Century

Worlds of the 15th Century

The section I found most interesting was the one comparing China and Europe. I feel that many of the characteristics that they are different in have been present for a long time:

China	Europe
Confident in their presence in the larger world	Knows that Islam is a threat to them
Liked receiving other countries’ products, but did not believe they needed others’ help to survive	Actively conquered other peoples to gain resources needed for survival
Had power and resources to construct gigantic fleets for maritime voyaging	Could only support a few ships to explore the seas
Access to Indian Ocean trade and had a booming economy	Wanted badly to have trade with other nations, but were not as successful as China
Unified	Independent states - no central political authority

Having points of comparison helps me remember key features about both nations. In my opinion, China was definitely more powerful and capable than Europe during the transition from the Classical to the Modern era. I just thought I’d address this. After having the debate and being inclined to argue whatever side I was given, it is important to jot down my honest thoughts on the differences between China and Europe, so that they don’t get lost in the debate. The debate did not center at all on who was more powerful, but the differences in technology, art, unity, etc. were definitely intensely debated.

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Besides this comparison, not much else in the chapter stood out to me. A very very brief summary:

Paleolithic societies endured, but they too went through changes and acquired technologies from other groups. Agricultural village societies, which were more common than the paleolithic societies, avoided large empires, but were increasingly encompassed in those empires as time progressed. Some examples are the Igbo and Iroquois. Pastoral people who have been very influential on civilizations generally lost power, but there are some exceptions like the Fulbe. Europe and China ...(just look at the table, thank you ^-^). Muslims finally got it together and made 4 states. Although they weren’t that cohesive, it was still better than the extent of fragmentation they had before. These 4 empires were the Songhay, Mughal, Ottoman, and Safavid empires. The Aztecs thought the world was in danger unless they offered human blood to the gods. They wouldn’t kill you in battle, but captured you so they could kill you later for human sacrifice. They had this beautiful city on an island and their infrastructure was great, but they had a ton of rebellions because the empire was unstable, unlike the Incas. The Incas had a BIG civilization that stretched across the Andes. They had a solid bureaucracy and stressed cultural integration, but they allowed other religious traditions. There was less tribute and more mita (labor). I feel like this phrase is important: “This was gender complementarity, not gender equality” → women and men worked in separate fields but the activities in neither were seen as inferior. This was used to describe Aztecs and Incas. There were loose webs of connection everywhere. However, they were not sustained for long. A few things to remember about the modern era are the following: industrialization, urbanization, lots of people, using a lot of resources, big government, science, Europe becomes relevant.

The summary was all over the place, but so was the chapter, so I feel like it’s justified. I really did feel like I was just thrown around the world really quickly, which I think was Strayer’s goal with this one. Many of the societies progressed similarly, differently, or similarly at different rates. It’s really hard to find just one trend in this chapter.

Thank you for reading and have a wonderful day! I hope you don’t mind the messiness of this blog post. This is the last one so good luck to everyone on finals :)