Empires and Encounters 1350–1750

About this book

Between 1350 and 1750 – a time of empires, exploration, and exposure to radically different lands and cultures – the world reached a tipping point of global connectedness. In volume 3 of the acclaimed series A History of the World, noted international scholars examine five critical geographical areas during this pivotal period: Eurasia between Russia and Japan; the Muslim world of the Ottoman and Persian empires; Mughal India and the Indian Ocean trading world; maritime Southeast Asia and Oceania; and a newly configured transatlantic rim. While people in many places remained unaware of anything beyond their own village, an intense period of empire building led to expanding political, economic, and cultural interaction on every continent – early signals of a shrinking globe.

By the early fourteenth century, Eurasia's Mongol empires were disintegrating. Concurrently, followers of both Islam and Christianity increased exponentially, with Islam exerting a powerful cultural influence in the spreading Ottoman and Safavid empires. India came under Mughal rule, experiencing significant growth in trade along the Indian Ocean and East African coastlines. In Southeast Asia, Muslims engaged in expansion on the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and the Philippines. And both sides of the Atlantic responded to the pressure of European commerce, which sowed the seeds of a world economy based on the resources of the Americas but made possible by the subjugation of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans.

Contents

Introduction [Wolfgang Reinhard]
I. Empires and Frontiers in Continental Eurasia [Peter C. Perdue]
    Introduction
    1. China
    2. Russia
    3. Central Eurasia
    4. Japan
    5. Korea
    6. Vietnam
    7. Comparisons, Connections, and Convergences
II. The Ottoman Empire and the Islamic World [Suraiya Faroqhi]
    Introduction
    1. Geography and Resources
    2. Administration of the Ottoman Empire
    3. Ottoman Society
    4. The Ottomans and the World Beyond
    5. Safavid Iran
III. South Asia and the Indian Ocean [Stephan Conermann]
    Introduction
    1. South Asia
    2. The Indian Ocean from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century
    3. The Indian Ocean from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century
    4. South Asia and the Indian Ocean in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century
IV. Southeast Asia and Oceania [Reinhard Wendt and Jürgen G. Nagel]
    Introduction
    1. Space and Culture
    2. Contacts and Interactions
    3. Mainland and Maritime Southeast Asia
    4. Connections to Japan and China
    5. Oceania
V. Europe and the Atlantic World [Wolfgang Reinhard]
    Introduction
    1. Atlantic Africa
    2. Latin Europe
    3. The New Atlantic Worlds
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Contributors
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Wolfgang Reinhard is Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the University of Freiburg. Akira Iriye is Charles Warren Professor of American History, Emeritus, at Harvard University. Jürgen Osterhammel is a Professor of Modern History at the University of Konstanz.