Why Do You Need This New Edition?

6 good reasons why you should buy this new edition of The Heritage of
World Civilizations, Brief Fifth Edition
1 This edition is tied more closely than ever to the innovative website,
MyHistoryLab, which helps you save time and improve results as
you study history (www.myhistorylab.com). Improved
MyHistoryLab icons appear in the textbook, alerting you to
important connections between the textbook and MyHistoryLab
resources. At the end of each chapter you will find a MyHistoryLab
Connections table. These tables provide a checklist of the most
important MyHistoryLab resources related to the chapter, facilitating
the integrated study of the textbook and the website.
2 Each chapter includes a new feature called “A Closer Look,” which
provides in-depth commentary on visual sources in world history.
This feature teaches you to view photos, paintings, and other
illustrations as historical documents. Each feature concludes with
questions that encourage you to focus on important issues raised
within the feature.
3 Chapter 11 features expanded coverage of the Byzantine Empire,
including discussions of Byzantine imperial power in the 10th
century, the importance of Constantinople, and Byzantium’s impact
on Islam.
4 In Chapter 13, coverage of Mesoamerica has been expanded
significantly, including extensive new discussions of Mesoamerican
ballgames, Olmec culture and civilization, Teotihuacán, and the
Maya. Coverage of the Aztecs, the Moche, and the Inca Empire has
also been greatly expanded.
5 Coverage of early Korean and Vietnamese history, which was spread
between two chapters in the Brief Fourth Edition (Chapters 9 and
19), has been consolidated in Chapter 18 of the Brief Fifth Edition
in order to create a more logical text flow. Chapter 9 now focuses
exclusively on early Japanese history.
6 The last three chapters (Chapters 31, 32, and 33) carry the narrative
through important recent events in Europe, Asia, Latin America,

Africa, and the Middle East.

COMBINED VOLUME
The Heritage of World Civilizations
Brief Fifth Edition

ALBERT M. CRAIG

Harvard University

WILLIAM A. GRAHAM

Harvard University

DONALD KAGAN

Yale University

STEVEN OZMENT

Harvard University

FRANK M. TURNER

Yale University
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The heritage of world civilizations / Albert M. Craig… [et al.]. -- Brief

5th ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-205-83549-2 (combined edition : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-205-83548-5 (volume 1 : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-205-83547-8 (volume 2 : alk. paper)
1. Civilization--History--Textbooks. I. Craig, Albert M. II. Title.
CB69.H45 2011
909--dc22 2011005330

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 www.pearsonhighered.com

Combined Volume
ISBN-10: 0-205-83549-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-205-83549-2

Exam Copy
ISBN-10: 0-205-05254-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-205-05254-7

Volume 1
ISBN-10: 0-205-83548-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-205-83548-5

Volume 1 a la Carte
ISBN-10: 0-205-05226-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-205-05226-4

Volume 2
ISBN-10: 0-205-83547-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-205-83547-8

Volume 2 a la Carte
ISBN: 0-205-05256-8
ISBN: 978-0-205-05256-1
Brief Contents

Part 1
Human Origins and Early Civilizations to 500 B.C.E.

1 The Birth of Civilization

2 Four Great Revolutions in Thought and Religion

Part 2
Empires and Cultures of the Ancient World, 1000 B.C.E. to 500 C.E.

3 Greek and Hellenistic Civilization

4 West Asia, Inner Asia, and South Asia to 1000 C.E.

5 Africa: Early History to 1000 C.E.

6 Republican and Imperial Rome

7 China’s First Empire, 221 B.C.E.–589 C.E.

Part 3
Consolidation and Interaction of World Civilizations, 500 C.E. to 1500
C.E.

8 Imperial China, 589–1368

9 Early Japanese History

10 The Formation of Islamic Civilization, 622–1000

11 The Byzantine Empire and Western Europe to 1000

12 The Islamic World, 1000–1500

13 Ancient Civilizations of the Americas

14 Africa, ca. 1000–1700

15 Europe to the Early 1500s: Revival, Decline, and Renaissance

Part 4
The World in Transition, 1500 to 1850

16 Europe 1500–1650: Expansion, Reformation, and Religious Wars

17 Conquest and Exploitation: The Development of the Transatlantic

Economy
 18 East Asia in the Late Traditional Era

19 State Building and Society in Early Modern Europe

20 The Last Great Islamic Empires, 1500–1800

Part 5
Enlightenment and Revolution in the Atlantic World, 1700–1850

21 The Age of European Enlightenment

22 Revolutions in the Transatlantic World

23 Political Consolidation in Nineteenth-Century Europe and North

America

Part 6
Into the Modern World, 1815–1949

24 Northern Transatlantic Economy and Society, 1815–1914

25 Latin America from Independence to the 1940s

26 India, the Islamic Heartlands, and Africa, 1800–1945

27 Modern East Asia

Part 7
Global Conflict and Change, 1900–Present

28 Imperialism and World War I

29 Depression, Europepan Dictators, and the American New Deal

30 World War II

31 The West Since World War II

32 East Asia: The Recent Decades

33 Postcolonialism and Beyond: Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the

Middle East
Contents

DOCUMENTS

MAPS

PREFACE

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Part 1
Human Origins and Early Civilizations to 500 B.C.E.

CHAPTER 1
The Birth of Civilization

Early Humans and Their Culture

Global Perspective: Civilizations
The Paleolithic Age
The Neolithic Age
The Bronze Age and the Birth of Civilization
Early Civilizations in the Middle East to About 1000 B.C.E.
Mesopotamian Civilization
A Closer Look: Babylonian World Map
Egyptian Civilization
Ancient Near Eastern Empires
The Hittites
The Kassites
 The Mitannians
The Assyrians
The Second Assyrian Empire
The Neo-Babylonians
Early Indian Civilization
The Indus Civilization
The Vedic Aryan Civilization
Early Chinese Civilization
Neolithic Origins in the Yellow River Valley
Early Bronze Age: The Shang
Late Bronze Age: The Western Zhou
Iron Age: The Eastern Zhou
The Rise of Civilization in the Americas
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 2
Four Great Revolutions in Thought and Religion

Comparing the Four Great Revolutions

Global Perspective: Philosophy and Religion
Philosophy in China
Confucianism
Daoism
Legalism
Religion in India
“Hindu” and “Indian”
Historical Background
The Upanishadic Worldview
Mahavira and the Jain Tradition
The Buddha’s Middle Path
A Closer Look: Statue of Siddhartha Gotama as Fasting Ascetic
(Second Century C.E.)
The Religion of the Israelites
From Hebrew Nomads to the Israelite Nation
The Monotheistic Revolution
 Greek Philosophy
Reason and the Scientific Spirit
Political and Moral Philosophy
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Religions of the World: Judaism

Part 2
Empires and Cultures of the Ancient World, 1000 B.C.E. to 500 C.E.

CHAPTER 3
Greek and Hellenistic Civilization

Global Perspective: The Achievements of Greek and Hellenistic

Civilization
Minoans, Mycenaeans, and the Greek “Middle Ages” to ca. 750
B.C.E.
The Minoans
The Mycenaeans
The Age of Homer
The Polis in the Expanding Greek World
Development of the Polis
The Hoplite Phalanx
Greek Colonies
The Tyrants (ca. 700–500 B.C.E.)
Life in Archaic Greece
Society
Religion
The Alphabet
Poetry
The Poleis and the Persian Wars
Development of Sparta
Development of Athens
The Persian Wars
War Comes to Greece
 A Closer Look: The Trireme
Classical Greece
The Delian League
The First Peloponnesian War
The Athenian Empire and Democracy
Women of Athens
The Great Peloponnesian War
Struggle for Greek Leadership
Classical Culture
Emergence of the Hellenistic World
Macedonian Conquest
Alexander’s Conquests
Death of Alexander
Hellenistic Culture
Philosophy
Literature
Architecture and Sculpture
Mathematics and Science
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 4
West Asia, Inner Asia, and South Asia to 1000 C.E.

Global Perspective: Indo-Iranian Roles in the Eurasian World

before Islam
WEST AND INNER ASIA
Ancient Background and the First Persian Empire in the Iranian
Plateau (550–330 B.C.E.)
The Elamites
The Iranian Peoples
Ancient Iranian Religion
Zoroaster and the Zoroastrian Tradition
The Achaemenids
The Achaemenid State
The Achaemenid Economy
 Successor States and Steppe Peoples
The Seleucid Successors to Alexander in the East (c. 312–63 B.C.E.)
The Parthian Arsacid Empire (ca. 247 B.C.E.–223 C.E.)
The Indo-Greeks
Scythians and Kushans
The Sasanid Empire (224–651 C.E.)
The Sasanids
Society and Economy
Religion
Later Sasanid Developments
SOUTH ASIA
The First Indian Empire: The Mauryas (321–185 B.C.E.)
Political Background
The Mauryas
A Closer Look: Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath
The Consolidation of Indian Civilization (ca. 200 B.C.E.–300 C.E.)
The Economic Base
High Culture
Religion and Society
The Golden Age of the Guptas (ca. 320–550 C.E.)
Gupta Rule
Gupta Culture
Religion and Society
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Religions of the World: Hinduism

CHAPTER 5
Africa: Early History to 1000 C.E.

Global Perspective: “Traditional” Peoples and Nontraditional

Histories
Issues of Interpretation, Sources, and Disciplines
The Question of “Civilization”
Source Issues
History and Disciplinary Boundaries
 Physical Description of the Continent
African Peoples
Africa and Early Human Culture
Diffusion of Languages and Peoples
“Race” and Physiological Variation
The Sahara and the Sudan to the Beginning of the Common Era
Early Saharan Cultures
Neolithic Sudanic Cultures
The Early Iron Age and the Nok Culture
Nilotic Africa and the Ethiopian Highlands
The Kingdom of Kush
The Napatan Empire
The Meroitic Empire
The Aksumite Empire
Isolation of Christian Ethiopia
The Western and Central Sudan
Agriculture, Trade, and the Rise of Urban Centers
Formation of Sudanic Kingdoms in the First Millennium
Central, Southern, and East Africa
Bantu Expansion and Diffusion
The Khoisan and Twa Peoples
East Africa
A Closer Look: Four Rock Art Paintings from Tassili n-Ajjer
(4000–2000 B.C.E.)
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 6
Republican and Imperial Rome

Global Perspective: Republican and Imperial Rome

Italy Before Rome
Royal Rome
Government
Family
Clientage
Patricians and Plebeians
The Republic
Constitution
A Closer Look: Lictors
The Struggle of the Orders
Conquest of Italy
Rome and Carthage
The Republic’s Conquest of the Hellenistic World
Greek Cultural Influence
Roman Imperialism
Aftermath of Conquest
The Gracchi
Marius and Sulla
War against the Italian Allies (90–88 B.C.E.)
Sulla’s Dictatorship
Arts and Letters of the Late Republic
The Fall of the Republic and the Augustan Principate
Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar
First Triumvirate and the Dictatorship of Julius Caesar
Second Triumvirate and the Emergence of Octavian
The Augustan Principate
Augustan Administration, Army, and Defense
Religion and Morality
The Golden Age of Roman Literature
Peace and Prosperity: Imperial Rome
Administration of the Empire
Culture of the Early Empire
Life in Imperial Rome: The Apartment House
The Rise of Christianity
Jesus of Nazareth
Paul of Tarsus
Organization
Persecution of Christians
Emergence of Catholicism
Rome as a Center of the Early Church
The Third and Fourth Centuries: Crisis and Late Empire
Military Reorganization
 Economic, Social, and Political Costs of Defense
Preservation of Classical Culture
The Late Empire: Diocletian to Constantine
Triumph of Christianity
Christian Writers
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 7
China’s First Empire, 221 B.C.E.–589 C.E.

Qin Unification of China

Global Perspective: China’s First Empire
Former Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E.–8 C.E.)
The Dynastic Cycle
Early Years of the Former Han Dynasty
A Closer Look: The Terra-Cotta Army of the First Qin Emperor
Han Wudi
The Xiongnu
Government during the Former Han
The Silk Road
Decline and Usurpation
Later Han (25–220 C.E.) and Its Aftermath
First Century
Decline during the Second Century
Aftermath of Empire
Han Thought and Religion
Han Confucianism
History
Neo-Daoism
Buddhism
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Part 3
Consolidation and Interaction of World Civilizations, 500 C.E. to 1500
C.E.

CHAPTER 8
Imperial China, 589–1368

Reestablishment of Empire: Sui (589–618) and Tang (618–907)

Dynasties
The Sui Dynasty
Global Perspective: Imperial China
The Tang Dynasty
The Tang Empire
Tang Culture
A Closer Look: A Tang Painting of the Goddess of Mercy
Transition to Late Imperial China: The Song Dynasty (960–1279)
Agricultural Revolution of the Song: From Serfs to Free Farmers
Commercial Revolution of the Song
Government: From Aristocracy to Autocracy
Song Culture
China in the Mongol World Empire: The Yuan Dynasty (1279–
1368)
Rise of the Mongol Empire
Mongol Rule in China
Foreign Contacts and Chinese Culture
Last Years of the Yuan
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 9
Early Japanese History

Japanese Origins
The Jōmon, Japan’s Old Stone Age
The Yayoi Revolution
Global Perspective: East Asia
 Tomb Culture, the Yamato State, and Korea
Religion in Early Japan
Nara and Heian Japan
Court Government
People, Land, and Taxes
Rise of the Samurai
Aristocratic Culture and Buddhism
Chinese Tradition in Japan
Birth of Japanese Literature
Nara and Heian Buddhism
Japan’s Early Feudal Age
The Kamakura Era
The Mongols
The Question of Feudalism
The Ashikaga Era
A Closer Look: The East Meets the East
Women in Warrior Society
Agriculture, Commerce, and Medieval Guilds
Buddhism and Medieval Culture
Japanese Pietism: Pure Land and Nichiren Buddhism
Zen Buddhism
Nō Plays
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Religions of the World: Buddhism

CHAPTER 10
The Formation of Islamic Civilization, 622–1000

Global Perspective: The Early Islamic Worlds of Arab and Persian

Cultures
Origins and Early Development
The Setting
Muhammad and the Qur’an
Women in Early Islamic Society
Early Islamic Conquests
 Course of Conquest
Factors of Success
The New Islamic World Order
The Caliphate
The Ulama
A Closer Look: The Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem (Interior)
The Umma
The High Caliphate
The Abbasid State
Society
Decline
Islamic Culture in the Classical Era
Intellectual Traditions
Language and Literature
Art and Architecture
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 11
The Byzantine Empire and Western Europe to 1000

The End of the Western Roman Empire

Global Perspective: The Early Middle Ages
The Byzantine Empire
The Reign of Justinian
The Importance of Constantinople
The Height of Byzantine Imperial Power in the Tenth Century
The Religious Diversity of Christendom
The Impact of Islam on East and West
Byzantium’s Contribution to Islamic Civilization
The Western Debt to Islam
The Developing Roman Church
Monastic Culture
The Doctrine of Papal Primacy
Division of Christendom
The Kingdom of the Franks
 Merovingians and Carolingians: From Clovis to Charlemagne
Reign of Charlemagne (768–814)
Breakup of the Carolingian Kingdom
A Closer Look: A Multicultural Book Cover
Feudal Society
Origins
Vassalage and the Fief
Fragmentation and Divided Loyalty
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 12
The Islamic World, 1000–1500

Global Perspective: The Expansion of Islamic Civilization, 1000–

1500
THE ISLAMIC HEARTLANDS
Religion and Society
Consolidation of a Sunni Orthopraxy
Sufi Piety and Organization
Consolidation of Shi’ite Traditions
Regional Developments
Spain, North Africa, and the Western Mediterranean Islamic World
Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean Islamic World: The Fatimids
and the Mamluks
The Islamic East: Asia before the Mongol Conquests
A Closer Look: Al-Hariri, Assemblies (Maqamat)
Islamic Asia in the Mongol Age
The Spread of Islam Beyond the Heartlands
ISLAMIC INDIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA
The Spread of Islam to South Asia
Muslim-Hindu Encounter
Islamic States and Dynasties
Southeast Asia
Religious and Cultural Accommodation
Hindu and Other Indian Traditions
 Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 13
Ancient Civilizations of the Americas

Global Perspective: Ancient Civilizations of the Americas

Reconstructing the History of Native American Civilization
Mesoamerica: The Formative Period and the Emergence of
Mesoamerican Civilization
Mesoamerican Ballgames
The Olmec
The Valley of Oaxaca and the Rise of Monte Alban
The Emergence of Writing and the Mesoamerican Calendar
The Classic Period in Mesoamerica
Teotihuacán
A Closer Look: The Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán
The Maya
The Post-Classic Period
The Toltecs
The Aztecs
Andean South America: The Preceramic and Initial Periods
Chavín de Huantar and the Early Horizon
The Early Intermediate, Middle Horizon, and Late Intermediate
Periods
Nazca
Moche
Tiwanaku and Huari
The Chimu Empire
The Inca Empire
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 14
Africa ca. 1000–1700
 Global Perspective: Africa, 1000–1700
North Africa and Egypt
The Spread of Islam South of the Sahara
Sahelian Empires of the Western and Central Sudan
Ghana
Mali
Songhai
Kanem and Kanem-Bornu
The Eastern Sudan
The Forestlands—Coastal West and Central Africa
West African Forest Kingdoms: The Example of Benin
European Arrivals on the Coastlands: Senegambia and the Gold Coast
A Closer Look: Benin Bronze Plaque with Chief and Two
Attendants
Central Africa: The Kongo Kingdom and Angola
East Africa
Swahili Culture and Commerce
The Portuguese and the Omanis of Zanzibar
Southern Africa
Southeastern Africa: “Great Zimbabwe”
The Portuguese in Southeastern Africa
South Africa: The Cape Colony
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 15
Europe to the Early 1500s: Revival, Decline, and Renaissance

Global Perspective: The High Middle Ages in Western Europe

Revival of Empire, Church, and Towns
Otto I and the Revival of the Empire
The Reviving Catholic Church: The Cluny Reform Movement and the
Investiture Struggle
The Crusades
Towns and Townspeople
 A Closer Look: European Embrace of a Black Saint
Medieval Society
The Order of Life
Medieval Women
Growth of National Monarchies
England: Hastings (1066) to Magna Carta (1215)
France: Bouvines (1214) to the Reign of Louis IX
The Hohenstaufen Empire (1152–1272)
Political and Social Breakdown
Hundred Years’ War
The Black Death
Ecclesiastical Breakdown and Revival: The Late Medieval Church
Boniface VIII and Philip the Fair
The Great Schism (1378–1417) and the Conciliar Movement to 1449
The Renaissance in Italy (1375–1527)
The Italian City-State: Social Conflict and Despotism
Humanism
Renaissance Art in and Beyond Italy
Italy’s Political Decline: The French Invasions (1494–1527)
Niccolò Machiavelli
Revival of Monarchy: Nation Building in the Fifteenth Century
Medieval Russia
France
Spain
England
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

Part 4
The World in Transition, 1500 to 1850

CHAPTER 16
Europe 1500–1650: Expansion, Reformation, and Religious Wars

Global Perspective: European Expansion

 The Discovery of a New World
The Portuguese Chart the Course
The Spanish Voyages of Christopher Columbus
Impact on Europe and America
The Reformation
Religion and Society
Popular Movements and Criticism of the Church
Secular Control over Religious Life
The Northern Renaissance
Martin Luther and German Reformation to 1525
Zwingli and the Swiss Reformation
Anabaptists and Radical Protestants
John Calvin and the Genevan Reformation
Political Consolidation of the Lutheran Reformation
The English Reformation to 1553
Catholic Reform and Counter-Reformation
The Reformation and Daily Life
Religion in Fifteenth-Century Life
Religion in Sixteenth-Century Life
Family Life in Early Modern Europe
A Closer Look: A Contemporary Commentary of the Sexes
The Wars of Religion
French Wars of Religion (1562–1598)
Imperial Spain and the Reign of Philip II (1556–1598)
England and Spain (1558–1603)
The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648)
Superstition and Enlightenment: The Battle Within
Witch Hunts and Panic
Writers and Philosophers
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Religions of the World: Christianity

CHAPTER 17
Conquest and Exploitation: The Development of the Transatlantic
Economy
 Global Perspective: The Atlantic World
Periods of European Overseas Expansion
Mercantilist Theory of Economic Exploitation
Establishment of the Spanish Empire in America
Conquest of the Aztecs and the Incas
The Roman Catholic Church in Spanish America
Economies of Exploitation in the Spanish Empire
Varieties of Economic Activity
Commercial Regulation and the Flota System
Colonial Brazil
French and British Colonies in North America
The Columbian Exchange: Disease, Animals, and Agriculture
Diseases Enter the Americas
Animals and Agriculture
Slavery in the Americas
The Background of Slavery
Establishment of Slavery
The Plantation Economy and Transatlantic Trade
Slavery on the Plantations
Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Slavery and Slaving in Africa
The African Side of the Transatlantic Trade
The Extent of the Slave Trade
A Closer Look: The Slave Ship Brookes
Consequences of the Slave Trade for Africa
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 18
East Asia in the Late Traditional Era

Global Perspective: East Asia in the Late Traditional Era

LATE IMPERIAL CHINA
Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) Dynasties
Land and People
 China’s Third Commercial Revolution
Political System
Ming–Qing Foreign Relations
Ming–Qing Culture
JAPAN
Warring States Era (1467–1600)
War of All Against All
Foot Soldier Revolution
Foreign Relations and Trade
Tokugawa Era (1600–1868)
Political Engineering and Economic Growth during the Seventeenth
Century
Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries
A Closer Look: Bridal Procession
Tokugawa Culture
KOREA AND VIETNAM
Korea
Early History
Choson Dynasty
Vietnam
Vietnam in Southeast Asia
Vietnamese Origins
A Millennium of Chinese Rule: 111 B.C.E.–939 C.E.
An Independent Vietnam
The March South
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 19
State Building and Society in Early Modern Europe

Global Perspective: Early Modern Europe

European Political Consolidation
Two Models of European Political Development
Toward Parliamentary Government in England
The “Glorious Revolution”
 Rise of Absolute Monarchy in France: The World of Louis XIV
Years of Personal Rule
A Closer Look: Versailles
Russia Enters the European Political Arena
Birth of the Romanov Dynasty
Peter the Great
The Habsburg Empire and the Pragmatic Sanction
The Rise of Prussia
European Warfare: From Continental to World Conflict
The Wars of Louis XIV
The Eighteenth-Century Colonial Arena
War of Jenkins’s Ear
The War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748)
The Seven Years’ War (1756–1763)
The Old Regime
Hierarchy and Privilege
Aristocracy
Peasants and Serfs
Family Structures and the Family Economy
The Family Economy
Women and the Family Economy
The Revolution in Agriculture
New Crops and New Methods
Population Expansion
The Eighteenth-Century Industrial Revolution: An Event in
World History
Industrial Leadership of Great Britain
European Cities
Patterns of Preindustrial Urbanization
Urban Classes
The Jewish Population: Age of the Ghetto
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 20
The Last Great Islamic Empires, 1500–1800
 Global Perspective: The Last Great Islamic Empires
The Ottoman Empire and the East Mediterranean World
Origins and Development of the Ottoman State Before 1600
The “Classical” Ottoman Order
After Süleyman: Challenges and Change
The Decline of Ottoman Military and Political Power
The Safavid Empire and the West Asian World
Origins
Shah Abbas I
Safavid Decline
Culture and Learning
The Mughals
Origins
Akbar’s Reign
The Last Great Mughals
Sikhs and Marathas
Political Decline
Religious Developments
A Closer Look: The Mughal Emperor Jahangir Honoring a
Muslim Saint over Kings and Emperors
Central Asia: Islamization in the Post-Timur Era
Uzbeks and Chaghatays
Consequences of the Shi’ite Rift
Power Shifts in the Southern Oceans
Southern-Oceans Trade
Control of the Southern Seas
The East Indies: Acheh
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

Part 5
Enlightenment and Revolution in the Atlantic World, 1700–1850
CHAPTER 21
The Age of European Enlightenment

The Scientific Revolution

Global Perspective: The European Enlightenment
Nicolaus Copernicus Rejects an Earth-Centered Universe
Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler
Galileo Galilei
Francis Bacon: The Empirical Method
Isaac Newton Discovers the Laws of Gravitation
Women in the World of the Scientific Revolution
John Locke
The Enlightenment
Voltaire
The Encyclopedia
The Enlightenment and Religion
Deism
Toleration
Islam in Enlightenment Thought
The Enlightenment and Society
Montesquieu and The Spirit of the Laws
Adam Smith on Economic Growth and Social Progress
Rousseau
Enlightened Critics of European Empire
Women in the Thought and Practice of the Enlightenment
Enlightened Absolutism
Joseph II of Austria
A Closer Look: An Eighteenth-Century Artist Appeals to the
Ancient World
Catherine the Great of Russia
The Partition of Poland
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 22
Revolutions in the Transatlantic World
 Revolution in the British Colonies in North America
Resistance to the Imperial Search for Revenue
Global Perspective: The Transatlantic Revolutions
American Political Ideas
Crisis and Independence
Revolution in France
Revolutions of 1789
A Closer Look: Challenging the French Political Order
Reconstruction of France
A Second Revolution
The Reign of Terror and Its Aftermath
The Napoleonic Era
The Congress of Vienna and the European Settlement
Wars of Independence in Latin America
Revolution in Haiti
Eighteenth-Century Developments in the Spanish Empire
First Movements toward Independence on the South American
Continent
San Martín in Río de la Plata
Simón Bolívar’s Liberation of Venezuela
Independence in New Spain
Brazilian Independence
Toward the Abolition of Slavery in the Transatlantic Economy
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 23
Political Consolidation in Nineteenth-Century Europe and North
America

Global Perspective: European and North American Political

Consolidation
The Emergence of Nationalism in Europe
Creating Nations
Meaning of Nationhood
 Regions of Nationalistic Pressure in Europe
Early Nineteenth-Century Political Liberalism
Politics
Economics
Relationship of Nationalism and Liberalism
Liberalism and Nationalism in Modern World History
Efforts to Liberalize Early Nineteenth-Century European Political
Structures
Russia: The Decembrist Revolt of 1825 and the Autocracy of Nicholas
I
Revolution in France (1830)
The Great Reform Bill in Britain (1832)
1848: Year of Revolutions in Europe
Testing the New American Republic
Toward Sectional Conflict
Slavery
The Abolitionist Movement
The Civil War
The Canadian Experience
Road to Self-Government
Keeping a Distinctive Culture
Midcentury Political Consolidation in Europe
The Crimean War
Italian Unification
A Closer Look: The Crimean War Recalled
German Unification
The Franco-Prussian War and the German Empire
Unrest of Nationalities in Eastern Europe
Racial Theory and Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism and the Birth of Zionism
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

Part 6
Into the Modern World, 1815–1949
CHAPTER 24
Northern Transatlantic Economy and Society, 1815–1914

Global Perspective: The Building of Northern Transatlantic

Supremacy
European Factory Workers and Urban Artisans
Nineteenth-Century European Women
Women in the Early Industrial Revolution
Social Disabilities Confronted by All Women
New Employment Patterns for Women
Late Nineteenth-Century Working-Class Women
The Rise of Political Feminism
Jewish Emancipation
Early Steps to Equal Citizenship
Broadened Opportunities
European Labor, Socialism, and Politics to World War I
The Working Classes in the Late Nineteenth Century
Marxist Critique of the Industrial Order
Germany: Social Democrats and Revisionism
Great Britain: The Labour Party and Fabianism
Russia: Industrial Development and the Birth of Bolshevism
A Closer Look: Bloody Sunday, Saint Petersburg, 1905
European Socialism in World History
North America and the New Industrial Economy
European Immigration to the United States
Unions: Organization of Labor
The Progressives
Social Reform
The Progressive Presidency
The Emergence of Modern European Thought
Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection
The Revolution in Physics
Friedrich Nietzsche and the Revolt Against Reason
The Birth of Psychoanalysis
Islam and Late Nineteenth-Century European Thought
 Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 25
Latin America from Independence to the 1940s

Independence Without Revolution

Immediate Consequences of Latin American Independence
Global Perspective: Latin American History
Absence of Social Change
Control of the Land
Submissive Political Philosophies
Economy of Dependence
New Exploitation of Resources
Increased Foreign Ownership and Influence
Economic Crises and New Directions
Search for Political Stability
Three National Histories
Argentina
Mexico
A Closer Look: Benito Juarez
Brazil
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 26
India, the Islamic Heartlands, and Africa, 1800–1945

Global Perspective: The Challenge of Modernity: India, Islam,

and Africa
THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE
British Dominance and Colonial Rule
Building the Empire: The First Half of the Nineteenth Century
British-Indian Relations
From British Crown Raj to Independence
The Burden of Crown Rule
 Indian Resistance
Hindu-Muslim Friction on the Road to Independence
A Closer Look: Gandhi and His Spinning Wheel
THE ISLAMIC EXPERIENCE
Declining Islamic Power and Independence
The Case of Iran
Islamic Responses to Foreign Encroachment
Purification and Revival of Islam
Integration of Western and Islamic Ideas
Emulation of the West
Women and Reform in the Middle East
Nationalism
THE AFRICAN EXPERIENCE
New Power Centers and Islamic Reform Movements
Southern Africa
East and Central Africa
West Africa
Islamic Reform Movements
Patterns in European Colonization and African Resistance
European Explorers and Christian Missionaries
The Colonial “Scramble for Africa”
European Colonial Rule
African Resistance
The Rise of African Nationalism
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Religions of the World: Islam

CHAPTER27
Modern East Asia

Global Perspective: Modern East Asia

MODERN JAPAN (1853–1945)
Overthrow of the Tokugawa Bakufu (1853–1868)
A Closer Look: East Meets the West
Building the Meiji State (1868–1890)
 Centralization of Power
Political Parties
The Constitution
Growth of a Modern Economy
First Phase: Model Industries
Second Phase: 1880s–1890s
Third Phase: 1905–1929
Fourth Phase: Depression and Recovery
The Politics of Imperial Japan (1890–1945)
From Confrontation to the Founding of the Seiyūkai (1890–1900)
The Golden Years of Meiji
Rise of the Parties to Power
Militarism and War (1927–1945)
Japanese Militarism and German Nazism
MODERN CHINA (1839–1949)
Close of Manchu Rule
The Opium War
Rebellions against the Manchu
Self-Strengthening and Decline (1874–1895)
The Borderlands: The Northwest, Vietnam, and Korea
From Dynasty to Warlordism (1895–1926)
Cultural and Ideological Ferment: The May Fourth Movement
Nationalist China
Guomindang Unification of China and the Nanjing Decade (1927–
1937)
War and Revolution (1937–1949)
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

Part 7
Global Conflict and Change, 1900–Present

CHAPTER 28
Imperialism and World War I
 Expansion of European Power and the “New Imperialism”
Global Perspective: Imperialism and the Great War
The New Imperialism
Motives for the New Imperialism
The “Scramble for Africa”
The New Imperialism in Asia and the Pacific
Emergence of the German Empire
Formation of the Triple Alliance (1873–1890)
Bismarck’s Leadership (1873–1890)
Forging the Triple Entente (1890–1907)
World War I
The Road to War (1908–1914)
Sarajevo and the Outbreak of War (June–August 1914)
Strategies and Stalemate (1914–1917)
A Closer Look: The Development of the Armored Tank
The Russian Revolution
End of World War I
Military Resolution
Settlement at Paris
Evaluation of the Peace
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 29
Depression, European Dictators, and the American New Deal

After Versailles: Demands for Revision and Enforcement

Global Perspective: The Interwar Period in Europe and the United
States
Toward the Great Depression in Europe
Financial Tailspin
Problems in Agricultural Commodities
Depression and Government Policy
The Soviet Experiment
War Communism
The New Economic Policy
 Stalin versus Trotsky
Decision for Rapid Industrialization
The Purges
The Fascist Experiment in Italy
Rise of Mussolini
The Fascists in Power
German Democracy and Dictatorship
The Weimar Republic
Depression and Political Deadlock
Hitler Comes to Power
Hitler’s Consolidation of Power
The Police State
Women in Nazi Germany
A Closer Look: The Nazi Party Rally
The Great Depression and the New Deal in the United States
Economic Collapse
New Role for Government
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER30
World War II

Again the Road to War (1933–1939)

Hitler’s Goals
Global Perspective: World War II
Weakness of the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations
Italy Attacks Ethiopia
Remilitarization of the Rhineland
The Spanish Civil War
Austria and Czechoslovakia
Failure of Appeasement
The Nazi-Soviet Pact
World War II (1939–1945)
German Conquest of Europe
Battle of Britain
 German Attack on Russia
Hitler’s Europe
Racism and the Holocaust
The Road to Pearl Harbor and America’s Entry into the War
The Tide Turns
Defeat of Nazi Germany
Fall of the Japanese Empire
The Cost of War
The Domestic Fronts
Germany: From Apparent Victory to Defeat
France: Defeat, Collaboration, and Resistance
Great Britain: Organization for Victory
The United States: American Women and African Americans in the
War Effort
A Closer Look: Rosie the Riveter
The Soviet Union: “The Great Patriotic War”
Preparations for Peace
The Atlantic Charter
Tehran
Yalta
Potsdam
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 31
The West Since World War II

Global Perspective: The West Since 1945

The Cold War Era
Areas of Early Cold War Conflict
NATO and the Warsaw Pact
Crises of 1956
The Cold War Intensified
Détente and Afterward
Toward Western European Unification
European Society in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century and
Beyond
Toward a Welfare State Society
Resistance to the Expansion of the Welfare State
The Movement of Peoples
The New Muslim Population
New Patterns in the Work and Expectations of Women
American Domestic Scene Since World War II
Truman and Eisenhower Administrations
Civil Rights
New Social Programs
The Vietnam War, Domestic Turmoil, and Watergate
The Triumph of Political Conservatism
The Soviet Union to 1989
The Khrushchev and Brezhnev Years
Communism and Solidarity in Poland
Gorbachev Attempts to Redirect the Soviet Union
1989: Year of Revolutions in Eastern Europe
Solidarity Reemerges in Poland
Hungary Moves toward Independence
The Breach of the Berlin Wall and German Reunification
The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia
Violent Revolution in Romania
A Closer Look: Collapse of the Berlin Wall
The Collapse of the Soviet Union
Renunciation of Communist Political Monopoly
The August 1991 Coup and the Yeltsin Years
Putin Tests Russian Power
The Collapse of Yugoslavia and Civil War
Challenges to the Atlantic Alliance
Challenges on the International Security Front
Strains over Environmental Policy
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
CHAPTER 32
East Asia: The Recent Decades

Global Perspective: Modern East Asia

Japan
The Occupation
Parliamentary Politics
Economic Growth
Society and Culture
Japan and the World
China
Soviet Period (1950–1960)
A Closer Look: Trial of a Landlord
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1965–1976)
Politics and Society after Mao
China’s Economy after Mao
Foreign Relations after Mao
Taiwan
Korea
Korea as a Japanese Colony
North and South
The Korean War and U.S. Involvement
South Korea: Growth and Democracy
North Korea
Vietnam
The Colonial Backdrop
The Anticolonial War
The Vietnam War
War with Cambodia
Recent Developments
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

CHAPTER 33
Postcolonialism and Beyond: Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the
Middle East
Beyond the Postcolonial Era
Global Perspective: Democratization, Globalization, and
Terrorism
Latin America Since 1945
Revolutionary Challenges: Cuba, Chile, and Nicaragua
Pursuit of Stability under the Threat of Revolution: Argentina, Brazil,
and Mexico
Continuity and Change in Recent Latin American History
A Closer Look: Mexican Farmers Protest the North American
Free Trade Agreement
Postcolonial Africa
The Transition to Independence
Striving for Stability and Civil Society: Nigeria, South Africa, Congo,
and Rwanda
The African Future
Trade and Development
The Islamic Heartlands from North Africa to Indonesia
Turkey
Iran and Its Islamic Revolution
Afghanistan and the Former Soviet Republics
India
Pakistan and Bangladesh
Indonesia and Malaysia
The Postcolonial Middle East
Postcolonial Arab Nations in the Middle East
The Arab-Israeli Conflict
Middle Eastern Oil
The Rise of Militant Islamism
The Modern Middle Eastern Background
Iraq: Intervention and Occupation
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions

SUGGESTED READINGS
CREDITS

INDEX
Documents

Chapter 1
Hymn to Indra

Chapter 2
The “Turning of the Wheel of the Dharma”: Basic Teachings of the
Buddha
The Atomists’ Account of the Origin of the World Order

Chapter 3
The Delian League Becomes the Athenian Empire

Chapter 4
Tansar’s Defense of His King, Ardashir I

Chapter 5
Origins of the Gikuyu

Chapter 6
The Ruin of the Roman Family Farm and the Gracchan Reforms

Chapter 7
Chinese Women among the Nomads

Chapter 8
Su Dungpo Imagined on a Wet Day, Wearing a Rain Hat and Clogs
Chapter 9
Darkness and the Cave of High Heaven

Chapter 10
Al-Mawardi and al-Hilli

Chapter 11
The Nicene Creed

Chapter 12
How the Hindus Differ from the Muslims

Chapter 13
Nezahualcoyotl of Texcoco Sings of the Giver of Life

Chapter 14
Muslim Reform in Songhai

Chapter 15
Pico della Mirandola States the Renaissance Image of Man

Chapter 16
Ignatius of Loyola’s “Rules for Thinking with the Church”

Chapter 17
A Slave Trader Describes the Atlantic Passage

Chapter 18
The Thin Horse Market
Chapter 19
Priscilla Wakefield Demands More Occupations Be Opened to Women

Chapter 20
The Distinctiveness of Ottoman Identity and Culture

Chapter 21
The Encyclopedia Praises Mechanical Arts and Artisans

Chapter 22
Olympe de Gouges Issues a Declaration of the Rights of Woman
A Free Person of Color from Saint Domingue Demands Recognition
of His Status

Chapter 23
Parnell Calls for Home Rule for Ireland

Chapter 24
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Describe the Class Struggle

Chapter 25
A Peruvian Commentator Decries Racial Thinking

Chapter 26
Oginga Odinga on European Influences

Chapter 27
On Wives and Concubines
Chapter 28
Social Darwinism and Imperialism

Chapter 29
Stalin Calls for the Liquidation of the Kulaks as a Class
Mussolini Heaps Contempt on Political Liberalism

Chapter 30
Hitler States His Plans for Russia

Chapter 31
The United States National Security Council Proposes to Contain the
Soviet Union
Vladimir Putin Outlines a Vision of the Russian Future

Chapter 32
Two Views of the “Symbol Emperor”

Chapter 33
Lourdes Arizpe Discusses the Silence of Peasant Women
Maps

1–1 The Ancient Near East

1–2 The Near East and Greece, ca. 1400 B.C.E.

1–3 Indus and Vedic Aryan Cultures

1–4 Early Iron Age Territorial States in China During the Sixth
Century B.C.E.

1–5 Civilization in Mesoamerica and the Andes

2–1 Ancient Palestine

2–2 Centers of Greek Philosophy

3–1 The Aegean Area in the Bronze Age

3–2 Phoenician and Greek Colonization

3–3 Classical Greece

3–4 Alexander’s Campaigns

4–1 The Achaemenid Persian Empire

4–2 International Trade Routes in Gupta and Sasanid Times

4–3 Southwest Asia and India ca. 250 B.C.E.

4–4 Spread of Buddhist Traditions Throughout Southeast Asia

5–1 Africa: Physical Features and Early Sites

5–2 Ancient African Kingdoms and Empires

5–3 Africa: Early Trade Routes and Early States of the Western and
Central Sudan

6–1 The Western Mediterranean Area During the Rise of Rome

6–2 Roman Dominions of the Late Republic

6–3 Provinces of the Roman Empire to 117 C.E.

6–4 The Empire’s Neighbors

6–5 The Spread of Christianity

7–1 The Unification of China by the Qin State

7–2 The Han Empire 206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.

7–3 The Spread of Buddhism and Chinese States in 500 C.E.

8–1 The Tang Empire at Its Peak During the Eighth Century

8–2 Chang’an

8–3 The Northern Song and Liao Empires and the Southern Song and
Jin Empires

8–4 The Mongol Empire in the Late Thirteenth Century

9–1 Yamato Japan and Korea (ca. 500 C.E.)

9–2 Medieval Japan and the Mongol Invasions

10–1 Muslim Conquests and Domination of the Mediterranean to

about 750 C.E.

10–2 The Abbasid Empire, ca. 900 C.E.

11–1 Barbarian Migrations into the West in the Fourth and Fifth
Centuries

11–2 The Byzantine Empire at the Death of Justinian

11–3 The Empire of Charlemagne to 814

11–4 Viking, Muslim, and Magyar Invasions to the Eleventh Century

12–1 The Islamic World, 1000–ca. 1500

12–2 The Saljuq Empire, ca. 1095

12–3 The Indian Subcontinent, 1000–1500

12–4 The Spread of Islam in Southeast Asia

13–1 Mesoamerica: The Formative and Classic Periods

13–2 The Aztec and Inca Empires on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest

13–3 Pre-Inca Sites Discussed in this Chapter

14–1 Africa ca. 900–1500

14–2 Africa ca. 1500–1700

15–1 The Early Crusades

15–2 Medieval Trade Routes and Regional Products

15–3 Germany and Italy in the Middle Ages

15–4 Spread of the Black Death

16–1 European Voyages of Discovery and the Colonial Claims of

Spain and Portugal in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

16–2 Martin Behaim’s “Globe Apple”

16–3 The Empire of Charles V

16–4 Religious Division ca. 1600

17–1 The Americas, ca. 1750

17–2 Biological Exchanges

17–3 The Slave Trade, 1400–1860

17–4 Origins of African Slaves Sent to the Americas

18–1 The Ming Empire and the Voyages of Zheng He

18–2 Tokugawa Japan and the Korean Peninsula

18–3 Early Korean States

18–4 Vietnam and Neighboring Southeast Asia

19–1 The Austrian Habsburg Empire, 1521–1772

19–2 Europe in 1714

19–3 The Colonial Arena

19–4 The Industrial Revolution in Britain

20–1 The Islamic Heartlands, ca. 1700

20–2 The Ottoman Empire at Its Zenith

20–3 European Commercial Penetration of Southeast Asia

21–1 Subscriptions to Diderot’s Encyclopedia throughout Europe

21–2 Expansion of Russia, 1689–1796

22–1 Napoleonic Europe in Late 1812

22–2 Europe 1815, after the Congress of Vienna

22–3 The Haitian Revolution

22–4 The Independence Campaigns of San Martín and Bolívar

23–1 Languages of Europe

23–2 Centers of Revolution in 1848–1849

23–3 The United States, 1776–1850

23–4 Nationalities within the Habsburg Empire

24–1 Patterns of Global Migration, 1840–1900

25–1 Latin America in 1830

26–1 West Asia, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean, ca. 1850

26–2 Islamic Reform Movements in Africa and Arabia in the

Nineteenth Century

26–3 Partition of Africa, 1880–1914

27–1 Formation of the Japanese Empire

27–2 The Taiping, Nian, and Muslim Rebellions

27–3 The Northern Expeditions of the Guomindang

27–4 The Long March, 1934–1935

28–1 Asia, 1880–1914

28–2 The Schlieffen Plan of 1905

28–3 World War I in Europe

28–4 World War I Peace Settlement in Europe and the Middle East

30–1 Partitions of Czechoslovakia and Poland, 1938–1939

30–2 Axis Europe 1941

30–3 The Holocaust

30–4 The War in the Pacific

30–5 Defeat of the Axis in Europe, 1942–1945

31–1 The Growth of the European Union

31–2 Displaced Peoples in East and Central Europe, 1945–1950

31–3 The Commonwealth of Independent States

31–4 Ethnic Composition in the Former Yugoslavia

32–1 Contemporary East Asia

32–2 The Korean War, 1950–1953

32–3 Vietnam and Its Southeast Asian Neighbors

33–1 Decolonizaton Since World War II

33–2 Distribution of HIV Infection Rates in Africa

33–3 The Modern Middle East and the Distribution of Major Religious
Communities
Preface

The global financial crisis that commenced in 2008 has painfully sparked
for this generation a new sense of the connectedness of international
economic events and financial forces. The banking crisis in the United
States, the burgeoning Chinese economy, the debt upheaval within the
European Union, the rise and fall of commodity prices, and the
entanglement of the flows of capital from one part of the developed world
to another have painfully demonstrated how events and decisions in one
nation or upon one continent can impact millions of people living far from
the centers of those decisions. The economic crisis has followed fast upon a
decade during which the military forces of the United States and Europe
have invaded nations of the Middle East in response to terrorist attacks.
Environmental crises, whether in the form of oceanic oil spills or volcanic
eruption, can interfere with trade, commerce, and tourism, as can changes in
the price and availability of oil on which the United States, Europe, Japan,
China, and India—to mention only the largest industrial economies—are
dependent from sources outside their borders and regions.
Economic and military interaction and environmental crises upon the
global scene are the most dramatic and disruptive signs of the impact of
globalization. However, more quietly but not less dramatically, for the past
two decades, the steady growth of the Internet has created in a less dramatic
and far more peaceful fashion a sense of world wide cultural and
commercial interconnectedness. Whereas once undergraduates in American
universities might have gone to a larger newspaper room in their college or
university library to read newspapers from other countries several days or
even weeks after they had been published, today’s students can follow the
press of countries around the world from smart phones, computers, and
other electronic reading devices. The Internet permits students to view
museum collections located on every continent. Books of great rarity and
value once reserved for students in a few elite universities are now available
electronically in all parts of the world. United States colleges and
universities to an extent previously unimagined are establishing branches
far beyond North America. Whereas American students as recently as the
1970s found almost half the world closed to travel, now they can travel
globally with almost no barriers.
Today, the interconnectedness of cultures and peoples as well as of
economies is inescapable. We certainly dwell in an era in which no active
citizen or educated person can escape the necessity of understanding the
past in global terms. Both the historical experience and the moral, political,
and religious values of the different world civilizations now demand our
attention and our understanding. It is our hope that in these new,
challenging times The Heritage of World Civilizations will provide one path
to such knowledge.

THE ROOTS OF GLOBALIZATION

Globalization—that is, the increasing interaction and interdependency of

the various regions of the world—has resulted from two major historical
developments: the closing of the European era of world history and the rise
of technology.
From approximately 1500 C.E. to the middle of the twentieth century,
Europeans, later followed by the United States, gradually came to dominate
the world through colonization (most particularly in North and South
America), state-building, economic productivity, and military power. That
era of European dominance ended during the third quarter of the twentieth
century after Europe had brought unprecedented destruction on itself during
World War II, as the United States eventually confronted limitations in its
post-war influence, and as the nations of Asia, the Near East, and Africa
achieved new positions on the world scene. Their new political
independence, their control over strategic natural resources, the expansion
of their economies (especially those of the nations of the Pacific rim of
Asia), and in some cases their access to nuclear weapons have changed the
shape of world affairs.
Further changing the world political and social situation has been a
growing discrepancy in the economic development of different regions that
is often portrayed as a problem between the northern and southern
hemispheres. Beyond the emergence of this economic disparity has been the
remarkable advance of radical political Islamism during the past forty years.
In the midst of all these developments, as a result of the political collapse of
the former Soviet Union, the United States has emerged as the single major
world power, though its position has been increasingly challenged by
China, whose economic might now rivals that of the United States and
whose military has embarked on a rapid buildup of its forces in Asia.
The second historical development that continues to fuel the pace of
globalization is the advance of technology, associated most importantly
with transportation, military weapons, and electronic communication. The
advances in transportation over the past two centuries, including ships,
railways, and airplanes, have made more parts of the world and its
resources accessible to more people in ever shorter spans of time. Over the
past century and a half, military weapons of increasingly destructive power
enabled Europeans and then later the United States to dominate other
regions of the globe. Now, the spread of these weapons means that any
nation with sophisticated military technology can threaten other nations, no
matter how far away. Furthermore, technologies that originated in the West
from the early twentieth century to the present have been turned against the
West. More recently, as already noted, the electronic revolution associated
with computer technology and most particularly the Internet has sparked
unprecedented speed and complexity in global communications. It is
astonishing to recall that personal computers have been generally available
for less than thirty-five years and the rapid personal communication
associated with them has existed for less than twenty years.
Why not, then, focus only on new factors in the modern world, such as
the impact of technology and the end of the European era? To do so would
ignore the very deep roots that these developments have in the past. More
important, the events of recent years demonstrate, as the authors of this
book have long contended, that the major religious traditions continue to
shape and drive the modern world as well as the world of the past. The
religious traditions link today’s civilizations to their most ancient roots. We
believe this emphasis on the great religious traditions recognizes not only a
factor that has shaped the past, but one that is profoundly and dynamically
alive in our world today.
STRENGTHS OF THE TEXT

BALANCED AND FLEXIBLE PRESENTATION In this edition, as in past editions,

we have sought to present world history fairly, accurately, and in a way that
does justice to its great variety. History has many facets, no one of which
can account for the others. Any attempt to tell the story of civilization from
a single perspective, no matter how timely, is bound to neglect or suppress
some important part of that story.
Historians have recently brought a vast array of new tools and concepts
to bear on the study of history. Our coverage introduces students to various
aspects of social and intellectual history as well as to the more traditional
political, diplomatic, and military coverage. We firmly believe that only
through an appreciation of all pathways to understanding of the past can the
real heritage of world civilizations be claimed.
The Heritage of World Civilizations, Brief Fifth Edition, is designed to
accommodate a variety of approaches to a course in world history, allowing
teachers to stress what is most important to them. Some teachers will ask
students to read all the chapters. Others will select among them to reinforce
assigned readings and lectures.

CLARITY AND ACCESSIBILITY The Heritage of World Civilizations, Brief

Fifth Edition, provides a powerful but concise narrative enriched by
abundant illustrations, focused study tools, and critical-thinking questions
that make the past come alive. Good narrative history requires clear,
vigorous prose. Our goal has been to make our presentation fully accessible
to students without compromising on vocabulary or conceptual level. We
hope this effort will benefit both teachers and students.

CURRENT SCHOLARSHIP As in previous editions, changes in this edition

reflect our determination to incorporate the most recent developments in
historical scholarship and the expanding concerns of professional historians.
To better highlight the dynamic processes of world history, significant new
and expanded coverage of the Byzantine Empire and the early civilizations
of the Americas—particularly the civilizations of Mesoamerica and the
Andes during the pre-colonial period—has been added to the Brief Fifth
Edition.

CONTENT AND ORGANIZATION The many changes in content and

organization in this edition of The Heritage of World Civilizations reflect
our ongoing effort to present a truly global survey of world civilizations that
at the same time gives a rich picture of the history of individual regions:
Global Approach. The Brief Fifth Edition continues to explicitly
highlight the connections and parallels in global history among
regions of the world. Each chapter begins with a “Global
Perspective” essay that succinctly places in a wider, global
framework the regions and topics that are to be discussed with an
emphasis on the connections, parallels, and comparisons between
and among different cultures.
Improved Organization. Some chapters have been reorganized to
improve narrative flow and to highlight important topics more
clearly. At the suggestion of reviewers, Chapter 4 (Iran, India, and
Inner Asia to 200 C.E.) and Chapter 10 (Iran and South Asia, 200
C.E.–1000 C.E.) in the Brief Fourth Edition have been consolidated
into a single chapter in the Brief Fifth Edition: Chapter 4 (West
Asia, Inner Asia, and South Asia to 1000 C.E.). Coverage of early
Korean and Vietnamese history has been moved from Chapter 9 to
Chapter 18, leaving Chapter 9 solely devoted to early Japan.
Coverage of Korea and Vietnam has been consolidated in Chapter
18 with a far greater sense of continuity and a more effective and
concise presentation.
New Design and Photo Program. The entire text has been set in a
crisp and engaging new design. Each of the 33 chapters includes
photos never before included in previous editions of the text.

PEDAGOGICAL FEATURES

This edition retains many of the pedagogical features of previous editions,

while providing increased assessment opportunities.
Global Perspective Essays introduce the key problems of each
chapter and place them in a global and historical context. Focus
Questions prompt students to consider the causes, connections, and
consequences of the topics they will encounter in the main narrative.
A Closer Look—Each chapter includes this new feature, which
provides in-depth commentary on visual sources in world
civilization. This feature engages student visually with the textbook
and encourages them to look at visuals as documents, not just as
pictures. Each feature concludes with questions that encourage
students to focus on important issues raised by the feature.
Religions of the World essays examine the historical impact of each
of the world’s great religious traditions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam,
Buddhism, and Hinduism.
Focus Questions, organized by key subtopics, open each chapter and
help students think about important topics for study and review. The
focus questions are repeated at the appropriate sections in each
chapter.
Overview Tables summarize key concepts and reinforce material
presented in the main narrative.
Chronologies within each chapter help students situate key events in
time.
Quick Reviews, found at key places in the margins of each chapter,
encourage students to review important concepts.
Documents, including selections from sacred books, poems,
philosophical tracts, political manifestos, letters, and travel
accounts, expose students to the raw material of history, providing
an intimate contact with peoples of the past. Questions
accompanying the source documents direct students toward
important, thought-provoking issues and help them relate the
documents to the main narrative.
Visual Analysis Questions ask students to consider photographs, fine
art, and other illustrations as visual evidence.
Key Terms are boldfaced in the text and are defined in the margin of
the page.
Interactive Maps, called “Map Explorations,” prompt students to
explore the relationship between geography and history in a
 dynamic fashion. There is at least one interactive map per chapter
and all interactive maps can be found at www.myhistorylab.com
Chapter Summaries conclude each chapter, organized by subtopic,
and recap important points.
Chapter Review Questions, organized by key subtopics, help
students interpret the broad themes of each chapter.

NEW TO THIS EDITION

There is a new feature in the Brief Fifth Edition:

A Closer Look—Each chapter includes a new feature called “A Closer
Look,” which provides in-depth commentary on visual sources in world
history. This feature teaches students to view photos, paintings, and other
illustrations as historical documents. Each feature concludes with questions
that encourage students to focus on important issues raised within the
feature. See the Contents on page vi for the title of each of these new
features.
Here are just some of the changes that can be found in the Brief Fifth
Edition of The Heritage of World Civilizations:

Chapter 3, Greek and Hellenistic Civilization:

A new document has been added: “The Delian League Becomes the
Athenian Empire.”

Chapter 4, West Asia, Inner Asia, and South Asia to 1000 C.E.:

At the suggestion of reviewers, Chapter 4 (Iran, India, and Inner Asia

to 200 C.E.) and Chapter 10 (Iran and South Asia, 200 C.E.–1000
C.E.) in the Brief Fourth Edition have been consolidated into a single
chapter in the Brief Fifth Edition: Chapter 4 (West Asia, Inner Asia,
and South Asia to 1000 C.E.).
The Global Perspective feature is new.
There is a new document, an excerpted letter from Tansar about the
Shahanshah, titled “Tansar’s Defense of His King, Ardashir I.”
 Consolidation of the two chapters involved considerable rearranging,
with coverage of Iran and Central Asia located in the first section of
the consolidated chapter and coverage of India in the second section.
These sections have been renamed as follows: “West and Inner
Asia” and “South Asia.”
Coverage of caste has been improved.

Chapter 5, Africa: Early History to 1000 C.E.:

Coverage of historians’ and anthropologists’ methods and crossovers

has been expanded.

Chapter 6, Republican and Imperial Rome:

A new document has been added on the ruin of the Roman family
farm and the Gracchan reforms.

Chapter 8, Imperial China, 589–1368:

Coverage of Empress Wu has been updated to reflect new

biographical scholarship.

Chapter 9, Early Japanese History:

Global Perspective feature has been rewritten.

Coverage of early Korean and Vietnamese history has been moved
from this chapter to Chapter 18, leaving Chapter 9 solely devoted to
early Japan.
Japanese Origins section and Jōmon subsection have been updated.
Yayoi section has been updated with a discussion of new DNA
findings.
There is new coverage of Shōtoku and Kamatari in the section on
Nara and Heian Japan.

[Note: Brief Fourth Edition Chapters 4 and 10 have been combined in the
Brief Fifth Edition, causing all chapters that follow—Chapters 11–34 in the
Brief Fourth Edition—to be renumbered in the Brief Fifth Edition.]
Chapter 11, The Byzantine Empire and Western Europe to 1000:

Coverage of Byzantium has been greatly expanded, with new

sections on Byzantine imperial power in the 10th century,
Byzantium’s impact on Islam, and the city of Constantinople.
A new document has been added in response to reviewer
suggestions: The Nicene Creed

Chapter 13, Ancient Civilizations of the Americas:

Coverage of the Paleolithic and Archaic periods in the Americas has

been greatly expanded.
There is a more detailed discussion on the influence of the European
perspective on how the history of the Americas in the pre-
Columbian period has been written.
Coverage of Mesoamerica has been expanded significantly, including
extensive new discussions of Mesoamerican ballgames, Olmec
culture and civilization, Teotihuacán, and the Maya.
Coverage of the Aztecs, the Moche, and the Inca Empire has been
greatly expanded.

Chapter 17, Conquest and Exploitation: The Development of the

Transatlantic Economy:

There is new coverage of the Indian Wars in the 17th century North
American British colonies.
There is new coverage of the alleged slave conspiracy in 1741 in
New York City.

Chapter 18, East Asia in the Late Traditional Era:

Coverage of Korea and Vietnam has been consolidated in Chapter 18

with a far greater sense of continuity and a more effective and
concise presentation.
The introduction to the Vietnam section contains a new overview of
Southeast Asia.
Coverage of the Choson dynasty in the Korean section has been
revised and greatly improved.
Chapter 19, State Building and Society in Early Modern Europe:

New coverage has been added on the Revolution of 1688. Chapter

21, The Age of European Enlightenment:
A new document has been added emphasizing the Enlightenment
interest in technology and the mechanical arts.
Coverage of technology has been emphasized to a greater extent
throughout the chapter.
Brief new commentary has been introduced on why the
Enlightenment is unpopular in some Islamic circles.

Chapter 22, Revolutions in the Transatlantic World:

A substantial new section has been added on the Haitian Revolution.

Two new documents have been added: “Olympe de Gouges Issues a
Declaration of the Rights of Woman” and “A Free Person of Color
from St. Domingue Demands Recognition of His Status.”

Chapter 23, Political Consolidation in Nineteenth-Century Europe and

North America:

A new document has been added: “Parnell Calls for Home Rule for
Ireland.”
Coverage of race and Social Darwinism has been expanded.

Chapter 24, Northern Transatlantic Economy and Society, 1815–1914:

A new document from “The Communist Manifesto” has been added.

There is new coverage of child labor.

Chapter 25, Latin America from Independence to the 1940s:

A new document has been added: “A Peruvian Commentator Decries

Racial Thinking.”

Chapter 26, India, the Islamic Heartlands, and Africa, 1800–1945:

Chapter updated to include coverage of the British Zulu war.

Chapter 28, Imperialism and World War I:

A new document has been added: “Social Darwinism and

Imperialism.”

Chapter 29, Depression, European Dictators, and the American New

Deal:

The following new documents have been added: “Stalin Calls for the
Liquidation of the Kulaks as a Class” and “Mussolini Heaps
Contempt on Political Liberalism.”
There is new coverage of forced starvation in the Ukraine by Stalin.
New coverage has been added on FDR’s failure to support anti-
lynching legislation.

Chapter 30, World War II:

A new document has been added: “Hitler States His Plans for
Russia.”

Chapter 31, The West Since World War II:

Two new documents have been introduced: “The United States

National Security Council Proposes to Contain the Soviet Union,”
and “Vladimir Putin Outlines a Vision of the Russian Future.”
The section on recent events in Russia has been significantly
updated.

Chapter 32, East Asia: The Recent Decades:

Coverage of China and Japan has been updated to reflect recent

events.

Chapter 33, Postcolonialism and Beyond: Latin America, Africa, Asia,

and the Middle East:

Coverage of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East has
been updated to reflect recent events.
A NOTE ON DATES AND TRANSLITERATION

We have used B.C.E. (before the common era) and C.E. (common era) instead
of B.C. (before Christ) and A.D. (anno domini, the year of our Lord) to
designate dates.
Until recently, most scholarship on China used the Wade-Giles system of
romanization for Chinese names and terms. China today, however, uses
another system known as pinyin. Virtually all Western newspapers have
adopted it. In order that students may move easily from the present text to
the existing body of advanced scholarship on Chinese history, we now use
the pinyin system throughout the text.
Also, we have followed the currently accepted English transliterations of
Arabic words. For example, today Koran is being replaced by the more
accurate Qur’an; similarly Muhammad is preferable to Mohammed and
Muslim to Moslem. We have not tried to distinguish the letters ’ayn and
hamza; both are rendered by a simple apostrophe (’) as in Shi’ite. With
regard to Sanskritic transliteration, we have not distinguished linguals and
dentals, and both palatal and lingual s are rendered sh, as in Shiva and
Upanishad.

SUPPLEMENTS FOR QUALIFIED COLLEGE ADOPTERS

MyHistoryLab (www.myhistorylab.com) Save Time. Improve Results.

MyHistoryLab is a dynamic website that provides a wealth of resources
geared to meet the diverse teaching and learning needs of today’s
instructors and students. MyHistoryLab’s many accessible tools will
encourage students to read their text and help them improve their grade in
their course.

Instructor’s Resource Manual Available at the Instructor’s Resource

Center, at www.pearsonhighered.com/irc, the Instructor’s Resource
Manual includes chapter outlines, overviews, key concepts, discussion
questions, and suggestions for useful audiovisual resources.
Test Bank Available at the Instructor’s Resource Center, at
www.pearsonhighered.com/irc, the Test Bank includes approximately
1,500 test items (essay, multiple choice, true/false, and matching).

Instructor’s Resource Center (www.pearsonhighered.com/irc) Text-

specific materials, such as the Instructor’s Resource Manual, Test Bank,
map files, and PowerPoint™ presentations, are available for downloading by
adopters.

MyTest Available at www.pearsonmytest.com, MyTest is a powerful

assessment generation program that helps instructors easily create and print
quizzes and exams. Questions and tests can be authored online, allowing
instructors ultimate flexibility and the ability to efficiently manage
assessment anytime, anywhere! Instructors can easily access existing
questions and edit, create, and store using simple drag-and-drop and Word-
like controls.

SUPPLEMENTS FOR STUDENTS

MyHistoryLab (www.myhistorylab.com) Save Time. Improve Results.

MyHistoryLab is a dynamic website that provides a wealth of resources
geared to meet the diverse teaching and learning needs of today’s
instructors and students. MyHistoryLab’s many accessible tools will
encourage you to read your text and help you improve your grade in your
course.

CourseSmart www.coursemart.com CourseSmart is an exciting new

choice for students looking to save money. As an alternative to purchasing
the printed textbook, students can purchase an electronic version of the
same content. With a CourseSmart eTextbook, students can search the text,
make notes online, print out reading assignments that incorporate lecture
notes, and bookmark important passages for later review. For more
information, or to purchase access to the CourseSmart eTextbook, visit
www.coursesmart.com

Books à la Carte Books à la Carte editions feature the exact same content
as the traditional printed text in a convenient, three-hole-punched, loose-
leaf version at a discounted price—allowing you to take only what you need
to class. You’ll save 35% over the net price of the traditional book.

Primary Source: Documents in Global History DVD is an immense

collection of textual and visual documents in world history and an
indispensable tool for working with sources. Extensively developed with
the guidance of historians and teachers, the DVD includes over 800 sources
in world history—from cave art to satellite images of the Earth from space.
More sources from Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia have been
added to the latest version of the DVD. All sources are accompanied by
head notes, focus questions, and are searchable by topic, region, or time
period. The DVD can be bundled with The Heritage of World Civilizations,
Brief Fifth Edition, at no charge. Please contact your Pearson representative
for ordering information. (ISBN 0-13-178938-4)

Titles from the renowned Penguin Classics series can be bundled

with The Heritage of World Civilizations, Brief Fifth Edition, for a nominal
charge. Please contact your Pearson sales representative for details.

Library of World Biography Series

www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/series/Library-of-World-
Biography/10492.page Each interpretive biography in the Library of World
Biography Series focuses on a person whose actions and ideas either
significantly influenced world events or whose life reflects important
themes and developments in global history. Titles from the series can be
bundled with The Heritage of World Civilizations, Brief Fifth Edition, for a
nominal charge. Please contact your Pearson sales representative for details.

The Prentice Hall Atlas of World History, Second Edition Produced

in collaboration with Dorling Kindersley, the leader in cartographic
publishing, the updated second edition of The Prentice Hall Atlas of World
History applies the most innovative cartographic techniques to present
world history in all of its complexity and diversity. Copies of the atlas can
be bundled with The Heritage of World Civilizations, Brief Fifth Edition,
for a nominal charge. Contact your Pearson sales representative for details.
(ISBN 0-13-604247-3)

Longman Atlas of World History This atlas features carefully selected

historical maps that provide comprehensive coverage of the major historical
periods. Contact your Pearson sales representative for details. (ISBN 0-321-
20998-2)

A Guide to Your History Course: What Every Student Needs to Know

Written by Vincent A. Clark, this concise, spiral-bound guidebook orients
students to the issues and problems they will face in the history classroom.
Available at a discount when bundled with The Heritage of World
Civilizations, Brief Fifth Edition. (ISBN 0-13-185087-3)

A Short Guide to Writing about History, Seventh Edition Written by

Richard Marius, late of Harvard University, and Melvin E. Page, Eastern
Tennessee State University, this engaging and practical text helps students
get beyond merely compiling dates and facts. Covering both brief essays
and the documented resource paper, the text explores the writing and
researching processes, identifies different modes of historical writing,
including argument, and concludes with guidelines for improving style.
(ISBN 0-13-205-67370-8)
FOR INSTRUCTORS AND STUDENTS

Save TIME. Improve Results.

MyHistoryLab is a dynamic website that provides a wealth of resources
geared to meet the diverse teaching and learning needs of today’s
instructors and students. MyHistoryLab’s many accessible tools will
encourage students to read their text and help them improve their grade in
their course.

Features of MyHistoryLab

Pearson eText—An e-book version of The Heritage of World

Civilizations is included in MyHistoryLab. Just like the printed text,
students can highlight and add their own notes as they read the book
online.
Audio Files—Full audio of the entire text is included to suit the
varied learning styles of today’s students. In addition there are audio
clips of speeches, readings, and music that provide another engaging
way to experience history.
Pre-tests, Post-tests, and Chapter Reviews—Students can take
quizzes to test their knowledge of chapter content and to review for
exams.
Text and Visual Documents—A wealth of primary source
documents, images, and maps are available organized by chapter in
the text. Primary source documents are also available in the
MyHistoryLibrary and can be searched by author, title, theme, and
topic. Many of these documents include critical thinking questions.
History Bookshelf—Students may read, download, or print 100 of
the most commonly assigned history works like Homer’s The Iliad
or Machiavelli’s The Prince.
 Lecture and Archival Videos—Lectures by leading scholars on
provocative topics give students a critical look at key points in
history. Videos of speeches, news footage, key historical events, and
other archival videos take students back to the moment in history.
MySearchLab—This website provides students access to a number
of reliable sources for online research, as well as clear guidance on
the research and writing process.
Gradebook—Students can follow their own progress and instructors
can monitor the work of the entire class. Automated grading of
quizzes and assignments helps both instructors and students save
time and monitor their results throughout the course.

NEW In-text References to MyHistoryLab Resources

Read, View, See, Watch, Hear, and Study and Review Icons integrated in
the text connect resources on MyHistoryLab to specific topics within the
chapters. The icons are not exhaustive; many more resources are available
than those highlighted in the book, but the icons draw attention to some of
the most high-interest resources available on MyHistoryLab.

Read the Document Primary and secondary source documents on

compelling topics such as Excerpts from Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali,
1235 and Tang Daizong on the Art of Government enhance topics discussed
in each chapter.

View the Image Photographs, fine art, and artifacts provide students
with a visual perspective on topics within the chapters, underscoring the
role of visuals in understanding the past.

See the Map Atlas and interactive maps present both a broad overview
and a detailed examination of historical developments.

Watch the Video Video lectures highlight topics ranging from

Agriculture in Africa, to Witch Hunts, to the Columbian Exchange,
engaging students on both historical and contemporary topics. Also
included are archival videos, such as The Silk Road: 5,000 Miles and 1,500
Years of Cultural Interchange and Teotihuacán Ruins in Mexico.

Hear the Audio For each chapter there are audio files of the text,
speeches, readings, and other audio material that will enrich students’
experience of social and cultural history.

Study and Review MyHistoryLab provides a wealth of practice

quizzes, tests, flashcards, and other study resources available to students
online.

NEW MyHistoryLab Connections

At the end of each chapter, a new section, MyHistoryLab Connections,
provides a list of the references within the chapter and additional
documents, maps, videos, or additional resources that relate to the content
of the chapter.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful to the many scholars and teachers whose thoughtful and
often detailed comments helped shape this as well as previous editions of
The Heritage of World Civilizations. The advice and guidance provided by
Katie Janssen on the coverage of African history and Thomas M. Ricks on
the coverage of Islam and the Middle East are especially appreciated.
Steven Ozment would like to thank Ammanuel Gashaw Gebeyehu and Ece
G. Turnator for their contributions to Chapter 11. Much of the coverage of
the Byzantine Empire that is new to the Brief Fifth Edition was written by
these two fine scholars.

REVIEWERS OF THIS EDITION

Wayne Ackerson, Salisbury University

Heather Barry, St. Joseph’s College
Eric Martin, Lewis-Clark State College
Gary Paul Ritter, Central Piedmont Community College
Anthony R. Santoro, Christopher Newport University
Gilmar Visoni, Queensborough Community College
Kristen Post Walton, Salisbury University
William Zogby, Mohawk Valley Community College

REVIEWERS OF PREVIOUS EDITIONS

W. Nathan Alexander, Troy University
Jack Martin Balcer, Ohio State University
Charmarie J. Blaisdell, Northeastern University
Deborah Buffton, University of Wisconsin at La Crosse
Loretta Burns, Mankato State University
Gayle K. Brunelle, California State University, Fullerton
Douglas Chambers, University of Southern Mississippi
Chun-shu Chang, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Mark Chavalas, University of Wisconsin at La Crosse
Anthony Cheeseboro, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville
William J. Courteney, University of Wisconsin
Samuel Willard Crompton, Holyoke Community College
James B. Crowley, Yale University
Bruce Cummings, The University of Chicago
Stephen F. Dale, Ohio State University, Columbus
Clarence B. Davis, Marian College
Raymond Van Dam, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Bill Donovan, Loyola University of Maryland
Wayne Farris, University of Tennessee
Anita Fisher, Clark College
Suzanne Gay, Oberlin College
Katrina A. Glass, United States Military Academy
Robert Gerlich, Loyola University
Samuel Robert Goldberger, Capital Community-Technical College
Andrew Gow, University of Alberta
Katheryn L. Green, University of Wisconsin, Madison
David Griffiths, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Louis Haas, Duquesne University
Joseph T. Hapak, Moraine Valley Community College
Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Harvard University
David Kieft, University of Minnesota
Don Knox, Wayland Baptist University
Frederick Krome, Northern Kentucky University
Lisa M. Lane, Mira Costa College
Richard Law, Washington State University
David Lelyveld, Columbia University
Jan Lewis, Rutgers University, Newark
James C. Livingston, College of William and Mary
Garth Montgomery, Radford University
Richard L. Moore Jr., St. Augustine’s College
Beth Nachison, Southern Connecticut State University
Robin S. Oggins, Binghamton University
George S. Pabis, Georgia Perimeter College
Louis A. Perez Jr., University of South Florida
Jonathan Perry, University of South Florida
Cora Ann Presley, Tulane University
Norman Raiford, Greenville Technical College
Norman Ravitch, University of California, Riverside
Thomas M. Ricks, University of Pennsylvania
Philip F. Riley, James Madison University
Thomas Robisheaux, Duke University
William S. Rodner, Tidewater Community College
David Ruffley, United States Air Force Academy
Dankwart A. Rustow, The City University of New York
James J. Sack, University of Illinois at Chicago
William Schell, Murray State University
Marvin Slind, Washington State University
Daniel Scavone, University of Southern Indiana
Linda B. Scherr, Mercer County Community College
Roger Schlesinger, Washington State University
Charles C. Stewart, University of Illinois
Nancy L. Stockdale, University of Central Florida
Carson Tavenner, United States Air Force Academy
Truong-bu Lam, University of Hawaii
Deborah Vess, Georgia College and State University
Harry L. Watson, Loyola College of Maryland
William B. Whisenhunt, College of DuPage
Paul Varley, Columbia University

Finally, we would like to thank the dedicated people who helped produce
this revision: our editor, Jeff Lasser; editorial project manager Rob
DeGeorge; Maria Lange, who created the handsome new design for this
edition; Cheryl Keenan, our project manager; Christina Amato, our
operations specialist, and Linda Ruggeri from Prepare, Inc, our production
editor. We also owe a special thanks to Katie Janssen for her invaluable help
in preparing this brief edition.

A.M.C

W.A.G

D.K

S.O

F.M.T
About the Authors

Albert M. Craig is the Harvard-Yenching Research Professor of History

Emeritus at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1959. A graduate
of Northwestern University, he received his Ph.D. at Harvard University. He
has studied at Strasbourg University and at Kyoto, Keio, and Tokyo
universities in Japan. He is the author of Choshu in the Meiji Restoration
(1961), The Heritage of Chinese Civilization, Third Edition (2011), The
Heritage of Japanese Civilization, Second Edition (2011), and, with others,
of East Asia: Tradition and Transformation (1989). He is the editor of
Japan: A Comparative View (1973) and co-editor of Personality in
Japanese History (1970). At present he is engaged in research on the
thought of Fukuzawa Yukichi. For eleven years (1976–1987) he was the
director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute. He has also been a visiting
professor at Kyoto and Tokyo universities. He has received Guggenheim,
Fulbright, and Japan Foundation Fellowships. In 1988 he was awarded the
Order of the Rising Sun by the Japanese government.

William A. Graham is Albertson Professor of Middle Eastern Studies in

the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and O’Brian Professor and Dean of the
Faculty of Divinity at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1973.
He has directed the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and chaired Near
Eastern Languages and Civilizations and the Study of Religion. He received
his B.A. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the A.M.
and Ph.D. from Harvard. He also studied in Göttingen, Tübingen, Lebanon,
and London. He has chaired the (N. American) Council on Graduate
Studies in Religion. In 2000 he received the quinquennial Award for
Excellence in Research in Islamic History and Culture from the Research
Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture of the Organisation of the
Islamic Conference. He has held Guggenheim and von Humboldt research
fellowships and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He is the author of Divine Word and Prophetic Word in Early Islam (1977—
ACLS History of Religions Prize, 1978), Beyond the Written Word: Oral
Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion (1987), Islamic and
Comparative Religious Studies (2010), and, with others, of Three Faiths,
One God (2003).

Donald Kagan is Sterling Professor of History and Classics at Yale

University, where he has taught since 1969. He received the A.B. degree in
history from Brooklyn College, the M.A. in classics from Brown
University, and the Ph.D. in history from Ohio State University. During
1958–1959 he studied at the American School of Classical Studies as a
Fulbright Scholar. He has received three awards for undergraduate teaching
at Cornell and Yale. He is the author of a history of Greek political thought,
The Great Dialogue (1965); a four-volume history of the Peloponnesian
war, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (1969); The Archidamian War
(1974); The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition (1981); The Fall of
the Athenian Empire (1987); a biography of Pericles, Pericles of Athens and
the Birth of Democracy (1991); On the Origins of War (1995); and The
Peloponnesian War (2003). He is coauthor, with Frederick W. Kagan, of
While America Sleeps (2000). With Brian Tierney and L. Pearce Williams,
he is the editor of Great Issues in Western Civilization, a collection of
readings. And with Gregory F. Viggiano, he is the editor of Problems in the
History of Ancient Greece: Sources and Interpretation (2010). He was
awarded the National Humanities Medal for 2002.

Steven Ozment is McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History at

Harvard University. He has taught Western Civilization at Yale, Stanford,
and Harvard. He is the author of nine books. The Age of Reform, 1250–
1550 (1980), won the Schaff Prize, and was nominated for the 1981
National Book Award. Five of his books have been selections of the History
Book Club: Magdalena and Balthasar: An Intimate Portrait of Life in
Sixteenth Century Europe (1986), Three Behaim Boys: Growing Up in
Early Modern Germany (1990), Protestants: The Birth of A Revolution
(1992), The Burgermeister’s Daughter: Scandal in a Sixteenth Century
German Town (1996), and Flesh and Spirit: Private Life in Early Modern
Germany (1999). Recent books include Ancestors: The Loving Family of
Old Europe (2001), A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German
People (2004), and The Serpent and the Lamb: When Lucas Cranach, the
Elder Met Martin Luther (2012).

Frank M. Turner was John Hay Whitney Professor of History at Yale

University and Director of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
at Yale University, where he served as University Provost from 1988 to
1992. He received his B.A. degree from the College of William and Mary
and his Ph.D. from Yale. He received the Yale College Award for
Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching. He directed a National Endowment
for the Humanities Summer Institute. His scholarly research received the
support of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities,
the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson Center. He is the
author of Between Science and Religion: The Reaction to Scientific
Naturalism in Late Victorian England (1974); The Greek Heritage in
Victorian Britain (1981), which received the British Council Prize of the
Conference on British Studies and the Yale Press Governors Award;
Contesting Cultural Authority: Essays in Victorian Intellectual Life (1993);
and John Henry Newman: The Challenge to Evangelical Religion (2002).
He also contributed numerous articles to journals and served on the editorial
advisory boards of The Journal of Modern History, Isis, and Victorian
Studies. He edited The Idea of a University, by John Henry Newman
(1996), Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke (2003),
and Apologia Pro Vita Sua and Six Sermons by John Henry Newman
(2008). He served as a Trustee of Connecticut College from 1996–2006. In
2003, Professor Turner was appointed Director of the Beinecke Rare Book
and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
1
The Birth of Civilization

Hear the Audio for Chapter 1 at www.myhistorylab.com

Mohenjo-Daro Figure. Scholars believe this limestone statue from about

2500 B.C.E. depicts a king or a priest from Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus valley
in present-day Pakistan.
Does this figure seem to emphasize the features of a particular person
or the attributes of a particular role?

EARLY HUMANS AND THEIR CULTURE

WHY IS “culture” considered a defining trait of human beings?

EARLY CIVILIZATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST TO ABOUT 1000

B.C.E.

HOW DID control over water resources influence early Middle Eastern
civilizations?

ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN EMPIRES

HOW DID conquest and trade shape early empires in the Near East?

EARLY INDIAN CIVILIZATION

WHAT INFLUENCES did the first Indus valley civilization have on later
Indian religious and social practices?

EARLY CHINESE CIVILIZATION

WHY DID large territorial states arise in ancient China?

THE RISE OF CIVILIZATION IN THE AMERICAS

HOW DID agriculture influence the development of civilizations in

Mesoamerica?

The earliest humans lived by hunting, fishing, and collecting wild plants.
Around 10,000 years ago, they learned to cultivate plants, herd animals,
and make airtight pottery for storage. These discoveries transformed them
from gatherers to producers, allowing them to grow in number and to lead a
settled life. Beginning about 5,000 years ago, a far more complex way of
life began to appear in some parts of the world. In these places humans
learned how to increase harvests through irrigation and other methods.
Much larger populations came together in towns, cities, and other centers,
where they erected impressive structures and where industry and commerce
flourished. They developed writing, enabling them to keep inventories of
food and other resources. Specialized occupations emerged, complex
religions took form, and social divisions increased. These changes marked
the birth of civilization.

EARLY HUMANS AND THEIR CULTURE

WHY IS “culture” considered a defining trait of human beings?

Humans are cultural beings. Culture is the sum total of the ways of living
built up by a group and passed on from one generation to another. Culture
includes behavior such as courtship or child-rearing practices; material
things such as tools, clothing, and shelter; and ideas, institutions, and
beliefs. Language, apparently a uniquely human trait, lies behind our ability
to create ideas and institutions and to transmit culture from one generation
to another. Our flexible and dexterous hands enable us to hold and make
tools and so to create the material artifacts of culture. Because culture is
learned and not inherited, it permits rapid adaptation to changing
conditions, making possible the spread of humanity to almost all lands of
the globe.

culture
The ways of living built up by a group and passed on from one generation
to another.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
CIVILIZATIONS
The way of life of prehistoric cave dwellers differed immensely from that of
humans today. Yet the few millennia in which we have been civilized are
but a tiny fraction of the long span of human existence. Especially during
recent millennia, changes in our culture—our way of life—have far
outpaced changes in our bodies. We retain the emotional makeup and motor
reflexes of prehistoric men and women while living highly organized and
often sedentary lives.
We might best view the early civilizations by asking how they fit into the
sweep of history. One notable feature of human history is the acceleration in
the pace of change. From the time that modern humans first appeared
100,000 years ago until 7000 B.C.E., few changes occurred. Humans
migrated from Africa to other parts of the world and adapted to new climes.
All lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering. The chief advance in
technology during this longest span of human existence was from rough to
smooth stone weapons and tools.
Then, from about 7000 B.C.E., innovations began. Humans learned to till
the soil, domesticate animals, and make pots for the storage of food. A few
millennia later, bronze was discovered and the so-called river valley
civilizations formed along the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates, the Indus, and the
Yellow rivers. Cities rose. Writing was invented. Societies divided into
classes or castes: Most members engaged in farming, a few traded, and
others assumed military, priestly, or governmental roles. As these
civilizations expanded, they became richer, more populous, and more
powerful.
The last millennium B.C.E. witnessed two major developments. One was
the emergence, during 600–300 B.C.E., of the religious and philosophical
revolutions that would indelibly mark their respective civilizations:
monotheistic Judaism from which would later develop the world religions
of Christianity and Islam; Hinduism and Buddhism in southern Asia; the
philosophies of Greece and China. The second development was the rise of
the Iron Age empires—the Roman, the Mauryan along the Ganges, the Han
in China—during the centuries straddling the end of the millennium.
After the fall of these early empires, swift changes occurred. For a
millennium, Europe and Byzantium fell behind, while China and the
Middle East led in technology and the arts of government. But by 1500
Europe had caught up, and after 1700, it led. India had invented Arabic
numerals, and Arab thinkers inspired the Renaissance, but it was Europe
that produced Copernicus and Newton.
 The nineteenth century saw the invention of the steam engine, the
steamship, the locomotive, the telegraph and telephone, and the automobile.
After those inventions came electric lights, the radio, and, in the century
that followed, the airplane.
In the twentieth century, invention and scientific discovery became
institutionalized in university, corporate, and government laboratories. Ever
increasing resources were committed to research. By the beginning of the
twenty-first century man had walked on the moon, deciphered the human
genome, and unlocked the power of the atom. Today, as discoveries occur
ever more rapidly, we cannot imagine the science of a hundred years into
the future.
If this process of accelerating change had its origins in 7000 B.C.E., what
was the original impetus? Does the logic of nature dictate that once
agriculture develops, cities will rise in alluvial valleys favorable to
cultivation? Was it inevitable that the firing of clay to produce pots would
produce metals from metallic oxides and lead to the discovery of smelting?
Did the formation of aristocratic and priestly classes automatically lead to
record keeping and writing? If so, it is not at all surprising that parallel and
independent developments should have occurred in regions as widely
separated as China and the Middle East.
Or was the almost simultaneous rise of the ancient Eurasian civilizations
the result of diffusion? Did migrating peoples carry seeds, new tools, and
metals over long distances? The available evidence provides no definitive
answer. Understanding the origins of the early civilizations and the lives of
the men and women who lived in them from what is left of their material
culture is like reconstructing a dinosaur from a broken tooth and a fragment
of jawbone.

Focus Questions

What were the processes behind the creation of early civilizations?

What are the similarities and differences among the world’s earliest
civilizations?
Why has the pace of change accelerated with time?

THE PALEOLITHIC AGE

Anthropologists designate early human cultures by their tools. The earliest
period—the Paleolithic Age (from the Greek, “old stone”)—dates from the
earliest use of stone tools some 1 million years ago to about 10,000 B.C.E.
During this immensely long period, people were hunters, fishers, and
gatherers, but not producers, of food.

Paleolithic Age
The earliest period when stone tools were used, from about 1,000,000 to
10,000 B.C.E. From the Greek meaning “old stone.”

Paleolithic people learned to make increasingly sophisticated tools and to

control fire, and they acquired language.
Evidence of religious faith and practice, as well as of magic, goes as far
back as archaeology can take us.
Fear or awe, exultation, gratitude, and empathy with the natural world are
reflected in the cave art and in the ritual practices, such as burial, found at
the Paleolithic. The sense that there is more to the world than meets the eye
—in other words, the religious response to the world—seems to be as old as
humankind.
Paleolithic culture could support only a sparsely settled society. If hunters
were too numerous, game would not suffice. Since labor appears to have
been divided according to sex, it was probably women, gathering food, who
discovered how to plant and care for seeds. This knowledge eventually led
to agriculture and the Neolithic Revolution.

Read the Document

From Hunter-gatherers to Food-producers-Overcoming Obstacles at
myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

The Development of Religion at myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

The Toolmaker (3300 B.C.E.) at myhistorylab.com
THE NEOLITHIC AGE
Anthropologists and archaeologists disagree as to why and how it
happened, but around 10,000 years ago some groups in what we now call
the Middle East began to change from a nomadic hunter-gatherer culture to
a more settled agricultural one.
The shift to agriculture coincided with advances in stone tool technology,
so this period is called the Neolithic Age (from the Greek, “new stone”).
Productive animals, such as sheep and goats, were domesticated, as were
food crops including wheat and barley.
Domestication allowed people to settle new areas. The invention of
pottery enabled people to store, transport, and cook foods and liquids.
People made cloth from flax and wool.
Because crops required constant care from planting to harvest, Neolithic
farmers built permanent dwellings. Houses in a Neolithic village were
normally all the same size, suggesting that most Neolithic villagers had
about the same level of wealth and social status. Stones and shells were
traded long distance, but Neolithic villages tended to be self-sufficient.
Two larger Neolithic settlements do not fit this village pattern. Çatal
Hüyük, in a fertile agricultural region of present-day Turkey, was a large
town with astonishingly diversified agriculture, arts, and crafts.
At an oasis near the Dead Sea, the town of Jericho was surrounded by a
massive stone wall with at least one tower against the inner face. No other
Neolithic settlement has been found with fortifications. These two sites
show that the economies and settlement patterns of the Neolithic period
may have been more complicated than scholars previously thought.

See the Map The Beginnings of Food Production at myhistorylab.com

Hear the Audio at myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

Redefining Self—From Tribe to Village to City 1500 B.C.E. at
myhistorylab.com
Çatal Hüyük. The illustration reconstructs part of Çatal Hüyük on the basis
of archaeological findings.
What impression does this image give you of life in Çatal Hüyük?

Throughout the Paleolithic Age, the human population had been small
and relatively stable. Over time, in the regions where agriculture and animal
husbandry appeared, the number of human beings grew at an unprecedented
rate. Farmers usually had larger families than hunters, and their children
matured at a younger age than the children of hunters. But farmers had to
work harder and longer than hunters did, and they had to stay in one place.
Some scholars refer to the dramatic changes in subsistence, settlement,
technology, and population of this time as the Neolithic Revolution. The
earliest Neolithic societies appeared in the Middle East in about 8000 B.C.E.,
based on the cultivation of wheat and barley. In China, Neolithic agriculture
based on millet and rice emerged around 4000 B.C.E. The Neolithic period
began about 3600 B.C.E. in India, and Neolithic agriculture based on corn
developed in Mesoamerica several millennia later.

QUICK REVIEW
Neolithic Villages
Houses were generally uniform size
Villages were self-sufficient
Ruins at Çatal Hüyük and Jericho differ from typical patterns
Neolithic Revolution

The shift beginning 10,000 years ago from hunter-gatherer societies to

settled communities of farmers and artisans. Also called the Age of
Agriculture, it witnessed the invention of farming, the domestication of
plants and animals, and the development of technologies such as pottery
and weaving. “Neolithic” comes from the Greek words for “new stone.”

Read the Document The Neolithic Village at myhistorylab.com

THE BRONZE AGE AND THE BIRTH OF CIVILIZATION

Another major shift occurred first in the plains along the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers in the region the Greeks and Romans called Mesopotamia
(modern Iraq), later in the valley of the Nile River in Egypt, and somewhat
later in India and the Yellow River basin in China. Towns grew alongside
villages, and some towns then grew into much larger urban centers. The
urban centers, or cities, usually had monumental buildings, such as temples
and fortifications. These could be built only by the sustained effort of
hundreds and even thousands of people over many years. Elaborate
representational artwork appeared, sometimes made of rare and imported
materials. New technologies, such as smelting and the manufacture of metal
tools and weapons, were characteristic of urban life. Commodities such as
pottery and textiles that had been made in individual houses in villages
were mass-produced in cities, which also were characterized by social
stratification—that is, different classes of people based on factors such as
control of resources, family, religious or political authority, and personal
wealth. The earliest writing is also associated with the growth of cities.
Writing, like representational art, was a powerful means of communicating
over space and time and was probably invented to deal with urban problems
of management and record keeping. These attributes—urbanism;
technological, industrial, and social change; long-distance trade; and new
methods of symbolic communication—are defining characteristics of the
form of human culture called civilization. At about the time the earliest
civilizations were emerging, someone discovered how to combine tin and
copper to make a stronger and more useful material—bronze.
Archaeologists coined the term Bronze Age to refer to the period 3100–
1200 B.C.E. in the Near East and eastern Mediterranean.

Mesopotamia

Modern Iraq. The land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where the
first civilization appeared around 3000 B.C.E.

civilization
A form of human culture marked by urbanism, technological adaptation,
social complexity, long-distance trade, and symbolic communication.

Bronze Age
The name given to the earliest civilized era, ca. 3100 to 1200 B.C.E. The
term reflects the importance of the metal bronze, a mixture of tin and
copper, for the peoples of this age for use as weapons and tools.

EARLY CIVILIZATIONS IN THE MIDDLE

EAST TO ABOUT 1000 B.C.E.

HOW DID control over water resources influence early Middle

Eastern civilizations?

By 4000 B.C.E., people had settled in large numbers in the river-watered

lowlands of Mesopotamia and Egypt. By about 3000 B.C.E., when the
invention of writing gave birth to history, urban life and the organization of
society into centralized states were well established in the valleys of the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia and the Nile River in Egypt.
 Urban life is possible only when farmers and stockbreeders produce a
substantial surplus beyond their own needs, so that city dwellers can eat.
Water also has to be controlled. Mesopotamians had to build dikes to keep
rivers from flooding their fields in the spring, and they had to store water
for use in the autumn. In Egypt the Nile River flooded at the right moment
for cultivation, so irrigation was simply a matter of directing the water to
the fields.

Read the Document

Geography and Civilization: Egypt and Mesopotamia-Impact of Agriculture
at myhistorylab.com

MESOPOTAMIAN CIVILIZATION
Mesopotamia is divided into two ecological zones, Assyria (roughly north
of modern Baghdad) and Babylonia to the south. The oldest Mesopotamian
cities seem to have been founded by the Sumerians during the fourth
millennium B.C.E. in southern Babylonia. By 3000 B.C.E., the Sumerian city
of Uruk was the largest city in the world (see Map 1–1 on page 6).
From about 2800 to 2370 B.C.E., during the Early Dynastic period,
Sumerian city-states formed leagues among themselves that apparently had
both political and religious significance. Quarrels over water and
agricultural land led to incessant warfare, and in time, stronger towns and
leagues formed kingdoms.
The people who occupied northern Mesopotamia and Syria spoke mostly
Semitic languages (that is, languages in the same family as Arabic and
Hebrew). Many of these Semitic peoples absorbed aspects of Sumerian
culture, especially writing. The Mesopotamians believed that the large city
of Kish, in northern Babylonia, had history’s first kings.
In the east, a people known as the Akkadians established their own
kingdom at a capital city called Akkad, under their first king, Sargon. The
Akkadians conquered all the Sumerian city-states and invaded southwestern
Iran and northern Syria. This was history’s first empire, having a heartland,
provinces, and an absolute ruler. It included numerous peoples, cities,
languages, and cultures, as well as different ecological zones. Sargon’s
name became legendary as the first great conqueror of history. His
grandson, Naram-Sin, ruled from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean
Sea, with a standardized administration, vast wealth and power, and a grand
style. Naram-Sin even declared himself a god. External attack and internal
weakness destroyed the Akkadian Empire, but several smaller states
survived independently.

Read the Document Sumerian Law Code at myhistorylab.com

MAP 1–1. The Ancient Near East. Two river valley civilizations thrived
in the Ancient Near East: Egypt, which was united into a single state, and
Mesopotamia, which was long divided into a number of city-states.

What Factors in local geography might help explain the different political
histories of Egypt and Mesopotamia?
 Read the Document
Two Accounts of an Egyptian Famine 2600s B.C.E.: at myhistorylab.com

View the Image Hammurabi Receives His Law Code from the Gods at
myhistorylab.com

In about 2125 B.C.E. the Sumerian city of Ur rose to dominance. Sumerian

culture and literature flourished. Epic poems glorified the deeds of the
ancestors of the kings of Ur. A highly centralized administration kept
detailed records. After little more than a century, the Third Dynasty of Ur
disintegrated in the face of famine and invasion. Elamites attacked from the
east and captured the king. The Semitic-speaking Amorites invaded from
the north and west, settling around the Sumerian cities and eventually
founding their own dynasties. The Sumerians gradually disappeared as an
identifiable group. The Sumerian language survived only in writing as the
learned language of Babylonia taught in schools and used by priests and
scholars.
The Amorite kings of Isin maintained relative peace until they were
challenged by another Amorite dynasty at the city of Larsa, and a period of
warfare began. A powerful new dynasty at Babylon defeated Isin, Larsa,
and other rivals and dominated Mesopotamia for nearly 300 years. Its high
point was the reign of its most famous king, Hammurabi (r. ca. 1792–1750
B.C.E.), best known today for the collection of laws that bears his name.
The Sumerians invented the writing system now known as cuneiform
(from the Latin cuneus, meaning “wedge”) because of the wedge-shaped
marks they made by writing on clay tablets with a cut-reed stylus. The
Sumerian writing system was hard to learn. It used several thousand
characters, some of which stood for words and some for sounds. Literacy
was restricted to an elite who could afford to go to school.

cuneiform
A writing system invented by the Sumerians that used a wedge-shaped
stylus, or pointed tool, to write on wet clay tablets that were then baked or
dried (cuneus means “wedge” in Latin). The writing was also cut into stone.
 The Sumerians also began the development of mathematics. Before
around 3000 B.C.E., people had not conceptualized the idea of numbers
independently of counting specific things. Once an independent concept of
number was established, mathematics developed rapidly. The Sumerian
system was based on the number 60 (sexagesimal) rather than the number
10 (decimal). Sumerian counting survives in the modern 60-minute hour
and the circle of 360 degrees. By the time of Hammurabi, the
Mesopotamians were expert in many types of mathematics, including
mathematical astronomy.
The Sumerians and their successors worshiped many gods and
goddesses. These took human forms but differed from humans in their
greater power, sublime position in the universe, and immortality. The
Mesopotamians believed that the human race was created to serve the gods.
The gods were considered universal but also as residing in specific places,
usually one important god or goddess in each city. Mesopotamian temples
were run like great households where the gods were fed lavish meals,
entertained with music, and honored with devotion and ritual. The
Mesopotamians were religiously tolerant and readily accepted the
possibility that different people might have different gods.
The Mesopotamians had a vague and gloomy picture of the after-world.
The winged spirits of the dead were recognizable as individuals. They were
confined to a dusty, dark netherworld, doomed to perpetual hunger and
thirst unless someone offered them food and drink. There was no
preferential treatment in the afterlife for those who had led religious or
virtuous lives—everyone was in equal misery. Mesopotamian religion
focused on problems of this world and how to lead a good life before dying.
Akkadian Victory Stele. The victory stele of Naram-Sin, king of Akkad,
over the mountain-dwelling Lullubi, Mesopotamian, Akkadian period, ca.
2230 B.C.E. (pink sandstone). The king, wearing the horned helmet denoting
divine power, strides forward at the head of his army. This is one of the
finest sculptures to survive from the Akkadian period.

Louvre, Paris, France. The Bridgeman Art Library International Ltd.

How does this glorify the king? What makes him seem especially
important?

The Mesopotamian peoples who came after the Sumerians believed that
the gods revealed a person’s destiny to those who could understand the
omens, or indications of what was going to happen. The Babylonians
therefore developed an elaborate science of divination based on chance
observations, such as a cat walking in the street, and on ritual procedures,
such as asking a question of the gods and then slaughtering a sheep to
examine its liver and entrails for certain marks and features. Illness was
blamed on witchcraft.
Religion played a large part in the literature and art of Mesopotamia.
Epic poems told of the deeds of the gods, such as how the world was
created and organized, of a great flood the gods sent to wipe out the human
race, and of the hero-king Gilgamesh, who tried to escape death by going
on a fantastic journey to find the sole survivor of the great flood.
The most imposing religious structure was the ziggurat, a tower in stages,
sometimes with a small chamber on top. The terraces may have been
planted with trees to resemble a mountain. Their precise purpose is not
known. Through the Bible, they have entered Western tradition as the
Tower of Babel.
Hundreds of thousands of cuneiform texts—royal letters, administrative
records, and numerous documents belonging to private families—reveal
how peoples in ancient Mesopotamia conducted their lives. Many of
Hammurabi’s laws deal with commerce, land tenure, and land rights. The
subject that is most highly regulated in Hammurabi’s code is the
maintenance and protection of family, including marriage, inheritance, and
adoption. Parents usually arranged marriages, and the bride usually left her
own family to join her husband’s. A marriage started out monogamous, but
a husband whose wife was childless or sickly could take a second wife.
Women could own property and conduct business independently.
There were two main types of slavery in Mesopotamia: chattel slavery
and debt slavery. Chattel slaves were bought like any other piece of
property and had no legal rights. They were often non-Mesopotamians
bought from slave merchants and were used in domestic service rather than
in production. Chattel slaves were expensive luxuries. True chattel slavery
did not become common until the Neo-Babylonian period (612–539 B.C.E.).

chattel slavery
A form of slavery in which humans are owned as goods; the slave has no
legal standing as a person and few, if any, rights.
QUICK REVIEW
Mesopotamian Religion
Sumerians worshiped gods with human forms
Babylonians sought evidence of divine action in movements of
heavenly bodies
Religion played an important part in Mesopotamian art and literature

Read the Document

The Development of Religion in Primitive Cultures at myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

Excerpts from The Epic of Gilgamesh at myhistorylab.com

A Closer Look
Babylonian World Map
Cartography was among the many intellectual achievements of the
Babylonians. The map illustrated here was inscribed on a clay tablet in
about 600 B.C.E., and appears to be the earliest surviving map of the
world.
The Babylonians did not intend this map to be a precise or literal
picture of the universe or even of the land on which human beings
lived, for they omitted any representation of such important and
numerous peoples as the Egyptians and Persians whom they knew very
well.
Questions

1. What can we learn from this map about how the Babylonians saw
the world around them and their own place in it?
2. Why do you think this map locates some of the Babylonians’
neighbors but ignores other important neighboring cultures?
3. Why has cartography remained so important throughout the ages?
4. Is the subjectivity reflected here confined to this map, or is it a
general characteristic of cartography throughout history?

To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to

www.myhistorylab.com

Debt slavery was more common. Rates of interest were high, as much as
33⅓ percent, so people often defaulted on loans. If debtors had pledged
themselves or members of their families as surety for a loan, they became
the slave of the creditor; their labor went to pay the interest on the loan.
Debt slaves could not be sold but could redeem their freedom by paying off
the loan. Slaves and masters often labored side by side; little separated them
except the misfortune of indebtedness.

CHRONOLOGY

KEY EVENTS AND PEOPLE IN MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY

EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION
From its sources in Lake Victoria and the Ethiopian highlands, the Nile
flows north some 4,000 miles to the Mediterranean. Ancient Egypt included
the 750-mile stretch of smooth, navigable river from Aswan to the sea.
South of Aswan the river’s course is interrupted by several cataracts—rocky
areas of rapids and whirlpools.
The Egyptians recognized two sets of geographical divisions in their
country. Upper (southern) Egypt consisted of the narrow valley of the Nile.
Lower (northern) Egypt referred to the broad triangular area, named by the
Greeks after their letter delta, formed by the Nile as it branches out to
empty into the Mediterranean. They also made a distinction between what
they termed the “black land,” the dark fertile fields along the Nile, and the
“red land,” the desert cliffs and plateaus bordering the valley.
The Nile alone made agriculture possible in Egypt’s desert environment.
Each year the rains of central Africa caused the river to rise over its
floodplain. When the floodwaters receded, they left a rich layer of
organically fertile silt. The construction and maintenance of canals, dams,
and irrigation ditches to control the river’s water, together with careful
planning and organization of planting and harvesting, produced agricultural
prosperity unmatched in the ancient world.
The Nile served as the major highway connecting Upper and Lower
Egypt (see Map 1–2 on page 10). The cataracts, the desert, and the sea
made Egypt relatively isolated. Egypt’s security, along with the predictable
flood calendar, gave its civilization a more optimistic outlook than that of
Mesopotamia.
The 3,000-year span of ancient Egyptian history is traditionally divided
into thirty-one royal dynasties, clustered into eight periods. During three so-
called Intermediate periods, Egypt experienced political and social
disintegration, and rival dynasties often set up separate power bases in
Upper and Lower Egypt until a strong leader reunified the land. The
unification of Egypt was vital, for it meant that the entire Nile valley could
benefit from an unimpeded distribution of resources.
During the more than 400 years of the Old Kingdom (2700–2200 B.C.E.),
Egypt enjoyed internal stability and great prosperity. The ruler, later given
the title pharaoh, was a king who was also a god (the term comes from the
Egyptian for “great house,” much as we use “White House” to refer to the
president). From his capital at Memphis, the god-king ruled Egypt
according to principles that included maat, an ideal of order, justice, and
truth.

pharaoh
The god-kings of ancient Egypt. The term originally meant “great house” or
palace.

In return for the king’s building and maintaining temples, the gods
preserved the equilibrium of the state and ensured the king’s continuing
power, which was absolute. Because the king was obligated to act infallibly
in a benign and beneficent manner, the welfare of the people of Egypt was
automatically guaranteed and safeguarded.

Read the Document

Workings of Ma’at: “The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant” at
myhistorylab.com
MAP EXPLORATION
To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

MAP 1–2. The Near East and Greece, ca. 1400 B.C.E.

About 1400 B.C.E., the Near East was divided among four empires. Egypt
extended south to Nubia and north through Palestine and Phoenicia.
Kassites ruled in Mesopotamia, Hittites in Asia Minor, and the Mitannians
in Assyrian lands. In the Aegean, the Mycenaean kingdoms were at their
height.

Do Certain empires seem more geographically “natural” to you than

others? Besides coastal access and rivers, what physical factors might help
unify some of these empires?
 Nothing better illustrates the nature of Old Kingdom royal power than the
pyramids built as pharaonic tombs. Beginning in the Early Dynastic period,
kings constructed increasingly elaborate burial complexes in Upper Egypt.
Djoser, a Third Dynasty king, was the first to erect a monumental six-step
pyramid of hard stone. Subsequent pharaohs built other stepped pyramids
until Snefru, the founder of the Fourth Dynasty, converted a stepped
pyramid to a true pyramid over the course of putting up three monuments.

QUICK REVIEW
Egyptian Kingship
Egyptian kings were considered gods
Kings were the direct source of law and justice
Egyptian government was an aspect of religion

Djoser’s son Khufu (Cheops in the Greek version of his name) chose the
desert plateau of Giza, south of Memphis, as the site for the largest pyramid
ever constructed. Its dimensions are prodigious: 481 feet high, 756 feet long
on each side, and its base covering 13.1 acres. The pyramid is made of 2.3
million stone blocks averaging 2.5 tons each. It is also a geometrical
wonder, barely deviating from absolutely level and square.
Khufu’s successors, Khafre (Chephren) and Menkaure (Mycerinus), built
equally perfect pyramids at Giza, and together the three constitute one of
the most extraordinary achievements in human history. Khafre also built the
huge composite creature, part lion and part human, which the Greeks named
the Sphinx. Recent research has shown that the Sphinx played a crucial role
in the solar cult aspects of the pyramid complex.
The pyramids are remarkable not only for the great technical skill they
demonstrate, but also for the concentration of resources they represent.
They are evidence that the pharaohs controlled vast wealth and had the
power to focus and organize enormous human effort over the years it took
to build each pyramid. They also provide a visible indication of the nature
of the Egyptian state: The pyramids, like the pharaohs, tower above the
land, while the low tombs at their base, like the officials buried there, seem
to huddle in relative unimportance.
Making Bread. A hallmark of the early river civilizations was the
development of techniques to increase harvests. This statue from the Old
Kingdom in Egypt (ca. 2700–2200 B.C.E.) shows a woman kneading dough
for bread.

What clues does this sculpture offer about this woman’s quality of life?

In about 2200 B.C.E. the Old Kingdom collapsed and gave way to the
decentralization and disorder of the First Intermediate period (2200–2025
B.C.E.). Later, Middle Kingdom (2025–1630 B.C.E.) pharaohs sought to
evoke the past by building pyramid complexes like those of the later Old
Kingdom rulers. Yet the events of the First Intermediate period had
irrevocably changed the nature of Egyptian kingship. Gone was the
absolute, distant god-king; the king was now more directly concerned with
his people. In art, instead of the supremely confident faces of the Old
Kingdom pharaohs, the Middle Kingdom rulers seem thoughtful, careworn,
and brooding.
 Egypt’s relations with its neighbors became more aggressive during the
Middle Kingdom. To the south, royal fortresses were built to control Nubia
and the growing trade in African resources. To the north and east, Syria and
Palestine increasingly came under Egyptian influence, even as fortifications
sought to prevent settlers from the Levant from moving into the Delta.
The western Delta established an independent dynasty, ushering in the
Second Intermediate period (1630–1550 B.C.E.). The eastern Delta came
under the control of the Hyksos. Much later sources describe the Hyksos as
ruthless invaders from parts unknown, but they were almost certainly
Amorites from the Levant, part of the gradual infiltration of the Delta
during the Middle Kingdom. After nearly a century of rule, the Hyksos
were expelled, and the New Kingdom (1550–1075 B.C.E.) was established.
During the Eighteenth Dynasty, Egypt pursued foreign expansion with
renewed vigor. Military expeditions reached as far north as the Euphrates in
Syria with frequent campaigns in the Levant. To the south, major Egyptian
temples were built in the Sudan. Egypt’s economic and political power was
at its height.
Egypt’s position was reflected in the unprecedented luxury and
cosmopolitanism of the royal court and in the ambitious palace and temple
projects undertaken throughout the country. The Eighteenth Dynasty
pharaohs were the first to cut their tombs deep into the rock cliffs of a
desolate valley in Thebes, known today as the Valley of the Kings. To date,
only one intact royal tomb has been discovered there, that of the young
Eighteenth Dynasty king Tutankhamun, and even it had been disturbed
shortly after his death. The thousands of goods buried with him, many of
them marvels of craftsmanship, give a glimpse of Egypt’s material wealth
during this period.

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The Pyramids at Giza at myhistorylab.com

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The Sphinx at myhistorylab.com

See the Map

Egypt in the Middle Kingdom at myhistorylab.com
 Following the premature death of Tutankhamun in 1323 B.C.E., a military
commander named Horemheb assumed the kingship, which passed in turn
to his own army commander, Ramses I. The Ramessides of Dynasty 19
undertook numerous monumental projects, among them Ramses II’s rock-
cut temples at Abu Simbel, south of the First Cataract, which had to be
moved to a higher location when the Aswan High Dam was built in the
1960s. There and elsewhere, Ramses II left textual and pictorial accounts of
his battle in 1285 B.C.E. against the Hittites at Kadesh on the Orontes in
Syria. Sixteen years later, the Egyptians and Hittites signed a formal peace
treaty, forging an alliance against an increasingly volatile political situation
in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean during the thirteenth
century B.C.E.

Pyramids at Giza. The three largest pyramids of Egypt, located at Giza,

near Cairo, are the colossal tombs of pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty (ca.
2640–2510 B.C.E.): Khufu (right), Chafre (center), and Menkaure (left). The
small pyramids and tombs at their bases were those of the pharaohs’ queens
and officials.

What does the relative size of these pyramids suggest about the
distribution of power in ancient Egypt?

View the Image at myhistorylab.com

 View the Image
Great Temple of Abu Simbel at myhistorylab.com

See the Map

Egypt in the New Kingdom at myhistorylab.com

Merneptah, one of the hundred offspring of Ramses II, held off a hostile
Libyan attack, as well as incursions by the Sea Peoples, a loose coalition of
Mediterranean raiders who seem to have provoked and taken advantage of
unsettled conditions. One of Merneptah’s inscriptions commemorating his
military triumphs contains the first known mention of Israel.
Despite Merneptah’s efforts, by the end of the Twentieth Dynasty,
Egypt’s period of imperial glory had passed. The next thousand years
witnessed a Third Intermediate period, a Saite renaissance, Persian
domination, conquest by Alexander the Great, the Ptolemaic period, and
finally, defeat at the hands of the Roman emperor Octavian in 30 B.C.E.
Writing first appears in Egypt about 3000 B.C.E. The writing system,
dubbed hieroglyphs (“sacred carvings”) by the Greeks, was highly
sophisticated, involving hundreds of picture signs that remained relatively
constant in the way they were rendered for over 3,000 years. Texts were
usually written horizontally from right to left but could be written from left
to right, as well as vertically from top to bottom in both horizontal
directions. Egyptian literature includes narratives, myths, books of
instruction in wisdom, letters, religious texts, and poetry, written on papyri,
limestone flakes, and potsherds. The Egyptian language, part of the Afro-
Asiatic (or Hamito-Semitic) family, evolved through several stages—Old,
Middle, and Late Egyptian, Demotic, and Coptic—and has a history of
continuous recorded use well into the medieval period.

hieroglyphs
The complicated writing script of ancient Egypt. It combined picture
writing with pictographs and sound signs. Hieroglyph means “sacred
carvings” in Greek.

CHRONOLOGY
MAJOR PERIODS IN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN HISTORY
(DYNASTIES IN ROMAN NUMERALS)

The Egyptian gods, or pantheon, defy neat categorization, in part because

of the common tendency to combine the character and function of one or
more gods. Amun, one of the eight entities in the Hermopolitan cosmogony,
provides a good example. Thebes, Amun’s cult center, rose to prominence
in the Middle Kingdom. In the New Kingdom, Amun was elevated above
his seven cohorts and took on aspects of the sun god Re to become Amun-
Re.
Not surprisingly in a nearly rainless land, solar cults and mythologies
were highly developed. Much thought was devoted to conceptualizing what
happened as the sun god made his perilous way through the underworld in
the night hours between sunset and sunrise. Three long texts trace Re’s
journey as he vanquishes immense snakes and other foes.
The Eighteenth Dynasty was one of several periods during which solar
cults were in ascendancy. Early in his reign, Amunhotep IV promoted a
single, previously minor aspect of the sun, the Aten (“disc”) above Re
himself and the rest of the gods. He declared that the Aten was the creator
god who brought life to humankind and all living beings, with himself and
his queen Nefertiti the sole mediators between the Aten and the people. He
went further, changing his name to Akhenaten (“the effective spirit of the
Aten”), building a new capital called Akhetaten (“the horizon of the Aten”)
near Amarna north of Thebes and chiseling out the name of Amun from
inscriptions everywhere. Shortly after his death, Amarna was abandoned
and partially razed. A large diplomatic archive of tablets written in
Akkadian was left at the site, which give us a vivid, if one-sided, picture of
the political correspondence of the day. During the reigns of Akhenaten’s
successors, Tutankhamun (born Tutankhaten) and Horemheb, Amun was
restored to his former position, and Akhenaten’s monuments were defaced
and even demolished.
In representations, Egyptian gods have human bodies, possess human or
animal heads, and wear crowns, celestial discs, or thorns. The lone
exception is the Aten, made nearly abstract by Akhenaten, who altered its
image to a plain disc with solar rays ending in small hands holding the
hieroglyphic sign for life to the nostrils of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. The
gods were thought to reside in their cult centers, where, from the New
Kingdom on, increasingly ostentatious temples were built and staffed by
full-time priests. At Thebes, for instance, for over 2,000 years successive
kings enlarged the great Karnak temple complex dedicated to Amun.
Though the ordinary person could not enter a temple precinct, great
festivals took place for all to see. During Amun’s major festival of Opet, the
statue of the god traveled in a divine boat along the Nile, whose banks were
thronged with spectators.
The Egyptians thought that the afterlife was full of dangers, which could
be overcome by magical means, among them the spells in the Book of the
Dead.
The goals were to join and be identified with the gods, especially Osiris,
or to sail in the “boat of millions.” Originally only the king could hope to
enjoy immortality with the gods, but gradually this became available to all.
Since the Egyptians believed that the preservation of the body was essential
for continued existence in the afterlife, early on they developed
mummification, a process that by the New Kingdom took seventy days.
It is difficult to assess the position of women in Egyptian society because
our pictorial and textual evidence comes almost entirely from male sources.
Women’s prime roles were connected with the management of the
household. They could not hold office, go to scribal schools, or become
artisans. Nevertheless, women could own and control property, sue for
divorce, and, at least in theory, enjoy equal legal protection. Royal women
often wielded considerable influence. The most remarkable was Hatshepsut,
who ruled as pharaoh for nearly twenty years.
Seated Egyptian Scribe. One of the hallmarks of the early river valley
civilizations was the development of writing. Ancient Egyptian scribes had
to undergo rigorous training but were rewarded with a position of respect
and privilege. This statue from the Fifth Dynasty (ca. 2510–2460 B.C.E.) is
of painted limestone and measures 21 inches (53 cm) in height.

Musée du Louvre, Paris, © Giraudon/Art Resource, New York.

What clues does this sculpture offer about this man’s quality of life?

Watch the Video

The Temple of Karnak at myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

Papyrus of Ani, The Egyptian Book of the Dead c. 1200 B.C.E. at
myhistorylab.com

View the Image

Scene from the Egyptian Afterlife at myhistorylab.com
Scene from the Book of the Dead. The Egyptians believed in the
possibility of life after death through the god Osiris. Before the person
could be presented to Osiris, forty-two assessor-gods tested aspects of the
person’s life. In this scene from a papyrus manuscript of the Book of the
Dead, the deceased and his wife (on the left) watch the scales of justice
weighing his heart (on the left side of the scales) against the feather of truth.
The jackal-headed god Anubis also watches the scales, while the ibis-
headed god Thoth keeps the record.

What does the presence of so many gods at a person’s judgment

ceremony suggest about the Egyptians’ sense of an individual’s
significance?

View the Image

Egyptian Relief of Anubis at myhistorylab.com

Watch the Video

Ramses II’s Abu Simbel at myhistorylab.com

In art, both royal and nonroyal women are conventionally shown smaller
than their husbands or sons, yet it is probably of greater significance that
they are so frequently depicted in such a wide variety of contexts. Much
care was lavished on details of their gestures, clothing, and hairstyles. With
their husbands, they attend banquets, boat in the papyrus marshes, make
and receive offerings, and supervise the myriad affairs of daily life.
 Slaves did not become numerous in Egypt until the growth of Egyptian
imperial power in the Middle Kingdom and the imperial expansion of the
New Kingdom. Black Africans from Nubia to the south and Asians from
the east were captured in war, branded, and brought back to Egypt as slaves.
Sometimes an entire people were enslaved, as the Hebrews were, according
to the Bible. Slaves in Egypt performed many tasks. Egyptian slaves could
be freed, although manumission seems to have been rare. Nonetheless,
former slaves were not set apart and could expect to be assimilated into the
mass of the population.

QUICK REVIEW
Women in Ancient Egypt
Household management was women’s responsibility
In theory women had legal rights equal to men’s
Royal women could hold great power

ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN EMPIRES

HOW DID conquest and trade shape early empires in the Near East?

In the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty in Egypt, new groups of peoples had
established themselves in the Near East: the Kassites in Babylonia, the
Hittites in Asia Minor, and the Mitannians in northern Syria and
Mesopotamia (see Map 1–2). The Kassites and Mitannians were warrior
peoples who ruled as a minority over more civilized folk and absorbed their
culture. The Hittites established a kingdom of their own and forged an
empire that lasted some 200 years.

THE HITTITES
The Hittites were an Indo-European people, speaking a language related to
Greek and Sanskrit. By about 1500 B.C.E., the Hittites had established a
strong, centralized government with a capital near Ankara, the capital of
modern Turkey. Between 1400 and 1200 B.C.E., they contested Egypt’s
control of Palestine and Syria. They played an important role in
transmitting the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt to the Greeks,
who lived on their western frontier. The government of the Hittites was
different from that of Mesopotamia in that Hittite kings did not claim to be
divine or even to be the chosen representatives of the gods. In the early
period, a council of nobles limited the king’s power, and the assembled
army had to ratify his succession to the throne.

Read the Document

Hittite Law Code: excerpts from The Code of the Nesilim at
myhistorylab.com

By 1200 B.C.E., the Hittite Kingdom disappeared, swept away in

invasions and the collapse of Middle Eastern nation-states at that time.
Successors to the empire, called the Neo-Hittite states, flourished in
southern Asia Minor and northern Syria until the Assyrians destroyed them
in the first millennium B.C.E.
An important technological change took place in northern Anatolia,
somewhat earlier than the creation of the Hittite Kingdom, but perhaps
within its region. This was the discovery of how to smelt iron and the
decision to use it rather than copper or bronze to manufacture weapons and
tools. Archaeologists refer to the period after 1100 B.C.E. as the Iron Age.

THE KASSITES
The Kassites were a people of unknown origin who spoke their own
language and who established at Babylon a dynasty that ruled for nearly
500 years. The Kassites were organized into large tribal families and carved
out great domains for themselves in Babylonia. They promoted Babylonian
culture, and many of the most important works of Babylonian literature
were written during their rule. They supported a military aristocracy based
on horses and chariots, the prestige weaponry of the age.

THE MITANNIANS
The Mitannians belonged to a large group of people called the Hurrians,
some of whom had been living in Mesopotamia and Syria in the time of the
kings of Akkad and Ur. Their language is imperfectly understood, and the
location of their capital city, Washukanni, is uncertain. The Hurrians were
important mediators of Mesopotamian culture to Syria and Anatolia. They
developed the art of chariot warfare and horse training to a high degree and
created a large state that reached from the Euphrates to the foothills of Iran.
The Hittites destroyed their kingdom, and the Assyrian Empire eventually
incorporated what was left of it.

THE ASSYRIANS
The Assyrians were originally a people living in Assur, a city in northern
Mesopotamia on the Tigris River. They spoke a Semitic language closely
related to Babylonian. They had a proud, independent culture heavily
influenced by Babylonia. Assur had been an early center for trade but
emerged as a political power during the fourteenth century B.C.E., after the
decline of Mitanni. The first Assyrian Empire spread north and west against
the neo-Hittite states but was brought to an end in the general collapse of
Near Eastern states at the end of the second millennium. A people called the
Arameans, a Semitic nomadic and agricultural people originally from
northern Syria who spoke a language called Aramaic, invaded Assyria.
Aramaic is still used in parts of the Near East and is one of the languages of
medieval Jewish and Middle Eastern Christian culture.
Assyrian Palace Relief. This eighth-century B.C.E. relief of a hero gripping
a lion formed part of the decoration of an Assyrian palace. The immense
size of the figure and his powerful limbs and muscles may well have
suggested the might of the Assyrian king.

Gilgamesh. Relief from the Temple of Saragon II, Khorsabad. Assyrian, 8th
century B.C.E. Giraudon/Art Resource, New York.

What else besides size and muscles suggests the power of this king?

THE SECOND ASSYRIAN EMPIRE

After 1000 B.C.E., the Assyrians began a second period of expansion, and by
665 B.C.E. they controlled all of Mesopotamia, much of southern Asia
Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt to its southern frontier.
They succeeded thanks to a large, well-disciplined army and a society
that valued military skills. Some Assyrian kings boasted of their atrocities,
so that their names inspired terror throughout the Near East. They
constructed magnificent palaces at Nineveh and Nimrud (near modern
Mosul, Iraq), surrounded by parks and gardens.

Read the Document

Empire of Assiria, ca. 1800 B.C.E. at myhistorylab.com

CHRONOLOGY
KEY EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN
EMPIRES

The Assyrians systematically exploited their empire. They used various

methods of control, collecting tribute from some regions, stationing
garrisons in others, and sometimes pacifying districts by deporting and
scattering their inhabitants.
The empire became too large to govern efficiently. The last years of
Assyria are obscure, but civil war apparently divided the country. The
Medes, a powerful people from western and central Iran, had been
expanding across the Iranian plateau. They were feared for their cavalry and
archers, against which traditional Middle Eastern armies were ineffective.
The Medes attacked Assyria and were joined by the Babylonians, who had
always been restive under Assyrian rule, under the leadership of a general
named Nebuchadnezzar. In 612 B.C.E., they so thoroughly destroyed the
Assyrian cities, including Nineveh, that Assyria never recovered. The ruins
of the great Assyrian palaces lay untouched until archaeologists began to
explore them in the nineteenth century.
 See the Map
The Neo-Babylonian Empire, ca. 580 B.C.E. at myhistorylab.com

THE NEO-BABYLONIANS
The Medes did not follow up on their conquests, so Nebuchadnezzar took
over much of the Assyrian Empire. Under him and his successors, Babylon
grew into one of the greatest cities of the world.
The Greek traveler Herodotus described its wonders, including its great
temples, fortification walls, boulevards, parks, and palaces, to a Greek
readership that had never seen the like. Babylon prospered as a center of
world trade, linking Egypt, India, Iran, and Syria–Palestine by land and sea
routes. For centuries, an astronomical center at Babylon kept detailed
records of observations that were the longest running chronicle of the
ancient world. Nebuchadnezzar’s dynasty did not last long, and the
government passed to various men in rapid succession. The last
independent king of Babylon set up a second capital in the Arabian Desert
and tried to force the Babylonians to honor the moon god above all other
gods. He allowed dishonest or incompetent speculators to lease huge areas
of temple land for their personal profit. These policies proved unpopular—
some said that the king was insane—and many Babylonians may have
welcomed the Persian conquest that came in 539 B.C.E. After that, Babylonia
began another, even more prosperous phase of its history as one of the most
important provinces of another great Eastern empire, that of the Persians.
We shall return to the Persians in Chapter 4.

EARLY INDIAN CIVILIZATION

WHAT INFLUENCES did the first Indus valley civilization have on

later Indian religious and social practices?
To the east of Mesopotamia, beyond the Iranian plateau and the mountains
of Baluchistan, the Asian continent bends sharply southward below the
Himalayan mountain barrier to form the Indian subcontinent (see Map 1–3
on page 17). Several sizable rivers flow west and south out of the
Himalayas in Kashmir and the Punjab (Panjab, “five rivers”), merging into
the single stream of the Indus River in Sind before emptying into the Indian
Ocean. The headwaters of South Asia’s other great river system—the
Ganges and its tributaries—are also in the Himalayas but flow south and
east to the Bay of Bengal on the opposite side of the subcontinent.

MAP 1–3. Indus and Vedic Aryan Cultures.

Indus culture likely influenced the Vedic Aryans, although the influence
cannot be proved. Some scholars surmise, for example, that the fortified
Aryan city of Hariyupiya, mentioned in later texts, may have been the same
site as the older Indus city of Harappa.

What Geographical features appear to have influenced the size and shape
of regions dominated by different cultures?

The subcontinent’s earliest literate, urban civilization arose in the valley

of the Indus River sometime after 2600 B.C.E. and by about 2300 B.C.E. was
trading with Mesopotamia. Known as the Harappan or Indus civilization,
it lasted only a few centuries. The region’s second identifiable civilization
dates to about 1500 B.C.E. and is known as the Vedic Aryan civilization—
after the nomadic Indo-European immigrant people, or Aryans, who
founded it, and their holy texts, or Vedas. This civilization endured for
nearly 1,000 years without cities or writing, but its religious and social
traditions commingled with older traditions in the subcontinent to form the
Indian civilization as it has developed over the past 2,500 years.

Harappan

Term used to describe the first civilization of the Indus valley.

Aryans

The Indo-European speakers who invaded India and Iran in the second and
first millennia B.C.E.

Vedas

The sacred texts of the ancient Aryan invaders of India. The Rig-Vedas are
the oldest materials in the Vedas.
THE INDUS CIVILIZATION
Archaeologists discovered the existence of the Indus culture at the site of
Harappa in the 1920s. Since then, some seventy cities, the largest being
Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, have been identified. This urban civilization
had bronze tools, writing, covered drainage systems, and a diversified social
and economic organization. Because its writing is still undeciphered, it
remains the least understood of the early river valley civilizations.
Archaeological evidence and inferences from later Indian life, however,
allow us to reconstruct something of its highly developed and once thriving
culture.
The Indus culture covered a huge area, yet it was remarkably
homogeneous. City layouts, building construction, weights and measures,
seal inscriptions, patterned pottery and figurines, and even the burnt brick
used for buildings and flood walls are unusually uniform in all Indus towns,
suggesting an integrated economic system and good internal
communications.
Indus culture was also remarkably constant over time. Because the main
cities and towns lay in river lowlands subject to flooding, they were rebuilt
often, with each reconstruction closely following the previous pattern.
Similarly, the Indus script, known from more than 2,000 stamp seals and
apparently using both pictographic and phonetic symbols, shows no
evidence of change over time. This evidence of stability, regularity, and
traditionalism has led scholars to speculate that a centralized government,
perhaps a conservative (priestly) theocracy, controlled this far-flung society.
Both Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro apparently had populations of more
than 35,000 and were meticulously designed on a similar plan. To the west
of each town stood a large, walled citadel on a raised rectangular platform.
The town proper was laid out on a grid of main avenues, some as wide as
30 feet. The “blocks” formed by the main avenues were crisscrossed by
small, less rigidly planned lanes, off which opened private houses,
sometimes of more than one story. The typical house was built around a
central courtyard and presented only blank walls to the lanes or streets
outside, an arrangement still common in many Near Eastern and South
Asian cities.
 Perhaps the most striking feature of these cities was a complex system of
covered drains and sewers. Private houses were serviced by wells,
bathrooms, and latrines, and the great bath at Mohenjo-Daro was filled from
its own large well. The drainage system that served these facilities was an
engineering feat unrivaled until the time of the Romans, nearly 2,000 years
later.
The economy of the Indus state or states was based on agriculture. Wheat
and barley were the main crops. The Indus valley people wove cloth from
cotton, made metal tools, and used the potter’s wheel. Evidence points to
trade between the Indus culture and Mesopotamia. Metals and semiprecious
stones were apparently imported into the Indus region from present-day
Iran and Afghanistan, as well as from Central Asia, from farther south on
the Indian peninsula, and perhaps from Arabia. Similarities in artistic styles
suggest that trade contacts resulted in cultural borrowings.
Among the most striking accomplishments of the Indus culture are fine
bronze and stone sculptures. Other evidence of the skill of Indus artisans
includes copper and bronze tools and vessels, black-on-red painted pottery,
dressed stonework, stone and terra-cotta figurines and toys, silver vessels
and ornaments, gold jewelry, and dyed woven fabric.

Ancient Mohenjo-Daro. Like most cities of the Indus valley civilization,

Mohenjo-Daro was built principally of mud brick. The structures are laid on
straight lines; streets cross each other at right angles. The impression is one
of order, prosperity, and civic discipline.

Borromeo/Art Resource, New York.

How do the uniformity and regular placement of bricks influence your

reaction to this site?

The elaborate bath facilities suggest that ritual bathing and water
purification rites were important, as they still are in India today. The stone
images from the so-called temples of Mohenjo-Daro and the more common
terra-cotta figurines from other sites also suggest links to later Indian
religious practices and symbols. The many images of male animals such as
the humped bull might be symbols of power and fertility or might indicate
animal worship. A recurring image of a male figure with leafy headdress
and horns, often seated in a posture associated later in India with yogic
meditation, has been likened to the Vedic Aryan “Lord of All Creatures.”
Terra-cotta figurines of females, often pregnant or carrying a child, are
similar to female images in several prehistoric cultures. As possible
precursors of Shiva’s consort, they too may represent an element of pre-
Aryan religion that reemerged later to figure in “Hindu” culture. Other
aspects of Indus religion—burial customs, for example—are not clearly
related to later Indian practices.
Sometime between 1800 and 1700 B.C.E., Indus civilization disappeared.
Aryan invaders, changes in the course of the Indus, or a long period of
dessication might have contributed to the Indus culture’s demise. This
civilization remains too shadowy for us to measure its influence, but
Harappan predecessors of the Aryans likely contributed to later life in the
subcontinent in ways that we have yet to discover.

QUICK REVIEW
Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro
Both cities had populations of more than 35,000 people
The cities were laid out in grids
Both had complex systems of drains and sewers

THE VEDIC ARYAN CIVILIZATION

We know more about the Aryan culture that effectively “refounded” Indian
civilization around 1500 B.C.E. Yet unlike Indus civilization, it was not
urban and left neither city ruins nor substantial artifacts beyond tools,
weapons, and pottery. Virtually our only source of knowledge about ancient
Aryan life are the words of the Vedas, the Aryan sacred texts—hence we
know the culture as “Vedic.” Although the latest Vedic texts date from
perhaps 500 B.C.E., the earliest may go back to 1700 B.C.E. Transmitted
orally through the centuries, the Vedas were not written down until writing
was reintroduced to India sometime after 700 B.C.E. The Vedas are priestly
works, not histories; they reveal little about events but do offer insight into
the religion, society, values, and thought of early Aryan India.
Veda, which means “knowledge,” is the collective term for the texts still
recognized today by most Indians as the holiest sources of their tradition.
For Hindus, Veda is the eternal wisdom of primordial seers preserved for
thousands of years in an unbroken oral tradition. The Vedas are the four
major compilations of Vedic ritual, explanatory, and speculative texts. The
collection of 1,028 religious hymns known as the Rig-Veda represents the
oldest materials of the Vedas. The latest of these hymns date from about
1000 B.C.E., the oldest from perhaps 1700–1200 B.C.E., when the Aryans
spread across the northern plains to the upper reaches of the Ganges.
Aryan is a different kind of term. The second-millennium invaders of
northern India called themselves Aryas as opposed to the peoples whom
they conquered. Vedic Sanskrit, the language of the invaders, gave this
word to later Sanskrit as a term for “noble” or “free-born” (arya). The word
is found also in old Iranian, or Persian, texts, and even the term Iran is
derived from the Old Persian equivalent of arya. The peoples who came to
India are more precisely designated Indo-Aryans, or Vedic Aryans.
Indus Stamp Seal. Note the familiar humped bull of India on this stone
stamp seal.

© Scala/Art Resource, New York.

What impression does the level of detail in this depiction give you?

In the nineteenth century, Aryan was the term applied to the widespread
language group known today as Indo-European. This family includes
Greek, Latin, the Romance and Germanic languages, the Slavic tongues,
and the Indo-Iranian languages, including Persian and Sanskrit and their
derivatives. The Nazis perversely misused “Aryan” to refer to a white
“master race.” Today most scholars use Aryan only to identify the Indo-
European speakers who invaded India and the Iranian plateau in the second
millennium B.C.E. and the Indo-Iranian languages.

Indo-European
A widely distributed language group that includes most of the languages
spoken in Europe, Persian, Sanskrit, and their derivatives.

The Vedic Aryans were seminomadic warriors who reached India in

small tribal groups through the mountain passes of the Hindu Kush. They
were horsemen and cattle herders rather than farmers and city builders.
They left their mark not in material culture but in the changes that their
conquests brought to the regions they overran: a new language, social
organization, techniques of warfare, and religious forms and ideas.
The early Aryans penetrated first into the Punjab and the Indus valley
around 1800–1500 B.C.E., presumably in search of grazing lands for their
livestock. Their horses, chariots, and copper-bronze weapons likely gave
them military superiority over the Indus peoples or their successors. Rig-
Vedic hymns echo these early conflicts. One late hymn praises the king of
the Bharatas, giving us the Indian name for modern India, Bharat, “land of
the Bharatas.”
During the Rig-Vedic age (ca. 1700–1000 B.C.E.), the newcomers settled
in the Punjab and beyond, where they took up agriculture and
stockbreeding. Then, between about 1000 and 500 B.C.E., the Late Vedic
Age, these Aryan Indians spread across the plain between the Yamuna and
the Ganges and eastward. They cleared (probably by burning) the heavy
forests that covered this region and then settled there. They also moved
farther northeast to the Himalayan foothills and southeast along the Ganges,
in what was to be the cradle of subsequent Indian civilization. The late
Vedic period is also called the Brahmanic Age because it was dominated by
the priestly religion of the Brahman class, as evidenced in commentaries
called the Brahmanas (ca. 1000–800 or 600 B.C.E.). It is also sometimes
called the Epic Age because it provided the setting for India’s two classical
epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

Mahabharata and Ramayana

The two classical Indian epics.

Both epics reflect the complex cultural and social mixing of Aryan and
other earlier subcontinent peoples.

Read the Document

Excerpt from Mahábhárata (1000–600 B.C.E.) at myhistorylab.com

By about 200 CE, this mixing produced a distinctive new “Indian”

civilization over most of the subcontinent. Its basis was clearly Aryan, but
its language, society, and religion incorporated many non-Aryan elements.
Harappan culture vanished, but both it and other regional cultures
contributed to the formation of Indian culture as we know it.
Aryan society was apparently patrilineal—with succession and
inheritance in the male line—and its gods were likewise predominantly
male. Marriage appears to have been monogamous, and widows could
remarry. Related families formed larger kin groups. The largest social
grouping was the tribe, ruled by a chieftain or raja (“king” in Sanskrit),
who shared power with a tribal council. In early Vedic days the ruler was
chosen for his prowess; his chief responsibility was to lead in battle, and he
had no priestly function or sacred authority. A chief priest looked after the
sacrifices on which religious life centered. By the Brahmanic age the king,
with the help of priests, had assumed the role of judge in legal matters and
become a hereditary ruler claiming divine qualities. The power of the
priestly class had also increased.

raja
An Indian king.

Although there were probably subgroups of warriors and priests, Aryan

society seems originally to have had only two basic divisions: noble and
common. The Dasas—the darker, conquered peoples—came to form a third
group (together with those who intermarried with them) of the socially
excluded. Over time, a more rigid scheme of four social classes (excluding
the non-Aryan Dasas) evolved. By the late Rig-Vedic period, religious
theory explicitly sanctioned these four divisions, or varnas—the priestly
(Brahman), the warrior/noble (Kshatriya), the peasant/tradesman (Vaishya),
and the servant (Shudra). Only the members of the three upper classes
participated fully in social, political, and religious life. This scheme
underlies the rigid caste system that later became fundamental to Indian
society.

OVERVIEW The First Civilizations

Civilization is a form of human culture usually marked by the development
of cities, the ability to make and use metal tools and instruments, and the
invention of a system of writing. The first civilizations appeared in the
Middle East between 4000 and 3000 B.C.E., and by the second millennium
B.C.E., there were civilized societies in Eurasia, China, and the Americas.
Mesopotamia Sumerians arrive in the Tigris-Eurphrates River valley, ca.
3500 B.C.E., and establish the first city-states, ca. 2800 B.C.E.
Egypt Egyptian civilization develops along the Nile River, ca.
3100 B.C.E. Egypt becomes a unified state, ca. 2700 B.C.E.
Indus Valley Flourishing urban civilization develops in northern India
along the Indus River, ca. 2250 B.C.E.
China City-states appear in the Yellow River basin, ca. 1766 B.C.E.
Americas Agricultural surplus gives rise to the first cities in
Mesoamerica, ca. 1500 B.C.E., and to the first Andean
civilization in South America, ca. 2750 B.C.E.
 The early seminomadic Aryans lived simply in wood-and-thatch or, later,
mud-walled dwellings. They measured wealth in cattle and were
accomplished at carpentry and bronze working (iron probably was not
known in India before 1000 B.C.E.). They used gold for ornamentation and
produced woolen textiles. They also cultivated some crops, especially
grains, and were familiar with intoxicating drinks, including soma, used in
religious rites, and a kind of mead. Music and gambling with dice appear to
have been popular.
The Brahmanic Age left few material remains. Urban culture remained
undeveloped, although mud-brick towns appeared as new lands were
cleared for cultivation. Established kingdoms with fixed capitals now
existed. Trade grew, especially along the Ganges, although there is no
evidence of a coinage system. Later texts mention specialized artisans,
including goldsmiths, basket makers, weavers, potters, and entertainers.
Writing had been reintroduced to India around 700 B.C.E., perhaps from
Mesopotamia along with traded goods.
Vedic India’s main identifiable contributions to later history were
religious. The central Vedic cult—controlled by priests serving a military
aristocracy—remained dominant until the middle of the first millennium
B.C.E. By that time other, perhaps older, religious forms were evidently
asserting themselves among the populace. The increasing ritual formalism
of Brahmanic religion provoked challenges both in popular practice and in
religious thought that culminated in Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu traditions of
piety and practice (see Chapter 2).
The earliest Indo-Aryans seem to have worshiped numerous gods, most
of whom embodied or were associated with powers of nature. (See
Document, “Hymn to Indra” on page 22.) The Rig-Vedic hymns are
addressed to anthropomorphic deities linked to natural phenomena such as
the sky, the clouds, and the sun. These gods are comparable to those of
ancient Greece (see Chapter 3) and are apparently distantly related to them
through the Indo-European heritage the Greeks and Aryans shared. The
name of the Aryan father-god Dyaus, for example, is linguistically related
to the Greek Zeus. The Vedic hymns praise each god they address as
possessing almost all powers, including those associated with other gods.
Ritual sacrifice was the central focus of Vedic religion, its goal
apparently being to invoke the presence of the gods to whom an offering
was made rather than to expiate sins or express thanksgiving. Drinking
soma juice was part of the ritual. A recurring theme of the Vedic hymns that
accompanied the rituals is the desire for prosperity, health, and victory. The
late Vedic texts emphasize magical and cosmic aspects of ritual and
sacrifice. Indeed, some of the Brahmanas maintain that only exacting
performance of the sacrifice can maintain the world order.

DOCUMENT
Hymn to Indra
This hymn celebrates the greatest deed ascribed to Indra, the slaying of the
dragon Vritra to release the waters needed by people and livestock (which
is also heralded at one point in the hymn as the act of creation itself). These
waters are apparently those of the dammed-up rivers, but possibly also the
rains as well. This victory also symbolizes the victory of the Aryans over the
dark-skinned Dasas. Note the sexual as well as water imagery. The
kadrukas may be the bowls used for soma in the sacrifice. The vajra is
Indra’s thunderbolt; the name Dasa for the lord of the waters is also that
used for the peoples defeated by the Aryans and for all enemies of Indra, of
whom the Pani tribe is one.

• WHAT are the main kinds of imagery used for Indra and his actions
in the hymn? What divine acts does the hymn ascribe to Indra?

Indra’s heroic deeds, indeed, will I proclaim, the first ones which the
wielder of the vajra accomplished. He killed the dragon, released the
waters, and split open the sides of the mountains.

He killed the dragon lying spread out on the mountain; for him Tvashtar
fashioned the roaring vajra. Like bellowing cows, the waters, gliding, have
gone down straightway to the ocean.
Showing off his virile power he chose soma; from the three kadrukas he
drank of the extracted soma. The bounteous god took up the missile, the
vajra; he killed the first-born among the dragons.
When you, O Indra, killed the first-born among the dragons and further
overpowered the wily tricks (maya) of the tricksters, bringing forth, at that
very moment, the sun, the heaven and the dawn—since then, indeed, have
you not come across another enemy. Indra killed Vritra, the greater enemy,
the shoulderless one, with his mighty and fatal weapon, the vajra. Like
branches of a tree lopped off with an axe, the dragon lies prostrate upon the
earth.…
Over him, who lay in that manner like a shattered reed flowed the waters
for the sake of man. At the feet of the very waters, which Vritra had [once]
enclosed with his might, the dragon [now] lay [prostrate].…
With the Dasa as their lord and with the dragon as their warder, the
waters remained imprisoned, like cows held by the Pani. Having killed
Vritra, [Indra] threw open the cleft of waters which had been closed.
You became the hair of a horse’s tail, O Indra, when he [Vritra] struck at
your sharp-pointed vajra—the one god [eka deva] though you were. You
won the cows, O brave one, you won soma; you released the seven rivers,
so that they should flow.…
Indra, who wields the vajra in his hand, is the lord of what moves and
what remains rested, of what is peaceful and what is horned. He alone rules
over the tribes as their king; he encloses them as does a rim the spokes.

—Rig-Veda 1.32

Source: From Sources of Indian Tradition by William Theodore de Bary. Copyright © 1988 by
Columbia University Press. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

The word Brahman, originally used to designate the ritual utterance or

word of power, came to refer also to the generalized divine power present in
the sacrifice. In the Upanishads, some of the latest Vedic texts and the ones
most concerned with speculation about the universe, Brahman was
extended to refer to the Absolute, the transcendent principle of reality. As
the guardian of ritual and the master of the sacred word, the priest was
known throughout the Vedic Aryan period by a related word, Brahmana, for
which the English is Brahman. Echoes of these associations were to lend
force in later Hindu tradition to the special status of the Brahman caste
groups as the highest social class (see Chapter 4).

Upanishads
The Upanishads, which date to about the seventh century B.C.E., have been
perennial sources of spiritual knowledge for Hindus. The word upanishad
means “secret and sacred knowledge.” This word occurs in the Upanishads
themselves in more than a dozen places in this sense. The word also means
“texts incorporating such knowledge.” There are ten principal Upanishads.

CHRONOLOGY
ANCIENT INDIA

EARLY CHINESE CIVILIZATION

WHY DID large territorial states arise in ancient China?

NEOLITHIC ORIGINS IN THE YELLOW RIVER VALLEY

Agriculture began in China in about 4000 B.C.E. in the basin of the southern
bend of the Yellow River. This is the northernmost of eastern Asia’s four
great river systems, all of which drain eastward into the Pacific Ocean. In
recent millennia, the Yellow River has flowed through a deforested plain,
cold in winter and subject to periodic droughts. But in 4000 B.C.E., its
climate was warmer, with forested highlands in the west and swampy
marshes to the east.
The chief crop of China’s agricultural revolution was millet. A second
agricultural development focusing on rice may have occurred on the Huai
River. In time, wheat entered China from the west. The early Chinese
cleared land and burned its cover to plant millet and cabbage and, later, rice
and soybeans. When the soil became exhausted, fields were abandoned, and
sometimes early villages were abandoned, too. Pigs, sheep, cattle, dogs, and
chickens were domesticated, but hunting continued to be important to the
village economy. Grain was stored in pottery, and stone tools included axes,
hoes, spades, and sickle-shaped knives.
The earliest cultivators lived in wattle-and-daub pit dwellings with
wooden support posts and sunken, plastered floors. Their villages were
located in isolated clearings along slopes of river valleys. Archaeological
finds of weapons and remains of earthen walls suggest tribal warfare
between villages. Little is known of the religion of these people, although
some evidence suggests the worship of ancestral spirits. They practiced
divination by applying heat to a hole drilled in the shoulder bone of a steer
or the under-shell of a tortoise and then interpreting the resulting cracks in
the bone. They buried their dead in cemeteries with jars of food. Tribal
leaders wore rings and beads of jade.

See the Map

Ancient China at myhistorylab.com

EARLY BRONZE AGE: THE SHANG

The traditional history of China tells of three ancient dynasties: Xia (2205–
1766 B.C.E.), Shang (1766–1050 B.C.E.), and Zhou (1050–256 B.C.E.).

Hear the Audio

at myhistorylab.com Map

See the Map The Shang Kingdom at myhistorylab.com

The Shang Kingdom at
 Until early in the twentieth century, historians thought the first two were
legendary. Then, in the 1920s, archaeological excavations near present-day
Anyang uncovered the ruins of a walled city that had been a late Shang
capital.
Other Shang cities have been discovered more recently. The ruins
contained the archives of the department of divination of the Shang court,
with thousands upon thousands of “oracle bones” incised with archaic
Chinese writing.

View the Image An Inscribed Oracle Bone at myhistorylab.com

The names of kings on the bones fit almost perfectly those of the
traditional historical record. This evidence that the Shang actually existed
has led historians to suggest that the Xia may also have been an actual
dynasty.
The characteristic political institution of Bronze Age China was the city-
state. The largest was the Shang capital, which, frequently moved, lacked
the monumental architecture of Egypt or Mesopotamia. The walled city
contained public buildings, altars, and the residences of the aristocracy; it
was surrounded by a sea of Neolithic tribal villages. The military
aristocracy went to war in chariots, supported by levies of foot soldiers. The
Shang fought against barbarian tribes and, occasionally, against other city-
states in rebellion against Shang rule. Captured prisoners were enslaved.
The three most notable features of Shang China were writing, bronzes,
and the appearance of social classes. Scribes at the Shang court kept records
on strips of bamboo, but these have not survived. What have survived are
inscriptions on bronze artifacts and the oracle bones. Some bones contain
the question put to the oracle, the answer, and the outcome of the matter.
Representative questions were: Which ancestor is causing the king’s
earache? If the king goes hunting at Qi, will there be a disaster? Will the
king’s child be a son? If the king sends his army to attack an enemy, will the
deity help him? Was a sacrifice acceptable to ancestral deities?
What we know of Shang religion is based on the bones. The Shang
believed in a supreme “Deity Above,” who had authority over the human
world. Also serving at the court of the Deity Above were lesser natural
deities—the sun, moon, earth, rain, wind, and the six clouds. Even the
Shang king sacrificed not to the Deity Above but to his ancestors, who
interceded with the Deity Above on the king’s behalf. Kings, while alive at
least, were not considered divine but were the high priests of the state.
In Shang times, as later, religion in China was closely associated with
cosmology. The Shang people observed the movements of the planets and
stars and reported eclipses. Celestial happenings were seen as omens from
the gods. The chief cosmologists also recorded events at the court. The
Shang calendar had a month of 30 days and a year of 360 days.
Adjustments were made periodically by adding an extra month. The king
used the calendar to tell his people when to sow and when to reap.
Bronze appeared in China in about 2000 B.C.E., 1,000 years later than in
Mesopotamia and 500 years later than in India. Because Shang casting
methods were more advanced than those of Mesopotamia and because the
designs on Shang bronzes continued those of the preceding black pottery
culture, the Shang probably developed its bronze technology independently.
Among the Shang, as with other early river valley civilizations, the
increasing control of nature through agriculture and metallurgy was
accompanied by the emergence of a rigidly stratified society in which the
many were compelled to serve the few. A monopoly of bronze weapons
enabled aristocrats to exploit other groups. Nowhere was the gulf between
the royal lineage and the baseborn more apparent than it was in the Shang
institution of human sacrifice. When a king died, hundreds of slaves or
prisoners of war, sometimes together with those who had served the king
during his lifetime, might be buried with him. Sacrifices also were made
when a palace or an altar was built.
Oracle Bone. Inscribed oracle bone from the Shang Dynasty city of
Anyang.

Does the quality of the inscriptions on this bone make you think the
bone is more a symbolic object or a tool?

LATE BRONZE AGE: THE WESTERN ZHOU

To the west of the area of Shang rule, in the valley of the Wei River, lived
the warlike Zhou people. The last Shang kings were weak, cruel, and
tyrannical. By 1050 B.C.E., they had been debilitated by campaigns against
nomads in the north and rebellious tribes in the east. Taking advantage of
this opportunity, the Zhou made alliances with disaffected city-states and
swept in, conquering the Shang.
In most respects, the Zhou continued the Shang pattern of life and rule.
The agrarian-based city-state continued to be the basic unit of society, and
the Zhou social hierarchy was similar to that of the Shang. The Zhou
assimilated Shang culture, continuing without interruption the development
of China’s ideographic writing. The Zhou also maintained the practice of
casting bronze ceremonial vessels, but their vessels lacked the fineness that
set the Shang above the rest of the Bronze Age world.
The Zhou kept their capital in the west but set up a secondary capital at
Luoyang, along the southern bend of the Yellow River. They appointed their
kinsmen or other aristocratic allies to rule in other city-states. Blood or
lineage ties were essential to the Zhou pattern of rule.

QUICK REVIEW
The Western Zhou
There were many continuities between Shang and Zhou rule
Secondary capital established at Luoyang
Rule justified by Mandate of Heaven

Read the Document

“Hou-Shih, from the Shih-Ching” at myhistorylab.com
 One difference between the Shang and the Zhou was in the nature of the
political legitimacy each claimed. The Shang kings, descended from
shamanistic (priestly) rulers, had a built-in religious authority and needed
no theory to justify their rule. But the Zhou, having conquered the Shang,
needed a rationale for why they were now the rightful rulers. Their
argument was that Heaven (the name for the supreme being that gradually
replaced the Deity Above during the early Zhou), appalled by the
wickedness of the last Shang king, had withdrawn its mandate to rule from
the Shang, awarding it instead to the Zhou. This concept of the Mandate of
Heaven was subsequently invoked by every dynasty in China down to the
twenty-first century.

Mandate of Heaven
The Chinese belief that Heaven entrusts or withdraws a ruler’s or a
dynasty’s right to govern.

IRON AGE: THE EASTERN ZHOU

In 771 B.C.E. the Wei valley capital of the Western Zhou was overrun by
barbarians. The heir to the throne, with some members of the court, escaped
to the secondary capital at Luoyang, 200 miles to the east and just south of
the bend in the Yellow River, beginning the Eastern Zhou period.
The first phase of the Eastern Zhou lasted until 481 B.C.E. The Zhou kings
at Luoyang were unable to reestablish their old authority. By the early
seventh century B.C.E., Luoyang’s political power was nominal, although it
remained a center of culture and ritual observances. During the seventh and
sixth centuries B.C.E., the political configuration was an equilibrium of many
small principalities on the north-central plain surrounded by larger, wholly
autonomous territorial states along the borders of the plain (see Map 1–4 on
page 26). The larger states consolidated the areas within their borders,
absorbed tribal peoples, and expanded by conquering states on their
periphery.
The second phase of the Eastern Zhou is known as the Warring States
period, after a chronicle of the same name treating the years from 401 to
256 B.C.E. By the fifth century B.C.E., all defensive alliances had collapsed.
Strong states swallowed their weaker neighbors. The border states grew in
size and power. Interstate stability disappeared. By the fourth century B.C.E.,
only eight or nine great territorial states remained as contenders. The only
question was which one would defeat the others and go on to unify China.

CHRONOLOGY
EARLY CHINA

MAP 1–4. Early Iron Age Territorial

States in China during the Sixth Century B.C.E.

After the fall of the Western Zhou in China in 771 B.C.E., large territorial
states formed that became increasingly independent of the later Zhou kings.
Which States appear strongest in this period?
 Three basic changes in Chinese society contributed to the rise of large
territorial states. One was the expansion of population and agricultural
lands. The walled cities of the Shang and Western Zhou had been like oases
in the wilds, bounded by plains, marshes, and forests. But as population
grew, wilds began to disappear, and the economy became almost entirely
agricultural. Friction arose over boundaries as states began to abut. After
the start of the Iron Age, farmers used iron tools to clear new lands and
plow deeper, raising yields and increasing agricultural surpluses. Irrigation
and drainage canals became important for the first time. Serfs gave way to
independent farmers, who bought and sold land. By the third century B.C.E.,
China had about 20 million people, making it the most populous country in
the world, a distinction it has never lost.
A second development was the rise of commerce. Roads built for war
were used by merchants. Copper coins joined bolts of silk and precious
metals as media of exchange. Rich merchants rivaled in lifestyle than
landowning lower nobility. Bronze bells and mirrors, clay figurines, lacquer
boxes, and musical instruments found in late Zhou tombs show that China’s
material and artistic culture leaped ahead during this period.
A third change that doomed the city-state was the rise of a new kind of
army. The war chariots of the old aristocracy, practical only on level terrain,
gave way to cavalry armed with crossbows. Most of the fighting was done
by conscript foot soldiers. Armies numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
The old nobility gave way to professional commanders. The old aristocratic
etiquette, which governed behavior even in battle, gave way to military
tactics that were bloody and ruthless. Prisoners were often massacred.
Change also affected government. Lords of the new territorial states
began to style themselves as kings, taking the title that previously only
Zhou royalty had enjoyed. To survive, new states had to transform their
agricultural and commercial wealth into military strength. To collect taxes,
conscript soldiers, and administer the affairs of state required records and
literate officials. Academies were established to fill the need. Beneath the
ministers, a literate bureaucracy developed. Its members were referred to as
shi, a term that had once meant “warrior” but gradually came to mean
“scholar-bureaucrat.” The shi were of mixed social origins, including petty
nobility, literate members of the old warrior class, landlords, merchants, and
rising commoners. From this class, as we will see in Chapter 2, came the
philosophers who created the “one hundred schools” and transformed the
culture of China.

Bronze Vessel from the Shang Dynasty.

The little elephant on top forms the handle of the lid. Wine was poured
through the spout formed by the big elephant’s trunk.

What do you observe about the craftsmanship with which this vessel
was created? What does this suggest about the situations in which it
might have been used?

THE RISE OF CIVILIZATION IN THE

AMERICAS

HOW DID agriculture influence the development of civilizations in

Mesoamerica?

During the last Ice Age, the Bering region between Siberia and Alaska was
dry land. Humans crossed this land bridge from Asia to the Americas,
probably in several migrations, and moved south and east over many
centuries. From these peoples a wide variety of original American cultures
and many hundreds of languages arose.
The earliest immigrants to the Americas, like all Paleolithic peoples,
lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering. At the time of the initial
migrations, herds of large game animals were plentiful. By the end of the
Ice Age, however, mammoths and many other forms of game had become
extinct in the Americas. Where fishing or small game was insufficient,
people had to rely on protein from vegetable sources. American production
of plants providing protein far outpaced that of European agriculture. One
of the most important early developments was the cultivation of maize
(corn). The cultivation of maize appears to have been in place in Mexico by
approximately 4000 B.C.E. Other important foods were potatoes (developed
in the Andes), manioc, squash, beans, peppers, and tomatoes. Many of these
foods entered the diet of Europeans, Asians, and other peoples after the
European conquest of the Americas in the sixteenth century C.E.
Eventually four areas of relatively dense settlement emerged in the
Americas. One of these, in the Pacific Northwest in the area around Puget
Sound, depended on the region’s extraordinary abundance of fish rather
than on agriculture; this area did not develop urbanized states. Another was
the Mississippi valley, where, based on maize agriculture, the inhabitants
developed a high level of social and political integration that had collapsed
several centuries before European contact. The other two, Mesoamerica and
the Andean region of South America, saw the emergence of strong, long-
lasting states. In other regions with maize agriculture and settled village life
—notably the North American Southwest—food supplies might have been
too insecure to support the development of states.

Hear the Audio at myhistorylab.com

Mesoamerica, which extends from the central part of modern Mexico

into Central America, is a region of great geographical diversity, ranging
from tropical rain forest to semiarid mountains (see Map 1–5 on page 28).
Archaeologists traditionally divide its preconquest history into three broad
periods: pre-classic or formative (2000 B.C.E.– 150 C.E.), classic (150–900
C.E.), and post-classic (900–1521). The earliest Mesoamerican civilization,
that of the Olmecs, arose during the pre-classic period on the Gulf Coast
beginning approximately 1500 B.C.E. The Olmec centers at San Lorenzo (ca.
1200–ca. 900 B.C.E.) and La Venta (ca. 900–ca. 400 B.C.E.) exhibit many of
the characteristics of later Mesoamerican cities, including the symmetrical
arrangement of large platforms, plazas, and other monumental structures
along a central axis and possibly courts for the ritual ball game played
throughout Mesoamerica at the time of the Spanish conquest. Writing
developed in Mesoamerica during the late formative period. As we will see
in Chapter 14, succeeding civilizations—including the classic period
civilization of Teotihuacán, the post-classic civilizations of the Toltecs and
Aztecs, and the classic and post-classic civilization of the Mayas—created
large cities, developed sophisticated calendar systems, and were organized
in complex social and political structures.

Mesoamerica
The part of North America that extends from the central part of modern
Mexico to Central America.

CHRONOLOGY
EARLY CIVILIZATIONS OF MESOAMERICA

The Andean region is one of dramatic contrasts. Along its western edge,
the narrow coastal plain is one of the driest deserts in the world. The Andes
rise abruptly from the coastal plain and then descend gradually into the
Amazon basin to the east. Agriculture is possible on the coast only in the
valleys of the many rivers that flow from the Andes into the Pacific. The
earliest monumental architecture in the Andean region, built on the coast at
the site of Aspero by people who depended on a combination of agriculture
and the Pacific’s rich marine resources, dates to about 2750 B.C.E.,
contemporary with the Great Pyramids of Egypt’s Old Kingdom.
MAP 1–5. Civilization in Mesoamerica and the Andes.

Both Mesoamerica and the Andean region of South America saw the
development of a series of civilizations beginning between 1500 and 1000
B.C.E.

What Geographical features do these civilizations have in common? How

do they differ?
Olmec Head. This colossal Olmec head, now in the Museo Nacional de
Antropologia in Mexico City, was excavated at San Lorenzo. Carved of
basalt, it may be a portrait of an Olmec ruler. Olmec civilization thrived
between 1500 and 800 B.C.E.

Compare this head to the statue from Mohenjo-Daro at the beginning

of this chapter. How does this head’s projection of power differ from
the other statue’s?

From 800 to 200 B.C.E. a civilization associated with the site of Chavín de
Huantar in the highlands of Peru exerted great influence in the Andes.
Artifacts in the distinctive Chavín style can be found over a large area
dating to this period, which archaeologists call the Early Horizon. In many
areas, this was a time of technical innovation, including pottery, textiles,
and metallurgy. Whether the spread of the Chavín style represents actual
political integration or the influence of a strong religious center is not
known. The period following the decline of Chavín, which archaeologists
call the Early Intermediate period, saw the development of distinctive
cultures in several regions. Notable among these are the Moche culture on
the northern coast of Peru and the Nazca culture on the southern coast. A
second period of transregional integration—called the Middle Horizon—
occurred around 600 C.E., this time probably associated with empires
centered on the highland sites of Huari and Tiahuanaco. The succeeding
Late Intermediate period was dominated on the northern coast of Peru by
the Chimu successors of the Moche state. This period ended with the
founding of the vast, tightly controlled empire of the Incas in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries C.E.

CHRONOLOGY
EARLY CIVILIZATION OF THE ANDES
SUMMARY

WHY IS “culture” considered a defining trait of human beings?

Early Humans and Their Culture. Language facilitates the transmission
of culture—the lifeways of a group—from one generation to the next.
Cultural adaptation has allowed humans to spread around the globe.
Beginning in 10,000 B.C.E., human beings shifted from a hunter-gatherer
way of life to one marked by settled agriculture and the domestication of
animals—a shift known as the Neolithic Revolution. Between 4000 and
3000 B.C.E., civilization began to appear in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys
in Mesopotamia, then along the Nile River in Egypt, and somewhat later in
the Indus valley in India and the Yellow River basin in China. Each of these
early civilizations developed urban centers, monumental architecture, a
hierarchical society, and a system of writing. The period is known as the
Bronze Age because it coincided with the discovery of the technique for
making bronze tools and weapons. page 1
HOW DID control over water resources influence early Middle
Eastern civilizations?
Early Civilizations in the Middle East to about 1000 B.C.E. The
Sumerians founded the oldest Mesopotamian cities around 3000 B.C.E.
Beginning around 2370 B.C.E., the Sumerian city-states were conquered and
absorbed in turn by the Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires. The
Sumerians passed much of their civilization down to their successors: a
system of writing on clay tablets called cuneiform, the worship of gods
based on natural forces, semidivine kings, and a highly developed
bureaucracy. Watered by the Nile River and protected by deserts and the
sea, Egyptian civilization was more secure and peaceful than that of
Mesopotamia. Egypt became a unified kingdom around 2700 B.C.E. Religion
dominated Egyptian life. The kings, or pharaohs, were considered gods on
whom the lives and prosperity of their people depended. Egyptian history is
divided into three main periods: Old Kingdom (2700–2200 B.C.E.), Middle
Kingdom (2025–1630 B.C.E.), and New Kingdom (1550–1075 B.C.E.). Under
the New Kingdom, Egypt contended for mastery of the Near East with the
Hittite Empire. page 5
HOW DID conquest and trade shape early empires in the Near East?
Ancient Near Eastern Empires. The Hittites, based in what is now Turkey
between 1400 B.C.E. and 1200 B.C.E., helped transmit Mesopotamian and
Egyptian culture to the Greeks. They were also early smelters of iron. The
Kassites, with their military aristocracy, helped preserve Babylonian
culture. The Mitannians were horse-based warriors. The Assyrians were
significantly influenced by Babylonian culture. By 665 B.C.E., thanks to
military conquest, they controlled a vast territory. The Assyrian Empire fell
to Nebuchadnezzar in 612 B.C.E., and the neo-Babylonians built their empire
on trade. page 14
WHAT INFLUENCES did the first Indus valley civilization have on
later Indian religious and social practices?
Early Indian Civilization. By 2300 B.C.E. at least seventy Indus cities, the
largest being Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, had developed a sophisticated
urban culture. Between 1800 and 1700 B.C.E., Indus civilization disappeared
for unknown reasons. In its place, Indo-European (or Aryan) invaders
established the Vedic culture, named after the ritual writings known as the
Vedas. In turn, Vedic culture evolved into a “new” Indian civilization that
spread over the whole subcontinent. page 16

WHY DID territorial states arise in ancient China?

Early Chinese Civilization. The Shang Dynasty (1766–1050 B.C.E.)

founded the earliest known Bronze Age civilization in China. The Shang
and their successors, the Zhou (1050–256 B.C.E.), ruled as warrior aristocrats
from city-states that fought outsiders and each other. By the fourth century
B.C.E., as population and commerce expanded, rulers needed bigger armies
to defend their states and trained bureaucrats to administer them. The result
was the consolidation of many petty states into a few large territorial units.
page 23

HOW DID agriculture influence the development of civilizations in

Mesoamerica?
The Rise of Civilization in the Americas. The first civilizations in the
Americas arose in places that produced an agricultural surplus. In
Mesoamerica (central Mexico and Central America) this was based on the
cultivation of maize (corn). In the Andes valleys, it was based on a
combination of agriculture and the rich marine resources of the Pacific. The
Olmecs (1500–400 B.C.E.) established the first civilization in Mesoamerica,
whereas the first monumental architecture appeared in the Andes region
around 2750 B.C.E. page 27

KEY TERMS

Aryans (AIR-ee-uhns)
Bronze Age
chattel slavery (SHAT-1)
civilization
culture
cuneiform (koo-NAY-form)
diffusion
Harappan (huh-RAHP-uhn)
hieroglyphs
Indo-European
Mahabharata (muh-HAH-BAHR-uh-tuh) and Ramayana (RAH-
MAHyuh-nuh)
Mandate of Heaven
Mesoamerica
Mesopotamia
Neolithic Revolution
Paleolithic Age
pharaoh
raja (rah-JAH)
Upanishads (oo-PAHN-eeshahdz)
Vedas (vay-DAHZ)

REVIEW QUESTIONS
 1. How was life during the Paleolithic Age different from that in the
Neolithic Age? What advances in agriculture and human
development had taken place by the end of the Neolithic era? Is it
valid to speak of a “Neolithic Revolution”?
2. What defines civilization? What are the similarities and differences
among the world’s earliest civilizations?
3. What general conclusions can you draw about the differences in the
political and intellectual outlooks of the civilizations of Egypt and
Mesopotamia?
4. Why were the Assyrians so successful in establishing their Near
Eastern empire? How did their empire differ from that of the Hittites
or Egyptians? In what ways did this empire benefit the Near East?
Why did the Assyrian Empire ultimately fail to survive?
5. How does the early history of Indian civilization differ from that of
the river valley civilizations of China, Mesopotamia, and Egypt?
What does the evidence suggest were the social, economic, and
political differences between the Indus civilization and the Vedic
Aryan civilization?
6. What were the stages of early Chinese history? What led each to
evolve toward the next?
7. What does the story of the appearance of civilization in the
Americas tell us about the development of civilization generally? In
what ways did the development of Mesoamerican civilizations
follow patterns similar to those of early civilizations in the Middle
East, the Near East, India, or China? In what ways did it differ?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com
Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 1

Read the Document From Hunter-gatherers to Food-producers–
Overcoming Obstacles, p. 2
The Development of Religion, p. 2
The Toolmaker (3300 B.C.E.), p. 2
Redefining Self—From Tribe to Village to City 1500 B.C.E., p. 3
The Neolithic Village, p. 4
Sumerian Law Code: The Code of Lipit-Ishtar, p. 5
Geography and Civilization: Egypt and Mesopotamia–Impact of
Agriculture, p. 5
Two Accounts of an Egyptian Famine 2600s B.C.E., p. 6
The Development of Religion in Primitive Cultures, p. 7
Excerpts from The Epic of Gilgamesh, p. 7
Workings of Ma’at: “The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant”, p. 9
The Report of Wenamun Papyrus of Ani, The Egyptian Book of the
Dead c. 1200 B.C.E., p. 13
Hittite Law Code: excerpts from The Code of the Nesilim, p. 14
Excerpt from Mahábhárata (1000-600 B.C.E.), p. 20
“Hou-Shih, from the Shih-Ching,” p. 25

See the Map The Beginnings of Food Production, p. 3

Egypt in the Middle Kingdom, p. 11

Egypt in the New Kingdom, p. 12
Empire of Assiria, ca. 1800 B.C.E., p. 15
The Neo-Babylonian Empire, ca. 580 B.C.E., p. 16
The Shang Kingdom, p. 24

View the Image Hammurabi Receives His Law Code from the Gods, p. 6

The Pyramids at Giza, p. 11

The Sphinx, p. 11
Egyptian Throne of Tutankhamun, 1333–1323 B.C.E.
Great Temple of Abu Simbel, p. 12
Scene from the Egyptian Afterlife, p. 13
Egyptian Relief of Anubis, p. 14
 An Inscribed Oracle Bone, p. 24

Watch the Video The Temple of Karnak, p. 13

Ramses II’s Abu Simbel, p. 14

Research and Explore

See the Map Prehistoric Human Migration Patterns: From 1 million to

15,000 years ago

See the Map Ancient China on page 23

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 1
at www.myhistorylab.com
2
Four Great Revolutions in Thought and
Religion

Hear the Audio for Chapter 2 at www.myhistorylab.com

The Way. Detail from a twelfth-century Daoist scroll, showing the feats of
the “Eight Immortals,” the most famous characters in Daoist folklore.
How does this landscape evoke the ineffability and mystery of Dao, or
“the way”?
COMPARING THE FOUR GREAT REVOLUTIONS

WHAT ARE the fundamental beliefs or worldviews that were expressed in

the four great revolutions in thought that occurred between 800 and 300
B.C.E.?

PHILOSOPHY IN CHINA

WHY WAS the revolution in Chinese thought more similar to that in Greek
thought than to Indian religion or Judaic monotheism?

RELIGION IN INDIA

WHAT FUNDAMENTAL institutions and ideas form the basis of Indian

religion?

THE RELIGION OF THE ISRAELITES

HOW WAS the Hebrew concept of God and religion distinctive?

GREEK PHILOSOPHY

WHY DID Greek thinkers, beginning in the sixth century B.C.E., produce an
intellectual revolution?

All human cultures develop religious or philosophical systems. Some

scientists have even debated whether humans are biologically “hard-wired”
for religious beliefs. Certainly religion and philosophy meet profound
human psychological needs, offering explanations of life’s meaning.

COMPARING THE FOUR GREAT

REVOLUTIONS
 WHAT ARE the fundamental beliefs or worldviews that were
expressed in the four great revolutions in thought that occurred between 800
and 300 B.C.E.?

The most straightforward case is that of China. Both geographically and

culturally, its philosophical breakthrough grew directly out of the earlier
river valley civilization. No such continuity existed elsewhere in the world.
In India, for example, the great tradition of Indian thought and religion
emerged after 600 B.C.E. out of the Ganges civilization of Indo-Aryan
warriors who had swept in from the northwest. Absorbing many particulars
from the earlier Indus civilization, which had collapsed, the Aryans built a
new civilization on the plains farther east along the mighty Ganges River.
The transition was even more complex along the shores of the
Mediterranean. No direct line of development can be traced from the Nile
civilization of ancient Egypt or the civilizations of the Tigris-Euphrates
River valley to Greek philosophy or to Judaic monotheism. Rather, the
ancient river valley civilizations evolved into a complex amalgam that
included diverse older religious, mythical, and cosmological traditions, as
well as newer mystery cults. Judaic monotheism and Greek philosophy—
representing different outgrowths of this amalgam—were each important in
their own right. But their greatest influence occurred centuries later when
they helped shape first Christianity and then Islam. (See Overview Figure
2–1 on page 48.)

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
Between 800 and 300 B.C.E, four philosophical or religious revolutions
shaped the subsequent history of the world. The names of many of the
figures involved in these revolutions are world-famous—Confucius, the
Buddha, Abraham, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. All the revolutions
occurred in or near the four heartland areas in which the river valley
civilizations (described in Chapter 1) had appeared fifteen hundred or more
years earlier. The transition from the early river valley civilizations to the
intellectual and spiritual breakthroughs of the middle of the first millennium
B.C.E. is schematized in Figure 2–1 on page 48.
 Before considering each of the original breakthroughs that occurred
between 800 and 300 B.C.E., we might ask whether they have anything in
common. Five points are worth noting.

1. All the philosophical or religious revolutions occurred in or near the

original river valley civilizations. These areas contained the most
advanced cultures of the ancient world. They had sophisticated
agriculture, cities with many literate inhabitants, and specialized
trades and professions. In short, they had the material preconditions
for breakthroughs in religion and thought.
2. Each of the revolutions in thought and ethos was born of a crisis in
the ancient world. The appearance of iron meant better tools and
weapons and, by extension, greater riches and more powerful
armies. Old societies began to change and then to disintegrate. Old
aristocratic and priestly codes of behavior broke down, producing a
demand for more universalized rules of behavior, in other words, for
ethics. The very relation of humans to nature or to the universe
seemed to be changing. This predicament led to new visions of
social and political order. The similarity between the Jewish
Messiah, the Chinese sage-king, and Plato’s philosopher-king is
more than accidental. Each was a response to a crisis in a society of
the ancient world. Each would reconnect ethics to history and
restore order to a troubled society.
3. The number of philosophical and religious revolutions can be
counted on the fingers of one hand. The reason is not that humans’
creativity dried up after 300 B.C.E., but that subsequent
breakthroughs and advances tended to occur within the original
traditions, which, absorbing new energies, continued to evolve.
4. After the first- and second-stage transformations, much of the
cultural history of the world involves the spread of cultures derived
from these original heartlands to ever-wider spheres. Christianity
spread to northern and eastern Europe, the Americas, and parts of
Asia and Africa; Buddhism to central, southeastern, and eastern
Asia; Confucianism to Korea, Vietnam, and Japan; and Islam to
Africa, southeastern Europe, and southern, central, and southeastern
Asia. Sometimes the spread was the result of movements of people;
other areas were like dry grasslands needing only the spark of the
 new ideas to be ignited. Typically, the process spread out over
centuries.
5. Once a cultural pattern was set, it usually endured. Each major
culture was resistant to the others and was only rarely displaced.
Even in modern times, although the culture of modern science, and
the learning associated with it, has penetrated every cultural zone, it
has reshaped—and is reshaping, not displacing—the major cultures.
Only Confucianism, the most secular of the traditional cultures,
crumbled at the touch of science, and even its ethos remains a potent
force in East Asian societies. These major cultures endured because
they were not only responses to particular crises, but also attempts
to answer universal questions concerning the human condition:
What are human beings? What is our relation to the universe? How
should we relate to others?

Focus Questions

Why do you think so many revolutionary philosophical and religious

ideas emerged at about the same time in many different regions? Do
these ideas share any fundamental concerns?
Why is this period in Eurasian history sometimes referred to as the
“axial age”?

PHILOSOPHY IN CHINA

WHY WAS the revolution in Chinese thought more similar to that in

Greek thought than to Indian religion or Judaic monotheism?

Of the four great revolutions in thought of the first millennium B.C.E., the
Chinese was closer to the Greek than to the Indian religious transformations
or to Judaic monotheism. Just as Greece had a gamut of philosophies, so in
China there were the “one hundred schools.” But whereas Greek thought
was speculative and concerned with the world of nature, Chinese thought
was sociopolitical and practical. The background of the philosophical
revolution in China was the disintegration of the old Zhou society (see
Chapter 1). Thinkers searched for new principles by which to re-create a
peaceful society. Even the Daoist sages, who were inherently apolitical,
found it necessary to offer a political philosophy. Chinese thought also had
far greater staying power than Greek thought, which only a few centuries
after the glory of Athens was submerged by Christianity and did not
reemerge as an independent force until the Renaissance. Chinese
philosophy, though challenged by Buddhism, remained dominant until the
early twentieth century. How were these early philosophies able to maintain
such a grip on China when the cultures of every other part of the world fell
under the sway of religions?
Part of the answer is that most Chinese philosophy had a religious
dimension. But it was a religion with assumptions different from those with
Judaic roots. In the Christian or Islamic worldview, there is a God who,
however concerned with humankind, is not of this world. This worldview
leads to dualism, the distinction between an otherworld, which is
supernatural, and this world, which is natural.

Read the Document

Origins of the Chinese Civilization – Confucianism, Daoism or Legalism?
at myhistorylab.com

In the Chinese worldview, the two spheres are not separate: The cosmos
is single, continuous, and nondualistic. It includes heaven, earth, and
humanity. Heaven is above; earth is below. Humans, ideally guided by a
wise and virtuous ruler, stand in between and regulate or harmonize the
cosmological forces of heaven and earth through virtue and ritual sacrifices.

CONFUCIANISM
Confucius was born in 551 B.C.E. in a minor state in northeastern China. He
probably belonged to the lower nobility or the knightly class, because he
received an education in writing, music, and rituals. His father died when
Confucius was young, so he may have known privation. He made his living
by teaching. He traveled with his disciples from state to state, seeking a
ruler who would put his ideas into practice. Although he may once have
held a minor position, his ideas were rejected as impractical. He died in 479
B.C.E., honored as a teacher and scholar but having failed to find a ruler to
advise. The name Confucius is the Latinized form of Kong Fuzi, or Master
Kong, as he is known in China.
We know of Confucius only through the Analects—sayings collected by
his disciples. They are mostly in the form of “The Master said,” followed
by his words. The picture that emerges is of a man of moderation, propriety,
optimism, good sense, and wisdom. In an age of cruelty and superstition, he
was humane, rational, and upright, demanding much of others and more of
himself. Asked about death, he replied, “You do not understand even life.
How can you understand death?”1

Read the Document

Confucious, selections from the Analects at myhistorylab.com

QUICK REVIEW
Confucius
Born in 551 B.C.E. in northeastern China
Probably belonged to the lower nobility or knightly class
Made his living as a teacher and a scholar

Confucius described himself as a conservator and transmitter of tradition.

He idealized the early Shang and Zhou kings as paragons of virtue and
particularly saw early Zhou society as a golden age. He sought the secrets
of this golden age in its writings. Some of these writings, along with later
texts, became the Confucian classics, which through most of Chinese
history had an authority not unlike Scripture in the West.

Read the Document

Confucianism: Government and the Superior (551–479 B.C.E.) at
myhistorylab.com

Confucius proposed to resolve the turmoil of his own age by a return to

the good old ways. When asked about government, he said, “Let the ruler
be a ruler, the subject a subject, the father a father, the son a son.” (The five
Confucian relationships were ruler–subject, father–son, husband–wife,
older brother–younger brother, and friend–friend.) If everyone fulfilled the
duties of his or her status, then harmony would prevail. Confucius
understood that the well-being of a society depends on the morality of its
members.

Read the Document

Confucian Political Philosophy: An Excerpt from Mencius at
myhistorylab.com

But China was undergoing a dynamic transition, and it was not enough to
stress basic human relationships. The genius of Confucius was to transform
the old aristocratic code into a new ethic that any educated Chinese could
practice. His reinterpretation of tradition can be seen in the concept of the
junzi. This term literally meant “the son of the ruler” (or the aristocrat).
Confucius redefined it to mean one of noble behavior, a person with the
inner virtues of humanity, integrity, righteousness, altruism, and loyalty, and
an outward demeanor and propriety to match. This redefinition was not
unlike the change in the meaning of gentleman in England, from “one who
is gentle-born” to “one who is gentle-behaved.” But whereas gentleman
remained a fairly superficial category in the West, in China junzi went
deeper. Confucius saw ethics as grounded in nature. The true gentleman
was in tune with the cosmic order.
Good government for Confucius depended on the appointment to office
of good men, who would serve as examples for the multitude: “Just desire
the good yourself and the common people will be good. The virtue of the
gentleman is like wind; the virtue of the small man is like grass. Let the
wind blow over the grass and it is sure to bend.” Beyond the gentleman was
the sage-king, who possessed an almost mystical virtue and power.
Confucianism was not adopted as the official philosophy of China until
the Han Dynasty (202 B.C.E.–9 C.E.; see Chapter 7). But two other important
Confucian philosophers had appeared in the meantime. Mencius (370–290
B.C.E.) represents the idealistic extension of Confucius’s thought. He is
famous for his argument that humans tend toward the good just as water
runs downward. The role of education is to uncover and cultivate that innate
goodness. Moreover, just as humans tend toward the good, so does Heaven
possess a moral will. The will of Heaven is that a government should see to
the education and well-being of its people. The rebellion of people against a
government is the primary evidence that Heaven has withdrawn its
mandate. At times in Chinese history, concern for the people was given
only lip service. In fact, rebellions occurred more often against weak
governments than against harsh ones. But the idea that government ought to
care for the people became an intrinsic part of the Confucian tradition.

Confucius. The master is shown here wearing the robes of a scholar of a

later age.
Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan.
What clues does this image offer about the personality of Confucius?

CHRONOLOGY
CHINA
 The other influential Confucian philosopher was Xunzi (300–237 B.C.E.),
who represents a tough-minded extension of Confucius’s thought. Xunzi
felt Heaven was amoral, indifferent to whether China was ruled by a tyrant
or a sage. He believed that human desires and emotions, if unchecked and
unrefined, led to social conflict. So he emphasized etiquette and education
as restraints on an unruly human nature, and good institutions, including
punishments and rewards, as a means for shaping behavior. These ideas
influenced the thinkers of the Legalist school.

DAOISM
It is often said that the Chinese have been Confucian while in office and
Daoist in their private lives. Daoism offered a refuge from the burden of
social responsibilities. The classics of the school are the Laozi, dating from
the fourth century B.C.E., and the Zhuangzi, dating from about a century
later.

Daoism
A Chinese philosophy that teaches that wisdom lies in becoming one with
the Dao, the “way,” which is the creative principle of the universe.

The central concept of Daoism is the Dao, or Way. It is mysterious,

ineffable, and cannot be named. It is the creator of the universe, the
sustainer of the universe, and the process or flux of the universe. The Dao
functions on a cosmic, not a human, scale. As the Laozi put it, “Heaven and
Earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs; the sage (in
accord with the Dao) is ruthless, and treats the people as straw dogs.”2
A sage joins the rhythms of nature by regaining an original simplicity.
Various similes describe this state: “to return to the infinite,” “to return to
being a babe,” or “to return to being the uncarved block.” To attain this
state, one must “learn to be without learning.” Knowledge creates
distinctions and interferes with participation in the Dao. One must also
learn to be without desires beyond the immediate and simple needs of
nature: “The nameless uncarved block is but freedom from desire.” The
sage acts without acting, and “when his task is accomplished and his work
is done, the people will say, ‘It happened to us naturally.’”
 Beyond becoming one with the Dao are two other assumptions or
principles. One is that any action pushed to an extreme will initiate a
reaction to the opposite extreme. The other is that too much government,
even good government, can become oppressive by its very weight. As the
Laozi put it, “Govern a large state as you would cook small fish,” that is,
without too much stirring.

Laozi. The founder of Daoism, as imagined by a later artist.

Courtesy of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington,

DC (72.1).

What might be the significance of showing Laozi in the middle of a

large, apparently empty space?

LEGALISM
A third great current in classical Chinese thought, and the most influential
in its own age, was Legalism. Legalists were also concerned with ending
the wars that plagued China. True peace, they believed, required a united
country and a strong state. The Legalists did not seek a model in the distant
past; different conditions require new principles of government. Nor did the
Legalists model their state on a heavenly order of values. Human nature is
selfish, argued both of the leading Legalists, Han Feizi (d. 233 B.C.E.) and Li
Si (d. 208 B.C.E.). It is human to like rewards or pleasure and to dislike
punishments or pain. If laws are severe and impartial, if what strengthens
the state is rewarded and what weakens the state is punished, then a strong
state and a good society will ensue.

Legalism
The Chinese philosophical school that argued that a strong state was
necessary in order to have a good society.

Legalism was the philosophy of the state of Qin, which destroyed the
Zhou in 256 B.C.E. and unified China in 221 B.C.E. Because Qin laws were
cruel and severe, and because Legalism put human laws above an ethic
modeled on Heaven, later generations of Chinese have denounced its
doctrines. Yet its legacy of administrative and criminal laws became a vital
part of subsequent dynastic China.

Read the Document

Laozi, excerpt from Tao Te Ching, “The Unvarying Way” at
myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

Daoism: The Classic of the Way and Virtue (500s-400s B.C.E.) at
myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

The Way of the State (475-221 B.C.E.) Legalism at myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

Li Si and the Legalist Policies of Qin Shihuang (280-208 B.C.E.) at
myhistorylab.com

RELIGION IN INDIA
 WHAT FUNDAMENTAL institutions and ideas form the basis of
Indian religion?

By 400 B.C.E., new social and religious forms took shape on the Indian
subcontinent. This tradition took its classical “Indian” shape in the early
first millennium C.E. Despite staggering internal diversity and divisions, and
long periods of foreign rule, this Indian culture has survived for over 2,000
years.

“HINDU” AND “INDIAN”

Indian culture and tradition include more than what the word Hindu
commonly implies today. Earlier, Hindu simply meant “Indian.” Outsiders
used “Hindu” to characterize religious and social institutions of India as a
whole, such as the concept of transmigration, the sacredness of the Vedas
and the cow, worship of Shiva and Vishnu, and caste distinctions. Hindu is
not a term for any single or uniform religious community.

Hindu
Term applied to the diverse social, racial, linguistic, and religious groups of
India.

Indian, on the other hand, commonly refers today to all native inhabitants
of the subcontinent, whatever their beliefs. In this book we shall generally
use the term Indian in this inclusive sense. For the period before the arrival
of Muslim culture (ca. 1000 C.E.), we will use Indian also to refer to the
tradition of thought and culture that began around the middle of the first
millennium B.C.E. and achieved its classical formulation in the Hindu
society and religion of the first millennium C.E.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Chapter 1 showed how, in the late Vedic or Brahmanic period, a priest-
centered cult dominated the upper classes of Aryanized northern Indian
society. By the sixth century B.C.E., this had become an elite, esoteric cult.
Elaborate animal sacrifices on behalf of Aryan rulers were an economic
burden on the peasants, whose livestock provided the victims. During the
seventh and sixth centuries B.C.E., skepticism in religious matters
accompanied social and political upheavals.
The latest Vedic texts themselves reflected a reaction against excessive
emphasis on the power of sacrifice and ritual, accumulation of worldly
wealth and power, and hope for an afterlife in a paradise. The treatises of
the Brahmanas (ca. 1000–800 B.C.E.) dealt with the ritual application of the
old Vedic texts, the explanation of Vedic rites and mythology, and the
theory of the sacrifice. Early on they focused on controlling the sacred
power (Brahman) of the sacrificial ritual, but they gradually stressed
acquiring this power through knowledge instead of ritual.

Brahmanas
Texts dealing with the ritual application of the Vedas.

This tendency became central in the Upanishads (ca. 800–500 B.C.E.). The
Upanishadic sages and the early Jains and Buddhists (fifth century B.C.E.)
shared certain revolutionary ideas and concerns. Their thinking and piety
influenced all later Indian intellectual thought and also, through the spread
of the Buddhist tradition, much of the intellectual and religious life of East
and Southeast Asia as well. Thus, the middle centuries of the first
millennium B.C.E. in India began a religious and philosophical revolution
that ranks as a turning point in the history of civilization.

THE UPANISHADIC WORLDVIEW

The Upanishads emphasize knowledge over ritual and stress immortality in
terms of escape from existence itself. These ideas were already evident in
two sentences from the prayer of an early Upanishadic thinker who said,
“From the unreal lead me to the Real.… From death lead me to
immortality.” The first sentence points to knowledge, not the sacred word or
act, as the ultimate source of power. The second sentence reflects a new
concern with life after death. The old Vedic ideal of living a full and upright
life so as to attain an afterlife among the gods no longer appears adequate.
Immortality is now interpreted in terms of escape from mundane existence
in any form. These two Upanishadic emphases changed the shape of Indian
thought forever and provide the key to its basic worldview.

QUICK REVIEW
Sacred Texts
Latest Vedic texts were a reaction against excessive emphasis on
ritual and sacrifice
Brahmanas dealt with ritual application of Vedic texts
Upanishads were an extended reflection on meaning of ritual and
nature of Brahman

The quest for knowledge by the Upanishadic sages focused on the nature
of the individual self (atman) and its relation to ultimate reality (Brahman).
The gods are now merely part of the total scheme of things, subject to the
laws of existence, and not to be put on the same plane with the transcendent
Absolute. Prayer and sacrifice to particular gods for their help continue, but
the higher goal is realization of Brahman through mental action alone, not
ritual performance.
The culmination of Upanishadic speculation is the recognition that the
way to the Absolute is through the self. Through contemplation, atman-
Brahman is recognized not as a deity but as the principle of reality itself:
the unborn, unmade, unitary, unchanging infinite. Of this reality, all that can
be said is that it is “neither this nor that,” because the ultimate cannot be
conceptualized or described in finite terms. Beneath the impermanence of
ordinary reality is the changeless Brahman, to which every being’s
immortal self belongs and of which it partakes. The difficulty is recognizing
this self, and with it the Absolute, while one is enmeshed in mortal
existence.

atman-Brahman The unchanging, infinite principle of reality in Indian

religion.

A second, related focus of Upanishadic inquiry was the nature of

“normal” existence. The realm of life is impermanent, ever changing. What
seem to be “solid” things—the physical world, our bodies and personalities,
worldly success—are revealed in the Upanishads as insubstantial. Even
happiness is transient. Existence is neither satisfying nor lasting. Only
Brahman is eternal and unchanging. This perception prefigures the
Buddhist emphasis on impermanence and suffering as the fundamental facts
of existence.
The Upanishadic conception of existence as a ceaseless cycle, a never-
ending alternation between life and death, became the basic assumption of
all Indian thought and religious life. The endless cycle of existence, or
samsara, is the key to understanding reality. The terrifying prospect of
endless “redeath” as the normal lot of all beings in this world, whether
animals, plants, humans, or gods, is the fundamental problem for all later
Indian thought.

samsara
The endless cycle of existence, of birth and rebirth.

The Indian tradition developed two approaches to the problem of

samsara. These two characteristic Indian responses to the problem posed by
samsara underlie the fundamental forms of Indian thought and piety that
took shape in the middle to late first millennium B.C.E. Both depend on
karma, which in Sanskrit literally means “work” or “action.” Karma is the
concept that every action has its inevitable effects; as long as there is action
of mind or body, there is continued effect and hence continued existence.

karma
The Indian belief that every action has an inevitable effect. Good deeds
bring good results; evil deeds have evil consequences.

The first strategy for dealing with samsara has been characterized as the
“ordinary norm,” life lived according to dharma. Although dharma has
many meanings, it most commonly means “the right (order of things),”
“moral law,” “right conduct,” or even “duty.” It includes the cosmic order
(compare the Chinese Dao) as well as right action and individual moral
responsibility. For the masses of Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains—those we
might call the laity, as distinguished from monks and ascetics—life
according to dharma demands acceptance of the responsibilities appropriate
to one’s sex, class and caste group, stage in life, and other life
circumstances. It also allows for legitimate self-interest: one’s duty is to do
things that acquire merit for one’s eternal atman and to avoid those that
bring evil consequences. Rebirth in paradise is the highest goal attainable
through the life of dharma, but all achievement in the world of dharma is
ultimately impermanent and subject to change. (See Document, “The
‘Turning of the Wheel of the Dharma’: Basic Teachings of the Buddha” on
page 40.)

dharma
Moral law or duty.

The “extraordinary norm” is a more radical solution, seeking “liberation”

(moksha) from existence: escaping all karmic effects by escaping action
itself. Nonaction is achieved only by withdrawal from “normal” existence.
The person seeking release has to move beyond the usual responsibilities of
family and society. Most often, this involves becoming a “renouncer”
(sannyasi)—whether a Hindu hermit, yogi, or wanderer, or a Jain or
Buddhist monk. The highest goal is not rebirth in heaven but permanent
liberation (moksha) from all rebirth and redeath. The ideas that led
individuals to seek the extraordinary norm were first fully elaborated in the
Upanishads. Increasing numbers of people abandoned both the ritualistic
religious practices and the society of class distinctions and material
concerns around them. Many of these seekers were of warrior-noble
(Kshatriya), not Brahmanic, birth. They took up the wandering or hermitic
existence of the ascetic, seeking spiritual powers in yogic meditation and
self-denial or even self-torture. Such seekers wanted to transcend bodily
existence to realize the Absolute.

DOCUMENT
The “Turning of the Wheel of the Dharma”: Basic Teachings of the
Buddha
Following are selections from the sermon said to have been the first
preached by the Buddha. It was directed at five former companions with
whom he had practiced extreme austerities. When he abandoned asceticism
to meditate under the Bodh tree, they had become disillusioned and left him.
This sermon is said to have made them the first to follow him. Because it set
in motion the Buddha’s teaching, or Dharma, on earth, it is usually
described as “setting in motion the wheel of Dharma.” The text is from the
Dhammacakkappavattanasutta.

• WHAT extremes does the Middle Path try to avoid? What emotion
drives the chain of suffering? How does the “knowledge” that brings
salvation compare to the knowledge sought in the Hindu tradition?

Thus have I heard. The Blessed One was once living in the Deer Park at
Isipatana (the Resort of Seers) near Baranasi (Benares). There he addressed
the group of five bhikkhus.

“Bhikkhus, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has
gone forth from the household life. What are the two? There is devotion to
the indulgence of sense-pleasures, which is low, common, the way of
ordinary people, unworthy and unprofitable; and there is devotion to self-
mortification, which is painful, unworthy and unprofitable.
“Avoiding both these extremes, the Tathagata has realized the Middle
Path: it gives vision, it gives knowledge, and it leads to calm, to insight, to
enlightenment, to Nibbana. And what is that Middle Path? It is simply the
Noble Eightfold Path, namely, right view, right thought, right speech, right
action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.
This is the Middle Path realized by the Tathagata, which gives vision, which
gives knowledge, and which leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment, to
Nibbana.…
“The Noble Truth of suffering (Dukkha) is this: Birth is suffering; aging
is suffering; sickness is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow and
lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; association with the
unpleasant is suffering; dissociation from the pleasant is suffering; not to
get what one wants is suffering—in brief, the five aggregates of attachment
are suffering.
“The Noble Truth of the origin of suffering is this: It is this thirst
(craving) which produces re-existence and re-becoming, bound up with
passionate greed. It finds fresh delight now here and now there, namely,
thirst for nonexistence (self-annihilation).”
“The Noble Truth of the Cessation of suffering is this: It is the complete
cessation of that very thirst, giving it up, renouncing it, emancipating
oneself from it, detaching oneself from it.”
 “The Noble Truth of the Path leading to the Cessation of suffering is this:
It is simply the Noble Eightfold Path.…”
“‘This is the Noble Truth of Suffering (Dukkha)’: such was the vision,
the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light, that arose in me with
regard to things not heard before. ‘This suffering, as a noble truth, should be
fully understood.’”
“‘This is the Noble Truth of the Cessation of suffering’: such was the
vision, ‘This Cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, should be realized.’”
“‘This is the Noble Truth of the Path leading to the Cessation of
suffering’: such was the vision, ‘This Path leading to the Cessation of
suffering, as a noble truth, has been followed (cultivated).’”
“As long as my vision of true knowledge was not fully clear regarding
the Four Noble Truths, I did not claim to have realized the perfect
Enlightenment that is supreme in the world with its gods, in this world with
its recluses and brahmanas, with its princes and men. But when my vision
of true knowledge was fully clear regarding the Four Noble Truths, then I
claimed to have realized the perfect Enlightenment that is supreme in the
world with its gods, in this world with its recluses and brahmanas, with its
princes and men. And a vision of true knowledge arose in me thus: My
heart’s deliverance is unassailable. This is the last birth. Now there is no
more re-becoming (rebirth).”
This the Blessed One said. The group of five bhikkhus was glad, and they
rejoiced at his words.

—Samyutta-nikaya, LVI, II

Source: From What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula. Copyright © 1974 by W. Rahula, pp. 92–
94. Used by permission of Grove Atlantic Inc.

In the sixth century B.C.E., teachers of new ideas appeared, especially in

the lower Ganges basin, in the area of Magadha (modern Bihar). Most of
them rejected traditional religious practices as well as the authority of the
Vedas in favor of ascetic discipline as the true spiritual path. The ideas and
practices of two of these teachers became the foundations of new and
lasting traditions of piety and faith, those of the Jains and the Buddhists.
MAHAVIRA AND THE JAIN TRADITION
The Jains are an Indian community that traces its tradition to Vardhamana,
known as Mahavira (“the great hero”), who is traditionally believed to have
lived from about 540 to 468 B.C.E. The Jains consider Mahavira as the final
Jina (“victor” over samsara) or Tirthankara (“ford maker,” one who finds a
way across the waters of existence), in a line of twenty-four great teachers.
The Jains (or Jainas, “adherents of the Jina”) see in Mahavira not a god,
but a human teacher who found and taught the way to extricate the soul
from the bonds of the material world and its karmic accretions.

Jains
An Indian religious community that teaches compassion for all beings.

In the Jain view, there is no beginning or end to phenomenal existence,

only ceaseless cycles of generation and degeneration. The universe is alive
from end to end with an infinite number of souls, all immortal, omniscient,
and pure in their essence. But all are trapped in samsara, whether as
animals, gods, humans, plants, or even inanimate stones or fire. Karma here
takes on a quasi-material form: Any thought, word, or deed attracts karmic
matter that clings to and encumbers the soul. The greatest amounts come
from evil acts, especially those done out of hate, greed, or cruelty.

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Selections from the Rig Veda at myhistorylab.com

Mahavira’s path to release focused on eliminating evil thoughts and acts,

especially those harmful to others. His radical ascetic practice aimed at
destroying karmic defilements and, ultimately, all actions leading to further
karmic bondage. At the age of 30, Mahavira began practicing the radical
self-denial of a wandering ascetic, eventually even giving up clothing. After
twelve years of self- deprivation and yogic meditation, he attained
enlightenment. Then, for some thirty years, he went about teaching his
discipline to others. At the age of 72 he chose to fast to death to burn out
the last karmic residues, an action that some of the most advanced Jain
ascetics have emulated down to the present day.
 Read the Document
Jainism: Selections from The Book of Sermons and The Book of Good
Conduct 6th century B.C.E.-5th century C.E. at myhistorylab.com

It would, however, be wrong to think of the Jain tradition in terms only of

the extreme ascetic practices of some Jain mendicants. Jain monks are
bound basically by the five great vows they share with other monastic
traditions like the Buddhist and the Christian: not to kill, steal, lie, engage
in sexual activity, or own anything.

CHRONOLOGY
INDIA

Most Jains are not monks. Today there is a thriving lay community of
perhaps 3 million Jains, most in western India. Laypersons have close ties
to the monks and nuns, whom they support with gifts and food. Many Jain
laypersons spend periods of their lives in retreat with monks or nuns. They
are vegetarians and regard ahimsa (“noninjury”) to any being as paramount.
Compassion is the great virtue for them, as for Buddhists. The merit of
serving the extraordinary-norm seekers who adopt the mendicant life and of
living a life according to the high standards of the community provides a
goal even for those who as laypersons are following the ordinary norm.
Jain Nuns. Jain pilgrims attend the Mahamastak Abhisheka ceremony in
Shravanabelagola, India. During this ceremony, which takes place once
every twelve years, the statue of Jain sage Gomateswara is bathed with
milk, yogurt, saffron, gold coins, and religious items. This statue is thought
to be the world’s largest monolith.

What is noteworthy about these women’s clothing? What questions

would you like to ask them?

THE BUDDHA’S MIDDLE PATH

It can be argued that India’s greatest contribution to world civilization was
the Buddhist tradition. It ultimately faded out in India, but it left its mark on
Hindu and Jain religion and culture. Like the two other great universalist
traditions, Christianity and Islam, it traces its origins to a single figure who
for centuries has loomed larger than life for the faithful.
This figure is Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, or
“Enlightened/Awakened One.” A contemporary of Mahavira, Gautama was
also born (ca. 566 B.C.E.) in comfortable circumstances. At the age of 29,
Gautama first perceived the reality of aging, sickness, and death as the
human lot. He abandoned his home and family to seek an answer to the
dilemma of the endless cycle of mortal existence. After this Great
Renunciation, he studied with renowned teachers and later took up extreme
ascetic disciplines of penance and self-mortification. He turned finally to
intense yogic meditation under a Bodhi tree in the place known as Gaya. In
one historic night, he moved through different levels of trance, during
which he realized all of his past lives, the reality of the cycle of existence of
all beings, and how to stop the karmic outflows that fuel suffering. Thus he
became the Buddha; that is, he achieved full enlightenment—the
omniscient consciousness of reality as it truly is. He pledged himself to
achieving release for all beings.
Gautama devoted himself to teaching others his Middle Path between
asceticism and indulgence. This path has been the core of Buddhist faith
and practice ever since. It begins with realizing the Four Noble Truths: (1)
All life is dukkha, or suffering; (2) the source of suffering is desiring; (3)
the cessation of desiring is the way to end suffering; and (4) the path to this
end is eightfold: Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right
Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right
Concentration. The key idea of the Buddha’s teaching, or dharma, is that
everything in the world of existence is causally linked. The essential fact of
existence is dukkha: No pleasure—however great—is permanent (here we
see the Buddhist variation on the central Indian theme of samsara).
Thus, Buddhist discipline focuses on the moral Eightfold Path, and the
cardinal virtue of compassion for all beings, as the way to eliminate the
selfish desiring that is the root of samsara and its unavoidable suffering.
The Buddha himself had attained this goal; when he died (ca. 486 B.C.E.)
after a life of teaching others how to master desiring, he passed from the
round of existence forever. In Buddhist terminology, he attained nirvana,
the extinguishing of karmic bondage. This attainment became the starting
point for the growth and eventual spread of the Buddhist dharma, which
was to assume new and diverse forms in its long history.
Buddhist tradition, like that of the Jains, encompassed from the outset
seekers of both the extraordinary and the ordinary norms in their present
lives. This dual community has remained characteristic of all forms of
Buddhism wherever it is practiced. The fundamental vision has persisted of
a humanly attainable wisdom that leads to compassion and release.
The later emergence of “Hindu” tradition drew on all three of these
revolutionary strands in Indian thought—Upanishadic, Jain, and Buddhist—
and integrated parts of their fundamental ideas about the universe, human
life, morality, and society into the cultic and mythic strands of both
Brahmanic and popular Indian practice.

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Rise of Buddhism–Forces for Social Change? at myhistorylab.com

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Siddhartha Gautama at myhistorylab.com

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Buddha’s Sermon at Benares - The Edicts of Ashoka (530 B.C.E., 268-233
B.C.E.) at myhistorylab.com

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Vardhamana Mahariva, selections from Akaranga-sutra, “Jain Doctrines and
Practices of Nonviolence.” at myhistorylab.com

QUICK REVIEW
Siddhartha Gautama
Great Renunciation: at age 29 left home to seek answers to eternal
questions
Unsatisfied with study with renowned teachers
Achieved status as the Buddha through yogic meditation

A Closer Look
Statue of Siddhartha Gotama as Fasting Ascetic
(Second Century C.E.)
This Gandharan statue represents Siddhartha Gotama before his
enlightenment and achievement of Buddhahood, when he spent six
years practicing ascetic austerities of extreme fasting and self-denial—
an experience that he abandoned for what became his “Middle Path”
teaching and practice. The Kushan Dynasty (first to seventh century
C.E.) of NW India and modern Pakistan and Afghanistan (see Chapter
4) patronized art and architecture that seem to have had their
formative patronage from the Buddhist Kushan king, Kanishka, in the
early second century C.E. in the region of Gandhara (in present-day
Pakistan). Gandharan art developed from the Kushana’s employment
of foreign artisans trained in Roman styles, leading to an art that fused
Greco-Roman with Indian and Central Asian styles to produce one of
the great cross-cultural traditions of art history. In its heyday, down to
roughly the early third century C.E., Gandhara produced some of the
most remarkable Buddhist art ever, influencing not only Buddhist but
also Indian art long after.
Borromeo, EPA/Art Resource, New York.

Question

1. What might the various indications of Greco-Roman influence in

this south-central Asian Buddhist sculpture suggest about the
permeability of political and cultural boundaries from the
Mediterranean to South and Central Asia in the early centuries C.E.?
2. The nimbus or halo of light behind the head here is widely attested
in various forms across Asia as well as in the Mediterranean, in
Hellenistic, Greek, Roman, Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu art. Why
might this be so attractive, and what particular purposes would you
think it serves in this or other figures in various traditions?
3. Most religious traditions have strands of piety within them that
emphasize ascetic renunciation of worldly things, often involving
extreme renunciation involving fasting (even to death in a few
cases), sexual and other kinds of abstinence, and refusal to have any
“possessions.” In the Buddha’s teaching, why is extreme
renunciation and asceticism rejected? Can you compare these ideas
to those in another tradition with which you are familiar?
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THE RELIGION OF THE ISRAELITES

HOW WAS the Hebrew concept of God and religion distinctive?

The ancient Near East was a polytheistic world; its people worshiped many
gods. Local or regional gods and goddesses were represented largely as
capricious, amoral beings, unaffected by the actions of humans. The major
traditions of religious thought in Egypt and Mesopotamia did not offer
comprehensive interpretations that linked humans to a transcendent realm.
Out of this pluralistic and religiously fragmented world came the great
tradition of monotheistic faith represented historically in the Jewish,
Christian, and Islamic communities. This tradition traces its origin to the
small nation of the Israelites, or Hebrews. Monotheism, faith in a single,
all-powerful God as the sole creator, sustainer, and ruler of the universe,
may be older than the Hebrews, but its first clear historical manifestation
was with them. It was among the Hebrew tribes that emphasis on the moral
demands and responsibilities that the one God placed on individual and
community was first definitively linked to human history itself, and history
in turn was linked to a divine plan. This is the tradition of ethical
monotheism.
MAP EXPLORATION
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MAP 2–1. Ancient Palestine.

The Hebrews established a unified kingdom under Kings David and

Solomon in the tenth century B.C.E. After Solomon, the kingdom was
divided into Israel in the north and Judah, with its capital, Jerusalem, in the
south. North of Israel were the great commercial cities of Phoenicia.

How might the proximity of trade routes have influenced the development
of Hebrew culture and belief?
FROM HEBREW NOMADS TO THE ISRAELITE NATION
The history of the Hebrews, later known as Israelites, must be pieced
together from various sources, including the Hebrew Bible (the “Old
Testament” in Christian terminology). Scholars once tended to disregard the
Bible as a historical source, but the trend today is to take it seriously while
using it cautiously.
According to tradition, Abraham came from Ur in southern Mesopotamia
and wandered west with his Hebrew clan to tend his flocks in the land later
known as Palestine. Such a movement would be in accord with what we
know of a general westward migration of seminomadic tribes from
Mesopotamia after about 1950 B.C.E. Some of Abraham’s people settled in
the Palestinian region, but others apparently wandered farther into Egypt.
By about 1400 B.C.E., they had become a settled but subjected, even
enslaved, people there. Under Moses, some of the Egyptian Israelites fled
Egypt to find a new homeland to the east. They may then have wandered in
the Sinai Desert and elsewhere for several decades before reaching Canaan,
the province of Palestine that is described in the Bible as their promised
homeland. This experience is the key event in biblical Israel’s history: the
forging of the covenant, or mutual pact, between God, or Yahweh, and his
people. The Israelites emerged from the Exodus as a nation, a people with a
sense of community and common faith.
The nation reached its peak as a kingdom under David (r. ca. 1000–961
B.C.E.) and Solomon (r. ca. 961–922 B.C.E.). But in the ninth century B.C.E.,
the kingdom split into two parts: Israel in the north and Judah, with its
capital at Jerusalem, in the south (see Map 2–1). The rise of great empires
around them brought disaster to the Israelites. The Northern Kingdom fell
to the Assyrians in 722 B.C.E.; its people were scattered and, according to
tradition, lost forever—the so-called ten lost tribes. Only the kingdom of
Judah, with its seat at Jerusalem, remained, and after that we may call the
Israelites Jews. In 586 B.C.E., Judah was defeated by the Neo-Babylonian
king Nebuchadnezzar II (d. 562 B.C.E.). He destroyed the great Temple built
by Solomon and sent the Jewish nation into exile in Babylon. There, in the
“Babylonian captivity,” the Jews clung to their traditions and faith. After
the Achaemenids defeated the Babylonians in 539 B.C.E., the Jews were
allowed to return to their homeland. By about 516 B.C.E. they erected a
second temple in a restored Jerusalem.

polytheistic
The worship of many gods.

monotheism
The worship of one universal God.

The new Judaic state was dominated for centuries by foreign peoples, but
it maintained its religious and national identity. It was again destroyed and
its people dispersed after the Romans’ destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.,
and yet again in 132 C.E. By this era, however, the Jews had developed a
religious worldview that would long outlive any Judaic national state.

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THE MONOTHEISTIC REVOLUTION

This small nation developed a tradition of faith that amounted to a
revolution in ways of thinking about the human condition, the meaning of
life and history, and the nature of the Divine. The revolutionary character of
this interpretation lay in its uniquely moralistic understanding of human life
and history and the uncompromising monotheism on which it was based.
At the root of this monotheistic tradition stands the figure of Abraham.
Jews, Christians, and Muslims all look to him as the symbolic founder of
their monotheistic faith. Abraham probably conceived of his Lord simply as
his chosen deity among the many divinities who might be worshiped. Yet
for the strength of his faith in his God, the biblical account recognizes him
as the “Father of the Faithful,” the first of the Hebrew patriarchs to make a
covenant with the God who would become unique and supreme. In this,
Abraham promised to serve only him, and his God promised to bless his
descendants and guide them as his special people.

covenant
A solemn and formal pledge between two or more parties, usually to
perform particular actions.

After Abraham, the next major step came with Moses. It is difficult to
say how much the Mosaic covenant at Sinai actually marked the
achievement of an exclusively monotheistic faith. Certainly, the covenant
event was decisive in uniting the Israelites as a people with a special
relationship to God. At Sinai, they received both God’s holy Law (the
Torah) and his promise of protection and guidance as long as they kept the
Law. This was the pivotal moment in the monotheistic revolution.

God the Sole Creator. The British poet and artist William Blake (1757–
1827) envisions God.
What makes this God seem powerful? What relationship, if any, does
this God seem to have with the human realm?

After the bipartite division of the Israelite kingdom in 922 B.C.E., the
prophets arose. These men and women believed they were messengers
inspired by God to call their people back from immorality and the worship
of false gods. The activity of the prophets was closely linked to the saga of
Israelite national success, exile, and return in the mid-first millennium B.C.E.
In the biblical interpretation of these events, we can see the progressive
consolidation of the Judaic religion. The prophets’ concern with purifying
Jewish faith and with morality focused in particular on two ideas that
proved central to Judaic monotheism. The first was the significance of
history in the divine plan. Calling on the Jews’ awareness of the Sinai
covenant, the prophets saw in Israel’s past and present troubles God’s
punishment for failing in their covenant duties. The prophets saw Israel as
the “suffering servant” among the nations, the people who would purify
other nations and bring them ultimately to God. Here the nationalistic,
particularistic focus of previous Israelite religion gave way to a universalist
monotheism: Yahweh was now God of all, even the Babylonians or
Assyrians. The second central idea emphasized the nature of Yahweh. The
prophets saw in him the transcendent ideal of justice and goodness. God
was a righteous God who expected righteousness from human beings. A
corollary of God’s goodness was his love for his people. However much he
might have to punish them for their sins, God would finally lead them back
to his favor.

CHRONOLOGY
THE ISRAELITES
 The crux of the breakthrough to ethical monotheism lay in linking the
Lord of the Universe to history and morality. The Almighty Creator was
seen as actively concerned with the actions and fates of his human creatures
as exemplified in Israel. God’s involvement in history took on transcendent
meaning; humankind was involved in the fulfillment of God’s divine
purpose.

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Israel and Judah, Eighth Century B.C.E. at myhistorylab.com

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The Old City of Jerusalem at myhistorylab.com

Even after the exile, however, the realization of the prophesied days of
peace and blessedness under God’s rule clearly still had not come. This led
to the concept that history’s culmination would come in a future Messianic
age; later, the idea that a Day of Judgment would cap the golden age of the
Messiah, the redeemer who Jews believed would establish the kingdom of
God on earth, became popular. Some of these ideas might have come from
the Jews’ encounter with Zoroastrian traditions during the exile, and they
later influenced Christian and Muslim beliefs.

Messiah
The redeemer whose coming Jews believed would establish the kingdom of
God on earth. Christians consider Jesus to be the Messiah (Christ means
“Messiah” in Greek).

Another key element in the monotheistic revolution of the Jews was the
Law itself. The Law is embodied in the five books of the Torah (the
Pentateuch, or “five books”: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy). Observation of the Torah allowed Jews to keep their faith
even while in exile or without a temple. A holy, authoritative, divinely
revealed scripture as an element of Judaic monotheism had revolutionary
consequences, not only for Jews but also for Christians and Muslims.
Exile of the Israelites. In 722 B.C.E. the northern part of Jewish Palestine,
the kingdom of Israel, was conquered by the Assyrians. Its people were
driven from their homeland and exiled all over the vast Assyrian Empire.
This wall carving in low relief comes from the palace of the Assyrian king
Sennacherib at Nineveh. It shows the Jews with their cattle and baggage
going into exile.

Erich Lessing/Art Resource, New York.

What seems to be important to these people as they go into exile?

For the first time, a nation defined itself not primarily by dynastic,
linguistic, or geographic considerations but by shared religious faith and
practice. Ethical monotheism was later to have still greater effects when not
only Judaic but also Christian and Muslim traditions would change the face
of much of the world.
The Fall. The German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) engraved this
image of the biblical first humans whose creation and fall are recounted in
Genesis. God’s covenant with humankind is central to his divine plan.
However much he might punish people for their sins, God would finally
lead them back to his favor.

How does Dürer’s depiction highlight the special status of humans in

God’s creation?

GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Greek ideas had much in common with the ideas of earlier peoples. The
Greek gods had most of the characteristics of the Mesopotamian deities;
magic and incantations played a part in Greek lives, and their law was
usually connected with divinity. But surprisingly, some Greeks developed
ideas that were strikingly different and, in so doing, set a part of humankind
on an entirely new path. As early as the sixth century B.C.E., Greeks living in
the Ionian cities of Asia Minor raised questions and suggested answers
about nature that produced an intellectual revolution. Their speculations
about the nature of the world and its origin were completely naturalistic and
included no reference to supernatural powers. One historian of Greek
thought, discussing the views of Thales (624–545 B.C.E.), the first Greek
philosopher, put the case particularly well:
In one of the Babylonian legends it says: “All the lands were sea.
Marduk bound a rush mat upon the face of the waters, he made dirt
and piled it beside the rush mat.” What Thales did was to leave
Marduk out. He, too, said that everything was once water. But he
thought that earth and everything else had been formed out of water by
a natural process, like the silting up of the Delta of the Nile. It is an
admirable beginning, the whole point of which is that it gathers
together into a coherent picture a number of observed facts without
letting Marduk in.3

WHY DID Greek thinkers, beginning in the sixth century B.C.E.,

produce an intellectual revolution?

By putting the question of the world’s origin in a naturalistic form,

Thales may have initiated both Western philosophy and Western science.
This rational approach was applied even to the gods themselves. In the
same century as Thales, Xenophanes of Colophon expressed the opinion
that humans think of the gods as resembling themselves. Thus, Africans
believed in flat-nosed, black-faced gods, and the Thracians in gods with
blue eyes and red hair.4 In the fifth century B.C.E. Protagoras of Abdera (ca.
490–420 B.C.E.) went so far in the direction of agnosticism as to say, “About
the gods I can have no knowledge either that they are or that they are not or
what is their nature.”5
Rationalism and skepticism carried over into practical matters as well.
The school of medicine led by Hippocrates of Cos (ca. 400 B.C.E.) attempted
to understand, diagnose, and cure disease without recourse to supernatural
forces or beings. One of the Hippocratics wrote of the mysterious disease
epilepsy:
OVERVIEW Four Great Systems of Thought and Religion
In the accompanying flowchart, note the river valleys in which the original
civilizations arose. Each was characterized by cities, writing systems,
agriculture, and so on. (The Mississippi, Amazon, and Congo lacked such
developments.) During the axial age from 500 to 200 B.C.E., the same areas
saw the birth of the world religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism,
and the world philosophies of China and Greece. Each continued to
develop, and in the Middle East, by a combination of Judaic and Greek
elements, there occurred the rise of Christianity and Islam.

FIGURE 2–1. “First-Stage” and “Second-Stage” Revolutions.

It seems to me that the disease is no more divine than any other. It has
a natural cause, just as other diseases have. Men think it divine merely
because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine
which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine
things.6

By the fifth century B.C.E., the historian Thucydides (ca. 460–400 B.C.E.)
was analyzing and explaining the behavior of humans in society completely
in terms of human nature and chance, leaving no place for the gods or
supernatural forces. The relative unimportance of divine or supernatural
forces also characterized Greek views of law and justice. Most Greeks,
especially in the democratic states, understood that laws were made by
humans and should be obeyed because they represented the expressed
consent of the citizens.
These ideas are different from any that came before, and they are still
relevant to major concerns in the modern world: What is the nature of the
universe and how can it be controlled? Are there divine powers, and if so,
what is humanity’s relationship to them? Are law and justice human, divine,
or both? What is the place in human society of freedom, obedience, and
reverence?

REASON AND THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT

The rational spirit characteristic of Greek culture blossomed in the sixth
century B.C.E. into what we call philosophy. The first steps were taken in
Ionia on the coast of Asia Minor, on the fringe of the Greek world and in
touch with the learning of the East (see Map 2–2). The Ionians were among
the first to recognize that the Greek account of how the world was created
and maintained and of the place of humans in it was not universally
accepted. Perhaps this realization helped spark the first attempts at
disciplined philosophical inquiry.

MAP 2–2. Centers of Greek Philosophy.

Why are many centers of Greek philosophy located on the periphery of the
Greek civilization?

Thales of Miletus believed that the earth floated on water and that water
was the primary substance. Thales observed that water has many forms:
liquid, solid, and gaseous. He saw that it could “create” land by alluvial
deposit and that it was necessary for all life. He used reason to organize
these observations into a single explanation that accounted for many
phenomena without any need for the supernatural. Thales of Miletus thus
set the tone for future investigations: Greek philosophers assumed that the
world was knowable, rational, and simple.
Another Milesian, Anaximander (ca. 611–546 B.C.E.), imagined that the
basic element was something undefined, “unlimited.” The world emerged
from this basic element as the result of an interaction of opposite forces—
wet and dry, hot and cold. Anaximander pictured the universe in eternal
motion. Heraclitus of Ephesus, who lived near the end of the sixth century
B.C.E., carried the dialogue further. He famously claimed, “All is motion.”
Yet Heraclitus also believed that the world order had a guiding principle,
the Logos, and that though phenomena changed, the Logos did not. Logos
has several meanings, among them “word,” “language,” “speech,” and
“reason.” So when Heraclitus said that the physical world was governed by
Logos, he implied that it could be explained by reason. Speculations about
the physical world, what we would call natural science, thus led to even
more difficult philosophical speculations about language, human thought,
and knowledge itself.
In opposition to Heraclitus, the fifth century B.C.E. philosopher
Parmenides of Elea and his pupil Zeno argued that change was only an
illusion. Reason and reflection showed that reality was fixed and
unchanging because it seemed evident that nothing could be created out of
nothingness. Empedocles of Acragas (flourished [fl.] ca. 450 B.C.E.) spoke
of four basic elements: fire, water, earth, and air. Like Parmenides, he
thought reality was permanent but not immobile, for the four elements were
moved by two primary forces, Love and Strife, or, as we might say,
attraction and repulsion.
This theory was a step on the road to the atomic theory of Leucippus of
Miletus (fl. fifth century B.C.E.) and Democritus of Abdera (ca. 460–370
B.C.E.).They believed that the world consisted of innumerable tiny, solid
particles (atoms) that could not be divided or modified and that moved
about in the void. The size of the atoms and the ways they were arranged
produced the secondary qualities that the senses could perceive, such as
color and shape. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (ca. 500–428 B.C.E.) had
previously spoken of tiny fundamental particles called seeds that were put
together on a rational basis by a force called nous, or “mind.” Thus,
Anaxagoras suggested a distinction between matter and mind. But the
atomists regarded “soul,” or “mind,” as material and believed that
everything was guided by purely physical laws. In the arguments of
Anaxagoras and the atomists, we have the beginning of the philosophical
debate between materialism and idealism that has continued through the
ages. (See Document, “The Atomists’ Account of the Origin of the World
Order.”)

atomists

School of ancient Greek philosophy founded in the fifth century B.C.E. by

Leucippus of Miletus and Democritus of Abdera. It held that the world
consists of innumerable, tiny, solid, indivisible, and unchangeable particles
called atoms.
“The School of Athens.” In this painting, the great Italian Renaissance
painter Raphael portrayed the ancient Greek philosopher Plato and his
student, Aristotle, engaged in debate. Plato, who points to the heavens,
believed in a set of ideal truths that exist in their own realm distinct from
the earth. Aristotle urged that all philosophy must be in touch with lived
reality and confirms this position by pointing to the earth.

Does Raphael seem to endorse the position of either Plato or Aristotle,

or does he seem to respect the ideas of each one equally?

POLITICAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY

Most Greeks were suspicious of metaphysical speculations. A far more
influential debate was begun by a group of professional teachers who
emerged in the mid-fifth century B.C.E. Called Sophists, they traveled about
and received pay for teaching practical techniques of persuasion, such as
rhetoric, which were highly valued in democracies like Athens. Some
claimed to teach wisdom and even virtue. They applied reasoned analysis to
human beliefs and institutions. They analyzed the tension and even the
contradiction between nature and custom, or law. The more traditional
among them argued that law itself was in accord with nature, and this view
fortified the traditional beliefs about the polis, the Greek city-state (see
Chapter 3). Others argued that laws were merely the result of an agreement
among people, a way to prevent people from harming each other. The most
extreme Sophists argued that law was contrary to nature, a trick whereby
the weak controlled the strong. Critias (ca. 460–403 B.C.E.) went so far as to
say that the gods themselves had been invented by some clever man to deter
people from doing what they wished. Such ideas attacked the theoretical
foundations of the polis.

Sophists

Professional teachers who emerged in Greece in the mid-fifth century B.C.E.

who were paid to teach techniques of rhetoric, dialectic, and argumentation.
polis

The basic Greek political unit, usually, but incompletely, translated as “city-
state.” The Greeks thought of the polis as a community of citizens
theoretically descended from a common ancestor.

The Greek concern with ethical, political, and religious issues is

expressed brilliantly in the philosophical tradition that began with Socrates
in the latter half of the fifth century B.C.E. That tradition continued with
Socrates’ pupil Plato and with Plato’s pupil Aristotle. Aristotle also made
great contributions to the scientific understanding of the physical world, but
he is perhaps more important for his impact on later Western and Islamic
metaphysics.
The starting point for the three giants of Hellenic moral and political
philosophy was the social and political reality of the Greek city-state, or
polis. The greatest crisis for the polis was the Great Peloponnesian War
(435–404 B.C.E.), which is discussed in Chapter 3. Probably the most
complicated response to this crisis may be found in the life and teachings of
Socrates (469–399 B.C.E.). He wrote nothing, so our knowledge of him
comes from his disciples Plato and Xenophon (ca. 435–354 B.C.E.) and from
later tradition.

DOCUMENT
The Atomists’ Account of the Origin of the World Order
Leucippus and Democritus were Greek thinkers of the fifth century B.C.E.
who originated the theory that the world is entirely material, made up of
atoms and the void, moving through space without external guidance. As
these selections show, they provided a fundamental explanation of things
that was purely natural, without divine or mythical intervention. Their view
was passed on and later influenced such Renaissance scientists as Galileo.
• Compare the atomists’ explanation of the origins of the world with
that presented in the box entitled “Hymn to Indra” in Chapter 1.
How do these explanations of the nature of things and how they got
that way differ from those offered by different civilizations and by
the Greeks before the sixth century B.C.E.? What are the
consequences and significance of this new way of looking at the
universe?
 1. The world-orders arise in this way. Many bodies of all sorts of
shapes “split off” from the infinite into a great void where, being
gathered together, they give rise to a single vortex, in which,
colliding and circling in all sorts of ways, they begin to separate
apart, like to like. Being unable to circle in equilibrium any longer
because of their congestion, the light bodies go off into the outer
void like chaff, while the rest “remain together” and, becoming
entangled, unite their motions and produce first a spherical structure.
This stands apart like a “membrane,” containing in itself all sorts of
bodies; and, because of the resistance of the middle, as these revolve
the surrounding membrane becomes thin as contiguous bodies
continually flow together because of contact with the vortex. And in
this way the earth arose, the bodies which were carried to the middle
remaining together. Again, the surrounding membrane increases
because of the acquisition of bodies from without; and as it moves
with the vortex, whatever it touches it adds to itself. Certain of
these, becoming entangled, form a structure at first very watery and
muddy; but afterward they dry out, being carried about with the
rotation of the whole, and ignite to form the substance of the
heavenly bodies.
2. Certainly the atoms did not arrange themselves in order by design or
intelligence, nor did they propound what movements each should
make. But rather myriad atoms, swept along through infinite time or
myriad paths by blows and their own weight, have come together in
every possible way and tried out every combination that they could
possibly create. So it happens that, after roaming the world for aeons
of time in making trial of every combination and movement, at
length they come together—those atoms whose sudden coincidence
often becomes the origin of mighty things: of earth and sea and sky
and the species of living things.
Source: The first selection is from Diogenes Laertius 9.31; the second is from Lucretius, De Rerum
Naturae 5.419–431. Both selections from John Mansley Robinson, An Introduction to Early Greek
Philosophy. Copyright © 1968 by John Mansley Robinson. Used with permission of the author.

Socrates was committed to the search for truth and for the knowledge
about human affairs that he believed reason could reveal. His method was
to question and cross-examine fellow Greeks. The result was always the
same: Those he questioned might have technical information and skills but
seldom had any knowledge of the fundamental principles of human
behavior. Unlike the Sophists, Socrates did not accept pay for his teaching;
he professed ignorance and denied that he taught at all. His individualism,
moreover, was unlike the worldly hedonism of some of the Sophists. It was
not wealth or pleasure or power that he urged people to seek, but “the
greatest improvement of the soul.” Contrary to the more radical Sophists, he
thought that the polis and its laws had a legitimate claim on the citizen. But
he was contemptuous of democracy, which seemingly relied on ignorant
amateurs to make important political decisions without any certain
knowledge. Athenians thought Socrates was undermining the beliefs and
values of the polis, and his dialectical inquiries had angered many important
people. Socrates’ insistence on the primacy of his own individualism and
his determination to pursue philosophy even against the wishes of his
fellow citizens created hostility. In 399 B.C.E., Socrates was condemned to
death by an Athenian jury on the charges of bringing new gods into the city
and of corrupting its youth. He was given a chance to escape, but in Plato’s
Crito we are told of his refusal to do so because of his veneration of the
laws.

QUICK REVIEW
Socrates and Athens
Socrates distrusted democracy
Athenians thought Socrates undermined the polis
An Athenian jury sentenced Socrates to death

Socrates’ career set the stage for later responses to the travail of the polis.
Socratic beliefs were distorted almost beyond recognition by the Cynic
school. The most famous Cynic was Diogenes of Sinope (ca. 400–325
B.C.E.). Socrates disparaged wealth and worldly comfort, so Diogenes wore
rags and lived in a tub. As Plato said, Diogenes was Socrates gone mad.
The Cynics moved even further from Socrates by abandoning the concept
of the polis entirely. When Diogenes was asked about his citizenship, he
answered that he was kosmopolites, a citizen of the world.

Read the Document

Aristotle, excerpts from Physics and Posterior Analytics at
myhistorylab.com

Plato (429–347 B.C.E.), the most important of Socrates’ associates, is a

perfect example of the pupil who becomes greater than his master. He was a
writer of genius, leaving us twenty-six philosophical discussions, mostly in
the form of dialogues. In 386 B.C.E., Plato founded the Academy, a center of
philosophical investigation and a school for training statesmen and citizens
that had a powerful impact on Greek thought and endured until the sixth
century C.E.

QUICK REVIEW
Plato and the Polis
Plato hoped to reform the polis
The polis could mold good men
A philosopher-king would be the ideal ruler

Like Socrates, Plato firmly believed in the polis and its virtues of order,
harmony, and justice. Unlike the radical Sophists, Plato thought that the
polis was in accord with nature, and that one of its main objects was to
produce good people. He accepted Socrates’ doctrine of the identity of
virtue and knowledge, or episteme, a body of true and unchanging wisdom.
Only the few philosophers whose training, character, and intellect allowed
them to see reality were qualified to rule; they themselves would prefer the
life of pure contemplation but would accept their responsibility and take
their turn as philosopher-kings. According to Plato’s definition of justice,
each man should do only that one thing to which his nature was best suited.
The individual was subordinated to the community.
Plato understood that the polis of his day suffered from terrible internal
stress, class struggle, and factional divisions. Redemption of the polis was
at the heart of Plato’s system of philosophy. He began by asking the
traditional questions: What is a good man, and how is he made? Because
goodness depended on knowledge of the good, it required a theory of
knowledge. Even when the philosopher knew the good, the question
remained of how the state could bring that knowledge to its citizens. That
answer required a theory of education. Even purely logical and
metaphysical questions, therefore, were subordinate to the overriding
political questions. Plato’s need to find a satisfactory foundation for the
beleaguered polis thus contributed to the birth of systematic philosophy.
Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) was a pupil of Plato, but his different
experience and cast of mind led him in new directions. As a young man, he
came to study at the Academy, where he stayed until Plato’s death. Later, he
carried on research in marine biology, and biological interests played a large
part in all his thoughts. In 342 B.C.E., Philip, the king of Macedon, appointed
him tutor to his son, the young Alexander (see Chapter 3). In 336 B.C.E. he
returned to Athens, where he founded his own school, the Lyceum. On the
death of Alexander in 323 B.C.E., the Athenians rebelled against
Macedonian rule, and Aristotle found it wise to leave Athens. He died the
following year.
Aristotle studied an astonishing range of subjects including logic,
physics, astronomy, biology, ethics, rhetoric, literary criticism, and politics.
In each field, his method was the same. Aristotle began with observation of
the empirical evidence, whether it was physical or common opinion. He
applied reason and discovered inconsistencies or difficulties, then
introduced metaphysical principles to explain the problems or to reconcile
the inconsistencies. His view on all subjects, like Plato’s, was teleological;
that is, he recognized purposes apart from and greater than the will of the
individual human being. Plato’s purposes, however, were contained in the
Ideas, or Forms—transcendental concepts outside the experience of most
people. For Aristotle, the purposes of most things were easily inferred by
observing their behavior in the world.

CHRONOLOGY
MAJOR GREEK PHILOSOPHERS

Aristotle’s most striking characteristics are his moderation and common

sense. His epistemology finds room for both reason and experience; his
metaphysics gives meaning and reality to both mind and body; his ethics
aims at the good life, which is the contemplative life, but recognizes the
necessity for moderate wealth, comfort, and pleasure.
All these qualities are evident in Aristotle’s political thought. Like Plato,
he opposed the Sophists’ assertion that the polis was the result of mere
convention. Aristotle applied to politics the teleology that he saw in all
nature. The polis made individuals self-sufficient and allowed them to
realize their potential. It was therefore natural. It was also the highest point
in the evolution of the social institutions: marriage, household, village, and
finally, polis. For Aristotle, the purpose of the polis was neither economic
nor military but moral: “The end of the state is the good life,” the life lived
“for the sake of noble actions,” a life of virtue and morality.7
Characteristically, Aristotle was less interested in the best state—the
utopia that required philosophers to rule it—than in the best state practically
possible, one that would combine justice with stability. The constitution for
that state was not the best constitution, but the next best, the one most
possible for most states. Its quality was moderation, and it naturally gave
power to neither the rich nor the poor but to the middle class, which also
had to be the most numerous. The middle class possessed many virtues: It
was free of the arrogance of the rich and the malice of the poor. One of its
main objects was to produce good people. It was also the most stable class.
The stability of the constitution came from being a mixed constitution,
blending in some way the laws of democracy and those of oligarchy.
Aristotle’s scheme was unique because of its realism and the breadth of its
vision.
All the political thinkers of the fourth century B.C.E. recognized that the
polis was in danger and hoped to save it. All recognized the economic and
social troubles that threatened it. It is ironic that the ablest defense of the
polis came soon before its demise.

QUICK REVIEW
Aristotle and Moderation
Aristotle balanced idealism and practicality
The middle class was virtuous
A mixed constitution fostered stability

SUMMARY
 WHAT ARE the fundamental beliefs or worldviews that were
expressed in the four great revolutions in thought that occurred between 800
and 300 B.C.E.?
Comparing the Four Great Revolutions. Between 800 and 300 B.C.E.,
four philosophical and religious revolutions occurred. Chinese philosophy,
Indian religion, Hebrew monotheism, and Greek philosophy have shaped
world history ever since they emerged. page 33
WHY WAS the revolution in Chinese thought more similar to that in
Greek thought than to Indian religion or Judaic monotheism?
Philosophy in China. Traditional Chinese philosophical thought, which
took shape with the teachings of Confucius in the sixth century B.C.E.,
remained dominant in China until the early twentieth century. It was
concerned with social and political issues and sought to teach human beings
how to live harmoniously and ethically under Heaven by prescribing correct
relationships between people. Confucianism became China’s official
philosophy in the second century B.C.E. Other Chinese philosophies were
Daoism and Legalism. As in Greece, there were many competing schools of
thought in China. page 34
WHAT FUNDAMENTAL institutions and ideas form the basis of
Indian religion?
Religion in India. Hinduism, the dominant Indian religious tradition, took
shape by 400 B.C.E. In Indian religion, existence was an endless alternation
between life and death (samsara). The escape from this dilemma lay in the
concept of karma, the idea that good actions (dharma) could lead to rebirth
as a higher being, even a god, or to escape the cycle entirely and cease to
exist entirely (moksha). Other religious traditions that originated during this
period in India include Jainism and Buddhism. page 38
HOW WAS the Hebrew concept of God and religion distinctive?
The Religion of the Israelites. Monotheism is the faith in a single, all-
powerful God as the sole creator, sustainer, and ruler of the universe. The
Hebrews were the first people to emphasize the moral demands that the one
God, Yahweh, placed on the individual and the community and to see
history as the unfolding of a divine plan. The Hebrews, or Jews, were also
the first people in history to be defined by shared religious faith and
practice. Through the Christian and Muslim traditions, Judaic monotheism
would change the face of much of the world. page 44
WHY DID Greek thinkers, beginning in the sixth century B.C.E.,
produce an intellectual revolution?
Greek Philosophy. The Greeks were the first to initiate the unreservedly
rational investigation of the universe. They are the forerunners of Western
philosophy and science. In the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E., Greek
thinkers sought to explain natural phenomena without recourse to divine
intervention. In the later fifth century and the fourth century B.C.E., Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle, and others applied the same rational, inquisitive approach
to the study of moral and political issues in the life of the Greek city-state,
or polis. page 46

KEY TERMS

atman-Brahman (AHT-muhn BRAH-mahn)

atomists
Brahmanas
covenant
Daoism (daow-ihzm)
dharma (DAHR-muh)
Hindu
Jains
karma (KAHR-muh)
Legalism
Messiah
monotheism (MAH-nahTHEE-iz-im)
polis (POH-lihs)
polytheistic
samsara (suhm-SAHR-ah)
Sophists

REVIEW QUESTIONS
 1. Is your own outlook on life closer to Confucianism, Daoism, or
Legalism? What specifically makes you favor one over the others?
2. Which fundamental assumptions about the world, the individual,
and reality do the Jain, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions share? How
do these assumptions compare with those that underlie Chinese
philosophy, Jewish religious thought, and Greek philosophy?
3. In what sense is Buddhism the “Middle Path”? Buddha filled his
own life with extreme asceticism; do you think this distorted his
perspective on human suffering, or did it allow him to gain a true
understanding of suffering?
4. What makes the monotheism of the Hebrews unique? To what
extent did their faith bind the Jews politically? Why was the concept
of monotheism so radical for Near Eastern civilization?
5. Describe the covenant between Jews and God. Could a polytheistic
people have a covenant with one or more of their gods?
6. In what ways did the ideas of the Greeks differ from those of other
ancient peoples? How do Aristotle’s political and ethical ideas
compare with those of Confucius? What were Socrates’
contributions to the development of philosophy?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com
Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 2

Read the Document Origins of the Chinese Civilization– Confucianism,

Daoism or Legalism?, p. 34
Confucious, selections from the Analects, p. 35
Confucianism: Government and the Superior (551–479 B.C.E.), p. 36
Confucian Political Philosophy: An Excerpt from Mencius, p. 36
Laozi, excerpt from Tao Te Ching, “The Unvarying Way,” p. 37
Daoism: “The Classic of the Way and Virtue (500s–400s B.C.E.),” p. 37
The Way of the State (475–221 B.C.E.) Legalism, p. 37
Li Si and the Legalist Policies of Qin Shihuang (280–208 B.C.E.), p. 37
Selections from the Rig Veda, p. 41
Jainism: Selections from The Book of Sermons and The Book of Good
Conduct 6th century B.C.E.–5th century C.E., p. 41
Vardhamana Mahariva, selections from Akaranga-sutra, “Jain Doctrines
and Practices of Nonviolence,” p. 42
Buddha’s Sermon at Benares—The Edicts of Ashoka (530 B.C.E., 268–233
B.C.E.), p. 42
Rise of Buddhism–Forces for Social Change?, p. 42
Siddhartha Gautama, p. 42
Aristotle, excerpts from Physics and Posterior Analytics, p. 52

Watch the Video The Old City of Jerusalem, p. 46

Research and Explore

View the Image Buddhist Religious Site, p. 42

See the Map Israel and Judah, Eighth Century B.C.E.p. 46

 Hear the Audio
Hear the audio file for Chapter 2
at www.myhistorylab.com

RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD

JUDAISM
Monotheism, the belief in a unique God who is the creator of the universe
and its all-powerful ruler, first became a central and lasting element in
religion among the Hebrews, later called Israelites and also Jews. Their
religion, more than the many forms of polytheistic worship that
characterized the ancient world, demanded moral rectitude and placed
ethical responsibilities both on individuals and on the community as a
whole. Their God had a divine plan for human history, which was linked to
the behavior of his chosen people. This vision of the exclusive worship of
the true God, obedience to the laws governing the community that derive
from him, and a strong ethical responsibility was connected to humanity’s
historical experience in this world. Ultimately it gave rise to three great
universal monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
“In the Beginning.” The Hebrew word Beresheet, which means “in the
beginning,” opens the Book of Genesis. The Jews are people of the Book,
and foremost among their sacred writings is the Hebrew Bible.

How does the design of this page reflect the role of the Book in Jewish
faith?

At the beginning of this tradition stands Abraham, whom all three

religions recognize as the founder. According to the Torah (the first five
books of the Hebrew Bible; the Christian Old Testament), Abraham entered
into a covenant with God in which he promised to worship only this God,
who in turn promised to make Abraham’s descendants his own chosen
people—chosen to worship him, to obey his Laws, and to undertake a
special set of moral responsibilities. God renewed the covenant with Moses
at Mount Sinai when he freed the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. He
promised them the land of Canaan (later called Palestine and part of which
is now the state of Israel) and gave them the Law (the Torah), including the
Ten Commandments, by which they were to guide their lives. As long as
they lived by his Law, God would give them his guidance and protection.
In time the Israelites formed themselves into a kingdom that remained
unified from about 1000 to 922 B.C.E. In the period after its division,
prophets emerged. Thought to be inspired by God, they chastised the
Israelites for their lapses into idolatry and immorality. Even as the kingdom
was disintegrating and the Israelites were falling under the control of alien
empires, the prophets preached social reform and a return to God’s laws.
The prophets saw Israel’s misfortune as punishment for failing to keep the
covenant and predicted disaster if the Israelites did not change their ways.
When disasters came—the Jewish kingdoms captured, the people enslaved
and exiled—the prophets interpreted Israel’s status as a chosen people to
mean that their sufferings would make them “a light unto the nations,”
leading other nations to the true worship of one God.
The prophets also preached that God was righteous and demanded
righteousness from his people. But he was also a God of justice; although
he might need to punish his people for their sins, he would one day reward
them with divine favor. Traditional Jewish belief expects that the Messiah,
or Anointed One, will someday come and establish God’s kingdom on
earth. He will introduce an age of universal brotherhood in which all
nations will acknowledge the one true God.
The Jews are people of the Book, and foremost among their sacred
writings is the Hebrew Bible, consisting of the Five Books of Moses (the
Torah), the books of the prophets, and other writings. The Torah is the
source of Jewish Law. Over the centuries, new experiences required new
interpretation of the Law, which was accomplished by the oral Law, no less
sacred than the written Law. Compilations of interpretation and
commentary by rabbis (wise and learned teachers) were brought together to
form the Talmud.
The destruction of their temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E.
hastened the scattering of the Jews throughout the empire. Thereafter
almost all Jews lived in the Diaspora (dispersion), without a homeland, a
political community, or a national or religious center. In the fifth and sixth
centuries the decline of the Sassanid Empire in Iran and the collapse of the
Western Roman Empire undermined the institutions in which the Jews had
found a stable way of life. In the seventh and eighth centuries the
missionary zeal of the Christian church also brought hard times for the Jews
in western Europe and in the Byzantine East. In the West, their condition
improved in the ninth century under Charlemagne and his successors.

Persecution of the Jews. This 1900 painting, After the Pogrom, by the
Polish painter Maurycy Minkowski, shows a group of women and children
in the aftermath of a pogrom, an organized persecution of Jews that was
once common in eastern Europe and Russia. Pogroms often became
massacres. Encouraged by the Russian government, pogroms were
particularly brutal in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
What seems to have happened to these people as a result of a pogrom?

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Lester Klien. Jewish Museum/Art Resource, New
York.
Under Islam, Jews, like Christians, were tolerated as people of the Book.
Jewish settlements flourished throughout the Islamic world. After the
Islamic conquest of Spain in 711, the Jews there enjoyed an almost 300-
year-long golden age. During this period of extraordinary intellectual and
cultural accomplishment, Jews practiced their religion openly and
flourished economically.
The beginning of the Crusades in the eleventh century brought renewed
persecution of the Jews in both the Christian and Islamic worlds. In the
wake of the Christian reconquest of Spain, Jews were persecuted, killed,
forced to convert, and finally expelled in 1492.
By the Middle Ages, Jews had divided into two distinct branches: those
who lived in Christian Europe, called Ashkenazim, and those in the Muslim
world, particularly Spain, called Sephardim. The Sephardim, with greater
opportunities, developed a more secular life. Their language, Ladino,
combined Hebrew and Spanish elements. The Ashkenazim, scattered in tiny
communities, were forced to turn inward. Centered in German lands, they
developed Yiddish, a combination of Hebrew and German. In time Yiddish
became the language of most Jews in northern Europe, although the Torah
was always read and studied in Hebrew.
Two of the dominant influences on modern Judaism have been Zionism
—the effort to found a Jewish nation—and the death of some 6 million
Jews in the Holocaust of World War II. Bolstered by the determination of
Jews never again to find themselves victimized by the forces of anti-
Semitism, the Zionist movement culminated in the founding of the state of
Israel in 1948.
The adherents of Judaism are divided into several groups—Reform,
Reconstruction, Conservative, and Orthodox—each holding significantly
different views about the place of tradition and the traditional law in the
modern world. All, however, would give assent to the saying of Hillel, the
great Talmudic teacher of the first century B.C.E.: “What is distasteful to you
do not to your fellow man. This is the Law, all the rest is commentary. Now
go and study.”
In what ways did Judaism differ from the polytheistic religions?
What elements of the religion helped it persist through the ages?
3
Greek and Hellenistic Civilization

Hear the Audio for Chapter 3 at www.myhistorylab.com

Bronze Statue. This striking bronze statue of Poseidon, created ca. 460
B.C.E. by the Greek sculptor Calamis, was found off the coast of Cape
Artemision, Greece.
Is there anything about this statue that suggests it might have had a
religious use?

MINOANS, MYCENAEANS, AND THE GREEK “MIDDLE AGES” TO

ca. 750 B.C.E.

WHAT WERE the defining qualities of Minoan, Mycenaean, and Homeric

Greek society?

THE POLIS IN THE EXPANDING GREEK WORLD

WHY WAS the polis the most characteristic Greek institution?

LIFE IN ARCHAIC GREECE

WHAT FEATURES distinguished Archaic Greek society?

THE POLEIS AND THE PERSIAN WARS

HOW WERE the Greeks able to defeat the Persians?

CLASSICAL GREECE

WHAT WERE the main cultural achievements of Classical Greece?

EMERGENCE OF THE HELLENISTIC WORLD

WHY DID Alexander the Great become an almost mythological figure?

HELLENISTIC CULTURE

HOW DID the Hellenistic world influence Western culture?

About 2000 B.C.E., Greek-speaking peoples settled the lands surrounding the
Aegean Sea, where they came into contact with the advanced civilizations of
the Near East. The Greeks forged their own way of life, forming a set of
ideas, values, and institutions that would spread far beyond their homeland.
The foundation of this way of life was the independent city-state, or polis.
Early in the fifth century B.C.E., the great Persian Empire (see Chapter 4)
threatened to extinguish Greek independence. Led by the city-states of
Sparta and Athens, the Greeks won a remarkable victory over the Persians,
securing a period of freedom and autonomy during which they realized
their greatest political and cultural achievements. Athens developed an
extraordinarily democratic constitution, but fears and jealousies created a
split in the Greek world that led to a series of wars.
In 338 B.C.E., Philip of Macedon conquered the Greek states, ending the
age of the polis. The conquests of Philip’s son, Alexander, spread Greek
culture far from its homeland. Preserved and adapted by the Romans, Greek
culture influenced western Europe and the Byzantine Empire in the Middle
Ages. In time the civilization emerging from the Greek and Roman
experience crossed the Atlantic to the Western Hemisphere.

See the Map

The Greek World at myhistorylab.com

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF GREEK AND HELLENISTIC CIVILIZATION
Hellenic civilization lies at the root of Western civilization, and it has
powerfully influenced the modern world. It emerged from the collapse of
the Bronze Age Mycenaean civilization. However, it had little in common
with Mycenaean civilization and the Bronze Age civilization of Crete or
with other early civilizations—in Mesopotamia, Palestine-Syria, China,
India, and elsewhere. These civilizations were characterized by strong,
centralized monarchical governments ruling through tightly organized, large
bureaucracies; hierarchical social systems; professional standing armies;
and a regular system of taxation to support it all. To varying degrees, they
all tended to cultural stability and uniformity. Hellenic civilization departed
sharply from this pattern of development.
The crucial unit of the Greek way of life—forged in poverty and isolation
following the Mycenaean collapse—was the polis, the Hellenic city-state.
There were hundreds of poleis, ranging in size from a few thousand
inhabitants to hundreds of thousands. Each evoked a kind of loyalty and
attachment in its citizens that made it unthinkable for them to allow it to be
part of a larger political unit. The result was a dynamic, many-faceted,
competitive, sometimes chaotic society in which rivalry for excellence and
victory had the highest value. This competitiveness led to almost constant
warfare, but it also inspired the Greeks’ extraordinary achievements in
literature and art.
In the Classical Age, which followed the Greeks’ defeat of the powerful
Persian Empire in the early sixth century B.C.E., while the rest of the world’s
civilizations remained monarchical, hierarchical, command societies,
Athens, the seat of an Aegean empire, developed democratic government to
an extent not seen again until modern times. Athenian citizenship—though
limited to adult males of native parentage—granted full and active
participation in every decision of the state without regard to wealth or class.
Despite the unique aspects of its culture, Greece was also deeply
influenced by its neighbors, especially in its earliest stages. The influences
of Egyptian art, for example, on early Greek sculpture are evident in the
style and stance of statues, jewelry, and figurines. The Greeks adopted the
Phoenician alphabet as the basis for their own. Nonetheless, as in the case
of political development and the unique polis-centered way of life, the
Greeks adapted and made uniquely their own the artistic styles, alphabet,
and intellectual ideas they borrowed from their neighbors.
Even more significant, however, was the influence of Greek culture in
world history. The culture of democratic yet imperial Athens gave rise to
the greatest artistic, literary, and philosophical achievements of the Greek
classical period, achievements that became integral to Roman culture and,
via the Greco-Roman cultural synthesis, a pillar of European civilization.
The conquests of Alexander and the Hellenistic states that followed in their
wake spread Greek culture over a remarkably wide area and made a
significant and lasting impression on the conquered societies and their
neighbors. The Seleucid Dynasty ruled some parts of the Persian Empire for
almost two centuries. As we will see in Chapter 4, a group of Greeks who
broke away from the Seleucids carried Hellenistic culture even farther east,
to the Indus valley in northwest India, creating the Indo-Greek Bactrian
society. In art, Hellenistic influence reached even as far away as China. In
the West, of course, the legacy of Hellenism was more substantial and
enduring, powerfully shaping the culture of the Roman Empire that
ultimately dominated the entire Mediterranean world.

Focus Questions

Why are the achievements of Greek culture so fundamental to the

development of Western civilization?
In what ways was Greece influenced by neighboring civilizations?
Which civilizations had the most influence on Greek culture, and
why?
How did the Hellenistic era differ from the Hellenic? What made
Hellenistic culture more cosmopolitan than Hellenic culture?

MINOANS, MYCENAEANS, AND THE GREEK

“MIDDLE AGES” TO ca. 750 B.C.E.

WHAT WERE the defining qualities of Minoan, Mycenaean, and

Homeric Greek society?

The large island of Crete was a cultural bridge between the older
civilizations of Egypt and Asia and the new one of the Greeks.

THE MINOANS
In the third and second millennia B.C.E., a Bronze Age civilization arose on
Crete that influenced the islands of the Aegean and the mainland of Greece
(see Map 3–1 on page 62). This civilization is called Minoan, after Crete’s
legendary King Minos. Scholars have divided Minoan history into three
major periods, Early, Middle, and Late Minoan. Dates for Bronze Age
settlements on the Greek mainland, for which the term Helladic is used, are
derived from the same chronological scheme.
Minoan

The Bronze Age civilization that arose in Crete in the third and second
millennia B.C.E.

The civilization of the Middle and Late Minoan periods in eastern and
central Crete centered on several great palaces, the most important of which
is Cnossus. The distinctive and striking art and architecture of these palaces
reflect regional influences but are uniquely Cretan. Minoan cities lacked
strong defensive walls, suggesting that they were not built for defense.
Along with palaces, paintings, pottery, and jewelry, excavations at
Minoan sites have revealed clay writing tablets like those found in
Mesopotamia. These tablets have three distinct kinds of writing on them,
one of which is an early form of Greek. The tablets reveal a king who was
supported by an extensive bureaucracy that kept remarkably detailed
records. This sort of organization is typical of early civilizations in the Near
East but, as we shall see, is nothing like that of the Greeks after the Bronze
Age. The fact that some inventories were written in a form of Greek raises
questions about the relationship between Crete and the Greek mainland
during the Bronze Age.

View the Image

The Toreador Fresco, Knossos, ca. 1500 B.C.E. Archeological Museum,
Herakleion at myhistorylab.com

THE MYCENAEANS
In the third millennium B.C.E., most of the Greek mainland was settled by
people who used metal, built some impressive houses, and traded with
Crete and the islands of the Aegean. They were not Greeks, and they spoke
a language that was not Indo-European (the language family to which
Greek belongs). The Late Helladic period began soon after 2000 B.C.E.,
when many of the Early Helladic sites show signs of invasion. These
invasions probably signal the arrival of the Greeks.
Shaft graves cut into the rock at the royal palace-fortress of Mycenae
show that by the Late Helladic period the conquerors had prospered. The
whole mainland culture of the Late Helladic period goes by the name
Mycenaean. Greek invaders also established themselves in a still
flourishing Crete, making it part of the Mycenaean world. Mycenaean
culture was very different from Minoan. Mycenaean cities were built on
hills in positions commanding the neighboring territory. The Mycenaean
people were warriors, led by strong kings who lived in palaces protected by
defensive walls. Mycenaean palaces were adorned with murals, but instead
of the peaceful scenery and games depicted on the Cretan murals, the
Mycenaean murals depicted scenes of war and boar hunting.

Mycenaean

The Bronze Age civilization of mainland Greece that was centered at

Mycenae.

A Minoan Fresco. Acrobats leaping over a charging bull, from the east
wing of the Minoan-period palace at Cnossus on the island of Crete. It is
not known whether such acrobatic displays were for entertainment or were
part of some religious ritual.

Scala/Art Resource, New York.

Why do you think the bull’s power and size are emphasized in this
image?
MAP 3–1. The Aegean Area in the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age in the
Aegean area lasted from ca. 1900 to ca. 1100 B.C.E. Its culture on Crete is
called Minoan and was at its height about 1900–1400 B.C.E. Bronze Age
Helladic culture on the mainland flourished from ca. 1600 to 1200 B.C.E.

What geographic features of this area seem noteworthy to you?

About 1500 B.C.E. tholos tombs—large, beehivelike chambers cut into

hillsides—replaced the earlier shaft graves. The tholos tombs, built of
enormous, well-cut, fitted stones, were approached through an unroofed
passage cut horizontally into the side of the hill. Only a strong king whose
wealth was great, whose power was unquestioned, and who commanded the
labor of many could undertake such a project.
 View the Image
Tomb Mask, Mycenaen at myhistorylab.com

The Mycenaean world was made up of a number of independent,

powerful, and well-organized monarchies. At the height of their power
(1400–1200 B.C.E.), the Mycenaeans were prosperous and active traders.
They are mentioned in the archives of the Hittite kings of Asia Minor and
are named as marauders in Egyptian records. Sometime about 1250 B.C.E.
they probably sacked Troy on the coast of northwestern Asia Minor, giving
rise to the epic poems of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey (see Map 3–1).
Around the year 1200 B.C.E., however, the Mycenaean world showed signs
of great trouble; by 1100 B.C.E. it was gone. Its palaces were destroyed;
many of its cities abandoned; and its art, its pattern of life, its system of
writing buried and forgotten.

See the Map

Mycenean Trade and Contacts at myhistorylab.com

The Iliad and the Odyssey

The epic poems by Homer about the “dark age” heroes of Greece who
fought at Troy. The poems were written down in the eighth century B.C.E.
after centuries of being sung by bards.

The reasons for the collapse of Mycenaean civilization are not known.
Greek legends attribute it to the Dorians, a rude new wave of Greek
speakers who invaded the Greek mainland from the north. Greece entered a
dark “middle age” about which little is known. The Dorians, after
occupying most of the Peloponnesus, swept south across the Aegean.
Another group, known as the Ionians, spread east to what became Ionia.
These migrations made the Aegean a Greek lake. Trade, however, had
ended with the fall of the region’s advanced civilizations. Each Greek
community was left largely to its own devices. The Near East was also in
disarray at this time, so the Greeks had time to recover from their disaster
and to create their unique style of life.
THE AGE OF HOMER
Homer provides the best picture of society in these “dark ages.” His epic
poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, emerged from a tradition of oral poetry
whose roots reached back to the Mycenaean Age. Through the centuries
bards had sung tales of the heroes who had fought at Troy, preserving very
old material by using verse arranged in rhythmic formulas to aid the
memory. In the eighth century B.C.E., the oral poetry was reworked as the
poems attributed to Homer. Although the poems tell of the deeds of
Mycenaean heroes, the world they describe resembles that of the tenth and
ninth centuries B.C.E.

Read the Document

Homer, Debate Among the Greeks, from The Odyssey at
myhistorylab.com

The Trojan Horse, Depicted on a Seventh-Century B.C.E. Greek Vase.

According to legend, the Greeks finally defeated Troy by pretending to
abandon their siege of the city, leaving behind a giant wooden horse.
Soldiers hidden in the horse opened the gates of the city to their compatriots
after the Trojans had brought it within their walls. Note the wheels on the
horse and the Greek soldiers who are hiding inside it holding weapons and
armor.

What is the general meaning of the metaphor “a Trojan horse”? Can

you think of an example?

Kings in the Homeric poems have much less power than Mycenaean
rulers had. Homeric kings were expected to consult their followers on
important decisions. The right to speak in council was limited to noblemen,
but common people could not be ignored. If a king planned a major change
of policy, he would call the common soldiers to an assembly. They could
not take part in debate, but they could express their feelings by acclamation.
Homer shows that even in these early times Greeks practiced a form of
constitutional government.
Homeric society was aristocratic. Noble status was hereditary and usually
associated with wealth. Below the nobles were two other classes: thetes and
slaves. Thetes were landless laborers, who endured the worst conditions in
Homeric society. In a world where membership in a settled group provided
the only security, free laborers were desperately vulnerable. Slaves—mostly
women who served as maids and concubines—were attached to family
households, so they were at least protected and fed. Throughout Greek
history, agriculture mostly utilized free labor.
Homer’s poems became the schoolbooks of the Greeks, who memorized
his texts and emulated the behavior displayed in them. The values of the
Homeric poems—physical prowess, courage, and fierce protection of
family, friends, and property—reflected an aristocratic code that influenced
all future Greek thought. Defense of personal honor and reputation was of
supreme importance. The great hero of the Iliad, Achilles, withdraws from
the field of battle at Troy and allows his fellow Greeks to be almost
defeated when Agamemnon wounds his honor. He returns to the army not
out of a sense of duty but to avenge the death of his friend Patroclus.
The highest virtue in Homeric society was arete: manliness, the
excellence proper to a hero. Arete was best demonstrated by competing in a
contest, an agon. Homeric battles are primarily individual matches between
champions, and the major entertainment for Homer’s heroes are athletic
contests. The central ethical idea in Homer’s epics is found in the
instructions that fathers give their hero-sons: “Always be the best and
distinguished above others”; “Do not bring shame on the family of your
fathers.” The chief aristocratic values of Homer’s world—to vie for
individual supremacy in arete and to defend and increase the honor of the
family—would remain prominent Greek values long after Homeric society
was only a memory.

THE POLIS IN THE EXPANDING GREEK

WORLD

WHY WAS the polis the most characteristic Greek institution?

The characteristic Greek institution was the polis. The common translation
of that word as “city-state” says both too much and too little. All Greek
poleis began as agricultural villages or towns, and many stayed that way, so
the word city is inappropriate. They were states, in the sense of being
independent political units, but they were much more than that. The polis
was thought of as a community of relatives; all its citizens, who were
theoretically descended from a common ancestor, belonged to subgroups
such as fighting brotherhoods (phratries), clans, and tribes. They worshiped
the gods in common ceremonies.
Aristotle (see Chapter 2) argued that the polis was a natural growth and
that the human being is by nature “an animal who lives in a polis.” Humans
alone have the power of speech and from it derive the ability to distinguish
good from bad and right from wrong. Without law and justice, humans are
the worst and most dangerous of the animals. With them they can be the
best, and justice exists only in the polis.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE POLIS

Originally the word polis referred to a citadel, an elevated, defensible rock
to which the farmers of the neighboring area could retreat when attacked.
The Acropolis in Athens is an example. Gradually and without planning,
towns grew up around these fortresses. For centuries they had no walls. The
availability of farmland and of natural defenses determined where poleis
sprang up. They were usually situated far enough away from the sea to
avoid raids by pirates. Only later did an agora—a marketplace and civic
center—appear within the polis. The agora became the heart of the Greeks’
remarkable social life, distinguished by conversation and argument carried
on in the open air.

Acropolis
The religious and civic center of Athens. It is the site of the Parthenon.

agora
The Greek marketplace and civic center. It was the heart of the social life of
the polis.

All the colonies established by the Greeks after 750 B.C.E. took the form
of poleis; true monarchy disappeared. The original form of the polis was an
aristocratic republic dominated by a council of nobles, who also
monopolized political offices.

THE HOPLITE PHALANX

Crucial to the development of the polis was a new military technique. In
earlier times the brunt of fighting had been carried on by small troops of
cavalry and individual “champions” who first threw their spears and then
came to close quarters with swords. Toward the end of the eighth century
B.C.E., however, the hoplite phalanx came into being and remained the
basis of Greek warfare thereafter.

hoplite phalanx
The basic unit of Greek warfare in which infantrymen fought in close order,
shield to shield, usually eight ranks deep.

A hoplite was a heavily armed infantryman who fought with a spear and
a large shield. Hoplites were closely arrayed in a phalanx that was at least
eight ranks deep. The success of a hoplite army depended on the discipline
and courage of its individual soldiers: If they maintained formation, they
were almost impossible to defeat, but if they broke ranks they were easily
routed. Until the Roman legion appeared, the hoplite phalanx was the
dominant military force in the Mediterranean.
The usual hoplite battle in Greece involved the armies of two poleis
quarreling over a piece of land. One army invaded the territory of the other
when its crops were almost ready for harvest. The defending army had to
protect the fields. The farmer-soldier-citizen, who defended the polis,
usually hoped to settle a dispute quickly by a single decisive battle and then
get back to work. It was to the advantage of an agriculturally based society
to keep wars short and limit their cost. Service in the phalanx created bonds
between the aristocrats and the family farmers who fought side by side.
This may explain why class conflicts were slow to develop, but it also
meant that aristocratic monopolies of political power would eventually be
challenged.

QUICK REVIEW
Greeks in Battle
Hoplite: heavily armed infantryman
Phalanx: close formation of hoplites at least eight ranks deep
Most hoplite battles in Greece were between two poleis fighting over
a piece of land

GREEK COLONIES
Between the eighth and the sixth century B.C.E., the Greeks vastly expanded
the territory they controlled as well as their wealth and their contacts with
other peoples. A burst of colonizing activity placed poleis from Spain to the
Black Sea.
The Greeks settled the sparsely populated southern coast of Macedonia
and the Chalcidian peninsula (see Map 3–2 on page 66). There were so
many Greek colonies in Italy and Sicily that the Romans called the whole
region Magna Graecia (“Great Greece”). The Greeks also put colonies in
Spain and southern France. In the seventh century B.C.E. the Greeks had
outposts throughout the Mediterranean world. Most colonies, though
independent, were friendly with their mother cities. Each might ask the
other for aid in time of trouble and expect to receive a friendly hearing,
although neither was obliged to help.

Magna Graecia Meaning “Great Greece” in Latin, it was the name given
by the Romans to southern Italy and Sicily because there were so many
Greek colonies in the region.

Colonization had a powerful influence on Greek life. By relieving the

pressure and land hunger of a growing population, it provided a safety valve
that allowed the poleis to escape civil wars. Colonization also gave the
Greeks a sense of cultural identity and fostered a Panhellenic (“all-Greek”)
spirit that led to the establishment of a number of religious festivals.

Panhellenic (“all-Greek”)
The sense of cultural identity that all Greeks felt in common with each
other.

See the Map

Greece in the Archaic and Classical Ages, ca. 750–350 B.C.E. at
myhistorylab.com

MAP EXPLORATION
To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com
MAP 3–2. Phoenician and Greek Colonization.

Most of the coastline of the Mediterranean and Black seas was populated by
Greek or Phoenician colonies. The Phoenicians were a commercial people
who planted their colonies in North Africa, Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia,
chiefly in the ninth century B.C.E. The height of Greek colonization came
later, between ca. 750 and 550 B.C.E.
What impact did colonization have on Phoenician and Greek societies?

Colonization also encouraged trade and industry. The influx of new

wealth and the increased demand for goods stimulated a more intensive use
of the land and an emphasis on crops for export, chiefly the olive and the
wine grape. The manufacture of pottery, tools, weapons, fine metalwork,
and perfumed oil was encouraged. The newly wealthy were not always
aristocrats, and they resented their exclusion from political power, religious
privileges, and social acceptance. In many states the resulting crises
culminated, between 700 and 500 B.C.E., in the establishment of tyrannies.
THE TYRANTS (CA. 700–500 B.C.E.)
A tyrant was a monarch who had gained power in an unorthodox way and
who exercised a strong one-man rule that might well be beneficent and
popular. The founding tyrant, usually an aristocrat, typically sought the
support of disgruntled elements within the polis: the politically powerless,
newly wealthy, and poor farmers. He often expelled his aristocratic
opponents and divided their land among his supporters. Tyrants presided
over a period of population growth in the Greek world, and to maintain
popular support they fostered trade and colonization. They sponsored
programs of public works, founded new festivals, and provided patronage
for the arts.
Tyranny, however, could turn oppressive, and it was inimical to the idea
of the polis. The notion of the polis as a community for which each of its
members was responsible, the connection of justice with that community,
and the aristocratic hatred of monarchy all made tyranny seem alien and
offensive to the Greeks. By the end of the sixth century B.C.E., tyranny had
disappeared, and the last tyrants were remembered with bitterness. The
tyrants had, however, helped secure the prosperity of Greece and had
cultivated technology, the arts, and literature. Most importantly, they had
broken the grip of the aristocracy on Greek society.

CHRONOLOGY
RISE OF GREECE
LIFE IN ARCHAIC GREECE

WHAT FEATURES distinguished Archaic Greek society?

As the dark ages came to an end, the features that would distinguish Greek
society took shape.

SOCIETY
Most people farmed the land, but the role of the artisan and the merchant
grew increasingly important. Aristocrats led privileged lives.
Works and Days by the poet Hesiod (ca. 700 B.C.E.) gives a glimpse of a
Greek farmer’s life. His crops included grain (chiefly barley but some
wheat), grapes for wine, olives for oil (used for cooking, lighting, and
washing), green vegetables, and fruit. Sheep and goats provided milk and
cheese, but farmers usually ate meat only when animals were sacrificed at
religious festivals. Life was continual toil under the burning sun and in the
freezing cold, and pleasures were few.
Most aristocrats employed hired laborers, sharecroppers, and sometimes
slaves to work their lands. This gave them leisure for other activities.
Aristocratic social life revolved around the drinking party, or symposion, a
carefully organized activity for men only. Symposium guests might play
games, enjoy professional entertainment, or amuse themselves with songs,
poetry, or even philosophical disputes. Often their activities took the form
of contests. Aristocratic values emphasized competition, the need to excel,
and the desire to be recognized for one’s achievements.

symposion
The carefully organized drinking party that was the center of Greek
aristocratic social life. It featured games, songs, poetry, and even
philosophical disputation.
 Athletic contests became especially popular in the sixth century B.C.E.
The games included running events, boxing, wrestling, and the chariot race.
Only the rich could afford racehorses, so the chariot race was a special
preserve of aristocracy. Wrestling, however, was also favored by the
nobility, and the palaestra where wrestlers practiced became an important
social center. The contrast between the hard, drab life of the peasant and the
leisured and lively one of the aristocrat could hardly be greater.

Attic Jar. From late in the sixth century B.C.E. this jar shows how olives,
one of Athens’s most important crops, were harvested.

Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.

Why would olive harvesting be considered a suitable subject for

illustrating a vase?

RELIGION
Like most ancient peoples, the Greeks were polytheists. A great part of
Greek art and literature was closely connected with religion, as was the life
of the polis in general. The Greek pantheon consisted of the following
twelve gods who lived on Mount Olympus.
• Zeus, the father of the gods
• Hera, his wife
• Zeus’s siblings:
Poseidon, his brother, god of the seas and earthquakes
Hestia, his sister, goddess of the hearth
Demeter, his sister, goddess of agriculture and marriage
• Zeus’s children:
Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty
Apollo, god of the sun, music, poetry, and prophecy
Ares, god of war
Artemis, goddess of the moon and the hunt
Athena, goddess of wisdom and the arts
Hephaestus, god of fire and metallurgy Hermes, messenger of the
gods, connected with commerce and cunning

The gods were assumed to behave like humans, from whom they differed
primarily in strength and immortality. Like humans, the Olympians were
believed to be subordinate to the Fates. Zeus was a defender of justice. Each
polis honored one of the Olympians as its guardian deity, but all the gods
were Panhellenic—they were worshiped throughout Greece. In the eighth
and seventh centuries B.C.E., shrines were established at Olympia for the
worship of Zeus, at Delphi for Apollo, and at Corinth for Poseidon. Each
shrine held athletic contests in honor of its deity, to which all Greeks were
invited and for which a sacred truce was declared.
The worship of the Olympian deities did not inspire intense emotion.
Most Greeks seem to have thought that civic virtue consisted of worshiping
the state deities in the traditional way, performing required public services,
and fighting in defense of the state. Private ethics required only that one do
good to one’s friends and harm to one’s enemies.
In the sixth century B.C.E., the cult and oracle of Apollo at Delphi began
to exercise great influence. The priests of Apollo urged self-control and
warned that arrogance (hubris) caused moral blindness and invited divine
vengeance. Famous mottos summed up their advice: “Know thyself,” and
“Nothing in excess.”
 Later, Greeks turned to deities who were worshiped with more emotional
rites. Of these, the most popular was Dionysus, a god of nature and fertility,
of the grape and drunkenness, and of ecstasy and sexual abandon.

THE ALPHABET
Early Greek traders in Syria had learned craft techniques and much more
from the older civilizations of the Near East. About 750 B.C.E. they
borrowed a writing system from one of the Semitic scripts and added
vowels to create the first true alphabet. The new Greek alphabet was easier
to learn than any earlier writing system, and Greece became a widely
literate society.

POETRY
Changes in sixth-century B.C.E. Greek society were reflected in a new genre
of poetry, the lyric. Sappho of Lesbos, Anacreon of Teos, and Simonides of
Cous wrote on personal themes, often describing the pleasure and agony of
love. The most interesting poet from a political point of view was Theognis
of Megara, the spokesman for the old, defeated aristocracy of birth. He
divided Greeks into two classes—the noble and the base. Only nobles could
aspire to virtue, for he said that only they possessed critical moral and
intellectual qualities. These prejudices remained strong in aristocratic
circles throughout the next century and greatly influenced later thinkers,
including Plato.
The God Dionysus Dances with Two Female Followers. The vase was
painted in the sixth century B.C.E.

What do the women here appear to be doing?

THE POLEIS AND THE PERSIAN WARS

HOW WERE the Greeks able to defeat the Persians?

Each polis developed in unique ways. Sparta and Athens, which became the
two most powerful Greek states, had particularly unusual histories. The
Persian Wars of the sixth century B.C.E. brought an end to the fortunate
isolation and freedom of the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor.

DEVELOPMENT OF SPARTA
About 725 B.C.E., population pressure and land hunger led the Spartans to
conquer their western neighbor, Messenia. The Spartans won as much land
as they would ever need. Because they reduced the Messenians to serfs, or
Helots, they no longer had to work this land themselves. About 650 B.C.E.,
the Helots rebelled, and the Spartans faced a turning point. To keep down
the Helots, who outnumbered them perhaps ten to one, they turned their city
into a permanent military academy and camp.

Helots
Hereditary Spartan serfs.

The new system was designed to subordinate the natural feelings of

devotion to family to a more powerful commitment to the polis. Privacy and
comfort were sacrificed to produce the best soldiers in the world. Spartan
officials decided which infants, male and female, were allowed to survive.
At age 7, the Spartan boy was taken from his mother and trained in athletics
and the military arts. He was enrolled in the army at age 20 and lived in
barracks until he was 30. He could marry but could visit his wife only by
stealth. At age 30 he became a full citizen and was allowed to live in his
own house with his wife, although he took his meals at a public mess in the
company of fifteen comrades. His simple food was provided by his own
plot of land, worked for him by Helots. Only when he reached age 60 could
the Spartan retire from military service.

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Education and the Family in Sparta, ca. 100 C.E. at myhistorylab.com

QUICK REVIEW
Spartan Society
Spartan system controlled Spartan life from birth
At age 7 Spartan boys began military training
Spartan girls were also indoctrinated with idea of service to the state

Spartan girls were permitted greater freedom than other Greek females.
Like their brothers, they were indoctrinated with the idea of service to
Sparta. Nothing that might turn the mind away from duty was permitted.
Sparta was governed by two kings, a council of elders, and an assembly.
The power of the kings was limited. The council of elders—twenty-eight
men over age 60 who were elected for life—was consulted before any
proposal was put before the assembly. The assembly, which consisted of all
males over age 30, could only ratify, not debate, the decisions of
magistrates, elders, and kings. Sparta also had a board of ephors, five men
elected annually by the assembly. The ephors controlled foreign policy,
oversaw the generalship of the kings, presided at the assembly, and guarded
against rebellion by the Helots.
Suppression of the Helots required all the Spartans’ effort and energy.
They did not try to expand their borders, but they did force their neighbors
to follow their lead in foreign affairs and supply them with troops. These
alliances grew into the powerful Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. By
500 B.C.E., the Greeks had a force capable of facing mighty threats from
abroad.

Spartan Warrior. A bronze statuette from Corinth showing a warrior

holding a Boeotian Shield ca. 500 B.C.E.

What is emphasized in this depiction of a warrior?

DEVELOPMENT OF ATHENS
In the seventh century B.C.E., Athens and the region of Attica constituted a
typical aristocratic polis. The state was governed by the Areopagus, a
council of nobles. Each year the council elected nine magistrates, called
archons, who became members of the Areopagus after their year in office.
A broad-based citizens’ assembly represented the four tribes into which
Attica’s inhabitants were traditionally divided. The Areopagus, however,
was the true master of the state.

Areopagus
The governing council of Athens, originally open only to the nobility. It
was named after the hill on which it met.

Quarrels within the nobility and the beginnings of an agrarian crisis

created pressure for socioeconomic change. A shift to more intensive
agricultural techniques forced the less successful farmers to borrow from
wealthy neighbors. Many defaulted and were enslaved for their debts. Some
were sold abroad. The poor began to demand the abolition of debt and a
redistribution of the land.
According to tradition, the Athenians elected the reformer Solon (ca.
639–559 B.C.E.) in 594 B.C.E. Solon immediately canceled debts, forbade
debt slavery, and brought back Athenians enslaved abroad. He forbade the
export of wheat, a food staple, but encouraged production of olive oil and
wine for sale abroad. This nudged the Athenians toward a commercially
based economy that utilized their land most efficiently for cash crops, such
as olives and grapes. Solon changed the way Athens was governed. He
expanded citizenship to include immigrant artisans and merchants and
divided the citizenry into four classes on the basis of wealth. Only men of
the wealthiest two classes could be archons and sit on the Areopagus. Men
of the third class could be hoplites and serve on a council of 400 chosen by
the assembly of all male citizens. The fourth class, the thetes, voted in the
assembly and also sat on a new court of appeals.

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Plutarch on Life in Sparta (1st c. B.C.E.) at myhistorylab.com

See the Map

Greece and Greek Colonies of the World, ca. 431 B.C.E. at
myhistorylab.com

Pisistratus (605?–527 B.C.E.) seized power in 546 B.C.E. and made himself
the city’s first tyrant. Pisistratus sought to increase the power of the central
government at the expense of the nobles. He made no formal change in the
institutions of government but saw to it that his supporters filled key
offices. The unintended effect was to give more Athenians a taste for
participatory government. The tyranny ended with Pisistratus’s son, Hippias
(r. 527–510 B.C.E.). When his rule became harsh and unpopular, his
aristocratic opponents, with Sparta’s help, rallied and drove him into exile
(510 B.C.E.).

CHRONOLOGY
KEY EVENTS IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF SPARTA AND
ATHENS

Some Athenian aristocrats tried to restore the dominance they had

enjoyed before Solon. Their plans were upset by Clisthenes, an aristocrat
whose program won the backing of the masses. Clisthenes replaced Attica’s
traditional four tribes with ten new tribes composed of units drawn from all
parts of Attica. The new organization increased devotion to the polis by
weakening regional loyalties; it also deprived the nobility of their
traditional power base. Clisthenes vested final authority in the assembly of
all adult male Athenian citizens. Debate in the assembly was free and open;
any Athenian could submit legislation, offer amendments, or argue the
merits of any question.
 Solon, Pisistratus, and Clisthenes put a more centralized and united
Athens well on the way to prosperity and democracy by the beginning of
the fifth century B.C.E.

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Aristotle, The Creation of the Democracy in Athens at myhistorylab.com

THE PERSIAN WARS

Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor came under the control first of King
Croesus of Lydia (r. ca. 560–546 B.C.E.), and then in 546 B.C.E. of the
powerful Persian Empire (see Chapter 4). At first, the cities of Ionia
prospered under Persian rule. An ambitious tyrant of Miletus named
Aristagoras, however, ended this calm. Aristagoras had urged a Persian
expedition against the island of Naxos. When it failed, he tried to avoid
punishment from Persia by raising a rebellion in Ionia (499 B.C.E.). He
turned to the mainland Greeks for help. In 498 B.C.E., the Athenians and
their allies burned Sardis, the seat of the Persian governor. But after the
Athenians withdrew, the Persians reimposed their will. In 494 B.C.E. they
wiped out Miletus and put down the Ionian rebellion.

WAR COMES TO GREECE

In 490 B.C.E. the Persian king, Darius (r. 521–486 B.C.E.), sent an expedition
to punish Athens. Miltiades (d. 489 B.C.E.) led the Athenian army to a
confrontation with the invaders at Marathon, a plain north of Athens, and
won a decisive victory. For the Persians, however, Marathon was only a
temporary defeat. In 481 B.C.E., Darius’s successor, Xerxes (r. 486–465
B.C.E.), gathered an army of at least 150,000 men and a navy of more than
600 ships for the conquest of Greece. By then, Themistocles (ca. 525–462
B.C.E.) had become Athens’s leading politician. His policies were aimed at
making Athens a major naval power, and by 480 B.C.E., when Xerxes
invaded, Athens had more than 200 ships. It was the Athenian navy that
defeated the Persians.
A Closer Look
The Trireme
The Greeks of the Classical Period owed their prosperity and their
freedom to the control of the seas that surrounded their lands, for
without the navies that defeated the Persian invaders in 480–479 B.C.E.
their cities would have been conquered and their distinctive civilization
smothered before it had reached its peak. The key to their naval
supremacy was their dominant warship, the trireme. The trireme was
the combat vessel that dominated naval warfare in the Mediterranean
in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. The naval battles of the Persian
Wars and the Peloponnesian War were fought between fleets of
triremes—light, fast, and maneuverable ships powered by oars. This is
a picture of the Olympias, a modern reconstruction of an ancient
trireme, commissioned by the Greek navy.

Questions
 1. What advantages do you think the trireme had over other kinds of
warships? What disadvantages can you think of?
2. What is the significance, military and political, of having these ships
rowed by free citizens?
To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com

CHRONOLOGY
GREEK WARS AGAINST PERSIA

Darius had launched a naval attack on the Greek mainland, but Xerxes
invaded by land. His huge army had to keep in touch with its fleet for
supplies. Themistocles reasoned that if the Greeks could defeat the Persian
navy, the Persian army would have to retreat. His strategy was to try to
delay the advance of the Persian army until he could fight the kind of naval
battle he might hope to win.
The Spartans led a Greek army that made a famous, but futile, attempt to
block the Persian invasion at a place called Thermopylae. The fate of
Greece was subsequently decided by the Athenians in a sea battle in the
narrow straits to the east of the island of Salamis. When they destroyed
more than half of Xerxes’ fleet, he retreated to Asia with a good part of his
army.
The Persian general Mardonius was left behind to continue the fight. The
Spartan regent, Pausanias (d. ca. 470 B.C.E.), amassed the largest army of
Greek allies yet assembled. In the summer of 479 B.C.E., the army killed
Mardonius and routed the remaining Persian forces. Meanwhile, the Ionian
Greeks urged King Leotychidas, the Spartan commander of the fleet, to
fight the Persian fleet. At Mycale, near Samos, he destroyed the Persian
camp and fleet, and the Persians withdrew from the Aegean and Ionia.

CLASSICAL GREECE

WHAT WERE the main cultural achievements of Classical Greece?

The repulse of the Persians marked the beginning of the Classical period in
Greece, 150 years of intense cultural achievement that has rarely, if ever,
been matched anywhere since (see Map 3–3 on page 74). The Classical
period was also a time of destructive conflicts among the poleis that in the
end left them weakened and vulnerable.

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Herodotus, Histories (400 B.C.E.) at myhistorylab.com

THE DELIAN LEAGUE

Greek unity was short-lived. Within two years of the Persian retreat, two
spheres of influence emerged, one dominated by Sparta, the other by
Athens. Athens, as Greece’s largest naval power, was best equipped to
protect the Ionian Greeks and make sure that the Persians did not return to
the Aegean.
In the winter of 478–477 B.C.E., Aegean islanders, Greeks from the coast
of Asia Minor, and some from other Greek cities met with Athenians on the
sacred island of Delos to swear a permanent alliance under Athenian
leadership. This Delian League kept the Persians at bay and cleared the
Aegean of pirates. To create a workable system, some Greek states were
forced into the league, and some that wished to resign were prevented from
doing so. (See Document, “The Delian League Becomes the Athenian
Empire” on page 75.) The Delian League and Athens were led at this time
by a statesman and soldier named Cimon (d. 449 B.C.E.). His policy was to
aggressively attack Persia while maintaining friendly relations with Sparta.
He worked within the constraints of the popular democratic constitution
that Clisthenes had given Athens.

Delian League
An alliance of Greek states under the leadership of Athens that was formed
in 478–477 B.C.E. to resist the Persians.

MAP 3–3. Classical Greece. Greece in the Classical period (ca. 480–338
B.C.E.) centered on the Aegean Sea. Although there were important Greek
settlements in Italy, Sicily, and all around the Black Sea, the area shown in
this general reference map embraced the vast majority of Greek states.
Why were most Greek cities located close to the sea?

THE FIRST PELOPONNESIAN WAR

In 465 B.C.E., the island of Thasos rebelled against the league. Cimon’s
suppression of this rebellion began the transformation of the league into an
Athenian empire. Despite his success abroad, at home Cimon faced
challenges from a faction that included Pericles (ca. 495–429 B.C.E.).
Although Pericles was a member of a distinguished Athenian family, he
wanted to increase the power of ordinary Athenians and break with the
Spartans, traditional allies of some Athenian aristocrats.
In 461 B.C.E. Cimon’s opponents engineered his exile, and Athens allied
with Argos, Sparta’s enemy in the Peloponnese. Almost overnight, Cimon’s
domestic and foreign policies were overturned. The policies of Athens’s
new regime helped incite a conflict with Sparta known as the First
Peloponnesian War. The Athenians made great gains during the war’s
early years. They seemed invulnerable, winning control of some
neighboring states and dominating the sea.

Peloponnesian Wars
The protracted struggle between Athens and Sparta to dominate Greece
between 465 and Athens’s final defeat in 404 B.C.E.

DOCUMENT
The Delian League Becomes the Athenian Empire
In the years after its foundation in the winter of 478-477 B.C.E., the Delian
League gradually underwent changes that finally justified calling it the
Athenian Empire. In the following selection, the historian Thucydides
explains why the organization changed its character.

• WHY did some allies choose to pay money rather than supply ships
and men? Since membership in the league was originally voluntary,
why did the allies refuse to meet their obligations? Who was
responsible for converting a voluntary league of allies into the
Athenian Empire?
The causes which led to the defections of the allies were of different kinds,
the principal being their neglect to pay the tribute or to furnish ships, and, in
some cases, failure of military service. For the Athenians were exacting and
oppressive, using coercive measures towards men who were neither willing
nor accustomed to work hard. And for various reasons they soon began to
prove less agreeable leaders than at first. They no longer fought upon an
equality with the rest of the confederates, and they had no difficulty in
reducing them when they revolted. Now the allies brought all this upon
themselves; for the majority of them disliked military service and absence
from home, and so they agreed to contribute a regular sum of money
instead of ships. Whereby the Athenian navy was proportionally increased,
while they themselves were always untrained and unprepared for war when
they revolted.

Source: Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Vol. 1, trans, by Benjamin Jowett, in The Greek
Historians, ed. by F. R. B. Godolphin (New York: Random House, 1942), p. 609.

In 454 B.C.E., however, the tide turned. An Athenian fleet, which was
dispatched to help the Egyptians rebel against Persia, was destroyed, and
revolts broke out within the Delian League. Athens agreed to a peace of
thirty years with Sparta. Greece was divided into two blocs: Sparta and its
allies on the mainland, and Athens and what had become its empire in the
Aegean.

CHRONOLOGY

KEY EVENTS IN ATHENIAN HISTORY BETWEEN THE PERSIAN

WAR AND THE GREAT PELOPONNESIAN WAR
THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE AND DEMOCRACY
The Athenians moved the Delian League’s treasury from Delos to Athens
and began to keep one-sixtieth of the league’s annual revenues for
themselves. Athens gave up the pretext of being the leader of a free
alliance; the league was now the Athenian Empire, the key to Athens’s
prosperity and security.
While the Athenians tightened their control over their subjects, they
expanded democracy for themselves at home. Under the leadership of
Pericles, they evolved the freest government the world had yet seen.
Property qualifications for offices were removed, opening all offices to all
adult male citizens. Pericles introduced pay for jury service, which allowed
the poor to take time off from work to serve. Judges traveled circuits to
provide swift impartial justice for the poor who were living in the
countryside. As the privileges of Athenian citizenship grew, however,
access to citizenship was sharply restricted. Only those who had two citizen
parents could claim what had become a valuable commodity.
Athens was governed as a direct democracy. Every political decision had
to be approved by the popular assembly—the people themselves, not their
representatives. Every judicial decision was subject to appeal to a popular
court chosen from the Athenian male population. Many officials were
selected by lot, which made class irrelevant. Elected officials generally
continued to be members of noble families and were almost always rich
men, but the people were free to choose whomever they wanted. All public
officials could be removed from office and were held to a compulsory
accounting at the end of their terms. There was no standing army; no police
force; and no way to coerce the people.
Pericles was elected to the generalship (a military office with important
political influence) fifteen years in a row and thirty times in all. After the
First Peloponnesian War, he instituted a conservative policy designed to
preserve the empire in the Aegean and peace with Sparta.

WOMEN OF ATHENS
Greek society was dominated by men, and Athenian democracy did nothing
to change that. Women were excluded from most aspects of public life.
They could not vote, take part in political assemblies, or hold office. Their
only public function—an important one—was participation in certain rituals
and festivals of the state religion.
In private life, women were always under the control of a male guardian
—a father, husband, or relative. Women married young, usually between
the ages of 12 and 18, whereas men typically did not marry until the age of
30. Marriages were arranged.

QUICK REVIEW
Athenian Women
Greek society was dominated by men
Women were always under control of a male guardian
Main function of Athenian women was to produce male heirs

To obtain a divorce, a woman needed the approval of a male relative.

The main function of an Athenian woman of a citizen family was to
produce male heirs for her husband’s household (oikos). Because the pure
and legitimate lineage of offspring was important for ensuring transmission
of rights to citizenship, women were segregated from men outside the
family and confined to women’s quarters in their homes. Men spent most of
their time outside the home and were free to seek whatever sexual
gratification they wanted.
The role played by Athenian women may have been more complex than
their legal status suggests, for myths, pictorial art, and the tragedies and
comedies performed at Athenian religious festivals often feature women as
central characters and powerful figures in both the public and the private
spheres.

CHRONOLOGY
THE GREAT PELOPONNESIAN WAR

THE GREAT PELOPONNESIAN WAR

The Thirty Years’ Peace of 445 B.C.E. only lasted ten years. About 435
B.C.E., Athens and Sparta plunged back into conflict. This new war, long and
disastrous, shook the foundations of Greek civilization.
The Spartan strategy was traditional: to invade the enemy’s country and
threaten the crops, forcing the enemy to defend them in a hoplite battle. The
Athenian strategy was to retreat to their impregnable city, allow the
devastation of their land, and raid the Peloponnesian coast to put pressure
on Sparta by harassing its allies. The Athenian plan required restraint,
which was abandoned after Pericles died in 429 B.C.E. After ten years of
fruitless fighting, the war ended in stalemate.

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The Peloponnesian War at myhistorylab.com

OVERVIEW Greek Civilization

Historians divide ancient Greek civilization into periods marked by

different forms of social and political organizations and by significant
cultural achievements.

Minoan Based on the island of Crete, ca. 2900–1150 B.C.E., sea-based

power, probably ruled by kings. Palace architecture, vivid frescoes.

Mycenaean Mainland Greece, ca. 1600–1150 B.C.E., city-states ruled

by powerful kings assisted by an elaborate bureaucracy. Monumental
architecture, gold- and bronzework.

Archaic Colonization from Greece to Asia Minor, southern Italy, and

the coasts of the Black Sea, 700–500 B.C.E.

Characteristic form of government was the polis, a city-state

dominated by landholding aristocrats or ruled by tyrants. Lyric poetry,
natural philosophy.

Classical Golden age of Athenian civilization, fifth century B.C.E.

Athens and other poleis became much more democratic. Drama,
sculpture in marble and bronze, architecture (the Acropolis),
philosophy, history.

Hellenistic Conquests of Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.E.) spread

Greek culture to Egypt and as far east as the Indus Valley. Decline of
the polis. Domination of the Greek world by large monarchical states.
Stoic and Epicurean philosophy, realistic sculpture, advances in
mathematics and science.

In 415 B.C.E., Alcibiades (ca. 450–404 B.C.E.), a young and ambitious

kinsman of Pericles, persuaded the Athenians to invade Sicily. When the
entire expedition was destroyed, Athens’s power and prestige were greatly
diminished. Subjects of Athens’s empire rebelled, and Sparta reopened the
war—with Persian aid.
 Hear the Audio The Persian and Peloponnesian War 492–404 B.C.E. at
myhistorylab.com

The Athenians fought on and won several important victories at sea, but
their resources steadily diminished. When their fleet was destroyed at
Aegospotami in 405 B.C.E., they could not rebuild it. The Spartans, under
Lysander (d. 395 B.C.E.), blockaded Athens and cut off its food supply. In
404 B.C.E., Athens surrendered unconditionally.

Hear the Audio at myhistorylab.com

STRUGGLE FOR GREEK LEADERSHIP

The collapse of the Athenian Empire opened the way for Spartan
dominance of the Aegean. Lysander installed boards of ten local oligarchs
loyal to him and supported by Spartan garrisons in most of the cities along
the European coast and the islands of the Aegean. These tributaries brought
Sparta almost as much revenue as the Athenians had collected.
Some of Sparta’s allies, especially Thebes and Corinth, were alienated by
Sparta’s increasingly arrogant policies. The oligarchic government that
Lysander installed in Athens in 404 B.C.E. came to be called the “Thirty
Tyrants” by Athenians who resented its heavy-handed policies. When
supporters of democracy fled to Thebes and Corinth and recruited an army
to challenge the oligarchs’ hold on Athens, Sparta’s conservative king,
Pausanias, arranged a peaceful settlement and the restoration of democracy.
Thereafter, Athenian foreign policy remained under Spartan control, but
otherwise Athens was free.
In 405 B.C.E. Greek mercenaries recruited with Spartan help intervened in
Persia on behalf of Cyrus the Younger, who was contesting the accession to
the Persian throne of his brother Artaxerxes II (r. 404–358 B.C.E.). The
Greeks marched inland to Mesopotamia, defeating the Persians at Cunaxa
in 401 B.C.E. Cyrus was killed, however, and the Greeks marched back to
the Black Sea and safety. Their success revealed the potential weakness of
the Persian Empire.

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The Parthenon at myhistorylab.com

The Greeks of Asia Minor had supported Cyrus and were now afraid of
Artaxerxes’ revenge. The Spartans accepted their request for aid and sent an
army into Asia, attracted by the prospect of prestige, power, and money. In
396 B.C.E. the command of this army was given to Sparta’s new king,
Agesilaus (444–360 B.C.E.), whose aggressive policy was to dominate
Sparta until his death.

Read the Document

Greece and Persia: The Treaty of Antalcides, 387 B.C.E. at
myhistorylab.com

The Persians responded to Agesilaus’s plundering army by seeking

assistance among Greek states disaffected with Spartan domination,
offering them money and other support. Thebes forged an alliance with
Argos, Corinth, and Athens and engaged Sparta in the Corinthian War
(395–387 B.C.E.), ending Sparta’s Asian adventure. In 394 B.C.E. the Persian
fleet destroyed Sparta’s maritime empire. Athens, meanwhile, had rebuilt its
walls, resurrected its navy, and recovered some of its lost empire. The
Persians, who dictated the terms of the peace that ended the Corinthian War
to the exhausted Greeks, were alarmed by this Athenian recovery and
turned the management of Greece over to Sparta.

Study and Review

Comparing Athens and Sparta (5th century B.C.E.) at myhistorylab.com

Sparta’s actions grew increasingly arrogant and lawless. Agesilaus broke

up all alliances except the Peloponnesian League and put friends in power
in several Greek cities. In 382 B.C.E. Sparta seized Thebes during peacetime
without warning or pretext. In 379 B.C.E. a Spartan army made a similar
attempt on Athens. That action persuaded the Athenians to join with
Thebes, which had rebelled from Sparta a few months earlier. In 371 B.C.E.
the Thebans defeated the Spartans at Leuctra. They then encouraged the
Arcadian cities of the central Peloponnesus to form a federal league and
freed the Helots, helping them found a city of their own. Sparta’s
population had been shrinking so that it could field an army of fewer than
2,000 men at Leuctra. Now, hemmed in by hostile neighbors, deprived of
much of its farmland and of the slaves who had worked it, Sparta ceased to
be a first-rank power. Its aggressive policies had led to ruin.
For a short time, Thebes held power, thanks to its democratic
constitution, its control over Boeotia, and two outstanding generals,
Pelopidas (d. 364 B.C.E.) and
Epaminondas (d. 362 B.C.E.). Under their leadership Thebes challenged
the reborn Athenian Empire in the Aegean. But by 362 B.C.E. Thebes faced a
Peloponnesian coalition as well as Athens. When Epaminondas was killed
in battle, Theban dominance came to an end.
In 378 B.C.E. Athens organized a second confederation aimed at resisting
Spartan aggression in the Aegean. The collapse of Sparta and Thebes
removed the rationale for membership, so Athens’s allies revolted. By 355
B.C.E. Athens had to abandon most of the empire. After two centuries of
almost constant warfare, the Greeks returned to the chaotic disorganization
that had characterized the era before the founding of the Peloponnesian
League.

CHRONOLOGY
SPARTAN AND THEBAN HEGEMONIES

CLASSICAL CULTURE
The term classical often suggests calm and serenity, but the word that best
describes Greek life, thought, art, and literature during the Classical period
is tension. Among the achievements of this era (discussed in Chapter 2)
were the philosophical works of Socrates (469–399 B.C.E.), Plato (ca. 427–
347 B.C.E.), and Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.). The same curiosity about the
nature and place in the universe of human beings that motivated the
philosophers also animated the arts of the period.

The Acropolis. It was both the religious and civic center of Athens. In its
final form it is the work of Pericles and his successors in the late fifth
century B.C.E. This photograph shows the Parthenon and, to its left, the
Erechtheum.

Meredith Pillon, Greek National Tourism Organization.

What other buildings in the world do the buildings pictured here

remind you of? Why do you think there is a resemblance?

Two sources of tension contributed to the artistic outpouring of fifth

century B.C.E. Greece. One was the conflict between the Greeks’ pride in
their accomplishments and their concern that overreaching would bring
retribution. The second was the conflict between the hopes and
achievements of individuals and the claims and limits put on them by their
fellow citizens in the polis. These tensions were felt throughout Greece.
They had the most spectacular consequences, however, in Athens in its
Golden Age between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars.
 Nothing reflects these concerns better than Attic (Athenian) tragedy,
which emerged in the fifth century B.C.E. The tragedies were selected in a
contest and presented in a large theater as part of public religious
observations in honor of the god Dionysus. Most Attic tragedy was based
on mythological subjects and dealt solemnly with religion, politics, ethics,
or morality. The plays of the dramatists Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.E.) and
Sophocles (ca. 496–406 B.C.E.) follow this pattern. The later plays of
Euripides (ca. 480–406 B.C.E.) are more concerned with individual
psychology.
Comedy was introduced into the Dionysian festival early in the fifth
century B.C.E. The great master of the genre called Old Comedy,
Aristophanes (ca. 450–385 B.C.E.), wrote political comedies filled with
scathing invective and political satire.
Beginning in 448 B.C.E., Pericles undertook a great building program on
the Acropolis with funds from the empire. The new buildings visually
projected Athenian greatness, emphasizing the city’s intellectual and artistic
achievements and providing tangible proof that Athens was the intellectual
center of Greece.
The first prose history ever written was a description of the Persian War
by Herodotus (ca. 484–ca. 425 B.C.E.), “the father of history.” His account
attempts to explain human actions and draw instruction from them. He
claimed that the Greek polis inspired voluntary obedience to the law in its
citizen soldiers, whereas fear of punishment motivated the Persians.

View the Image

The Athenian Acropolis at myhistorylab.com

Thucydides, the historian of the Peloponnesian War, was born about 460
B.C.E. and died about 400 B.C.E. He believed that human nature was
essentially unchanging, so that a wise person, equipped with an
understanding of history, might foresee events and guide them.

Read the Document

Antigone (442 B.C.E.) and Drama: Antigone, by Sophocles, ca. 441 B.C.E.
and Sophocles, from Antigone at myhistorylab.com
 As the power of the poleis waned after the Great Peloponnesian War,
some Greeks tried to shore up its weakening institutions. Others looked for
radical alternatives; and still others turned their back on public life
altogether. All these attitudes are reflected in the literature, philosophy, and
art of the period.
The tendency to forsake the public for the private sphere is clear in a new
genre that emerged in the fourth century B.C.E.: Middle Comedy. Old
Comedy had dealt amusingly with serious subjects, but the themes of
Middle Comedy were ordinary daily life, intrigue, and domestic satire. This
tendency was magnified in New Comedy, which focused entirely on
domestic scenes, the foibles of ordinary people, and the travails of lovers.
The art of tragedy declined, but the great works of the previous century
were revived, and Euripides, who had explored the psyches of individual
characters, found his most appreciative audiences.
Fourth-century sculpture reflects the same movement away from the
grand, the ideal, and the general toward the ordinary, the real, and the
individual.

EMERGENCE OF THE HELLENISTIC

WORLD

WHY DID Alexander the Great become an almost mythological

figure?

The term Hellenistic was coined in the nineteenth century to describe a

period of three centuries during which Greek culture spread from its
homeland to Egypt and far into Asia. The result was a new civilization that
combined Greek and Asian elements. The Hellenistic world was larger than
the world of classical Greece, and its major political units were much larger
than the poleis, although these endured in modified forms. Hellenistic
civilization had its roots in the rise to power of a dynasty in Macedonia
whose armies conquered Greece and the Persian Empire in the space of two
generations.
MACEDONIAN CONQUEST
The kingdom of Macedon, north of Thessaly, had long served as a buffer
between the Greek states and barbarian tribes farther to the north. The
Macedonians were of the same stock as the Greeks and spoke a Greek
dialect. By Greek standards, however, Macedon was semibarbaric. Constant
internal conflict prevented Macedon from playing much of a part in Greek
affairs up to the fourth century B.C.E., but once Macedon was unified under
a strong king, that changed.
Philip II of Macedon (r. 359–336 B.C.E.), like many of his predecessors,
admired Greek culture. He was talented in war and diplomacy and had
boundless ambition. After he won control of a lucrative gold and silver
mining region, he used his resources to turn his army into the finest fighting
force in the world.
In 340 B.C.E., Philip besieged Perinthus and Byzantium, the lifeline of
Athenian commerce. The Athenian fleet saved both cities, so Philip instead
marched directly into Greece, and in 338 B.C.E., he defeated Athens and
Thebes in Boeotia. Freedom and autonomy ended for the Greek polis.
Poleis retained their institutions and control over their internal affairs for
some time, but new political realities began to chart Greece’s future.

CHRONOLOGY
RISE OF MACEDON

ALEXANDER’S CONQUESTS
Philip was assassinated in 336 B.C.E., as he prepared to invade Persia.
Philip’s son, Alexander III (356–323 B.C.E.), later called Alexander the
Great, succeeded his father at the age of 20 and inherited his plans for the
conquest of Persia.
The usurper Cyrus and his Greek mercenaries had shown the vast and
wealthy Persian Empire to be vulnerable when they penetrated deep into its
interior early in the fourth century B.C.E. In 334 B.C.E. Alexander crossed the
Hellespont into Asia. His army consisted of about 30,000 infantry and
5,000 cavalry; he had no navy and little money. Consequently he sought
quick and decisive battles to gain money and supplies from the conquered
territory. To neutralize the Persian navy he moved along the coast,
depriving it of ports.
Alexander met the Persian forces of Asia Minor at the Granicus River
(see Map 3–4 on page 82), where he won a smashing victory in
characteristic style: He led a cavalry charge across the river into the teeth of
the enemy on the opposite bank, almost losing his life in the process and
winning the devotion of his soldiers. With the coast of Asia Minor now
open, Alexander captured the coastal cities, denying them to the Persian
fleet.

Alexander and Darius. King Darius III looks back in distress as Alexander
advances against his vanguard during the battle of Issus, as depicted in a
Roman mosaic from the first century B.C.E.

Do you think a Persian king with a different personality could have

resisted Alexander?
 In 333 B.C.E. Alexander marched inland to Syria, meeting the main
Persian army under King Darius III (r. 336–330 B.C.E.) at Issus. Alexander
himself led the cavalry charge that broke the Persian line and sent Darius
fleeing to the east. Alexander continued along the coast and captured
previously impregnable Tyre after a long and ingenious siege, putting an
end to the threat of the Persian navy. He took Egypt with little trouble and
was greeted as liberator, pharaoh, and son of the Egyptian god Re. While
Alexander was at Tyre, Darius offered him his daughter and his entire
empire west of the Euphrates River in exchange for an alliance and an end
to the invasion. But Alexander wanted the whole empire and probably
whatever lay beyond that.
In the spring of 331 B.C.E. Alexander marched into Mesopotamia. At
Gaugamela, near the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh, he met Darius, ready
for a last stand. Once again, Alexander’s tactical genius and personal
leadership carried the day. The Persians were broken and Darius fled once
more. Alexander entered Babylon, again hailed as liberator and king. In
January of 330 B.C.E. he came to Persepolis, the Persian capital, which held
splendid palaces and the royal treasury. This bonanza ended his financial
troubles and put a vast sum of money into circulation, with economic
consequences that lasted for centuries. After a stay of several months,
Alexander burned Persepolis to dramatize the destruction of the native
Persian Dynasty and the completion of Hellenic revenge for the earlier
Persian invasion of Greece.
Setting off after Darius, Alexander found him, dead, just south of the
Caspian Sea. He had been murdered and replaced by his relative Bessus,
with the support of the Persian nobility. Alexander soon captured Bessus.
This pursuit, and his own great curiosity and desire to see the most distant
places, took Alexander to the frontier of India.
Near Samarkand, in the land of the Scythians, he founded the city of
Alexandria Eschate (“Furthest Alexandria”), one of the many cities bearing
his name that he founded as he traveled. As a part of his grand scheme of
amalgamation and conquest, he married the Bactrian princess Roxane and
enrolled 30,000 young Bactrians to be trained for his army.

Read the Document

Plutarch on Alexander the Great (1st century B.C.E.) at myhistorylab.com
 In 327 B.C.E. Alexander took his army through the Khyber Pass to
conquer the lands around the Indus River (modern Pakistan). Reducing the
region’s king, Porus, to vassalage, he pushed on in the hope of reaching the
river called Ocean that the Greeks believed encircled the world. Finally his
weary men refused to go on. By the spring of 324 B.C.E. the army was back
at the Persian Gulf, celebrating Macedonian style with a wild spree of
drinking.

MAP 3–4. Alexander’s Campaigns. The route taken by Alexander the

Great in his conquest of the Persian Empire, 334–323 B.C.E. Starting from
the Macedonian capital at Pella, he reached the Indus valley before being
turned back by his own restive troops. He died of fever in Mesopotamia.

What are some factors that contributed to the breaking up of Alexander’s

empire after his death?

QUICK REVIEW
Alexander’s Leadership
Alexander displayed tactical genius in military conflict
Alexander’s charisma attracted followers
Marriage to a Bactrian princess exemplified Alexander’s policies for
integrating conquered peoples
Alexander died without an heir or a plan for his successor

DEATH OF ALEXANDER
Alexander had great plans for the future: for the consolidation and
organization of his empire; for geographic exploration; for new cities,
roads, and harbors; perhaps even for further conquests in the West. There is
some evidence that he asked to be deified and worshiped as a god. But in
June 323 B.C.E. he got sick and died in Babylon at the age of 33. He quickly
entered myth and legend, and a debate began about his goals, his
personality, and his achievements that has continued to the present day.
Alexander was childless, and he made no arrangements for a successor.
After prolonged warfare, three of his generals founded dynasties that
continued the spread of Hellenistic culture:

Read the Document

Descriptions of Alexandria, Egypt (1st century C.E.) at myhistorylab.com

• Ptolemy I, ca. 367–283 B.C.E.; founder of the Thirty-First Dynasty in

Egypt, the Ptolemies, of whom Cleopatra, who died in 30 B.C.E., was
the last
• Seleucus I, ca. 358–280 B.C.E.; founder of the Seleucid Dynasty in
Mesopotamia
• Antigonus I, 382–301 B.C.E.; founder of the Antigonid Dynasty in
Asia Minor and Macedon

For seventy-five years or so, the world ruled by Alexander’s successors

enjoyed prosperity. The vast sums of money he and they had put into
circulation increased economic activity. The opening of vast new territories
to Greek trade and the increased demand for Greek products helped
stimulate commerce. The new prosperity, however, was not evenly
distributed. The urban Greeks, the Macedonians, and the Hellenized natives
who made up the upper and middle classes lived in comfort and even
luxury, but native peasants did not.
Eventually, war and inflation produced economic crises. The kings bore
down heavily, but the middle classes skillfully avoided their exactions, and
peasants and city laborers reacted by slowing work and striking. In Greece,
economic pressures led to civil wars. These internal difficulties made the
Hellenistic kingdoms vulnerable to attack, and by the middle of the second
century B.C.E. Rome had absorbed all of them except for Egypt. The two
centuries of Hellenistic rule had, however, promoted economic and cultural
cohesion throughout the eastern Mediterranean coast, Greece, Egypt,
Mesopotamia, and the old Persian Empire.

See the Map

The Conquests of Alexander the Great at myhistorylab.com

HELLENISTIC CULTURE

HOW DID the Hellenistic world influence Western culture?

Alexander’s conquests and the establishment of the successor kingdoms, by

ending the central role of the polis in Greek life and thought, marked a
significant turning point in Greek literature, philosophy, religion, and art.
Deprived of control of their foreign affairs, their important internal
arrangements determined by a foreign monarch, the postclassical cities lost
the kind of political freedom that was basic to the old outlook. They were
cities, but not poleis. As time passed they lost their sovereignty, becoming
municipalities within military empires. For the most part, the Greeks after
Alexander turned inward, away from politics, to address their hopes and
fears. The confident, sometimes arrogant, humanism of the fifth century
B.C.E. gave way to a kind of resignation to fate, a recognition of helplessness
before forces too great for humans to manage.
PHILOSOPHY
These developments are noticeable in the changes that overtook the
established schools of philosophy as well as in the emergence of two new
and influential groups of philosophers, the Epicureans and the Stoics.
Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum (see Chapter 2) continued to
operate, reinforcing Athens’s position as the center of philosophical studies.
The Lyceum turned gradually away from Aristotle’s universal
investigations to become a center of literary and historical studies. The
Academy turned even further from its founder’s tradition, adopting the
philosophical approach known as skepticism, established by Pyrrho of Elis
(ca. 365–275 B.C.E.). The Skeptics thought that nothing could be known and
so consoled themselves by suggesting that nothing mattered. It was easy for
them, therefore, to accept conventional morality and the world as it was.
The Cynics continued to denounce convention and to advocate a crude life
in accordance with nature. Neither of these views had much appeal to the
middle-class city dweller of the third century B.C.E., who sought some basis
for choosing a way of life now that the polis no longer provided one ready-
made.
One of the Masterpieces of Hellenistic Sculpture, the Laocoön. This is a
Roman copy. According to legend, Laocoön was a priest who warned the
Trojans not to take the Greeks’ wooden horse within their city. This
sculpture depicts his punishment. Great serpents sent by the goddess
Athena, who was on the side of the Greeks, devoured Laocoön and his sons
before the horrified people of Troy.

Laocoön, Vatican Museums, Vatican State. Copyright Giraudon/Art

Resource, New York.

What message do you think a viewer was meant to take from looking at
this statue?

Epicurus of Athens (342–271 B.C.E.), who founded a school in that city in

306 B.C.E., formulated a philosophy in keeping with the new mood. The goal
of this philosophy was not knowledge but happiness, which Epicurus
believed could be achieved through a life based on reason. Accepting the
description of the physical universe proposed by the atomists Democritus
and Leucippus (see Chapter 2), the Epicureans took sense perception to be
the basis of all human knowledge. According to Epicurus, atoms were
continually falling through the void and giving off images in direct contact
with the senses. These falling atoms could swerve in an arbitrary,
unpredictable way to produce the combinations seen in the world. When a
person died, the atoms that composed the body dispersed so that the person
had no further existence or perception and therefore nothing to fear after
death. The gods, according to Epicurus, took no interest in human affairs.
This belief amounted to a practical atheism, and the Epicureans were often
thought to be atheists.

Epicureans
School of philosophy founded by Epicurus of Athens (342–271 B.C.E.). It
sought to liberate people from fear of death and the supernatural by
teaching that the gods took no interest in human affairs and that true
happiness consisted in pleasure, which was defined as the absence of pain.

The purpose of Epicurean physics was to liberate people from the fear of
death, the gods, and the supernatural. Epicurean ethics were hedonistic,
identifying happiness with pleasure. But pleasure for Epicurus was chiefly
negative: the absence of pain and trouble. The goal of the Epicureans was
ataraxia, the condition of being undisturbed, without trouble, pain, or
responsibility. To achieve it, one should ideally have sufficient means to
withdraw from worldly affairs; Epicurus even advised against marriage and
children. He preached a life of genteel, restrained selfishness, which might
appeal to intellectuals of means but was not calculated to be widely
attractive.
The Stoic school, established by Zeno of Citium (335–263 B.C.E.) soon
after Epicurus began teaching, took its name from the Stoa Poikile, or
Painted Portico, in the Athenian Agora, where Zeno and his disciples met.
Like the Epicureans, the Stoics sought the happiness of the individual; but
unlike Epicurean philosophy, Stoic philosophy was almost indistinguishable
from religion. The Stoics believed that god and nature are the same and that
humans must live in harmony within themselves and with nature. The
guiding principle in nature is divine reason, (logos), or fire. Every human
has a spark of this divinity, and after death it returns to the eternal Divine
Spirit. From time to time the world is destroyed by fire, from the ashes of
which a new world arises.

Stoics
A philosophical school founded by Zeno of Citium (335–263 B.C.E.) that
taught that humans could be happy only with natural law.

logos Divine reason, or fire, which according to the Stoics, was the guiding
principle in nature.

Human happiness, according to the Stoics, lies in the virtuous life, lived
in accordance with natural law, in which “all actions promote the harmony
of the spirit dwelling in the individual man with the will of him who orders
the universe.”
Only the wise—who know what is good, what is evil, and what is
“indifferent”— can live such a life. Good and evil are dispositions of the
mind or soul. Thus prudence, justice, courage, and temperance are good,
whereas folly, injustice, and cowardice are evil. Life, health, pleasure,
beauty, strength, wealth, and so on are neutral—morally “indifferent.” The
source of misery is passion, a disease of the soul and an irrational mental
contraction that arises from morally indifferent things. The goal of the wise
is apatheia, or freedom from passion.
With their striving for inner harmony and a life lived in accordance with
the Divine Will, their fatalistic attitude, and their goal a form of apathy, the
Stoics fit the post-Alexandrian world well. The spread of Stoicism eased the
creation of a new political system that relied on the docile submission, not
the active participation, of the governed.

LITERATURE
The literary center of the Hellenistic world in the third and second centuries
B.C.E. was Alexandria, Egypt. There, Egypt’s Hellenistic rulers, the
Ptolemies, had founded a museum—a great research institute where royal
funds supported scientists and scholars—and a library with almost half a
million books. The library housed much of the great body of past Greek
literature, most of which has since been lost. Alexandrian scholars had what
they judged to be the best works copied, editing and criticizing them from
the point of view of language, form, and content, and writing biographies of
the authors. It is to this work that we owe the preservation of most of what
remains to us of ancient literature.
The scholarly atmosphere of Alexandria stimulated the study of history
and its ancillary discipline, chronology. Eratosthenes (ca. 275–195 B.C.E.)
developed a chronology of important events since the Trojan War, and
others undertook similar tasks. Contemporaries of Alexander, such as
Ptolemy I (d. 284 B.C.E.), Aristobulus, and Nearchus, wrote apparently
sober, factual accounts of his career. The fragments we have of the work of
most Hellenistic historians suggest that they emphasized sensational and
biographical detail over the rigorous, impersonal analysis characteristic of
Thucydides.

Read the Document

The Conquests of Alexander the Great (1st century B.C.E.) at
myhistorylab.com

ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE

The Hellenistic monarchies greatly increased the opportunities open to
architects and sculptors. Money was plentiful, rulers sought outlets for
conspicuous display, new cities needed to be built and beautified, and the
well-to-do created an increasing demand for objects of art. New cities were
usually laid out on the grid plan introduced in the fifth century B.C.E. by
Hippodamus of Miletus. Temples were built on the classical model, and the
covered portico, or stoa, became a very popular addition to Hellenistic
agoras.

A Page from On Floating Bodies.

Archimedes’ work was covered by a tenth-century manuscript, but

ultraviolet radiation reveals the original text and drawings underneath.

What scientific documents from our time do you think will be

preserved?

Reflecting the cosmopolitan nature of the Hellenistic world, leading

sculptors accepted commissions wherever they were attractive. The result
was a certain uniformity, although Alexandria, Rhodes, and the kingdom of
Pergamum in Asia Minor developed distinctive styles. In general,
Hellenistic sculpture continued the trend that emerged in the fourth century
B.C.E.toward the sentimental, emotional, and realistic and away from the
balanced tension and idealism of the fifth century B.C.E. The characteristics
of Hellenistic sculpture are readily apparent in the Laocoön, carved at
Rhodes in the second century B.C.E.

MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE

Among the most spectacular intellectual accomplishments of the Hellenistic
Age were those in mathematics and science. Indeed, Alexandrian scholars
were responsible for most of the scientific knowledge available to the West
until the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries C.E.
Euclid’s Elements (written early in the third century B.C.E.) is still the
foundation for courses in plane and solid geometry. Archimedes of
Syracuse (ca. 287–212 B.C.E.), who also made advances in geometry,
established the theory of the lever in mechanics and invented hydrostatics.
Advances in mathematics, when applied to Babylonian astronomical
tables available to Hellenistic scholars, spurred great progress in astronomy.
As early as the fourth century B.C.E. Heraclides of Pontus (ca. 390–310
B.C.E.) had argued that Mercury and Venus circulate around the sun and not
the Earth. He appears to have made other suggestions leading in the
direction of a heliocentric theory of the universe. Aristarchus of Samos
(ca. 310–230 B.C.E.) asserted that the sun, along with the other fixed stars,
did not move and that the Earth revolved around the sun in a circular orbit
and rotated on its axis while doing so. The heliocentric theory, however, did
not take hold. Hipparchus of Nicaea (b. ca. 190 B.C.E.) constructed an
ingenious and complicated geocentric model of the universe that did a good
job of accounting for the movements of the sun, the moon, and the planets.
Ptolemy of Alexandria (second century C.E.) adopted Hipparchus’s system
with a few improvements, and it remained dominant until the work of
Copernicus, in the sixteenth century C.E.

heliocentric theory
The theory, now universally accepted, that the Earth and the other planets
revolve around the sun. First proposed by Aristarchos of Samos (310–230
B.C.E.).
 Hellenistic scientists made progress in mapping the Earth as well as the
sky. Eratosthenes of Cyrene (ca. 275–195 B.C.E.) accurately calculated the
circumference of the Earth and wrote a treatise on geography based on
mathematical and physical reasoning and the reports of travelers.
Eratosthenes’ map was in many ways more accurate than a later one,
created by Ptolemy, which became standard during the Middle Ages.

SUMMARY

WHAT WERE the defining qualities of Minoan, Mycenaean, and

Homeric Greek society?

Minoans, Mycenaeans, and Greek “Middle Age” to ca. 750 B.C.E. In the
Minoan and Mycenaean periods, the Greek states were ruled by powerful
kings supported by elaborate bureaucracies. The Mycenaean culture was
militaristic, in contrast to that of the Minoans. Invaders from the north
destroyed Mycenaean civilization around 1150 B.C.E. Homer’s epic poems
describe a society that emphasized honor. page 60

WHY WAS the polis the most characteristic Greek institution?

The Polis in the Expanding Greek World. By 750 B.C.E., during the
Archaic period, Greek society took its characteristic form: the polid (plural
poleis), a self-governing city-state. The Greek innovations that continue to
influence our world, including democracy and Greek philosophy, developed
in the poleis. The most important poleis were Athens and Sparta. At first
governed by landowning aristocrats, then by tyrants, many poleis evolved
more democratic forms of government by 500 B.C.E. In an effort to avoid the
pressures of overpopulation and land hunger, the Greeks established
colonies around the shores of the Mediterranean and Black seas. page 64

WHAT FEATURES distinguished Archaic Greek society?

Life in Archaic Greece. Most Greeks were hardworking farmers, a way of
life described by Hesiod. The Greeks were polytheists who worshiped a
pantheon of twelve gods. Cults gained importance. Literacy and poetry
were important elements of Archaic culture. page 67

HOW WERE the Greeks able to defeat the Persians?

Sparta and Athens. The policies and conflicts of Greece’s two most
significant poleis, Sparta and Athens, shaped Greek history. Alliances and
military actions—the Persian War, the Peloponnesian Wars, and other
conflicts—interacted with the internal politics and the social development
of Greek states. Naval battles were decisive in defeating the Persians. page
69

WHAT WERE the main cultural achievements of Classical Greece?

Classical Greece. After defeating two Persian attempts to conquer them in

the early fifth century B.C.E., the Greeks entered their Golden Age. Among
the accomplishments of Greek artists, writers, and thinkers were tragedy
and comedy, secular history, and systematic logic, all of which still
influence Western art and thought. page 73

WHY DID Alexander the Great become an almost mythological

figure?

Emergence of the Hellenistic World. Macedon under Philip II (r. 359–336

B.C.E.) and Alexander the Great (r. 336–323 B.C.E.) came to dominate first
Greece and then all the Near East from Asia Minor to northern India.
Daring and dashing, Alexander conquered vast territories. He died while he
was still formulating plans for how to administer his empire, leaving his
legacy open to interpretation. page 80

HOW DID the Hellenistic world influence Western culture?

Hellenistic Culture. Alexander’s conquests spread Greek culture over a
wide area and ushered in the Hellenistic era. Hellenistic scholars made
Greek literature and science available to many different peoples who
adopted it as their own. The Romans spread Hellenistic culture across the
Mediterranean world and transmitted it to later generations in the West.
page 84

KEY TERMS

Acropolis (uh-KRAH-puh-liss)
agora (AG-ehr-uh)
Areopagus (are-ee-OH-pag-uhs)
Delian (DEEL-yuhn) League
Epicureans (ehp-ih-KYOORee-uhns)
heliocentric theory
Helots (HEH-lohtz)
hoplite phalanx (HOP-lahyt FAY-langks)
the Iliad (ILL-ee-uhd) and the Odyssey
logos (LOW-gos)
Magna Graecia (MAHGnuh GREE-shuh)
Minoan (mih-NOH-uhn)
Mycenaean (mahy-sinNEE-uhn)
Panhellenic (PAN-huh-LAYN-ick)
Peloponnesian (PEL-uh-puh-NEE-zhun) War
Stoics (STOW-icks)
symposion (sihm-POE-see-ON)

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Describe the Minoan civilization of Crete. How did the later Bronze
Age Mycenaean civilization differ from the Minoan civilization in
political organization, art motifs, and military posture? How
valuable are the Homeric epics as sources of early Greek history?
 2. Define the concept of polis. What role did geography play in its
development, and why did the Greeks consider it a unique and
valuable institution?
3. Compare the fundamental political, social, and economic institutions
of Athens and Sparta about 500 B.C.E. Why did Sparta develop its
unique form of government? What were the main stages in the
transformation of Athens from an aristocratic state to a democracy
between 600 and 500 B.C.E.?
4. Why did the Greeks and Persians go to war in 490 and 480 B.C.E.?
What benefit could the Persians have derived from conquering
Greece? Why were the Greeks able to defeat the Persians, and how
did they benefit from the victory?
5. How was the Delian League transformed into the Athenian Empire
during the fifth century B.C.E.? Did the empire offer any advantages
to its subjects? Why was there such resistance to Athenian efforts to
unify the Greek world in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E.?
6. Why did Athens and Sparta come to blows in the Great
Peloponnesian War? What was each side’s strategy for victory?
Why did Sparta win the war?
7. Using examples from art, literature, and philosophy, explain the
tension that characterized Greek life and thought in the Classical
period.
8. Between 431 and 362 B.C.E. Athens, Sparta, and Thebes each tried to
impose hegemony over the city-states of Greece, but none
succeeded for long. Why did each state fail? How was Philip II of
Macedon able to conquer Greece? Does more of the credit for
Philip’s success lie in Macedon’s strength or in the weakness of the
Greek city-states? What does your analysis reveal about the
components of successful rule?
9. What were the major consequences of Alexander’s death? Assess
the achievements of Alexander. Was he a conscious promoter of
Greek civilization or just an egomaniac drunk with a lust for
conquest?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com
 Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 3

Read the Document Homer, Debate Among the Greeks, from The
Odyssey, p. 63

Education and the Family in Sparta, ca. 100 C.E., p. 69

Plutarch on Life in Sparta (1st century B.C.E.), p. 70
Aristotle, The Creation of the Democracy in Athens, p. 71
Herodotus, Histories (400 B.C.E.), p. 73
Plutarch on Alexander the Great (1st century B.C.E.), p. 81
Greece and Persia: The Treaty of Antalcides, 387 B.C.E., p. 78
Antigone (442 B.C.E.) and Drama: Antigone, by Sophocles, ca. 441
B.C.E. and Sophocles, from Antigone, p. 79
Descriptions of Alexandria, Egypt (1st century C.E.), p. 83
The Conquests of Alexander the Great (1st century B.C.E.), p. 85

See the Map The Greek World, p. 59

Mycenean Trade and Contacts, p. 63

Greece in the Archaic and Classical Ages, ca. 750–350 B.C.E., p. 65
The Peloponnesian War, p. 76
The Conquests of Alexander the Great, p. 83

View the Image The Toreador Fresco, Knossos, ca. 1500 B.C.E.
Archeological Museum, Herakleion, p. 60

Tomb Mask, Mycenaen, p. 62

The Parthenon, p. 78
The Athenian Acropolis, p. 79
 Hear the Audio The Persian and Peloponnesian War 492–404 B.C.E., p.
77

Study and Review Comparing Athens and Sparta (5th c. B.C.E.), p. 78

Research and Explore

See the Map Greece and Greek Colonies of the World, ca. 431 B.C.E., p.
70

See the Map Greek and Phoenician Colonies and Trade

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 3
at www.myhistorylab.com
4
West Asia, Inner Asia, and South Asia to
1000 C.E.

Hear the Audio for Chapter 4 at www.myhistorylab.com

The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. Detail of a Buddhist wall painting from

the cave shrines at Ajanta (Maharashtra, India), Gupta period, ca. 475 C.E.
Avalokiteshvara (known in China as Kwan-yin and in Japan as Kannon) is
the bodhisattva of infinite mercy.
Why were bodhisattvas important to Mahayana Buddhists?
WEST AND INNER ASIA

ANCIENT BACKGROUND AND THE FIRST PERSIAN EMPIRE IN

THE IRANIAN PLATEAU (550–330 B.C.E.)
WHAT WERE the main teachings of Zoroaster, and how did
Zoroastrianism influence other traditions?

SUCCESSOR STATES AND STEPPE PEOPLES

HOW DID the steppe peoples act as vehicles for cultural exchange?

THE SASANID EMPIRE (224–651 C.E.)

HOW DID the Sasanids build a strong state?

SOUTH ASIA

THE FIRST INDIAN EMPIRE: THE MAURYAS (321–185 B.C.E.)

HOW WAS the Maurya Empire created?

THE CONSOLIDATION OF INDIAN CIVILIZATION (ca. 200 B.C.E.–300

C.E.)

WHAT ROLES did Buddhism play in post-Maurya Indian culture?

THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE GUPTAS

WHY IS the Gupta Empire considered a high point of Indian civilization?

From the Mediterranean to China, the period from about 600 B.C.E. to the
rise of Islam in the seventh century C.E. saw centralized empires flourish on
an unprecedented scale—a development in which Iran and India preceded
both China and the Roman West. Starting in the third millennium B.C.E., the
Elamites (ca. 2700–639 B.C.E.), Achaemenids (ca. 539–330 B.C.E.), Seleucids
(312–125 B.C.E.), Arsacids (c. 247 B.C.E.–233 C.E.), and Sasanids (224–651
C.E.) incorporated the Iranian plateau in their domains. Farther east, the
Mauryas founded the first great Indian Empire (ca. 321–185 B.C.E.),
followed by the Guptas (ca. 320–550 C.E.). Many of these empires built
sophisticated bureaucracies, professional armies, and strong
communication systems; they also facilitated or contributed to new cultural,
political, and religious developments in their domains.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
INDO-IRANIAN ROLES IN THE EURASIAN WORLD BEFORE ISLAM
The period of more than a millennium before the rise of Islam in the central
lands of the Eurasian world is often thought of as dominated by the great
empires of the Roman-Byzantine world and Han China. In global
perspective, however, they had worthy counterparts in four empires in the
Indo-Iranian world of West, Inner (Central), and South Asia between the
Mediterranean and East Asia. In their heydays, the Achaemenids and
Sasanids in Iran and the Mauryas and Guptas in India displayed the cultural
vibrancy, economic prosperity, and wide dominion historically
characteristic of all powerful imperial dynasties. They also built impressive
road systems and played important roles in both linking the Roman,
Byzantine, and African worlds with those of East and Southeast Asia, and
in spreading Manichaean, Nestorian Christian, and, most importantly,
Buddhist traditions across Asia.
In the West, Roman civilization had, by the third century C.E., its chief
locus in regions east and south of Rome, while in Europe it endured more as
a legacy coexisting uneasily with traditions of Germanic invaders. Roman
imperial power had shifted east to Byzantium, where political and cultural
traditions were under marked influences from Africa and West Asia.
Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile, was long the center of Hellenistic
civilization, and the major Christian doctrinal councils were held in Asia.
The post-Alexander states of West and Inner Asia and northwest India were
important cultural melting pots and loci of contacts with the Greco-Roman
“West,” the Mesopotamian-Iranian world, the rest of India, and the Chinese
“East.” Other developments of major global importance also had their
origin or locus in the Indo-Iranian world in these centuries: the Sasanid
revival of imperial power and Zoroastrian religion, the rise and spread from
North Africa to western China of the Manichaean movement, the
completion of world masterpieces in the Sanskrit epics of the Mahabharata
and Ramayana, Gandharan and then Guptan art, Indian religious, literary,
mathematical, and scientific thought, and the spread of Mahayana Buddhist
traditions over Tibet and Central Asia, and to China and ultimately Japan.
In Asia this was also an era in which influential, lasting religious
traditions came of age. Some spread and took root far from their regions of
origin—the Christian, Buddhist, and Confucian, as well as Judaic and
Hindu traditions, for example. Others, such as Zoroastrianism, never
attracted a wide following outside of their homelands. Zoroastrianism,
however, was especially attractive to merchants, who carried it throughout
Central Asia in their travels along the old Silk Road. It won converts among
other merchants from elsewhere in Asia, and, more importantly, it
influenced Judaism through Babylonia (where the major recension of the
Talmud was codified) and in varying degree other religious traditions of
Asia and the Middle East, including the Christian, Islamic, and Buddhist.
All of these developments should indicate that the notion of the “rise of
the West” as a keynote of history only holds at most for the past six
centuries, not for the past three millennia. When we consider the expansion
of lands, luxuries, and trade under the several Persian, Byzantine, and
Indian, let alone the subsequent Islamic, empires, the European world in
these centuries did not promise much as a future global center of political or
cultural life. Progress and culture seemed best embodied either in
Achaemenid, Maurya, Sasanid, Gupta, and Byzantine culture in West and
South Asia, in China under the Han, Sui, and Tang dynasties, or in Japan in
Nara and Heian times.
A more impartial perspective on these centuries identifies important
centers of cultural, religious, economic, and political vitality around the
globe—in West, South, and East Asia, and in Rome, Byzantium, and
Aksumite Ethiopia. Societies in each of these regions, themselves products
of a syncretic blending of multiple cultural traditions, were dynamic enough
to influence neighboring peoples and in some cases to export their religious
and cultural traditions far afield. Merchants and missionaries alike braved
hazardous land and sea travel, carrying ideas as well as goods to remote
lands. Wares and religious ideas passed from hand to hand and mouth to
mouth on the roads and sea routes from Byzantium to China, and Africa
and West Asia to India and Southeast Asia, as centers of civilization in
Africa and Asia flourished.
Yet with the rise of the last monotheistic world religious tradition, Islam,
Indo-Iranian lands soon faced far-reaching changes that would later come to
North and East Africa and Central, South, and Southeast Asia. In the time
of Chosroes Anoshirvan in the sixth century C.E., who could have suspected
that within a few hundred years Persian culture would eventually be recast
in Islamic forms?

Focus Questions

Why is a European perspective not helpful for understanding the

world in the first millennium C.E.? How does a global perspective
offer a better understanding of the development of civilizations in
this era?
Why did this period see a significant increase in cross-cultural
contacts? How were these contacts manifested? Who participated in
these increased contacts?

Three noteworthy developments characterize this period. First, the era

saw sustained contact among the major centers of culture from the
Mediterranean to China. Trade drove much of the contact: large-scale
empires created new markets for diverse goods, both material and human
(such as slaves, soldiers, and artisans).
Alexander the Great’s conquest (334–323 B.C.E.) of the Persian Empire
and the regions eastward to North India provided the impetus for the era’s
second characteristic—dramatically increased contact among diverse
cultures, races, and religious traditions. Although Alexander’s empire was
ephemeral, his conquests ended the Achaemenid Dynasty and allowed the
rising Maurya power to extend across North India. The Hellenes and steppe
peoples of northeastern Iran and Central (Inner) Asia, who ruled first post-
Alexandrine Iran and then post-Maurya India down to the third century
C.E., inherited a much wider world than those of their original homelands.
A third characteristic of this period was the rise of major religious
traditions that would influence history from Africa to China. Judaism,
Christianity, Hellenistic cults, Han Confucianism and classical Daoist
thought, Zoroastrianism, the Hindu tradition, and Buddhism all developed
in significant ways during this period.

WEST AND INNER ASIA

“Iran” designates the massive expanse of Southwest Asia bounded to the
north by the Caspian and Aral seas and Jaxartes (Syr Darya) River, east by
the Indus valley, south by the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf, and west by
the Tigris-Euphrates basin and Armenia. The heart of this region is the vast
Iranian plateau, bounded on all sides by great mountain ranges, and
containing two large, uninhabitable salt deserts.
People clustered wherever rainfall or groundwater was plentiful and
communication easiest, notably the slopes and lowlands between the
Zagros, Persis (Pars, Persia), Media, Hyrcania, and Parthia. The great Asian
trade routes put Iran at the heart of east–west interchange.

ANCIENT BACKGROUND AND THE FIRST

PERSIAN EMPIRE IN THE IRANIAN
PLATEAU (550–330 B.C.E.)

WHAT WERE the main teachings of Zoroaster, and how did

Zoroastrianism influence other traditions?

THE ELAMITES
The Elamites were a non-Semitic-speaking people who built a flourishing
civilization on the eastern frontier of Mesopotamia. They were repeatedly at
war with the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians from around 2700
B.C.E. until their destruction by the Assyrian emperor Asshurbanipal in 639
B.C.E., when their cities were ransacked and their soil sown with salt.
Although we have tablets, monumental inscriptions, and brick imprints
from Elamite remains, scholars have not determined the language group to
which Elamite belongs. It did, however, long outlive the Elamite state and
was one of the three official languages of the Persian Empire.
THE IRANIAN PEOPLES
The forefathers of the Iranian dynasts were Aryans. The oldest texts in
ancient Persian dialects show that Aryan peoples settled on the Iranian
plateau around 1100 B.C.E. Like their Vedic or Indo-Aryan relations in North
India, these peoples were pastoralists—horse breeders—from the Eurasian
or Central Asian steppes. The most prominent of these ancient Iranians
were the Medes and the Persians. By the eighth century B.C.E., they had
spread around the deserts of the plateau to settle and control its western and
southwestern reaches, to which they gave their names, Media and Persis
(Pars, and later Fars).
The Medes developed a tribal confederacy in western Iran and were the
predecessors of today’s Kurds. By 612 B.C.E., they and the Neo-Babylonians
had defeated the mighty Assyrians and broken their hold on the Fertile
Crescent. Persian power increased under the Achaemenid clan, starting in
the seventh century B.C.E. Median supremacy on the Iranian plateau was
over by the time of the Achaemenid ruler Cyrus the Great, around 550 B.C.E.
Many of the institutions that developed in the ensuing empire were
apparently based on Median practices; the Medes, in turn, had often drawn
from Babylonian and Assyrian models. Part of the genius of the
Achaemenids’ unparalleled imperial success lay in their ability to use
existing institutions to build their own state and to administer their far-flung
dominions well.

QUICK REVIEW
Medes and Persians
Both groups descended from Aryan pastoralists
Medes controlled western Iran and beyond, ca. 600 B.C.E.
Achaemenid Empire was ruled by Persians
Achaemenid government used many Median institutions

ANCIENT IRANIAN RELIGION

Pre-Achaemenid texts suggest that old Iranian culture and religion were
similar to those of the Vedic Aryans. The importance of water, fire,
sacrifice, and the cow, as well as the names and traits of major divine
beings and religious concepts, all have counterparts in Vedic texts. The
emphasis was on moral order, or the “Right.” The supreme heavenly deity
was Ahura Mazda, the “Wise Lord.”

Ahura Mazda
Supreme god in ancient Iranian religion, especially in the religious system
of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster. Ahura Mazda was worshiped by the
Persian king Darius I (reigned 522 B.C.E.–486 B.C.E.) and his successors as
the greatest of all gods and protector of the just king.

Zoroastrian priests hold hands around a devotional flame during a

religious New Year’s celebration in London in 1999.

What is the importance of fire in the Zoroastrian faith?

ZOROASTER AND THE ZOROASTRIAN TRADITION

The first person who stands out in Iranian history was not Cyrus, the
famous founder of the Achaemenid Empire, but the great prophet-reformer
of Iranian religion, Zarathustra, commonly known in the West by the Greek
version of his name, Zoroaster. Zoroaster probably lived in northeastern
Iran, no later than 1000 B.C.E. Like the Hebrew prophets, the Buddha, and
Confucius, Zoroaster presented a message of moral reform in an age of
materialism, political opportunism, and ethical indifference.
Zoroaster was evidently trained as a priest in the old Iranian tradition, but
his hymns, or Gathas, reflect his new religious vision. In these hymns we
glimpse the values of a peasant-pastoralist society that was growing up
alongside early urban trade centers in northeastern Iran. Zoroaster’s
personal experience of Ahura Mazda as the supreme deity led him to
reinterpret the old sacrificial fire as Ahura’s symbol. He called on people to
abandon worship of all lesser deities, whom he identified as demons. He
warned of a “final reckoning,” when the good would be rewarded with
“future glory” but the wicked with “long-lasting darkness, ill food, and
wailing.”
Zoroaster’s preaching probably did not become an official “state” creed
during his lifetime. But by the mid-fourth century B.C.E., the Zoroastrian
reform had spread into western as well as eastern Iran. The quasi-
monotheistic worship of Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, was rapidly
accommodated to the veneration of older Iranian gods by the interpretation
of these deities as secondary gods or even manifestations of the Wise Lord
himself. The old Iranian priestly clan of the Magi may have integrated
Zoroastrian ideas and texts into their older polytheistic tradition. Certainly
the name “magi” was later used for the priests of the tradition that we call
“Zoroastrian.”

Magi
A tribe from ancient Media, who, prior to the conquest of the Medes by the
Achaemenid Empire in 550 B.C.E., were responsible for religious and
funerary practices. The best known Magi were the “Wise Men from the
East” in the Bible.

Zoroastrianism probably influenced not only Jewish, Christian, and

Muslim ideas of angels, devils, messiah, last judgment, and afterlife, but
also Buddhist concepts as well. Zoroastrianism was wiped out as a major
force in Iran by the spread of Islam from the seventh and eighth centuries
C.E. However, its tradition continues in the faith and practice of the Parsis, a
community today of perhaps 100,000 people, most of them in western
India.

Zoroastrianism
A quasi-monotheistic Iranian religion founded by Zoroaster, who preached
a message of moral reform and exhorted his followers to worship only
Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord.

Hear the Audio at myhistorylab.com

THE ACHAEMENIDS
In October 1971 C.E., the Iranian monarch Muhammad Reza Shah (r. 1941–
1979) hosted a lavish pageant amid the ruins of the ancient Persian capital,
Persepolis, to commemorate the 2,500-year anniversary of the beginning,
under Cyrus the Great, of “the imperial glory of Iran.” The shah felt his
modern secularist regime had re-created traditional Iranian glory. Although
the Iranian revolution of 1978 ended his heavy-handed dictatorship, modern
Iran does have a dual heritage: that of the rich Iranian Islamic culture and
that of the far older, Indo-Iranian, Zoroastrian, and imperial culture of pre-
Islamic Iran. The latter began with the Persian Achaemenid Dynasty.
Achaemenid rule in southwestern Iran (Persis) went back at least to
Cyrus I (d. 600 B.C.E.), but the rise of Iran as a major imperial civilization is
usually dated from the reign of his grandson, Cyrus the Great (559–530
B.C.E.). Cyrus defeated the last Median king about 550 B.C.E., and the last
Babylonian king in 539 B.C.E. This victory marks the beginning of the
Achaemenid Empire, for it joined Mesopotamia and the Iranian plateau for
the first time under one rule—a unity that would last for centuries (see Map
4-1 on page 96). One result was the end of the Babylonian Exile of the
Jews, for Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to their Holy Land and rebuild
their Jerusalem temple (see Chapter 2). His most notable legacy to his heirs
was not only his conquests, but also his model of rule through local elites
and institutions rather than imperial administrative superstructures.
Early in his career, Cyrus had moved his capital from Susa to the old
Median capital of Ecbatana (later Hamadan). He and his successors adopted
Median administrative practice, and many Medes served the new state.
Thus the Bible and other sources refer to Achaemenids as “Medes and
Persians.”
The new Persian Empire became the most extensive the world had ever
seen. Cyrus’s successor, Cambyses (r. 529–522 B.C.E.) added Egypt to the
Achaemenid dominions. Darius I (r. 521–486 B.C.E.) enjoyed a prosperous
reign in which the empire reached its greatest extent—from Egypt northeast
to southern Russia and Sogdiana (Transoxiana) and east to the Indus valley.

CHRONOLOGY

IRAN TO THE THIRD CENTURY C.E.

MAP EXPLORATION
To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com
MAP 4–1. The Achaemenid Persian Empire.

The empire created by Cyrus had reached its fullest extent under Darius
when Persia attacked Greece in 490 B.C.E. It extended from the subcontinent
of India to the Aegean Sea, and even into Europe, encompassing the lands
formerly ruled by Egyptians, Hittites, Babylonians, and Assyrians.
Why were the Persians able to govern such a large empire for so long?

The next five rulers (486–359 B.C.E.) fared less well, and after 478 B.C.E.,
the Persians found themselves militarily inferior to the Greeks. Although
they kept the divided Greeks at bay by clever diplomacy, Greek cultural
influence grew in Asia Minor. Egyptian rebellions, succession struggles,
conflict with Scythian steppe tribes, and poor leadership plagued
Achaemenid rule, which was ended by Alexander the Great (see Chapter 3).

THE ACHAEMENID STATE

Perhaps the Achaemenids’ greatest achievement was the relative stability of
their rule. To justify their sovereignty—and the title of Shahanshah, “king
of kings”—they claimed that Ahura Mazda had entrusted them with
universal sovereignty, which they earned through justice and uprightness.
The ruler became priest and sacrificer in the court rituals; a royal fire that
burned throughout his reign symbolized his role as cosmic ruler. The
success of the early Achaemenids strengthened their claim to divinely
sanctioned royal status.

Shahanshah
“King of kings,” the title of the Persian ruler.

The Achaemenids were tolerant of other cultural and religious traditions

in ways earlier empires had not been. In part, the sheer size of their realms
demanded it, but the contrast to later Roman imperial practice is striking.
Even Darius’s emphasis on Zoroastrian ritual and theology did not bring
forced conformity or conversion to the “state cult,” as his leniency toward
the Jews shows (see Chapter 2).
The Achaemenids built a powerful army, but much of their success lay in
their administrative abilities and willingness to borrow from predecessors.
Most of their leaders were adept at conciliation and worked to establish
their special pax Achaemenica. They maintained continuity as their state
evolved from a tribal confederation into a sophisticated monarchy. Cyrus’s
state, with its largely Iranian troops and tribute system of revenue, was
replaced by a monarchy supported by a noble class, professional armies (led
by Persian elite troops), an administrative system of provinces ruled by
governors called satraps, and fixed levies of revenue.

satraps
Governors of provinces in the Persian Empire.

The excellence of Achaemenid administration can be seen in their

communication and propaganda systems. Couriers linked imperial outposts
with the heartlands over well-kept highways, which also facilitated rapid
troop deployment. Herodotus called the greatest of these, from Sardis to
Susa, “the King’s Road” (see Map 4-1). A network of observers and royal
inspectors kept the court abreast of activities outside the capital. An
efficient chancery with large archives and numerous scribes served
administrative needs. The Achaemenid bureaucracy’s adoption of Aramaic,
which had become the common language of the Near East under the
Assyrians, helped link East and West. The Achaemenids never had a single
fixed capital; they moved the court as needed. Although satraps were
powerful princes in their own right, the power of the “king of kings” held
together the diverse satrapies and tributary states.

See the Map

The Persian Empire at Its Greatest Extent at myhistorylab.com

THE ACHAEMENID ECONOMY

Economic life from Greece to India profited substantially from Achaemenid
success. Although Croesus had introduced a coin-based monetary system in
Lydia (sixth century B.C.E.), the Achaemenids greatly expanded on this.
Coinage was used to pay part of the workers’ wages in the construction of
Persepolis and displaced in-kind payment altogether under Darius. Coinage
stimulated banking operations, which had declined since the heyday of
Mesopotamian rule in the previous millennium. The Achaemenids taxed
diverse sources of income—estates, livestock, mines, trade, and production.
They regulated wages and established money-goods equivalences (thus a
sheep might be set at three shekels).
Agriculture remained the basic industry and normal occupation of free
men. Serfs and slaves, both chattel and domestic, formed most of the labor
force. Work animals were bred, bees colonized, and grapes, wheat, barley,
and olives cultivated widely. Where water was scarce, the government dug
irrigation canals. Rulers such as Darius mandated the transfer of fruit trees
and other plants to different parts of the empire; thus from the east pistachio
cultivation came to Aleppo, rice to Mesopotamia, and sesame to Egypt.
Fishing, timbering, and mining were fundamental to the economy. Some
industries, such as those producing clothing, shoes, and furniture, developed
alongside the older luxury crafts for the wealthy. The unprecedented
volume of trade in Achaemenid times included large quantities of everyday
household products that were now widely exchanged where earlier only
luxury goods had been traded over long distances. Goods from India
crossed paths with those of the Rhine valley; it was a prosperous era,
marked by expanding markets—into southern Europe especially—and
increased foreign travel, exploration, and investment.
The empire’s stability laid the cosmopolitan basis for the coming
Hellenic influences in western Asia in the wake of Alexander’s conquests.

Daric. A gold coin first minted under Darius I of Persia, fourth century
B.C.E.

© Ashmollean Museum, Oxford, England, UK.

What are some important features of the Achaemenid economy?

SUCCESSOR STATES AND STEPPE PEOPLES

HOW DID the steppe peoples act as vehicles for cultural exchange?

THE SELEUCID SUCCESSORS TO ALEXANDER IN THE EAST (ca. 312–

63 B.C.E.)
Alexander’s successors in Achaemenid lands, the Greek general Seleucus
and his heirs (see Chapter 3) ruled much of the former Achaemenid realm
from Babylon between about 312 and 246 B.C.E. They lost Babylonia to the
Iranian Parthians in 140 B.C.E. Their capital moved from Babylon to
Antioch during their long decline, until Pompey finally ended the much-
reduced Seleucid kingdom in 63 B.C.E.

QUICK REVIEW
Alexander’s Successors in Achaemenid Lands

General Seleucus and his heirs ruled most of the Achaemenid realm
Alexander’s “new” cities served as bases for Seleucid control
Seleucids maintained control with mercenary troops

Alexander’s policies of Hellenic-Persian fusion—the appointment of

Iranians and Greeks as satraps, as well as large-scale Greek and Persian
intermarriage—helped make Seleucid rule viable in many eastern areas. As
a foreign minority, the Seleucids had to maintain control with mercenary
troops. Always at war, neither Seleucus (r. 311–281 B.C.E.; see Chapter 3)
nor the greatest of his successors, Antiochus the Great (r. 223–187 B.C.E.),
ever matched the sustained power and scale of Achaemenid rule.
In the end, Alexander’s policy of linking Hellenes with Iranians in
political power, marriage, and culture bore fruit more lasting than empire.
The Seleucid emphasis on building Greek-style cities stimulated the
Hellenization process. During the second century B.C.E., Hellenistic culture
and law became new ideals among Seleucid elites. The Seleucids welcomed
into the ruling classes those non-Hellenes willing to become Hellenized.
Aramaic, though declining in eastern Iran, remained the common tongue
from Syria to the Hindu Kush. Greek culture penetrated but did not displace
local social and cultural forms.
Zoroastrian religious tradition declined with the loss of its imperial-cult
status. Syncretic cults of the Mediterranean Hellenistic world made inroads
even in the East in Seleucid and, later, Parthian times (see below). Mystery
and savior cults were becoming more popular in East and West. Hellenistic
urban centers provided an environment in which the individual was less
rooted in established traditions. This may have enhanced the attraction of
the individual salvation promised by some Hellenistic cults and the
emerging Christian, Mahayana Buddhist, Manichaean, and Hindu
traditions.
Parthian Warrior. The Parthians were superb fighters and were
particularly noted for the “Parthian shot,” firing arrows backward while
mounted on a galloping horse.

How would you imagine foot soldiers reacting to swift and mobile
cavalry fighters like this?

THE PARTHIAN ARSACID EMPIRE (CA. 247 B.C.E.–223 C.E.)

The history of the Iranian plateau (and North India) was dominated from
about 250 B.C.E. to 300 C.E. by incursions of Iranian tribal peoples originally
from the Central Asian steppes. These were neither the first nor last such
invasions from the steppe. Commonly ignored, these pastoral steppe
peoples have been a major force in Eurasian history.

steppe peoples
Nomadic tribespeople who dwelled on the Eurasian plains from eastern
Europe to the borders of China and Iran. They frequently traded with or
invaded more settled cultures.

The Parni, said to be related to the Scythians, were probably the major
group of Iranian steppe peoples who first settled the area south of the Aral
Sea and Oxus. In late Achaemenid times, they moved south into Parthia and
adopted its dialect; thereafter we call them Parthians. Stating around 247
B.C.E., the dynastic family of the Arsacids controlled first Parthia, and then
expanding portions of the Iranian plateau. Under Mithradates I (ca. 171–
138 B.C.E.) they emerged as a new Eurasian imperial force and true
Achaemenid successors who were able to extinguish Seleucid power east of
the Euphrates by 129 B.C.E.
Under the Parthians, trade apparently increased, especially north over the
Caucasus, on the “Silk Road” to China, and along the Indian Ocean coast.
Culturally, the Parthians were oriented toward the Hellenistic world of their
Seleucid predecessors until the mid-first century C.E., after which they seem
to have experienced a kind of Iranian revival that laid the groundwork for
the nationalistic emphases of subsequent centuries. Despite their religious
tolerance, the Parthians upheld such Zoroastrian traditions as maintenance
of a royal sacred fire. The increasing popularity of Christianity and
Buddhism in border areas may have stimulated Parthian attempts to collect
the largely oral Zoroastrian textual heritage.
The Parthian Arsacids’ imperial borders varied, but from their victory
over the Romans at Carrhae in 53 B.C.E. (see Chapter 6) until their fall in
224 C.E., they were the major Eurasian power alongside Rome. Eventually
the constant Roman wars of their last century and the pressure of the
Kushan Empire in the east weakened them sufficiently for a new Persian
dynasty, the Sasanids, to replace them.

QUICK REVIEW
The Parthians
Settled area south of the Aral Sea and Oxus
Control of Parthia by Arsacids dates from 247 B.C.E.
Empire stretched across the Iranian plateau from Mesopotamia to
Arachosia

THE INDO-GREEKS
The farthest reach of Hellenization in the East came with the Indo-Greek
rulers of Bactria. About 246 B.C.E., Bactria’s Greek satrap broke away from
the Seleucids. His successors controlled territory that expanded into
northern India. Most of the Indo-Greeks were Indian in language, culture,
and religion, as their coins and inscriptions show. Before their demise at the
hands of invading steppe peoples (ca. 130–100 B.C.E.), these Indo-Greeks
left their mark on civilization in all the areas around their Bactrian center.
Bactria was a major source of the later Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, one
of history’s remarkable examples of cross-cultural influence. The Indo-
Greeks also probably helped spread Buddhism from India to Central Asia.
The most famous of the Bactrian rulers, Menander, or Milinda (r. ca. 155–
130 B.C.E.), is depicted as a Buddhist convert in a later Buddhist text, The
Questions of King Milinda.

Indo-Greeks
Bactrian rulers who broke away from the Seleucid Empire to found a state
that combined elements of Greek and Indian civilizations.

SCYTHIANS AND KUSHANS

The successors of the Indo-Greeks were steppe peoples who reflect the
cosmopolitan nature of the world of Central Asia, eastern Iran, and
northwestern India at this time.
Beginning about 130 B.C.E., Scythian, or Saka, tribes from beyond the
Jaxartes (Syr Darya) overran northeastern Iran, taking Sogdiana’s Hellenic
cities and then Bactria. One group of Scythians extended their domain from
Bactria into North India. Another went southwest into Herat and Sistan,
where they encroached on Parthian territories. In northwestern India the
Sakas were defeated by invading Iranians known as the Pahlavas, who went
on to rule in northwestern India in the first century C.E. Still, Saka dynasties
continued to rule in parts of northwestern and western India through the
fourth century C.E.
The Sakas had been displaced earlier in Sogdiana by another steppe
people, known from Chinese sources as the Yuezhi, from western China.
These peoples, led by the Kushan tribe, drove the Sakas out of Bactria in
the mid-first century B.C.E. About 100 years later, they swept over the
mountains into northwestern India, ending Pahlava rule. The Kushans
founded a long-lived Indian dynasty that controlled a relatively stable
empire from the upper Oxus regions through Bactria, Gandhara, Arachosia,
the Punjab, and over the Ganges plains as far as Varanasi (Banaras).
Greco-Buddhist Art. A sculpted head of the Buddha, second century B.C.E.
Hellenistic influences are evident in the realistic modeling and sculptural
plasticity.

Sculpted head of Buddha, from Gandhara, second century B.C. Paris, Musee
Guimet. RMN: Reunion Musees Nationaux/Art Resource.

In what ways does this sculpture seem to be a portrayal of a real

person? In what ways does it seem to be an idealized representation?

The Kushan kingdom of India was—along with Rome, China, and the
weakened Parthian Empire of Iran—one of four major centers of
civilization in Eurasia around 100 C.E. Its greatest ruler, Kanishka, was a
great patron of Buddhism, and Kushan power in Central Asia facilitated the
missionary activity that carried Buddhism across the steppes into China.
The Kushan rulers had diplomatic contacts with Han China, Iran, and
Rome. Greco-Buddhist art was fostered in Gandhara by Kanishka and his
successors.

THE SASANID EMPIRE (224–651 C.E.)

 HOW DID the Sasanids build a strong state?

THE SASANIDS
The Sasanids were a Persian dynasty who claimed to be the rightful
Achaemenid heirs. They championed Iranian legitimacy and tried to brand
their predecessor Parthians as outside invaders. The first Sasanid king,
Ardashir (r. 224–ca. 239 C.E.), was a Persian warrior noble. He and his son,
Shapur I (r. ca. 239–272), built a strong internal administration. Under
Shapur’s long rule, the Persian Empire grew. Shapur defeated three Roman
emperors, even capturing one of them, Valerian (r. 253–260). Thus he could
justifiably claim to be a restorer of Iranian glory and a “king of kings,” or
shahanshah. He also centralized and rationalized taxation, the civil
ministries, and the military, although neither he nor his successors could
fully contain the growing power of the nobility.

See the Map

Arabia Before the Prophet, ca. 250–600 C.E. at myhistorylab.com

With the shift of the Roman Empire east to Byzantium in the early fourth
century C.E., the West Asian stage was set for the next 350 years of conflict
between the Byzantines based in Constantinople on the Bosphorus, and the
Sasanids based in Ctesiphon on the Tigris. These two imperial centers were
home to the two mightiest thrones of Eurasia until the coming of the Arabs.
Each side won victories over the other and championed a different religious
orthodoxy, but neither could completely subdue the other. In the sixth
century each produced its greatest emperor: the Byzantine Justinian (r. 527–
565) and the Sasanid Chosroes Anosharvan (“Chosroes of the Immortal
Soul,” r. 531–579). Yet, less than a century after their deaths, the new Arab
power to the south reduced one empire dramatically and destroyed the
other. Byzantium survived with the loss of most of its territory for another
800 years, but the Sasanid imperial order was swept away entirely in 651.
Memory of the Sasanids did not, however, die. Chosroes became a
legendary model of greatness for Persians and a symbol of imperial
splendor among the Arabs. The Pahlavi monarchy in twentieth-century Iran
attempted to use the historical memory of the Sasanids to legitimize its rule.

Sasanid victory. Cliff-cut tombs at Nagsh-i Rustam, Iran. Stone relief

depicts Philip the Arab in Roman dress kneeling before the third-century
Persian King Shapur I on horseback wearing royal armor and crown, who
grasps with his right hand the uplifted arms of the Byzantine Emperor
Valerian. Located at the tombs of the Achaemenids, in Istakhr, Iran.

What major empires were in conflict during the Sasanid period?

SOCIETY AND ECONOMY

Sasanid society was largely like that of earlier times. The extended family
was the basic social unit. Zoroastrian orthodoxy recognized four classes:
priests, warriors, scribes, and peasants. However, a great divide separated
the royal house, the priesthood, and the warrior nobility from the common
people (artisans, traders, and the rural peasantry).
The basis of the economy remained agriculture, but land became
increasingly concentrated in the hands of an ever-richer minority of the
royalty, nobility, and Zoroastrian priesthood. The burden of land taxation,
like that of conscript labor and army duty, hit hardest those least able to
afford it. This eventually produced a popular reaction, as shown by the
Mazdakite movement discussed below.
The Sasanids taxed the lucrative caravan and sea trade in their territory
(see Map 4-2). The empire’s many urban centers and its foreign trade relied
on a money system. It was from Jewish bankers in Babylonia and their
Persian counterparts that Europe got the use of bills of exchange (the term
check comes from a Pahlavi word).
Sasanid aristocratic culture drew on diverse traditions. The Sasanid
heyday was the reign of Chosroes. Indian influences—not only religious, as
in the case of Buddhist ideas, but also artistic and scientific—were
especially strong. Indian medicine and mathematics were notably in
demand and transmitted west by way of the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean
maritime routes. Hellenistic culture was also revived in the academy at
Jundishapur, where Nestorian Christian scholars fleeing Byzantine
persecution brought many Greco-Roman philosophical, scientific, and
literary texts with them.

QUICK REVIEW
Sasanid Economy
Based on agriculture
Four classes, according to Zoroastrian orthodoxy
Increasing gap between the rich and the poor
Heavy taxes on trade
Money system, including checks

MAP EXPLORATION
To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com
MAP 4-2. International Trade Routes in Gupta and Sasanid Times.

This map shows the Gupta and Sasanid empires and the trade routes that
linked them to each other and to other areas of the world.
How did the Indian Ocean facilitate trade between different regions?

RELIGION
The Sasanids institutionalized Zoroastrian ritual and theology as state
orthodoxy. The first chief priest (mobad) of the empire, Tansar (or Tosar)
began to compile an authoritative, written scriptural canon known as the
Avesta; these texts include the hymns and sayings of Zarathushtra. He may
also have instituted a calendar reform and replaced all images in the
temples with the sacred altar fires of Zoroastrian tradition. (See Document,
“Tansar’s Defense of His King, Ardashir I.”)
The most influential figure in Sasanid religious history was Tansar’s
successor, Kartir (or Kirdir) (ca. 239–293). After the death of the religiously
tolerant Shapur, Kartir tried to convert not only pagans, but also Christians,
Buddhists, and others. His chief opponents were the Manichaeans, whom he
considered Zoroastrian heretics, much as Christian groups, such as the
Nestorians, saw them as Christian heretics.

DOCUMENT
Tansar’s Defense of His King, Ardashir I
The following is a brief excerpt from what is probably at base an actual
letter of the Zoroastrian high priest, Tansar (third century C.E.) to a
conquered vassal of the Sasanid Shahanshah, Ardashir I, which was revised
in the sixth century for Sasanid propaganda purposes. The letter argues in
general that religious norms had been restored by Ardashir after their
collapse in Arsacid times. The text comes from a thirteenth-century Muslim
history of Tabaristan in a Persian translation of an Arabic translation of the
original.

• WHY might Tansar be an apologist for Anushirvan I? What can be

inferred about the relationship between religious and imperial
authority under the Sasanids?

The chief herbad, Tansar, has received the letter of Gushnasp, prince and
king of Tabaristan and Parish-war…. You declared: “There is much talk
about the blood shed by the king and people are dismayed.” The answer is
that there are many kings who have put few to death, yet have slain
immoderately if they have killed but ten; and there are many who if they
put men to death in their thousands would slay still more, being driven to it
at the time by their people…. Punishments, you must know, are for three
kinds of transgressions; first that of the creature against his God… when he
turns from the faith and introduces a heresy into religion…. For (this) the
King of kings has established a law far better than that of the ancients. For
in former days any man who turned from the faith was swiftly… put to
death…. The King of kings has ordered that such a man should be
imprisoned, and that for the space of a year learned men should summon
him at frequent intervals and advise him and lay arguments before him and
destroy his doubts. If he become penitent and contrite and seek pardon of
God, he is set free. If obstinacy and pride hold him back, then he is put to
death. Next for what you said, that the King of kings has taken away fires
from the fire temples, extinguished them and blotted them out, and that no
one has ever before presumed so far against religion; know that the case is
not so grievous but has been wrongly reported to you. The truth is that after
Darius (III) each of [the Parthians’ vassal kings] built his own [dynastic]
fire temple. This was pure innovation, introduced by them without the
authority of kings of old. The King of kings has razed the temples, and
confiscated the endowments, and had the fires carried back to their places
of origin…. Then you said: “He has exacted money from men of wealth and
merchants”…. The idea that the king of the day should seek help for the
common people from the superfluity of the wealthy is a religious principle
and clearly justified in reason…. The King of kings has cast the shadow of
his majesty over all who have acknowledged his preeminence and service
and have sent him tribute…. In the space of fourteen years, he thus brought
it about that he made water flow in every desert and established towns and
created groups of villages…. Good order in the affairs of the people affects
him more than the welfare of his own body and soul….

Source: From Mary Boyce, ed. and trans., Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism
(Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1984), pp. 109–110.

CHRONOLOGY
SASANID IRAN
 The founder of the faith that bears his name, Mani (216–277 C.E.)
preached a message both similar to and sharply divergent from its
Zoroastrian, Judaic, and Christian forerunners. Manichaeism centered on a
radically dualistic and moralistic view of reality in which good and evil,
spirit and matter, always warred. These ideas are now commonplace in the
major monotheistic religions. He sought to convert others to his views,
which he presented as the culmination and restoration of the original unity
of Zoroastrian, Christian, and Buddhist teachings. Mani may have been the
first person in history to consciously “found” a new religious tradition or to
seek to create a “scripture” for his followers.

Manichaeism
One of the major dualistic religions in ancient Persia, in which good and
evil were constantly at odds with one another.

Kartir eventually had Mani executed as a heretic in 277, but Mani’s

movement had great consequences. It spread westward to challenge the
Christian church and eastward along the Silk Road to Central Asia and
China to vie with Buddhist and Nestorian Christian traditions. Its ideas
figured even centuries later in both Christian and Islamic heresies. Its
adherents probably carried the Western planetary calendar to China, where
in some areas it was used for centuries.
Despite the persistence of challenges such as Mani’s, Kirdir had firmly
grounded Zoroastrian orthodoxy, which became the backbone of Sasanid
culture. Throughout Sasanid times, the priesthood increased its power as the
jurists and legal interpreters of the land. With increasing endowments of
new fire temples, the church establishment also eventually controlled much
of Iran’s wealth.
Nestorius (ca. 386–ca. 451), the Patriarch of Constantinople, had taught
that the human and divine natures of Jesus Christ were distinct and separate,
not unified in one person. Nestorius was condemned as a heretic at the
Council of Ephesus in 431. The Sasanid kings, who were at war with the
Byzantines, saw an opportunity: They supported the Nestorian Christians
and opened schools to Nestorian scholars. Indeed, the Nestorian Church
flourished in Persia, producing many missionaries who preached throughout
Persia and Central and East Asia in the seventh and eighth centuries,
reaching China in 635.
Manichaean Priests. This leaf from a Manichaean book (ca. eighth–ninth
century C.E.) shows priests in white robes and tall hats kneeling in front of
low desks. Each has a sheet of white paper, and some hold pens. Works
such as this are an important source for our knowledge of Manichaean
communities.

A leaf from a Manchurian book, Roko, Templek (MIK III 6368), eighth–
ninth century, a manuscript painting 17.2 × 11.2 cm. Bildarchiv
Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, New York.

What are the basic beliefs of Manichaeism?

QUICK REVIEW
Mani (216–277 C.E.)
Born of a noble Parthian family
Mani’s message similar to Zoroastrian, Judaic, and Christian
forerunners
Executed as a heretic in 277

LATER SASANID DEVELOPMENTS

Despite the high Zoroastrian moral intent of many of their rulers, the
Sasanid ideal of justice did not include equal distribution of the empire’s
bounty. The radical inequalities between the aristocracy and the masses
erupted at least once in conflict with the Mazdakite movement at the end of
the fifth century. Its leader, Mazdak, preached ideas drawn ultimately from
Manichaeism and the need for a more equal distribution of society’s goods.
This appealed primarily to the oppressed classes, although even one Sasanid
ruler, Kavad I (r. 488–531), was sympathetic for a time. In 528 Kavad’s son,
the future Chosroes Anosharvan, massacred Mazdak and his followers.
Although this finished the Mazdakites, the name was still used later, in
Islamic times, for various Iranian popular revolts.

SOUTH ASIA

Large-scale imperial expansion came much later to the South Asian, or

Indian, subcontinent than to the Iranian plateau. A cultural and religious
heritage going back to the Aryan invaders of North India influenced the
subsequent history of the vast and diverse subcontinent. Political unity has
been rare. Today’s division into India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh is merely
the most recent. Only four times has much of the whole come under one
rule: in the Maurya, Gupta, Mughal, and British imperial epochs. We look
now at the first two of these.

THE FIRST INDIAN EMPIRE: THE MAURYAS

(321–185 B.C.E.)

HOW WAS the Maurya Empire created?

Alexander the Great conquered the Achaemenids’ northwest Indian

provinces of Gandhara and the Indus valley in 327 B.C.E. The conquest had
little or no impact on the Indian subcontinent except in Gandhara, where
Greek and Indian cultural interpenetration increased. Only with the
Mauryas was much of North India and the Deccan incorporated into the
first true Indian Empire.

POLITICAL BACKGROUND
The basis for empire in North India was the rise of regional states and
commercial towns between the seventh and fourth centuries B.C.E. The most
powerful of these were the monarchies of the Ganges plains. North and
northwest, in the Himalayan foothills and in the Punjab, tribal republics
were more common. The Buddha and Mahavira came from two of these
republics (see Chapter 2), although both spent much of their lives in the two
most powerful Gangetic monarchies, Kosala and Magadha.

THE MAURYAS
Chandragupta Maurya (r. ca. 321–297 B.C.E.), an adventurer who seized
Magadha and the Ganges basin in about 324 B.C.E., established the first true
Indian Empire (see Map 4-3). Marching westward into the vacuum created
by Alexander’s departure (326 B.C.E.), he brought the Indus region and
much of west-central India under his control. A treaty with the invading
Seleucus added Gandhara and Arachosia to his empire and led to much
Seleucid–Maurya contact thereafter.
Chandragupta’s fame as the first Indian empire builder is rivaled by that
of his Brahman minister, Kautilya, who may have been the actual architect
of Maurya rule. However, even though it is ascribed to him, he probably did
not write the Arthashastra, the most famous Indian treatise on the arts of
governing. Chandragupta’s son and successor, Bindusara (r. ca. 297–272
B.C.E.), conquered the Deccan, the great plateau that covers central India.

Read the Document

Kautilya, from Arthashastra, “The Duties of Government Superintendents”
at myhistorylab.com
MAP 4–3. Southwest Asia and India ca. 250 B.C.E. This map shows not
only the major cities and regions of the Iranian lands and the Indian
subcontinent, but also the neighboring eastern Mediterranean world.
Although the Mediterranean was closely tied to the Iranian plateau from
Achaemenid times onward, its contacts with India in the wake of the
conquests of Alexander the Great were many and varied.

Which states helped spread Greek culture from the Mediterranean to

northern India?

The third and greatest Maurya, Ashoka (r. ca. 272–232 B.C.E.), left us
numerous rock inscriptions. From Ashoka’s edicts, we can piece together
much of his reign and glimpse his character. In his first years as king, he
conquered Kalinga, thus extending Maurya control over all the subcontinent
except the far south.
 Apparently revolted by the bloody Kalinga war, Ashoka underwent a
religious conversion. Thereafter he pursued the Buddhist Middle Path as his
ideal in both personal and state relations. He did not abandon all warfare,
but he did eschew aggression in favor of “conquest by righteousness
(dharma).” His edicts show that he pursued the laity’s norm of the Buddhist
dharma, striving to attain heaven by the merit of good actions. Ashoka
eased some burdens imposed on the populace by earlier governments, and
he instituted many beneficial public works. Ashoka provided the model of
the ideal king for later Hindu and Buddhist thought—the chakravartin, or
universal monarch who rules with righteousness, justice, and wisdom. He is
a symbol of enlightened rule with few equals in history.

See the Map

Ashoka’s Empire at myhistorylab.com

QUICK REVIEW
Ashoka
Considered a model ruler
Rock inscriptions of his edicts are oldest deciphered Indian writings
Converted to Buddhism after Kalinga war
Appointed “dharma officials”

A Closer Look
Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath
This sculpture, carved from a single sandstone block, sat originally (c.
250 B.C.E.) atop the Ashoka pillar or column at Sarnath, close by
Varanasi (Banares) in present-day Uttar Pradesh, India. The base of
the column is still in its original place (where it commemorated the
Buddha’s first sermon), but the lion capital resides in Sarnath
Museum. The heads of the four Asiatic lions on the Ashoka column are
said to have originally carried a large dharmachakra (now lost) above
them. Used by Ashoka as the emblem of his rule, it was also adopted in
1950 as the Indian national emblem or seal and set, minus the lotus,
over Sanskrit words from the Mundaka Upanishad, “Truth alone
triumphs.”

The Great Stupa at Sanchi. This is an outstanding example of early

Buddhist relic mounds. The mound, seated on an Ashokan foundation, was
added to over the centuries. Magnificent carvings adorn its stone railing and
gateways, one of which is shown in the left foreground. Sanchi is located in
north-central India.

How does the worship of relics reflect Hindu influence on Buddhist

practice?

Questions

1. Why might Ashoka have chosen the elements used in this capital as
emblematic of his rule? Draw on what you know of his reign and
life.
2. Why might independent India have decided on this royal emblem of
an ancient Buddhist ruler as its national emblem? How does its
symbolism transcend its possible original Buddhist symbolism?
 3. How can the chakra be an apposite symbol both in Ashokan usage
and in modern Indian usage?
To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com

By the end of Ashoka’s reign, however, the empire’s size hampered

effective administration, and under his successors, Maurya rule
disintegrated. Neither Ashoka’s Buddhism nor his rejection of aggression
was the cause of decline; more likely factors were economic strains and
increased bureaucratic corruption, as well as his heirs’ inability to claim the
personal allegiances he had maintained. After his death local dynasties
seized power in many areas.
In its heyday, Maurya bureaucracy was marked by centralization,
standardization, and efficiency in long-distance communications; civil and
military organization; tax collection; and information gathering. The
fundamental unit of government was the village. Groups of villages formed
districts within the larger provincial unit. Governors sent from the capital
controlled most provinces.
The administration of the empire depended primarily on the king himself.
Each of the three great Maurya kings was associated with one of the “new”
religious movements of the age: Chandragupta with the Jains (see Chapter
2), his son with an ascetic tradition known as that of the Ajivikas, and
Ashoka with the Buddhists. Such links must have strengthened Maurya
claims to righteous leadership.
Revenues in the Maurya Empire came primarily from taxing the produce
of the land, which was regarded as the king’s property. Urban trade and
production were also taxed heavily. The Maurya economic system also
involved slavery, although most of it was domestic labor, often a kind of
temporary indentured service.

QUICK REVIEW
The Maurya State
Government was centralized, standardized, and efficient
The fundamental unit of government was the village
Administration depended on the king
 Study and Review at myhistorylab.com

Cities thrived across the empire. They were centers for arts, crafts,
industry, literature, and education. Ashokan stone buildings and sculpture
reflect sophisticated aesthetics and technique, as well as strong Persian and
Greek influence.
An imperial ideal, a strengthened Buddhist movement, and strong central
administration were among the Mauryas’ gifts to Indian culture. They also
left behind new cosmopolitan traditions of external relations and internal
communication. Their many contacts with the West reflect their
international perspective. The edicts suggest that writing and reading had
become common. The Mauryas’ excellent road system would later serve as
routes for Buddhism’s spread to Central Asia and China, as well as
corridors for successive invaders moving in the opposite direction.

See the Map

India at the Time of Ashoka, ca. 268–237 B.C.E. at myhistorylab.com

CHRONOLOGY
INDIA FROM THE SIXTH CENTURY B.C.E. to the End of Maurya
Rule

THE CONSOLIDATION OF INDIAN

CIVILIZATION (ca. 200 B.C.E.–300 C.E.)
 WHAT ROLES did Buddhism play in post-Maurya Indian culture?

In the post-Maurya period, the history of North India was dominated by the
influx of various foreign peoples. In the rest of the subcontinent, indigenous
Indian dynasties held sway, establishing a general pattern of regional and
local political autonomy. Religiously and culturally, however, the centuries
between the Mauryas and the Gupta Dynasty saw the consolidation of
transregional patterns that permanently shaped Indian and, through the
diffusion of Buddhism, Asian civilization.

THE ECONOMIC BASE

Although agriculture remained the basis of the post-Maurya economy,
India’s merchant classes prospered. The fine Maurya road system facilitated
trade throughout India. India became a center of world trade largely because
of Chinese and Roman demand for Indian luxury goods—jewels,
semiprecious stones, sandalwood, teak, spices, cotton and silk textiles,
exotic animals, and slaves. Within India, guild organizations flourished and
provided technical education in skilled crafts. Coin minting increased after
Maurya times, and banking flourished.

HIGH CULTURE
The great achievements of the post-Maurya arts were primarily Buddhist in
inspiration. The Gandharan school of Buddhist art emerged in northwestern
India. In Gandharan sculpture, Hellenistic naturalism of form joined with
the more recent Indian tradition of Buddha images, producing sculptural
figures with flowing draped garments through which the muscular lines of
the human body are discernible. In central India as early as the first century
B.C.E., artists were producing stone-relief sculpture with the naturalistic, yet
flowing, human and animal forms that would become earmarks of the
“classical” style of Indian art. The finest surviving examples are at the great
Buddhist stupas (shrines) of Bharhut and Sanchi.
 Language and literature during this period rested on the sophisticated
Sanskrit grammar of Panini (ca. 300 B.C.E.?), which remains standard even
today. Two Sanskrit masterpieces, the epics of the Mahabharata and the
Ramayana, probably took shape by 200 C.E. The first is a composite work
concerned largely with the nature of Dharma (the moral and cosmic Law;
see Chapter 2). Included in its earlier, narrative portions are systematic
treatments of Dharma, such as the Bhagavad Gita, or “Song of the Blessed
Lord,” the most influential of all Indian religious texts.

Study and Review at myhistorylab.com

RELIGION AND SOCIETY

Brahmans continued to dominate Vedic learning and ritual. The major
developments shaping “Hindu” tradition were (1) the consolidation of the
caste system, Brahman ascendancy, and the “high” culture of Sanskrit
learning; (2) the increasing dominance of theistic devotionalism (especially
the cults of Vishnu and Shiva); and (3) the intellectual reconciliation of
these developments with the older ascetic and speculative traditions
deriving from the Upanishadic age. These social and religious
developments would continue and solidify in the Gupta era and beyond.
Indian Buddhist monastic communities prospered under mercantile and
royal patronage, especially in or near urban centers. Buddhist lay devotion
figured prominently in Indian religious life. It was, however, a different
tradition from the Buddhism of the theological texts, which focuses on the
quest for nirvana and the “extraordinary norm” (see Chapter 2). The
Buddha and Buddhist saints were naturally identified with popular Indian
deities, and Buddhist worship easily assimilated to common Indian patterns
of theistic piety. One reason that Buddhist tradition remained only one
among many Indian religious paths was its absorption into the religious
variety that then and now typifies the Hindu religious scene.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE GUPTAS (ca. 320–

550 C.E.)
 WHY IS the Gupta Empire considered a high point of Indian
civilization?

Indians have always considered the Gupta era a golden age of civilization in
the subcontinent. Historians have seen it as the source of “classical” norms
for Hindu religion and Indian culture—the symbolic equivalent of Periclean
Athens, Augustan Rome, Sasanid Persia, or Han China. Most of the
Guptas’s reign was marked by relative peace and stability.

Read the Document

Excerpt from Kama Sutra (1883) Vatsayayana at myhistorylab.com

GUPTA RULE
The first Gupta king was Chandragupta (r. 320–ca. 330 C.E.), who became
prominent in the whole Ganges basin after he married Princess
Kumaradevi, daughter of a powerful tribal leader. Their son, Samudragupta
(r. ca. 330–375), and especially their grandson, Chandragupta II (r. ca. 375–
415), turned kingdom into empire (see Map 4-2). Gupta splendor and power
had no rival. Under Chandragupta II, India was arguably the most civilized
and peaceful country in the world.
By about 500 a new wave of steppe nomads, the Huns, had overrun
western India. This contributed to the collapse of the Gupta Empire in about
550.

GUPTA CULTURE
The Gupta era’s claim to being India’s golden age of culture could be
sustained solely by its magnificent sculpture, the wall paintings of the
Ajanta caves, and Kalidasa’s matchless drama and verse. The
“Shakespeare” of Sanskrit letters, Kalidasa flourished in the time of
Chandragupta II and his successor.
CHRONOLOGY

INDIA FROM THE GUPTA AGE TO ca. 1000 C.E.

Gupta Sculpture. Fifth-century C.E. statue of Lokanatha from Sarnath,

which, despite damage, shows the fine sculptural work of the important
school of Gupta artists at Sarnath and the influence on them of both Greco-
Roman antecedents and native Indian traditions and conventions.
What are some of the details visible in this sculpture?

We can see the depth of Gupta culture in its emphasis on education. In

addition to religious texts, typical subjects included rhetoric, prose and
poetic composition, grammar, logic, medicine, and metaphysics. Using an
older Indian number system that the Arabs transmitted to Europe as “Arabic
numerals,” Gupta scholars cultivated mathematics especially.

QUICK REVIEW
“Golden” Gupta Culture
Kalidasa, the “Shakespeare” of Sanskrit letters
Sarnath sculpture
Ajanta cave-shrine

Even in handwork and luxury crafts, Gupta products achieved new levels
of quality and were in great demand abroad: silks, muslin, linen, ivory and
other carvings, bronze metalwork, gold and silver work, and cut stones,
among others.

View the Image

Closer Look Ch. 4 at myhistorylab.com

RELIGION AND SOCIETY

The hierarchical character of Hindu/Indian society was formalized. The
oldest manual of legal and ethical theory, the Dharmashastra of Manu,
dates from about 200 C.E. Based on Vedic tradition, it treats the dharma
appropriate to one’s class and stage of life, rules for rites and study of the
Veda, pollution and purification measures, dietary restrictions, royal duties
and prerogatives, and other legal and moral questions.

dharma
Moral law or duty.

In the Dharmashastra we find the classic statement of the four-class

theory of social hierarchy. This traditional construct rests on the principle
that every person is born into a particular station in life (as a result of karma
from earlier lives), and every station has its particular dharma, or
appropriate duties and responsibilities, from the lowest servant to the
highest prince or Brahman. The Brahmans’ ancient division of Aryans into
the four varnas, or classes, of Brahman (priest), Kshatriya
(noble/warrior/ruler), Vaishya (tradesperson/merchant etc.), and Shudra
(servant/worker) provides a schematic structure. Although class distinctions
had already hardened before 500 B.C.E., the classes were, in practice,
somewhat fluid.

varnas
The four main classes that form the basis for Hindu caste relations.

Much smaller and far more numerous subgroups, or jatis, are the units to
which our English term caste best refers. These divisions (most
representing originally occupational groups) were already the primary units
of social distinction in Gupta times. Jati groupings are hereditary and
distinguished essentially on principles of purity and pollution, which are
expressed in three kinds of regulation: (1) commensality (one may take
food only from or with persons of the same or a higher group); (2)
endogamy (one may marry only within the group); and (3) trade or craft
limitation (one must practice only the trade of one’s group).

jatis
The many subgroups that make up the Hindu caste system.

The caste system has been the basis of Indian social organization for at
least two millennia. It enabled Hindus to accommodate foreign cultural,
racial, and religious communities within Indian society by treating them as
new caste groups. It permitted everyone to tell by dress and other marks
how to relate to another person or group, thus giving stability and security
to the individual and to society. It also represented the logical extension of
the doctrine of karma into society—whether as justification, result, or
partial cause of the system itself (see Chapter 2).
The Guptas’ support of Brahmanic traditions and Vaishnava
devotionalism reflected the waning of Buddhist traditions in the mainstream
of Indian religious life. Devotional cults continued to grow in popularity.
After Vishnu (especially in his form as the hero-savior Krishna) and Shiva
(originally a fertility god), the chief focus of devotion came to be the
Goddess in one of her many forms, such as Parvati, Shakti, Durga, or Kali.
Indian reverence for all forms of life and stress on ahimsa, or “noninjury”
to living beings (see Chapter 2), are most vivid in the sacredness of the cow,
a mainstay of life in India. In the development of Hindu piety and practice,
a major strand was the tradition of ardent theism known as bhakti, or
“loving devotion.” Bhakti was already evident in the Bhagavad Gita’s
treatment of Krishna. Gupta and later times saw the rise, especially in the
Tamil-speaking south, of schools of bhakti poetry and worship. Also of
major importance to devotional piety was the development in this era of the
Puranas—epic, mythological, and devotional texts. They are still the
functional sacred scriptures of grass-roots Hindu religious life, the Vedic
texts remaining the special preserve of the Brahmans.

The Buddhist temple of Borobodur, with tiers of stupas looking out over
the island of Java. Built out of a half million blocks of stone, it represents a
schema of the Buddhist cosmos. Construction began late in the eighth
century; the temple was intended originally to be a Hindu sanctuary.
What is the relationship between Hinduism and Buddhism?

Whatever god or goddess a Hindu worships, it is usual to also pay

homage on proper occasions to other appropriate deities. Most Hindus view
one deity as their Supreme Lord but see others as manifestations of the
Ultimate at lower levels. Hindu polytheism vividly affirms the infinite
forms that transcendence takes in this world. The sense of the presence of
the Divine everywhere is evident in the importance attached to sacred
places.
The intellectual articulation of Hindu polytheism and relativism found its
finest expression in post-Gupta formulations of Vedanta (“the end of the
Veda”). The major Vedantin thinker, Shankara (d. 820), stressed a strict
“nonduality” of the Ultimate, teaching that Brahman was the only Reality
behind the “illusion” (maya) of the world of sense experience. Yet he
accepted the worship of a lesser deity as appropriate for those who could
not follow his extraordinary norm—the intellectual realization of the
formless Absolute beyond all “name and form.”

QUICK REVIEW
Bhakti
Bhakti, or loving devotion, evident in the Bhagavad Gita’s treatment
of Krishna
Derives in part from Tamil and other vernacular poets
Through bhakti, pre-Aryan religious sensibilities reasserted
themselves

Within the Buddhist tradition, the major developments of these centuries

were (1) the solidification of the two main strands of Buddhist tradition, the
Mahayana and the Theravada, and (2) the spread of Buddhism abroad
from its Indian homeland. The Mahayana (“Great Vehicle [of salvation]”)
arose in the first century B.C.E. Its proponents differentiated it sharply from
the older, more conservative traditions of monk-oriented piety, which they
labeled the Hinayana (“Little Vehicle”). In Mahayana speculation Buddhas
were seen as manifestations of a single principle of “Ultimate” Reality, and
Siddhartha Gautama was held to be only one Buddha among many. The
Mahayana stressed the model of the Buddha’s infinite compassion for all
beings. The highest goal was not a nirvana of “selfish” extinction but the
status of a bodhisattva, or “Buddha-to-be,” who postpones his own nirvana
until he has helped all other beings become enlightened.

Mahayana
The “Great Vehicle” for salvation in Buddhism. It emphasized the Buddha’s
infinite compassion for all beings.

Theravada
The “Way of the Elders.” A school of Buddhism that emphasized the
monastic ideal.

bodhisattva
A “Buddha to be” who postpones his own nirvana until he has helped all
other beings become enlightened.
MAP 4-4. Spread of Buddhist Traditions throughout Southeast Asia.
By the twelfth century C.E., Buddhist traditions had taken root in many parts
of Southeast Asia, often blending with local customs, as well as Hindu
traditions that had been introduced earlier.

How did the spread of Buddhism in Southeast Asia replicate the earlier
spread of Hindu traditions? Were there differences in the ways Hindu
traditions spread and the ways Buddhism spread?

The bodhisattva can offer this aid because his long career of self-sacrifice
has gained him infinite merit. Salvation becomes possible not only through
individual merit, but also through devotion to the Buddhas and
bodhisattvas. At the popular level, this idea translated into devotional cults
of transcendent Buddhas and bodhisattvas conceived as cosmic beings. One
of the most important of these beings was the Buddha Amitabha, who
personifies infinite compassion. Amitabha presides over a Western
Paradise, or Pure Land, to which all who have faith in him have access.
(See Chapter 9 on Pure Land Buddhism in Japan.)
The older, more conservative “Way of the Elders” (Theravada) always
focused on the monastic community but taught that service and gifts to the
monks were a major source of merit for the laity. It emphasized gaining
merit for a better rebirth through righteous conduct, lay devotion to the
Buddha, and pilgrimage to his relics at various shrines, or stupas. The basis
of Theravada piety and practice was the scriptural collection of traditional
teachings ascribed to the Buddha, as reported by his disciples.

stupa
A Buddhist shrine.

Indian culture experienced little new outside influence from the Gupta
era until Islamic times (after about 1000 C.E.). India’s chief contacts were
now with Southeast Asia and China, and most of the cultural transmission
was from India eastward, not vice versa. India gave Theravada Buddhism to
Ceylon, Burma, and parts of Southeast Asia (see Map 4-4). Mahayana
Buddhism predominated in Central Asia and China, from which it spread in
the fifth through eighth centuries to Korea and Japan. Tantric Buddhism, an
esoteric Mahayana tradition heavily influenced by Hinduism, entered Tibet
from North India in the seventh century and became the dominant tradition
there.

SUMMARY

WHAT WERE the main teachings of Zoroaster, and how did

Zoroastrianism influence other traditions?
Ancient Background and the First Persian Empire in the Iranian
Plateau (550–330 B.C.E.). Ancient Iranian traditions had much in common
with Vedic Aryan beliefs. Zarathustra (known in Greek as Zoroaster) spread
a message of moral reform and emphasized a single supreme deity, Ahura
Mazda. Zoroaster’s teachings influenced later monotheistic religions, as
well as Buddhism. The Persian Achaemenid Empire, based in Iran,
established two centuries of tolerant, stable, prosperous rule from Egypt to
the borders of India. Although the Achaemenid regime was tolerant of
diverse religious traditions, the rulers practiced Zoroastrianism. page 93
HOW DID the steppe peoples act as vehicles for cultural exchange?
Successor States and Steppe Peoples. The Hellenic Empire of the
Seleucids, starting around 312 B.C.E., permitted trade and culture to flourish
from the Mediterranean to India. Seleucid rule fostered Greek culture in
Western Asia. The Parthians (247 B.C.E.–223 C.E.) continued many
Achaemenid traditions. They were religiously tolerant but supported
Zoroastrianism, and laid much of the groundwork for later Persian
nationalism. The Indo-Greeks of Bactria helped spread Greek ideas and
aesthetics, while also helping Buddhism spread beyond India. Steppe
peoples—particularly the Scythians and Kushans—fostered cross-cultural
contact throughout the Iranian and Indian realms. page 98
HOW DID the Sasanids build a strong state?
The Sasanid Empire. The Sasanids sought to restore the glory of the
ancient Achaemenid Persian Empire and promoted native Persian culture.
They based their rule on orthodox Zoroastrianism and suppressed the
Manichaeans as heretics. Although foreign trade flourished, Sasanid rulers
favored the landed aristocracy at the expense of the peasantry, who were
heavily taxed. Long wars with Rome and Byzantium ultimately sapped
Sasanid strength and left the empire vulnerable to Islamic Arab invasion in
the seventh century. page 100
HOW WAS the Maurya Empire created?
The First Indian Empire: The Mauryas (321–185 B.C.E.). The Mauryas
created the first true empire in India, starting around 321 B.C.E., using
conquest, treaties, and possibly marriage to gain territory. The third Maurya
ruler, Ashoka, has served as a universal model of enlightened rule. The
strong and cosmopolitan Maurya Empire absorbed cultural influences from
the Persians and the Greeks, among others. Buddhism flourished. page 104
WHAT ROLES did Buddhism play in post-Maurya Indian culture?
The Consolidation of Indian Civilization (ca. 200 B.C.E.–300 C.E.). Trade
was important in post-Mauryan India. Both Buddhist and Hindu devotional
cults gained popularity. The arts were heavily influenced by Buddhism.
page 108
WHY IS the Gupta Empire considered a high point of Indian
civilization?
Golden Age of the Guptas. The Gupta period (320–467 C.E.) is considered
one of the highlights of Indian civilization. Indian civilization took on its
enduring “Hindu” social, religious, and cultural shape. The fundamentally
hierarchic nature of the caste system solidified. Hindu piety emphasized
devotional cults to deities, especially Vishnu and Shiva. Indian Buddhism
developed two main schools, the Mahayana and the Theravada, which
spread to other parts of Asia. page 109

KEY TERMS

Ahura Mazda (ah-HOO-rah MAHZ-dah)

bodhisattva
dharma
 Indo-Greeks
jatis
Magi (MEY-jeye)
Mahayana
Manichaeism
satrap (sah-TRAP)
Shahanshah
steppe peoples
stupa
Theravada
varna
Zoroastrianism

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Why was the Achaemenid Empire successful for so long? What was
the political basis for Achaemenid power?
2. How was the Maurya Empire created? What role did Greeks play in
its creation? How did Ashoka develop Maurya power and prestige?
3. How did the role of religion in the Achaemenid Empire compare to
its role in the Maurya Empire?
4. Compare the historical importance of the Achaemenid and the
Maurya empires. How does each compare to the empires of Rome
and Han China?
5. Compare the major features of the Hindu and Buddhist traditions.
Why do you think Buddhism and not Hinduism spread to much of
Asia?
6. How did the Kushans, Scythians, and other inner Asian groups play
important roles in world history?
7. What are the key elements of Manichaean religion? How was it
related to Christian and Zoroastrian traditions?
8. How did the Sasanid Empire develop after the fall of the Parthians?
What were the principal economic bases of the Sasanid state?
 9. What were the major religious issues in the Sasanid Empire? What
role did Zoroastrian “orthodoxy” play in Sasanid affairs?
10. How did new religious ideas come to Central Asia and China in
these centuries?
11. In what sense can the high Gupta period (ca. 320–450 C.E.) be
considered a “golden age”? What was the extent of the empire?
Why did it collapse?
12. What factors in Persia and India in the seventh century might have
made the Arab invasions possible?
13. What major affinities and differences do you see between the
classical Buddhist and Hindu traditions that had crystallized by 500
C.E.?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 4

Read the Document Kautilya, from Arthashastra, “The Duties of

Government Superintendents,” p. 104
Excerpt from Kama Sutra (1883) Vatsayayana, p. 109

See the Map Ashoka’s Empire, p. 105

Arabia Before the Prophet, ca. 250–600 C.E, p. 100

India at the Time of Ashoka, ca. 268–237 B.C.E., p. 107

View the Image Closer Look, p. 106

Research and Explore

See the Map The Persian Empire at Its Greatest Extent, p. 97

Watch the Video The Aryans in India

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 4
at www.myhistorylab.com

RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD

HINDUISM
The term Hinduism is our modern word for the whole of the diverse
religious traditions of India. Until the word was coined in the nineteenth
century, it (like Buddhism) was not even a concept in the West, let alone in
India. In contemporary usage, it has become a catchall term for all the
Indian religious communities that look upon the texts of the Vedas (see
Chapter 1) as eternal, perfect truth.
The historical beginnings of the varied Hindu traditions can be traced to
the ancient Aryan migrations into southern Asia in the second millennium
B.C.E. During this era the Vedic hymns were composed. They describe a
pantheon of gods not unlike that among the Greeks, the Romans, the
Iranians, and other Indo-European peoples. Centered on a sacrificial cult of
these gods, Vedic religion increasingly became the preserve of the Brahman
priestly class of early Indian society. The Brahmans gradually elaborated a
cult characterized by sacrificial rituals, purificatory rules, and fixed
distinctions of birth on which India’s later caste system was based (see
Chapter 4). These developments are mirrored in the later Vedic, or
Brahmanical, texts (ca. 1000–500 B.C.E.) that provide commentary on and
instructions for ritual use of the Vedic hymns.
After about 700 B.C.E. new developments emerged. North India produced
a series of religious reformers, some of whom broke with Vedic tradition
and championed knowledge and ascetic discipline over purity and ritual
action. Of these, the most famous were Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha, b.
ca. 563 B.C.E.) and Mahavira Vardhamana (founder of the Jain tradition, b.
ca. 550 B.C.E.). Other religious leaders reinterpreted the older sacrifice as an
inner activity and deepened its spiritual dimensions. Their thinking is
represented especially in the Upanishads, which many Hindus consider the
most sublime philosophical texts in the Indian tradition.
Developed so long ago, such notions have been part of the complex
vision of existence that lies behind the myriad forms of religious life known
to us as Hinduism. In this vision the immortal part of each human being, the
atman, is enmeshed in existence, but not ultimately of it. The nature of
existence is samsara, a ceaseless round of cause and effect determined by
the inescapable consequences of karma, or “action.” The doctrine of karma
is a moral as well as physical economy in which every act has unavoidable
results; as long as mental or physical action occurs, life and change go on
repeatedly. Birth determines one’s place and duties in the traditional Indian
caste system. Caste is the most visible and concrete reminder of the
pervasiveness of the Hindu concept of absolute causality that keeps us
enmeshed in existence. The final goal is to transcend this cycle, or samsara,
in which we are all caught. The only way out of this otherwise endless
becoming and rebirth is moksha, which may be gained through knowledge,
action, or devotion.
Dancing Shiva. A magnificent South Indian bronze of Shiva. The fluid,
balanced image depicts the so-called dancing Shiva engaged in his dance of
simultaneous destruction and creation of the universe, an artistic-mythical
rendering of the eternal flux of all worldly existence (13th century; bronze;
33.5 × 24.8 cm).

© The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO. (Purchase: Nelson

Trust) 50-20.

In what ways is the circle an appropriate symbol for Hindu beliefs?

On the popular level, the period after about 500 B.C.E. is most notable in
Indian religious life for two developments. Both took place alongside the
ever deeper entrenchment in society of caste distinctions and a supporting
ethic of obligations and privileges. The first was the elaboration of ascetic
traditions of inner quest and self-realization, such as that of yoga. The
second was the rise of devotional worship of specific gods and goddesses
who were seen by their worshipers as identical with the Ultimate—in other
words, as supreme deities for those who served them. The latter
development was of particular importance for popular religion in India.
Evident in the famous and beloved Hindu devotional text, the Bhagavad
Gita, it reached its highest level after 500 B.C.E. in the myriad movements of
fervent, loving devotionalism, or bhakti, many of which remain important
today. A striking aspect of Hindu piety has been its willingness to
accommodate the focus on one “chosen deity” who is worshiped as
supreme to a worldview that holds that the Divine can and does take many
forms. Thus most Hindus worship one deity, but they do so in the awareness
that faith in other deities can also lead one to the Ultimate.
The period between about 500 B.C.E. and 1000 C.E. saw the rise to special
prominence of two gods, Vishnu and Shiva, as the primary forms in which
the Supreme Lord was worshiped. Along with the mother-goddess figure,
who takes various names and forms (Kali and Durga, for example), Vishnu
and Shiva have remained the most important manifestations of the Divine in
India. Their followers are known as Vaishnavas and Shaivas, respectively.
A few recurring phenomena and ideas can suggest something of Indian
religiousness in practice.

Purification rituals in the waters of the holy Ganges. Purification rituals

are part of the obligatory daily rituals of all “twice-born” Hindus. The
morning purificatory-bathing rituals performed by the women here in the
Ganges include greeting the sun with recitation and prayer.

Can you think of similar water-based rituals in other faiths?

Hindu practice is characterized especially by temple worship (puja), in

which worshipers bring offerings of flowers, food, and the like. They
especially seek out temple images for the blessing that the sight of these
images brings. Another important part of Hindu devotionalism is the
recitation of sacred texts, many of which are vernacular hymns of praise to
a particular deity. Mantras, or special recitative texts from the Vedas, are
thought to have extraordinary power and are used by many Hindus in their
original Sanskrit form. Pilgrimage to sacred sites, especially rivers,
mountains, and famous shrines, is a prominent part of Hindu religious life.
India’s landscape is filled with sacred sites and sacred pilgrim routes, both
local and national in reputation. A prominent feature of Hindu life is
preoccupation with purity and pollution, most evident in the food taboos
associated with caste groupings.
The ascetic tendency in India is also highly developed. Although only a
tiny minority of Indians take up a life of full renunciation, they are
influential. Ascetic worshipers do not settle in one place, acquire
possessions, or perform regular worship. Rather, they wander about in
search of teachers and devote themselves to meditation and self-realization.
Even though most Hindus have families and work at their salvation through
puja and moral living, the ascetic ideal has an important place in the overall
Indian worldview. It stands as a constant reminder of the deeper reality
beyond the everyday world and any individual life.

Compared to other faiths that have expanded globally, such as

Christianity and Islam, why has Hinduism been largely confined to
India?
How has Hinduism accommodated and absorbed different beliefs
and value systems?
5
Africa: Early History to 1000 C.E.

Hear the Audio for Chapter 5 at www.myhistorylab.com

Rock Art from Tassili n’Ajjer National Park in Algeria, a UNESCO

World Heritage Site. This painting might represent women gathering
grain. It is one of a large group of works created between approximately
8000 B.C.E. and the early part of the Common Era. Now part of the Sahara
Desert, at the time this area was much wetter and supported populations of
large animals (other paintings show giraffes, elephants, and other animals)
and humans.

Henri Lhote Collection. Musée de l’Homme, Paris, France/© Erich

Lessing/Art Resource, New York.

How did changes in the climate of the Sahara influence settlement

patterns and trade?

ISSUES OF INTERPRETATION, SOURCES, AND DISCIPLINES

WHAT ARE the sources and techniques used for studying African history?

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTINENT

WHICH CHARACTERISTICS of Africa’s physical geography have

influenced human history on the continent?

AFRICAN PEOPLES

WHY ARE ideas about race not useful in understanding the histories of
different groups in Africa?

THE SAHARA AND THE SUDAN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE

COMMON ERA

WHAT EVIDENCE is there that early African cultures were in contact

with each other?

NILOTIC AFRICA AND THE ETHIOPIAN HIGHLANDS

HOW DID Egyptian civilization and the various Nilotic civilizations—

Kush, Meroe, and Aksum—influence each other?

THE WESTERN AND CENTRAL SUDAN

WHAT ROLE did trade play in the rise of large political entities in the
western and central Sudan?
CENTRAL, SOUTHERN, AND EAST AFRICA

WHY DID the coastal and inland regions of East Africa have different
histories?

We now turn from the ancient societies that emerged in the Persian, Greek,
and Hellenistic worlds to the world’s second-largest continent—Africa. East
Africa was the original home for the human species. In the ancient world,
pharaonic Egypt, the Kushite kingdoms of Napata and Meroe, and the
Ethiopian state of Aksum were all major powers with highly complex
cultures in regular interchange with other civilizations from Rome to India
and beyond. The Bantu expansion is one of the epic migrations of human
history. The myriad ways Africans have adapted to various challenging
environments provide invaluable information about human societies.
Finally, the difficulties of writing African history have encouraged scholars
to cross traditional disciplinary boundaries, bringing important new
perspectives and tools to the repertoire of all historians.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
“TRADITIONAL” PEOPLES AND NONTRADITIONAL HISTORIES
People in early African societies, like people everywhere, had definite ideas
about what was important in their past—they had histories. What most of
them did not have was writing, and historians have built their craft around
interpretation of written records. African histories were generally
transmitted in performance: in songs, poems, dances, rituals, and other
activities that symbolically reenacted events from the past. Before the
twentieth century, such performances and the artifacts they left behind (such
as masks and costumes, rock paintings, ceremonial sites) lay outside
historians’ purview. Growing discontent with the privileging of the affairs
and interests of societal elites—emphasis on ruling dynasties, wars,
exploration, and invention, at the expense of the lives of ordinary people—
eventually led historians to experiment with different types of source
material and to subject traditional documentary sources to new types of
analysis.
 Historians of Africa arguably have to work harder than specialists in
other regions to gather the information they need, but they also have
unusually rich opportunities to collaborate with scholars in other
disciplines. They often call themselves “Africanists” or “African Studies”
scholars, to reflect their necessary expertise in fields such as paleontology,
archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, demography, and oral literature. In
their typically cross-disciplinary work, they are similar to Classicists, whose
training may incorporate history, ancient languages, archaeology, art
history, and other fields, or Environmental Historians, who highlight the
role of nature in historical narratives, and whose backgrounds might include
study in history, climatology, geography, biology, and other fields.
Academic research in African history is still an amazingly recent
phenomenon. In the academic year 1958–1959, of 1,735 history graduate
students in the United States, precisely one was concentrating on African
history.1 Within the past century, intellectuals in Europe and America (not
coincidentally, the same parts of the world where governments held
colonies and legislated race-based discrimination) widely considered
Africans to be “primitives” whose lives were governed by ancestral
traditions and whose cultures were static, largely untouched by historical
processes. Twentieth-century events—most visibly the wave of
decolonization that swept Africa after World War II—demonstrated that
Africans had a role in world history. The development of African
universities and the internationalization of Western academia have created a
small cadre of Africanists. These scholars have done important work, some
of which has influenced historical study of other parts of the world; still,
many questions in African history remain unanswered. Fifty years ago
textbooks like this one insisted that “civilization” required not only
population density, political organization, and writing, but also the plow. In
the intervening decades, researchers in Africa and elsewhere have proven
that in many places, plows quickly destroy the soil; some peoples’ use of
hoes instead of plows does not signal technological backwardness, but
intelligent adaptation to local conditions. Consequently, this and other
textbooks now consider metallurgy, not the use of plows, a hallmark of
civilization. Some historians—including Africanists, as well as many who
study women, peasants, and other groups whose members were generally
illiterate—now question whether even writing is a necessary attribute of
civilization.
Focus Questions

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using written texts as

primary sources for history?
Think about the histories of other regions you have studied. Have
you noticed historians using sources other than documents in these
histories? If so, what kinds of sources?
For histories of what other regions, peoples, or topics (e.g., history of
science, art history, history of religion) can scholars make good use
of nonwritten sources?

ISSUES OF INTERPRETATION, SOURCES,

AND DISCIPLINES

WHAT ARE the sources and techniques used for studying African
history?

THE QUESTION OF “CIVILIZATION”

In Chapter 1 we defined “civilization” in terms of a cluster of attributes that
relate to social complexity and technological development. In that sense the
term identifies some common characteristics of the ancient societies that
emerged in the valleys of the Nile, Mesopotamia, the Indus and Ganges,
and China, and also of more recent societies. The term civilization is also
associated more broadly with the sophistication of a people’s intellectual,
cultural, and artistic traditions. Too often we assume that societies that lack
writing, cities, or a state bureaucracy are “uncivilized.” Most historical
African societies—indeed, most societies anywhere for most of history—
may not have been civilizations in the narrow sense, but they were civilized
in the broader sense. Like other continents, Africa has been home to both
“civilizations”—large-scale states with writing, cities, and technology—and
“civilized” societies that relied on rich traditions for their identities while
adapting to changing circumstances and shaping their own histories.

SOURCE ISSUES
African history has matured in recent decades, but there is still much we do
not know. Written documents, the evidence historians are most comfortable
using, are minimal for much of sub-Saharan African history. Local oral
traditions provide one valuable source of information (see Document,
“Origins of the Gikuyu” on page 122). But oral traditions can give us access
only to relatively recent history. Another source for African history is
archaeology. The tropical climate that prevails in much of sub-Saharan
Africa unfortunately destroys many types of artifacts that survive in drier
regions. Nonetheless, archaeological scholarship has brought to light many
formerly unknown cultures. The Nok and Zimbabwean cultures, for
example, left impressive but hard-to-decipher remains. Reports from
outside observers are another source. It is only after about 950 C.E.,
however, that Islamic (and later, European) historians, geographers, and
travelers provide detailed descriptions of the vast reaches of Africa beyond
Egypt, Ethiopia, and North Africa. These outside records are of mixed
value, since most authors brought strong biases to their assessments of this
vast, diverse continent.

HISTORY AND DISCIPLINARY BOUNDARIES

History as we know it came of age in tandem with European nation-states.
As the modern university emerged—with knowledge departmentalized into
disciplines—Europe’s global technological and economic dominance was
immense. Around the time of the nineteenth-century European “Scramble
for Africa” (see Chapter 26), racism combined with colonial self-interest
caused many Western intellectuals to assume that Africans (and other
“primitive” peoples) lived outside of historical time: Their lives were the
same as their ancestors’ lives, no matter how many generations into the past
one looked—they had no history. According to European nationalism, one
of the criteria for nationhood was that a people have a shared history (see
Chapter 23). Conveniently, Africans and others who lacked history were
incapable of forming their own nations.
There were interesting features of these peoples’ lives, however, and
academics who wanted to study them. Thus was born the discipline of
anthropology. Anthropology has changed considerably over the past
century, but in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it strove to give
formal structure to observations of the “Other,” people whose lives were
imagined as utterly different from—and fundamentally unconnected to—
those of contemporary Westerners.2

DOCUMENT
Origins of the Gikuyu
This version of the creation story of the Gikuyu in Kenya was published by
Jomo Kenyatta in 1938. Kenyatta was a Gikuyu (nowadays more frequently
written as “Kikuyu”) who studied in London under one of the foremost
anthropologists of the day, Bronislaw Malinowski. Kenyatta was a leader in
political organizations opposed to British colonial rule in Kenya. When
Kenya became independent in 1963, Kenyatta was the first prime minister,
and he led the country until his death in 1978.
• DOES anything in the style or content of this written document
suggest that it is based on an oral tradition?
• In what ways might authoring this text have elevated Kenyatta’s
stature within Kenya? Can you imagine any potentially negative
consequences for Kenyatta’s authorship of this text?
• Do you notice similarities to other creation stories?
… According to the tribal legend, we are told that in the beginning of
things, when mankind started to populate earth, the man Gikuyu, the
founder of the tribe, was called by the Mogai (the Divider of the Universe),
and was given as his share the land with ravines, the rivers, the forests, the
game, and all the gifts that the Lord of Nature (Mogai) bestowed on
mankind. At the same time Mogai made a big mountain which he called
Kere-Nyage (Mount Kenya).… He then took the man Gikuyu to the top of
the mountain of mystery, and… pointed out to the Gikuyu a spot full of fig
trees (mikoyo), right in the centre of the country. [T]he Mogai…
commanded him to descend and establish his homestead on the selected
place.…
 Gikuyu did as was commanded by the Mogai, and when he reached the
spot, he found that the Mogai had provided him with a beautiful wife whom
Gikuyu named Moombi (creator or moulder). Both lived happily, and had
nine daughters and no sons.
Gikuyu was very disturbed at not having a male heir. In his despair he
called upon the Mogai, [who] told Gikuyu not to be perturbed.… He then
commanded him, saying, “Go and take one lamb and one kid from your
flock. Kill them under the big fig tree (mokoyo) [then] burn the meat as a
sacrifice to me, your benefactor. When you have done this, take home your
wife and daughters. After that go back to the sacred tree, and there you will
find nine handsome young men who are willing to marry your daughters
under any condition that will please you and your family.”
Gikuyu did as he was directed.… [W]hen Gikuyu returned to the sacred
tree, there he found the promised nine young men who greeted him warmly.
… [H]e took the nine youths to his homestead and introduced them to his
family.
The strangers were entertained and hospitably treated according to the
social custom. A ram was killed and a millet gruel prepared for their food.
While this was being made ready, the youths were taken to a stream nearby
to wash their tired limbs. After this, they had their meal, and conversed
merrily with the family and then went to bed.
Early the next morning Gikuyu rose and woke the young men to have
their morning meal with him. When they finished eating, the question of
marriage was discussed. Gikuyu told the young men that if they wished to
marry his daughters he could give his consent only if they agreed to live in
his homestead under a matriarchal system.
The young men agreed to this condition, for they could not resist the
beauty of the Gikuyu daughters, nor the kindness which the family had
showed them.… [A]fter a short time all of them were married, and soon
established their own family sets.… Thus the nine principal Gikuyu
meherega clans were founded.
Source: From Facing Mountain Kenya, by Jomo Kenyatta, Vintage Books copyright © 1965.
Published by William Heinemann Ltd., a division of Random House, Inc. Used by permisson of
Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
 While historians have traditionally concentrated on the use of
documentary sources, anthropologists developed techniques for analyzing
cultures based on either archaeological study of past societies or direct
observation of present societies. In recent decades, however, historians and
anthropologists have increasingly shared each others’ concerns and
techniques. In attempting to understand Africans and their histories,
historians have moved beyond colonial-era paradigms, often collaborating
with anthropologists and scholars in other disciplines.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE

CONTINENT

WHICH CHARACTERISTICS of Africa’s physical geography have

influenced human history on the continent?

Africa is three and a half times the size of the continental United States and
second only to Asia in total area (see Map 5–1 on page 124). Because steep
escarpments surmount most of its narrow coasts, Africa has few natural
harbors, and communication between the coast and the interior is difficult.
Of Africa’s major rivers (the Niger, Congo, Nile, Zambezi, and Orange),
only the Nile has a relatively long navigable reach below its cataracts in
upper Egypt. The continent’s vast size and sharp physical variations, from
high mountains to swamplands, tropical forests, and deserts, have
channeled long-distance communication and movement along certain
corridors including the Rift Valley of East Africa, the coastal reaches of
East or North Africa, the Niger or Zambezi River valley, and the sahelian
savannahs bordering the great equatorial forest.

cataract
A waterfall or steep rapids. Major cataracts on the Nile River are numbered.

The characteristics of different regions derive largely from Africa’s

position astride the equator. As a whole, its climate is unusually hot.
Climate bands north and south of the equator roughly mirror each other.
Along the equator, dense rain forests dominate a west–east band of tropical
woodland. North and south of this band, the lush rain forests give way to
savannah—open woodlands and grassy plains. Savannah in turn passes
into steppe, semidesert, and finally true desert as one moves farther from
the equator. In the north, the semidesert is known as the Sahel. The
adjoining Sahara (“the Desert”; Arabic al-Sahrá) is the world’s largest
desert. In southwestern Africa the Kalahari Desert partially cuts off the
southern plateau and coastal regions from central Africa.

savannah
An area of open woodlands and grassy plains.

Sahel
An area of steppe and semidesert that borders the Sahara.

Sahara
The world’s largest desert. It extends across Africa from the Atlantic to the
eastern Sudan. Historically, the Sahara has hindered contact between the
Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa.

Kalahari
A large desert in southwestern Africa that partially isolates southern Africa
from the rest of the continent.

Other natural factors are important to Africa’s history. Soils across Africa
are typically tropical in character: They are low in hummus and are not
highly productive for long. Water is scarce in most of Africa. Crop pests
and insects such as the tsetse fly, mosquito, and locust have hampered
farming and pastoralism in Africa. Still, abundant animal life has made
hunting and fishing important means of survival in most of Africa. Africa
also has great mineral wealth. Salt, iron, copper, and gold have been major
trade goods from ancient times.
Great Rift Valley. A Samburu warrior stands before the eastern scarp of the
Great Rift Valley in northern Kenya. This is believed to be the region where
modern humans originated sometime before 100,000 B.C.E.

What are the noteworthy features of African geography?

MAP 5–1. Africa: Physical Features and Early Sites. This map shows
the major physical features of the continent and Iron Age sites of the
western and central Sudan.

What patterns can you identify in Africa’s physical features? Consider

comparisons and contrasts north and south of the equator and between the
eastern and western portions of the continent.

Africa is often discussed in terms of seven major regions: North Africa,

the Mediterranean coastal regions from modern Morocco through Libya and
including the northern Sahara; Nilotic Africa, roughly comprising the
modern states of Egypt and Sudan; the Sudan, the broad belt of Sahel and
savannah below the Sahara, stretching across the entire continent; West
Africa, including the woodland coastal regions from Cape Verde to
Cameroon and the western desert, Sahel, and savannah as far east as the
Lake Chad basin; East Africa, from the Ethiopian highlands (a high, fertile
plateau with steppe, Sahel, and desert to north and south) south over
modern Kenya and Tanzania, an area split north to south by the Great Rift
Valley; central Africa, the region north of the Kalahari, from the Chad basin
across the Congo basin and southeast to Lake Tanganyika and south to the
Zambezi River; and southern Africa, from the Kalahari Desert and Zambezi
south to the Cape of Good Hope.

Nilotic Africa
The lands along the Nile River.

Sudan
The broad band of Sahel and savannah that crosses the African continent
south of the Sahara.

QUICK REVIEW

Regions in Africa
North Africa: Mediterranean coast, Sahara
Nilotic Africa: lands surrounding Nile River
The Sudan: Sahel/savannah band south of Sahara
West Africa: coast, desert, Sahel, and savannah of the western Sudan
East Africa: Ethiopian highlands, south to Tanzania
Central Africa: Chad basin, Zaïre basin, south to Zambezi River
Southern Africa: Cape of Good Hope, north to Kalahari Desert and
Zambezi River

AFRICAN PEOPLES
 WHY ARE ideas about race not useful in understanding the histories
of different groups in Africa?

AFRICA AND EARLY HUMAN CULTURE

Paleontological research indicates that our hominid ancestors evolved in the
Great Rift Valley of highland East Africa at least 1.5 million years ago.
Sometime before 100,000 B.C.E., modern humans—the species Homo
sapiens (sapiens)—appeared and moved out to populate the world.
Archaeology documents substantial internal movements of peoples—and
hence languages, cultures, and technologies—both north–south and east–
west within the continent in ancient times. African goods circulated through
Indian Ocean as well as Mediterranean trade. Nilotic Egypt served as a
bridge between the rest of Africa and the Mediterranean and Near East.
Well before the Common Era, the peoples of the upper Nile, Ethiopian
highlands, and coastal areas of East Africa maintained contacts with Egypt,
south Arabia, and probably India and Indonesia, via the Indian Ocean. Like
Egypt, the North African coast engaged in Mediterranean trade throughout
antiquity. Africa’s Mediterranean littoral was a place where Berber speakers
mixed with other Mediterraneans such as the Phoenicians. Here the
powerful Carthaginian Punic state arose in the mid-first millennium, only to
fall prey to Rome (see Chapter 6).

DIFFUSION OF LANGUAGES AND PEOPLES

Cultural and linguistic diffusion shows that, despite the continent’s natural
barriers, Africans have moved extensively. Between 1,000 and 3,000
languages are found in Africa, depending on how one distinguishes
languages from dialects. They can be roughly divided into four major
indigenous families (the Afro-Asiatic, the NiloSaharan, the Niger-Kongo,
and the Khoisan), plus two later arrivals (the Austronesian language of
Madagascar, and Indo-European languages from western Europe).
The Africanist scholar Roland Oliver has linked the development of
language families to population growth that brought larger communities and
extended movements of peoples.3 After about 8000 B.C.E., Afro-Asiatic
languages from the Jordan and Nile valleys spread to Arabia and across
North Africa. Two southward extensions of these languages, from North
Africa across the Sahara to the Chad basin, and from Egypt into the
Ethiopian highlands and the Horn, likely occurred after 4000 B.C.E., possibly
through the movement of sheep and cattle herders.

Austronesian
A widely dispersed language family with origins in the Pacific. Malagasy,
spoken in Madagascar, is an Austrone-sian language.

Afro-Asiatic
A language family that includes Semitic languages, Kushitic, and others.

The Nilo-Saharan languages may have originated among fishing and

cereal-growing societies in the Nubian region of the Nile and spread before
5000 B.C.E. west into the Sahara. Later they were largely displaced there by
the southward extension of Afro-Asiatic languages into the Sahara through
their pastoralist carriers. Nilo-Saharan languages must also have spread
southeast with fisherman-farmers as far as the lakes region of the Great Rift
Valley, where they were later partially displaced by Kushitic-speaking
pastoralists or farmers.

Nilo-Saharan
A language family concentrated in the band between the Nile and Rift
highlands of Morocco.

The Niger-Kongo family had its homeland in the woodland savannah

and equatorial forests of West and central Africa. Spoken by fisherfolk who
may also have turned to farming, this group spread to the Atlantic coast
from the Senegal River to the Cameroon mountains. Its largest subgroup,
the Bantu speakers, later spread southward into the equatorial forestlands
(largely as agriculturalists) and around the rain forests of central Africa (as
herders and farmers) until they entered the eastern and southern savannahs
(see Map 5–2).
Niger-Congo
A language family that originated in the savannah and woodlands of west
and south-central Africa.

Bantu
A large subgroup of the Niger-Congo language family; also, the people who
speak Bantu languages.

The fourth language family, nowadays called Khoisan, apparently

covered most of the southern half of the African continent by late Neolithic
times but was largely displaced by the migration of Niger-Kongo Bantu
speakers. The varied peoples who were ancestors of today’s Khoisan
speakers were probably primarily hunter-gatherers at this time. Eventually,
most of these peoples adopted the languages of the immigrant Bantu-
speaking agriculturalists and pastoralists.

Khoisan
The language group spoken by the Khoikhoi, the San, and other peoples;
also, the Khoikhoi and San peoples.

The development of the complex language map of present-day Africa can

thus be seen in terms of ancient developments in food production and
movement of peoples within the continent.

“RACE” AND PHYSIOLOGICAL VARIATION

As recently as the late twentieth century, some interpreters attempted to link
color or racial differences to the development of everything—from
language and food production, to ironworking and state building—in
Africa. None of these theories is tenable, however, because race itself is
such a problematic concept, both historically and biologically. In the 1990s,
there was a running dispute about whether ancient Egyptians were more
“black” or “white,” an argument in which skin pigmentation was meant to
signal other attributes. (If Egyptians were black, they were assumed to be
somehow more African than they already were simply by being in Africa,
whereas white Egyptians would somehow have been more Mediterranean
than African.) In reality, ancient Egypt was a multiethnic society, and
ancient Egyptians seem to have been a people of many hues.
The Greeks called all the dark-skinned peoples they were aware of in
Africa Ethiopians, “those with burnt skins.” The Arabs termed all of Africa
south of the Sahara and Egypt Bilad al-Sudan, “Land of the Blacks” (from
this we get the term Sudan). Although ancient writers observed variations in
skin tone, it is important to avoid assuming that we understand what they
meant in their observations. As with all historical records, these documents
need to be read with attention to the authors’ contexts and intentions.

San Hunters, Southern Africa. There are many groups in Africa with
different typical physiologies, skin pigmentation, and life-ways. As with all
humans, however, there are more genetic differences between individuals
than between groups.

Has race been a helpful concept for historians trying to understand

African cultures?
MAP EXPLORATION
To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

MAP 5–2. Ancient African Kingdoms and Empires.

What effect did the migrations of people and the spread of technology have
on early African history?

Meanwhile, although skin color and other physiological characteristics

are partially determined by genes, current research has found no genetic
basis for the racial categories that humans have invented. There are more
genetic differences between individuals than between groups.4

THE SAHARA AND THE SUDAN TO THE

BEGINNING OF THE COMMON ERA

WHAT EVIDENCE is there that early African cultures were in

contact with each other?

EARLY SAHARAN CULTURES

Until about 2500 B.C.E. the Sahara was arable land with lakes and rivers,
trees, grasses, and a reasonable climate. Animal, fowl, reptile, and fish
populations allowed riparian (river- and lakeside) communities of
considerable size to live with ease off the land. Then, from about 2500
B.C.E., climatic changes caused the Sahara to undergo a relatively rapid
dessication, and the riparian communities of this vast territory disappeared.5
By 1000 B.C.E., the dessication process had rendered the Sahara an
immense, largely uninhabitable desert separating most of Africa from its
Mediterranean coastal rim and the Near Eastern centers of early civilization.
Even then, however, regular contacts between sub-Saharan Africa and the
Mediterranean continued. Various north–south routes across the western
and central Sahara were traversed by horses and carts or chariots and by
migrating peoples long before the coming of the camel.

NEOLITHIC SUDANIC CULTURES

From the first millennium B.C.E., preliterate but complex agricultural
communities of Neolithic and Early Iron Age culture dotted the central and
western reaches of the sub-Saharan Sudan. These peoples may have once
been spread farther north, in the then-arable Saharan lands they would have
shared with ancestors of the Berber-speaking peoples of contemporary
west-Saharan and North Africa.
This hypothesis has been bolstered by the excavation of town cultures
from the mid-fifth millennium B.C.E. in Mali and Mauritania. In inland
Mauritania, remains of an ancient but later agricultural civilization with as
many as 200 towns have also been found. These reflect the transition from a
hunting and fishing to a herding and rudimentary agricultural society. The
progressive dessication of the second millennium B.C.E. may have forced
these peoples farther south. These migrants carried with them both
languages and techniques of settled agriculture. They domesticated new
crops using their old techniques. Assisted by knowledge of ironworking,
they effected an agricultural revolution. This meant considerable population
growth in the more fertile Sudanic regions, especially near the Niger and
Senegal rivers and Lake Chad. (A similar spread of agricultural techniques
and cattle- and sheep-raising seems to have occurred down the Rift Valley
of the East African highlands.) This agricultural revolution, completed
during the first millennium B.C.E., enabled new cultural centers to develop in
the sub-Saharan regions.
In the first millennium B.C.E. the Sudanic peoples carried their
agricultural techniques and their languages eastward through the savannahs
and southward, largely along the rivers, into the tropical rain forests of
central and West Africa.

CHRONOLOGY

EARLY AFRICAN CIVILIZATIONS

This changed the face of sub-Saharan Africa, where prevously small groups
of hunter-gatherers had predominated. With the advent of iron smelting,
these settled peoples were able to develop larger, more complex societies
than their predecessors.

THE EARLY IRON AGE AND THE NOK CULTURE

Features of iron-smelting furnaces from widely scattered sites from the
seventh century B.C.E. to the fourth century C.E. suggest that smelting was
both introduced to Africa from the Near East, via Egypt, and independently
invented within the continent, probably in the Great Lakes region. Thence it
likely spread southward into western, central, and eastern parts of the
continent.
Some of the most significant Iron Age sites have been found in what is
today northeastern Nigeria on the Jos plateau. Here archaeological digs
have yielded evidence of an early Iron Age people labeled the Nok culture
(see Map 5–1). Excavations at Nok sites have yielded stone tools, iron
implements, and sophisticated terra-cotta sculptures dating from about 900
B.C.E. to 200 C.E. Scholars date the introduction of iron smelting there to
about the sixth century B.C.E. The Nok people cleared substantial woodlands
from the plateau and combined agriculture with cattle herding. The
continuities between the Nok culture’s extraordinary sculptural art—
especially magnificent burial or ritual masks—and later West African
sculptural traditions suggest that this culture influenced later central and
West African life. Ancient communities laid a foundation on which later
and better-known Sudanic civilizations may have built.

Nok
A West African Iron Age culture renowned for its artistry.
A Terra-Cotta Head. This is from the Iron Age Nok culture, which
occupied what is today northeastern Nigeria from about 900 B.C.E. to about
200 C.E.

© Werner Forman Archive/Art Resource, New York/Jos Museum, Nigeria.

What is the significance of continuities between Nok culture and later

Sudanic civilizations?

NILOTIC AFRICA AND THE ETHIOPIAN

HIGHLANDS

HOW DID Egyptian civilization and the various Nilotic civilizations—

Kush, Meroe, and Aksum—influence each other?

THE KINGDOM OF KUSH

The lower Nubian land of Kush lies in the upper Nile basin, just above the
first cataract (see Map 5–2). There an Egyptianized segment of Nilo-
Saharan-speaking Nubians built the second (after pharaonic Egypt) literate
and politically unified civilization in Africa. As early as the fourth
millennium B.C.E., the Old Kingdom pharaohs had subjugated and colonized
Nubia. In the early second millennium B.C.E., however, an independent
kingdom arose in Kush in the broad floodplain just above the third cataract
of the Nile. As early as 2000 B.C.E., its capital, Kerma, had been a major
trading outpost for Middle Kingdom Egypt, sending building materials,
ivory, slaves, mercenaries, and gold north down the Nile.

Kush
An ancient Nubian kingdom that in some periods dominated, and in others
was dominated by, pharaonic Egypt.

The early Kushite kingdom achieved its greatest wealth and prosperity
between the Middle and New Kingdoms of Egypt (ca. 1700–1500 B.C.E.).
Finds in the royal palace fortress ruins and tombs suggest that its kings may
have taken the gold mines of lower Nubia from the weakened Egyptian
state in the Intermediate period. After the Hyksos invasions, with Egypt’s
recovery (from about 1500 B.C.E.), Kush came once more under Egyptian
colonial rule and stronger Egyptian cultural influence. Then, sometime after
1000 B.C.E., as Egypt’s New Kingdom floundered, a new Kushite state
reasserted itself and by about 900 B.C.E. conquered both lower and upper
Nubia, regaining independence and wealth from the Nubian gold mines.

QUICK REVIEW

The Early Kushite Kingdom

Located just above first cataract of the Nile
Capital Kerma was a major trading outpost as early as 2000 B.C.E.
It reached its zenith between 1700 and 1500 B.C.E.

THE NAPATAN EMPIRE

This new Kushite Empire was centered first at Napata, just below the fourth
Nile cataract. The royal line that ruled at Napata saw themselves as
Egyptian. They practiced the pharaonic custom of marrying their sisters, a
practice known in many kingship institutions around the world. They buried
their royalty embalmed in traditional Egyptian-style pyramids. In the eighth
century B.C.E., they conquered Egypt and ruled it for about a century as the
Twenty-fifth pharaonic dynasty. This Kushite Dynasty was driven out of
Egypt proper by Assyria around 650 B.C.E.

THE MEROITIC EMPIRE

Forced back above the lower cataracts of the Nile by the Assyrians and kept
there by the Persians, the Napatan kingdom became increasingly isolated
and developed in its own distinctive ways. When an Egyptian army sacked
Napata in 591 B.C.E., the capital was relocated farther south in the
prosperous city of Meroe, bringing the seat of rule closer to the geographic
center of the Kushite domains. Meroe was the center of a flourishing iron
industry, from which iron smelting may have spread south and west. The
Meroitic state was built on a staggeringly wide network of internal African
and intercontinental trade. Its empire lasted until it was defeated and
divided in the fourth century C.E. by Nuba peoples from west of the upper
Nile.

Meroe
The capital city of the ancient Napatan Empire, which at one time rivaled
Aksum.

In its heyday, from the mid-third century B.C.E. to the first century C.E.,
the Meroitic kingdom was “middleman” for varied African goods in
demand in the Mediterranean and Near East: animal skins, ebony and ivory,
gold, oils and perfumes, and slaves. The Kushites traded with the
Hellenistic-Roman world, southern Arabia, and India. They shipped quality
iron to Aksum and the Red Sea, and the Kushite lands between the Nile and
the Red Sea were a major source of gold for Egypt and the Mediterranean
world. Cattle breeding, cotton cultivation, and other agriculture were their
economic mainstays.
This was an era of prosperity. Many monuments were built, including
royal pyramids and the storied palace and walls of the capital. Fine pottery
and jewelry were produced. Meroitic culture is especially renowned for its
two kinds of pottery. The first, turned on wheels, was the product of an all-
male industry attuned apparently to market demands; the second, made
exclusively by hand by women, was largely for domestic use.
The political system of the Meroitic Empire had several features that
distinguished it from its Egyptian models. The king seems to have ruled
strictly by customary law, presumably as interpreted by whatever clerics
served the state’s needs. According to Greek accounts, firm taboos limited
his actions; kings who violated those taboos could be forced to commit
suicide. There was also a royal election system. The priests apparently
considered the king a living god, an idea found in both ancient Egypt and
many other African societies. Royal succession was often through the
maternal rather than the paternal line (matrilineal succession was
widespread in ancient Africa). The role of the queen mother in the election
appears to have been crucial—another practice found elsewhere in Africa as
well. By the second century B.C.E. a woman had become sole monarch,
initiating a long line of queens, or “Candaces” (Kandake, from the Meroitic
word for “queen mother”). The monarch seems to have presided over a
central administration run by numerous high officials. The provinces were
delegated to princes who must have enjoyed considerable autonomy, given
the slow communications.
Beyond the ruling class, the few records available mention slaves, both
female domestics and male laborers drawn largely from prisoners of war.
Cattle breeders, farmers, traders, artisans, and minor government
functionaries probably formed an intermediate class between the slaves and
the rulers. Kushite religious practices followed Egyptian traditions for
centuries. By the third century B.C.E., however, gods unknown to Egypt
became prominent. Most notable was Apedemak, a warrior god with a
lion’s head. The many lion temples associated with him (forty-six have
been identified) reflect his importance. Such gods likely represented local
deities who gradually took their places alongside the highest Egyptian gods.
Meroitic Culture. The people of Meroe produced many examples of fine
pottery. This fired clay jar is decorated with giraffes and serpents.

What were the two types of Meroitic pottery?

THE AKSUMITE EMPIRE

A highland people who had developed their own commercially powerful
trading state finished off the weakened Kushite Empire around 330 C.E. This
was the newly Christianized state of Aksum, centered in the northern
Ethiopian, or Abyssinian, highlands where the Blue Nile rises.

Aksum
A powerful Christianized trading state in the Ethiopian highlands.

The peoples of Aksum descended from African Kushitic speakers and

Semitic speakers from Yemenite southern Arabia. This mixing gave Aksum,
and later Ethiopia, Semitic speech and script closely related to South
Arabian. Greek and Roman sources tell of an Aksumite kingdom from at
least the first century C.E.
In the first two centuries C.E., the kingdom’s chief port of Adulis on the
Red Sea made Aksum a strategic site on the increasingly important Indian
Ocean trade routes that linked India and the East Indies, Iran, Arabia, and
the East African coast with the Roman Mediterranean. Aksum also
controlled trade between the African interior and the extra-African world,
from Rome to Southeast Asia—notably exports of ivory, but also of
elephants, obsidian, slaves, gold dust, and other inland products.
By the third century C.E., Aksum was one of the most impressive states of
its age. A work attributed to the prophet Mani (ca. 216–277 C.E.) describes
Aksum as one of the four greatest empires in the world. The Aksumites
often held tributary territories across the Red Sea in southern Arabia. They
also controlled northern Ethiopia and conquered Meroitic Kush. Thus they
dominated some of the most fertile cultivated regions of the ancient world:
their own plateau, the rich Yemenite highlands of southern Arabia, and
much of the eastern Sudan across the upper Nile as far as the Sahara.
A king of kings in Aksum ruled this empire through tribute-paying vassal
kings in the other subject states. By the sixth century the Aksumite king
was even appointing southern Arabian kings himself. Aksum’s gold, silver,
and copper coins symbolized both its political and economic power. The
Aksumites enjoyed a long-lived economic prosperity.
In religion, the pre-Christian paganism of Aksum resembled the pre-
Islamic paganism of southern Arabia, with various gods and goddesses
closely tied to natural phenomena. Jewish, Meroitic, and even Buddhist
minorities lived in the major cities of Aksum—an index of the
cosmopolitanism of the society and its involvement with the larger worlds
beyond the Red Sea.
An inscription of the powerful fourth-century King Ezana tells of his
conversion to Christianity, which led to the Christianizing of the kingdom
as a whole. Subsequently, under Alexandrian influence, the Ethiopian
church became Monophysite (that is, it adhered to the dogma of the single,
unitary nature of Christ). In the fifth century C.E., the native Semitic
language, Ge’ez, began to replace Greek in the liturgy, which proved a
major step in the unique development of the Ethiopic or Abyssinian
Christian church over the succeeding centuries.

Monophysite
Adhering to the dogma of the single, unitary nature of Christ (in opposition
to the orthodox doctrine that Christ had two natures: human and divine).
A Giant Stela at Aksum. Dating probably from the first century C.E., this
giant carved monolith is the only one remaining of seven giant stelae—the
tallest of which reached a height of 33 meters—that once stood in Aksum
amidst numerous smaller monoliths. Although the exact purpose of the
stelae is not known, the generally accepted explanation is that they were
commemorative funerary monuments. Erecting them required engineering
of great sophistication.

What does this stela suggest to you about Aksumite beliefs regarding
death?

ISOLATION OF CHRISTIAN ETHIOPIA

Aksumite trade continued to thrive through the sixth century. Aksumite
power was eclipsed in the end by Arab Islamic power. Nevertheless, the
Aksumite state continued to exist. Having sheltered a refugee group of
Muhammad’s earliest Meccan converts, the Aksumites enjoyed relatively
cordial relations with Islamic domains. But Aksum became increasingly
isolated. Its center of gravity shifted to the more rugged parts of the plateau,
where a Monophysite Christian, Ge’ez-speaking culture emerged in the
region of modern Ethiopia and lasted in relative isolation until modern
times. Ultimately the whole Nubian region was Islamized, leaving Ethiopia
the sole predominantly Christian state in Africa.

THE WESTERN AND CENTRAL SUDAN

WHAT ROLE did trade play in the rise of large political entities in the
western and central Sudan?

AGRICULTURE, TRADE, AND THE RISE OF URBAN CENTERS

As Neolithic peoples moved southward, they discovered that Africa’s
equatorial rain forests were inhospitable to cows and horses, largely
because of the animals’ inability to survive the sleeping sickness
(trypanosomiasis) carried by the tsetse fly. But the agriculturalists who
brought their cereal grains and stone tools south found particularly good
conditions in the savannah just north of the West African forests. By the
first or second century C.E., settled agriculture, augmented by iron tools, had
become the way of life of most inhabitants of the western Sudan; it had
even progressed in the forest regions farther south. The savannah areas
seem to have experienced a population explosion in the first few centuries
C.E., especially around the Senegal River, the great northern bend in the
Niger River, and Lake Chad. Villages, and chiefdoms of several villages,
were the largest political units. As time went on, larger towns and political
units developed in the western Sudan.

Trypanosomiasis
Sleeping sickness, a parasitic disease that is transmitted by tsetse flies. If
untreated, it is fatal both to humans and animals.
 Regional and interregional trade networks in the western and central
Sudan date to ancient times; trans-Saharan trading routes were maintained
throughout the first millennium B.C.E. Urban settlements—such as Gao,
Kumbi (or Kumbi Saleh), and Jenne—emerged in the western Sahel.
Excavations at Jenne in the upper Niger indicate that it dates from 250 B.C.E.
and had a population of more than 10,000 by the late first millennium C.E.6
These and other early urbanized areas combined farming with fishing and
hunting, and all developed in oasis or river regions rich enough to support
dense populations and trade. The existence of relatively autonomous
settlements made possible loose confederations or even imperial networks
as time went on.
The introduction of the domesticated camel (the one-humped Arabian
camel, or dromedary) from the East around the beginning of the Common
Era increased trans-Saharan trade. By the early centuries C.E., the West
African settled communities had developed important trading centers on
their northern peripheries, in the Sahel near the edge of the true desert. The
salt of the desert, needed in the settled savannah, and the gold of West
Africa, coveted in the north, were prime trade commodities. Other items
were also traded, including cola nuts, slaves, dates, and gum from West
Africa, and horses, cattle, millet, leather, cloth, and weapons from the north.
Towns such as Awdaghast, Walata, Timbuktu, Gao, Tadmekka, and Agades
were the most famous southern terminals for this trade (see Map 5–3).
These centers allowed the largely Berber middlemen who plied the desert
routes to cross the perilous Sahara via oasis stations en route to the North
African coasts or even Egypt. This was not an easy means of transporting
goods; a typical crossing could take two to three months.
A Camel Caravan Crossing the Sahara. Use of the camel as a beast of
burden from the first century C.E. onward greatly increased trans-Saharan
trade.

Why was the camel important to trade in Africa?

MAP 5–3. Africa: Early Trade Routes and Early States of the Western
and Central Sudan. This map shows some of the major routes of north–
south trans-Saharan caravan trade and their links with Egypt and with
Sudanic and forest regions of West Africa.

How did Africa’s geography help determine its trade routes?

QUICK REVIEW
Trade
Trade contributed to rise of larger political entities
Regional and interregional trade networks date to ancient times
Trade routes connected western and central Sudan with Egypt

CHRONOLOGY

THE WESTERN AND CENTRAL SUDAN: PROBABLE DATES

FOR FOUNDING OF REGIONAL KINGDOMS

QUICK REVIEW

Ghana and Gold

The people of Ghana depended on gold for Saharan trade
Ghana was famous outside the region for control of gold
Ruler of region inherited throne through matrilineal descent

FORMATION OF SUDANIC KINGDOMS IN THE FIRST MILLENNIUM

The growth of settled agricultural populations and the expansion of trade
coincided with the rise of sizable states in the western and central Sudan.
The most important states were located in Takrur on the Senegal River,
from perhaps the fifth century, if not earlier; Ghana, between the northern
bends of the Senegal and the Niger, from the fifth or sixth century; Gao, on
the Niger southeast of the great bend, from before the eighth century; and
Kanem, northeast of Lake Chad, from the eighth or ninth century. Although
the origins of the major states in these areas are obscure, each represents the
first of a series of large political entities in its region. All continued to
figure prominently in subsequent West African history (see Chapter 14).
The states developed by the Fulbe people of Takrur and the Soninke
people of Ghana depended on their ability to draw gold from the savannah
region west of the upper Senegal into the trans-Saharan trade. Of all the
sub-Saharan kingdoms of the late first millennium, Ghana was the most
famous outside of the region, largely because of its control of the gold
trade. Its people built a large regional empire centered at its capital, Kumbi
Saleh. Inheriting his throne by matrilineal descent, the ruler was treated as a
semidivine personage whose interaction with his subjects was mediated by
a hierarchy of government ministers. He commanded a sizable army,
including horsemen and archers, and was buried with his retainers under a
dome of earth and wood. In contrast, the Songhai rulers of Gao had no gold
trade until the fourteenth century. Gao was oriented in its forest trade
toward the lower Niger basin and in its Saharan trade toward eastern
Algeria. All of these states were based on agriculture and settled
populations.
The power of Kanem originated with a nomadic federation of tribal
peoples that merged to form a single people, the Kanuri. They took over the
sedentary societies of Kanem, just east of Lake Chad, and later, Bornu, west
of Lake Chad. By the thirteenth century the Kanuri had themselves become
sedentary. Their kingdom controlled the southern terminus of perhaps the
best trans-Saharan route—that running north via good watering stations to
the oasis region of Fezzan in modern central Libya and thence to the
Mediterranean. (We shall return to the later development of Kanem and the
western Sudanic states in Chapter 14.)

CENTRAL, SOUTHERN, AND EAST AFRICA

WHY DID the coastal and inland regions of East Africa have different
histories?

The African subcontinent is that part of central, southern, and East Africa
that lies south of a line from roughly the Niger Delta and Cameroon to
southern Somalia on the east coast.

BANTU EXPANSION AND DIFFUSION

In the southern subcontinent, most people speak one of more than 400
languages that belong to a single language group, Bantu, a subgroup of the
Niger-Congo family. All Bantu languages are as closely related as are the
Romance tongues of Europe. The proto-Bantu language probably arose
south of the Benue River, in eastern Nigeria and modern Cameroon.
Thence, during the latter centuries B.C.E. and the first century C.E., Bantu-
speaking peoples apparently migrated in two basic directions: (1) south into
the lower Congo basin and ultimately to the southern edge of the equatorial
forest in present-day northern Katanga; and (2) east around the equatorial
forests into the lakes of highland East Africa (see Map 5–3).
In all these regions, Bantu tongues developed and multiplied in contact
with other languages. Likewise, Bantu speakers intermixed and adapted.
Further migrations, from the first to as late as the eleventh century C.E.,
dispersed Bantu peoples more widely, into south-central Africa, coastal East
Africa, and southern Africa. This dispersion led to the early civilization of
“Great Zimbabwe” and Mapungubwe in the upper Limpopo region (treated
in Chapter 14).
How the Bantu peoples managed to impose their languages on the earlier
cultures of these regions, or intermix to produce hybrid-language cultures
such as the Bantu-Arab Swahili (see Chapter 14), remains unexplained. The
proto-Bantu had apparently been fishermen and hunters who also cultivated
yams, date palms, and cereals. They raised goats and possibly sheep and
cattle, but they did not bring cattle along in their migrations. Most of those
migrating seem to have been cereal farmers whose basic political and social
unit was the village. Perhaps they had unusually strong social cohesion,
which allowed them to absorb other peoples; they were apparently not
military conquerors. Possibly they simply had sufficient numbers to become
dominant, or they may have brought diseases with them against which the
aboriginals of the forests and southern savannah had no immunities. Bantu
cultures became so fully interwoven with those of the peoples among whom
they settled that we may never know the full story.
Bantu Languages and Group Distribution.

A Bantu-speaking mother with her child, photographed in South Africa

around 1925. There are many distinct languages within the Bantu family
distributed throughout Africa. Scholars use the relationships between these
languages to trace the great Bantu migrations.

What kinds of factors might cause a group to develop a new dialect or

new language?
Cave Painting from Namibia from at least 15,000 B.C.E., depicting
rhinoceroses, giraffes, antelope, and zebra.

What do these images suggest to you about the importance of animals

to the artist?

THE KHOISAN AND TWA PEOPLES

Alongside the Bantu-speaking majority in southern Africa is a minority
who speak “Khoisan.” The main two peoples that constitute the Khoisan
speakers are the San and the Khoikhoi. (Westerners once referred to them as
“Bushmen” and “Hottentots,” names now considered offensive.) Formerly,
observers believed the Khoikhoi and San could be distinguished from each
other largely by their livelihood, the Khoikhoi labeled as herdsmen and the
San as hunter-gatherers.7 Both were seen as surviving representatives of a
“primitive” stage of cultural evolution. More recent research has challenged
these notions, and scholars now reject the very notion of cultural evolution.
Much of the common wisdom about these peoples results from colonialist
and postcolonial prejudice, which also accounts for the Khoisan’s low
socioeconomic status in contemporary Africa.
 The San are likely the descendants of Neolithic and Early Iron Age
peoples who created the striking prehistoric rock paintings of southern
Africa. Today they are linguistically and culturally diverse subgroups
throughout southern Africa who survive most prominently in the Kalahari
region. The more homogeneous Khoikhoi were generally sheep- and cattle-
herding pastoralists scattered across the south, yet speaking closely related
Khoisan tongues. Their ancestors probably originated in northern
Botswana. They were hunters who adopted animal herding from their
Bantu-speaking neighbors, likely between 700 and 1000 C.E. They
flourished as far south as the Cape of Good Hope as pastoralist clans, until
their encounter with invading Dutch colonists in the mid-seventeenth
century resulted in their demise as a distinct people.
In the central African rain forests, the Twa people commonly referred to
in the West as “Pygmies” speak Bantu languages, but show other links to
the Khoisan. Sandwe, a Khoisan language, is spoken by foraging groups in
Tanzania, and small foraging groups in Kenya speak similar languages.
They too are probably descendants of a population that preceded the Bantu
migration.

EAST AFRICA
The history of pre-Islamic coastal East Africa differed from that of the
inland highlands. Long-distance travel was easy and common along the
seashore but less so inland. The coast was in contact with India, Arabia, and
the Mediterranean via the Indian Ocean and Red Sea trade routes from at
least the second century B.C.E. By contrast, we know little about the long-
distance contacts of inland regions with the coastal areas until after 1000
C.E. Nonetheless, regional inland and coastal trade must also be ancient.
Both coastal and overseas trade remained important and interdependent
over the centuries because the Indian Ocean trade depended on the
monsoon winds and could use only the northernmost coastal trading harbors
of East Africa for round-trip voyages in the same year. The monsoon winds
blow from the northeast December to March and thus can carry sailing
ships south from Iran, Arabia, and India only during those months; they
blow from the southwest April to August, so ships can sail from Africa
northeast during those months. Local coastal shipping thus had to haul
cargoes from south of Zanzibar and then transfer them to other ships for the
annual round-trip voyages to Arabia and beyond.

A Closer Look
Four Rock Art Paintings from Tassili n-Ajjer
(4000–2000 B.C.E.)
These rock paintings from the central Saharan plateau of Tassili n-
Ajjer in Algeria are four of hundreds of such paintings preserved from
the late Neolithic period in Africa; on this plateau, paintings have been
dated to the period 9000–1000 B.C.E. In the 4000–2000 B.C.E. period to
which all four paintings here are dated, the art often depicts the cattle
herded by pastoral nomads who spent the dry season largely sedentary
on the plateau with their cattle, but it also depicts the animals hunted
for food by the same peoples. Remember that this period coincided
with the end of the long wet Neolithic or Holocene wet period (ca.
9000–2500 B.C.E.), when the Sahara had lakes and plains and dunes
covered in places with grassland and populated by herds of elephants,
giraffes, antelopes of various kinds, and other animals, such as the
hippopotamus, that could not survive in the dessicated periods in the
Sahara such as that which has prevailed since the late third millennium
B.C.E. down to the present. These artists’ keen observation of
domesticated animals as well as varied wild animals is evident in these
paintings, as is their ability to create striking and dramatic renderings
of the human figure.
Questions

1. Scholars have offered many differing interpretations—from magical

efficacy of the images, to teaching images for youth, to simply
rendering artistically scenes from daily life. What do you think
might have been likely motivations for Neolithic nomadic peoples to
create figural art on the rock walls near their dry-season camps?
2. Can you compare the relative simplicity or sophistication of these
paintings with other examples of art in this book or with art that you
know from other sources? How do these renderings change or
reinforce your previous ideas about “prehistoric” African
civilization or culture?

To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to www.myhistorylab.com

CHRONOLOGY

MOVEMENT AND CONTACT OF PEOPLES IN CENTRAL,

SOUTHERN, AND EAST AFRICA
 Long-distance trade came into its own in Islamic times—about the ninth
century—as an Arab monopoly. Arab traders had settled in East African
coastal towns for centuries. We can document Greco-Roman contact with
East African trading centers as early as the first century C.E. Malagasy, the
Austronesian language of Madagascar, points to the antiquity of contact
with the East Indies. Southeast Asian crops including bananas and coconut
palms spread across Africa as staple foods. East Africa also imported such
items as Persian Gulf pottery, Chinese porcelain, and cotton cloth. The
major African export around which east coast trade revolved was ivory,
which was in perennial demand from Greece to India and even China. The
slave trade was important, with African slaves exported to the Arab and
Persian world, as well as to India or China. Gold became important in
external trade only in Islamic times, from about the tenth century (see
Chapter 14). With all this trade, ethnic and cultural mixing has long been
the rule for the East African coast; even today, its linguistic and cultural
traditions are rich and varied (see Chapter 14).
Manyatta. Aerial view of a contemporary Maasai settlement, or manyatta,
in Kenya.

What differentiates the Maasai from other groups living in the same
region?
The history of inland East Africa south of Ethiopia is more difficult to
trace, because of the absence of written sources. Linguistic and other clues
indicate some key developments in the eastern highlands. These regions had
seen an early infusion of peoples from the north, and over the centuries
small groups continued to arrive. First came peoples speaking Kushitic
languages of the Afro-Asiatic family, likely cattle herders and grain
cultivators. Perhaps as early as 2000 B.C.E., they pushed from their
homeland on the Ethiopian plateau down the Rift Valley as far as the
southern end of Lake Tanganyika. They apparently displaced Neolithic
hunter-gatherers possibly related to the Khoisan minorities of modern East
and southern Africa.
Later, Nilotic-Saharan speakers moved from southwest of the Ethiopian
plateau over the upper Nile valley by about 1000 C.E. Then they pushed east
and south, following older Kushite paths, to spread over the Rift Valley and
supplant the Kushites by the fifteenth century and subsequently cover much
of the East African highlands in today’s Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania.
Among these Nilotic peoples were the Luo and the Maasai. The Luo spread
over a 900-mile-long swath of modern Uganda and parts of southern Sudan
and western Kenya, adapting wherever they went. The Maasai, on the other
hand, were and still are cattle pastoralists proud of their language, way of
life, and cultural traditions. These distinguish them from the farmers or
hunters whose settlements abut their pasturages at the top of the southern
Rift Valley in modern Kenya and Tanzania. Here the Maasai have
concentrated and remained.
These migrations and those of the Bantu, who entered the eastern
highlands over many centuries, have made the highlands a melting pot of
Kushitic, Nilotic, Bantu, and Khoisan groups. Today’s populations here
represent an immense linguistic and cultural diversity. Here as well as
anywhere we see the myriad African peoples and cultures mirrored in a
single region.

SUMMARY

WHAT ARE the sources and techniques used for studying African
history?

Issues of Interpretation, Sources, and Disciplines. Historians are

challenged in their study of Africa by the paucity of written sources and by
the European prejudices that have traditionally devalued African
contributions to world culture. Africanists use cross-disciplinary methods
and innovative scholarship to understand Africa’s past. page 120

WHICH CHARACTERISTICS of Africa’s physical geography have

influenced human history on the continent?

Physical Description of the Continent. Africa is large; much of it is at

high elevation, and generally hot. Climate is very roughly symmetrical
north and south of the equator. Communications and migrations are easiest
in a few channels. African soils must be nurtured to retain productivity.
page 123

WHY ARE ideas about race not useful in understanding the histories
of different groups in Africa?

African Peoples. The human species, Homo sapiens (sapiens) originated in

Africa. Archaeology reveals that there were extensive migrations of peoples
across the continent from the earliest days of African history with
widespread cross-cultural influences. Although many types of physiologies
are visible in Africa, the concept of race does not help historians understand
different groups. Migrations and cultural exchanges are not dependent on
skin coloration, but many historical sources are distorted by discredited
ideas about human characteristics. page 125

WHAT EVIDENCE is there that early African cultures were in

contact with each other?

The Sahara and the Sudan. Neolithic agriculturalists spread south of the
Sahara, bringing the agricultural revolution with them. Pottery styles and
iron-smelting technologies spread between groups. The early Iron Age Nok
culture is renowned for sophisticated sculpture. page 128

HOW DID Egyptian civilization and the various Nilotic civilizations—

Kush, Meroe, and Aksum—influence each other?

Nilotic Africa and the Ethiopian Highlands. Egypt had extensive

interaction with the Nubian peoples to the south. Nubian kingdoms—Kush,
Napata, Meroe, and Aksum (Ethiopia)—adopted many features of Egyptian
civilization and sometimes dominated Egypt itself. Aksum adopted
Christianity in the fourth century C.E. page 129
 WHAT ROLE did trade play in the rise of political entities in the
western and central Sudan?

The Western and Central Sudan. Extensive trade across the Sahara
between North Africa and the western and central Sudan enabled products
and ideas from the Mediterranean to reach the African interior in exchange
for African products, such as gold, ivory, and salt. Large, settled
populations facilitated the development of states. page 132

WHY DID the coastal and inland regions of East Africa have different
histories?

Central, Southern, and East Africa. The dominance of the Bantu

language across the African subcontinent reflects ancient migration
patterns. On the coast of East Africa, trade across the Red Sea and the
Indian Ocean with Arabia and East Asia fostered a distinctive and
sophisticated culture. page 134

KEY TERMS

Afro-Asiatic
Aksum (AHK-suhm)
Austronesian
Bantu (BAN-tu)
cataract
Kalahari
Khoisan (KOI-sahn)
Kush (koosh)
Meroe (MEH-roh-ee)
Monophysite (moh-NOH-fiss-it)
Niger-Kongo
Nilo-Saharan
Nilotic Africa
 Nok
Sahara
Sahel
savannah
Sudan
trypanosomiasis

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Why have historians generally paid more attention to pharaonic

Egypt than to the societies of sub-Saharan Africa?
2. Summarize the argument for including writing among the necessary
attributes of a “civilization.” Summarize the argument against the
writing requirement. Which argument do you find more compelling?
3. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the various sources and
tools available to scholars of early African history.
4. What does the diffusion of peoples and languages in Africa tell us
about early African history?
5. How does the political system of the Meroitic Empire compare to
that of Egypt?
6. How did Aksum become a Christian state?
7. What were the most important goods for African internal trade?
Which products were traded abroad? What can we learn from these
trade patterns?
8. What was the role of geography in early African history? What
about the specific case of Ghana? Of North Africa? Of the East
African littoral? Of southern Africa?
9. Is the role of geography different in Africa than in the Near East or
other regions you have studied? Explain.
10. What information presented in this chapter was most surprising to
you, and why?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com
 Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 5

See the Map Kingdoms of the Upper Nile, p. 161

Research and Explore

Watch the Video Agriculture in Africa African Maps

Who were the Ancient Egyptians? Ironworks in Africa

Watch the Video West African States

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 5 at www.myhistorylab.com
6
Republican and Imperial Rome

Hear the Audio for Chapter 6 at www.myhistorylab.com

Lady Playing the Cithara. This wall painting from the first century B.C.E.
comes from the villa of Publius Fannius Synistor at Pompeii and shows a
woman playing a cithara, a type of lyre. Behind her a child, presumably her
daughter, provides support.

Roman. Paintings. Pompeian, Boscoreale. 1st Century B.C. “Lady playing

the cithara.” Wall painting from the east wall of large room in the villa of
Publius Fannius Synistor. Fresco on lime plaster. H. 6 ft. 1/2 in. (187 × 187
cm.) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1903 (03.14.5)
Photograph © 1986 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

What were women’s most important roles in ancient Rome?

ITALY BEFORE ROME

WHO WERE the early peoples of Italy?

ROYAL ROME

WHAT PATTERNS of Roman governance were set in the royal period?

THE REPUBLIC

WHAT CULTURES most influenced Roman culture, and why?

ROMAN IMPERIALISM

WHY DID a growing gap between the wealthy and everyone else
contribute to political instability?

THE FALL OF THE REPUBLIC AND THE AUGUSTAN PRINCIPATE

WHAT WERE the central features of Octavian rule?

PEACE AND PROSPERITY: IMPERIAL ROME

WHAT ROLE did cities play in the Roman Empire?

THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY

HOW DID Paul resolve the central dilemma of the relationship between
Judaism and early Christianity?

THE THIRD AND FOURTH CENTURIES: CRISIS AND LATE EMPIRE

WHY DID the capital of the empire move from Rome to Constantinople,
and what was the significance of this shift?

The ancient Romans were responsible for one of the most remarkable
achievements in history. From their city in central Italy, they conquered
most of the Near East and much of Europe. They brought peace, prosperity,
and unity to this vast region, a feat that has never been repeated.
Rome’s legacy is more than military prowess and superb political
organization. The Romans transformed the intellectual and cultural
achievements of the Greeks, creating the Greco-Roman tradition in
literature, philosophy, and art. This tradition remains the heart of Western
civilization.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
REPUBLICAN AND IMPERIAL ROME
Despite the nearly continuous warfare that marked Roman history,
including a long-lasting rivalry with the Sasanid Empire, it was primarily
through trade that Romans came into contact with peoples beyond the
borders of their empire.
Nonetheless, most Romans focused their energies on internal Roman
territory, which expanded considerably during the late republic and the
early empire to include much of the former Hellenistic kingdoms. Rome
was a multicultural empire, encompassing territory and cultures in Africa
and the Middle East, as well as northern and central Europe. Rome profited
enormously from the territories it conquered in terms of material wealth,
including foodstuffs, as Egypt quickly became the “breadbasket” of the
empire. It also realized cultural benefits, especially the blending of Greek
and Asian culture that characterized the Hellenistic world. But the infusion
of new ideas caused tension among Romans, as many conservative Romans
objected to what they viewed as corrupting Asian influences from even the
much admired, and copied, Greeks, which threatened to undermine
traditional Roman values and strengths.
The conquest of a vast empire had moved the Romans away from their
unusual historical traditions toward the more familiar path of empire
trodden by rulers in Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Iran. It is
especially instructive to look at Rome from the perspective of historians
who discern a “dynastic cycle” in China (see Chapter 7). The development
of the Roman Empire, though by no means the same as the Chinese, fits the
pattern fairly well. Like the former Han Dynasty in China, the Roman
Empire in the West fell, leaving in its wake disunity, insecurity, disorder,
and poverty. Like other similar empires in the ancient world, it had been
unable to sustain what historian Edward Gibbon termed its “immoderate
greatness.”

Focus Questions

Why might we describe the Roman Empire as “multicultural”? What

cultures most influenced Roman culture, and why?
What was it about the period from the second century B.C.E. through
the third century C.E. that allowed the opening of new routes by land
and sea linking Europe to Central Asia, India, and China?
Why did the Roman Empire decline in the West? Which of the
problems that Rome faced were internal, and which were external?
How were the two connected?

ITALY BEFORE ROME

WHO WERE the early peoples of Italy?

In about 1000 B.C.E. bands of warlike peoples speaking a set of closely
related languages we call Italic began to infiltrate Italy. By 800 B.C.E. they
had occupied the highland pastures of the Apennines and soon challenged
the earlier settlers for control of the western plains. The Romans would
emerge from descendants of these tough mountain people.
Others who shaped the future of Italy included the Etruscans, the Greeks
who colonized Sicily and southern Italy, and the Celts. Etruscan
civilization, which was to have a powerful influence on the Romans, arose
about 800 B.C.E. In the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.E. the Etruscans
conquered Latium (which included Rome) and Campania, where they
became neighbors of the Greeks of Naples. But after 500 B.C.E. Etruscan
power rapidly declined. The Celts drove them from the Po valley about 400
B.C.E., and soon thereafter they lost control of their Etrurian heartland to an
expanding Rome.

ROYAL ROME

WHAT PATTERNS of Roman governance were set in the royal

period?

In the sixth century B.C.E. the town of Rome in Latium came under Etruscan
control. Although it had been of little importance, it was a natural center for
communication and trade. Led by Etruscan kings, the Roman army
conquered most of Latium.

GOVERNMENT
Roman kings had the awesome power of imperium—the right to issue
commands and to enforce them by fines, arrests, and physical punishment,
including execution. Although it tended to remain in families, kingship was
elective. The Roman Senate approved the candidate for the office, and the
Roman people, voting in assembly, formally granted the imperium. This
procedure—the granting of great power to executive officers contingent on
the approval of the Senate and ultimately the people—would remain a basic
characteristic of Roman government.

imperium
“The power to command.” The right of Roman kings to issue commands
and to enforce them by fines, arrests, and physical punishment.

Hear the Audio at myhistorylab.com

The Senate met only when summoned by the king and then only to
advise him. In reality its authority was great, for the senators, like the king,
served for life. The Senate had continuity and experience, and it was
composed of the most powerful men in the state. It could not be ignored.
The third branch of government, the curiate assembly, was made up of all
citizens and divided into thirty groups. The assembly also met only when
summoned by the king. Voting was not by head but by group; a majority
within each group determined its vote, and the decisions were made by
majority vote of the groups. Group voting would be typical of all future
forms of Roman assembly.

FAMILY
The center of Roman life was the family. At its head stood the father, whose
power and authority resembled those of the king within the state. Over his
children he held broad powers analogous to imperium; he could sell his
children into slavery and might even kill them. Over his wife he had less
power; he could not sell or kill her. In practice his power to dispose of his
children was limited by other family members, by public opinion, and, most
of all, by tradition. A wife could be divorced only for serious offenses. The
Roman woman had a respected position and the main responsibility for
managing the household. The father was the chief priest of the family,
leading it in daily prayers to the dead that reflected the ancestor worship
central to Roman culture.
 Read the Document Excerpt from The Life of Cato the Elder (2 C.E.)
Plutarch at myhistorylab.com

Sarcophagus of an Etruscan Couple. Much of what we know of the

Etruscans comes from their funerary art. This sculpture of an Etruscan
couple is part of a sarcophagus.

© Erich Lessing/Art Resource, New York.

What continuities were there between Etruscan and Roman history?

CLIENTAGE
Clientage was one of Rome’s most important institutions. The client was
“an inferior entrusted, by custom or by himself, to the protection of a
stranger more powerful than he, and rendering certain services and
observances in return for this protection.”1 The client was said to be in the
fides, or trust, of his patron, giving the relationship a moral dimension. The
patron provided his client with physical and legal protection and economic
support. In return the client would fight for his patron, work his land, and
support him politically.
PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS
In the royal period Roman society was divided into two classes based on
birth. The wealthy patrician upper class held a monopoly of power and
influence. Its members alone could conduct state religious ceremonies, sit
in the Senate, or hold office. They formed a closed caste by forbidding
marriage outside their own group.

patricians
The hereditary upper class of early Republican Rome.

The plebeian lower class must have consisted originally of poor,

dependent small farmers, laborers, and artisans, the clients of the nobility.
As Rome grew, nonpatrician families acquired wealth. From early times,
therefore, there were rich plebeians and patrician families that fell into
poverty from incompetence or bad luck. The line between the classes and
the monopoly of privileges nevertheless remained firm.

plebeians
The hereditary lower class of early Republican Rome.

THE REPUBLIC

WHAT CULTURES most influenced Roman culture, and why?

According to Roman tradition, the outrageous behavior of the last kings

provoked the noble families to revolt in 509 B.C.E., leading to the creation of
the republic.

CONSTITUTION
The Roman constitution was an unwritten accumulation of laws and
customs. The Twelve Tables, the first attempt to codify Rome’s harsh
customs, was not published until 450 B.C.E.
The Romans granted consuls, their chief magistrates, the power of
imperium that kings had exercised. Like the kings, the consuls led the army,
had religious duties, and served as judges. But the power of the consul was
kept in check in two ways. Two men held consulships simultaneously, and
each could overrule the other. Both were limited to a term of only one year.
Their imperium was also limited. Although the consuls had full powers of
life and death in the field with the army, within the city of Rome, citizens
could appeal to the popular assembly any cases involving capital
punishment. Each consul also knew that, after one year in that role, he
would spend the rest of his life as a member of the Senate, so only a
reckless consul would ignore its advice. In serious crises, the consuls could,
with the advice of the Senate, appoint a single dictator, who would hold
imperium not subject to appeal both inside and outside the city for six
months.

Read the Document Livy: The Rape of Lucretia and the Origins of the
Republic, ca. 10 B.C.E. at myhistorylab.com

A Closer Look
Lictors
The lictors were attendants of the Roman magistrates who held the
power of imperium, the right to command. In republican times these
magistrates were the consuls, praetors, and proconsuls. The lictors
were men from the lower classes—some were even former slaves. They
constantly attended the magistrates when the latter appeared in public.
The lictors cleared a magistrate’s way in crowds, and summoned,
arrested, and punished offenders for him. They also served as their
magistrate’s house guard.

After the establishment of the Roman Republic, the lictor and his
fasces and axe were the symbols of those magistrates that held
imperium, which means that they had the right to command. Twelve
lictors accompanied each consul and a praetor had six. When a dictator
was appointed during a crisis, he had an escort of twenty-four lictors to
show that he was more powerful than both consuls.

Questions

1. Why do you think the Roman magistrates required such

bodyguards?
2. What does their presence indicate about the nature of early Roman
public life?
3. How does the presence of lictors suggest a different attitude toward
public officials between the Roman and classical Athenian
republics?

To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to

www.myhistorylab.com
 In 325 B.C.E. the Romans created the office of proconsul, which permitted
a consul in the field to retain command during a long campaign. Another
new office, that of praetor, was primarily judicial, but praetors also had
imperium and served as generals. After the middle of the fifth century B.C.E.,
the job of identifying citizens and classifying them according to age and
property was delegated to another new office, that of censor, a position that
grew in power and prestige.

censor
A Roman official who counted the populace and drew up the citizen roles,
thereby fixing taxation and status.

The Senate, composed of leading patricians, gained power when the

monarchy ended. As the only ongoing deliberative body in the Roman state,
it soon controlled finances and foreign policy.
The centuriate assemble, the early republic’s most important popular
assembly, was in a sense the Roman army acting in a political capacity. Its
basic unit was the century, theoretically 100 fighting men who fought with
the same kind of equipment. Because each man equipped himself, this
organization divided the assembly into classes according to wealth.

THE STRUGGLE OF THE ORDERS

Patricians monopolized power in the early republic. Plebeians, however,
made up much of the Roman army, and this gave them great political
leverage. Their fight for political, legal, and social equality, the “struggle of
the orders,” lasted 200 years. They won the right to a plebeian tribal
assembly led by elected officials called tribunes. A tribune could veto any
action of a magistrate or any bill proposed in a Roman assembly or by the
Senate. In 445 B.C.E. plebeians won the right to marry patricians, though not
until 367 B.C.E. could they serve as consul. Gradually other offices,
including the dictatorship and the censorship, opened to them. In 300 B.C.E.
they were admitted to the most important priesthoods. In 287 B.C.E.,
plebeians secured the passage of a law making the decisions of the plebeian
assembly binding on all Romans without the approval of the Senate.

tribunes
Roman officials who had to be plebeians and were elected by the plebeian
assembly to protect plebeians from the arbitrary power of the magistrates.

The victory of the plebeians in the “struggle of the orders” primarily

benefited wealthy plebeian families by allowing them to share the political
privileges of the patrician aristocracy. The nobiles—a small group of
wealthy families, both patrician and plebeian—dominated the Senate and
controlled the highest offices of the state.

CONQUEST OF ITALY
By the beginning of the fourth century B.C.E., the Romans had become the
chief power in central Italy. The city’s Latin neighbors, the Latin League,
sought to curtail Rome’s expansion, but in 338 B.C.E. the Romans defeated
the league and dissolved it.
The Romans did not destroy any conquered Latin cities. To some near
Rome they granted full citizenship. To others farther away they granted
municipal status, which included the right to local self-government and the
right to trade and intermarry with Romans. Still other states became allies
of Rome. The Romans established permanent colonies of veteran soldiers in
conquered lands. The colonists remained Roman citizens and deterred
rebellion. A network of durable roads—some still in use—connected the
colonies to Rome.
Rome divided its enemies and extended its influence through military
force and diplomatic skill. Rebels were punished harshly, but Rome was
generous to those who submitted. Loyal allies could even gain full Roman
citizenship. This policy gave allies a stake in Rome’s future, and most
remained loyal.

ROME AND CARTHAGE

In the ninth century B.C.E., the Phoenician city of Tyre had established the
North African coastal colony of Carthage. In the sixth century B.C.E.,
Carthage became independent and expanded west and east. Carthage
claimed an absolute monopoly on trade in the western Mediterranean (see
Map 6–1).

MAP 6–1. The Western Mediterranean Area during the Rise of Rome.
This map covers the theater of the conflict between the growing Roman
dominions and those of Carthage in the third century B.C.E. The
Carthaginian Empire stretched westward from Carthage along the North
African coast and into southern Spain.

Why did Rome repeatedly come into conflict with Carthage?

Sicily was strategically important to both Carthage and Rome. There, in

264 B.C.E., the two expanding powers first came to blows. Because the
Romans called the Carthaginians Poeni or Puni (meaning “Phoenician”),
the conflicts between them are called the Punic Wars.
Punic Wars
Three wars between Rome and Carthage for dominance of the western
Mediterranean that were fought from 264 B.C.E. to 146 B.C.E.

Rome’s strength was its army and Carthage’s power was its navy, so at
first neither side could make much progress against the other in the First
Punic War. Once the Romans built a fleet, they were able to blockade the
Carthaginian ports in Sicily. Carthage capitulated in 241 B.C.E., giving up
Sicily and agreeing to pay a war indemnity. Neither side was to attack the
allies of the other.
These terms were fair, but Rome broke them almost immediately. In 238
B.C.E., Rome seized Sardinia and Corsica, demanding an additional
indemnity from Carthage. Carthage, meanwhile, was building a rich empire
in Spain. In 221 B.C.E., Hannibal (247–182 B.C.E.) took command of
Carthaginian forces in Spain. A few years earlier, Rome had received an
offer of alliance from the Spanish town of Saguntum. The Romans
accepted, and the Saguntines began to stir up Spanish tribes allied with
Hannibal. Hannibal retaliated by seizing Saguntum. Rome declared war in
218 B.C.E., but Hannibal struck first, marching overland from Spain to
launch a swift and daring invasion of Italy. His army defeated the Romans
in three battles, but his hopes for final victory depended on persuading
Rome’s allies to switch sides.
A Roman Warship. Rome became a naval power late in its history, in the
course of the First Punic War. Roman sailors initially lacked the skill and
experience in sea warfare of their Carthaginian opponents, who could
maneuver their oared ships to ram the enemy. To compensate for this
disadvantage, the Romans sought to make a sea battle more like an
encounter on land by devising ways to grapple enemy ships and board them
with armed troops. In time they also mastered the skillful use of the ram.
This picture shows a Roman ship, propelled by oars, with both ram and
soldiers, ready for either kind of fight.
How did war with Carthage shape Roman history?

CHRONOLOGY

THE PUNIC WARS

In 216 B.C.E., at Cannae, Hannibal destroyed a Roman army of 80,000

men. It was the worst defeat in Roman history, and many of Rome’s allies
went over to Hannibal. In 215 B.C.E., Philip V (r. 221–179 B.C.E.), king of
Macedon, allied with Hannibal and launched a war to recover his influence
on the Adriatic. For more than a decade Hannibal was free to roam Italy and
do as he pleased, but he had neither the numbers nor the supplies to besiege
the city of Rome itself.
The turning point in the conflict came when the Romans appointed
Publius Cornelius Scipio (237–183 B.C.E.), later called Scipio Africanus, to
the command in Spain. He was almost as talented as Hannibal. Within a few
years Scipio had conquered all Spain and deprived Hannibal of help from
that region. In 204 B.C.E., Scipio invaded Africa, forcing Hannibal to return
to protect Carthage. In 202 B.C.E., Scipio defeated Hannibal at Zama.
Carthage was stripped of its empire, and Rome emerged dominant over the
Mediterranean from Italy westward.
Even so, some Romans refused to abandon their hatred of Carthage. Cato
is said to have ended all his speeches in the Senate with the same sentence,
“Besides, I think that Carthage must be destroyed.” Eventually, the Romans
took advantage of a technical breach of the peace to plow up the city’s land,
even putting salt in the furrows to ensure abandonment of the site. The
Romans incorporated Carthage as the province of Africa.
The Roman conquest of overseas territory presented a new problem. The
old practice of extending citizenship to defeated opponents stopped at the
borders of Italy. The Romans made Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica provinces.
The governors of these provinces exercised an imperium free of the limits
put on the power of officials in Rome. The natives of provinces became
tribute-paying subjects of a Roman empire. Rome collected taxes by
“farming them out,” that is, by auctioning the right to collect taxes to the
man who made the highest bid. The treasury got a guaranteed sum, and the
tax collector made a profit by exploiting the provincials. Provincial
government spread so much corruption that it threatened to destabilize the
republic.

THE REPUBLIC’S CONQUEST OF THE HELLENISTIC WORLD

By the middle of the third century B.C.E., the eastern Mediterranean had
reached a stable balance of power. That equilibrium was threatened by two
aggressive monarchs, Philip V of Macedon and the Seleucid Antiochus III
(223–187 B.C.E.). Philip and Antiochus moved swiftly, Antiochus against
Syria and Palestine, Philip against Greek cities.
The threat that a more powerful Macedon might pose to Rome’s friends,
and perhaps even to Italy, persuaded the Romans to intervene. In 197 B.C.E.,
with Greek support, they defeated Philip in Thessaly. The Greek cities taken
from Philip were made autonomous and declared free.
Soon after, Antiochus landed an army on the Greek mainland. The
Romans drove him from Greece, and in 189 B.C.E. they crushed his army at
Magnesia in Asia Minor. The Romans left Greek cities free, but they
regarded Greece and Asia Minor as protectorates in which they could
intervene as they chose.

QUICK REVIEW
Rome Conquers Greece
Romans forbid interference in Greek cities by Macedonia
Rome sees Greek cities as a kind of protectorate
Rome responds with force to signs of anti-Roman feeling in Greek
cities

A Master among His Students. This carved relief from the second century
C.E. shows a schoolmaster and his pupils. The one at the right is arriving
late.

Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Triern, Germany/Alinari/Art Resource, New

York.

What elements of Greek culture influenced Roman education?

In 179 B.C.E., Perseus (r. 179–168 B.C.E.) succeeded Philip V as king of

Macedon. He tried to gain popularity in Greece by favoring the democratic
and revolutionary forces in the cities. The Romans defeated him in 168
B.C.E. and divided Macedon into four separate republics. The new plan
reflected a stern, businesslike policy promoted by the conservative censor
Cato (234–149 B.C.E.). Leaders of anti-Roman factions in the Greek cities
were punished severely, and in 146 B.C.E., the city of Corinth was destroyed.
The Roman treasury benefited so much from these wars that Rome
abolished direct property taxes on its citizens. Romans were learning that
foreign campaigns could bring profit to the state, rewards to soldiers, and
wealth, fame, and power to their generals.

See the Map

The Roman Conquest of the Mediterranean During the Republic at
myhistorylab.com

GREEK CULTURAL INFLUENCE

Among the most important effects of Rome’s expansion overseas were
changes in the Roman style of life and thought. Roman aristocrats
surrounded themselves with Greek intellectuals. Even conservatives, such
as Cato, who spoke contemptuously of “Greek-lings,” learned Greek and
absorbed Greek culture.
Almost from the beginning, the Romans identified their gods with Greek
equivalents and incorporated Greek mythology into their own. In the third
century B.C.E. important new cults were introduced from the East: the
worship of Cybele, the Great Mother goddess from Asia Minor, and of
Dionysus, or Bacchus. Interest in Babylonian astrology also grew.
Education was entirely the responsibility of the Roman family. It is not
clear whether girls received any education in early Rome, although they did
later on. Boys’ education aimed at making them moral, pious, patriotic,
law-abiding, and respectful of tradition. Contact with the Greeks of
southern Italy produced momentous changes in Roman curricula. Greek
teachers introduced the study of language, literature, and philosophy, as
well as the idea of a liberal education, or what the Romans called
humanitas—the root of our concept of the humanities.

humanitas
The Roman name for a liberal arts education.

The first need was to learn Greek, for Rome did not yet have a literature
of its own. Schools were established in which the teacher, called a
grammaticus, taught his students the Greek language and its literature,
particularly the works of Homer. Thereafter, educated Romans were
expected to be bilingual. Roman boys of the upper classes then studied
rhetoric—the art of speaking and writing well—with Greeks who were
expert in it. The Greeks considered rhetoric less important than philosophy.
But the more practical Romans took to it avidly, for it was of great use in
legal disputes and was becoming ever more valuable in political life. By the
last century of the Roman Republic, the new Hellenized education had
become dominant. Latin literature formed part of the course of study, but
much of it was modeled after Greek examples. The number of educated
people grew, extending beyond the senatorial class and outside the city of
Rome.
Girls of the upper classes were educated similarly to boys. They were
probably taught by tutors at home, although they were usually married by
the age when men were pursuing higher education. Still, some women
became prose writers or poets.

Read the Document

Issue of the Day: Religion and Philosophy in the Roman Empire-Stoicism
and Christianity? at myhistorylab.com

QUICK REVIEW

Roman Education
Traditional Roman education was the responsibility of family
Encounters with Greece changed form and content of education
Schools established to teach Greek and Latin literature

MAP EXPLORATION

To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

MAP 6–2. Roman Dominions of the Late Republic.

This map shows the extent of the territory controlled by Rome at the time of
Caesar’s death in 44 B.C.E.

How did Rome’s geographic location influence its growth?

A rich, socially ambitious Roman might support a Greek philosopher in

his own home, so that through conversation his son could acquire the
learning and polished thought necessary for the fully cultured gentleman.
Some, like the great orator Cicero (106–43 B.C.E.), traveled to Greece to
study with great teachers of rhetoric and philosophy. Education made the
Romans part of the culture of the Hellenistic world, a world they dominated
and, therefore, needed to understand.
ROMAN IMPERIALISM

WHY DID a growing gap between the wealthy and everyone else
contribute to political instability?

Rome’s expansion in Italy and overseas was accomplished without a plan. It

brought the Romans an empire, and with it, power, wealth, and
responsibilities (see Map 6–2).

AFTERMATH OF CONQUEST
War and expansion changed the economic, social, and political life of Italy.
The Second Punic War damaged Italian farmland, and many veterans were
unable to go back to their farms. Most became tenant farmers or hired
hands. Often the land they abandoned was acquired by the wealthy, who
converted these farms, later called latifundia, into large plantations.

latifundia
Large plantations for growing cash crops owned by wealthy Romans.

Land was inexpensive, and slaves conquered in war provided cheap

labor. By fair means and foul, large landholders obtained sizable quantities
of public land and forced small farmers off it. These changes separated the
people of Rome and Italy more sharply into rich and poor, the landed and
the landless. The result was conflict that threatened the republic.

THE GRACCHI
By the middle of the second century B.C.E., the unintended consequences of
Rome’s rapid expansion troubled perceptive Roman nobles. The fall in
status of the peasant farmers made it harder to recruit soldiers, and the
patron’s traditional control over his clients was weakened by their flight
from their land.
Tiberius Gracchus (168–133 B.C.E.) became tribune in 133 B.C.E. on a
program of land reform. (See Document, “The Ruin of the Roman Family
Farm and the Gracchan Reforms” on page 154.) He had popular support but
encountered political hostility. When another tribune twice vetoed his land
reform bill, Tiberius had the offending tribune removed from office—in
violation of the constitution. Tiberius then proposed and passed a bill that
was even harsher than the first and more appealing to the people. Because
no tribune dared to oppose him, he got his way. But the cost was the
destruction of the Roman constitution.
Tiberius understood the danger to himself and to prospects for
implementing his reforms once his term as tribune came to an end, so he
announced his candidacy for a second successive term. This violated the
term limits posed by the Roman constitution. Having no legal recourse, a
mob of senators and their clients resorted to violence. They killed Tiberius
and some 300 of his followers and threw their bodies into the Tiber River.
The Senate had put down the threat to its rule but at the price of the first
internal bloodshed in Roman political history. Roman politics was changed
irrevocably. Tiberius had demonstrated how to build a political career based
on pressure from the people, not on aristocratic influence. In the last
century of the republic, such politicians were called populares, whereas
those who supported the traditional role of the Senate were called optimates
(“the best men”).

populares
Roman politicians who sought to pursue a political career based on the
support of the people rather than just the aristocracy.

The tribunate of Gaius Gracchus (ca. 159–121 B.C.E.), brother of Tiberius,

posed a greater threat to the Senate than that of Tiberius because all the
tribunes supported Gaius. There would be no veto, and tribunes could now
retain power through reelection. Gaius courted popularity by establishing
colonies for landless veterans and passing a law stabilizing the price of
grain in Rome. He also divided the wealthy by winning the backing of the
equestrian order in his struggles with the Senate. The equestrians were rich
men who supplied goods and services to the Roman state and collected
taxes in the provinces. When Pergamum became the Roman province of
Asia in 129 B.C.E., Gaius gave them the right to collect taxes there.

equestrians
Literally “cavalrymen” or “knights.” In the earliest years of the Roman
Republic, those who could afford to serve as mounted warriors.

Gaius easily won reelection as tribune for 122 B.C.E., but then he made a
misstep. He proposed giving citizenship to Italian allies, but the common
people did not want to share the advantages of their Roman citizenship.
Gaius lost his reelection campaign in 121 B.C.E., and a hostile consul
provoked an incident that led to violence. Gaius was killed, and 3,000 of his
followers were put to death without trial.

MARIUS AND SULLA

Before long the senatorial oligarchy faced a stronger opponent who got his
start in a war with Jugurtha (d. 104 B.C.E.), king of Numidia. When the war
dragged on, the people elected Gaius Marius (157–86 B.C.E.) to the
consulship for 107 B.C.E. Later, when Rome faced threats from barbarians to
the north, Marius served five consecutive terms from 104 B.C.E. until 100
B.C.E. He was a novus homo (“new man”), a political outsider, the first man
from his family to win a consulship. He promised the voters that popular
military reforms would lead to speedy victory. He eliminated the traditional
property qualification for military service and opened the ranks to
volunteers, mostly dispossessed farmers and rural proletarians. They
enlisted for long terms of service, looked on the army as a career, and
expected land as a bonus when they retired. They became semiprofessional
clients of their general and backed the politician who seemed most likely to
get them what they wanted. Marius had to obtain grants from the Senate to
maintain his power and reputation. But with a large, loyal army behind him,
he could frighten the Senate into doing his bidding. Marius’s innovation
created both the opportunity and the necessity for military leaders to
challenge the authority of civilian government.

DOCUMENT
 The Ruin of the Roman Family Farm and the Gracchan Reforms
T he independent family farm was the backbone both of the Greek polis and
of the early Roman Republic. Rome’s conquests, the long wars that kept the
citizen-soldier away from his farm, and the availability of great numbers of
slaves at a low price, however, badly undercut the traditional way of
farming and with it the foundations of republican society. In the following
passage, Plutarch describes the process of agricultural change and the
response to it of the reformer Tiberius Gracchus, tribune in 133 B.C.E.
• WHY did Roman farmers face troubles? What were the social and
political consequences of the changes in agricultural life? What
solution did Tiberius Gracchus propose? Why, besides selfishness
and greed, did people oppose his plan?
Of the territory which the Romans won in war from their neighbours, a part
they sold, and a part they made common land, and assigned it for
occupation to the poor and indigent among the citizens, on payment of a
small rent into the public treasury. And when the rich began to offer larger
rents and drove out the poor, a law was enacted forbidding the holding by
one person of more than five hundred [iugera] of land. For a short time this
enactment gave a check to the rapacity of the rich, and was of assistance to
the poor, who remained in their places on the land which they had rented
and occupied the allotment which each had held from the outset. But later
on the neighbouring rich men, by means of fictitious personages,
transferred these rentals to themselves, and finally held most of the land
openly in their own names. Then the poor, who had been ejected from their
land, no longer showed themselves eager for military service, and neglected
the bringing up of children, so that soon all Italy was conscious of a dearth
of freemen, and was filled with gangs of foreign slaves, by whose aid the
rich cultivated their estates, from which they had driven away the free
citizens.
And it is thought that a law dealing with injustice and rapacity so great
was never drawn up in milder and gentler terms. For men who ought to
have been punished for their disobedience and to have surrendered with
payment of a fine the land which they were illegally enjoying, these men it
merely ordered to abandon their injust acquisitions upon being paid their
value, and to admit into ownership of them such citizens as needed
assistance. But although the rectification of the wrong was so considerate,
the people were satisfied to let bygones be bygones if they could be secure
from such wrong in the future; the men of wealth and substance, however,
were led by their greed to hate the law, and by their wrath and
contentiousness to hate the lawgiver, and tried to dissuade the people by
alleging that Tiberius was introducing a redistribution of land for the
confusion of the body politic, and was stirring up a general revolution.
Source: From Plutarch, “Tiberius Gracchus,” in Lives 8–9, Vol. 10, trans. by Bernadotte Perrin and
William Heinemann (London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1921), pp. 159-167.

Marius quickly routed Jugurtha, but a guerrilla war dragged on. Finally,
Marius’s subordinate, Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138–78 B.C.E.), captured
Jugurtha and ended the war. Marius, however, took the credit, leaving Sulla
to plot his revenge.

WAR AGAINST THE ITALIAN ALLIES (90–88 B.C.E.)

For a decade Rome ignored Italian discontent. In frustration, the Italians
revolted. The Romans immediately offered citizenship to those cities that
remained loyal and soon made the same offer to the rebels if they laid down
their arms. By 88 B.C.E. the war against the allies was over. All the Italians
became Roman citizens, but they retained local self-government. Time
blurred the distinction between Romans and Italians and forged them into a
single nation.

SULLA’S DICTATORSHIP
Sulla was elected consul for 88 B.C.E. He backed the Senate in a war against
Marius and his supporters, and following its victorious conclusion, he had
himself appointed dictator. He used his power to restore the traditional
Roman constitution and the power of the Senate. He could not, however,
undo the effect of his example. Sulla had taken possession of Rome with its
own army and led Romans in slaughtering Romans. Others soon followed
suit.

ARTS AND LETTERS OF THE LATE REPUBLIC

The high point of Roman culture began in the last century of the republic,
when art and writing show uniquely Roman qualities in spirit and
sometimes in form.
The late republic’s towering literary figure, Cicero (106–43 B.C.E.), is
most famous for his orations. Together with his private letters, the speeches
give us a clearer and fuller insight into his mind than the works of any other
figure in antiquity. We see the political life of his period largely through his
eyes. He also wrote treatises on rhetoric, ethics, and politics that put Greek
philosophical ideas into Latin terminology, changing them to suit Roman
conditions and values. Cicero believed in a world governed by divine and
natural law that human reason could perceive. He looked to law, custom,
and tradition to produce stability and liberty. His literary style, as well as his
values and ideas, created an important legacy for the Middle Ages and,
reinterpreted, for the Renaissance.
The period from the Gracchi to the fall of the republic was important for
the development of Roman law. The edicts of the magistrates who dealt
with foreigners developed the idea of a comprehensive jus gentium, or “law
of peoples,” as opposed to a law based strictly on Roman custom. In the
first century B.C.E., under the influence of the Greeks, the jus gentium was
equated with the jus naturale, or “natural law,” taught by the Stoics.
Two of Rome’s greatest poets, Lucretius and Catullus, were citizens of
the late republic. The Hellenistic literary theorists believed that poetry
should educate as well as entertain, a task Lucretius (ca. 99–ca. 55 B.C.E.)
undertook in his epic poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). It
explained and advocated the scientific and philosophical theories of
Epicurus and Democritus, which Lucretius believed would liberate people
from superstition and the fear of death. Catullus’s (ca. 84–ca. 54 B.C.E.)
poems were personal. He wrote of the joys and pains of love and amused
himself composing witty poetic exchanges. He illustrates the mind-set of
the proud, independent, pleasure-seeking, late republican nobility.
Bust of Julius Caesar

What impression does this sculpture give you of Julius Caesar’s

personality?

THE FALL OF THE REPUBLIC AND THE

AUGUSTAN PRINCIPATE

WHAT WERE the central features of Octavian rule?

POMPEY, CRASSUS, AND CAESAR

Marcus Licinius Crassus (115–53 B.C.E.) and Cnaeus Pompey (106–48
B.C.E.) won election to the consulship for the year 70 B.C.E. and repealed
most of Sulla’s laws. In 67 B.C.E., a special law gave Pompey imperium for
three years over the entire Mediterranean and coastal lands to rid the area of
pirates. When he returned to Rome in 62 B.C.E., he had more power,
prestige, and popular support than any Roman in history. Crassus, though
rich and influential, did not have a firm political base of his own or the kind
of military glory needed to rival Pompey. During the 60s B.C.E., therefore,
he allied himself with various popular leaders, the ablest of whom was
Gaius Julius Caesar (100–44 B.C.E.).

FIRST TRIUMVIRATE AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF JULIUS CAESAR

To general surprise, Pompey disbanded his army and returned to Italy as a
private citizen. But when the fearful Senate decided to try to turn his
veterans against him by refusing to grant them land, he forged an alliance
with Crassus and Caesar called the First Triumvirate.
Caesar was elected consul for 59 B.C.E. and enacted the Triumvirate’s
program. Caesar raised a great army for the conquest of Gaul, Crassus got a
similar military command in the Middle East, and Pompey got land for his
veterans and confirmation of his treaties from the Senate. By the time
Caesar had conquered Gaul and was ready to return to Rome, the
Triumvirate had dissolved. Crassus’s invasion of Parthia had ended with his
death at Carrhae in 53 B.C.E., and Pompey had allied with the Senate against
Caesar.

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The Career of Julius Caesar at myhistorylab.com

Early in January of 49 B.C.E. the more extreme faction in the Senate

ordered Pompey to defend the state and Caesar to lay down his command.
For Caesar this meant exile or death, so he ordered his legions to cross the
Rubicon River, the boundary of his province. This action was the first act of
a civil war that ended in 45 B.C.E., when Caesar defeated forces under
Pompey’s sons.
 Caesar made few changes in the government of Rome, but his monopoly
of military power made a sham of the republic. His senatorial enemies
conspired against him, and on March 15, 44 B.C.E., they stabbed him to
death at a meeting of the Senate. The assassins expected his death to restore
the republic, but instead thirteen more years of civil war eviscerated what
was left of the republic.

CHRONOLOGY

THE FALL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC

SECOND TRIUMVIRATE AND THE EMERGENCE OF OCTAVIAN

Caesar’s heir was his grandnephew, Octavian (63 B.C.E.– 14 C.E.). Marcus
Antonius (Mark Antony) (ca. 83–30 B.C.E.) and Lepidus (d. 13 B.C.E.), two
of Caesar’s officers, joined Octavian in forming the Second Triumvirate, an
alliance dedicated to punishing Caesar’s assassins. The triumvirs defeated
their enemy in 42 B.C.E. but soon quarreled among themselves. Octavian
gained control of the western part of the empire. Antonius, together with
Egypt’s Queen Cleopatra (r. 51–30 B.C.E.), ruled the East. In 31 B.C.E.,
Octavian crushed the fleet and army of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium
and ended the civil war. Octavian emerged in control of the Mediterranean
world but faced the daunting challenge of restoring peace, prosperity, and
confidence without making the mistake that had cost Caesar his life: He had
to exercise the power of a king without appearing to threaten the republican
traditions to which his fellow Romans were passionately attached.

THE AUGUSTAN PRINCIPATE

Octavian’s constitutional solution was to drape a monarchy in republican
trappings by apparently sharing authority with the Senate. All real power,
however, lay with the ruler, whether he was called by the unofficial title of
“first citizen” (princeps) like Octavian, or “emperor” (imperator) like those
who followed. The outline of his plan emerged in 27 B.C.E.: He was to rule
the provinces of Spain, Gaul, and Syria with pro-consular power for
military command and retain a consulship in Rome. The Senate would
govern the other provinces. Twenty of Rome’s twenty-six legions were
stationed in Octavian’s provinces, giving him effective control of the
empire. The Senate, however, was grateful to him for establishing peace
after Rome’s long civil war, and it voted him many honors, including the
semireligious title “Augustus,” which connoted veneration, majesty, and
holiness. Historians refer to Octavian in his role as Rome’s first emperor as
Augustus and characterize his regime as the Principate, a government that
tried to conceal the naked power on which it rested.

imperator
Under the Roman Republic, it was the title given to a victorious general.
Under Augustus and his successors, it became the title of the ruler of Rome,
meaning “emperor.”

Augustus
The title given to Octavian in 27 B.C.E. and borne thereafter by all Roman
emperors.
Emperor Augustus (r. 27 B.C.E.–14 C.E.). This statue, now in the Vatican,
stood in the villa of Augustus’s wife Livia. The figures on the elaborate
breastplate are all of symbolic significance. At the top, for example, Dawn
in her chariot brings in a new day under the protective mantle of the sky
god; in the center, Tiberius, Augustus’s successor, accepts the return of
captured Roman army standards from a barbarian prince; and at the bottom,
Mother Earth offers a horn of plenty.

Why was symbolism particularly important to Augustus?

AUGUSTAN ADMINISTRATION, ARMY, AND DEFENSE

Augustus made important administrative changes to reduce inefficiency and
corruption, to eliminate the threat to peace and order by ambitious
individuals, and to reduce the distinction between Romans and Italians,
senators and equestrians. Augustus controlled the elections and saw to it
that promising young men, whatever their origin, served the state.
Equestrians and Italians who had no connection with the Roman aristocracy
were admitted to the Senate, which Augustus treated with respect and
honor.
The economy prospered, stimulated by wealth from newly conquered
Egypt, by a general peace that stimulated commerce and industry, by a vast
program of public works, and by a revival of small farming on the lands
granted to Augustus’s veterans.
 Rome’s soldiers became true professionals under Augustus. Enlistment
was for twenty years, the pay was good, and there were bonuses and a
pension on retirement. The citizen legions, together with auxiliary units
staffed by provincials, stationed about 300,000 men on the empire’s
frontiers—barely enough to hold the line. The army in the provinces
brought Roman culture to the natives. The soldiers spread their language
and customs, often marrying local women and settling down there. They
attracted merchants, who became the nuclei of new towns that became
centers of Roman civilization. As time passed, the provincials on the
frontiers became Roman citizens and helped strengthen Rome’s defenses
against the barbarians.

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Augustus on His Accomplishments (1st century C.E.) at myhistorylab.com

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Rome in the Age of Augustus, 31 B.C–A.D. 14 at myhistorylab.com

RELIGION AND MORALITY

A century of political strife and civil war had undermined traditional
Roman society. Augustus undertook to preserve and restore family life by
curbing adultery and divorce and encouraging early marriage and the
procreation of legitimate children. He restored the dignity of formal Roman
religion by building temples and reviving cults. Like Julius Caesar, he was
deified after his death, and a state cult was dedicated to his worship.

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The Army under Augustus

Augustus professionalized army
20-year enlistment with good pay and pension
300,000 men formed frontier army
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ROMAN LITERATURE
Augustus replaced the complexity of republican patronage with a simple
scheme in which all patronage flowed from the princeps. Two of the major
poets of this time, Virgil and Horace, had lost their property during the civil
wars. The patronage of the princeps allowed them the leisure and the
security to write poetry and also made them dependent on him and limited
their freedom of expression.
Virgil (70–19 B.C.E.) was the most important Augustan poet. His greatest
work is the Aeneid, a long epic that linked the history of Rome with the
Homeric tradition of the Greeks. Its hero, the Trojan Aeneas, personifies the
ideal Roman qualities of duty, responsibility, serious purpose, and
patriotism. Virgil celebrated the peace and prosperity Augustus established
for the empire and supported Augustus’s program for the revival of
traditional Roman virtues.

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Augustus’s Moral Legislation: Family Values, 18 B.C.E. at
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Horace, “Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori” at myhistorylab.com

The great skills of the lyric poet Horace (65–8 B.C.E.) are best revealed in
his Odes. Many of them glorify the new Augustan order, the imperial
family, and the empire. Ovid (43 B.C.E.–18 C.E.) wrote entertaining love
elegies that reveal the sophistication and the loose sexual conduct of the
Roman aristocracy. His most popular work is Metamorphoses, a graceful,
lively poem of epic length that retells Greek myths as charming stories.
Ovid was exiled because his poetry did not conform to Augustan values.
The most important and influential prose writer of the time was Livy (59
B.C.E.– 17 C.E.). His History of Rome traced the period from Rome’s
legendary origins until 9 B.C.E. Only one-fourth of his work survives. Livy’s
great achievement was the creation of a continuous, impressive narrative
encompassing the full sweep of Roman history. Its purpose was to promote
traditional morality and patriotism. He glorified Rome’s greatness and, like
Augustus, grounded it in Rome’s hardy virtues.
Augustus was also a great patron of the visual arts. Augustus embarked
on a building program that beautified Rome, glorified his reign, contributed
to the general prosperity, and enhanced his popularity. The greatest
sculptural monument of the age is the Altar of Peace (Ara Pacis), dedicated
in 9 B.C.E. Its walls show a procession in which Augustus and his family
appear to move forward, followed by the magistrates, the Senate, and the
people of Rome. There is no better symbol of the new order.

PEACE AND PROSPERITY: IMPERIAL ROME

WHAT ROLE did cities play in the Roman Empire?

Augustus tried to cloak the monarchical nature of his government, but his
successors soon abandoned all pretense. The rulers came to be called
imperator—root of our word emperor—as well as Caesar. Augustus
designated his heirs by giving them a share in the imperial power and
responsibility (see Map 6–3). Tiberius (emperor 14–37 C.E.), Gaius
(Caligula, 37–41 C.E.), Claudius (41–54 C.E.), and Nero (54–68 C.E.)
descended from Augustus’s family. After their line died out in 68 C.E.,
various Roman armies marched on Italy and elevated four men in rapid
succession to the throne. Vespasian (69–79 C.E.), the first emperor who did
not come from the old Roman nobility, emerged victorious from the chaos,
and his sons, Titus (79–81 C.E.) and Domitian (81–96 C.E.), carried forward
the Flavian Dynasty.
A Panel from the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace). The altar was dedicated in 9
B.C.E. It was part of a propaganda campaign—involving poetry, architecture,
myth, and history—that Augustus undertook to promote himself as the
savior of Rome and the restorer of peace. This panel shows the goddess
Earth and her children with cattle, sheep, and other symbols of agricultural
wealth.

Saturnia, Tellus, Goddess of Earth, Air and Water. Panel from the Ara
Pacis. 13–9 B.C.E. Museum of the Ara Pacis, Rome. Nimatallah/Art
Resource, New York.

Why would agricultural products make good symbols of peace?

MAP 6–3. Provinces of the Roman Empire to 117 C.E. The growth of the
empire to its greatest extent is shown in three stages—at the death of
Augustus in 14 B.C.E., at the death of Nerva in 98 C.E., and at the death of
Trajan in 117 C.E. The division into provinces is also indicated. The inset
outlines the main roads that tied the far-flung empire.

What trends can you observe in Roman expansion over time?

The Flavian Dynasty ended with the assassination of Domitian. The
Senate appointed Nerva (96–98 C.E.) emperor, and he became the first of the
five “good emperors”; the others were Trajan (98–117 C.E.), Hadrian (117–
138 C.E.), Antoninus Pius (138–161 C.E.), and Marcus Aurelius (161–180
C.E.). Until Marcus Aurelius, none of these men had sons, so they were each
free to choose an able successor. The result was almost a century of
excellent administration. This ended when Marcus Aurelius’s incompetent
son Commodus (180–192 C.E.) succeeded him.
Relief from the Arch of Titus. Spoils from the Temple in Jerusalem were
carried in triumphal procession by Roman troops. This relief from Titus’s
Arch of Victory in the Roman Forum celebrates his capture of Jerusalem in
70 C.E. after a two-year siege. The Jews found it difficult to reconcile their
religion with Roman rule and frequently rebelled.

What are the most noticeable elements in this image? Why?

ADMINISTRATION OF THE EMPIRE

The empire was a collection of cities and towns. Roman policy during the
Principate was to raise urban centers to the status of Roman municipalities.
The upper classes of the provinces were enlisted in the governments of their
regions. This spread Roman culture and won the loyalty of influential
people. As the imperial bureaucracy grew and became more efficient,
however, the central administration took a greater role in local affairs and
the municipalities lost autonomy. Efficient centralized control was obtained
at the cost of the vitality of the cities.

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Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations, Book Two (167 C.E.) at
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The Roman Empire at Its Greatest Extent at myhistorylab.com
CHRONOLOGY

RULERS OF THE EARLY EMPIRE

Unlike most conquered peoples, the Jews found accommodation to

Roman rule difficult. Their first rebellion was crushed by Vespasian’s son,
the future emperor Titus, in 70 C.E. At that time the Temple in Jerusalem
was destroyed. A second revolt was put down in 117 C.E. Finally, when
Hadrian ordered a Roman colony placed on the site of Jerusalem, Simon led
a last uprising from 132 to 135 that was brutally suppressed.
Augustus and his successors had not tried to expand the empire, but
Trajan launched a sustained offensive into neighboring territory. Between
101 and 106 C.E., he established the new province of Dacia north of the
Danube. His intent was probably to defend the empire by driving wedges
into enemy territory. The same strategy led him to invade the Parthian
Empire in the East (113–117 C.E.). Hadrian kept Dacia but abandoned
Trajan’s eastern conquests. The Roman defense became rigid, and initiative
passed to the barbarians. Marcus Aurelius spent most of his reign resisting
attacks in the East and on the Danube frontier, and these attacks put
enormous pressure on the empire’s resources.

CULTURE OF THE EARLY EMPIRE

The prosperity and relative stability of the first two centuries of imperial
Rome brought Roman architecture to full flower. Roman contributions to
the building arts were largely advances in engineering that made huge
structures feasible. To the basic post-and-lintel construction used by the
Greeks, the Romans added the semicircular arch, borrowed from the
Etruscans. When used internally in the form of vaults and domes, the arch
permitted great buildings like the Roman baths. Romans also made good
use of concrete, a building material first used by the Hellenistic Greeks. The
Colosseum, an arena in Rome built by the Flavian emperors, is an excellent
example of Roman architecture. The only major Roman temple to survive
intact is the Pantheon, a building roofed by a great dome. Roman engineers
also spread impressive bridges, roads, and aqueducts throughout the empire.
In Latin literature, the years between the death of Augustus and Marcus
Aurelius are known as the Silver Age. Writers were gloomy, negative, and
pessimistic, prone to criticism and satire. Historians of the era wrote about
remote periods to avoid the risk of offending an emperor’s sensibilities.
Scholarship was encouraged, but we hear little of poetry. Romances written
in Greek became popular as an escape from contemporary realities.
Pompeiian Woman. The Roman provincial city of Pompeii, near the Bay
of Naples, was buried by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E. As a
result, the town, together with its private houses and their contents, was
remarkably well preserved until recovery in the eighteenth century. Among
the discoveries were a number of works of art, including pictorial mosaics
and paintings. This depiction of a young woman, on a round panel from a
house in Pompeii, is part of a larger painting that includes her husband
holding a volume of Plato’s writings. The woman is holding a stylus and a
booklet of wax tablets and is evidently in the process of writing. Her gold
earrings and hair net show that she is a fashionable person of some means.

Late first century C.E. Diameter 14 ⅝ inches. Sappho, idealized portrait of a

girl posing as a poetess. Fresco from Pompeii, Insula occidentale. Museo
Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy, © Erich Lessing/Art Resource, New
York.

What does this image suggest about the lives of well-to-do Roman
women?

LIFE IN IMPERIAL ROME: THE APARTMENT HOUSE

The civilization of the Roman Empire was the product of the vitality of its
cities. The typical city had about 20,000 inhabitants; Rome probably had in
excess of half a million. Most of its residents were squeezed into tall
apartment buildings, which the Romans called insulae (“islands”). The
buildings, which were five or more stories tall, were uncomfortable and
dangerous. Built cheaply, they were prone to collapse, and they were easily
set on fire by the many torches, candles, oil lamps, and braziers their
inhabitants used. They had no running water or other conveniences. Not
surprisingly, Romans spent most of their time out of doors.

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Hadrian’s Wall at myhistorylab.com
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Roman Coliseum at myhistorylab.com

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The Interior of the Dome of the Pantheon, Rome at myhistorylab.com

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Roman aqueduct at myhistorylab.com

A Roman Apartment House. This is a reconstruction of a typical Roman

apartment house found at Ostia, Rome’s port. The ground floor contained
shops, and the stories above it held many apartments.

Gismondi (20th C). Museo della Civiltà Romana, Rome, Italy/© Scala/Art
Resource, New York.

How do these buildings compare with the dwellings of other

civilizations of this era?

THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY

 HOW DID Paul resolve the central dilemma of the relationship
between Judaism and early Christianity?

The story of how Christianity ultimately conquered the Roman Empire is

one of the most remarkable in history. Christianity was opposed by the
established religious institutions of its native Judaea and had to compete not
only against the official cults of Rome and the sophisticated philosophies of
the educated classes but also against “mystery” religions such as the cults
of Mithra, Isis, and Osiris. Christians were also at times officially
persecuted by the state. Despite all this, Christianity became the official
religion of the empire.

“mystery” religions

The cults of Isis, Mithras, and Osiris, which promised salvation to those
initiated into the secret or “mystery” of their rites.

JESUS OF NAZARETH
An attempt to understand the triumph of Christianity must begin with Jesus
of Nazareth. The Gospel authors believed that Jesus was the son of God
who came to redeem humanity and bring immortality to those who followed
his teachings.
Jesus was born in Judaea in the time of Augustus and was an effective
teacher in the tradition of the Jewish prophets. This tradition promised the
coming of a Messiah (in Greek, christos—Jesus Christ means “Jesus the
Messiah”), a redeemer who would make Israel triumph over its enemies and
establish the kingdom of God on Earth. Jesus seems to have insisted that the
Messiah would not establish an earthly kingdom but, at the Day of
Judgment, God would reward the righteous and condemn the wicked. Until
that day, which his followers believed would come soon, Jesus taught the
faithful to abandon sin and worldly concerns; to follow the moral code
described in the Sermon on the Mount, which preached love, charity, and
humility; and to believe in him and his divine mission.
Jesus won a following, especially among the poor. This provoked the
hostility of Jerusalem’s religious leaders, who convinced the Roman
governor that Jesus and his followers might be dangerous revolutionaries.
Jesus was put to death in Jerusalem by the cruel and degrading method of
crucifixion, probably in 30 C.E. His followers believed that he was
resurrected on the third day after his death, and that belief became a critical
element in their religion.
Although faith in Jesus as the Christ spread to some Jewish communities
in Syria and Asia Minor, without Saint Paul it might have remained a small,
heretical cult within Judaism.

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The Roman and Christian Views of the Good Life at myhistorylab.com

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Excerpt from The Gospel According to Luke (1st century C.E.) at
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Excerpt from The Gospel According to Matthew (1st century C.E.) at
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The Acts of the Apostles: Paul Pronounces the “Good News” in Greece, ca.
100 at myhistorylab.com

PAUL OF TARSUS
Paul (?5–67 C.E.), whose Hebrew name was Saul, was born in Tarsus in
Asia Minor. He had an excellent Hellenistic education and held Roman
citizenship. He was also a Pharisee, a strict adherent of the Jewish law. He
persecuted the early Christians until his own sudden conversion while
traveling to Damascus about 35 C.E. The great problem facing the early
Christians, like Paul, was their relationship to Judaism. If the new faith was
a version of Judaism, then it must adhere to the Jewish law and seek
converts only among Jews. James, called the brother of Jesus, held that
view, whereas Hellenist Jews tended to see Christianity as a new and
universal religion.

Pharisees
The group that was most strict in its adherence to Jewish law.

Paul supported the position of the Hellenists and soon won many
converts among the gentiles. He believed that the followers of Jesus were
called to be evangelists (“messengers”) and to spread the gospel (“good
news”) of salvation during the short time that remained before Jesus
returned for the Day of Judgment. Faith in Jesus as the Christ was necessary
for salvation, but salvation was a gift of God’s grace, not something earned
by good works.

ORGANIZATION
The new religion had its greatest success in the cities and among the poor
and uneducated. The rites of the early Christians appear to have been simple
and few. Baptism by water removed original sin and permitted participation
in the community and its activities. The central ritual was a common meal
called the agape (“love feast”), followed by the ceremony of the Eucharist
(“thanksgiving”), a celebration of the Lord’s Supper in which unleavened
bread was eaten and unfermented wine drunk. There were also prayers,
hymns, and readings from works that eventually became the Christian
scriptures.

agape
Meaning “love feast.” A common meal that was part of the central ritual of
early Christian worship.

Eucharist
Meaning “thanksgiving.” The celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Considered
the central ritual of worship by most Christians. Also called Holy
Communion.

At first the churches had little formal organization, but by the second
century C.E., most cities had leaders called bishops. The doctrine of
Apostolic Succession asserted that the message and authority Jesus had
entrusted to his original disciples were passed on from bishop to bishop by
the rite of ordination. The bishops maintained discipline within their
churches and dealt with the civil authorities. In time they began meeting in
councils to settle difficult questions, define orthodox belief, and expel those
who would not accept it. Christianity could probably not have survived
without such strong internal organization and government.

Christian Martyr. Thrown to the lions in 275 C.E. by the Romans for
refusing to recant his Christian beliefs, St. Mamai is an important martyr in
the iconography of Georgia, a Caucasian kingdom that embraced
Christianity early in the fourth century. This gilded silver medallion, made
in Georgia in the eleventh century, depicts the saint astride a lion while he
bears a cross in one hand, symbolizing his triumphant victory over death
and ignorance.

PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS
The new faith soon incurred the distrust of the pagan world and of the
imperial government. The Christians’ refusal to demonstrate their
patriotism by worshiping the emperor was considered treason. By the end
of the first century, membership in the Christian community had become a
crime. Most persecutions during this period, however, were instituted not
by the government but by mobs.

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The Spread of Christianity at myhistorylab.com

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Early Christian Symbols at myhistorylab.com

EMERGENCE OF CATHOLICISM
Most Christians held to traditional, simple, conservative beliefs. This body
of majority opinion and the church that enshrined it came to be called
Catholic, which means “universal.” Its doctrines were deemed orthodox;
those holding contrary opinions were called heretics.

Catholic
Meaning “universal.” The body of belief held by most Christians enshrined
within the church.

orthodox
Meaning “holding the right opinions.” Applied to the doctrines of the
Catholic Church.

heretics People who publicly dissent from officially accepted dogma.

By the end of the second century, an orthodox scriptural canon had

emerged that included the Old Testament, the Gospels, and the Epistles of
Paul. The orthodox drew up creeds, brief statements of faith to which true
Christians should adhere. By the end of the second century, an orthodox
Christian—that is, a member of the Catholic Church—had to accept its
creed, its canon of holy writings, and the authority of the bishops.

ROME AS A CENTER OF THE EARLY CHURCH

The church in the city of Rome acquired special prominence. Rome
benefited from the tradition that Jesus’ apostles Peter and Paul were
martyred there. Peter was thought to be the first bishop of Rome, and the
Gospel of Matthew (16:18) reported Jesus saying to Peter, “Thou art Peter
[in Greek, Petros] and upon this rock [in Greek, petra] I will build my
church.” Subsequent bishops of Rome claimed supremacy over the Catholic
Church as heirs to the role Jesus granted to Peter.

QUICK REVIEW
Early Christian Rites
Baptism by water to remove original sin, enter community
Agape, a shared meal or “love feast”
Eucharist, a thanksgiving celebration featuring unleavened bread and
unfermented wine

THE THIRD AND FOURTH CENTURIES:

CRISIS AND LATE EMPIRE

WHY DID the capital of the empire move from Rome to

Constantinople, and what was the significance of this shift?

The prosperity created in Augustus’s day by the end of the civil war and the
influx of wealth from the East could not be sustained. Population seems to
have declined. The cost of government, however, kept rising. Pressure on
Rome’s frontiers, meanwhile, reached massive proportions. In the East, by
224 C.E., a new Iranian dynasty, the Sasanids, reinvigorated Persia (see
Chapter 4), recovered Mesopotamia, and raided deep into Roman territory.
Germans, especially the Goths, threatened Rome’s northern and western
frontiers.

MILITARY REORGANIZATION
Septimius Severus (r. 193–211 C.E.) and his successors transformed the
character of the Roman army. Septimius was a military usurper who owed
everything to the support of his soldiers. He was prepared to make Rome
into an undisguised military monarchy. Septimius drew recruits for the
army increasingly from peasants of the less civilized provinces, and the
result was a barbarization of Rome’s military forces.

Read the Document

Jordanes, The Origin and Deeds of the Goths, Book twenty-six, at
myhistorylab.com

ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL COSTS OF DEFENSE

Inflation had forced Commodus (r. 180–192 C.E.) to raise the soldiers’ pay,
but the Severan emperors had to double it to keep up with prices, which
increased the imperial budget by as much as 25 percent. The emperors
invented new taxes, debased the coinage, and even sold the palace furniture
to raise money. Still, it was hard to recruit troops.
As external threats distracted the emperors, they were less able to
preserve domestic peace. Piracy, brigandage, and the neglect of roads and
harbors hampered trade. So, too, did inflation. As the money supply
deteriorated, the government began to demand payment in food, supplies,
and labor. Rebellions erupted in some provinces, and peasants and even
town administrators fled to escape their burdens. The result was further
weakening of the Roman economy.
The new conditions caused important changes in the social order. The
state began to take on a military appearance. People’s clothing became a
kind of uniform that indicated their status. Titles were assigned to ranks in
civilian society as to ranks in the army. The most important distinction was
the one formally established by Septimius Severus between the honestiores
(senators, equestrians, municipal aristocracy, and soldiers) and the lower
classes, or humiliores. Septimius granted the honestiores legal privileges:
lighter punishments, exemption from torture, and right of appeal to the
emperor. It became more difficult to move from the lower order to the
higher. Freedom and private initiative were suppressed as the state’s needs
forced it steadily to increase its control over its citizens.
 By the mid-third century the empire seemed on the point of collapse, but
two able soldiers, Claudius II Gothicus (r. 268–270 C.E.) and Aurelian (r.
270–275 C.E.), drove back the barbarians and stamped out disorder. Later
emperors built defensive walls around Rome and other cities and hired
Germanic mercenaries whose officers gave personal loyalty to the emperor
rather than to the empire. These officers became a foreign, hereditary caste
of aristocrats that increasingly supplied high administrators and even
emperors. In effect, the Roman people succumbed to an army of
mercenaries they themselves had hired.

PRESERVATION OF CLASSICAL CULTURE

The new ruling class thought of itself as effecting a great restoration, not a
revolution. The new aristocracy sought order and stability—ethical, literary,
and artistic—in the classical tradition. The great classical authors were
reproduced in many copies, and their works were transferred from
perishable and inconvenient papyrus rolls to sturdier codices, bound
volumes that were as easy to use as modern books. Scholars digested long
works like Livy’s History of Rome into shorter versions and wrote learned
commentaries and compiled grammars.

THE LATE EMPIRE: DIOCLETIAN TO CONSTANTINE

The period from Diocletian (r. 284–305 C.E.) to Constantine (r. 306–337
C.E.) was one of reconstruction and reorganization. The emperor Diocletian
was a man of undistinguished birth who rose to the throne through the
army. He concluded that the job of defending and governing the entire
empire was too great for one man. He devised a new administrative system,
a tetrarchy, to divide territorial responsibility for the empire among four
men: two emperors and two assistants who were designated as their
successors. This system seemed to promise orderly, peaceful transitions
instead of assassinations, chaos, and civil war.

tetrarchy
Diocletian’s (r. 284–305 C.E.) system for ruling the Roman Empire by four
men with power divided territorially.
 In 305 Diocletian retired and compelled his co-emperor to do the same.
But his plan for a smooth succession failed. In 310 there were five
competing emperors. Out of this chaos Constantine emerged as sole
emperor in 324; he reigned until 337.
The emperor had now become almost unapproachable. Those admitted to
his presence had to prostrate themselves before him and kiss the hem of his
robe. He was addressed as dominus (“lord”), and he claimed a divine right
to rule.
Constantine erected the new city of Constantinople on the site of ancient
Byzantium on the Bosporus, which leads to both the Aegean and the Black
seas, and made it the new capital of the empire. Its strategic location was
excellent for protecting the eastern and Danubian frontiers, and, surrounded
on three sides by water, it was easily defended.
The autocratic emperors governed through a civilian bureaucracy, which
was kept separate from the army to divide power and reduce the temptation
an official might have to challenge the emperor. The system was kept under
surveillance by a network of spies and secret police, but they failed to
eliminate corruption and inefficiency.
The cost of maintaining a 400,000-man army, a vast civilian bureaucracy,
and an expensive imperial court strained an already weak economy.
Peasants unable to pay their taxes and officials unable to collect them fled
their posts. Wealthy individuals moved from cities to their rural estates, and
many peasants sought protection from the government’s tax collectors by
becoming tenant farmers on these estates. They were tied to the land, as
were their descendants, as a caste system hardened.
The peace and unity established by Constantine did not last. The
Germans in the west attacked along the Rhine, but even greater trouble was
brewing along the Danube where the Visigoths had been driven from their
home in the Ukraine by the Huns. The Emperor Valentinian (r. 364–375)
saw that he could not defend the empire alone and appointed his brother
Valens (r. 364–378) as co-ruler in the East. The empire was again divided in
two, and the cultures of the Latin West and the Greek East grew
increasingly distinct. In 376, the Goths began to plunder the Balkan
provinces. In 378, Valens met them in battle at Adrianople in Thrace, and
he was cut down with most of the eastern army. Theodosius (r. 379–395),
an able and experienced general, unified the empire, but at his death in 395
it was divided between his sons and never reunited again.
QUICK REVIEW
Constantinople
Built on site of ancient Byzantium
Established by Constantine
On a peninsula, easily defended
Access to Asia

MAP 6–4. The Empire’s Neighbors. In the fourth century the Roman
Empire was nearly surrounded by ever-more threatening neighbors. The
map shows where these so-called barbarians lived and the invasion routes
many of them took in the fourth and fifth centuries.

How did barbarian invasions transform the Roman world?

The West became increasingly rural as barbarian invasions grew (see

Map 6–4). The villa, a fortified country estate, became the basic unit of
society. Coloni (tenant farmers) served local magnates in return for
economic assistance and protection. Cities were depopulated and shrank to
tiny walled fortresses ruled by military commanders and bishops. The upper
classes left the cities and moved to the country to escape the imperial
authorities. The inability of the central authority to maintain and police
roads curtailed trade and communications, and living conditions became
increasingly primitive. By the fifth century, the West was devolving into
rural enclaves ruled by independent aristocrats and worked by a dependent
labor force. The only unifying institution was the Christian church. The
pattern of life that was to prevail in the West during the early Middle Ages
had been generally established.
The East was different. The Roman Empire, in altered form, persisted.
Constantinople flourished as the “New Rome.” Although its people
continued to call themselves “Romans,” their lifestyles were so different
from those of ancient Rome that historians refer to them as subjects of the
medieval Byzantine Empire. Constantinople’s defensible location, the
services of some skillful emperors, and the resources of its base in Asia
Minor enabled the eastern empire to deflect and repulse barbarian attacks.
A strong Byzantine navy allowed commerce to flourish and cities to
prosper. Emperors generally kept the upper hand in dealing with restive
aristocratic elements. Byzantine civilization was a unique combination of
classical culture, Christian religion, Roman law, and eastern artistic
influences. When historians speak of the decline and fall of the Roman
Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries, they reference only the West. A
form of classical culture persisted in Byzantium for another thousand years.

Read the Document

Eusebius on the Vision and Victory of Constantine I (The Great) (312) at
myhistorylab.com

TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY
In the troubled fourth and fifth centuries people sought the help of
powerful, personal deities. It was by no means unusual for people to
worship new deities alongside traditional ones and to intertwine features of
several gods to create new ones, a phenomenon called syncretism.
Christianity bore some resemblance to other new faiths of the period, but
none of them developed its universal appeal.

syncretism
Blending or fusion of different systems of religious or philosophical beliefs.

In 303, Diocletian had launched the most serious persecution inflicted on

the Christians in the Roman Empire. It failed to stem the Christian tide.
Ancient states could not carry out a program of terror with the thoroughness
of modern totalitarian governments, and the witness of Christian martyrs
may have strengthened the faith. In short order, Christians witnessed a
miraculous reversal of fortune.
The conversion of Diocletian’s ultimate successor, Constantine, and his
ascent as sole ruler of the empire transformed Christianity’s prospects.
Constantine provided lavish patronage for the church and encouraged
widespread conversion. In 394, the emperor Theodosius forbade the
celebration of pagan cults, and by the time he died, Christianity had become
the official religion of the Roman Empire (see Map 6–5 on page 168).
Temptations of power and privilege constituted new threats to some
Christians. State support for the faith threatened to subordinate the church
to the state. In the East, that was generally the church’s fate, but in the West,
the weakness of emperors permitted church leaders to exercise
independence. In 390, when Ambrose (ca. 339–397), bishop of Milan,
excommunicated Emperor Theodosius, the emperor submitted to his
authority and did penance. This set an important precedent for future
assertions of the church’s autonomy and authority.

CHRONOLOGY

THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY

MAP EXPLORATION
To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com
MAP 6–5. The Spread of Christianity.

Christianity grew swiftly in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries—
especially after the conversion of the emperors in the fourth century. By
600, on the eve of the birth of the new religion of Islam, Christianity was
dominant throughout the Mediterranean world and most of western Europe.
Which areas remained largely non-Christian at the end of the seventh
century?
The Christian emperors hoped to unify their increasingly decentralized
realms by imposing Christianity as the only religion, but Christianity
divided society in new ways. Safe from persecution, Christians engaged in
doctrinal disputes among themselves, causing serious disturbances as
Christians sought to distinguish orthodoxy from heresy. The most important
controversy concerned Arianism, a debate begun by a priest named Arius
of Alexandria (ca. 280–336). Arius’s view that Jesus was not coequal and
co-eternal with God the Father was dismissed by his orthodox opponents,
who argued that it undercut Jesus’ power as savior. In 325, Constantine
summoned the Council of Nicaea to settle the issue. The Nicene Creed
issued by the council endorsed the doctrine of the Trinity: the belief that
God is three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) who share one
substance. Arianism, however, survived and spread and continued to create
political difficulties for generations.

Arianism
The belief formulated by Arius of Alexandria (ca. 280–336 C.E.) that Jesus
was a created being, neither fully man nor fully God, but something in
between.

Nicene Creed
A statement of Christian belief, formulated by the council of Christian
bishops at Nicaea in 324 C.E., that rejected Arianism in favor of the doctrine
that Christ is both fully human and fully divine.

OVERVIEW The Fall of the Roman Empire in the West

For centuries historians and social scientists have speculated why the
ancient world collapsed. By contrast, the great English historian Edward
Gibbon (1737–1794) wrote in his classic work The Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire that we should really ask not why Rome fell but why so vast
an empire survived for so long. The following are some of the causes and
explanations scholars have proposed for the fall of Rome. They range from
the plausible to the ridiculous.
CAUSE EXPLANATION
Climate A gradual drying and cooling climate destroyed the
change productivity of ancient agriculture on which the empire
depended.
Soil Depleted soil around the Mediterranean no longer produced
exhaustion enough food to feed the population, which weakened and
declined.
Lead The use of lead pipes for drinking and cooking water led to
poisoning widespread lead poisoning and sterility, especially among the
upper classes who had the most access to running water.
Racial Eastern immigrants to Rome—Syrians, Greeks, and Jews—
pollution sapped the vitality of the Romans and destroyed their ability
to rule and defend themselves.
Slavery The prevalence of slavery made the Romans lazy and
undercut free labor.
Intellectual The failure to make advances in science and technology—to
stagnation achieve a scientific revolution—led the empire to an
intellectual and economic dead end.
Social The destruction of the middle class through civil war,
disorder invasion, and overtaxation wiped out the most productive and
culturally aware part of the Roman population. Third-century
emperors encouraged the rural poor to plunder the middle and
upper classes.
Excessive Government exactions and regulations destroyed the
government operation of a market economy, which was the basis for
prosperity.
Christianity The adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the
empire in the fourth century weakened the Roman state,
diverted scarce resources to building and staffing churches
and monasteries, and led large segments of the population to
embrace pacifism.
Immorality Gluttony, sloth, and sexual depravity replaced the old Roman
virtues that had enabled Rome to conquer its empire.

CHRISTIAN WRITERS
Christianity inspired scholars who did important original work. Jerome
(348–420), a Christian who had superb classical education, used his
linguistic skills to create the Vulgate, a revised version of the Bible in Latin.
It became the official version of the Bible used by the medieval Catholic
Church.
In the East, Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260–ca. 340) attempted to develop
a Christian theory of history as a working out of God’s will in his
Ecclesiastical History. All of history, he claimed, had divine significance
and direction. Constantine’s victory and the subsequent unity of empire and
church was its culmination.
The closeness and complexity of the relationship between classical pagan
culture and the Christianity of the late empire are exemplified in the career
and writings of Augustine (354–430), bishop of Hippo in North Africa. His
skill in pagan rhetoric and philosophy made him peerless among his
contemporaries as a defender of Christianity and a theologian. His greatest
works are his Confessions, an autobiography that describes his conversion,
and The City of God. The latter was a response to Rome’s sack by the Goths
in 410. Augustine separated the fate of Christianity from that of the Roman
Empire. He contrasted the secular world—the city of Man—with the
spiritual—the City of God. The former was selfish and evil, the latter
unselfish and good. All states, even a Christian Rome, were part of the City
of Man and, therefore, corrupt and destined to pass away. Only the City of
God was eternal and unaffected by earthly calamities.

Read the Document

St. Augustine of Hippo, Theory of the “Just War” at myhistorylab.com

SUMMARY

WHO WERE the early peoples of Italy?

 Italy before Rome. Early and influential invaders of the Italian peninsula
included the Etruscans, Greeks, and Celts. Starting around 800 B.C.E., the
Etruscans established themselves as a military ruling class in northern Italy.
page 144

WHAT PATTERNS of Roman governance were set in the royal

period?

Royal Rome. Rome began as a small settlement in Latium in central

Italy ruled by Etruscan kings. These kings, like later rulers of Rome, had
the power of imperium. The importance of family, clientage, and the
division of society into two broad classes were other enduring patterns that
were set in this period. page 144

WHAT CULTURES most influenced Roman culture, and why?

The Republic. Rome became a republic in 509 B.C.E. The Roman

constitution divided power between elected magistrates, the chief of whom
were two consuls; an appointed Senate, whose members served for life; and
popular assemblies. During the third century B.C.E., the aristocratic
patricians were forced to share power with the common people, the
plebeians. The institution of clientage by which clients pledged their loyalty
to powerful patrons in return for legal and political protection was an
important part of Roman political life. Rome expanded and engaged in the
first of many conflicts with Carthage. In the third century B.C.E. Rome
turned to the east and defeated the Hellenistic monarchies that had
succeeded Alexander’s empire. Macedon and Greece fell under Roman
rule. This led to the adoption of Greek culture by the Roman aristocracy
and the rapid Hellenization of Roman culture. page 146

WHY DID a growing gap between the wealthy and everyone else
contribute to political instability?
Roman Imperialism. By the early fourth century, Rome had expanded to
control all of Italy through a policy of conquest, alliances, colonies of
Roman veterans, and generosity to foes who submitted. Between 264 and
146 B.C.E., Rome fought three wars with Carthage for control of the western
Mediterranean. These Punic Wars ended with the destruction of Carthage
but led to social and political disorder in Italy. Many small farmers lost their
land, and efforts by the Gracchi brothers to resolve the problems ended in
their murders. page 152

WHAT WERE the central features of Octavian rule?

The Fall of the Republic and the Augustan Principate. The Roman
Republic was destroyed by social unrest and rivalry among amibitious
generals and politicians, the most successful of whom was Julius Caesar.
After a civil war that followed Caesar’s assassination in 44 B.C.E., his
nephew Octavian emerged as the most powerful man in Rome. Under the
title of Augustus, he set up a system that preserved the façade of republican
institutions but was in fact a monarchy. page 156

WHAT ROLE did cities play in the Roman Empire?

Peace and Prosperity: Imperial Rome. The Roman Empire stretched from
Scotland to Iraq. Rome fostered the growth of cities, developed the rule of
law, built a vast network of roads and other public works, and established
peace and stability betweeen 14 and 180 C.E. page 158

HOW DID Paul resolve the central dilemma of the relationship

between Judaism and early Christianity?

The Rise of Christianity. Christianity arose in the Roman province of

Judaea in the first century C.E. Paul believed that Christianity was a
universal religion that should be known beyond the Jewish community.
Christianity spread throughout the empire despite occasional persecutions
by the Roman state, which itself became Christian in the late fourth century.
page 162

WHY DID the capital of the empire move from Rome to

Constantinople, and what was the significance of this shift?

The Third and Fourth Centuries: Crisis and Late Empire. In the third
century C.E., the Roman peace collapsed under the pressure of invasions by
barbarians in the West and the Sasanids in the East. Rival generals
murdered emperors and usurped the throne. The economy declined. The
state exacted more and more taxes and resources from its citizens. The
emperors Diocletian and Constantine managed to halt the decline, but in the
fifth century C.E. Roman authority in the West collapsed. In the East,
however, a Christian Roman Empire based in the city of Constantinople
survived and evolved into the Byzantine Empire that did much to preserve
the Greek and Roman heritage for another thousand years. page 164

KEY TERMS

agape (ah-gah-PAY)
Arianism
Augustus
Catholic
censor
equestrians
Eucharist
heretics
humanitas
imperator
imperium
latifundia (lah-tee-foondee-ah)
 “mystery religions”
Nicene Creed
orthodox
patrician
Pharisees
plebeian
populares
Punic Wars
syncretism
tetrarchy
tribunes

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. How did the institutions of family and clientage and the

establishment of patrician and plebeian classes contribute to the
stability of the early Roman Republic? How important was
education to the success of the republic?
2. Discuss Rome’s expansion to 265 B.C.E. How was Rome able to
conquer and control Italy? In their relations with Greece and Asia
Minor in the second century B.C.E., were the Romans looking for
security? Wealth? Power? Fame?
3. Explain the clash between the Romans and the Carthaginians in the
First and Second Punic Wars. Could the wars have been avoided?
How did Rome benefit from its victory over Carthage? What
problems were created by this victory?
4. How did Greek culture influence Roman beliefs and practices?
5. What were the problems that plagued the Roman Republic in its
final century? What caused these problems and how did the Romans
try to solve them? To what extent was the republic destroyed by
ambitious generals who loved power more than Rome itself?
6. Discuss the Augustan constitution and government. What solutions
did Augustus provide for the problems that had plagued the Roman
 Republic? Why was the Roman population willing to accept
Augustus as head of the state?
7. Despite unpromising beginnings, Christianity was enormously
popular by the fourth century C.E. Why were Christians persecuted
by Roman authorities? What were the more important reasons for
Christianity’s success?
8. Consider three theories that scholars have advanced to explain the
decline and fall of the Roman Empire. What are the difficulties
involved in explaining the fall? What explanation would you give?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 6

Read the Document Excerpt from The Life of Cato the Elder (2 C.E.)
Plutarch, p. 145
Livy: The Rape of Lucretia and the Origins of the Republic, ca. 10
B.C.E, p. 146
Issue of the Day: Religion and Philosophy in the Roman Empire-
Stoicism and Christianity?, p. 151
Excerpt from Life of Caesar (2d century C.E.), Plutarch, p. 156
Augustus on His Accomplishments (1st century C.E.), p. 157
Augustus’s Moral Legislation: Family Values, 18 B.C.E, p. 158
Horace, “Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori”, p. 158
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations, Book Two (167 C.E.), p. 160
Excerpt from The Gospel According to Luke (1st century C.E.), p. 162
Excerpt from The Gospel According to Matthew (1st century C.E.), p.
162
 The Acts of the Apostles: Paul Pronounces the “Good News” in
Greece ca. 100, p. 162
Jordanes, The Origin and Deeds of the Goths, Book twenty-six, p. 164
Eusebius on the Vision and Victory of Constantine I (The Great) (312),
p. 167
St. Augustine of Hippo, Theory of the “Just War,” p. 170

See the Map The Roman Conquest of the Mediterranean During the
Republic, p. 151

The Career of Julius Caesar, p. 156

Rome in the Age of Augustus, 31 B.C.–A.D. 14, p. 157
The Roman Empire at Its Greatest Extent, p. 160
The Spread of Christianity, p. 163

View the Image Hadrian’s Wall, p. 161

Roman Coliseum, p. 161

The Interior of the Dome of the Pantheon,
Rome, p. 161
Roman aqueduct, p. 161
Early Christian Symbols, p. 163

Study and Review The Roman and Christian Views of the Good Life,
p. 162

Research and Explore

Watch the Video Defining Imperialism

Watch the Video Roman Roads

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 6 at www.myhistorylab.com
7
China’s First Empire, 221 B.C.E.–589 C.E.

Hear the Audio for Chapter 7 at www.myhistorylab.com

Han Dynasty aristocrat out driving in his horse cart. Bronze relic
excavated from a tomb in Kansu in northwestern China in 1969. Grave
goods were a part of Chinese tradition for centuries.
What might this relic suggest about the social status of the individual
buried in the tomb where this was found?

QIN UNIFICATION OF CHINA

HOW DID the Qin unify China?

FORMER HAN DYNASTY (206 B.C.E.–8 C.E.)

WHAT IS the dynastic cycle?

LATER HAN (25–220 C.E.) AND ITS AFTERMATH

WHY DID the Han Dynasty collapse?

HAN THOUGHT AND RELIGION

WHAT WAS the extent of Buddhist influence under the Han?

One hallmark of Chinese history is its striking continuity of culture,

language, and geography. The Shang and Zhou dynasties were centered in
north China along the Yellow River or its tributary, the Wei. The capitals of
China’s first empire were in exactly the same areas, and north China would
remain China’s political center up to the present. If Western civilization had
experienced similar continuity, it would have progressed from Thebes in the
valley of the Nile to Athens on the Nile; Rome on the Nile; then, in time, to
Paris, London, and Berlin on the Nile; and each of these centers of
civilization would have spoken Egyptian and written in Egyptian
hieroglyphics.
These continuities do not mean that China was unchanging. One key
turning point came in the third century B.C.E., when the old, quasi-feudal,
multistate Zhou system gave way to a centralized bureaucratic government.
The new centralized state built an empire stretching from the steppe in the
north to Vietnam in the south.
The history of the first empire is composed of three segments: the Qin
Dynasty, the Former Han Dynasty, and the Later Han Dynasty. The English
word China is derived from the name of the first dynasty. The Qin overthrew
the previous Zhou Dynasty in 256 B.C.E. and went on to unify China in 221
B.C.E. In reshaping China, the Qin developed such momentum that it became
overextended and collapsed a single generation after the unification. The
succeeding Han dynasties each lasted about 200 years, the Early Han from
206 B.C.E. to 8 C.E., the Later Han (founded by a descendant of the Former
Han rulers) from 25 to 220 C.E. Historians usually treat each of the Han
dynasties as a separate period of rule, although they were nearly
continuous and shared many institutions and cultural traits. So deep was
the impression left by these two dynasties on the Chinese that even today
they call themselves the “Han people”—in contrast to Mongols, Manchus,
Tibetans, and other minorities—and they call their ideographs “Han
writing.”

QIN UNIFICATION OF CHINA

HOW DID the Qin unify China?

Among the territorial states of the Late Zhou era, none was more innovative
and ruthless than Qin (pronounced “chin”). Its location on the Wei River in
northwest China—the same area from which the Zhou had launched their
expansion a millennium earlier—gave it strategic advantages: It controlled
the passes leading out onto the Yellow River plain, so it was easy to defend
and was a secure base from which to attack other states. From the late
fourth century B.C.E., the Qin conquered a part of Sichuan and thus
controlled two of the most fertile regions of ancient China. It welcomed
Legalist administrators, who developed policies for enriching the country
and strengthening its military. Despite its harsh laws, farmers moved to Qin
from other areas, attracted by the order and stability of its society. Its armies
had been forged by centuries of warfare against the nomadic raiders whose
lands half encircled it. To counter these raiders, its armies adopted nomadic
skills, developing cavalry in the fourth century. Other states regarded the
Qin as tough, crude, and brutal but recognized its formidable strengths.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
CHINA’S FIRST EMPIRE
Were there world-historical forces that produced great empires in China,
India, and the Mediterranean at roughly the same time? Certainly these
empires had similar features. All three came after revolutions in thought.
The Han built on Zhou thought (it would be hard to imagine the Han
bureaucratic state without Legalism and Confucianism), just as Rome used
Greek thought, and the Mauryan Empire, Buddhist thought. In each case,
the conception of universal political authority sustaining the empire derived
from earlier philosophies. All three were Iron Age empires, joining their
respective technologies with new organizational techniques to create superb
military forces. All three had to weld together diverse regions into a single
polity. All three created legacies that continued long after the empire had
disappeared.
The differences between the empires are also instructive. Consider China
and Rome. In China the pervasive culture—the only higher culture in the
area—was Chinese, even before the first empire arose. This culture had
been slowly spreading for centuries and in places outran the polity. Even the
Ch’u people south of the Yangzi, while viewed as “semibarbarian” by
northern Chinese, had a variation of the same common culture. Thus
cultural unity had paved the way for political unity. In contrast, the polyglot
empire of Rome encompassed quite different peoples, including older
civilizations. The genius of Rome, in fact, was to fashion a government and
a set of laws that could contain and reconcile its diverse cultures.
Geographically, however, Rome had an easier time of it, for the
Mediterranean offered direct access to most parts of the empire and was a
thoroughfare for commerce. In contrast, China was largely landlocked. It
was composed of several regional economic units, each of which, located in
a segment of a river basin separated from the others by natural barriers,
looked inward. It was the genius of Chinese administration to overcome
physical and spatial barriers and integrate the country politically.
A second difference was that government in Han China was more
orderly, more complex, and more competent than that of Rome. For
example, civil officials controlled the Chinese military almost until the end,
whereas in later Roman times, emperor after emperor was set on the throne
by the army or the Praetorian Guard. The Roman Empire was not a
Chinese-type, single-family dynasty.
A third difference was in the military dynamics of the two empires.
Roman power was built over centuries. Its history is the story of one state
growing in power by steady increments, imposing its will on others, and
gradually piecing together an empire. Not until the early centuries C.E. was
the whole empire in place. China, in contrast, remained a multistate system
right up to 232 B.C.E. and then, in a sudden surge, was unified by one state
in eleven years. The greater dynamism of China during the first empire can
be explained, perhaps, by the greater military challenge it faced across its
northern border: an immense Xiongnu nomadic empire. Because the threat
was more serious than that any European barbarian enemy posed to Rome,
the Chinese response was correspondingly massive. (Some historians say
that Chinese expansion to the north and northwest drove the Xiongnu—the
Huns—westward, displacing Germanic tribes that flooded into Europe and
pressed against Roman frontiers.)

Focus Questions

What challenges did the Roman, Han, and Mauryan empires face in
conquering and integrating new territories? How did they meet these
challenges?
Compare and contrast the Roman and Han empires. What qualities
did they have in common? How did they differ?

In 246 B.C.E. the man who would unify China succeeded to the Qin throne
at the age of 13. He grew to be vigorous, ambitious, intelligent, and
decisive. He is famous as a Legalist autocrat, but he was well liked by his
ministers, whose advice he usually followed. (See Chapter 2 for a
description of Legalism.) In 232 B.C.E., he began the campaigns that
destroyed the six remaining territorial states. On completing his conquests
in 221 B.C.E., to raise himself above the kings of the former territorial states,
he adopted the glorious title that we translate as “emperor”—a combination
of ideographs hitherto used only for gods or mythic heroes. Then, aided by
talented officials, this First Qin Emperor set about applying to all of China
the reforms that had been effective in his own realm. His accomplishments
in the eleven years before his death, in 210 B.C.E., were stupendous.

View the Image The Great Wall of China at myhistorylab.com

Having conquered the civilized world of north China and the Yangzi
River basin, the First Emperor sent his armies to conquer new lands. They
reached the northern edge of the Red River basin in what is now Vietnam.
They occupied China’s southeastern coast and the area encompassing the
present-day city of Guangzhou (see Map 7–1). In the north and the
northwest, the emperor’s armies fought against the Xiongnu, Altaic-
speaking Hunnish nomads. During the previous age, northern border states
had built long walls to protect settled lands from incursions by horse-riding
raiders. The Qin emperor had them joined into a single Great Wall that
extended 1,400 miles from the Pacific Ocean into Central Asia.
Construction of the Great Wall cost the lives of vast numbers of conscripted
laborers—by some accounts, 100,000; by others, as many as 1 million.
The most significant reform, carried out by the Legalist minister Li Si,
extended the Qin system of bureaucratic government to the entire empire.
Li Si divided China into forty prefectures, which were further subdivided
into counties. The county heads were responsible to prefects, who, in turn,
were responsible to the central government. Officials were chosen by
ability. Bureaucratic administration was impersonal, based on laws to which
all were subject. No one, for example, escaped taxation. This kind of
bureaucratic centralism broke sharply with the old Zhou pattern of
establishing dependent principalities for members of a ruler’s family.
Furthermore, to ensure the smooth functioning of local government
offices, former aristocrats of the territorial states were removed from their
lands and resettled in the capital, near present-day Xian. They were housed
in mansions on one side of the river, from which they could gaze across at
the enormous palace of the First Emperor.
MAP 7–1. The Unification of China by the Qin State.

Between 232 and 221 B.C.E. the Qin state expanded and unified China.

Why did Qin expansion fail to move westward?

Read the Document

Li Si and the Legalist Policies of Qin Shihuang (280–208 B.C.E.) at
myhistorylab.com

Other reforms further unified the First Emperor’s vast domain. Roads
were built radiating out from the capital city. The emperor decreed a system
of uniform weights and measures. He unified the Chinese writing system,
establishing standard ideographs. He established uniform axle lengths for
carts. Even ideas did not escape the drive toward uniformity. Following the
precepts of Legalism, the emperor and his advisers launched a campaign for
which they have subsequently been denounced: They collected and burned
the books of Confucianism and other schools, and were said to have buried
alive scholars opposed to the Legalist philosophy. Only useful books on
agriculture, medicine, or Legalist teachings were spared.

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But the Qin had changed too much, too quickly. To pay for the roads,
canals, and the Great Wall, burdensome taxes were levied on the people.
Commoners hated conscription and labor service, and nobles resented their
loss of status. Merchants were exploited; scholars, except for Legalists,
were oppressed. After the First Emperor died, in 210 B.C.E., intrigues broke
out at court, and rebellions arose in the land. At the end, the short-lived
dynasty was destroyed by the domino effect of its own legal codes. When
the generals sent to quell a rebellion were defeated, they joined the rebellion
rather than returning to the capital and incurring the severe punishment
decreed for failure. The Qin collapsed in 206 B.C.E.
In 1974 a farmer near Xian discovered the army of 8,000 life-size terra-
cotta horses and soldiers that guarded the tomb of the First Emperor. The
historical record tells us that in the tomb itself, under a mountain of earth,
are a replica of his capital; a relief model of the Chinese world with
quicksilver rivers; other warriors with chariots of bronze; and the remains
of horses, noblemen, and criminals sacrificed to accompany in death the
emperor whose dynasty was to have lasted for 10,000 generations.

QUICK REVIEW

Qin Reforms
Extension of Qin bureaucracy to entire empire
Building of roads
Creation of a unified writing system
Creation of unified system of weights and measures

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Qin Shihuang’s Terra-Cotta Soldiers at myhistorylab.com
FORMER HAN DYNASTY (206 B.C.E.–8 C.E.)

WHAT IS the dynastic cycle?

THE DYNASTIC CYCLE

Confucian historians have seen a pattern in every dynasty of long duration.
They call it the dynastic cycle. The stages of the cycle are interpreted in
terms of the “Mandate of Heaven.” The cycle begins with internal wars that
eventually lead to the military unification of China. Unification is proof that
heaven has given the unifier the mandate to rule. The first ruler, strong and
vigorous, restores peace and order to China. Economic growth follows,
almost automatically. The peak of the cycle is marked by public works,
energetic reforms, and aggressive military expansion. During this phase,
China appears invincible. But then the cycle turns downward. The costs of
expansion, coupled with increasing opulence at the court, place a heavy
burden on tax revenues just as they are beginning to decline. The vigor of
the monarchs wanes. Intrigues develop at court. Central controls loosen,
and provincial governors and military commanders gain autonomy. Finally,
public works fall into disrepair, floods and pestilence occur, rebellions
break out, and the dynasty collapses. For Confucian historians, the last
emperors in a cycle are not only politically weak but also morally culpable.

dynastic cycle
The term used to describe the rise, decline, and fall of China’s imperial
dynasties.
The Great Wall of China. It was originally built during the Qin Dynasty
(256–206 B.C.E.), but what we see today is the wall as it was completely
rebuilt during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 C.E.).

Paolo Koch/Photo Researchers, Inc.

What purpose was the original Great Wall built to serve?

EARLY YEARS OF THE FORMER HAN DYNASTY

The first sixty years of the Han were the early phase of its dynastic cycle.
After the collapse of the Qin, one rebel general gained control of the Wei
basin and went on to unify China. He became the first emperor of the Han
Dynasty and is known by his posthumous title of Gaozu (r. 206–195 B.C.E.).
He rose from plebeian origins to become emperor, which would happen
only once again in Chinese history. Gaozu built his capital at Chang’an, not
far from the capitals of the previous dynasties. It took the emperor and his
immediate successors many years to consolidate their power because they
consciously avoided actions that would remind the populace of the hated
Qin despotism. They made punishments less severe and reduced taxes.
Good government prevailed, the economy rebounded, granaries were filled,
and the government accumulated vast cash reserves. Later historians often
singled out the early Han rulers as model sage-emperors.
A Closer Look
The Terra-Cotta Army of the First Qin Emperor
In 1974 a Xian farmer, drilling for water, discovered the tomb of the
First Qin Emperor (256–210 B.C.E.). To date, 8,000 warriors, copper
horses, and war chariots have been found. The emperor’s 76-meter-
high burial chamber, which according to the records of history has a
starry firmament and rivers of mercury, has not yet been excavated.

Questions
 1. How did the legalism of the Qin state affect its armies?
2. Why did the emperor have this ghostly army fabricated? Did he plan
to lead it in an afterlife?
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www.myhistorylab.com

HAN WUDI
The second phase of the dynastic cycle began with the rule of Wudi (the
“martial emperor”), who came to the throne in 141 B.C.E. at the age of 16
and ruled for fifty-four years (141–87 B.C.E.). Wudi was daring, vigorous,
and intelligent but also superstitious, suspicious, and vengeful. He wielded
tremendous personal authority.
Building on the prosperity achieved by his predecessors, Wudi initiated
new economic policies. He had a canal built from the Yellow River to the
capital in northwest China, linking the two major economic regions of north
China. He established “ever-level granaries” throughout the country so that
the surplus from bumper crops could be bought and then resold in time of
scarcity. To increase revenues, he levied taxes on merchants, debased the
currency, and sold some offices. Wudi also moved against merchants who
had built fortunes in untaxed commodities by reestablishing government
monopolies—a practice of the Qin—on copper coins, salt, iron, and liquor.
For fear of Wudi, no one spoke out against the monopolies, but a few years
after his death, a famous debate was held at the court.
The “Salt and Iron Debate” was frequently cited thereafter in China, and
in Japan and Korea as well. On one side, quasi-Legalist officials argued that
the state should enjoy the profits from the sale of salt and iron. On the other
side, Confucians argued that these resources should be left in private hands,
for the moral purity of officials would be sullied by dealings with
merchants. The Confucian scholars who compiled the historical account of
the debate presented themselves as the winners, but state monopolies
became a regular part of Chinese government finance.
Wudi also aggressively expanded Chinese borders—a policy that would
characterize every strong dynasty. His armies swept south into what is
today northern Vietnam and northeast across Manchuria to establish a
military outpost in northern Korea that would last until 313 C.E.
THE XIONGNU
The principal threat to the Han was from the Xiongnu, a nomadic pastoral
people who lived to the north. Their mounted archers could raid China and
flee before an army could be sent against them. To combat them, Wudi
employed the entire repertoire of policies that would become standard
thereafter. When possible he made allies of border nomads, who would
fight against more distant tribes. Allies were permitted to trade with
Chinese merchants; they were awarded titles and honors; and their kings
were sent Chinese princesses as brides. (See Document, “Chinese Women
among the Nomads” on page 182.) When trade and titles did not work, he
used force. Between 129 and 119 B.C.E. he sent several armies of more than
100,000 troops into the steppe, destroying Xiongnu power south of the Gobi
Desert. To establish a strategic line of defense aimed at the heart of the
Xiongnu Empire further to the west, Wudi then sent 700,000 Chinese
colonists to the arid Kansu panhandle and extended the Great Wall to the
Yumen (Jade Gate) outpost at the eastern end of the Tarim basin. From this
outpost, Chinese influence was extended over the rim oases of Central Asia,
establishing the Silk Road that linked Chang’an with Rome (see Map 7–2).

Xiongnu
A tribal confederation of nomadic pastoralists who controlled vast
territories northwest of the Han Empire; to Europeans, they were the Huns.

Silk Road
Trade route from China to the West that stretched across Central Asia.

MAP EXPLORATION

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MAP 7–2. The Han Empire 206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.

At the peak of Han expansion, Han armies advanced far out into the steppe
north of the Great Wall and west into Central Asia. The Silk Road to Rome
passed through the Tarim Basin to the Kushan Empire, and on to western
Asia and the Middle East.

Why did the Han seek to expand their empire to the west and south?

GOVERNMENT DURING THE FORMER HAN

To demonstrate how different they were from the Qin, early Han emperors
set up some Zhou-like principalities, small, semiautonomous states with
independent lords. But this was a token gesture. The principalities were
closely superintended and then curtailed after several generations. Despite
repudiating the Qin, the Han basically continued the Qin form of
centralized bureaucratic administration. Officials were organized by grades
and were paid salaries in grain, plus cash or silk. They were recruited by
sponsorship or recommendation: Provincial officials had the duty of
recommending promising candidates. A school established at Chang’an was
said to have 30,000 students by the Later Han. Bureaucracy grew until, by
the first century B.C.E., there were more than 130,000 officials—perhaps not
too many for a population that had reached 60 million.

DOCUMENT
Chinese Women among the Nomads
The first of these selections is the lament of Xijun, a Chinese lady sent by
Wudi in about 105 B.C.E. to be the wife of a nomad king of the Wusun people
of Central Asia. Once there, she found her husband to be old and decrepit.
He saw her only once or twice a year, when they drank a cup of wine
together. They could not converse, as they had no language in common. The
second selection, written centuries later, is by the Tang poet Du Fu, who
visited the village of another woman sent to be the wife of a nomad king.
• WHAT does the fate of the women in these poems suggest about the
foreign policy of the rulers of ancient China?
1.

My people have married me In a far corner of Earth;

Sent me away to a strange land, To the king of the Wu-sun.

A tent is my house, Of felt are my walls;

Raw flesh my food With mare’s milk to drink.

Always thinking of my own country, My heart sad within.

Would I were a yellow stork And could fly to my old home!

2.

Ten thousand ranges and valleys approach the Ching

Gate
 And the village in which the Lady of Light was born and bred. She
went out from the purple palace into the desert-land; She has now
become a green grave in the yellow dusk. Her face!—Can you picture
a wind of the spring? Her spirit by moonlight returns with a tinkling
Telling her eternal sorrow.

1Source: From Chinese Poems by Arthur Waley. Copyright © 1946 by George Allen and Unwin
Ltd., an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Reprinted by permission of the Arthur Waley
Estate.

2Source: From The Jade Mountain translated by Witter Bynner, Copyright 1929 and renewed 1957
by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a
division of Random House, Inc.

During the Han Dynasty, this “Legalist” structure of government became

partially Confucianized. It did not happen overnight. The first Han emperor
despised Confucians as bookish pedants—he once urinated in the hat of a
scholar. But Confucian ideas proved useful. The Mandate of Heaven
provided an ethical justification for dynastic rule. A respect for old records
and the written word fit in well with the vast bookkeeping the empire
entailed. Gradually the Confucian classics were accepted as the standard for
education. Confucianism was seen as shaping moral men who would be
upright officials, even in the absence of external constraints. Increasingly,
laws were interpreted and applied by men with a Confucian education.
The court during the Han Dynasty exhibited features that would appear in
later dynasties as well. All authority centered on the emperor, the all-
powerful “son of heaven.” When the emperor was weak, however, or
ascended to the throne when still a child, others competed to rule in his
name. Four contenders for this surrogate role appeared and reappeared
through Chinese history: court officials, the empress dowager, court
eunuchs, and military commanders.
Court officials were selected for their ability to govern: They staffed the
apparatus of government and advised the emperor directly. Apart from the
emperor himself, they were usually the most powerful men in China, yet
their position was often precarious. Few officials escaped being removed
from office or banished once or twice during their careers. Of the seven
prime ministers who served Wudi, five were executed.
Of the emperor’s many wives, the empress dowager was the one whose
child had been named as the heir to the throne. Her influence sometimes
continued even after her child became an adult emperor. But she was most
powerful as a regent for a child emperor. On Gaozu’s death in 195 B.C.E., for
example, the Empress Lu became the regent for her child, the new emperor.
Aided by her relatives, she seized control of the court and murdered a rival,
and when her son was about to come of age, she had him killed and a
younger son made the heir, thus continuing her rule as regent. When she
died in 180 B.C.E., loyal adherents of the imperial family who had opposed
her rule massacred her relatives.
Court eunuchs came mostly from families of low social status. They were
brought to the court as boys, castrated, and assigned to work as servants in
the emperor’s harem. They were thus in contact with the future emperor
from the day he was born, became his childhood confidants, and often
continued to advise him after he had gained the throne. Emperors found
eunuchs useful as counterweights to officials. But to the scholars who wrote
China’s history, the eunuchs were greedy half-men, given to evil intrigues.
Military leaders, whether generals or rebels, were the usual founders of
dynasties. In the later phase of most dynasties, regional military
commanders often became semi-independent rulers. A few even usurped
the throne. Yet they were less powerful at the Chinese court than they were,
for example, in imperial Rome, partly because the military constituted a
separate category, lower in prestige than the better-educated civil officials.
It was also partly because the court took great pains to prevent its generals
from establishing a base of personal power. Appointments to command a
Han army were given only for specific campaigns, and commanders were
appointed in pairs so that each would check the other.
Another characteristic of government during the Han and subsequent
dynasties was that its functions were limited. It collected taxes, maintained
military forces, administered laws, supported the imperial household, and
carried out public works that were beyond the powers of local jurisdictions.
But government in a district that remained orderly and paid its taxes was
left largely in the hands of local notables and large landowners. This pattern
was not, to be sure, unique to China. Most premodern governments, even
those that were bureaucratic, floated on top of their local societies and only
rarely reached down and interfered in the everyday lives of their subjects.

QUICK REVIEW

The Han Court

Authority centered on the emperor
When emperor was weak, others competed for power
Court officials were chosen on the basis of their ability to govern

Funerary Figure. This kneeling figure is from the Han Dynasty.

Does this statue seem to represent a particular person? Why or why
not?

THE SILK ROAD

Roman ladies loved diaphanous gowns of Chinese silk. Wealthy Chinese
coveted Roman glass and gold. There was not a single camel train that
traveled from Chang’an all the way to Rome. Instead, precious cargoes,
moving more easily than persons, were passed across empires, like batons
in relay races, from one network of merchants to another.
During the Han and later dynasties, the route began with a network of
Chinese or Central Asian traders that stretched from the Chinese capital to
Lanzhou in northeastern China, through the Gansu corridor to Yumen or
later Dunhuang. It then crossed the inhospitable Tarim basin, intermittently
under Chinese military control, from oasis to oasis, to Kashi (Kashgar).
From Kashi, the route continued in a northerly sweep to Tashkent,
Samarkand, and Bukhara or in a southerly sweep to Teheran, Baghdad, and
Damascus, and finally on to the Mediterranean ports of Tyre, Antioch, and
Byzantium (Constantinople), which traded with Rome. (See Map 7–2.) Of
the goods that departed Chang’an, only a minute portion reached Rome,
which was not a destination as much as the center of the westernmost trade
network. Only the thinnest trickle of Roman goods reached China.
The Silk Road, and the alternate oceanic route, point up China’s isolation
from other high centers of civilization. Goods were in transit more than half
a year; the distance was measured in thousands of miles; camel caravans at
times traveled as little as 15 miles a day. The route was hazardous, the
climate extreme. Crossing deserts and mountain passes, travelers
experienced cold, hunger, sandstorms, and bandits.

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Most Chinese foreign trade was with their immediate steppe neighbors.
The Chinese exported silk, lacquer, metal work, and later jewels, musk, and
rhubarb (a digestive aid). They imported horses for their army, cattle, sheep,
donkeys, and jade from Khotan and also woolens, medicines, indigo, and
the occasional exotic animal. Only the most precious goods made their way
to distant empires. Silk—light, compact, and valuable—was ideal. The
Romans and Chinese had only the vaguest idea of where the other was
located and knew nothing of the other’s civilization. Romans thought silk
came from a plant.
Exotic goods hawked in distant bazaars lend an aura of romance to the
“Silk Road,” but its true significance was as a transmission belt. In an early
age China may have borrowed the chariot, compound bow, wheat,
domesticated horses, and the stirrup from western Asia. Even the idea of
mold-casting bronze may have come from beyond China’s frontiers.
Chinese technologies of paper making, iron casting, water-powered mills,
and shoulder collars for draft animals, and later the compass and
gunpowder, spread slowly from China to the West. Seeds of plants went in
both directions, as did germs. During the Later Han, the Roman Empire lost
a quarter of its population to an epidemic that, some say, appeared in China
forty years later with equally dire results. During the fourteenth century,
bubonic plague may have spread through the Mongol Empire from
southwestern China to Central Asia to the Middle East, and then on to
Europe as the Black Death. Missionary religions traveled east on the Silk
Road: Buddhism toward the end of the Han Dynasty and Islam centuries
later.

DECLINE AND USURPATION

During the last decade of Wudi’s rule in the early first century B.C.E.,
military expenses ran ahead of revenues. His successor cut back on military
costs, eased economic controls, and reduced taxes. But over the next several
generations, large landowners began to use their growing influence in
provincial politics to avoid paying taxes. State revenues declined. The tax
burden on smaller landowners and free peasants grew heavier. In 22 B.C.E.,
rebellions broke out in several parts of the empire. At court, too, decline set
in. There was a succession of weak emperors. Intrigues, nepotism, and
factional struggles grew apace. Even officials began to sense that the
dynasty no longer had the approval of heaven. The dynastic cycle
approached its end.
QUICK REVIEW

Decline of the Han

Scheming, dissension, and violence in court
Large landowners gained power
Free farmers fled south
Popular rebellions suppressed by generals, who then seized power

Many at the court urged Wang Mang, the regent for the infant emperor
and the nephew of an empress, to become the emperor and begin a new
dynasty. Wang Mang refused several times—to demonstrate his lack of
eagerness—and then accepted in 8 C.E. He drew up a program of sweeping
reforms based on ancient texts. He was a Confucian yet relied on new
institutional arrangements rather than moral reform to improve society. He
revived ancient titles, expanded state monopolies, abolished private slavery
(about 1 percent of the population), made loans to poor peasants, and then
moved to confiscate large private estates.
These reforms alienated many. Merchants disliked the monopolies. Large
landowners resisted the expropriation of their lands. Nature also conspired
to bring down Wang Mang: The Yellow River overflowed its banks and
changed its course, destroying the northern Chinese irrigation system.
Several years of poor harvests produced famines. The Xiongnu overran
China’s northern borders. In 18 C.E., a secret peasant society rose in
rebellion. In 23 C.E., rebels attacked Chang’an, and Wang Mang was killed
and eaten by rebel troops. He had tried to found a new dynasty from within
a decrepit court without an independent military base. The attempt was
futile. Internal wars continued in China for two more years until a large
landowner, who had become the leader of a rebel army, emerged triumphant
in 25 C.E. Because he was from a branch of the imperial family, his new
dynasty was viewed as a restoration of the Han.
Chinese Galloping Horse.

China traded with steppe merchants to obtain the horses needed to equip its
armies against steppe warriors. Especially desired by the Chinese court
were the fabled “blood-sweating” horses of far-off Ferghana (present-day
Tajikistan). How were horses used by the Chinese and by their
neighbors?

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China from the Later Zhou Era to the Han Era at myhistorylab.com

CHRONOLOGY

THE DYNASTIC HISTORY OF CHINA’S FIRST EMPIRE

LATER HAN (25–220 C.E.) AND ITS
AFTERMATH

WHY DID the Han Dynasty collapse?

FIRST CENTURY
The founder of the Later Han moved his capital east to Luoyang. Under the
first emperor and his two successors, there was a return to strong central
government and a laissez-faire economy. Agriculture and population
recovered. By the end of the first century C.E., China was as prosperous as it
had been during the good years of the Former Han. The shift from
pacification and recuperation to military expansion came earlier than it had
during the previous dynasty. During the reign of the first emperor, south
China and Vietnam were retaken. Dissension among the Xiongnu enabled
the Chinese to secure an alliance with some of the southern tribes in 50 C.E.,
and in 89 C.E. Chinese armies crossed the Gobi Desert and defeated the
northern Xiongnu. This defeat sparked the migrations, some historians say,
that brought those nomadic warriors to the southern Russian steppes and
then, in the fifth century C.E., to Europe, where they were known as the
Huns of Attila. In 97 C.E. a Chinese general led an army to the shores of the
Caspian Sea. The Chinese expansion in inner Asia, coupled with more
lenient government policies toward merchants, facilitated the camel
caravans that carried Chinese silk across the Tarim basin and, ultimately, to
merchants in Iran, Palestine, and Rome.

DECLINE DURING THE SECOND CENTURY

After 88 C.E. the emperors of the Later Han were ineffectual and short-lived.
Empresses plotted to advance the fortunes of their families. Emperors
turned for help to palace eunuchs. In 159 C.E. a conspiracy of eunuchs in the
service of an emperor slaughtered the family of a scheming empress
dowager and ruled at the court. When officials and students protested
against the eunuch dictatorship, over a hundred were killed and over a
thousand were tortured or imprisoned. In another incident in 190 C.E., a
general deposed one emperor, installed another, killed the empress dowager,
and massacred most of the eunuchs at the court.
In the countryside, large landowners grew more powerful. They harbored
private armies. Farmers on the estates of the mighty were reduced to serfs.
The landowners used their influence to avoid taxes. Great numbers of free
farmers fled south for the same purpose. The remaining freeholders paid
ever-heavier taxes and labor services. Many peasants turned to neo-Daoist
religious movements that provided the ideology and organization to channel
their discontent into action. In 184 C.E. rebellions organized by members of
the religious movements broke out against the government. Han generals
suppressed the rebellions but stayed on to rule in the provinces they had
pacified. In 220 C.E. they deposed the last Han emperor.

AFTERMATH OF EMPIRE
For more than three and a half centuries after the fall of the Han, China was
disunited. For several generations it was divided into three kingdoms,
whose heroic warriors and scheming statesmen were made famous by
wandering storytellers. These figures later peopled the Tale of the Three
Kingdoms, a great romantic epic of Chinese literature.
Chinese history during the post-Han centuries had two characteristics.
The first was the dominant role played by the great aristocratic landowning
families. With vast estates, huge numbers of serfs, fortified manor houses,
and private armies, they were beyond the control of most governments.
Because they took over many of the functions of local government, some
historians describe post-Han China as having reverted to the quasi-
feudalism of the Zhou. The second characteristic of these centuries was that
northern and southern China developed in different ways.
In the south, a succession of six, ever-weaker states had their capital at
Nanjing. Although these six southern states were called dynasties—and the
entire period of Chinese history from 220 B.C.E. to 589 C.E. is called the Six
Dynasties era after them—they were in fact short-lived kingdoms plagued
by intrigues, usurpations, and coups d’état; frequently at war with northern
states; and in constant fear of their own generals. The main developments in
the south were (1) continuing economic growth and the emergence of
Nanjing as a thriving center of commerce; (2) the ongoing absorption of
tribal peoples into Chinese society and culture; (3) large-scale immigrations
of Chinese fleeing the north; and (4) the spread of Buddhism and its
penetration to the heart of Chinese culture.

A Green Glazed Pottery Model of a Later Han Dynasty Watchtower

(87.6 × 35.6 × 38.1 cm). Note the resemblance to later Chinese Buddhist
pagodas.

How might watchtowers have been used during the Later Han
dynasty?
In the north, state formation depended on the interaction of nomads and
Chinese. During the Han Dynasty, Chinese invasions of the steppe had led
to the incorporation of semi-Sinicized Xiongnu as the northernmost tier of
the Chinese defense system—just as Germanic tribes had acted as the teeth
and claws of the late Roman Empire. But as the Chinese state weakened,
the highly mobile nomads broke loose, joined with other tribes, and began
to invade China. The short-lived states that they formed are usually referred
to as the “Sixteen Kingdoms.” One kingdom was founded by invaders of
Tibetan stock. Most spoke Altaic languages: the Xianbi (proto-Mongols),
the Tuoba (proto-Turks), and the Ruan Ruan (who would later appear in
eastern Europe as the Avars). But differences of language and ancestry were
less important than these tribes’ similarities:

1. All began as steppe nomads with a way of life different from that of
agricultural China.

2. After forming states, all became at least partially Sinicized. Chinese

from great families, which had preserved Han traditions, served as
their tutors and administrators.

3. All were involved in wars—among themselves, against southern

dynasties, or against conservative steppe tribes that resisted
Sinicization.

4. Buddhism was as powerful in the north as in the south. As a

universal religion, it acted as a bridge between “barbarians” and
Chinese—just as Christianity was a unifying force in post-Roman
Europe. The barbarian rulers of the north were especially attracted
to its magical side. Usually Buddhism was made the state religion.
Of the northern states, the most durable was the Northern Wei (386–
534 C.E.), famed for its Buddhist sculpture.

HAN THOUGHT AND RELIGION

WHAT WAS the extent of Buddhist influence under the Han?

Poems describe the splendor of Chang’an and Luoyang: broad boulevards,
tiled gateways, open courtyards, watchtowers, and imposing walls. Most
splendid of all were the palaces of emperors, with their audience halls, vast
chambers, harem quarters, and parks containing artificial lakes and rare
animals and birds. But today little remains of the grandeur of the Han.
Whereas Roman ruins abound in Italy and circle the Mediterranean, in
China nothing remains above ground. Only the items buried in tombs—
pottery, bronzes, musical instruments, gold and silver jewelry, lacquerware,
and clay figurines—give a glimpse of the rich material culture of the Han
period. Only the paintings on the walls of tombs tell us of its art. But a
wealth of written records conveys the sophistication and depth of Han
culture. Perhaps the two most important areas were philosophy and history.

HAN CONFUCIANISM
A major accomplishment of the early Han was the recovery of texts that had
been lost during the Qin persecution of scholars. Some were retrieved from
the walls of houses where they had been hidden; others were reproduced
from memory by scholars. Debate arose regarding the relative authenticity
of the old and new texts—a controversy that has continued until modern
times. In 51 B.C.E. and again in 79 C.E. councils were held to determine the
true meaning of the Confucian classics. In 175 C.E. an approved, official
version of the texts was inscribed on stone tablets.
The first dictionary was compiled in about 100 C.E. Containing about
9,000 characters, it helped promote a uniform system of writing. In Han
times, as today, Chinese from the north could not converse with Chinese
from the southeastern coast, but a common written language bridged
differences of pronunciation, contributing to Chinese unity. Scholars began
writing commentaries on the classics, a major scholarly activity throughout
Chinese history. Scholars learned the classics by heart and used classical
allusions in their writing.
Han philosophers also extended Zhou Confucianism by adding to it the
teachings of cosmological naturalism. Zhou Confucianists had assumed that
the moral force of a virtuous emperor would not only order society but also
harmonize nature. Han Confucianists explained why. Dong Zhongshu (ca.
179–104 B.C.E.), for example, held that all nature was a single, interrelated
system. Just as summer always follows spring, so does one color, one
virtue, one planet, one element, one number, and one officer of the court
always take precedence over another. All reflect the systematic workings of
yang and yin and the five elements. And just as one dresses appropriately to
the season, so was it important for the emperor to choose policies
appropriate to the sequences inherent in nature. If he was moral, if he acted
in accord with Heaven’s natural system, then all would go well. But if he
acted inappropriately, then Heaven would send a portent as a warning—a
blue dog, a rat holding its tail in its mouth, an eclipse, or a comet. If the
portent was not heeded, wonders and then misfortunes would follow. It was
the Confucian scholars, of course, who claimed to understand nature’s
messages and advised the emperor.
It is easy to criticize Han philosophy as a pseudoscientific or mechanistic
view of nature, but it represented a new effort by the Chinese to encompass
and comprehend the interrelationships of the natural world. This effort led
to inventions like the seismograph and to advances in astronomy, music,
and medicine. It was also during the Han that the Chinese invented paper,
the wheelbarrow, the stern-post rudder, and the compass (known as the
“south-pointing chariot”).

HISTORY
The Chinese were the greatest historians of the premodern world. They
wrote more history than anyone else, and what they wrote was usually more
accurate. Apart from the Spring and Autumn Annals and the scholarship of
Confucius himself, history writing in China began during the Han Dynasty.
Why the Chinese were so history-minded has been variously explained:
because the Chinese tradition is this-worldly; because Confucianists were
scholarly and their veneration for the classics carried over to the written
word; because history was seen as a lesson book (the Chinese called it a
mirror) for statesmen, and thus a necessity for the literate men who operated
the centralized Chinese state.
The practice of using actual documents and firsthand accounts of events
began with Sima Qian (d. 85 B.C.E.), who set out to write a history of the
known world from the most ancient times down to the age of the emperor
Wudi. His Historical Records consisted of 130 substantial chapters (with a
total of over 700,000 characters) divided into “Basic Annals”;
“Chronological Tables”; “Treatises” on rites, music, astronomy, the
calendar, and so on; “Hereditary Houses”; and seventy chapters of
“Biographies,” including descriptions of foreign peoples. A second great
work, The Book of the Han, was written by Ban Gu (d. 92 C.E.). It applied
the analytical schema of Sima Qian to a single dynasty, the Former Han,
and established the pattern by which each dynasty wrote the history of its
predecessor.

QUICK REVIEW

Chinese Historians
Greatest historians of premodern world
History seen as a lesson book for statesmen
Practice of using actual documents and firsthand accounts began
with Sima Qian (d. 85 B.C.E.)

Read the Document

Sima Qian, The Life of Meng Tian, Builder of the Great Wall at
myhistorylab.com

NEO-DAOISM
As the Han Dynasty waned, it became increasingly difficult to implement
the Confucian ethic in the sociopolitical order. Some scholars abandoned
Confucianism altogether in favor of Neo-Daoism, or “mysterious learning.”
A few wrote commentaries on the classical Daoist texts that had been
handed down from the Zhou. The Zhuangzi was especially popular. Other
scholars, defining the natural as the pleasurable, withdrew from society to
engage in witty “pure conversations.” They discussed poetry and
philosophy, played the lute, and drank wine. The most famous were the
Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove of the third century C.E. One sage was
always accompanied by a servant carrying a jug of wine and a spade—the
one for his pleasure, the other to dig his grave should he die. Another wore
no clothes at home. When criticized, he replied that the cosmos was his
home, and his house his clothes. “Why are you in my pants?” he asked a
discomfited visitor. Still another took a boat to visit a friend on a snowy
night, but on arriving at his friend’s door, turned around and went home.
When pressed for an explanation, he said that it had been his pleasure to go,
and that when the impulse died, it was his pleasure to return. This story
reveals a scorn for convention coupled with an admiration for an inner
spontaneity, however eccentric.

Neo-Daoism
A revival of Daoist “mysterious learning” that flourished as a reaction
against Confucianism during the Han Dynasty.

Another concern of what is called Neo-Daoism was immortality. Some

sought it in dietary restrictions and yoga-like meditation, some in sexual
abstinence or orgies. Others, seeking elixirs to prolong life, dabbled in
alchemy, and although no magical elixir was ever found, the schools of
alchemy to which the search gave rise are credited with the discovery of
medicines, dyes, glazes, and gunpowder.
Meanwhile, popular religious cults arose among the common people.
Since they included the Daoist classics among their sacred texts, these
popular cults are also called Neo-Daoist. Like most folk religions, they
contained an amalgam of beliefs, practices, and superstitions. They had a
pantheon of gods and immortals and taught that the good or evil done in
this life would be rewarded or punished in the innumerable heavens or hells
of an afterlife. These cults had priests, shamans who practiced faith healing,
seers, and sorceresses. For a time, they also had hierarchical church
organizations, but these were smashed at the end of the second century C.E.
Local Daoist temples and monasteries, however, continued until modern
times. With many Buddhist accretions, they furnished the religious beliefs
of the bulk of the Chinese population. Even in recent decades, these sects
flourished in Taiwan and Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. They
were suppressed in China in the Maoist era but were revived during the
1990s.
A Chinese Seismograph. The suspended weight swings in the direction of
the earthquake. This moves a lever, and a dragon drops a ball into the
mouth of one of the four waiting ceramic frogs.

How did the “mysterious learning” of Neo-Daoism contribute to

science, technology, and medicine?

BUDDHISM
Central Asian missionaries, following the trade routes east, brought
Buddhism to China in the first century C.E. It was at first viewed as a new
Daoist sect, which is not surprising because early translators used Daoist
terms to render Buddhist concepts. Nirvana, for example, was translated as
“not doing” (wuwei). In the second century C.E., confusion about the two
religions led to the very Chinese view that Laozi had gone to India, where
the Buddha had become his disciple, and that Buddhism was the Indian
form of Daoism.

Nirvana In Buddhism the attainment of release from the wheel of karma.

 As the Han sociopolitical order collapsed in the third century C.E.,
Buddhism spread rapidly. (There are parallels to the spread of Christianity
at the end of the Roman Empire.) Although an alien religion in China,
Buddhism had some advantages over Daoism:

1. It was a doctrine of personal salvation, offering several routes to that

goal.
2. It upheld high standards of personal ethics.
3. It had systematic philosophies, and during its early centuries in
China, it continued to receive inspiration from India.
4. It drew on the Indian tradition of meditative practices and
psychologies, which were the most sophisticated in the world.

Read the Document

Faxien, Record of Buddhist Countries, Chapter Sixteen at
myhistorylab.com

By the fifth century C.E. Buddhism had spread over all of China (see Map
7–3). Occasionally it was persecuted by Daoist emperors, but most courts
supported Buddhism. The “Bodhisattva Emperor” Wu of the southern Liang
Dynasty three times gave himself to a monastery and had to be ransomed
back by his disgusted courtiers. Temples and monasteries abounded in both
the north and the south. There were communities of women as well as of
men. Chinese artists produced Buddhist painting and sculpture of
surpassing beauty, and thousands of monk-scholars labored to translate
sutras and philosophical treatises. Chinese monks went on pilgrimages to
India. The record left by Fa Xian, who traveled to India overland and back
by sea between 399 and 413 C.E., became a prime source of Indian history.
The Tang monk Xuanzang went to India from 629 until 645. Several
centuries later, his pilgrimage was novelized as Journey to the West. The
novel joins faith, magic, and adventure.
A comparison of Indian and Chinese Buddhism highlights some
distinctive features of its spread. Buddhism in India had begun as a reform
movement. Forget speculative philosophies and elaborate metaphysics,
taught the Buddha, and concentrate on simple truths: Life is suffering, the
cause of suffering is desire, death does not stop the endless cycle of birth
and rebirth; only the attainment of nirvana releases one from the “wheel of
karma.” Thus, in this most otherworldly of the world’s religions, all of the
cosmic drama of salvation was compressed into the single figure of the
Buddha meditating under the Bodhi tree. Over the centuries, however,
Indian Buddhism developed contending philosophies and conflicting sects
and, having become virtually indistinguishable from Hinduism, was largely
reabsorbed after 1000 C.E.
In China, there were a number of sects with different doctrinal positions,
but the Chinese genius was more syncretic. It took in the sutras and
meditative practices of early Buddhism. It took in the Mahayana
philosophies that depicted a succession of Buddhas, cosmic and historical,
past and future, all embodying a single ultimate reality. It also took in the
sutras and practices of Buddhist devotional sects. Finally, in the Tiantai
sect, the Chinese joined together these various elements as different levels
of a single truth. Thus the monastic routine of a Tiantai monk would include
reading sutras, sitting in meditation, and also practicing devotional
exercises.
Socially, too, Buddhism adapted to China. Ancestor worship demanded
heirs to perform the sacrifices. Without progeny, ancestors might become
“hungry ghosts.” Hence, the first son was expected to marry and have
children, whereas the second son, if he were so inclined, might become a
monk. The practice also arose of holding Buddhist masses for dead
ancestors. Still another difference between China and India was the more
extensive regulation of Buddhism by the state in China. Just as Buddhism
was not to threaten the integrity of the family, so Buddhism was not to
reduce the taxes paid on land. As a result, limits were placed on the number
of monasteries, nunneries, and monastic lands, and the state had to give its
permission before men or women abandoned the world to enter a religious
establishment—though these regulations were not always enforced.
A mendicant friar of the Tang Dynasty. He is accompanied by a tiger,
indicating the extent to which he has become one with nature and with his
own true nature.

In what ways did the Chinese adapt Buddhism to fit their culture?
MAP 7–3. The Spread of Buddhism and Chinese States in 500 C.E.

Buddhism originated in a Himalayan state in northwest India. It spread in

one wave south to India and on to Southeast Asia as far as Java. But it also
spread into northwest India, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and then to China,
Korea, and Japan.
What is the relationship between the spread of Buddhism and trade?

SUMMARY

HOW DID the Qin unify China?

Qin Unification of China. The state of Qin unified China in 221 B.C.E.
through military conquest. To the north it built the Great Wall to prevent
incursions by the nomadic Xiongnu peoples. It ruled through a centralized
bureaucracy in line with its Legalist philosophy. But the pace of its reform
was so frenetic and its legal punishments were so harsh that it alienated its
people. The Qin collapsed after the death of the First Emperor. page 175
WHAT IS the dynastic cycle?
Former Han Dynasty. China’s pattern of dynastic cycles—military
unification, consolidation, growth, reform, followed by decay and
disintegration—began. The Former Han and Later Han, back-to-back
dynasties, ruled China for more than four centuries (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). A
pattern of centralized rule by officials educated in the Confucian classics
was established. Ever since this period, the core Chinese population has
referred to itself as the “Han people.” page 178

WHY DID the Han Dynasty collapse?

Later Han and Its Aftermath. The Later Han established a new capital,
but in most respects continued Former Han policies. Late in the first century
C.E., the first in a line of weak emperors came to power, beginning the
process of decline. After the fall of the Han, large landowners gained power
and China was fragmented for several centuries. Northern and southern
China developed differently. page 185

WHAT WAS the extent of Buddhist influence under the Han?

Han Thought and Religion. During long periods of peace and good
government, literature, art, and history-writing flourished. Neo-Daoism
partially eclipsed Confucianism. Buddhism entered China in the first
century and spread rapidly in the third century, as the Han collapsed. page
187

KEY TERMS

dynastic cycle
Neo-Daoism
Nirvana
Silk Road
 Xiongnu

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. How did Legalism help the Qin unify China? What other factors
played a part? What were the main features of Qin administration?
Why did the Qin collapse?
2. What was the “dynastic cycle”? In what sense was it a Confucian
moral rationalization? Was a cycle of administrative and military
decline especially true of Chinese government, or can we see the
same pattern elsewhere?
3. Who were the Xiongnu? How did Wudi respond to them?
4. How did the Silk Road work? What items were traded and on what
route? What impact did this trade have on Chinese culture?
5. What challenges did the Han face in conquering and integrating new
territories into the empire? How did they meet those challenges?
6. Compare and contrast the Roman and Han empires. What qualities
did they have in common? How did they differ?
7. Who were the players who sought power at the Han court? Did the
means they used reflect the differences in their positions?
8. What roles did Neo-Daoism have on elite Chinese culture and
politics? What was its role among the larger populace?
9. Did Buddhism “triumph” in China in the same sense in which
Christianity triumphed in the Roman world? Compare China to the
Roman Empire. What problems did both empires face, and how did
they try to resolve them?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 7

Read the Document Li Si and the Legalist Policies of Qin Shihuang

(280–208 B.C.E.), p. 177

Sima Qian, The Life of Meng Tian, Builder of the Great Wall, p. 188
Faxien, Record of Buddhist Countries, Chapter Sixteen, p. 190

See the Map China from the Later Zhou Era to the Han Era, p. 185

Watch the Video The Silk Road: 5,000 miles and 1,500 Years of Cultural
Interchange, p. 184

View the Image The Great Wall of China, p. 176

Qin Shihuang’s Terra Cotta Soldiers, p. 178

Research and Explore

Watch the Video Symbiosis in Central Asia

Buddhism on the Silk Road

Central and Periphery
Kushan Empire
Silk Road
See the Map Ancient China

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 7 at www.myhistorylab.com
8
Imperial China, 589–1368

Hear the Audio for Chapter 8 at www.myhistorylab.com

“Lady Wenji’s Return to China: Wenji Arriving Home.” Southern Song
Dynasty. Circa 1150 C.E. Lady Wenji, who lived in the second century C.E.,
was the daughter of a high-ranking official who was abducted by the
nomadic Xiongnu. She eventually married and bore two sons. After twelve
years in captivity she was ransomed and returned to China, leaving her
children behind. Wenji’s ordeal became the subject of numerous poems and
paintings, such as the one shown here.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

What were some of the roles played by women in China in this period?

REESTABLISHMENT OF EMPIRE: SUI (589–618) AND TANG (618–

907) DYNASTIES

HOW DID the Sui and Tang dynasties re-create China’s empire?

TRANSITION TO LATE IMPERIAL CHINA: THE SONG DYNASTY

(960–1279)

WHAT WAS the agricultural revolution that occurred during the Song
Dynasty?

CHINA IN THE MONGOL WORLD EMPIRE: THE YUAN DYNASTY

(1279–1368)

WHY WERE the Mongols able to establish such a vast empire?

The Tang (618–907) is everyone’s favorite dynasty: open, cosmopolitan,

expansionist, exuberant, and creative. It was the example of Tang China
that decisively influenced the formation of states and high cultures in
Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Poetry during the Tang attained a peak that
has not been equaled since. The Song (960–1279) rivaled the Tang in the
arts; it was China’s great age of painting and the most significant period for
Chinese philosophy since its origins in the Zhou. Although not militarily
strong, the Song Dynasty also witnessed an important commercial
revolution. The Yuan (1279–1368) was a short-lived dynasty of rule by
Mongols during which China became the most important unit in the largest
empire the world has yet seen.

REESTABLISHMENT OF EMPIRE: SUI (589–

618) AND TANG (618–907) DYNASTIES

HOW DID the Sui and Tang dynasties re-create China’s empire?

In the period corresponding to the European Early Middle Ages, the most
notable feature of Chinese history was the reunification of China, the
recreation of a centralized bureaucratic empire consciously modeled on the
earlier Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). Reunification, as usual, began in
the north. The Northern Wei (386–534), the most enduring of the northern
Sino-Turkic states, took the first steps. It moved its court south to Luoyang,
made Chinese the language of the court, and adopted Chinese dress and
surnames. It also used the leverage of its nomadic cavalry to impose a new
land tax, mobilizing resources for state use. The Northern Wei was followed
by several short-lived kingdoms. Because the emperors, officials, and
military commanders of these kingdoms came from the same aristocratic
stratum, the social distance between them was small, and the throne was
often usurped.

THE SUI DYNASTY

Sui Wendi (d. 605), a talented general of mixed Chinese-Turkic ancestry,
came to power in 581 and began the Sui Dynasty (589–618). He unified the
north, restored the tax base, reestablished a centralized bureaucratic
government, and went on to conquer southern China and unify the country.
During his reign, huge palaces arose in his Wei valley capital. The Great
Wall was rebuilt. The Grand Canal was constructed, linking the Yellow and
Yangzi rivers. This canal enabled the northern conquerors to tap the wealth
of central and southern China. Peace was maintained with the Turkic tribes
along China’s northern borders. Eastern Turkic khans (chiefs) were sent
Chinese princesses as brides.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
IMPERIAL CHINA
Rough parallels between China and Europe persisted until the sixth century
C.E. Both saw the rise and fall of great empires. At first glance, the three and
a half centuries that followed the Han Dynasty appear remarkably similar to
the comparable period after the collapse of the Roman Empire: Central
authority broke down, private armies arose, and aristocratic estates were
established. Barbarian tribes once allied to the empires invaded and pillaged
large areas. Otherworldly religions entered to challenge earlier official
worldviews. In China, Neo-Daoism and then Buddhism challenged
Confucianism, just as Christianity challenged Roman conceptions of the
sociopolitical order.
But from the late sixth century C.E., a fundamental divergence occurred.
Europe tailed off into centuries of feudal disunity and backwardness. A
ghost of empire lingered in the European memory. But the reality, even after
centuries had passed, was that tiny areas like France (one seventeenth the
size of China), Italy (one thirty-second), or Germany (one twenty-seventh)
found it difficult to establish an internal unity, much less re-create a pan-
European or pan-Mediterranean empire. In contrast, China, which is about
the size of Europe and geographically no more natural a political unit, put a
unified empire back together again, attaining new wealth, power, culture,
and unified rule that has continued until the present. What explains the
difference?
One reason China re-created its empire was that in China the victory of
Buddhism was less complete than that of Christianity in Europe.
Confucianism, and its conception of a unified empire, survived within the
aristocratic families and at the courts of the Six Dynasties. It is difficult
even to think of Confucianism apart from the idea of a universal ruler, aided
by men of virtue and ability, ruling “all under Heaven” according to
Heaven’s Mandate. In contrast, the Roman concept of political order was
not maintained as an independent doctrine. Moreover, empire was not a
vital concept in Christian thought—except perhaps in Byzantium, where the
empire lasted longer than it did in western Europe. The notion of a
“Christian king” did appear in the West, but basically, the kingdom sought
by Jesus was not of this world.
A second consideration was China’s greater cultural homogeneity. It had
a common written language that was fairly close to all varieties of spoken
Chinese. Minority peoples and even barbarian conquerors—apart from the
Mongols—were rapidly Sinicized. In contrast, after Rome the
Mediterranean fell apart into its component cultures. Latin became the
universal language of the Western church, but for most Christians it was a
foreign language, a part of the mystery of the Mass, and even in Italy it
became an artificial language, separate from the living tongue. European
languages and cultures were divisive forces.

Study and Review China’s Struggle for Cultural and Political Unity,
400 B.C.E.–A.D. 400 at myhistorylab.com

A third and perhaps critical factor was China’s population density, which
was at least fifteen times greater than that of France, Europe’s most
populous state. Population density explains why the Chinese could absorb
barbarian conquerors so much more quickly than could Europe. More
cultivators provided a larger agricultural surplus to the northern kingdoms
than that enjoyed by comparable kingdoms in Europe. Greater numbers of
people also meant better communications and a better base for commerce.
To be sure, the centuries that followed the Han saw a decline in commerce
and cities. In some areas barter or the use of silk as currency replaced
money, but the economic level remained higher than in early medieval
Europe. Several of the factors that explain the Sui–Tang regeneration of a
unified empire apply equally well or better to the Song and subsequent
dynasties. Comparisons across continents are difficult, but it seems likely
that Tang and Song China had longer stretches of good government than
any other part of the contemporary world. Not until the nineteenth century
did comparable bureaucracies of talent and virtue appear in the West.

Focus Questions
 In what ways did China and Europe parallel each other in their
development until the sixth century C.E.? How did they diverge after
that?
Why did China witness the reunification of empire after the fall of
the Han Dynasty, whereas after the fall of Rome, Europe was never
again united in a single empire?
Why did Tang and Song China enjoy longer stretches of good
government than anywhere else in the contemporary world during
the same period?

QUICK REVIEW
Sui Wendi (d. 605)
Founder of the Sui Dynasty (589–618)
Talented ruler who unified China
Grand Canal constructed and Great Wall rebuilt during his reign

See the Map

China during the Sui and Tang Dynasties at myhistorylab.com

The early years of the second Sui emperor were also constructive, but
then Chinese attempts to meddle in steppe politics led to hostilities and
wars. Hardships and casualties in campaigns against Korea and along
China’s northern border produced rising discontent. Natural disasters
occurred. The court became bankrupt and demoralized. Rebellions broke
out, and once again, there was a free-for-all among the armies of aristocratic
military commanders. The winner, and the founder of the Tang Dynasty,
was a relative of the Sui empress and a Sino-Turkic aristocrat of the same
social background as those who had ruled before him.
Chinese historians often compare the short-lived Sui Dynasty with that of
the Qin (256–206 B.C.E.). Each brought all of China under a single
government after centuries of disunity. Each did too much, fell, and was
replaced by a long-lasting dynasty. The Tang built on the foundations that
had been laid by the Sui, just as the Han had built on those of the Qin.

THE TANG DYNASTY

The first Tang emperor took over the Sui capital, renamed it Chang’an, and
made it his own. Within about a decade the new dynasty had extended its
authority over all of China; tax revenues were adequate for government
needs; and Chinese armies had begun the campaigns that would push
Chinese borders out farther than ever (see Map 8–1 on page 198).
Confucian scholars were employed at the court, Buddhist temples and
monasteries flourished, and peace and order prevailed, especially from 624
to 755.

Chang’an
City in northern China, near present-day X’ian, that served as capital during
the Sui and Tang dynasties.

The first Tang emperor and his successors worked to reconcile

conflicting interests. The emperor wanted a bureaucratic government in
which authority was centralized in his own person, but at the same time he
had to make concessions to the aristocrats—the dominant elements in
Chinese society in the Late Han—who staffed his government and
continued to dominate early Tang society.
The degree to which political authority was centralized was apparent in
the formal organization of the bureaucracy. At the highest level were three
organs: Military Affairs, the Censorate, and the Council of State (see Figure
8–1). Military Affairs supervised the Tang armies with the emperor, in
effect, the commander in chief. The Censorate had watchdog functions: It
reported instances of misgovernment directly to the emperor and could also
remonstrate with the emperor when it considered his behavior improper.
The Council of State was the most important body. It met daily with the
emperor and was made up of the heads of the Secretariat, which drafted
policies; the Chancellery, which reviewed them; and State Affairs, which
carried them out.

Censorate The branch of the imperial Chinese government that acted as a

watchdog, reporting instances of mis-government directly to the emperor
and remonstrating when it considered the emperor’s behavior improper.
FIGURE 8–1. Tang Government Organization.

MAP EXPLORATION

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MAP 8–1. The Tang Empire at Its Peak During the Eighth Century.

The Tang expansion into Central Asia reopened trade routes to the Middle
East and Europe. Students from Bohai, Silla (Korea), and Japan studied in
the Tang capital of Chang’an and then returned, carrying with them Tang
books and technology.

Why did the Chinese Empire continually seek to expand into Central Asia?

QUICK REVIEW
Centralization of Authority
Three organs of bureaucracy: Military Affairs, Censorate, Council of
State
Council of State most important body
Council of State met daily with the emperor

Read the Document Tang Daizong on the Art of Government at

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Beneath State Affairs were the Six Ministries, which continued as the core
of the central government down to the twentieth century; beneath them
were the several levels of local administration.
Concessions to the interests of the aristocratic families were embodied in
the tax system. All land was declared to be the property of the emperor and
was then redistributed to able-bodied cultivators, who paid taxes in labor
and grain. Because all able-bodied adult males received an equal allotment
of land (women got less), the land-tax system was called the “equal field
system.” But the system was not egalitarian. Aristocrats enjoyed special
exemptions and grants of “rank” and “office” lands that, in effect,
confirmed their estate holdings.
Recruitment of officials also favored aristocrats, since most officials
either were recommended for posts or received posts because their fathers
had been high officials. Only a tiny percentage was recruited through the
examination system. Those who passed the examinations had the highest
prestige and were more likely to have brilliant careers. But only well-to-do
families could afford the years of study needed to pass the rigorous
examinations, so even the examination bureaucrats were usually aristocrats.

examination system
A method of selecting scholar-bureaucrats based on the results of a highly
structured, and extremely competitive, series of tests.

Women of the inner court continued to play a role in government. For

example, Wu Zhao (626–ca. 706), a young concubine of the strong second
emperor, married his weak heir. When the emperor suffered a stroke in 660,
she dominated the court. After his death in 683 she ruled as regent and then,
deposing her son, became emperor herself, the only woman in Chinese
history to hold the title. She moved the court to Luoyang and proclaimed a
new dynasty. A fervent Buddhist with an interest in magic, she saw herself
as the incarnation of the messianic Buddha Maitreya and built temples
throughout the land. Her sexual appetites were said to have been
prodigious. She ruled China until she was 80; she was deposed in 705.
Surprisingly, Empress Wu’s machinations may have strengthened the
central government. In her struggle for power against the old northwestern
Chinese aristocrats, she turned not to members of her family but to the
products of the examination system and to a group known as the Scholars of
the North Gate. This policy broadened the base of government by bringing
in aristocrats from other regions of China. Her rule coincided with the
maximal geographical expansion of Tang military power.
After a few years of tawdry intrigues, Xuan Zong came to the throne. In
reaction to Empress Wu, he appointed government commissions headed by
distinguished aristocrats to reform government finances. Examination
bureaucrats lost power. The Grand Canal was repaired and extended. A new
census extended the tax rolls. Wealth and prosperity returned to the court.
His reign (713–756) was also culturally brilliant.
Chang’an was an imperial city, an administrative center that lived on
taxes (see Map 8–2). It was designed to exhibit the power of the emperor
and the majesty of his court. The city was laid out on a grid. At the far north
of the city, the palace faced south, in keeping with Confucian tradition. In
front of the palace was a complex of government offices from which an
imposing 500-foot-wide avenue led to the main southern gate. Enclosed by
great walls, the city covered 30 square miles. Its population was over 1
million: half within the walls, the other half in suburbs. It was the largest
city in the world. (The population of China in the year 750 was about 50
million—about 4 percent of the country’s present-day population.)
Chang’an was also a trade center from which caravans set out across
Central Asia. Merchants from India, Persia, Syria, and Arabia hawked the
wares of the Near East and all of Asia in its two government-controlled
markets.

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QUICK REVIEW

Chang’an
Chang’an was an administrative center that lived on taxes
Designed to show power and majesty of emperor and his court
City was laid out on a grid
 Study and Review
Comparative Case Study: Women in the Imperial Courts of China and
Japan at myhistorylab.com

MAP 8–2. Chang’an. The great city of Chang’an had been a Chinese
capital since the Han period. By the eighth century there were around a
halfmillion people within the city walls, with the same number close by
outside, making it the largest city in the world at the time. The rigorous grid
structure accommodated a variety of districts, each with its own
administration.

HOW DOES the layout of Chang’an exhibit the power of the emperor?

THE TANG EMPIRE

A Chinese dynasty is like an accordion, first expanding into the territories
of its neighbors and then contracting back to its densely populated core
area. The principal threats to the Tang state were from Tibetans in the west,
Turks in the northwest and north, and Khitan Mongols in Manchuria.
 To protect its border, the Tang employed a four-tier policy. When nothing
else would work, the Tang sent armies. But armies were expensive, and
military solutions impermanent. For example, in 630 Tang armies defeated
the eastern Turks; in 648 they took the Tarim basin, opening trade routes to
western Asia for almost a century; and in 657 they defeated the western
Turks and extended Chinese influence to petty states near Samarkand. By
698, however, the Turks were invading northeastern China again, and
between 711 and 736 they were in control of the steppe from the Oxus
River to China’s northern frontier. Chinese efforts against Tibet were much
the same. From 670 Tibet expanded and threatened China. In 679 it was
defeated. In 714 it rose again, wars were fought from 727 to 729, and a
settlement was reached in 730. But wars broke out anew. In 752 Tibet
entered an alliance with the state of Nan Chao in Yunnan. In 763 Tibetan
forces captured and looted Chang’an. They were driven out, but the point
remains that no military victory was final.
The second tier of Chinese defenses was to use nomads against other
nomads. The critical development for the Tang was the rise to power of the
Uighur Turks. From 744 to 840, the Uighurs controlled Central Asia and
were staunch allies of the Tang. Without their support, the Tang Dynasty
would have ended sooner.

Uighur Turk
A pastoralist, Altaic-speaking group based in the plains northwest of China,
south of Lake Baikal.
Relief of Tang Emperor’s Horse. A bearded “barbarian” groom tends the
charger of the second Tang emperor (r. 626–649). This stone relief was
found on the emperor’s tomb. Note the stirrup, a Chinese invention of the
fourth century C.E.

A Relief of Emperor T’ai T’sung’s Horse, “Autumn Dew.” University of

Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia (NEG.# S8-62840).

How might stirrups help horsemen? What kinds of activities would be

easier with stirrups than without?
A third tier was the defense along China’s borders, including the Great
Wall. At mid-dynasty, whole frontier provinces in the north and the
northwest were put under military commanders, who in time came to
control the provinces’ civil governments as well. The bulk of the Tang
military was in such frontier commands. At times their autonomy posed as
much of a threat to the Tang court as to the nomadic enemy.
The fourth line of defense was to bring the potential enemy into the
empire as a tributary. The Tang definition of “tributary” included
principalities truly dependent on China; Central Asian states conquered by
China; enemy states, such as Tibet or the Thai state of Nan Chao in Yunnan,
when they were not actually at war with China; the Korean state of Silla,
which had unified the peninsula with Tang aid but had then fought Tang
armies to a stalemate when they attempted to impose Chinese hegemony;
and wholly independent states, such as Japan. All sent embassies bearing
gifts to the Tang court, which housed and fed them and sent back costly
gifts in return.
For some countries these embassies had a special significance. As the
only “developed nation” in eastern Asia, China was a model for countries
still emerging as states. An embassy gained access to the entire range of
Tang culture and technology. In 640 there were 8,000 Koreans, mostly
students, in Chang’an. China was able to exert great influence on its
neighbors during their formative stages.
Within China, signs of decline began to appear around the mid-eighth
century. China’s frontiers started to contract. Tribes in Manchuria became
unruly. Tibetans threatened China’s western border.

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Chinese description of the Tibetans at myhistorylab.com

CHRONOLOGY

IMPERIAL CHINA

In 751, an overextended Tang army was defeated by Arabs near

Samarkand, closing China’s caravan trade with the West for more than five
centuries. Meanwhile, in 755 a Sogdian general, An Lushan, who
commanded three Chinese provinces on the northeastern frontier, led his
160,000 troops in a rebellion that swept across northern China, capturing
Luoyang and then Chang’an. The emperor fled to Sichuan—apparently all
for love, which was soon lost: Ten years earlier the emperor Xuan Zong had
taken a young woman, Yang Guifei, from the harem of his son. So
infatuated was he that he neglected to govern. This was fine for a while,
because his chief minister governed instead. When the minister died,
though, Xuan Zong appointed his concubine’s second cousin to the post,
initiating a chain of events that resulted in rebellion. En route to Sichuan,
Xuan Zong’s soldiers, blaming Yang Guifei for their plight, strangled her.

OVERVIEW Chinese Policy toward Barbarians

For much of the history of the Chinese Empire, nomadic peoples from the
west and north, whom the Chinese considered to be barbarians, posed a
recurrent threat. The imperial Chinese government adopted a variety of
strategies for dealing with this threat.
Armies When nothing else worked, the Chinese went on the offensive
and sent armies against the nomads. But armies were
expensive, and victories over nomads were transitory. Within a
few years the tribes would regroup and menace China anew.
Nomads A second strategy was to obtain allies from the nomads along
against China’s borders and use them against more distant nomads. To
nomads win over neighboring tribes, a variety of bribes was employed.
Border In the north, an inner line of defense was the Great Wall. Also,
defense late in dynasties, northern provinces were often placed under
military governors.
Diplomacy China sought to neutralize its neighbors by loosely attaching
them to its empire. Nomadic tribes, Central Asian states, and
Korea became “tributaries” of the emperor. Their rulers sent
embassies bearing gifts (“tribute”) to the imperial court, which
fed and housed them, and sent them home with even costlier
gifts and reports of China’s power, wealth, splendor, and
cultural achievements.

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Court Lady Yang Guifei Mounting a Horse at myhistorylab.com

After a decade of wars and much devastation, a new emperor restored the
dynasty with the help of the Uighur Turks, who looted Chang’an as part of
their reward. The century of relative peace and prosperity that followed
illustrates the resilience of Tang institutions. China was smaller, but military
governors maintained the diminished frontiers. Provincial governors were
more autonomous, but taxes were still sent to the capital. Occasional
rebellions were suppressed. Most of the emperors were weak, but three
strong emperors carried out reforms. The most important reform was that of
the land system. The official census, on which land allotments and taxes
were based, showed a drop in population from 53 million before the An
Lushan rebellion to 17 million afterward. The government replaced the
equal field system with a tax collected twice a year. The new system, begun
in 780, lasted until the sixteenth century. Under it, a fixed quota of taxes
was levied on each province. After the rebellion, government revenues from
salt and iron surpassed those from land.
During the second half of the ninth century the government weakened
further. Most provinces were autonomous, often under military
commanders, and resisted central control. Wars, bandits, droughts, and
peasant uprisings took their toll. By the 880s warlords had carved all of
China into independent kingdoms, and in 907 the Tang Dynasty fell. But
within half a century a new dynasty arose. The fall of the Tang did not lead
to the centuries of division that had followed the Han. Something had
changed within China.

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Ibn Wahab, an Arab merchant, visits Tang China at myhistorylab.com.

TANG CULTURE
The creativity of the Tang period arose from the juxtaposition and
interaction of cosmopolitan, medieval Buddhist, and secular elements. The
rise of each of these cultural spheres was rooted in the wealth and the social
order of the re-created empire.
Tang culture was cosmopolitan both because of its broad contacts with
other cultures and peoples and because of its openness to them. Pilgrims,
art, and philosophy flowed between India and China, so the voluptuousness
of Indian painting and sculpture influenced the Tang representation of the
bodhisattva. Commercial contacts were widespread; foreign goods were
sold in Chang’an marketplaces, and Arab and Persian quarters grew up in
the seaports of southeastern China. Merchants brought their religions with
them. Nestorian Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Judaism, and
Islam entered China at this time. (Most were swept away in the persecutions
of the ninth century.)
Central Asian music and musical instruments became so popular they
almost displaced the native tradition. Tang ladies adopted foreign hairstyles.
Dramas and acrobatic performances by western Asians could be seen in the
streets of the capital. In Tang poetry, too, what was foreign was judged on
its own merits.
The Tang Dynasty was the golden age of Buddhism in China. Patronized
by emperors and aristocrats, the Buddhist establishment acquired vast
landholdings and wealth. Temples and monasteries were constructed
throughout China. Little of the beauty and sophistication of temple art and
architecture has survived in China, except in the Caves of the Thousand
Buddhas in China’s far northwest, which were sealed during the eleventh
century and not rediscovered until the twentieth century. Only during the
Tang did China have a “church” establishment that was at all comparable to
that of medieval Europe, and even then it was subservient to the state.
Buddhist wealth and learning brought with them secular functions: Temples
served as schools, inns, or even bathhouses; they lent money; priests
performed funerals and dispensed medicines. Occasionally the state moved
to recapture the revenues monopolized by temples. The severest
persecution, which marked a turn in the fortunes of Buddhism in China,
occurred from 841 to 845, when an ardent Daoist emperor confiscated
millions of acres of tax-exempt lands, put 260,000 monks and nuns back on
the tax registers, and destroyed 4,600 monasteries and 40,000 shrines.
During the early Tang, the principal Buddhist sect was the Tiantai, but
after the mid-ninth-century suppression, other sects came to the fore:

Tang Figurine. During the Tang Dynasty (618–907), well-to-do families

placed glazed pottery figurines in the tombs of their dead. Perhaps they
were intended to accompany and amuse the dead in the afterlife. Note the
fancy chignon hairstyle of this female flutist, one figure in a musical
ensemble. Today these figurines are sought by collectors around the world.

What are some characteristics of Tang culture?

1. One devotional sect focused on Maitreya, a Buddha of the future,
who will appear and create a paradise on earth. Maitreya was a
cosmic messiah, not a human figure. The sect’s teachings often
furnished the ideology for popular uprisings and rebellions like the
White Lotus, which claimed that it was renewing the world in
anticipation of Maitreya’s coming.
2. Another devotional sect worshiped the Amitabha Buddha, the Lord
of the Western Paradise or Pure Land. This sect taught that in the
early centuries after the death of the historical Buddha, people could
obtain enlightenment by their own efforts, but later the Buddha’s
teachings had become so distorted that humans could obtain
salvation only by reliance on Amitabha. All who called on
Amitabha with a pure heart and perfect faith would be saved.
Amitabha Buddhism developed a congregational form of worship,
became the largest sect in China, and deeply influenced Chinese
popular religion.

Amitabha Buddha
The Buddhist Lord of the Western Paradise, or Pure Land.

3. A third sect, most influential among the Chinese elites, began in

China, where it was known as Chan. In the West, it is better known
by its Japanese name, Zen. Zen taught that the historical Buddha
was only a man and exhorted each person to attain enlightenment by
his or her own efforts. Although its monks were well-learned, Zen
was antiintellectual in its emphasis on direct intuition into one’s own
Buddha-nature. Enlightenment was to be obtained by a regimen of
physical labor and meditation. To jolt the monk into enlightenment,
some Zen sects posed riddles: “If all things return to the One, what
does the One return to?” “From the top of a hundred-foot pole, how
do you step forward?” The psychological state of the adept
attempting to deal with these problems is compared to that of “a
mosquito biting an iron ball.” The discipline of meditation,
 combined with a Zen view of nature, profoundly influenced the arts
in China and subsequently in Korea and Japan as well.

Zen
A form of Buddhism, which taught that Buddha was only a man and
exhorted each person to attain enlightenment by his or her own efforts.

Caravaneer on a Camel. The animal’s shaggy mane indicates that it is a

Bactrian camel from Central Asia.

How did trade influence culture during the Tang and Song dynasties?
A third characteristic of Tang culture was the reappearance of secular
scholarship and letters. A scholarly bureaucratic complex emerged. Most
men of letters were also officials, and most high-ranking officials painted or
wrote poems. This secular stream of Tang culture did not oppose Buddhism.
Officials were often privately sympathetic to Buddhism, but as men
involved in the affairs of government, their values were this-worldly. Court
historians revived the Han practice of writing an official history of the
previous dynasty. Scholars compiled dictionaries and wrote commentaries
on the Confucian classics. More paintings were Buddhist than secular, but
Chinese landscape painting had its origins during the Tang. Nowhere,
however, was the growth of a secular culture more evident than in poetry,
the greatest achievement of Tang letters. An anthology of Tang poetry
compiled during the Ming period (1368–1644) contained 48,900 poems by
almost 2,300 authors.
The poet Li Bo (701–762) was neither wholly secular nor Buddhist; he
might better be called Daoist. He was exceptional among Tang poets in
never having sat for the civil service examinations. Large and muscular, he
was a swordsman and a carouser. Of the 20,000 poems he is said to have
composed, 1,800 have survived, and a fair number have titles like “Bring on
the Wine” or “Drinking Alone in the Moonlight.” According to legend, he
drowned while drunkenly attempting to embrace the reflection of the moon
in a lake. His poetry is clear, powerful, passionate, and always sensitive to
beauty. It also contains a sense of fantasy, as when he climbed a mountain
and saw a star-goddess, “stepping in emptiness, pacing pure ether, her
rainbow robes trailed broad sashes.” According to Li Bo, life is brief and
the universe is large, but this view did not lead him to renounce the world.
Rather, he exulted, identifying with the primal flux of yin and yang:

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T’ang Dynasty Poetry (8th century) Li Po at myhistorylab.com

I’ll wrap this Mighty Mudball of a world all up in a bag

And be wild and free like Chaos itself!1

Du Fu (712–770), an equally famous Tang poet, was from a literary

family. He failed the metropolitan examination at the age of 23 and spent
years wandering, impoverished. He eventually got a government job but fell
into rebel hands during the An Lushan rebellion. His poetry is less lyrical
and more allusive than Li Bo’s. It also reflects more compassion for human
suffering: for the mother whose sons have been conscripted and sent to war;
for brothers scattered by war; for his own family, to whom he returned after
having been given up for dead. Like Li Bo, he felt that humans are short-
lived and that nature endures. Visiting the ruins of the palace of the second
Tang emperor, he saw “Grey rats scuttling over ancient tiles.” “Its lovely
ladies are the brown soil” and only “tomb horses of stone remain.” Unlike
Li Bo, his response to this sad scene was to

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Lu You, excerpt from Diary of a Journey to Sichuan at myhistorylab.com

A Closer Look
A Tang Painting of the Goddess of Mercy
At the beginning of the twentieth century a sealed cave filled with the
arts and objects of Tang China was discovered at Dunhuang in
northwestern China, a jumping-off city to the Central Asian Silk Road.
Questions

1. What, do you imagine, was the purpose of this painting?

2. What social values does the painting depict?
To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com
Sing wildly, let the tears cover your open hands.
Then go ever onward and on the road of your travels,
Meet none who prolong their fated years.2

TRANSITION TO LATE IMPERIAL CHINA:

THE SONG DYNASTY (960–1279)

WHAT WAS the agricultural revolution that occurred during the Song
Dynasty?

The Song fits the dynastic cycle model of Chinese history. It reunified
China in 960, establishing its capital at Kaifeng on the Yellow River (see
Map 8–3). Mobilizing its resources effectively, it ruled for 170 years; this
period is called the Northern Song. Then it weakened, losing the north in
1127 but continuing to rule the south from a new capital at Hangzhou for
another 150 years. The Southern Song fell to the Mongols in 1279.
But there is more to Chinese history than the inner logic of the dynastic
cycle. Important longer-term changes cut across dynasties. One such set of
changes began during the late Tang and continued into the Song period. Its
effects on the economy, society, state, and culture help to explain why
China after the Tang did not relapse into centuries of disunity as it had after
the Han—and why China never again experienced more than brief intervals
of disunity.

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China under Tang and Song Dynasties at myhistorylab.com
AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION OF THE SONG: FROM SERFS TO FREE
FARMERS
Landed aristocrats had dominated local society in China during the Sui and
Tang periods. The tillers of their lands were little more than serfs. The
aristocracy weakened, however, during and after the Tang. Estates shrank as
they were divided among a man’s sons after his death. As the aristocrats’
landholdings diminished, they were attracted to the capital where they
became a metropolitan elite. After the fall of the Tang, the estates were
often seized by warlords.
The fading power of the aristocracy and changes in the land and tax
systems worked in favor of those who tilled the soil. The end of the equal
field system freed farmers to buy and sell land, and ownership of land as
private property gave cultivators greater independence. Taxes paid in grain
gave way during the Song to taxes in money. The commutation of the labor
tax to a money tax gave farmers more control over their time. Conscription,
the cruelest and heaviest labor tax of all, disappeared as the conscript
armies of the early and middle Tang were replaced by professional soldiers.
Changes in technology also benefited the cultivator. New strains of an
early-ripening rice permitted double cropping, and new commercial crops
were developed.

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QUICK REVIEW
Song Agricultural Revolution
Aristocracy declined
Money taxes replaced labor tax and conscription
New crops and technologies increased productivity
MAP 8–3. The Northern Song and Liao Empires (Top) and the
Southern Song and Jin Empires (Bottom). During the Northern Song, the
Mongol Liao Dynasty ruled only the extreme northern edge of China.
During the Southern Song, in contrast, the Manchurian Jin Dynasty ruled
half of China.

Why did the authority of the Song Dynasty not extend beyond southern
China after 1279?
The disappearance of the aristocrats also increased the authority of the
district magistrate, the sole local representative of imperial authority. But
there were too many villages in his district for him to be involved regularly
in their internal governance. As long as taxes were paid and order was
maintained, affairs were left in the hands of the village elites.
One other development that began during the Song—and became vastly
more important later—was the appearance of a scholar-gentry class. The
typical gentry family contained at least one member who had passed the
provincial civil service examination and lived in a district seat or market
town. Socially and culturally, these gentry were closer to magistrates than to
villagers, but since they usually owned land in the villages, they shared
some interests with local landholders. At times they functioned as a buffer
between the village and the magistrate’s office.

COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION OF THE SONG

Demographic shifts, innovative technologies, the growth of cities, the
spread of money, and rising trade all contributed to changes in the
countryside. These developments varied by region, but overall the economy
reached new prosperity as it underwent a Song commercial revolution.

Song commercial revolution

The growth in trade, population, technology, money supply, and other
factors that reinforced one another to create cycles of commerce-driven
economic growth during the Song Dynasty.

Until late in the Tang, the north had been China’s most populous and
productive region. But starting in the late ninth century the center of gravity
of China’s population, agricultural production, and culture shifted to the
lower and eastern Yangzi region. Between 800 and 1100 the population of
the region tripled, as China’s total population increased to about 100
million. Its rice paddies yielded more per acre than the wheat or millet
fields of the north, making rice the tax base of the empire. Its wealth led to
the establishment of so many schools that the government set regional
quotas for the examination system.
Technological advances during the Song included the abacus, the use of
gunpowder in grenades and projectiles, and improvements in textiles and
porcelains. In north China, the world’s most advanced coal and iron-
smelting industry developed. Using coke and bellows to heat furnaces to the
temperatures required for carbonized steel, it provided superior tools and
weapons. Printing began in China with the use of carved seals. The earliest
woodblock texts, mostly on Buddhist subjects, appeared in the seventh
century. By the tenth century a complete edition of the classics had been
published, and by the mid-Song books printed with movable type were
fairly common.
Exchange during the Tang had been based largely on silk. During the
Northern Song large amounts of copper cash were coined, but the demand
rose more rapidly than the supply. Beginning in the Southern Song, silver
was minted to complement copper cash.
Cities with more than 100,000 households almost quadrupled in number.
The Northern Song capital at Kaifeng is recorded as having had 260,000
households—probably more than 1 million inhabitants—and the Southern
Song capital at Hangzhou had 391,000 households. Compare these capitals
to those of backward Europe: London during the Northern Song had a
population of about 18,000; Rome during the Southern Song had 35,000;
and Paris even a century later had fewer than 60,000. These Song capitals
were open within and spread beyond their outer walls. Restaurants, theaters,
wine shops, and brothels abounded.
Trade between regions during the Song was limited mainly to luxury
goods such as silk, lacquerware, medicinal herbs, and porcelains. Only
where transport was cheap—along rivers, canals, or the coast—was
interregional trade in bulk commodities economical, and even then it was
usually carried on only to make up for specific shortages.
Foreign trade reached new heights during the Song. In the north, Chinese
traders bought horses from Tibetan, Turkic, and Mongol border states and
sold silks and tea. Along the coast, Chinese merchants took over the port
trade that during the Tang had been in the hands of Korean, Arab, and
Persian merchants. The new hegemony of Chinese merchants was based on
improved ships using both sail and oars and equipped with watertight
compartments and better rudders. Chinese captains, navigating with the aid
of the compass, came to dominate the sea routes from Japan in the north to
Sumatra in the south. The content of the overseas trade reflected China’s
advanced economy: It imported raw materials and exported finished goods.
Porcelains were sent to Southeast Asia and then were carried by Arab ships
to medieval trading centers on the Persian Gulf and down the coast of East
Africa as far south as Zanzibar.

Irrigation Methods on a Farm in the Yangzi Valley. A farmer and his

wife use their legs and feet to work the square-pallet chain pump, a boy
drives a water buffalo to turn a water-pumping device, and another boy
fishes.

© Photograph by Wan-go Weng/Collection of H. C. Weng.

What does this image suggest about the productivity of Chinese farms
during the Song Dynasty?
GOVERNMENT: FROM ARISTOCRACY TO AUTOCRACY
The millennium of late imperial China after the Tang is often spoken of as
the age of imperial autocracy or as China’s age of absolute monarchy.
Earlier emperors were often personally powerful, but changes during the
Song made it easier for emperors to be autocrats.

Imperial autocracy
The governing style practiced by the Song emperors, in which the ruler
exercises unlimited, personal authority.

Song emperors had direct personal control over more offices than their
Tang predecessors. The central government was also better funded.
Revenues in 1100 were three times the peak revenues of the Tang, partly
because of the growth of population and agricultural wealth, and partly
because of the establishment of government monopolies on salt, wine, and
tea and various duties, fees, and taxes levied on trade. During the Northern
Song, these commercial revenues rivaled the land tax; during the Southern
Song, they surpassed it.
The disappearance of the aristocracy strengthened the emperors. During
the Tang, the emperor had come from the same Sino-Turkic aristocracy as
most of his principal ministers, and he ruled on behalf of this aristocracy.
During the Song, in contrast, government officials were commoners, mostly
products of the examination system. They were separated from the emperor
by an enormous social gulf.

QUICK REVIEW
Song Commercial Revolution
Yangzi basin gains population and power
Steel, printing, and other technologies improve
Cash and credit permeate the economy
More cities have large populations
Trade increases

The Song examination system was larger than that of the Tang, though
smaller than it would be under later dynasties. Whereas only 10 percent of
officials had been recruited by examination during the Tang, the Song
figure rose to over 50 percent and included the most important officials. To
pass the examinations, the candidate had to memorize the Confucian
classics, interpret selected passages, write in the literary style, compose
poems on themes given by the examiners, and propose solutions to
contemporary problems in terms of Confucian philosophy. The quality of
the officials produced by the Song system was impressive. The Chinese
examination system that flourished during the Song continued, with some
interruptions, into the twentieth century. The continuity of Chinese
government rested on the examination elite with its common culture and
values.
The social base for this examination meritocracy was triangular,
consisting of land, education, and office. Landed wealth paid the costs of
education. Without passing the examinations, an official position was out of
reach. And without office, family wealth could not be preserved, since
property was divided each time it was inherited. Merchants had wealth but
were despised by scholar-officials as grubby profit-seekers and were barred
from taking the examinations. Some merchants bought land, and their sons
or grandsons became eligible to take the exams. Similarly, a small peasant
might build up his holdings, become a landlord, and educate a son or
grandson. The system was steeply hierarchical, but it was not closed nor did
it produce a new, self-perpetuating aristocracy.
An Elegant Song Dynasty Wine Pot with green celadon glaze (24.8 cm
high).

Ewer with carved flower sprays. Porcelain with molded and carved low-
relief decoration in grayish-green glaze. Northern Song Dynasty (960–1000
© Gift of The Asian Art Museum Foundation).

In what ways is this wine pot “elegant”? Do you think it is an accurate

representation of Song culture?

SONG CULTURE
Song culture retained some of the energy of the Tang while becoming more
intensely and perhaps more narrowly Chinese. The preconditions for the
rich Song culture were a rising economy, an increase in the number of
schools and higher literacy, and the spread of printing. Song culture was
closely associated with the officials and the scholar-gentry, who were both
its practitioners and its patrons. The secular culture of Tang officials
became dominant during the Song.
Chinese consider the Song Dynasty the peak of their traditional culture. It
was, for example, China’s greatest age of pottery and porcelains. High-
firing techniques were developed, and kilns were established in every area.
Song pottery, with its beautiful glazes and restrained, harmonious shapes,
was unlike anything produced in the world before, and it made ceramics a
major art form in East Asia. The Song was also an age of great historians.
Sima Guang (1019–1086) wrote A Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in
Government, which treated all Chinese history rather than a particular
dynasty. His sophisticated work included a discussion of documentary
sources and an explanation of why he chose to rely on one source rather
than another.
The greatest achievements of the Song, however, were in philosophy,
poetry, and painting. The Song was second only to the Zhou as a creative
age in philosophy. A series of original thinkers culminated in the towering
figure of Zhu Xi (1130–1200). Zhu Xi studied Daoism and Buddhism in his
youth, along with Confucianism. During his thirties he focused on
Confucianism, deepening and making more systematic its social and
political ethics by joining Buddhist and native metaphysical elements to it.
This new Confucianism became a viable alternative to Buddhism for
Chinese intellectuals. Comparable figures in other traditions include Saint
Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274) of medieval Europe or the Islamic
theologian al-Ghazali (1058–1111), each of whom produced a new
synthesis or worldview that lasted for centuries (see Chapters 15 and 12,
respectively).

DOCUMENT
Su Dungpo Imagined on a Wet Day, Wearing a Rain Hat and Clogs
After Su’s death, a disciple wrote these lines.
• WHAT does this poem suggest about the social and political roles
played by scholars?
When with tall hat and firm baton he stood in council,
The crowds were awed at the dignity of the statesman in him.
But when in cloth cap he strolled with cane and sandals,
He greeted little children with gentle smiles.
Source: From An Introduction to Sung Poetry, by Kojiro Yoshikawa, trans. by Burton Watson
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967). Copyright © 1967 by the Harvard-Yenching
Institute, Monograph Series, poem, p. 122, illustration located on unnumbered page opposite p. 65.
Reprinted by permission of Harvard-Yenching Institute.

Zhu Xi’s teachings became a new orthodoxy, maintained by the civil

service examinations. Like the examination system, the imperial institution,
the scholar-gentry class, and the land system, his interpretation of
Confucianism contributed to continuity and impeded change.
The most famous poet of the Northern Song was Su Dungpo (1037–
1101), a man who participated in the full range of the culture of his age: He
was a painter and a calligrapher; he practiced Zen and wrote commentaries
on the Confucian classics; he superintended engineering projects; and he
was a connoisseur of cooking and wine.
Su, a conservative, rose through a succession of posts to become the
governor of a province. Eight years later, when the reformers came to
power, Su was arrested and spent 100 days in prison, awaiting execution on
a charge of slandering the emperor. Instead, he was released and exiled. He
wrote, “Out the gate, I do a dance, wind blows in my face; our galloping
horses race along as magpies cheer.”3 In exile, he farmed a plot of land at
the “eastern slope” from which he took his literary name, Dungpo. After
1086 Su resumed his official career. In 1094 another shift occurred, and Su
was exiled to the distant southern island of Hainan. After yet another shift,
Su was on his way back to the capital when he died, in 1101. (See
Document, “Su Dungpo Imagined on a Wet Day, Wearing a Rain Hat and
Clogs.”)

An ink on silk handscroll, Southern Song Dynasty. The vast expanse of

nature is hardly affected by the human presence.

Xia Gui, Chinese (active 1180–after 1224), “Twelve Views of Landscape.”

Southern Song Dynasty, (1127–1279). Handscroll; ink on silk. 11” × 90
3/4” (28.0 × 230.5 cm) overall. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas
City, Missouri. Purchase: Nelson Trust, 32-159/2. Photograph by John
Lamberton.

What evidence of humans is there in this image?

In China, calligraphy and painting were seen as related. The same

qualities of line, balance, and strength needed for calligraphy carried over to
painting. Chinese calligraphy is immensely pleasing even to the untutored
Western eye, and it is not difficult to distinguish between the elegant strokes
of Huineng, the last emperor of the Northern Song, and the powerful
brushwork of the Zen monk Zhang Jizhi. Song painting was varied, but its
crowning achievement was landscapes. Song paintings are different from
those of the West. Each stroke of the brush was final; mistakes could not be
covered up. Each element in a scene was presented in its most pleasing
aspect; the painting was not constrained by single-point perspective.
Paintings had no single source of illumination, but contained an overall
diffusion of light. Space was an integral part of the painting. If the painting
contained human figures at all, they were small in a natural universe that
was very large. Chinese painting thus reflected the same worldview as
Chinese philosophy or poetry. The painter sought to grasp the inner reality
of the scene, and not be bound up in surface details. In paintings by monks
or masters of the Zen school, the presentation of an intuitive vision of an
inner reality was even more pronounced.

CHINA IN THE MONGOL WORLD EMPIRE:

THE YUAN DYNASTY (1279–1368)

WHY WERE the Mongols able to establish such a vast empire?

The Mongols created the greatest empire in the history of the world. It
extended from the Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean; from Russia, Siberia,
and Korea in the north to Persia and Burma in the south. Invasion fleets
were even sent to Java and Japan, though without success. Mongol rule in
China is one chapter of this larger story.

RISE OF THE MONGOL EMPIRE

The Mongols, a nomadic people, roamed the grasslands north of China
where they raised horses and herded sheep. They lived in felt tents, or yurts.
Women performed much of the work and were freer than women in China.
Families belonged to clans, and related clans made up tribes. Tribes would
gather during the annual migration from the summer plains to winter
pasturage. Chiefs were elected, chosen for their courage, military prowess,
judgment, and leadership. Like Manchu or Turkic, the Mongol tongue was
Altaic. The Mongols worshiped nature deities and a supreme sky god. They
communicated with their gods through religious specialists called shamans.
Politically divided, they traded and warred among themselves and with
settled peoples on the borders of their vast grassland domains.
The founder of the Mongol Empire, Temujin, was born in 1167. His
father, a tribal chief, was poisoned while Temujin was still a child. Temujin
fled; years later, he returned to the tribe, avenged his father, and in time
became chief himself. Through his shrewd policy of alliances and
remarkable survival qualities, he had united all Mongol tribes and had been
elected their great khan, or ruler, by the time he was 40. It is by the title
Genghis (also spelled Jenghiz or Chinggis) Khan that he is known to
history. Genghis possessed an extraordinary charisma, and his sons and
grandsons also became wise and talented leaders. Why the Mongol tribes
should have produced such leaders at this point in history is difficult to
explain.
A second conundrum is how the Mongols, who numbered only about 1.5
million, created the army that conquered vastly denser populations. Part of
the answer is institutional. Genghis organized his armies into “myriads” of
10,000 troops, with decimal subdivisions of 1,000, 100, and 10. Elaborate
signals were devised so that in battle even large units could be manipulated
like the fingers of a hand. Mongol tactics were superb: Units would retreat,
turn, flank, and destroy their enemies. The historical record makes clear that
Genghis’s nomadic cavalry had a paralytic effect on the peoples they
encountered. The Mongols were peerless horsemen, and their most dreaded
weapon was the compound bow, short enough to be used from the saddle
yet more powerful than the English longbow.
They were astonishingly mobile. Each man carried his own supplies and
covered vast distances quickly. In 1241, for example, a Mongol army had
reached Hungary, Poland, and the shore of the Adriatic and was poised for a
further advance into western Europe. But when word arrived of the death of
the great khan, the army turned and galloped back to Mongolia to help
choose his successor.
The Mongol army learned the use of siege weapons from enemies it
conquered. Chinese engineers were used in campaigns in Persia. The
Mongols also used terror; inhabitants of cities that refused to surrender in
the Near East and China were put to the sword. Descriptions of the
Mongols by those whom they conquered dwell on their physical toughness
and pitiless cruelty.
 But the Mongols had strengths that went beyond the strictly military.
Genghis opened his armies to recruits from the Uighur Turks, the Manchus,
and other nomadic peoples. In 1206 Genghis promulgated laws designed to
prevent warring between tribes that would undermine his empire. Genghis
also obtained thousands of pledges of personal loyalty from his followers,
and he appointed these “vassals” to command his armies and staff his
government. This policy gave his forces an inner coherence that countered
the divisive effect of tribal loyalties. Unabashedly frank words attributed to
Genghis may reveal what lay behind the Mongol drive to conquest: “Man’s
highest joy is in victory: to conquer one’s enemies, to pursue them, to
deprive them of their possessions, to make their beloved weep, to ride on
their horses, and to embrace their wives and daughters.”4

Read the Document

Giovanni Di Piano Carpini on the Mongols at myhistorylab.com

QUICK REVIEW
Genghis Khan
Named Temujin at birth, in 1167
“Khan” means great ruler
Exceptionally charismatic
Structured army for easy control, cohesiveness
Divided empire among four sons

See the Map

The Mongol Empire of Chinggis Khan, ca. 1227, at myhistorylab.com
MAP 8–4. The Mongol Empire in the Late Thirteenth Century. Note
the four khanates: the Golden Horde in Russia, the Ilkhanate in Persia,
Chagatai in Central Asia, and the Great Khanate extending from Mongolia
to southern China.

How did the Mongol Empire facilitate trade and communication?

Genghis divided his far-flung empire among his four sons. Over several
generations, each of the four khanates became independent. The khanate of
Chagatai was in Central Asia and remained purely nomadic. A second
khanate of the Golden Horde ruled Russia from the lower Volga. The third
was in Persia, and the fourth, led by those who succeeded Genghis as great
khans, centered first in Mongolia and then in China (see Map 8–4).

MONGOL RULE IN CHINA

The standard theory used to organize Chinese history is the dynastic cycle,
but a second theory explains Chinese history in terms of the interaction
between the settled peoples of China and the nomads of the steppe. When
strong states emerged in China, their wealth and population enabled them to
expand militarily onto the steppe. But when China was weak, the steppe
peoples overran China. To review briefly:

1. During the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.), the most pressing
problem in foreign relations was the Xiongnu Empire to the north.
2. During the centuries that followed the Han, various nomadic
peoples invaded and ruled northern China.
3. The energy and institutions of these Sino-Turkic rulers of the
northern dynasties shaped China’s reunification during the Sui
(589–618) and Tang (618–907) dynasties. The Uighur Turks also
played a major role in Tang defense policy.
4. Northern border states became even more important during the
Song. The Northern Song (960–1126) bought peace with payments
of gold and silver to the Liao. The Southern Song (1126–1279), for
all its cultural brilliance, was little more than a tributary state of the
Jin Dynasty, which had expanded into northern China.

From the start of the Mongol pursuit of world hegemony, the riches of
China were a target. Genghis proceeded cautiously, determined to leave no
enemy at his back. He first disposed of the Tibetan state to the northwest of
China and then the Manchu state of Jin that ruled north China. Mongol
forces took Beijing in 1227, the year Genghis died. They went on to take
Luoyang and the southern reaches of the Yellow River in 1234, and all of
north China by 1241. During this time, the Mongols were interested mainly
in loot. Only later did Chinese advisers persuade them that more wealth
could be obtained by taxation.
Kublai, a grandson of Genghis, was chosen as the great khan in 1260. In
1264 he moved his capital from Karakorum in Mongolia to Beijing. It was
only in 1271 that he adopted a Chinese dynastic name, the Yuan, and, as a
Chinese ruler, went to war with the Southern Song. Once the decision was
made, the Mongols swept across southern China. The last Song stronghold
fell in 1279.
Kublai Khan’s rule in Beijing reflected the mixture of cultural elements
in Mongol China. Kublai rebuilt Beijing as a walled city in the Chinese
style. But Beijing was far to the north of any previous Chinese capital, away
from centers of wealth and population; to provision it, the Grand Canal had
to be extended. From Beijing, Kublai could look out onto Manchuria and
Mongolia and maintain ties with the other khanates. The city proper was for
the Mongols. Chinese were segregated in an adjoining walled city. The
palace of the khan was designed by an Arab architect; its rooms were
Central Asian in style. Kublai also maintained a summer palace at Shangdu
(“Xanadu”) in Inner Mongolia, where he could hawk and ride and hunt in
Mongol style.
Early Mongol rule in northern China was rapacious and exploitative, but
it later shifted toward Chinese forms of government and taxation, especially
in the south and at the local level. Because it was a foreign military
occupation, civil administration was highly centralized. Under the emperor
was a Central Secretariat, and beneath it were ten “Moving Secretariats,”
which became the provinces of later dynasties. These highly centralized
institutions and the arbitrary style of Mongol decision making accelerated
the trend toward absolutism that had started during the previous dynasty.
About 400,000 Mongols lived in China during the Yuan period. For such
a tiny minority to control the Chinese majority, it had to stay separate. One
measure was to make military service a monopoly of Mongols and their
nomadic allies. Garrisons were established throughout China with a
strategic reserve on the steppe. Military officers were always regarded as
more important than civil officials. A second measure was to use ethnic
classifications in appointing civil officials. Mongols held the top civil and
military posts. Persians, Turks, and other non-Chinese were given high civil
posts. Northern Chinese, including Manchus and other border peoples,
ranked above southern Chinese. Even when the examination system was
sporadically revived after 1315, the Mongols and their allies took an easier
examination; their quota was as large as that for Chinese, and they were
appointed to higher offices.
Kublai Khan. Wearing ermine coat, the Mongol emperor sits on a horse
among Mongol warriors at the hunt. At his side is his consort, Chabi.

National Palace Museum, Taiwan, Republic of China.

How did the reign of Kublai Khan combine Mongol and Chinese
elements?

See the Map

The Mongol Empire, 1206–1405 at myhistorylab.com

The result was an uneasy symbiosis. Chinese officials directly governed

the Chinese populace, collecting taxes, settling disputes, and maintaining
the local order. Few of these officials ever learned to speak Mongolian, and
Mongols usually did not bother to learn Chinese: Communication was
through interpreters. Yet without the active cooperation of Chinese officials,
Mongol rule in China would have been impossible.

FOREIGN CONTACTS AND CHINESE CULTURE

Diplomacy and trade within the greater Mongol Empire brought China into
contact with other higher civilizations for the first time since the Tang
period. Persia and the Arab world were especially important. Merchants,
missionaries, and diplomats voyaged from the Persian Gulf and across the
Indian Ocean to seaports in southeastern China; Arab communities in port
cities grew. Camel caravans carrying silks and ceramics left Beijing for
Baghdad. Chinese communities became established in Tabriz, the center of
trading in western Asia, and in Moscow and Novgorod. Knowledge of
printing, gunpowder, and Chinese medicine spread to western Asia. Chinese
ceramics influenced those of Persia, while Chinese painting influenced
Persian miniatures.

Read the Document

Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan, ca. 1300 at myhistorylab.com

In Europe, knowledge of China was transmitted by the Venetian trader

Marco Polo, who claimed to have served Kublai as an official between
1275 and 1292. His book, A Description of the World, was translated into
most European languages. Many readers doubted that a land of such wealth
and culture could exist so far from Europe, but the book excited an interest
in geography. When Christopher Columbus set sail in 1492, his goal was to
reach Polo’s Zipangu (Japan).
The Moroccan Muslim scholar and explorer Ibn Battuta (1304–c. 1370)
traveled throughout much of the Mongol world in the fourteenth century. In
his account of his journeys, he described the Chinese as wealthy, but
disinclined to flaunt their riches.
Mongol toleration encouraged contact across religions. Nestorian
Christianity, spreading from Persia to Central Asia, reentered China; Kublai
Khan’s mother was a Nestorian Christian. Several papal missions were sent
from Rome to the Mongol court, and an archbishopric was established in
Beijing. Kublai sent a letter to the pope asking him to send a hundred
educated men to his court. Tibetan Buddhism was the religion most favored
by the Mongols, but Chinese Buddhism also flourished. Priests and monks
of all religions were given tax exemptions. Half a million Chinese became
Buddhist monks during the Mongol century. Islam made great gains,
becoming permanently established in Central Asia and western China. Even
Confucianism was regarded as a religion by the Mongols, and its teachers
were exempted from taxes.

Read the Document

The Mongols: An excerpt from the Novgorod Chronicle, 1315 at
myhistorylab.com

Despite these wide contacts with other peoples and religions, the high
culture of China appears to have been influenced little—partly because
China had little to learn from other areas, and partly because the centers of
Chinese culture were in the south, the area least affected by Mongol rule.
Overall, in reaction to the Mongol conquest, Chinese culture became
conservative and turned in on itself.
The major contribution to Chinese arts during the Yuan was by
dramatists, who combined poetic arias with vaudeville theater to produce a
new operatic drama. Performed by traveling troupes, the operas relied on
makeup, costumes, pantomime, and stylized gestures. The women’s roles
were usually played by men. Except for the arias—the highlights of the
performance—the dramas used vernacular Chinese, appealing to a popular
audience. Justice always triumphed, and the dramas usually ended happily.
Yuan drama continued almost unchanged in later dynasties, and during the
nineteenth century it merged with a form of southern Chinese theater to
become today’s Beijing Opera.
The Journey of Marco Polo. Marco Polo and companions en route to
China on the Silk Road.

What role did travelers play in encouraging cross-cultural

understanding or curiosity during the Yuan Dynasty?

LAST YEARS OF THE YUAN

The Yuan was the shortest of China’s major dynasties. Little more than a
century elapsed between Kublai’s move to Beijing in 1264 and the
dynasty’s collapse in 1368. After the rule of Kublai and his successor, a
decline set in. By then, the Mongol Empire as a whole no longer lent
strength to its parts. The khanates became separated by religion and culture
as well as by distance. Tribesmen in Mongolia thought the great khans in
Beijing had become too Chinese, while the court at Beijing never really
gained legitimacy among the Chinese. When succession disputes,
bureaucratic factionalism, and pitched battles between Mongol generals
broke out, the Chinese showed little inclination to rally in support of the
dynasty.
Problems arose in the countryside, too. Taxes were heavy, and some local
officials were corrupt. The government issued excessive paper money and
then refused to accept it in payment for taxes. The Yellow River changed its
course, flooding the canals that carried grain to the capital. Further natural
disasters during the 1350s led to popular uprisings. The White Lotus sect
preached the coming of Maitreya. Regional military commanders,
suppressing the rebellions, became warlords. Important economic regions
were devastated and partially depopulated. At the end, a rebel army
threatened Beijing, and the last Mongol emperor and his court fled on
horses to Shangdu. When that city fell, they fled deeper into Mongolia.

SUMMARY

HOW DID the Sui and Tang dynasties re-create China’s empire?
Reestablishment of Empire: Sui (589–618) and Tang (618–907)
Dynasties. The Sui and Tang dynasties (589–907) reunited China’s empire
through strong leadership and military conquest. Under the Tang, China
expanded into Central Asia. Chang’an, the Tang capital, became the largest
city in the world. Tang culture was rich and cosmopolitan, much influenced
by its contacts with other cultures and immensely influential on the cultures
of Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. The Tang Dynasty was also the golden age
of Buddhism in China, and a variety of Buddhist sects flourished. page 195

WHAT WAS the agricultural revolution that occurred during the Song
Dynasty?

Transition to Late Imperial China: The Song Dynasty (960–1279).

Under the Song Dynasty (960–1279), China experienced an agricultural
revolution in which large aristocratic estates worked by serfs gave way to
small landholdings owned by free farmers. New crops, water control, and
fertilizers increased agricultural productivity. Advances in technology led to
the invention of printing and the development of a coal and iron-smelting
industry. The growth of a money economy encouraged the expansion of
trade, both within China and with foreign countries. Song culture was
particularly rich in philosophy, poetry, and painting. page 205

WHY WERE the Mongols able to establish such a vast empire?

China in the Mongol World Empire: The Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368).

After their unification by Genghis Khan (1167–1227), the Mongols created
the greatest empire in history. The highly mobile Mongol cavalry
overwhelmed Chinese armies. By 1279 the Mongols ruled all of China. But
Mongol rule in China was shortlived and enjoyed only shallow Chinese
support. Mongol rule in China ended in 1368. page 210

KEY TERMS

Amitabha Buddha
 censorate
Chang’an
examination system
imperial autocracy
Song commercial revolution
Uighur Turks
Zen

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. In what ways did China and Europe parallel each other in their
development until the sixth century C.E.? How did they diverge after
that?
2. Are there similarities between the Qin–Han transition and that of the
Sui–Tang? Between Han and Tang expansion and contraction?
3. How did the Chinese economy change from the Tang to the
Northern Song to the Southern Song? How did the polity change?
How did China’s relationships to surrounding states change?
4. What do Chinese poetry and art tell us about Chinese society? What
position did poets occupy in Chinese society?
5. Briefly describe the “dynastic cycle” and the “settled Chinese/steppe
nomads” theories of Chinese history. What are the strengths and
weaknesses of each theory? Is one more useful than the other?
6. Summarize significant developments in Chinese Buddhism during
this period. What was the relationship between Buddhism and the
state at various times? Between Buddhism and the elite?
7. What drove the Mongols to conquer most of the known world? How
could their military accomplish the task? Once they conquered
China, how did they rule it? What was the Chinese response to
Mongol rule?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com
 Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 8

Comparative Case Study: Women in the Imperial Courts of China and
Japan, p. 199

Read the Document Tang Daizong on the Art of Government, p. 198

An Essay Question from the Chinese Imperial Examination System, p.

199
Chinese description of the Tibetans, p. 200
Ibn Wahab, an Arab merchant, visits Tang China, p. 201
T’ang Dynasty Poetry (8th century) Li Po, p. 203
Lu You, excerpt from Diary of a Journey to Sichuan, p. 203
Giovanni Di Piano Carpini on the Mongols, p. 211
Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan, c. 1300, p. 214
The Mongols: An excerpt from the Novgorod Chronicle, 1315, p. 215

See the Map China during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, p. 196

China under Tang and Song Dynasties, p. 205

The Mongol Empire, 1206–1405, p. 214

View the Image Court Lady Yang Guifei Mounting a Horse, p. 201

Research and Explore

Watch the Video Transit

See the Map The Mongol Empire of Chinggis Khan, ca. 1227, p. 211

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 8 at www.myhistorylab.com
9
Early Japanese History

Hear the Audio for Chapter 9 at www.myhistorylab.com

A twelfth-century Japanese fan. Superimposed on a painting of a

gorgeously clad nobleman and his lady in a palace setting are verses in
Chinese from a Buddhist sutra. The aesthetic pairing of sacred and secular
was a feature of life at the Heian court. The fan could well have been used
by a figure in Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book.
What does the mix of cultural influences displayed here suggest about
medieval Japan?

JAPANESE ORIGINS

WHAT REVOLUTIONARY changes accompanied the Yayoi?

NARA AND HEIAN JAPAN

HOW DID Chinese culture influence Japan?

JAPAN’S EARLY FEUDAL AGE

WHY CAN this period in Japan be described as feudal, and in what sense
is this description misleading?

Japanese history has three main turning points. Each was marked by a
major in-flux of an outside culture, and each led to a massive restructuring
of Japanese institutions. The first came during the third century B.C.E., when
Old Stone Age Japan became an agricultural, metalworking society, similar
to those on the Korean peninsula or in northeast Asia. The second came
during the seventh and eighth centuries, when whole complexes of Chinese
culture entered Japan directly. Absorbing these, archaic Japan made the
leap to a higher historical civilization associated with the Chinese writing
system, Chinese technologies and philosophies, and Chinese forms of
Buddhism. Japan remained an independent part of this civilization for more
than a millennium. The third turning point occurred in the nineteenth
century, when Japan encountered the West.

JAPANESE ORIGINS

WHAT REVOLUTIONARY changes accompanied the Yayoi?

THE JŌMON, JAPAN’S OLD STONE AGE
Japanese hotly debate their origins. New archaeological finds are front-page
news. During the ice ages, Japan was connected by land bridges to Asia.
Woolly mammoths entered the northern island of Hokkaido, and other
continental fauna entered the lower islands. Did humans come, too?
Because Japan’s acidic volcanic soil eats up bones, there are no early
skeletal remains. The earliest evidence of human habitation is finely shaped
stone tools dating from about 30,000 B.C.E.
Then, from within this hunting and gathering society, in about 10,000
B.C.E., pottery developed. This is the oldest pottery in the world.
Archaeologists are baffled by the appearance of pottery in an Old Stone
Age hunting, gathering, and fishing society, when in all other early societies
it developed along with agriculture as an aspect of New Stone Age culture.
Japan’s “Jōmon” society is named after the rope-like, cord-pattern (Jōmon)
designs on the pottery. Jōmon people lived in pit-dwellings with thatched
roofs; population is extremely difficult to estimate, but there were probably
about 200,000 of them.

THE YAYOI REVOLUTION

A second northeast Asian people began migrations down the Korean
peninsula and across the Tsushima Straits to Japan from about 300 B.C.E.
Their movement may have been caused by Chinese military activities.
These people, called the Yayoi, were different from the Jōmon in language,
appearance, and level of technology. There is no greater break in the entire
Japanese record than that between the Jōmon and the Yayoi, for at the
beginning of the third century B.C.E., the bronze, iron, and agricultural
revolutions—which in the Near East, India, and China had been separated
by thousands of years and each of which on its own had wrought profound
transformations—entered Japan simultaneously.
 GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
EAST ASIA
Heartland civilizations, as noted in Chapter 2, were few in number. Most of
the world became “civilized” as the writing systems, philosophies, and
technologies of the heartlands spread to adjacent areas. In East Asia,
Chinese civilization spread to Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, just as in the
West, the heartland civilization of the Middle East and Greece spread to
Rome and Constantinople, and then to the rest of Europe. The transmission
was faster in East Asia than in Europe because the early empire had been
re-created by the Sui and Tang during the sixth century and was brilliantly
vital, whereas the old Western Roman Empire lay in ruins.
When we speak of “East Asia,” we refer as much to culture as to
geography, to what Japan, Korea, and Vietnam had in common with China.
They adopted Confucian and Buddhist teachings and with them conceptions
of the universe, state, and human relations. They took in Chinese arts and
technologies: painting, music, ceramics, criminal and civil law, medicine,
and architecture. To the untutored Western eye, the paintings of China,
Japan, and Korea often look much the same. They learned to write using
Chinese characters. Since the languages of Japan, Korea, and Vietnam
belonged to non-Chinese language families, it was initially as difficult for
them to write in Chinese as it would be for us to write in Egyptian
hieroglyphics.
We note, too, that Japan in the seventh and eighth centuries was not a
blank slate onto which Chinese culture could be simply inscribed. Japan
already had in place (and this is true for Korea and Vietnam as well) an
agricultural economy, metalworking skills, settled village communities, and
an archaic government. The appeal of Chinese civilization was irresistible,
but specific needs and conditions shaped its adoption. For example, the
archaic Yamato court found Chinese political institutions and tax systems
useful in extending its control over outlying regions.
Mongolia, Central Asia, and Tibet stand in stark contrast to Japan, Korea,
and Vietnam. Their climates were harsher, their agriculture more
rudimentary, and their life-styles largely nomadic and pastoral. Despite their
proximity to China and their frequent contacts with it, they were unable or
unwilling to adopt its advanced civilization. In effect, on the steppe to the
north and west, the Chinese seed fell upon stony places and was scorched or
withered away. But in the agricultural lands of Japan, Korea, and Vietnam,
it fell on good ground and brought forth fruit.
The difference had consequences. It seems paradoxical that Japan, Korea,
and Vietnam, which took in Chinese civilization, became independent
nations in recent times, whereas Tibet, Central Asia, and part of Mongolia,
which refused Chinese civilization, eventually became a part of China. This
is largely because they were at a lower level of development and unable to
resist Chinese aggression. But also important is the fact that those countries
that took in Chinese political culture used it to develop their own political
identities. The self-awareness they developed as a people contributed to
their emergence as independent nations. Their feelings toward China were
also ambivalent—like those of Westernizing Third World countries toward
the West.
Of the countries that took in Chinese civilization, Korea and Vietnam
(which will be treated in Chapter 18) were closer to China for longer
periods of time and had, as a result, a stronger Chinese imprint. Japan was
the most distant, and also the largest and the most populous; consequently it
became the most distinctive variant within East Asia. Its literature and arts
were brilliant and diverse. Its history was a continuous progression, quite
unlike the sequence of dynasties in China.

Focus Questions

How does Japanese history illustrate the relationship between a

“heartland civilization” and adjacent areas?
Why did Korea, Vietnam, and Japan become independent nations in
recent times? What other nations on the periphery of China did not?

It is uncertain whether the Yayoi came as a trickle and were absorbed—

the predominant view in Japan—or whether they came in sufficient
numbers to push back the indigenous Jōmon people. DNA studies suggest
that modern Japanese and Koreans are closer to the Yayoi than to the
Jōmon. In any case, Yayoi culture rapidly replaced that of the Jōmon as far
east as the present-day city of Nagoya and diffused more slowly into eastern
Japan, where conditions were less favorable for agriculture. Early Yayoi
“frontier settlements” were located next to their fields. Their agriculture
was primitive. By the first century C.E., the expanding Yayoi population led
to wars for the best land. Villages were relocated to defensible positions on
low hills away from the fields. A more peaceful order of regional tribal
confederations and a ruling class of aristocratic warriors emerged. Late
Yayoi excavations once again reveal villages alongside fields and far fewer
stone axes.
During the third century C.E. a queen named Pimiko achieved a
temporary hegemony over a number of regional tribal confederations. A
Chinese chronicle describes Pimiko as a shaman, mature but unmarried.
After Pimiko, references to Japan disappeared from the Chinese dynastic
histories for a century and a half.

Jōmon pottery figure. Did this bow-legged and somehow modern-looking

statuette adorn an emperor’s tomb in the period before 300 B.C.E.?

What is known about the Jōmon people?

TOMB CULTURE, THE YAMATO STATE, AND KOREA
Emerging directly from Yayoi culture was an era (300–600 C.E.)
characterized by giant tomb mounds. (They still dot the landscape near
present-day Osaka.) The tombs, patterned on those in Korea, were circular
mounds of earth built atop megalithic burial chambers. Like the Yayoi
graves that preceded them, early tombs contained mirrors, jewels, and other
ceremonial objects. Starting in the fifth century C.E., these objects were
replaced by armor, swords, and military trappings, reflecting a new wave of
continental influences. The flow of people and culture from the Korean
peninsula into Japan that began with Yayoi was continuous into historical
times.
Japan reappeared in the Chinese chronicles in the fifth century C.E. This
period was also covered in the earliest Japanese accounts of their own
history, compiled in 712 and 720. These records describe regional
aristocracies under the loose hegemony of the “great kings,” whose courts
were located on the fertile Yamato plain. Regional rulers held parallel
political authority over their populations, as can be seen in the spread of
tomb mounds for aristocrats throughout Japan. The court was the scene of
incessant power struggles. Rebellions were frequent during the fifth and
sixth centuries, and there were constant wars with “barbarian tribes” in
southern Kyushu and eastern Honshu on the frontiers of “civilized” Japan.
The basic social unit of Yamato aristocratic society was the extended
family (uji). Groups of specialist workers called be were attached to
aristocratic families. There was a small class of slaves, but many peasants
were neither slaves nor members of aristocratic clans or specialized
workers’ groups.
Relations with Korea were critical to the Yamato Court. During the fifth
and sixth centuries, a three-cornered military balance developed on the
Korean peninsula between the state of Paekche in the southwest, Silla in the
east, and Koguryo in the north (see Map 9-1 on page 222). Japan was an
ally of Paekche and maintained extensive trade and military relations with a
weak southern federation known as the Kaya States. Imported iron weapons
and tools gave the Yamato military strength. Korean immigrant artisans
increased the court’s wealth and influence. The first elements of Chinese
culture entered Japan through Paekche: Chinese writing was adopted for the
transcription of Japanese names during the fifth or sixth century;
Confucianism entered in 513, when Paekche sent a “scholar of the Five
Classics”; Buddhism arrived in 538 when a Paekche king sent a Buddha
image, sutras, and possibly a priest.

CHRONOLOGY

EARLY JAPANESE HISTORY

MAP 9–1. Yamato Japan and Korea (ca. 500 C.E.) Paekche was Japan’s
ally on the Korean peninsula. Silla, Japan’s enemy, was the state that would
eventually unify Korea. (Note: Nara was founded in 710; Heian in 794.)

How did Japan’s proximity to Korea and China influence its cultural
development?

Eventually the political balance on the Korean peninsula shifted. In 532

Paekche turned against Japan. In 660 Silla, always hostile to Japan, unified
the peninsula. But by this time Japan had established direct relations with
China.
RELIGION IN EARLY JAPAN
The indigenous religion of the Yamato Japanese was an animistic worship
of the forces of nature, later given the name of Shintō, or “the way of the
gods,” to distinguish it from Buddhism. Shintō probably entered Japan as
part of Yayoi culture. The underlying forces of nature might be embodied in
a waterfall, a twisted tree, a strangely shaped boulder, or a great leader who
would be worshiped as a deity after his death. The more potent forces of
nature became personified as deities. The sensitivity to nature and natural
beauty that pervades Japanese art and poetry owes much to Shintō. Most
villages had shamans, female or male religious specialists who, by entering
a trance, could directly contact the inner forces of nature and gain the power
to foretell the future or heal sickness.

Shintō

“The way of the gods.” The animistic worship of the forces of nature that is
the indigenous religion of Japan.

The Itsukashima Shrine. On the little island of Miyajima not far from
Hiroshima is the lovely Itsukashima shrine dedicated to the daughters of the
Shintō god of the moon and oceans. Its outer gate (torii) is constructed of
camphor logs to resist the salt water. Originally built in the late sixth
century, it was rebuilt in the sixteenth.
What does the location of this shrine suggest about how the shrine is
meant to be used?

Early Shintō was connected with the state. Each clan had its own nature
deity (kami) that it claimed as its original ancestor. When Japan was unified
by the Yamato court, the myths of several clans were joined into a
composite national myth. The deity of the Yamato great kings was the sun
goddess, so she became the chief deity. The earliest Japanese histories, the
earliest telling of the creation of Japan, switch mid-volume from stories of
the gods, interspersed with the genealogies of noble families, to stories of
early emperors and events in early Japan. The Japanese emperors, today the
oldest royal family in the world, were viewed as the lineal descendants of
the sun goddess and as “living gods.” Other gods assumed lesser positions
appropriate to the status of their clan. The Great Shrine of the sun goddess
at Ise has always been the most important in Japan. (See Document,
“Darkness and the Cave of High Heaven,” on page 224.)

NARA AND HEIAN JAPAN

HOW DID Chinese culture influence Japan?

The second major turning point in Japanese history was the inflow of
Chinese civilization between the seventh and twelfth centuries. Roughly
speaking, until almost the end of the seventh century the Japanese studied
China; during the eighth they implanted Chinese institutions; after that, they
modified the institutions to meet Japanese needs. By the eleventh century
the creative reworking of Chinese elements had led to distinctive Japanese
forms, unlike those of China but equally unlike those of the earlier Yamato
court.

COURT GOVERNMENT
The regular embassies to the Tang court that began in 607 C.E. included
traders, students, and Buddhist monks as well as representatives of the
Yamato great kings. Like Third World students who study abroad today,
Japanese who studied in China played key roles in their own government
when they returned home. They brought back with them a quickening flow
of technology, art, Buddhism, and knowledge of Tang legal and
governmental systems. But for Yamato Japanese, the difficulties of
mastering Chinese and China’s philosophical culture were enormous. Prince
Shōtoku (574–622) adopted the Chinese calendar and promulgated Chinese
and Buddhist ideas. Fujiwara Kamatari (614–669) at mid-seventh century
attempted more extensive reforms, though only a few were realized. Large-
scale institutional changes using the Tang model began only in the 680s
with the Emperor Temmu and his successor, the Empress Jitō (r. 686–697).
Temmu’s life illustrates the interplay between Japanese power politics
and the adoption of Chinese institutions. He usurped the throne from his
nephew and then used Chinese systems to consolidate his power. He
promulgated a Chinese-type law code that greatly augmented the powers of
the ruler. He styled himself as the “heavenly emperor,” or tennō, replacing
the title of “great king.”

Tennō

“Heavenly emperor.” The official title of the emperor of Japan.

DOCUMENT
Darkness and the Cave of High Heaven
The younger brother of the sun goddess was a mischief-maker. Eventually
the gods drove him out of heaven. On one occasion, he knocked a hole in
the roof of a weaving hall and dropped in a dappled pony that he had
skinned alive. One weaving maiden was so startled that she struck her
genitals with the shuttle she was using and died.
• Entering a cave and then reemerging signifies death and rebirth in
the religions of many peoples. What does this myth suggest
regarding the social relations of the Shintō gods?
The Sun Goddess, terrified at the sight, opened the door of the heavenly
rock cave, and hid herself inside. Then the Plain of High Heaven was
shrouded in darkness, as was the Central Land of the Reed Plains [Japan].
An endless night prevailed. The cries of the myriad gods were like the
buzzing of summer flies, and myriad calamities arose.
The eight hundred myriad gods assembled in the bed of the Quiet River
of Heaven. They asked one god to think of a plan. They assembled the
long-singing birds of eternal night and made them sing. They took hard
rocks from the bed of the river and iron from the Heavenly Metal Mountain
and called in a smith to make a mirror. They asked the Jewel Ancestor God
to make a string of 500 curved jewels eight feet long. They asked other
gods to remove the shoulder blade of a male deer, to obtain cherry wood
from Mount Kagu, and to perform a divination. They uprooted a sacred
tree, attached the string of curved jewels to its upper branches, hung the
large mirror from its middle branches, and suspended offerings of white and
blue cloth from its lower branches.
One god held these objects as grand offerings and another intoned sacred
words. The Heavenly Hand-Strong-Male God stood hidden beside the door.
A goddess bound up her sleeves with clubmoss from Mount Kagu, made a
herb band from the spindle-tree, and bound together leaves of bamboograss
to hold in her hands. Then she placed a wooden box face down before the
rock cave, stamped on it until it resounded, and, as if possessed, she
exposed her breasts and pushed her skirt-band down to her genitals. The
Plain of High Heaven shook as the myriad gods broke into laughter.
The Sun Goddess, thinking this strange, opened slightly the rock-cave
door and said from within: “Since I have hidden myself, I thought that the
Plain of Heaven and the Central Land of the Reed Plains would all be in
darkness. Why is it that the goddess makes merry and the myriad gods all
laugh?”
The goddess replied: “We rejoice and are glad because there is here a god
greater than you.” While she spoke two other gods brought out the mirror
and held it up before the Sun Goddess.
The Sun Goddess, thinking this stranger and stranger, came out the door
and peered into the mirror. Then the heavenly Hand-Strong-Male God
seized her hand and pulled her out. Another god drew a rope behind her and
said: “You may not go back further than this.”
 So when the Sun Goddess had come forth, the Plain of High Heaven and
the Central Land of the Reed Plains once again naturally shone in
brightness.
Source: From the Records of Ancient Matters (Kojiki), trans. by Albert Craig, with appreciation to
Basil Hall Chamberlain and Donald L. Phillippi.

Until the eighth century the capital was usually moved each time an
emperor died. Then in 710 a new capital, laid out on a grid like the Chinese
capital, Chang’an, was established at Nara. The capital was moved again in
784, and yet again in 794 to Heian (later Kyoto). This site remained the
capital until the move to Tokyo in 1869. The superimposition of a Chinese-
type capital on a still backward Japan produced a stark contrast. In the
villages, peasants—who worshiped the forces in mountains and trees—
lived in pit dwellings and either planted in crude paddy fields or used slash-
and-burn techniques of dry-land farming. In the capital, pillared palaces
housed the emperor and nobles, descended from the gods on high. They
drank wine, wore silk, and enjoyed the paintings, perfumes, and pottery of
the Tang. Clustered about the capital were Buddhist temples with soaring
pagodas and sweeping tile roofs.
Governments at the Nara and Heian courts were headed by emperors,
who were simultaneously Confucian rulers with the majesty accorded by
Chinese law and Shintō rulers descended from the sun goddess. Protected
by an aura of the sacred, their lineage retained power throughout the rest of
Japanese history, though several emperors were killed and replaced by other
family members.
Beneath the emperor, the same modified Chinese pattern prevailed. At
the top was a Council of State, a powerful office from which leading clans
sometimes manipulated authority. Beneath the council were eight ministries
—two more than in China. (The extras were a Secretariat and the Imperial
Household Ministry.) Local government was handled by sixty-odd
provinces, which were further subdivided into districts and villages. In
other respects, Japanese court government was unlike that of China. There
were no eunuchs and little tension between the emperor and the
bureaucracy—the main struggles were between clans. The Tang movement
from aristocracy toward meritocracy was also absent in Japan. Family
counted for more than grades. A feeble attempt to establish a Chinese-style
examination elite failed.

Prince Shōtoku (574–622). A commanding figure at the pre-Nara Yamato

court, Prince Shōtōku (shown here with two of his sons) promoted
Buddhism and began regular embassies to China. “This world is a lie,” he
wrote, reflecting the Buddhist belief in an ultimate reality beyond.

How did embassies to China contribute to Japanese culture?

Even during the Nara period the elaborate apparatus of Chinese

government was too much. China had a population of 60 million; Nara
Japan had 4 or 5 million. With fewer people to govern in Japan and no
external enemies, court government focused on care of the imperial house.
In the early Heian period, three new departments outside the Chinese
system handled most of the functions of government: an office of auditors
handled taxation, a bureau of archivists exercised executive power through
the drafting of decrees, and police commissioners enforced laws and
maintained order in the capital. Power shifted during the Heian period but
always revolved around the emperor. Until the mid-ninth century, some
emperors ruled directly. In 856, the northern branch of the Fujiwara clan
began to establish a stranglehold on power that was not broken until the last
half of the eleventh century. In 1072, the Emperor Shirakawa regained
control of the government and strengthened the imperial family, but by then
the capital was increasingly isolated, and threatening developments were
taking place in the countryside.

PEOPLE, LAND, AND TAXES

The life of the common people of Japan remained harsh during the Nara
and Heian periods. Estimates of the early Nara population suggest slightly
more than 5 million persons; by the end of the Heian period, almost half a
millennium later, the number had increased, scholars estimate, to only about
6 million. Why had population not grown more during these fairly peaceful
centuries? One factor is that agricultural technology improved only slowly.
Metals were still scarce, and wooden plow blades were still in use. Another
factor was the frequency of droughts and famines. A third was the effect of
continental germs—introduced by embassies or later commercial relations
—on a previously isolated Japanese population that had not yet developed
immunities. Periodic epidemics swept the court and village communities
alike.
Taxes weighed heavily on village populations. In Nara and early Heian
Japan, the economy was agricultural. The problem for peasants was to
obtain land. The problem for the government, imperial family, nobles, and
temples was to find labor to work their extensive landholdings. Japan
attempted a solution, using China’s so-called equal field system to distribute
land to all able-bodied persons and collect from them three taxes: a light tax
of grain, a light tax of cloth or other local products, and a heavy tax of labor
service. But this necessitated elaborate population and land registers. Even
in China, with its sophisticated bureaucracy, the system broke down.

Hear the Audio at myhistorylab.com

The Heian discarded the complex equal field system, and court officials
simply gave each governor a quota of taxes to collect from his province.
Each governor, in turn, gave quotas to the district magistrates. Governors
and magistrates, when they could, collected more than their quotas and
pocketed the difference. This surplus collection funded a new local ruling
class.
Court nobles and powerful temples used their influence at court to obtain
exemptions from taxation for their lands. About half the land in late Heian
Japan was converted from tax-paying lands to tax-free estates. Even small
landholders often commended their land to nobles, figuring they would be
better off as serfs on tax-free estates than as free farmers subject to taxation.
The pattern of commendations was random, resulting in estates composed
of scattered parcels of land. Noble estate owners appointed stewards from
among local notables to manage the land in exchange for a small slice of
the cultivators’ surplus. Stewards and district magistrates shared an interest
in upholding the local order.

In the Heiji War of 1159–1160, regional samurai bands became involved

in Kyoto court politics. This is a scroll painting of the burning of the Sanjō
Palace.

Handscroll; ink and colors on paper. “Scroll w/depictions of the Night

Attack on the Sanjō Palace” from Heiji monogatari emaki, 2nd half of the
13th century. Unknown. Japanese, Kamakura Period. Handscroll; ink &
colors on paper.41.3 × 699.7 cm. Fenollosa-Weld C. Photograph © 2007
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Did the existence of samurai make Japan “feudal”?

RISE OF THE SAMURAI
Nara Japan experimented with a Chinese military system based on
conscription, but it proved inefficient. In 792, the court ended conscription
and established a system of mounted warriors whose taxes were remitted in
exchange for military service. They were stationed in the capital and in the
provinces. The Japanese verb “to serve” is samurau, so those who served
became known as samurai. Nonofficial private bands of local warriors
replaced the official appointees in the mid-Heian period, and they
constituted Japan’s military until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when
foot soldiers became the core of the military.

samurai
Professional Japanese warriors.

Being a samurai was expensive. Horses, armor, and weapons were costly,
and their use required long training. The primary weapon was the bow and
arrow, used from the saddle. Most samurai were from well-to-do local
families. Their initial function was to preserve local order and, possibly, to
help with tax collection. But they contributed at times to disorder. From the
second half of the ninth century there are accounts of district magistrates
leading local forces against provincial governors, doubtless in connection
with tax disputes.
Regional military coalitions or confederations first broke into history
from 935 to 940, when a regional military leader, a descendant of an
emperor, became involved in a tax dispute. He captured several provinces
and called himself the new emperor. The Kyoto court responded by
recruiting another military band to quell the rebellion. Other regional wars
followed, and by the middle of the twelfth century there were regional
military bands in every part of Japan. A power struggle at court in 1156
enabled a band led by Taira Kiyomori to seize control of Kyoto and the
emperor. But, like the earlier Fujiwara family, he did not change the system.
He only imposed a new stratum atop the many power centers already
established at court.

QUICK REVIEW
Samurai
Word comes from Japanese verb “to serve”
Constituted Japan’s military until fifteenth century
Samurai were responsible for their own equipment and training

Read the Document

Murasaki Shikibu, selections from the Tale of Genji at myhistorylab.com

ARISTOCRATIC CULTURE AND BUDDHISM

Shintō religious practices and village folkways, an extension of the culture
of the late Yamato period, were among the most significant elements of the
culture of Nara and early Heian Japan. The tiny aristocracy, about one-tenth
of 1 percent of Japan’s population, was encapsulated in the routines of court
life, most of which had only recently been imported from China. This
cultural gap helps explain why aristocrats found commoners
incomprehensible and hardly human. The writings of courtiers reflect little
sympathy for the suffering and hardships of the people.
Heian high culture, like a hothouse plant, was protected by the political
influence of the court. It was nourished by tax revenues and income from
estates. Aristocrats created canons of elegance and taste that are striking
even today. The speed with which Tang culture was assimilated and
reworked was amazing.

QUICK REVIEW

The Place of China in Japanese Education and Literature

Court education was almost synonymous with Chinese literature
Chinese history was widely read
Buddhist stories and works of Confucianism were part of Japanese
culture
CHINESE TRADITION IN JAPAN
Education at the Nara and Heian courts was largely a matter of reading
Chinese books and acquiring the skills needed to compose poetry and prose
in Chinese. These were daunting tasks, both because there was no tradition
of scholarship in Japan and because the two languages were so dissimilar.
But the challenge was met. From the Nara period until the nineteenth
century, most philosophical and legal writings, as well as most of the
histories, essays, and religious texts in Japan, were written in Chinese.
Original Chinese works became part of the Japanese cultural tradition.
Chinese history became the mirror in which Japan saw itself, despite the
differences between the two societies. Buddhist stories and the books of
Confucianism also became Japanese classics. A Western parallel might be
the role that “foreign books,” such as the Bible and works of Plato and
Aristotle, played in medieval and Renaissance England.

BIRTH OF JAPANESE LITERATURE

The first major anthology of poems written in Japanese was the Collection
of Ten Thousand Leaves (Man’yōshū), compiled in about 760. It contained
4,516 poems. They reveal a deep sensitivity to nature and strong human
relationships between husband and wife, parents and children. They also
display a love for the land of Japan and links to a Shintō past.
An early obstacle to the development of Japanese poetry was the
difficulty of transcribing Japanese sounds. In the Ten Thousand Leaves,
Chinese characters were used as phonetic symbols, but there was no
standardization. A new syllabic script, kana, was developed during the
ninth century, which led to the brilliant literature of the Heian period. The
greatest works were by Sei Shōnagon and Murasaki Shikibu, daughters of
provincial officials serving at the Heian court. The Pillow Book of Sei
Shōnagon contains sharp, satirical, amusing essays and literary jottings that
reveal the demanding aristocratic taste of the early-eleventh-century Heian
court.
The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu in about 1010, was the
world’s first novel. Genji is a work of originality and acute psychological
delineation of character, for which there was no Chinese model. It tells of
the life, loves, and sorrows of Prince Genji, the son of an imperial
concubine, and, after his death, of his son Kaoru. The novel spans three
quarters of a century and is quasi-historical in nature.

NARA AND HEIAN BUDDHISM

Buddhism came to Japan from China. The Six Sects of the Nara period each
represented a separate doctrinal position within Mahayana Buddhism. As in
China, monasteries and temples were tied closely to the state. Tax revenues
supported them, and monks prayed for the health of the emperor and for
rain in time of drought.

An Album Leaf from the Ishiyama-gire. A part of a collection from the

works of thirty-six poets compiled in the early twelfth century. The poem is
by Ki no Tsurayuki (868?–945?), who in the preface to another anthology
wrote: “The poetry of Japan has its roots in the human heart and flourishes
in the countless leaves of words.… Hearing the warbler sing among the
blossoms and the frog in his fresh waters—is there any living being not
given to song? It is poetry which, without exertion, moves heaven and
earth, stirs the feelings of gods and spirits invisible to the eye, softens the
relations between men and women, calms the hearts of fierce warriors.” The
calligraphy is by Fujiwara no Sadanobu (1088–1154). The poem is written
on layered rice paper with gold and silver and foliage designs. Even to the
untutored eye, the effect is elegant.

Calligraphy attributed to Fujiwara no Sadanobu. Album leaf from the

“Ishiyama-gire.” Heian, period, early 12th century. Ink with gold and silver
on decorated and collaged paper, 8 × 6 3/8 in. (20.3 × 16.1 cm). Courtesy of
The Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

Who wrote Japanese poetry in this period? Who read it?

OVERVIEW Development of Japanese Writing

No two languages could be more different than Chinese and Japanese.

Chinese is monosyllabic, uninflected, and tonal. Japanese is polysyllabic,
highly inflected, and atonal. To adopt Chinese writing for use in Japanese
was thus no easy task. What the Japanese did at first—when they were not
simply learning to write in Chinese—was to use certain Chinese ideographs
as a phonetic script. For example, in the Man’yōshū, the eighth-century
poetic anthology, shira-nami (white wave) was written with for shi, for
ra, for na, and for mi. Over several centuries, these phonetic
ideographs evolved into a unique Japanese phonetic script:

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 The above examples show how the original ideograph was first
simplified according to the rules of calligraphy and was then further
simplified into a phonetic script known as kana. In modern Japanese,
Chinese ideographs are used for nouns, verb stems, and adjectives, and the
phonetic script is used for inflections and particles.
Student/as for/library/to/went. (The
student went to the library.) In the above sentence, the Chinese ideographs
are the forms with many strokes, and the phonetic script is shown in the
simpler, cursive form.

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Buddhism in Japan: The Taika Reform Edicts at myhistorylab.com

The Japanese came to Buddhism from the magic and mystery of Shintō,
so Buddhism’s appeal lay in its colorful and elaborate rituals, the beauty of
its art, and the gods, demons, and angels of the Mahayana pantheon. The
mastery of the philosophy took longer. But since Buddhism was no more
foreign to Japan than Confucianism and the rest of the Chinese culture that
had helped reshape the Japanese identity, there was no bias against it.
Consequently, Buddhism entered deeply into Japanese culture and retained
its vitality longer than in China.
The great Buddhist sects of the Heian era were Tendai and Shingon. The
monk Saichō (767–822) went to China in 804 and returned the following
year with the teachings of the Tendai sect (Tiantai in Chinese). He preached
that salvation was for all who led lives of contemplation and moral purity.
He instituted strict rules and a twelve-year training curriculum for novice
monks at his mountain monastery. Over the next few centuries the sect grew
until thousands of temples had been built on Mount Hiei, which remained a
center of Japanese Buddhism until it was destroyed in the wars of the
sixteenth century. Many later Japanese sects emerged from within the
Tendai fold, stressing one or another doctrine of its syncretic teachings.
The HōryŪji Temple. Built by Prince Shōtoku in 607, it contains the oldest
wooden buildings in the world. They are the best surviving examples of
contemporary Chinese Buddhist architecture.

How did Buddhism evolve as it was assimilated into Japanese culture?

The Shingon sect was begun by Kûkai (774–835), an extraordinary
figure: a poet, artist, and one of three great calligraphers of the period, who
is sometimes credited with inventing the kana syllabary and with
introducing tea into Japan. Kûkai went to China with Saichō in 804 and
returned two years later bearing the Shingon doctrines. Shingon doctrines
center on an eternal and cosmic Buddha, of whom all other Buddhas are
manifestations. Shingon means “true word” or “mantra,” a verbal formula
with mystical powers. It is sometimes called esoteric Buddhism because it
had secret teachings that were passed from master to disciple. In China,
Shingon was persecuted and died out, but it was tremendously successful in
Japan.
During the later Heian period, Buddhism began to be assimilated. Folk
Shintō took in Buddhist elements, while in elite culture, Shintō was almost
entirely absorbed by Buddhism. Shintō deities came to be seen as the local
manifestations of universal Buddhas. Often great Buddhist temples had
smaller Shintō shrines on their grounds. The Buddha watched over Japan
and the cosmos; the shrine deity guarded the temple itself. Not until the
mid-nineteenth century was Shintō disentangled from Buddhism, and then
it occurred for political ends.

JAPAN’S EARLY FEUDAL AGE

WHY CAN this period in Japan be described as feudal, and in what

ways is this description misleading?

The late twelfth century marked the shift from centuries of rule by a civil
aristocracy to centuries of rule by military nobles. It saw the formation of
the bakufu (“tent government”), a completely non-Chinese type of
government. During this time the shōgun emerged as the de facto ruler of
Japan, although in theory he was a military official of the emperor. New
cultural forms emerged, along with changes in family and social
organization.

bakufu

“Tent government.” The military regime that governed Japan under the
shōguns.

shōgun

A military official who was the actual ruler of Japan in the emperor’s name
from the late 1100s until the mid-nineteenth century.

THE KAMAKURA ERA

After Taira Kiyomori seized Kyoto in 1160, other bands still flourished
elsewhere in Japan. The Taira, assuming their tutelage over the court would
endure, embraced Kyoto’s elegant lifestyle, but the Minamoto were
rebuilding their strength in eastern Japan. In 1180 Minamoto Yoritomo
(1147–1199) seized control of eastern Japan and began the war that ended
in 1185 with the downfall of the Taira.
Yoritomo’s victory was national. Warriors from every area vied to
become his vassals. Yoritomo set up his headquarters at Kamakura, 30
miles south of present-day Tokyo, at the edge of his base of power in
eastern Japan (see Map 9–2 on page 230). He called his government the
bakufu in contrast to the civil government in Kyoto. The offices he
established were few and practical and staffed by his vassals. The decisions
of these offices were codified in 1232 as the Jōei Code. Yoritomo also
appointed military governors in each province and military stewards on the
former estates of the Taira and others who had fought against him. These
appointments carried the right to some income from the land. The
remainder of the income, as earlier, went to Kyoto as taxes or as revenues to
the owners of the estates.
When Yoritomo died in 1199, his widow and her Hōjō kinsmen moved to
usurp the power of the Minamoto house. The widow, having taken holy
orders after her husband’s death, was known as the Nun shōgun. One of her
sons was pushed aside. The other became shōgun but was murdered in
1219. After that, the Hōjō ruled as regents for a puppet shōgun, just as the
Fujiwara had been regents for figurehead emperors. The Kyoto court led an
armed uprising against Kamakura in 1221, but it was quickly suppressed.
The Kamakura vassals had become loyal to the bakufu, which guaranteed
their income from land; their personal loyalty to the Minamoto had ended
with the death of Yoritomo.
Minamoto Yoritomo. Founder of the Kamakura Shogunate. He is depicted
here in court robes as a statesman and official though he was, above all, a
warrior-general.

Why might Minamoto Yoritomo have wanted to present himself in

civilian official dress?

THE MONGOLS
In 1266 Kublai Khan (see Chapter 8) sent envoys demanding that Japan
submit to his rule. The Hōjō at Kamakura refused. The first Mongol
invasion fleet arrived in 1274 with 30,000 troops but withdrew after initial
victories. The Mongols again sent envoys; this time, they were beheaded. A
second invasion of 140,000 troops, an amphibious force on a scale
unprecedented in world history, arrived in 1281, two years after Kublai had
completed his conquest of southern China. With gunpowder bombs and
phalanxes of archers protected by a forward wall of soldiers carrying
overlapping shields, the Mongol forces overmatched the Japanese tactics of
fierce individual combat. But a wall of stone had been erected along the
curved shoreline of Hakata Bay in northwestern Kyushu, and the Mongols
were held off for two months until kamikaze, or “divine winds,” sank a
portion of their fleet and forced the rest to withdraw. Preparations for a third
expedition ended with Kublai’s death in 1294. The burden of repelling the
Mongols fell on Kamakura’s vassals in Kyushu. But as no land was taken,
there were few rewards for those who had fought, and dissatisfaction was
rife.

kamikaze

“Divine winds” that sank a portion of the invading Mongol fleet in Japan in
1281.

MAP EXPLORATION

To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

MAP 9–2. Medieval Japan and the Mongol Invasions. The bakufu at
Kamakura and the court at Kyoto were the two centers of power during the
Kamakura period, 1185–1333. After 1336 the Ashikaga bakufu was
established in Kyoto, absorbing the powers of the court.

What geographic features do Kyoto and Kamakura share? From a

geographic point of view, how do these locations differ?

See the Map

Medieval Japan and the Mongol Invasions at myhistorylab.com

CHRONOLOGY

GOVERNMENT BY MILITARY HOUSES

THE QUESTION OF FEUDALISM

Scholars often contend that Yoritomo’s rule marks the start of feudalism in
Japan. Feudalism may be defined in terms of three criteria: lord–vassal
relationships, fiefs given in return for military service, and a warrior ethic.
Can Kamakura Japan be described in these terms?
Certainly, the mounted warriors who made up the armies of Yoritomo
were predominantly his vassals, not his kin. As for fiefs, the answer is
ambiguous. Kamakura vassals received rights to income from land in
exchange for military service, but the income was usually a slice of the
surplus from the estates of Kyoto nonmilitary aristocrats. Fiefs, as such, did
not appear until the late fifteenth century.
There is no ambiguity, however, regarding the warrior ethic, which had
been developing among regional military bands for several centuries before
1185. The samurai prized martial qualities such as bravery, cunning,
physical strength, and endurance. They gave their swords names. Their
sports were hunting, hawking, and archery. Warriors thought of themselves
as a military aristocracy that practiced the “way of the bow and arrow.”
But warrior bands were only part of society. Kamakura Japan still had
two political centers: The bakufu had military authority, while the Kyoto
court continued the late Heian pattern of civil rule. Yoritomo’s vassal band
was small, numbering perhaps 2,000 before 1221 and 3,000 thereafter,
mostly concentrated in eastern Japan. The local social order of the late
Heian era continued, and Kamakura vassals depended on the cooperation of
existing power holders. In short, while the Kamakura vassals themselves
could be called feudal, they were only a thin skin on the surface of a society
constructed according to older principles.

QUICK REVIEW

Mongol Invasion
1266: Kublai Khan demands Japan submit to his rule
1274: Invasion fleet withdraws after initial victories
1281: Huge invasion force destroyed by kamikaze, or “divine winds”

THE ASHIKAGA ERA

At times, formal political institutions seem rocklike in their stability, and
history unfolds within the framework they provide. Then, almost as if a
kaleidoscope had been shaken, the old institutions collapse and are swept
away. In their place appear new institutions and new patterns of personal
relations that, often enough, had begun to take shape within the confines of
the old. It is not easy to explain the timing of such upheavals, but they are
easy to recognize. One occurred in Japan between 1331 and 1336.
By 1331, various tensions had developed within Kamakura society.
Because the patrimony of a warrior was divided among his children, vassals
became poorer over time. Kamakura vassals were dissatisfied with the Hōjō
monopolization of key bakufu posts. While the ties of vassals to Kamakura
weakened, the ties to other warriors within their region grew stronger until
new regional bands were ready to emerge. The precipitating event was a
revolt in 1331 by an emperor who thought emperors should actually rule.
Kamakura sent Ashikaga Takauji (1305–1358), the head of a branch family
of the Minamoto line, to put down the revolt; instead he joined it. Other
regional lords then rose up and destroyed the Hōjō bakufu in Kamakura.
What emerged from the confusion of the period from 1331 to 1336 was a
new bakufu in Kyoto and semiautonomous regional states in the rest of
Japan.

Japanese Sword. From medieval times, Japanese artisans have made the
world’s finest swords. They became a staple export to China. Worn only by
samurai, they were also an emblem of class status, distinguishing the
warriors from commoners.

Who were the samurai, and what roles did they play in Japanese
history?

A Closer Look
The East Meets the East
Mongols invaded Japan in 1274 and 1281. Battles were fought. The
invaders were eventually routed by typhoons known as kamikaze or
“divine winds.”
Questions

1. Why did the Mongols invade Japan?

2. How did the Japanese respond?
3. What does this picture reveal?

To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to

www.myhistorylab.com

Each regional state was governed by a lord, now called a daimyo, and a
small warrior band. The bakufu offices established by Ashikaga Takauji
were simple and functional: a samurai office for police and military matters;
an administrative office for financial matters; a documents office for land
records; and a judicial board to settle disputes. They were staffed by
Takauji’s vassals. The bakufu also appointed vassals to watch over its
interests in the far north, in eastern Japan, and in Kyushu.

daimyo

Lords who owned vast estates and held regional power.

 The pattern of rule in the outlying regions was diverse. All regional lords
or daimyo were the vassals of the shōgun, but the relationship was often
nominal. The relationship between the bakufu and regional lords fluctuated
from 1336 to 1467. The third shōgun, for example, tightened his grip on the
Kyoto court, improved relations with the great Buddhist temples and Shintō
shrines, and established ties with Ming China. His military campaigns
dented the autonomy of regional lords. But even the third shōgun had to
rely on his daimyo and their armies. To strengthen them for campaigns, he
gave them new authority, which created problems for his successors. As ties
of personal loyalty wore thin, new local warrior bands began to form.

WOMEN IN WARRIOR SOCIETY

The Nun shōgun was one of a long line of important women in Japan. In
Japanese mythology, the sun goddess ruled the Plain of High Heaven, while
the late Yayoi shaman-ruler Pimiko was probably not an exceptional figure.
Empresses ruled in Yamato and Nara courts, and they were followed by
great women writers in the Heian period. Under the Kamakura bakufu, there
was only one Nun shōgun, but daughters as well as sons of warrior families
often trained in archery and other military arts. As long as society was
stable, women fared relatively well. But as fighting became more common
in the fourteenth century, their position began to decline, and as warfare
became endemic in the fifteenth, their status plummeted. The warrior’s fief
—his reward for serving his lord in battle and the lord’s surety for his
continuing service—became all important. To protect it, multigeniture, in
which daughters as well as sons inherited property, gave way to unigeniture,
inheritance by the most able son.

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Japanese Court Ladies at myhistorylab.com

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Women in the Imperial Courts of China and Japan at myhistorylab.com

AGRICULTURE, COMMERCE, AND MEDIEVAL GUILDS
Population figures for medieval Japan are rough estimates at best, but
recent scholarship suggests 6 million for the year 1200 and 15 million for
1600. Much of the increase occurred during the late Kamakura and
Ashikaga periods, when the country was fairly peaceful. The increase was
brought about by land reclamation and improvements in agricultural
technology. Iron-edged tools became available to all. New strains of rice
were developed. Irrigation and diking improved. Double cropping began
with vegetables planted during the fall and winter in dry fields, which were
flooded and planted with rice during the spring and summer.
In the Nara and early Heian periods, the economy was almost exclusively
agricultural. Japan had no money, no commerce, and no cities—apart from
Nara, which developed into a temple town living on assigned revenues, and
Kyoto, where taxes were consumed. Following the example of China, the
government had established a mint, but little money actually circulated.
Taxes were paid in labor or grain. Commerce consisted of barter
transactions, with silk or grain as the medium of exchange. Artisans
produced for the noble households or temples to which they were attached.
Peasants were economically self-sufficient.
From the late Heian period, partly as a side effect of fixed tax quotas,
more of the growing agricultural surplus stayed in local hands, though not
in the hands of the cultivators. This trend accelerated during the Kamakura
and Ashikaga periods, as warriors took increasingly larger slices of the
income of estates. As the income of civil nobles decreased, artisans
detached themselves from noble households and began to produce for a
wider market. Military equipment was an early staple of commerce, but
gradually sake, lumber, paper, vegetable oils, salt, and products of the sea
also became commercialized. A demand for copper coins appeared, and
since they were no longer minted in Japan, huge quantities were imported
from China.
During the Kamakura period, independent merchants appeared to handle
the products of artisans. Some trade networks spread over all Japan. More
often, artisan and merchant guilds, not unlike those of medieval Europe,
paid a fee to obtain monopoly rights in a given area. Kyoto guilds paid fees
to powerful nobles or temples, and later to the Ashikaga bakufu. In outlying
areas guild privileges were obtained from the regional lords. From the
Kamakura period onward, markets were held periodically in many parts of
Japan, by a river or at a crossroads. Some place-names in Japan today
reveal such an origin. Yokkaichi, today an industrial city, means “fourth-day
market.” It began as a place where markets were held on the fourth,
fourteenth, and twenty-fourth days of each month. From the fifteenth
century such markets were held with increasing frequency until, eventually,
permanent towns were established.

BUDDHISM AND MEDIEVAL CULTURE

The Nara and Heian periods are often referred to as Japan’s classical age.
The period that followed—say, from 1200 to 1600—is often called
medieval. It was medieval in the root sense of the word in that it lay
between the other two major spans of premodern Japanese history. It also
shared some characteristics that we label medieval in Europe and China.
However, there is one salient difference. Medieval Japanese culture was a
direct outgrowth of the classical age; one can even say that during the early
Kamakura there was an overlap. In contrast, Europe was torn by barbarian
invasions, and a millennium separated the classical culture of Rome from
high medieval culture. In China, too, the era of political disunity and
barbarian invasions lasted 400 years, and it was during these years that its
medieval Buddhist culture blossomed.
The results of the historical continuity in Japan are visible in every
branch of its culture. The earlier poetic tradition continued with great vigor.
The flat Yamato-e style of painting continued, as did artisanal production,
using the same techniques. Just as Heian estates, and the authority of the
court, continued into the Kamakura era, so did Heian culture extend into
medieval Japan.
Nonetheless, medieval Japanese culture had some distinctly new
characteristics. First, as the leadership of society shifted from court
aristocrats to military aristocrats, new forms of literature appeared. The
medieval military tales were as different from The Tale of Genji as the
armor of the mounted warrior was from the no less colorful silken robes of
the court nobility. Second, a new wave of culture entered from China. If the
Nara and Heian had been shaped by Tang culture, medieval Japan—though
not its institutions—was shaped by Song culture. The link is immediately
apparent in the ink paintings of medieval Japan. Third, and most important,
the medieval centuries were Japan’s age of Buddhist faith. A religious
revolution occurred during the Kamakura period and deepened during the
Ashikaga.

JAPANESE PIETISM: PURE LAND AND NICHIREN BUDDHISM

Among the doctrines of the Heian Tendai sect was the belief that the true
teachings of the historical Buddha had been lost and that salvation could be
had only by calling on the name of Amida, the Buddha who ruled over the
Western Paradise, or Pure Land. The doctrine that the world had fallen on
evil times and that only faith would suffice was given credence by
earthquakes, epidemics, fires, and banditry in the capital, as well as wars
throughout the land. During the tenth and eleventh centuries, itinerant
preachers began to spread Pure Land doctrines and practices beyond the
narrow circles of Kyoto.

Pure Land

In Buddhism, the celestial realm of the bodhisattva, Amida.

Two early Kamakura figures stand out as religious geniuses who

experienced the truth of Pure Land Buddhism within themselves. Hōnen
(1133–1212) was perhaps the first to say that the invocation of the name of
Amida alone was enough for salvation; faith, not works or rituals, was what
counted. These claims brought Hōnen into conflict with the older Buddhist
establishment and marked the emergence of Pure Land as a separate sect.
Later, Shinran (1173–1262) taught that even a single invocation in praise of
Amida, if done with perfect faith, was sufficient for salvation. But perfect
faith was a gift from Amida and could not be obtained by human effort.
Shinran taught that pride was an obstacle to purity of heart. One of his most
famous sayings is “If even a good man can be reborn in the Pure Land, how
much more so a wicked man”1—the wicked man is less inclined to assume
that he is the source of his own salvation and therefore more apt to place his
complete trust in Amida. Shinran broke with many of the practices of
earlier Buddhism: He ate meat, married a nun, and taught that all
occupations were equally “heavenly” if performed with a pure heart. Exiled
from Kyoto, he traveled about Japan establishing “True Pure Land”
congregations. (When the Jesuits arrived in Japan in the sixteenth century,
they called this sect “the devil’s Christianity.”)
Pure Land Buddhism became the dominant form of Buddhism in Japan
and remains so today. It was also the only sect in medieval Japan—apart
from the Tendai sect on Mount Hiei—to develop political and military
power. As a religion of faith, it developed a strong church as protection for
the saved while they were still in this world. As peasants became
militarized during the fifteenth century, some Pure Land village
congregations created self-defense forces. At times they rebelled against
feudal lords. In one instance, Pure Land armies ruled the province of Kaga
for over a century. These congregations were smashed during the late
sixteenth century, and the sect depoliticized.
A second devotional sect was founded by Nichiren (1222–1282), who
believed that the Lotus Sutra perfectly embodied the teachings of the
Buddha. He instructed his adherents to chant, over and over, “Praise to the
Lotus Sutra of the Wondrous Law,” usually to the accompaniment of rapid
drumbeats. Like the repetition of “Praise to the Amida Buddha” in the Pure
Land sect or comparable verbal formulas in other religions around the
world, the chanting optimally induced a state of religious rapture. The goal
of an internal spiritual transformation was common to both the devotional
and the meditative sects of Buddhism. Nichiren was remarkable for a
Buddhist in being both intolerant and nationalistic. He blamed the ills of his
age on rival sects and asserted that only his sect could protect Japan. He
predicted the Mongol invasions, and his sect claimed credit for the “divine
winds” that sank the Mongol fleets. Even his adopted Buddhist name, the
Sun Lotus, combined the character for the rising sun of Japan with that of
the flower that had become the symbol of Buddhism.

ZEN BUDDHISM
Meditation had long been a part of Japanese monastic practice. Zen
teachings and meditation techniques were introduced by monks returning
from study in Song China. Eisai (1141–1215) brought back the teachings of
the Rinzai sect in 1191, and Dōgen (1200–1253) the Sōtō teachings in 1227.
Eisai’s sect was patronized by the Hōjō rulers in Kamakura and the
Ashikaga in Kyoto. Dōgen established his sect on Japan’s western coast, far
from centers of political power.
Zen was a religion of paradox. Its monks were learned, yet it stressed a
return to the uncluttered “original mind.” Zen was punctiliously traditional,
yet Zen was also iconoclastic. Its sages were depicted in paintings as tearing
up sutras to make the point that it is religious experience and not words that
count. Buddhism stressed compassion for all sentient beings, yet in Japan
the Zen sect included many samurai whose duty it was to kill their lord’s
enemies.
Zen influenced the arts of medieval Japan. The most beautiful gardens
were in Zen temples. The most famous, at Ryōanji, consists of fifteen rocks
set in white sand. Zen monks, such as Josetsu, Shūbun (ca. 1415) and
Sesshū (1420–1506), number among the masters of ink painting. Because
the artist’s creativity itself was seen as grounded in his experience of
meditation, a painting of a waterfall was viewed as no less religious than a
painting of the mythic Zen founder Bodhidharma.
Kûya Invoking Buddha. The mid-Heian monk Kûya (903–972) preached
Pure Land doctrines in Kyoto and throughout Japan. Little Buddhas emerge
from his mouth.

Why does it make sense to depict a Pure Land monk with little
Buddhas coming out of his mouth?

Nō PLAYS
Another vital product of Ashikaga culture is the Nō play, a unique mystery
drama that is the world’s oldest living dramatic tradition. The play is
performed on a simple wooden stage by male actors wearing robes of great
beauty and carved, painted masks of enigmatic expressions. The text is
chanted to the accompaniment of flute and drums. The language is poetic.
The action is slow and highly stylized: Circling about the stage can
represent a journey, and a vertical motion of the hand, the reading of a
letter. At a critical juncture in most plays, the protagonist is possessed by
the spirit of another and performs a dance. Nō plays reveal a medley of
themes present in medieval culture. Some pivot on incidents in the struggle
between the Taira and the Minamoto. Buddhist ideas of impermanence, of
this world as a place of suffering, and of the need to relinquish worldly
attachments are found in many plays. Some plays are close to fairy tales,
whereas some are based on stories from China.

SUMMARY

WHAT REVOLUTIONARY changes accompanied the Yayoi?

Japanese Origins. Old Stone Age Japan became an agricultural,

metalworking society when new technologies came to Japan from Korea in
the third century B.C.E. By the fifth century C.E., the Yamato court ruled
most of Japan. It was heavily influenced by Korea. Shintō nature worship
was practiced in villages and associated with the government. page 219

HOW DID Chinese culture influence Japan?

Nara and Heian Japan. In the seventh century, the second main turning
point of their history, the Japanese began to adopt and adapt many features
of Chinese culture, including Buddhism and Chinese writing, literature, and
political institutions. Japan was ruled by a civil aristocracy under the
emperor. An enormous gulf existed between aristocrats and commoners.
Japanese government was heavily influenced by the Chinese imperial
system. Japanese culture, however, was increasingly self-confident and was
aristocratic in its tastes and forms of expression. Noblewomen wrote many
of the great works of Japanese literature during this age. Buddhism became
increasingly assimilated. page 223

WHY CAN this period in Japan be described as feudal, and in what

ways is this description misleading?

Japan’s Early Feudal Age. In the eighth century mounted warriors called
samurai began to dominate local society. By the late 1100s, power passed
from the civil bureaucracy to military aristocrats. The shōguns’ power was
based on their ability to command the loyalty of military vassals. Minamoto
Yoritomo’s seizure of power in 1185 marked the beginning of Japan’s
feudal age. He established the bakufu, or “tent government,” in Kamakura.
In 1274 and 1281, Mongol invaders sent by Kublai Khan retreated from
Japan. In 1336, Ashitaga Takauji moved his bakufu to Kyoto. Women’s
status declined, while Buddhist sects reflected Japanese concerns. page 229

KEY TERMS

bakufu (bah-koo-foo)
daimyo (dye-myoh)
kamikaze
 Pure Land
samurai
Shintō
shōgun
Tennō (ten-noh)

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. In what sense was Japanese society during the Yayoi period defined
by its eastern frontier? What changes in its early frontier society led
to the building of tombs and the emergence of the Yamato great
kings?
2. Discuss Japan’s cultural ties with China during the Nara and Heian
periods. How did Chinese culture affect Japanese government and
religion? How did the Japanese change what they borrowed? Was
the relation of Japanese culture to China like that of American
culture to England?
3. Trace the rise in Japan of a society dominated by military lords and
their vassals. Do the late Heian, Kamakura, and Ashikaga represent
successive stages in the development of Japanese “feudalism”?
4. Compare and contrast Heian court culture with the “feudal” culture
of the Kamakura and Ashikaga eras.
5. Trace the development of Japanese Buddhism. What sects emerged,
and why?
6. What was the overall trajectory of the status of women in Japan,
from the Yayoi period to the Ashikaga era? What caused changes in
women’s status?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 9

Read the Document Murasaki Shikibu, selections from The Tale of

Genji, p. 226

Buddhism in Japan: The Taika Reform Edicts, p. 228

View the Image Japanese Court Ladies, p. 233

Study and Review Women in the Imperial Courts of China and Japan,
p. 233

Research and Explore

See the Map Medieval Japan and the Mongol Invasions, p. 230

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 9 at www.myhistorylab.com
 RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD
BUDDHISM
Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism all arose out of the spiritual ferment of
Vedic India after 700 B.C.E. Buddhism shares a kinship with the other two
religions much as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have a relationship.
The founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, was born about 563
B.C.E., a prince in a petty kingdom near what is now the border of India and
Nepal. He was reared amid luxury and comforts, married at 16, and had a
child. According to legend, at age 29 he saw a decrepit old man, sick and
suffering, and a corpse. He suddenly realized that all humans would suffer
the same fate. Gautama renounced his wealth and family and entered the
life of a wandering ascetic. He visited famous teachers, for almost six years
practiced extremes of ascetic self-deprivation, and finally discovered the
Middle Path between self-indulgence and self-mortification. He attained
nirvana at the age of 35, becoming the Buddha, or Enlightened One. The
rest of his eighty years the Buddha spent teaching others the truths he had
learned.
Basic to the Buddha’s understanding of the human condition were the
“Four Noble Truths”: (1) All life is suffering—an endless chain of births
and rebirths (karma); (2) the cause of the suffering is desire—it is desire
that binds humans to the wheel of karma; (3) escape from suffering and
endless rebirths can come only by the cessation of desire and the attainment
of nirvana; (4) the path to nirvana is eightfold, requiring right views,
thought, speech, actions, living, efforts, mindfulness, and meditation.
Buddhists say that nirvana cannot be described: It is the ground of all
existence, ineffable, and beyond time and space—an ultimate reality that
may be experienced but not grasped intellectually.
The Buddha was a religious teacher, not a social reformer, yet his
religious understanding led to ethical conclusions. He condemned the caste
system that flourished in the India of his day. He denounced war, slavery,
and the taking of life. He opposed appeals to miracles. He did not demand a
blind faith in his doctrines: He told his followers to accept his teachings
only after they had tested them against their own experience. He taught that
poverty was a cause of immorality and that it was futile to attempt to
suppress crime with punishments. He identified with all humanity, saying,
“He who attends on the sick attends on me.”
 Because the goal of Buddhism is for all humans to become buddhas,
some have called Buddhism the most contemplative and otherworldly of the
great world religions. For the spiritually unprepared, and even for the
historical Buddha, the way was not easy, and one lifetime was not enough.

Image

Teenage Buddist monks walk past the ornate facade and towering stupa of
Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar (Burma).

William Waterfall/PacificStock.com

What is the role of monks in a Buddhist society?

Monks and nuns might practice the Eightfold Path, meditate for months
and years, and experience an inner spiritual awakening, but only a few
would gain enlightenment, the release from karmic causation. Most could
only hope for a rebirth in a higher spiritual state—to begin again closer to
the goal.
For laypeople the emphasis of Buddhism was on ethical living in human
society as a preparation for a more dedicated religious quest in a future life.
Buddhism spread rapidly along the Ganges River and through northern
India. In the time of King Ashoka (272–232 B.C.E.) of the Mauryas, it spread
to southern India, Ceylon, and beyond. This was its great missionary age.
As it spread throughout India its influence on religious practice at the
village level was enormous, and its meditative techniques helped reshape
Hindu yogic exercises. Eventually, however, Buddhism in India was re-
Hinduized. It developed competing schools of metaphysics, a pantheon of
gods and cosmic Buddhas, and devotional sects focusing on one or another
of these cosmic figures. Its original character as a reform movement of
Hinduism was lost, and between 500 and 1500 C.E. it was largely
reabsorbed into Hinduism.
Beyond India, two major currents of Buddhism spread over Asia. One,
known as the “Way of the Elders” (Theravada), swept through continental
Southeast Asia and the islands that are today Indonesia. The Theravada
teaching was close to early Indian Buddhism and, as it spread, it carried
with it other strands of Indian culture as well. Buddhism remains the
predominant religion of Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos, although it
must contend with more recent secular ideologies. In Thailand it remains
the state religion: Thai kings rule as Buddhist monarchs; Thai boys spend
short periods as Buddhist monks; and Thai temples (wats) continue as one
center of village life. Before the spread of Islam, Buddhism also once
flourished in Malaya, Sumatra, and Java.

Image

Two Seated Buddhas. This fifth- to sixth-century C.E. painting adorns a

wall of a cave in Ajanta, India.

Borromeo/Art Resource, New York.

Why does Buddhist art sometimes show more than one Buddha?
The second major current, known as the “Greater Vehicle” (Mahayana),
spread through northwest India to Afghanistan and Central Asia, and then
to China, Tibet and Mongolia, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. In each region
the pattern that unfolded was different. In what is today Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and Central Asia, Buddhism was overtaken and replaced by
Islam. Mahayana doctrines entered Tibet during the sixth century C.E. and
became firmly established several centuries later.
Today Tibetan Buddhism is the predominant religion of Tibet, Nepal,
Sikkim, Bhutan, and Mongolia (although in Mongolia it is severely
curtailed by Chinese authorities). In China, and then spreading from China
to Korea, Vietnam, and Japan, Mahayana Buddhism saw its fullest
development. One key doctrine in this current was the ideal of the
bodhisattva, a being who had gone all the way to nirvana, but held back in
order to help others attain salvation.

Image
Tibetan Buddhist nuns. The nuns belong to a Tibetan sect of the
Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) Buddhism that swept north to Central Asia and
Tibet, and then east to China, Korea, and Japan. Behind them, prayer flags
blow in the wind.

What is the difference between Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism?

Another Mahayana doctrine, that of the Chan (in China) or Zen (in
Japan) sect, stressed meditation and perhaps was closer to the teachings of
the historical Buddha.
In China, the Tang Dynasty (618–907) was the great Buddhist age, a time
of unparalleled creativity in religious art, sculpture, and music. After that,
although Buddhism continued to flourish at the village level, the governing
scholar-gentry class shifted to the more worldly doctrines of Neo-
Confucianism. In Vietnam, Korea, and Japan, the overall process replicated
that of China, but the shift occurred later and with many local variations.
During modern times Buddhism—like all structures of faith—has
struggled, with the secular doctrines of the scientific, and industrial, and
communist revolutions exerting a powerful influence in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. The future is unclear, but undoubtedly Buddhism will
be powerfully affected by the ongoing transformations of Asian societies.

Is Buddhism’s relation to Hinduism parallel to Christianity’s relation

to Judaism?
How do the teachings of the Buddha compare with Christian
doctrine?
10
The Formation of Islamic Civilization,
622–1000

Hear the Audio for Chapter 10 at www.myhistorylab.com

Islamic Astronomy. Initially Muslim astronomers believed that the earth

rested motionless at the center of a series of eight spheres, the last of which
was studded with fixed stars revolving daily from east to west and at times
from west to east. Muslim astronomers were influenced by and improved
on Sanskrit, Sasanian, Syriac, and Greek texts on astronomy. Rami, the
Sagittarius in this illustration from an eighteenth-century copy of a book by
‘Abd al-Rahman ibn ‘Ubmar al-Sufi (d. 986), has a set of twenty-nine gold
spots that represent a stellar constellation.

How did Islam preserve Classical learning?

ORIGINS AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT

WHAT WAS the Qur’anic message as expressed to Muhammad?

WOMEN IN EARLY ISLAMIC SOCIETY

HOW DID the status of women improve under Islam?

EARLY ISLAMIC CONQUESTS

WHY WAS Islam able to expand rapidly?

THE NEW ISLAMIC WORLD ORDER

WHAT ROLES did the caliphate and the ulama play in Islamic states?

THE HIGH CALIPHATE

WHY DID the caliphal empire decline?

ISLAMIC CULTURE IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

WHAT WERE the main achievements of “classical” Islamic culture?

The diverse, but identifiable civilization that we call “Islamic” is the last
great civilization to appear to date. The basic elements of the Islamic
worldview derived from a single, prophetic-revelatory event, the Prophet
Muhammad’s proclamation of the Qur’an.1 This event galvanized diverse,
polytheistic Arabs into a new unity—the monotheistic, egalitarian
community (umma) of “submitters” (muslims) to God.
This community expanded far beyond Arabia; Persians, Indians, and
others made it a great universalist tradition. Arab military prowess and
cultural pride joined with a new religious orientation to initiate one of the
most lasting revolutions in history, but peoples of the older Eurasian
heartlands converted this revolution into a new civilization. Their
acceptance of the Islamic vision of society (and reality) as more compelling
than any older one—Jewish, Roman, Greek, Persian, Christian, or Buddhist
—gave rise to a multifaceted Islamic civilization.

Hear the Audio at myhistorylab.com

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
THE EARLY ISLAMIC WORLDS OF ARAB AND PERSIAN CULTURES
The rise of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish Islamic cultures as core religious
and cultural worlds of Islamic civilization is a pivotal moment in world
history. In its first three centuries, the Islamic polity was arguably the most
dynamic, multiethnic, multilingual imperial realm of its time. In the same
age, Tang Chinese emperors renewed and restored the old Han imperium;
Charlemagne and the Carolingians carved out a much smaller, more
homogeneous empire in relatively underdeveloped western Europe;
Byzantium fought to survive against Arab and Turkish arms and turned
inward to conserve its traditions; and the regional kingdoms of post-Gupta
India remained vulnerable to new forces (including Islamic ones) moving
into northwestern India.
Only China compared favorably with the Islamic world during this
period in political and military strength, cultural unity, creativity, and self-
consciousness. The Tang and the Abbasids wielded commensurate power in
their heydays, although the Chinese endured as a centralized state much
longer than the Arab Islamic Empire. Certainly these were the era’s greatest
political and cultural units. Each had one cultural language: Variations of
Chinese were spoken by a large percentage of Chinese subjects, while
Arabic became the administrative and religious lingua franca of the Islamic
Empire, from Morocco to India, as the result of its status as the language of
Qur’anic revelation and hence of learning. The two civilizations shared the
use of pastoral cavalry as well as the adaptive ability to incorporate new
peoples into their larger cultures—although Islamic civilization proved
finally more flexible in this regard. Indeed, the great adaptability of Islamic
religious traditions and their attendant social orders belie today’s
widespread misconception of Islamic traditions as inherently inflexible.
Islamic states were spread over vastly more culturally heterogeneous and
widely dispersed geographical areas than was the Chinese Empire.
Conquest initially fueled the economy of the new Islamic imperial state, but
in the long run, trade, artisanal crafts, seafaring technology, and urban
commercial centers became the backbone of the Islamic lands’ prosperity,
as well as the prime means of disseminating Islamic concepts and traditions
to new areas, as regional states replaced the centralized imperial state of the
early caliphate.

see the Map

Expansion of Islam at myhistorylab.com

This Islamic achievement was unique in that the peoples who built it did
so by developing new religious, social, and political traditions rather than
simply reviving old ones. In later centuries the early Arab impress on
Islamic culture and religion was transformed by vast numbers of Persian-
and Turkish-speaking Muslims and many regional cultural groups, from
Swahili speakers in East Africa to multiple peoples of South and Southeast
Asia. Yet in the midst of Islam’s diversity, Arabic went abroad with the holy
Qur’an as the sacred medium of God’s revelation. Since Islam’s earliest
spread, individual Muslims worldwide have cultivated to some degree
Arabic and the Arabic scripture and thus kept in touch with Islam’s Arab
origins.
This achievement was novel, at least in its global scale. Although the
Muslim faith can be seen as a reformation of Jewish and Christian
monotheism, it was directed not merely at reforming but subsuming the
older Jewish and Christian traditions in a more comprehensive vision of
God’s plan on earth. And even as Islam can be seen as a reform of Semitic
monotheism, Muslims also built on previous Persian, Turkish, and other
traditions; they adopted and adapted elements of neighboring African,
European, and Asian cultures. As a diverse, international civilization and
religious tradition, Islam developed its own distinctive forms that persisted
wherever Muslims extended the umma.

Focus Questions

Why did only China compare favorably with the Islamic world
during the first centuries after the birth of Islam? How were the two
civilizations similar, and how were they different?
 What is unique about the Islamic achievement? In what ways was it
built on the traditions of earlier religions?

ORIGINS AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT

WHAT WAS the Qur’anic message as expressed to Muhammad?

THE SETTING
By 600 C.E., the dominant Eurasian political powers, Christian Byzantium
and Zoroastrian Sasanid Persia, had battled for West Asian political and
cultural ascendancy for over four centuries. Then, in the wake of one final,
mutually exhausting conflict (608–627), a new Arab power broke in from
the south to weaken the first and destroy the second.
Pre-Islamic Arabia was not just a land of deserts, camels, and
pastoralists. Byzantium and Persia had kept the nomads of the Syrian and
northern Arabian steppe at bay by enlisting small Arab client kingdoms on
the edge of the desert as buffer states. One of the biggest of these kingdoms
was Christian in faith. Arab kingdoms had long flourished in the
agriculturally rich highlands of southern Arabia, which had direct access to
the international oceanic trade along its coasts (see Chapters 4, 5). Some of
these kingdoms, including a Jewish one in the sixth century, were
independent; others were under Persian or Abyssinian control. In the
western Arabian highland of the Hijaz, astride its major trade route, the
town of Mecca was a center of the caravan trade and a pilgrimage site
because of its famous sanctuary, the Ka’ba (or Kaaba), where pagan Arab
tribes enshrined gods. The settled Meccan Arabs ran a merchant republic in
which tribal values were breaking down under the strains of urban
commercial life. Still, these settled Arabs were not cut off from their
nomadic relatives who lived on herding and by raiding settlements and
caravans.
Ka’ba
A black meteorite in the city of Mecca that became Islam’s holiest shrine.

The Arabic language, a Semitic tongue, defined and linked the Arab
peoples, however divided they were by livelihood, religion, blood feuds,
and tribal conflict. From the Yemen north to Syria-Palestine and
Mesopotamia, Arabs shared a highly developed poetic idiom. Every tribe
had a poet to exhort its warriors and insult its enemies before battle. Poetry
contests were also held, often in conjunction with annual trade fairs that
brought tribes together under a general truce.

QUICK REVIEW
Mecca
Center of caravan trade
Pilgrimage center because of presence of Ka’ba
A merchant republic

Islam is not a “religion of the desert.” It began in a commercial urban

center and first flourished in an agricultural oasis and small merchant towns
of the Hijaz. Its first converts were Meccan townsfolk and date farmers in
Yathrib. Before becoming Muslims, most Arabs were animists; fewer were
Jews or Christians. North–south caravans passed from Damascus through
Mecca to Aden and the Indian Ocean, and no merchant involved in this
traffic, as Muhammad himself was, could have been unfamiliar with the
diverse cultures along the trade routes. Early Muslim leaders used Arab
tribes as warriors and looked to Arab culture for their traditional roots long
after the locus of Islamic power had left Arabia. But the empire and
civilization they ultimately spawned were centered in the heartlands of
Mediterranean and West Asian urban and rural cultures and based more on
settled communal existence than on rural or desert tribal societies and
economies.

MUHAMMAD AND THE QUR’AN

Muhammad (ca. 570–632) was raised an orphan in a commercial family of
the old Meccan tribe of Quraysh. Later, in the midst of a successful business
career made possible by his marriage to Khadija (d. ca. 619), an older,
wealthy Meccan widow and entrepreneur, he became troubled by the
idolatry, worldliness, and lack of social conscience around him. Such
failings were equally offensive to sensitive Jewish or Christian morality,
with which he was familiar, but these traditions had not displaced Arabian
pagan traditions, despite the presence of some Jewish and Christian Arab
tribes.
When he was about 40, Muhammad felt himself called by the one God,
the God of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, to “rise and warn” his fellow Arabs
about their frivolous disregard for morality and worship of the Creator.
On repeated occasions revelation came to Muhammad through a
messenger identified as God’s angel, Gabriel. It took the form of a
“reciting” (qur’an) of God’s Word—now rendered in “clear Arabic” for the
Arabs, just as it had been given to previous prophets in Hebrew or other
languages for their peoples.

Qur’an
Meaning “a reciting.” The Islamic bible, which Muslims believe God
revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.

Read the Document Al-Tabari: Muhammad’s Call to Prophecy at

myhistorylab.com
The Ka’ba in Mecca. In Muslim tradition, the Ka’ba (Arabic “cube”) is the
site of the first “house of God,” founded by Adam, then rebuilt by Abraham
and his son Ishmael at God’s command. It is held to have fallen later into
idolatrous use until Muhammad’s victory over the Meccans and his
cleansing of the holy house. The Ka’ba is the geographical point toward
which all Muslims face when performing ritual prayer. It and the plain of
Arafat outside Mecca are the two foci of the pilgrimage of Hajj that each
Muslim aspires to make at least once in a lifetime.

The Five Pillars of Islam include the Hajj; what are the other four?

The message of the Qur’an was clear: The Prophet is to warn his people
against worshipping false gods and against all immorality, especially
injustice to the poor, orphans, widows, and indeed all women. At the end of
time, on Judgment Day, every person will be bodily resurrected to face
what they have earned: eternal punishment in hellfire or eternal joy in
paradise. The way to paradise lies in gratitude to God for His bounties, His
revelatory guidance, and His readiness to forgive the penitent. It lies in
social justice and obedient worship of God, and in recognition of God’s
transcendence. The proper human response to God is “submission” (islam)
to His will, becoming muslim (“submissive”) in one’s worship and morality.
All of creation naturally praises and serves God except humans, who can
choose to obey or to reject him.

Islam Meaning “submission.” The religion founded by the Prophet

Muhammad.

In this Qur’anic message, the ethical monotheism of Judaic and Christian

tradition (probably reinforced by Zoroastrian and Manichaean influences)
reaches fulfillment in a radically theocentric vision demanding absolute
obedience to the Lord of the Universe. The Qur’anic revelations state that
Muhammad is only the last in a series of prophets chosen to bring God’s
word: Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and non-biblical Arabian figures like
Salih had similar missions previously. The Qur’an is filled with stories of
earlier biblical figures, especially Abraham and Moses. Most frequently
mentioned from the Christian New Testament is Mary, mother of Jesus.
Because the followers of earlier prophets neglected or altered their
scriptures’ teachings, Muhammad has been given one final reiteration of
God’s message. Jews, Christians, and pagans are summoned to heed this
Qur’anic message.

View the Image The Qur’an at myhistorylab.com

The Prophet’s preaching fell largely on deaf ears in the first years after
his calling (traditionally dated to the year 610). A few followed the lead of
his wife, Khadija, in recognizing him as a divinely chosen reformer. Some
prominent Meccans joined him, but the merchant aristocracy as a whole
resisted. His preaching against their gods and goddesses threatened their
ancestral ways as well as the Ka‘ba pilgrimage shrine and the lucrative
trade it attracted. The Meccans began to persecute Muhammad’s followers.
After the deaths of Khadija and Muhammad’s uncle and protector, Abu
Talib, the situation worsened; the Prophet even had to send a small band of
Muslims to Abyssinia for temporary refuge. Then, because of his growing
reputation as a moral leader, Muhammad was called to Yathrib (an
important agricultural oasis 240 miles north of Mecca) to arbitrate among
its five quarreling tribes, three of which were Jewish. Having sent his
Meccan followers ahead, Muhammad fled Mecca in July 622 for Yathrib,
afterward known as Medina (al-Madina, “the City [of the Prophet]”). Some
dozen years later, this “emigration,” or hegira (in Arabic, Hajj), became the
starting point for the Islamic calendar, the event marking the creation of a
distinctive Islamic community, or umma.2

hegira The flight of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina
in 622 C.E. It marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar.

umma
The Islamic community.

Muhammad quickly cemented ties between the Meccan emigrants and

the Medinans, many of whom became converts. Raids on his Meccan
enemies’ caravans established his leadership. They reflect the economic
dimension of the Medinan-Meccan struggle. The Arab Jews of Medina
largely rejected his religious message and authority. They even made
contact with his Meccan enemies, moving Muhammad to turn on them, kill
or enslave some, banish others, and take their lands. Many of the Qur’anic
revelations from this period pertain to communal order or chastise Jews and
Christians who rejected Islam.
Muslim norms took shape in Medina: allegiance to the umma; honesty in
all one’s affairs; modesty in personal habits; abstention from alcohol and
pork; fair division of inheritances; improved treatment of women,
especially as to property and other rights in marriage; careful regulation of
marriage and divorce; ritual ablution before any act of worship, be it
reciting the Qur’an or prayer; three (later five) daily rites of worship facing
the Meccan shrine of the Ka’ba; payment of a tithe to support less fortunate
Muslims; annual daytime fasting for the month of Ramadan and, eventually,
pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime, if one is able. Five of these
essential elements of Islamic became known as The Pillars: (1) Shahada, or
the Muslim Creed (“There is no God but God and Muhammad is God’s
prophet”); (2) Salat, or prayer; (3) Sawm, fasting during Ramadan; (4)
Zakat, or alms; and (5) Hajj, the pilgrimage.

Hajj The pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are enjoined to perform at
least once in their lifetime.

Acceptance of Islamic political authority brought tolerance. A Jewish

oasis yielded to Muhammad’s authority and was allowed, unlike the
resistant Medinan Jews, to keep its lands, practice its faith, and receive
protection in return for paying a head tax. This practice was followed ever
after for Jews, Christians, and other “people of Scripture” who accepted
Islamic rule. After long conflict, the Meccans surrendered to Muhammad,
and his acceptance of them into the umma set the pattern for the later
Islamic conquests. Following age-old practice, Muhammad cemented many
of his alliances with marriage (although while Khadija lived, he took no
second wife). In the last years of the Prophet’s life, the once tiny band of
Muslims became the heart of a pan-Arabian tribal confederation, bound
together by personal allegiance to Muhammad, submission (islam) to God,
and membership in the umma.
WOMEN IN EARLY ISLAMIC SOCIETY

HOW DID the status of women improve under Islam?

The umma is a central concern in Islam, and the family is the core of the
umma. Consequently, family law played a central role in the development
of Islamic law. It is Islamic family law that stipulates the rights of women
and men.
The Qur’an introduced into Arabian society radical new ideas that
dramatically improved the status of women. For example, it prohibited the
common practice of female infanticide, stating that all children should have
the opportunity to live. The Qur’an recognizes a woman’s right to contract
her own marriage and stipulates that she, and not her male relatives,
receives the dowry from her husband. Legally, a woman entering marriage
was not an object to be bought and sold but rather a party to a negotiated
contract. A woman was also guaranteed the right to inherit, own, and
manage property.
Women are therefore afforded many rights in the Qur’an. Yet the Qur’an
does not assume the full gender equality advocated in some modern
societies in the twenty-first century. Islamic law stipulates that the father or
senior male controls and guides the family unit. A male receives a larger
share in inheritance and has fewer restrictions in initiating a divorce; also, a
man’s eyewitness testimony carries more weight in court than a woman’s.
Even though the Qur’an introduced many positive changes for women, it
also presupposed and legitimated a patriarchal society and did not outlaw
all customs that practically and symbolically kept women from full equality.
Polygamy is a practice often identified with Islam. The Qur’an tolerates
this (preexisting) practice but seeks to control and regulate it. It states that a
man can have up to four wives provided he can treat them all equally and
fairly (Q. 4:3). Some Muslims interpret this verse as effectively prohibiting
polygamy because it is manifestly impossible to treat and love two or more
women “equally.” And in fact, monogamy is globally the predominant
Muslim marital practice.
 Another practice commonly associated with Islam is female veiling,
hijab, which is understood by Muslims as a practice of modesty. The veil is
a generic term that applies to various types of body or facial covering, such
as chador and burqa. Veiling of women was customary in a number of pre-
Islamic societies, notably among upper-class women in the Byzantine and
Sasanid empires. It was, and still is, common in parts of the Mediterranean.
Islam did not invent the veil, nor does the Qur’an specifically stipulate
veiling, let alone repression of women. Rather, it emphasizes that both men
and women are responsible for their actions and should dress and act
modestly. It does stipulate that women should guard their modesty and
“draw their veils over their bosom and display their beauty only to their
husbands and their fathers” (Q. 24:31).
As with many religious dictums, whatever their spirit, implementation
has proven problematic. Though the original intention of veiling was to
protect women and their honor, the veil and the derivative idea of seclusion
often largely barred women from public life until the twentieth century.
These and other Qur’anic verses have been used literally to justify
patriarchy and keep women from exercising the full rights that the Qur’an
affords them. With more modern education, many Muslim women have
turned to the Qur’an to interpret these verses anew to stipulate practices that
are both Islamic and compatible with modern ideas of equality. And of
course different Islamic cultures, from Indonesia to North Africa to Europe
and America, differ greatly in how literally or liberally they apply
traditional practices and customs.

QUICK REVIEW
Women’s Rights in the Qur’an
Infanticide—commonly practiced on females—prohibited
Women contract their own marriages, receive dowries
Women can inherit, own, and manage property
Society assumed to be patriarchal
Veiling. There are many different forms of veiling. These photos illustrate
three. The left-hand photo shows a young woman dressed in contemporary
clothing with just her head covered. The middle photo shows a Yemeni
woman with all but her eyes covered. The right-hand photo shows an
Afghani woman who is fully covered.

Why is there so much variation in veiling practices?

In early Islamic history, many women—such as the wives of Muhammad

(Khadija and A’isha)—played influential roles. They were instrumental in
defining certain aspects of Islamic law and even commanded troops in
warfare. In medieval times, however, women were not, with a few notable
exceptions, prominent in the public sphere. As in many other places around
the world, women were largely cut off from public political, social, and
educational activities. These negative effects are still visible today in many
Middle Eastern, African, and Asian regions even as women generally are
increasingly negotiating their way into the public sphere.

EARLY ISLAMIC CONQUESTS

 WHY WAS Islam able to expand rapidly?

In 632 Muhammad died, leaving neither a son nor a designated successor.

The new umma faced its first major crisis. A political struggle between
Meccan and Medinan factions ended in a pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr,
the most senior of the early Meccan converts. Following old Arabian
patterns, many tribes renounced allegiance to the Prophet after his death.
Nevertheless, Abu Bakr’s rule (632–634) as Muhammad’s successor, or
“caliph” (khalifa), reestablished Medinan hegemony and at least nominal
religious conformity for much of Arabia. The Arabs were forced to
recognize in the umma a new kind of supratribal community that demanded
more than allegiance to a particular leader.

COURSE OF CONQUEST
Under the next two caliphs, Umar (634–644) and Uthman (644–656), Arab
armies moved beyond the peninsula, intent on more than traditional bedouin
booty raids. In one of history’s most astonishing expansions, by 643 they
had conquered the Byzantine and Sasanid territories of the Fertile Crescent,
Egypt, and most of Iran. For the first time in centuries the lands from Egypt
to Iran came under one rule. Finally, Arab armies swept west over the
Byzantine-controlled Libyan coast and, in the east, pushed to the Oxus,
defeating the last Sasanid ruler by 651.

QUICK REVIEW
Islamic Conquest
By 643, Arab armies had conquered the
Byzantine and Sasanid territories of the Fertile Crescent, Egypt, and
most of Iran
Arab armies defeated the last Sasanid ruler in 651
Over the rest of the seventh century,
Arab armies extended the territory under their control

An interlude of civil war followed during the contested caliphate of

Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law Ali (656–661). Then the fifth caliph,
Mu’awiya (661–680), directed further expansion and initiated the new
Umayyad Dynasty, which survived despite a second civil war (680–692)
until 750. In the Mediterranean, an Islamic fleet conquered Cyprus,
plundered Sicily and Rhodes, and crippled Byzantine sea power. By 680
control of greater Persia was solidified by permanent Arab garrisoning of
Khorasan, much of Anatolia was raided, Constantinople was besieged (but
not taken), and Armenia was under Islamic rule.
Succeeding decades saw the eastern Berbers of Libyan North Africa
defeated and converted to Islam in substantial numbers. With their help,
“the West” (al-Maghrib, modern Morocco and Algeria) fell quickly. In 711
raids into Spain began (memory of the Berber Muslim leader of the first
invaders, Tariq, lives on in the name of Gibraltar, from Jabal Tariq,
“Mount Tariq”). By 716 the disunited Spanish Visigoth kingdoms had
fallen, and much of Iberia was under Islamic control. Pushing north into
France, the Arabs were finally checked by Charles Martel with a defeat at
Tours (732). At the opposite end of the empire, buoyed by large-scale Arab
immigration, Islamic forces consolidated their holdings as far as the Oxus
River (Amu Darya) basin of Khorasan, and in 710 these forces reached the
Indus region. Islamic power was supreme from the Atlantic to Central Asia
(see Map 10–1).

FACTORS OF SUCCESS
This rapid expansion was possible because of the weakened military and
economic condition of the Byzantines and Sasanids, the result of their
chronic warfare with one another. The new Islamic vision of society and life
also united the Arabs and attracted others. Its corollary was the commitment
among the Islamic leadership to extend “the abode of submission” (Dar al-
Islam) abroad. However, too much has been made of Muslim zeal for
martyrdom. Assurance of paradise for those engaged in jihad, “just struggle
(in the path of God),” is less likely to have motivated the average Arab
tribesman—who, at least at the beginning, was usually only nominally
Muslim—than did promise of booty. Life in the Peninsula was hard, so the
hope of greater prosperity must have been compelling.

jihad “Struggle in the path of God.” Although not necessarily implying

violence, it is often interpreted to mean holy war in the name of Islam.
 Still, religious zeal was important, especially as time went on. The early
policy of sending Qur’an reciters among the Arab armies to teach essentials
of Muslim faith and practice had its effects. Another factor was the
leadership of the first caliphs and field generals, which, combined with
Byzantine and Iranian weakness, gave Arab armies a distinct advantage.
Some populations even welcomed Islamic rule as a relief from Byzantine or
Persian oppression. Crucial here was Muslim willingness to allow
Christian, Jewish, and even Zoroastrian groups to continue as minorities
(with their own legal systems and no military obligations) under protection
of Islamic rule. In return, they had to recognize Islamic political authority,
pay a non-Muslim head tax (jizya), and not proselytize or interfere with
Muslim religious practice. (Ironically, with time, the head tax and other
strictures on non-Muslims encouraged many Christians and Jews to
convert.)
Finally, the astute policies of the early leaders helped give the conquests
overall permanence: relatively little bloodshed, destruction, or disruption in
conquest; adoption of existing administrative systems (and personnel) with
minimal changes; adjustment of unequal taxation; appointment of capable
governors; and strategic siting of new garrison towns like Basra, Kufa, and
Fustat (later Cairo).
MAP EXPLORATION
To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com
MAP 10–1. Muslim Conquests and Domination of the Mediterranean
to about 750 C.E. The rapid spread of the Islamic religious and political-
military presence is shown here. Within 125 years of Muhammad’s
preaching, Muslim hegemony extended from Spain to Central Asia.

Why did so many subject peoples welcome Islamic rule?

THE NEW ISLAMIC WORLD ORDER

WHAT ROLES did the caliphate and the ulama play in Islamic states?
caliphate

Although they were quick to adopt and adapt existing traditions in the lands
they conquered, the Muslims brought with them a new worldview that
demanded a new political, social, and cultural order, however long it might
take to implement. Beyond military and administrative problems loomed
the more important question of the nature of Islamic society. Under the
Prophet the new community of the umma had replaced, at least in theory,
the tribal, blood-based sociopolitical order in Arabia. Yet once the Arabs
(most of whom became Muslims) had to rule non-Arabs and non-Muslims,
new problems tested the ideal of an Islamic polity. Chief among these were
leadership and membership qualifications, social order, and religious and
cultural identity.

THE CALIPHATE
Allegiance to Muhammad had rested on his authority as divine
spokesperson and gifted leader. His first successors were chosen much as
were Arab shaykhs (“sheiks”), or tribal chieftains: by agreement of the
leading elders, of the new religious “tribe” of Muslims on the basis of
superior personal qualities and the precedence in faith conferred by piety
and association with the Prophet. The true line of succession to Muhammad
was known as the caliphate, and the successors’ titles were “successor”
(khalifa, or caliph), “leader” (imam—literally, the one who stands in front
to lead ritual worship), and “commander (emir) of the faithful.” These
names underscored religious and political authority, which most Muslims
recognized in the caliphs Abu Bakr and Umar, and potentially in Uthman
and Ali. Unfortunately, by the time of Uthman and Ali, dissension led to
civil war. Yet the first four caliphs had all been close to Muhammad, and
this gave their reigns a nostalgic aura of purity, especially as the later
caliphal institution was based largely on sheer power legitimized by
hereditary succession. (See Document, “Al-Mawardi and al-Hilli.”)

caliphate
The true line of succession to Muhammad.

imam
Islamic prayer leader.

emir
An Islamic military commander.

The nature of Islamic leadership became an issue with the first civil war
(656–661) and the recognition of Mu’awiya, a kinsman of Uthman, as
caliph. He founded the first dynastic caliphate, that of his Meccan clan of
Umayya (661–750). Umayyad descendants held power until they were
ousted in 750 by the Abbasid clan, which based its legitimacy on descent
from Abbas, an uncle of the Prophet. The Umayyads had the prestige of the
office held by the first four, “rightly guided” caliphs. But many also deemed
them to be worldly kings compared to the first four, “true” successors to
Muhammad.
The Abbasids took the caliphate by open rebellion in 750, having
exploited pious dissatisfaction with Umayyad worldliness, non-Arab
Muslim resentment of Arab preference (primarily in Iran), and dissension
among Arab tribal factions in the garrison towns. For all their stress on the
Muslim character of their caliphate, the Abbasids were scarcely less
worldly and continued the hereditary rule begun by the Umayyads. This
they did well enough to retain control of most of the far-flung Islamic
territories until 945, when the Shi’ite Buyid Dynasty took control in
Baghdad and relegated the caliph to largely symbolic status. Thereafter,
although their line continued until 1258, the caliphate was primarily a
titular office representing an Islamic unity that existed largely in name only.

Read the Document

Al-Tabari and Ibn Hisham, from “The Founding of the Caliphate” at
myhistorylab.com

THE ULAMA
Although the caliph could exert his power to influence religious matters, he
was never “emperor and pope combined,” as European writers have
claimed. Religious leadership in the umma devolved instead on another
group. The functional successors of the Prophet in society at large were
those Muslims recognized for piety and learning and as informal or even
formal (as with state-appointed judges) authorities. Initially, they were the
“Companions” (male and female) of Muhammad with greatest stature in the
old Medinan umma—including the first four caliphs. This generation was
replaced by those younger followers most concerned with preserving,
interpreting, and applying the Qur’an and with maintaining the norms of the
Prophet’s original umma. Because the Qur’an contained few legal
prescriptions, they had to draw on precedents from Meccan and Medinan
practice, as well as oral traditions from and about the Prophet and
Companions. They also had to standardize grammatical rules for a common
Arabic language based on the Qur’an and pre-Islamic poetry. Furthermore,
they had to improve the phonetic, cursive Arabic script, a task done so well
that the script was gradually applied as the standard alphabetic script for
other languages wherever Islamic culture became dominant: among
Iranians, Turks, Indians, Indonesians, Malays, East Africans, and others.
Along with these and other religious, intellectual, and cultural
achievements, Muslim scholars developed an enduring pattern of education
based on study under those persons highest in the unbroken cross-
generational chain of trustworthy Muslims linking the current age with that
of the earliest umma.

DOCUMENT
Al-Mawardi and al-Hilli
At his death, the Prophet left his followers without explicit instructions on
leadership and governance of the umma. The question of political authority
became hotly contested, which resulted ultimately in the major division
between Sunni and Shi’i Muslims that has prevailed to this day. Below are
two important later interpretations of political legitimacy by an influential
Sunni official, al-Mawardi (974–1058), and a leading Shi’a theologian, al-
Hilli (1250–1326).

• WHAT are the essential characteristics of a ruler according to both

thinkers? What do these thinkers have in common, and what are
their differences?

AL-MAWARDI

The Imamate: God, whose power be glorified, has instituted a chief of the
Community as a successor to Prophethood and to protect the Community
and assume the guidance of its affairs. Thus the Imamate is a principle on
which stands the bases of the religious Community and by which its general
welfare is regulated, so that the common good is assured by it.…
Thus the obligatory nature of the Imamate is established, and it is an
obligation performed for all by a few, like fighting in a holy war, or the
study of the religious sciences.…
As for those persons fitted for the Imamate, the conditions related to
them are seven:… Justice in all its characteristics.… Knowledge requisite
for independent judgment (ijtihad) about revealed and legal matters.…
Soundness of the senses in hearing, sight, and speech, in a degree to accord
with their normal functioning.… Soundness of the members from any
defect that would prevent freedom of movement and agility.… Judgment
conducive to the governing of subjects and administering matters of general
welfare.… Courage and bravery to protect Muslim territory and wage the
jihad against the enemy.… Pedigree: he must be of the tribe of Quraysh,
since there has come down an explicit statement on this, and the consensus
has agreed.…
He must maintain the Religion according to the principles established
and agreed upon by the earliest.…

Al-Hilli

He who is worthy of the Imamate is a person appointed and specified by

God and His Prophet, not any chance person; it is not possible that there be
more than one person at any one period who is worthy.… Hence the
Imamate is lutf [God’s kindness to humans in guiding them].…
It is necessary that the Imâm be immune to sin; otherwise he would need
a Imâm, or spiritual guide, and that is impossible. And also if he committed
sin, he would lose his place in men’s hearts, and the value of his
appointment would be nullified. And because he is the guardian of the
law… he must be immune to sin… which no one perceives but God the
most high. Hence… the Imâm must be appointed by God, not by the people.
Agreement has been reached that in appointing the Imâm the
specification can be made by God and His Prophet, or by a previous Imâm.
… [There is disagreement over] whether or not his appointment can be in a
way that is other than specification (by God and the Prophet). He who
knows the unseen make[s] it known. And that comes about in two ways: (1)
by making it known to someone immune to sin, such as the Prophet, and
then he tells us of the Imâm’s immunity to sin and of this appointment; (2)
by the appearance of miracles wrought by his hand to prove his veracity in
claiming the Imamate. Sunnis say that whenever the people [umma]
acknowledge any person as chief, and are convinced of his ability and his
power increases, he becomes the Imâm.
The Imâm [must] be absolutely the best of the people of his age, because
he takes precedence over all.…
Source: From The Middle East and Islamic World Reader by Marvin Gettlemen and Stuart Schar ©
2003 by Marvin Gettlemen and Stuart Schar. Reprinted by permission of Grove Press.

A Closer Look
The Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem (Interior)
 The Dome of the Rock (completed in 691) is the earliest monumental
structure of Islamic architecture. Apparently the earliest architectural
and artistic project of the Ummayad Dynasty, it was constructed on the
“Temple Mount” sacred site created in Herodian times. The best
interpretation today is that it was built to signal prominently the
success of Islam as the completion of Jewish and Christian
monotheistic religion. Its magnificent mosaic tile ornamentation has
been renewed on its exterior in Ottoman times (see exterior photograph
on p. 253), but inside, as in this photograph, we see much of the original
decoration in all its magnificence, along with the later marble covering
sheathing walls, piers, and spandrels. The octagonal shape follows that
of the Byzantine martyria and the wooden dome, stone and brick
masonry, and careful symmetry of design derive from Byzantine
church architecture.

Questions
1. Is the Dome of the Rock a late-antique Byzantine building (perhaps
designed and built in part by Christian artisans), or a signal Muslim
 structure that uses pre-Islamic themes and motifs but combines them
in novel ways to signal/symbolize Islam’s reform of monotheism
and the new Islamic imperium? Or could it be both? Discuss.
To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com

The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

An early example of Islamic architecture, it dates from 685 and the first
wave of Arab expansion. It is built over the rock from which Muslims
believe Muhammad had a heavenly ascension experience and on which
Jews believe Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac. The Dome of the Rock
has symbolic significance for Muslims because the site is associated with
the life of the Prophet. For a few years of Muhammad’s time in Medina,
Muslims even faced Jerusalem when they prayed, before a new Qur’anic
revelation changed the direction to Mecca.

What are other examples of sites that are important, for different
reasons, to two or more faiths?

These scholars came to be known as ulama (“persons of right

knowledge”). Their personal legal opinions and collective discussions of
issues, from theological doctrine to criminal punishments, established a
basis for religious and social order. By the ninth century they had largely
defined the understanding of the divine law, or Shari’a, that Muslims ever
after have held to be definitive for legal, social, commercial, political,
ritual, and moral concerns. This understanding and the methods by which it
was derived form the Muslim science of jurisprudence (fiqh), the core
discipline of Islamic learning.

ulama “Persons with correct knowledge.” The Islamic scholarly elite who
served a social function similar to the Christian clergy.

The centers of ulama activity were Medina, Mecca, and especially Iraq
(Basra and Kufa, later Baghdad), then Khorasan, Syria, North Africa,
Spain, and Egypt. In Umayyad times, the ulama criticized caliphal rule
when it strayed too far from Muslim norms. Gradually the ulama became a
new elite identified with the upper class of each regional society under
Islamic rule. Caliphs and their governors regularly sought their advice, but
often only for moral or legal (the two are, in Muslim view, the same)
sanction of a contemplated (or accomplished) action. Some ulama gave
dubious sanctions and compromised themselves. Yet incorruptible ulama
were seldom persecuted for their opinions (unless they supported sectarian
rebellions), mostly because of their status and influence among rank-and-
file Muslims.
Thus, without building a formal clergy, Muslims developed a workable
morallegal system based on a formally trained, if informally organized,
scholarly elite and a tradition of concern with religious ideals in matters of
public affairs and social order. If the caliphs and their deputies were seldom
paragons of piety and were often ruthless, they had at least to act with
circumspection and support pious standards publicly. Thus the ulama
shared leadership in Muslim societies with the rulers, even if unequally—an
enduring pattern in Islamic states.

QUICK REVIEW
Religious Authority of the Ulama
Opinions of ulama became the basis for religious and social order
Ulama became a social and political elite
Ulama were rarely prosecuted for their opinions
Ritual Worship. These illustrations show the sequence of movement
prescribed for the ritual worship of Salat that each Muslim should perform
five times a day. Various words of praise, prayer, and Qur’an recitation
accompany each position and movement. The ritual symbolizes complete
obedience to God as the one, eternal, omnipotent Lord of the universe.

How do the rituals depicted here convey an impression of submission?

THE UMMA
A strength of the Qur’anic message was its universality. By the time of the
first conquests, the new state was already so rooted in Islamic ideals that
non-Arab converts had to be accepted, even if it meant loss of tax revenue.
The social and political status of new converts was, however, clearly second
to that of Arabs. Umar had organized the army register, or diwan, according
to tribal precedence in conversion to, or (for Christian Arab tribes) fighting
for, Islam. The diwan served as the basis for distributing and taxing the new
wealth, which perpetuated Arab precedence. The new garrisons, which
rapidly became urban centers of Islamic culture, kept the Arabs enough
apart that they were not simply absorbed into the cultural patterns or
traditions of the new lands. The dominance of the Arabic language was
ensured by the centrality of the Qur’an in Muslim life and the notion of its
perfect Arabic form, together with the increasing administrative use of
Arabic to replace Aramaic, Greek, Middle Persian, or Coptic.
diwan
High governmental body in many Islamic states.

Non-Arab converts routinely attached themselves to Arab tribes as

“clients,” which assured protection and a place in the diwan. Still, this
meant accepting a permanent second-class citizenship. Although many non-
Arabs, especially Persians, mastered Arabic and prospered, dissatisfaction
among client Muslims led to uprisings against caliphal authority. Persian-
Arab tensions were especially strong in Umayyad and early Abbasid times.
Nevertheless, a Persian cultural renaissance eventually raised the
Islamicized, or modern Persian language to high status in Islamic culture.
Consequently, it profoundly affected Islamic religion, art, and literature.
Caliphal administration joined with the evolution of legal theory and
practice and the consolidation of religious norms to give stability to the
emerging Islamic society. So powerful was the Muslim vision of society
that, upon the demise of a caliph, or even a dynasty such as the Umayyads,
the umma and the caliphal office continued. There were, however,
conflicting notions of that vision. In the first three Islamic centuries, two
major interpretations crystallized that reflected idealistic interpretations of
the umma, its leadership, and membership. When neither proved practical,
they became minority visions that continued to fire the imaginations of
some but failed to win broad-based support. A third, “centrist,” vision
found favor with the majority because it spoke to a wide spectrum and
accommodated inevitable compromises in the cause of Islamic unity.
The most radical idealists traced their origin to the first civil war (656–
661). They were the Kharijites, or “seceders” from Ali’s camp, because, in
their view, he compromised with his enemies. The Kharijites’ demanded
that the Muslim polity be based on strict Qur’anic principles. They
espoused total equality of the faithful and held that the leader of the umma
should be the best Muslim, whoever that might be. They took a rigorist
view of membership in the umma: Anyone who committed a major sin was
no longer a Muslim. Extreme Kharijites called on true Muslims to rebel
against the morally compromised reigning caliph. The extremist groups
were constant rallying points for opposition to the Umayyads and the
Abbasids. More moderate Kharijites tolerated less-than-ideal Muslims and
caliphs, yet they retained a strong sense of the moral imperatives of Muslim
duty. Their ideals influenced wider Muslim pietism and even today
moderate Kharijite groups survive in Oman and North Africa.

Ashura. As Shi’ites, Iranians stage elaborate passion plays, or Taziyehs,

during the Ashura commemorations of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein b.
‘Ali. These plays are performed annually during the first ten days of the
Muslim lunar month of Muharram. Here is the culminating scene from a
Taziyeh in Tehran on December 27, 2009, with one of the warriors of the
Umayyad caliph Yazid standing over the body of the martyred Hussein, son
of ‘Ali and grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who was slain at Kerbala
on 10 Muharram, 680.

What are the basic beliefs of Shi’ites?

A second position was defined largely in terms of leadership of the
umma. Muhammad had no surviving sons. Ali, who was both Muhammad’s
son-in-law and his cousin, claimed the caliphate in 656. Ali’s blood tie with
Muhammad was augmented, for many, by belief in the Prophet’s
designation of him as the next true Muslim leader, or imam. Ali’s claim was
contested by Mu’awiya in the first Islamic civil war. When Mu’awiya took
over after a Kharijite murdered Ali in 661, many of Ali’s followers felt that
Islamic affairs had gone awry. The roots of the “partisans of Ali” (Shi’at
Ali, or simply the Shi’a, or Shi’ites) go back to Ali’s murder and especially
to that of his son Husayn at Karbala, in Iraq, at the hands of Umayyad
troops in 680.

Shi’a The minority of Muslims who trace their beliefs from the caliph Ali
who was assassinated in 661 C.E.

Numerous rebellions in Umayyad times rallied around a person who

claimed to be a true successor. The Abbasids based their right to the
caliphate on membership in Muhammad’s clan of Hashim. The major
Shi’ite pretenders who emerged in the ninth and tenth centuries based their
claims on both the Prophet’s designation and their descent from Ali and
Fatima, Muhammad’s daughter. They also stressed the idea of a divinely
inspired knowledge passed on by Muhammad to his designated heirs. Thus
the true Muslim was the faithful follower of the imams, who carried
Muhammad’s blood and spiritual authority.
Shi’ites saw Ali’s assassination and the massacre of Husayn and his
family as proofs of the evil nature of this world’s rulers, and as rallying
points for true Muslims. Their martyrdom was extended to a line of Alid
imams that varied among different groups of Shi’ites. True Muslims, like
their imams, must suffer. But they would be vindicated by a mahdi, or
“guided one,” who would usher in a messianic age and judgment day that
would see the faithful rewarded. (In the Sunni tradition, which we discuss
next, similar “mahdist” movements arose occasionally as well.)
In later history Shi’ites did rule Islamic states, but only after 1500, in
Iran, did Shi’ism prevail as the majority faith in a major state. The Shi’ite
vision of the true umma has not been able to dominate the larger Islamic
world.
Most Muslims ultimately accepted a third, less sharply defined position
on leadership and membership in the umma. In part a compromise, it
proved acceptable both to lukewarm Muslims or pragmatists and to persons
of intense piety. To emphasize the correctness of their views, they
eventually called themselves Sunnis—followers of the tradition (sunna)
established by the Prophet and the Qur’an. Sunnis encompass a wide range
of reconcilable ideas and groups. They have made up the broad middle
spectrum of Muslims who tend to put communal solidarity and maintenance
of the Islamic polity above purist adherence to particular tenets. They have
been inclusivist rather than exclusivist, a trait that has typified the Islamic
(unlike the Jewish or Christian) community through most of its history.

sunna Meaning “tradition.” The dominant Islamic group whose followers

are called Sunnis.

This centrist position provided the most workable basis for the new
Islamic state. Its basic ideas were threefold: (1) The umma is theocratic, a
state under divine authority, which translates into a nomocracy under the
authority the Shari’a. The sources of guidance are, first, the Qur’an; second,
Muhammad’s precedent; and, third and fourth, the interpretive efforts and
consensus of the Muslims (in practice, of the ulama). (2) The caliph is the
absolute temporal ruler, charged with administering and defending the
Abode of Islam and protecting Muslim norms; he possesses no greater
authority than other Muslims in matters of faith. (3) A person who professes
to be Muslim by witnessing that “There is no god but God, and Muhammad
is his Messenger” should be considered a Muslim (because “only God
knows what is in the heart”), and not even a mortal sin excludes such a
person automatically from the umma.

CHRONOLOGY
ORIGINS AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF ISLAM
 Under increasingly influential ulama leadership, these and other basic
premises of Muslim community became the theological underpinnings
internationally of both the caliphal state and the majority Islamic social
order.

THE HIGH CALIPHATE

WHY DID the caliphal empire decline?

The consolidation of the caliphal institution began with the victory of the
Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik in 692 in a second civil war. The ensuing
century and a half mark the era of the “high caliphate,” the politically
strong, culturally vibrant, wealthy, and centralized institution that flourished
first under the Umayyads in Damascus and then in the Abbasid capital of
Baghdad.3 The “golden age” of caliphal power and splendor came in the
first century of Abbasid rule, during the caliphates of the fabled Harun al-
Rashid (786–809) and his son, al-Ma’mun (813–833).

Read the Document

Baghdad: City of Wonders at myhistorylab.com

THE ABBASID STATE

The Abbasids’ revolution effectively ended Arab dominance as well as
Umayyad ascendancy (except in Spain). The shift of the imperial capital
from Damascus to the new “city of peace” built at Baghdad on the Tigris
(762–766) symbolized the geographic shift in cultural and political
orientation under the new regime. In line with this, more Persians entered
the bureaucracy. The Abbasids’ disavowal of Shi’ite hopes for a divinely
inspired imamate reflected their determination to gain the support of a
broad spectrum of Muslims, even if they still stressed their descent from al-
Abbas (ca. 565–653), uncle of both Muhammad and Ali.
Whereas the Umayyads had relied on Syrian Arab forces, the Abbasids
used Arabs and Persians as well as provincial mercenaries for their main
troops. Beginning in the ninth century, they enlisted slave soldiers
(mamluks), mostly Turks from the northern steppes, as their personal
troops. The officers of these troops, themselves mamluks, soon seized
positions of power in the central and provincial bureaucracies and the army.
Eventually the caliphs were dominated by their mamluk officers. This
domination led to increasing alienation of the Muslim populace from their
own rulers. This was evident in Iraq itself, where unrest with his
overbearing Turkish guard led the Abbasid caliph to remove the
government from Baghdad to the new city of Samarra 60 miles up the
Tigris, where it remained from 836 to 892 (see Map 10–2).

mamluk Slave soldiers who converted to Islam, the mamluks eventually

became a powerful military caste and even governed Egypt from 1250 to
1517.
The Great Mosque of Samarra. Built in the mid-ninth century by the
Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil, this Friday, or congregational, mosque has a
prayer space larger than nine football fields, making it the largest such
enclosed space in the Islamic world. The style of the minaret recalls the
ziggurats of ancient Babylon.

Why was early Abbasid rule attractive to large numbers of people?

SOCIETY
The deep division between rulers and populace—the functionally secular
state and its subjects—became typical of Islamic societies. However, even
while provincial rulers’ independence reduced Abbasid central power after
the mid-ninth century, such rulers nominally recognized caliphal authority.
This gave them legitimacy as guardians of the Islamic socioreligious order,
which meanwhile found its real cohesiveness in the Muslim ideals being
standardized and propagated by the ulama.

MAP 10–2. The Abbasid Empire, ca. 900 C.E. A great diversity of peoples
and nations were united by the Abbasids. Their capital at Baghdad became
the center of a trading network that linked India, Africa, and China.
Which Muslim regions were not part of the Abbasid Empire and why?

Full conversion of the populace of the Islamic Empire lagged behind

centralization of political power and development of Islamic socioreligious
institutions. Iraq and Iran saw the fullest Islamization of local elites before
the mid-twelfth century, followed by Spain, North Africa, and Syria.
Conversion and fuller Islamization increased Muslim self-confidence and
diminished the need for centralized caliphal power.4

DECLINE
The eclipse of the caliphal empire was foreshadowed at the outset of
Abbasid rule when one of the last Umayyads fled west to Spain, where he
founded a Spanish Islamic state (756–1030) that produced the spectacular
Moorish culture of Spain. The Spanish Umayyads grew so strong that they
claimed the title of caliph in 929. In all the Abbasid provinces, regional
governments were always potential independent states. In North Africa in
801 Harun al-Rashid’s governor set up his own state in modern Tunisia. In
Egypt, the Fatimids set up Shi’ite rule in 969 and claimed to be the only
true caliphate.
In the East, Iranian lands grew harder for Baghdad to control. Beginning
in 821 in Khorasan, Abbasid governors or rebels started independent
dynasties repeatedly for the next two centuries, and the caliph usually had
to recognize them. Among the longest-lived of these Iranian dynasties were
the Samanids, who ruled at Bukhara as nominal Abbasid vassals from 875
until 999. They gave northeastern Iran a long period of economic and
political security from Turkish steppe invaders. Under their aegis, Persian
poetry and Arabic scientific studies began a Persian Islamic cultural
renaissance and an influential scientific tradition.

QUICK REVIEW
Abbasid State
Ruled from Baghdad
Arab dominance replaced by Eastern, especially Persian, influence
Leaders of slave soldiers (mamluks) gained power
Splendid court left rich cultural legacy
 Of greatest consequence for the Abbasid caliphate was the rise in the
mountains south of the Caspian of a Shi’ite clan, the Buyids, who took over
Abbasid rule in 945. Henceforth the caliph and his descendants were largely
puppets in the hands of a Buyid “commander” (emir). In 1055 the Buyids
were replaced by the more famous, Turkish-speaking Seljuk sultans. By
this time the caliphal office had long been under the control of the ruler in
Baghdad, and this was to remain the case until the Mongols destroyed even
nominal Abbasid caliphal authority in 1258 (see Chapter 12).

sultans Rulers who have almost complete sovereignty over a certain

domain without claiming the title of caliph.

ISLAMIC CULTURE IN THE CLASSICAL ERA

WHAT WERE the main achievements of “classical” Islamic culture?

The pomp and splendor of the Abbasid court became the stuff of legends,
such as those preserved much later in A Thousand and One Nights. Their
rich cultural legacy was made possible by a strong army and central
government and vigorous internal and external trade, probably stimulated
by the prosperous Tang Chinese Empire with which Islamic lands had
overland and maritime contact. Material factors, such as the introduction of
paper manufacture from China through Samarkand about 750, or the flight
of Byzantine scholars east to new Abbasid centers of learning, contributed
to the intellectual vibrancy of the early Abbasid era.

INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS
The Abbasid heyday was marked by sophisticated tastes and insatiable
thirst for all knowledge. An Arab historian called Baghdad “the market to
which the wares of the sciences and arts were brought, where wisdom was
sought as a man seeks after his stray camels, and whose judgment of values
was accepted by the whole world.” Contacts (primarily among intellectuals)
between Muslims and Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, and other “protected”
communities contributed to the cosmopolitanism of the age. Some older
intellectual traditions experienced a revival. Philosophy, astronomy,
mathematics, medicine, and other natural sciences enjoyed strong interest
and patronage. In Islamic usage, philosophy and the sciences were
subsumed under falsafa (from Greek philosophia). Islamic culture took
over the tradition of rational inquiry from the Hellenic world and preserved
and developed it when Europe was a cultural backwater.

An Illustration from The Maqamat of al Hariri (d. 1122), a masterpiece

of Arabic literature of the later Middle Ages. Its entertaining stories, written
in rhymed prose, have passed into popular lore in the Islamic world.

What are some characteristics of Arabic literature?

CHRONOLOGY
“CLASSICAL” PERIOD OF THE HIGH CALIPHATE
 Arabic translations of Greek and Sanskrit works stimulated progress in
astronomy and medicine. Translation reached its peak in al-Ma’mun’s new
academy headed by a Nestorian Christian, Hunayn ibn Ishaq (d. 873), noted
for his medical and Greek learning. There were Arabic translations of
everything from the Greek works of Galen, Ptolemy, Euclid, Aristotle,
Plato, and the Neo-Platonists to Indian Sanskrit fables earlier translated into
Middle Persian under the Sasanids. Such translations stimulated not only
Arabic learning, but later also that of the less advanced European world.

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Arabic language and literature developed greatly in the new empire. A
significant genre of Arabic writing emerged. Known as adab, or “manners”
literature, it included essays and didactic literature influenced by Persian
letters. Poetry also flourished by building on the tradition of the Arabic ode,
or qasida. Grammar was central to the interpretation of the Qur’an that
occupied the ulama and under-girded an emerging religious-learning
curriculum. Historical, geographical, and biographical writing became
major Arabic genres. They owed much to the ancient accounts of “the battle
days of the Arabs” but sought to record the lives of the Prophet and
Companions, and then those of subsequent generations. Such records of
persons were crucial to judging the reliability of the “chains” of transmitters
accompanying each traditional report, or hadith. A hadith reports words or
actions ascribed to Muhammad and the Companions; it became the chief
source of Muslim legal and religious norms alongside the Qur’an, as well as
the basic unit of most prose genres. The work of al-Shafi’i (d. 820) on legal
reasoning was the shining exemplar of the many collections of the hadith
that were mined by preachers and interpreters of the law.

qasida
Some of the most elaborate poems in the world, they generally run 50–100
lines, have a single, unifying theme, regular rhyme and meter, and speak in
praise of a ruler or an idea.

hadith
A saying or action ascribed to Muhammad.

ART AND ARCHITECTURE

In art and architecture the Abbasid era saw the crystallization of a
“classical” Islamic style by about 1000 C.E. Except for ceramics and
calligraphy, most Islamic art and architecture had clear antecedents in
Greco-Roman, Byzantine, or Persian art. But older forms and motifs were
now used in new ways and combinations, and they spread to new locales—
generally from east (especially the Fertile Crescent) to west (Syria, Egypt,
North Africa, and Spain). Sasanid stucco decoration techniques and designs
turned up, for example, in Egypt and North Africa. Chronologically, urban
Iraq developed an Islamic art first, then made its influence felt east and
west, whether in Bukhara or in Syria and North Africa. Also new were the
combination and elaboration of discrete forms, as in the case of the
colonnade (or hypostyle) mosque or complex arabesque designs.
Muslims had reason to be self-confident about their faith and culture.
Most monuments of the age express the distinctiveness they felt. Particular
formal items, such as calligraphic motifs and inscriptions on buildings,
came to characterize Islamic architecture and define its functions. Most
striking was the avoidance of pictures or icons in public art. This was, of
course, in line with the Muslim aversion both to any hint of idolatry and to
the strongly iconic Byzantine Christian art. Although this iconoclasm later
diminished, it was a telling expression of the general thrust of Muslim faith
and the culture it animated. Overall, the Muslims’ artistic achievements
before the year 1000 impress us with a quality that is distinctively and
“classically” Islamic, whatever the details of particular examples.5
The Congregational Mosque. Two examples of the finest congregational
mosques of the classical Islamic world. The large courtyards and pillared
halls of these buildings were intended not only for worship, but also for
mass community gatherings for official communications or mustering
troops in time of war. Their splendor announced the presence and power of
Islamic rule. The top photo shows the Great Mosque at Qayrawan in
modern Tunisia, built during the eighth and ninth centuries. The bottom
photo shows the Spanish Umayyad mosque in Córdoba, built in the eighth
to tenth centuries in a series of roofed extensions—unlike the mosque of
Qayrawan, which has only one great hall and covered colonnades around its
central courtyard.

(A) Werner Forman Archive, Art Resource, New York; (B) Adam Lubroth,
Art Resource, New York.

How does the layout of these mosques comment on the role of the
community in early Islam?

The Qur’an. Gold-embellished page from an eighth- or ninth-century

Qur’an in Kufic script (23.8 × 35.5 cm). The earliest Qur’ans were oriented
horizontally and lettered in angular Kufic script (named for the city of Kufa
in Iraq).
Arabic Manuscript: 30.60 Page from a Koran, 8th–9th century. Kufic script.
H: 23.8 × W: 35.5 cm. Courtesy of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, DC: Purchase, F1930.60r.

Why would a Qur’an be written in an artful script, in a manuscript

incorporating gold?

SUMMARY

WHAT WAS the Qur’anic message as expressed to Muhammad?

Origins and Early Development. The Prophet Muhammad (ca. 570–632)
was the founder of Islam. Born in the Arabian commercial city of Mecca,
he was influenced by contact with Arab Christians and with Jews. At about
age 40, he had a religious experience during which, Muslims believe, God’s
messenger angel Gabriel repeatedly performed recitation (qur’an) of God’s
word to him. The message of the Qur’an was (1) social justice and worship
of the one true God are required of every person; (2) at the end of time,
people will be resurrected and judged by God, who will reward or punish
them according to how they have lived; and (3) the proper response to God
is submission (islam) to his will by becoming a muslim (“one who
submits”). page 242
HOW DID the status of women improve under Islam?
Women in Early Islamic Society. Islamic law emphasizes community, and
family is the foundation of community. The Qur’an recognizes many more
rights for women than traditional Arabian custom permitted, but the social
vision expressed in the Qur’an is still fundamentally patriarchal. page 246
WHY WAS Islam able to expand rapidly?
Early Islamic Conquests. By the time of Muhammad’s death, his
followers had conquered all of Arabia. Under his successors, the caliphs,
Muslim Arab armies conquered most of the Near East, North Africa, Spain,
Sasanid Iran, and northwest India. Many of the peoples of these territories
welcomed Islamic rule as liberation from Persian or Byzantine domination
and eventually converted to Islam and became part of the umma, the
community of Islamic believers. page 247
WHAT ROLES did the caliphate and ulama play in Islamic states?
The New Islamic World Order. Disputes over the succession to the
Prophet divided Muslims. The ulama, Islamic religious and legal scholars,
played a prominent part in Islamic society as interpreters of Islamic
tradition and law. Islamic unity and preservation of the community (umma)
withstood the idealistic challenges of the Kharijites and the Shi’ites, largely
thanks to the broad appeal of centrist Sunni interpretations of the faith. page
249
WHY DID the caliphal empire decline?
The High Caliphate. Under the Abbasid caliphs who ruled from the city of
Baghdad, the Islamic Empire began to splinter. Large parts of the empire—
Spain, North Africa, Iran—seceded. Military commanders (emirs) in
Baghdad reduced the caliphs to mere figure-heads by the tenth century.
page 256
WHAT WERE the main achievements of “classical” Islamic culture?
Islamic Culture in the Classical Era. Islamic culture enjoyed its
“classical” phase under the Abbasids. Arabic translations of Greek and
Sanskrit works stimulated progress in astronomy and medicine. Arabic
literature and poetry flourished. As the sacred medium of God’s final
revelation, the Arabic language spread throughout the Islamic world. Arabic
artists and architects built on Greco-Roman, Byzantine, and Persian
traditions to develop a distinctive Islamic style in decoration, painting, and
architecture. page 258

KEY TERMS

caliphate (KAY-liff-AYT)
diwan (dih-WAHN)
emir (ee-MEER)
hadith (ha-DEETH)
Hajj (HADJ)
 hegira (hih-JEYE-rah)
imam (ih-MAHM)
islam
jihad (jih-HAHD)
Ka’ba (KAAH-ba)
mamluk (MAM-look)
qasida (kuh-SEE-duh)
qur’an (koh-RAN)
Shi’a (SHEE-ah)
sultans
sunna (SOO-nah)
ulama (OO-luh-MAAH)
umma (UHM-uh)

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Describe Arabian society before Islam. What were the prime targets
of the Qur’anic message in that society?
2. What are the main features of the Islamic world-view? How do
Islamic ideas about history, salvation, law, social justice, and other
key issues compare to those of Christianity and Judaism?
3. What rights for women did the Qur’an support that were not widely
accepted in Arab society? In what areas can the Qur’an be seen as
limiting women’s rights?
4. What were the primary kinds of leadership in the early Islamic
polities? To what extent was political and religious leadership
separated in different offices and functions?
5. Discuss the conversion of subject populations in the early centuries
of Islamic empire. What were the incentives and obstacles to
conversion?
6. As time passed after Muhammad’s death and Muslim territory
expanded, were Muslims successful in preserving the community
envisioned in the Qur’an? Discuss why or why not.
7. Why were the initial Arab armies so successful?
 8. Why was the imperial caliphal state eclipsed? What were some of
the lasting accomplishments of the Umayyad and Abbasid empires?
9. What are the doctrinal differences between Kharijites, Shi’ites, and
Sunnis? In what sense are Sunnis “centrist”?
10. Discuss the “classical” culture of the golden age of the caliphate.
What role did foreign traditions play in it? What were some of its
prominent achievements?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com
Read and Review
Study and Review Chapter 10
Read the Document
Al-Tabari: Muhammad’s Call to Prophecy, p. 243
Al-Tabari and Ibn Hisham, from “The Founding of the Caliphate,” p. 250
Baghdad: City of Wonders, p. 256
View the Image The Qur’an, p. 244
Research and Explore
See the Map Expansion of Islam, p. 243

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 10 at www.myhistorylab.com
11
The Byzantine Empire and Western
Europe to 1000

Hear the Audio for Chapter 11 at www.myhistorylab.com

Hagia Sophia. One of the greatest achievements of Byzantine civilization,

Hagia Sophia (the Church of Holy Wisdom) was completed in 537 C.E. by
Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus. Circled with numerous
windows, the great dome floods the hall with light and, together with the
church’s many other windows, mosaics, and open spaces, gives the interior
a remarkable airiness and luminosity. After the Turkish conquest of
Constantinople in 1453, Hagia Sophia was transformed into a mosque.

What impression do you get from looking at this space? Do you think
the architects wished to convey this feeling?

THE END OF THE WESTERN ROMAN EMPIRE

HOW DID the Byzantine Empire continue the legacy of the Roman
Empire?

THE IMPACT OF ISLAM ON EAST AND WEST

HOW DID the Islamic world influence medieval Western civilization?

THE DEVELOPING ROMAN CHURCH

WHAT WAS the doctrine of papal primacy?

THE KINGDOM OF THE FRANKS

WHY DID Charlemagne’s empire break up after his death?

FEUDAL SOCIETY

WHAT IS a feudal society?

The early Middle Ages (or early medieval period) marks the birth of
Europe. Greco-Roman culture combined with Germanic culture and an
evolving Christianity to create distinctive political and cultural forms. In
government, religion, and language, what had been the northern and
western provinces of the Roman Empire grew apart from the eastern
Byzantine world and a Mediterranean-based Islamic Arabia.
German tribes had been settling peacefully around the Roman Empire
since the first century B.C.E., but in the fourth century C.E. they began to
migrate directly into it from the north and east. During the fifth century they
turned fiercely against their hosts, largely because the Romans treated them
so cruelly. To the south, Arab dominance transformed the Mediterranean
and challenged Western trade with the East. Western Europe became
insular. Forced to manage by themselves, western Europeans learned to
develop their native resources. The reign of Charlemagne saw a modest
renaissance of antiquity, aided by Byzantium and Arabia. The peculiar
social and political forms that emerged during this period—manorialism
and feudalism—successfully coped with unprecedented chaos on local
levels, while nourishing the growth of distinctively Western institutions.

THE END OF THE WESTERN ROMAN

EMPIRE

HOW DID the Byzantine Empire continue the legacy of the Roman
Empire?

In the early fifth century, Italy and Rome suffered a series of devastating
blows. In 410 the Visigoths sacked Rome. In 452 the Huns, led by Attila—
known to contemporaries as the “scourge of God”—invaded Italy. And in
455 Rome was overrun by the Vandals.
By the mid-fifth century, power in western Europe had passed to
barbarian chieftains. In 476, the traditional date given for the fall of the
Roman Empire, the barbarian Odovacer (ca. 434–493) deposed the last
Western Roman emperor. The Eastern emperor Zeno (r. 474–491)
recognized Odovacer’s authority in the West, and Odovacer acknowledged
Zeno as sole emperor, contenting himself to serve as Zeno’s Western
viceroy. By the end of the fifth century the Ostrogoths had settled in Italy,
the Franks in northern Gaul, the Burgundians in Provence, the Visigoths in
southern Gaul and Spain, the Vandals in Africa and the western
Mediterranean, and the Angles and Saxons in England (see Map 11–1 on
page 266).
 GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES
In western Europe, the centuries between 400 and 1000 witnessed both the
decline of Classical civilization and the birth of a new European
civilization. Beginning with the fifth century, a series of barbarian invasions
separated western Europe culturally from its Classical age. This prolonged
separation was unique to western Europe. Along with the invasions
themselves and the new cultural traits they brought into Europe, it was
pivotal to the development of European civilization. Although some
important works and concepts survived from antiquity due largely to the
Christian church, Western civilization labored for centuries to recover its
rich classical past in “renaissances” stretching into the sixteenth century.
Out of this mixture of barbarian and surviving (or recovered) classical
culture, Western civilization was born. With the aid of a Christian church
eager to restore order and centralized rule, the Carolingians created a new,
albeit fragile, imperial tradition. But Western society remained highly
fragmented politically and economically during the Early Middle Ages.
Meanwhile, many of the world’s other great civilizations of the first
millennium C.E. were peaking.
In China, particularly in the seventh and eighth centuries, Tang Dynasty
rulers also sought ways to secure their borders against foreign expansion,
mainly pastoral nomads. China at this time was far more cosmopolitan and
politically unified than western Europe, and also centuries ahead in
technology. By the tenth century, the Chinese were printing with movable
type, an invention the West did not achieve until the fifteenth century, and
then very likely borrowed in prototype from China. The effective authority
of Chinese rulers extended far beyond their immediate centers of
government. The Tang Dynasty held sway over their empire in a way
Carolingian rulers could only imagine.
In Japan, the Yamato court (300–680), much like the court of the
Merovingians and Carolingians, struggled to unify and control the
countryside. Shintō, a religion friendly to royalty, aided the Yamato. As in
the West, a Japanese identity evolved through struggle and accommodation
with outside cultures, especially with the Chinese, the dominant influence
on Japan between the seventh and twelfth centuries. But foreign cultural
influence, again as in the West, never managed to eradicate the indigenous
culture. By the ninth century a distinctive Sino-Japanese culture existed.
Like western Europe, Japan remained a fragmented land during these
centuries, despite a certain allegiance and willingness to pay taxes to an
imperial court. Throughout Japan, as in western Europe, the basic unit of
political control consisted of highly self-conscious and specially devoted
armed retainers. A system of lordship and vassalage evolved around bands
of local mounted warriors known as samurai. Through this system, local
order was maintained in Japan until the fifteenth century. Like the
Merovingian and Carolingian courts, the Japanese court had to tolerate
strong and independent regional rulers.
While western Europe struggled for political and social order in the
fourth and fifth centuries, Indian civilization basked in a golden age under
the reign of the Guptas (320–467). In this era of peace and stability, when a
vocationally and socially limiting caste system neatly imposed order on
Indian society from Brahmans to outcasts, culture, religion, and politics
flourished.
In the seventh century, Islamic armies emerged from the Arabian
Peninsula, conquered territory from India to Spain by 710, and gave birth to
a powerful new international civilization. Cosmopolitan and culturally
vibrant, this civilization flourished despite the breakdown of Islamic
political unity beginning in the ninth and tenth centuries. Islamic cultural
strides in this era overshadowed the modest cultural renaissance in the West
under Charlemagne.

Focus Questions

What caused the prolonged separation of western European

civilization from its Classical past? What were the consequences of
this separation for western Europe?
Which other society most resembled that of western Europe during
this period? Why?
While western Europe struggled to regain order, unity, and contact
with its Classical past, what was happening in the other great
civilizations of the world?

The barbarians admired Roman culture and had no desire to destroy it.
Except in Britain and northern Gaul, Roman law, government, and language
(Latin) coexisted with the new Germanic institutions. Only the Vandals and
the Anglo-Saxons refused to profess titular obedience to the emperor in
Constantinople.
The Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, and the Vandals were Christians, which
helped them accommodate to Roman culture, but they followed the Arian
creed, which was considered heretical in the West. Around 500, the Franks
converted to the Orthodox, or “Catholic,” form of Christianity supported by
the bishops of Rome. As we will see, the Franks ultimately dominated most
of western Europe, helping convert the Goths and other barbarians to
Roman Christianity.
A gradual interpenetration of two strong cultures—a creative tension—
marked the period of the Germanic migrations. Despite the Western military
defeat, the Goths and the Franks became far more romanized than the
Romans were germanized. Latin language, Nicene Christianity, and
eventually Roman law and government were to triumph in the West during
the Middle Ages.

THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE

Imperial power shifted to the eastern part of the Roman Empire, whose
center was the city of Byzantium (modern-day Istanbul). Between 324 and
330, Emperor Constantine the Great rebuilt and renamed the city after
himself. Constantinople remained the capital of both the old Roman and the
new Byzantine Empires until the eighth century, when Charlemagne
reclaimed the Western Roman Empire’s imperial title. The term Byzantine
refers to the Greek, Hellenistic, Roman, and Judaic monotheistic elements
that distinguish the culture of the East from the Latin West.
The history of the Byzantine Empire has three distinct periods:

1. From the rebuilding of Byzantium as Constantinople in 324, through

an early period of expansion and splendor, to the beginning of the
Arab expansion and the spread of Islam in 632.
2. A time of sustained contraction and splintering, from 632 to the
conquest of Asia Minor by the Saljuq Turks in 1071 or, as some
prefer, to the fall of Constantinople to the Western Crusaders in
1204.
3. From either 1071 or 1204 to the catastrophic fall of Constantinople
to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the end of the empire in the East.
Justinian as Conqueror. A classical ivory carving of Justinian celebrating
his conquests in Italy, North Africa, and West Asia, ca. 500 C.E.

What were some of Justinian’s nonmilitary achievements?

THE REIGN OF JUSTINIAN

The first period of Byzantine history (324–632) was by far its greatest, and
its pinnacle was the reign of the emperor Justinian (r. 527–565). He ruled
with the assistance of his remarkable wife, Theodora. The daughter of a
circus bear trainer, Theodora had allegedly been an entertainer and a
prostitute in her youth. She equaled her husband in intelligence and
exceeded him in toughness. In 532, when a riot threatened to overthrow
their administration, he planned to flee. She convinced him to stay and put
down the rebellion by ordering the slaughter of tens of thousands of
protesters.
MAP EXPLORATION
To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

MAP 11–1. Barbarian Migrations into the West in the Fourth and Fifth
Centuries.

The forceful intrusion of Germanic and non-Germanic tribes into the

empire from the last quarter of the fourth century through the fifth century
made for a constantly changing pattern of movement and relations. The
map shows the major routes taken by the usually unwelcome newcomers
and the areas most deeply affected by the main groups.

Which part of the Roman Empire was least affected by barbarian

migrations?
 View the Image
Emperor Justinian at myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

Reign Justinian: Secret History, Procopius at myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

Prologue, Corpus Civilis, ca. 530 at myhistorylab.com

Under Justinian, the empire’s strength lay in its more than 1,500 cities.
Constantinople was the largest, with perhaps 350,000 inhabitants, and it
was the crossroads of Asian and European cultures. Larger provincial cities
had populations of approximately 50,000. These towns were administered
at first by councils of wealthy local landowners, the Decurions. Being
heavily taxed, these landowners were prone to rebellion. Consequently, by
the sixth century the emperor had replaced them with governors chosen for
their personal loyalty. Tighter central control was justified by the need to
resist barbarian pressures from the north and east.
Justinian’s policy—“one God, one empire, one religion”—was to
centralize government by imposing legal and doctrinal conformity
throughout his domain. To this end he ordered a codification of existing
law. The result was the Corpus Juris Civilis, or “Body of Civil Law,”
organized in four parts. The Code revised imperial edicts issued by
emperors since the reign of Hadrian (r. 117–138). The Novellae, or “New
Things,” dealt with decrees issued by emperors since 534, including
Justinian.

QUICK REVIEW
Justinian Government
Corpus Juris Civilis collated and revised Roman law
Close ties between rulers and church
Empire had many large cities and was the crossroads of Asian and
European civilizations
OVERVIEW Barbarian Invasions of the Western
Roman Empire
The Germanic tribes—the barbarians—who overran the Western Roman
Empire had coexisted with the Romans for centuries in a relationship
marked more by the commingling of cultures and trade than by warfare.
The arrival of the Huns from the east in the late fourth century, however,
caused many of the tribes, beginning with the Visigoths in 376, to flee
westward and seek refuge within the empire. They found the western half of
the empire weakened by famine, disease, high taxation, and an enfeebled
military. The Romans lost control of their frontiers, and in the fifth century,
the tribes overran the West and set up their own domains. The following is a
list of the most important tribes and the areas they controlled by the year
500.
TRIBES AREA OF CONTROL
Anglo-Saxons Most of England
Franks Northeast France
Burgundians Eastern-central France
Alemanni Switzerland
Visigoths Most of Spain and southern France
Suevi Northwest Spain
Vandals North Africa
Ostrogoths Italy, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia

The Digest organized opinions penned by famous jurists, and the Institutes
was a kind of textbook for scholars. Because Roman law emphasized the
authority of a single sovereign, later European rulers found Justinian’s
collection useful when they struggled to centralize power. Between the
Renaissance and the nineteenth century, his code helped shape many
governments.
Empress Theodora and her Attendants ca. 547 C.E. A mosaic from the
Basilica of S. Vitale in Ravenna, Italy.

Was Theodora typical of powerful women in this era? Explain.

MAP 11–2. The Byzantine Empire at the Death of Justinian. The inset
shows the empire in 1025, before its losses to the Seljuk Turks.

How did Justinian attempt to re-create the Roman Empire?

Justinian attempted to regain control of the Western Roman Empire, but

his success was partial and temporary. He reoccupied Italy, North Africa,
and parts of Spain but at a cost that his beleaguered empire could ill afford
(see Map 11–2).
Nomadic Avars, Slavs, and Bulgars invaded the lands north and west of
Constantinople in the sixth and seventh centuries. The Slavs were converted
to Eastern Orthodoxy (Byzantine Christianity) by two learned missionaries
sent from Constantinople: the future Saints Cyril and Methodius. They
created a Greek-based alphabet adapted to writing the Slavic language.
When the Bulgars conquered and absorbed the Slavs, this script was
revised; it is now known as Cyrillic or Old Church Slavonic. It facilitated
the spread of Byzantine Christianity and culture in eastern Europe and
Russia.
During the reign of Emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641), the empire turned
east. Heraclius spoke only Greek, not Latin. He spent his entire reign
resisting Persian and Islamic invasions, the former successfully, the latter in
vain. In 628 he defeated the Persian king Chosroes. After 632, Islamic
armies progressively overran the empire. Not until the reign of Leo III of
the Isaurian Dynasty (r. 717–740) did the Byzantines repel Arab armies and
regain at least most of Asia Minor, but the larger Mediterranean empire was
lost forever. The downsized empire was restructured by creating provincial
strongholds under the direct authority of imperially appointed generals,
allowing a more disciplined and flexible use of military power in time of
crisis.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CONSTANTINOPLE

As the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and an immense commercial
network, Constantinople was vital to the Empire and featured prominently
in the psyche of its neighbors and enemies. The Byzantines claimed that
two-thirds of the world’s wealth was concentrated in their capital.1 Since all
the city’s economic activity was strictly regulated, a large bureaucratic
corpus arose that featured its own aristocracy.2 This class was soon
influential at court and stood counter to the landed nobility, ensuring that
the empire never became a feudal order.
Constantinople’s riches attracted merchants from all over Europe and the
Muslim world. By 1143, Constantinople contained Genoan, Pisan, French,
Venetian, Jewish, and Muslim “quarters,” or areas reserved for the homes
and businesses of outsiders. The existence of such collectives meant that
their sponsor nations developed an active interest in the economic affairs of
the city, while native Byzantines felt betrayed by their government. This
tension affected the political landscape of the entire region. For allowing the
masses to exact bloody retribution on the merchant quarters, Andronicus I
rose to power and eventually usurped the throne.3 Constantinople’s fame
was far-reaching. The Varangian Guard, a fearsome force that served as
palace bodyguards, was composed entirely of Scandinavian and English
soldiers, young men who had left their homelands to seek their fortune in
the “Empress of Cities.” The city suffered numerous sieges in its history,
with each failed attempt only adding to the perceived glory of success.
Constantinople was such an object of fascination to Arab empires that
mystical traditions proclaimed the Muslim conquest of Constantinople as
one of the six portents of ashrat al sa’a, the end of the world.4

Ruins of Constantinople. The walls of the city of Constantinople were

built in the fifth century and were expanded and improved until the fifteenth
century.

What were some of the symbolic roles played by Constantinople?

See the Map

The Byzantine Empire under Justinian at myhistorylab.com

THE HEIGHT OF BYZANTINE IMPERIAL POWER IN THE TENTH

CENTURY
The military reforms of the seventh and eighth centuries allowed the
Byzantine Empire to deal more successfully with its enemies, leading to a
period of stability and peace in the middle of the tenth century. Under rulers
of the Macedonian Dynasty, founded by Basil I (867-886), the eastern
Mediterranean was again under Byzantine control. Bulgarian advances into
Byzantine territory were brought to a halt by the fiercest military emperor
of the dynasty, Basil II (r. 976-1025), known as the “Bulgar-slayer.”
The tenth century became a period of strong imperial rule. Macedonian
rule brought forth a flourishing age of art, culture, and literature personified
in the period’s philosopher-king, Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus
(i.e. “born in the ‘imperial purple’ “), sole ruler from 945 to 959. The
University of Constantinople and the intellectuals who attended this
institution in the eleventh century were products of the Macedonian revival.
They included, most famously, Michael Psellus, the author of The
Chronography, an account of the reigns of fourteen Byzantine emperors
and empresses. Economically speaking, the Macedonian rule was a period
of “state-controlled” growth, when imperial legislation restrained the
growth of large landowners in order to protect small landowners and
peasants.
The military peace that made this revival possible began to dissolve with
the loss of the last stronghold of the Byzantine Empire in the West: Bari, a
town in southern Italy which fell to the Norman kings of France in 1071. In
the same year, Muslim Saljuq Turks destroyed the imperial army at the
battle of Manzikert in 1071 and overran Anatolia, the heartland from which
Constantinople recruited its soldiers. Thereafter, the Byzantine Empire was
forced to fight against enemies on two fronts, while it continued to serve as
a bastion of the religious and cultural heritage of the West.
After two decades of steady Turkish advances, the Eastern emperor
Alexius I Comnenus (r. 1081–1118) called for Western aid in 1092. Three
years later, the West launched the first Crusade. A century later (1204), the
Fourth Crusade stopped in Constantinople en route to Jerusalem, but not to
rescue the Eastern capital; Latin Crusaders inflicted more damage on
Eastern Christendom’s holy city than all previous non-Christian invaders
had done. (See Chapter 15.)

See the Map

Byzantium 1000–1100 at myhistorylab.com

THE RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY OF CHRISTENDOM

Religious belief alternately served and undermined imperial political unity.
In 391, Christianity became the official faith of the Eastern Empire, while
all other religions and sects were deemed “demented and insane.” The
patriarch of Constantinople crowned Byzantine emperors. Patriarchs in
other cities received generous endowments of land and gold from rich
donors, empowering the church to act as the state’s welfare agency. Great
wealth and prestige bound the clergy tightly to state service.
Christianity was the dominant faith, but large numbers of Jews lived
within the Byzantine Empire. Roman law had protected them, so long as
they did not proselytize Christians, but some Byzantine emperors tried to
induce or to compel their conversion to Christianity. Neither approach was
successful.
Although the state religion was Orthodox Christianity, some Christian
heresies attracted large followings and occasionally received imperial
support. Justinian, for instance, was passionately orthodox, but Theodora
was a Monophysite, a variant of the faith that was popular in the East.
Monophysites taught that Christ had a single, immortal nature and was not a
union of eternal God and mortal man. Byzantine art portrays Christ, a self-
same person with God, as impassive and transcendent, not as a suffering
mortal man. The modern Coptic, Syrian, and Armenian churches endorse
this belief. It was condemned as a heresy in the West in 451.
Virgin and Child with Saints and Angels. A sixth-century icon of the
Virgin and Child surrounded by warrior saints (Theodore on the left;
George on the right) and wary angels. A rare survivor of eighth-century
iconoclasm.

What is iconoclasm?
Eastern and Western theologians also disagreed on whether the Holy
Spirit proceeded from both the Son and the Father. This dispute dates back
to the first Ecumenical Council in Nicaea (modern Iznik, a city in western
Turkey) convened in 325. There the council established ‘The Orthodox
Creed’ also known as ‘The Nicene Creed.’ It was adopted with certain
changes by the ecumenical council of Constantinople (381) and by
subsequent ecumenical councils of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
According to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, the Holy Spirit
proceeded from the Father alone, unlike the post-sixth century versions
accepted by the Western Church, which included the phrase “from the Son”
(filioque). (See Document, “The Nicene Creed.”)

DOCUMENT
 The Nicene Creed
The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed is the first official pronouncement of
the Christian belief system and the first official definition of the Christian
“orthodox” faith. As such, the creed distinguished orthodox belief or
“correct” belief, from heretical versions.

• THE NICENE Creed emphasizes the two natures of Christ. Which

“unorthodox” beliefs does this document aim to uproot?
Historically, how did the controversy surrounding the term filioque
arise? Please discuss the significance of the term starting from the
Nicene Creed.

“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible
and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only
begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of
Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance
with the Father. By whom all things were made, both which [are] in heaven
and in earth. Who for us men and for our salvation came down [from
heaven] and was incarnate and was made man. He suffered and the third
day he rose again, and ascended into heaven. And he shall come again to
judge both the quick and the dead. And [we believe] in the Holy Ghost.
And whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was
not, or that before he was begotten he was not, or that he was made of
things that were not, or that he is of a different substance or essence [from
the Father] or that he is a creature, or subject to change or [convert] - all
that say so the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes them.
Source: Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., The Seven Ecumenical Councils, vol. 14, A Select
Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids, MI, 1957).

Some scholars perceive here a hidden political concern: By protecting the

unity and majesty of the Father, Eastern theology was safeguarding the
unity and majesty of the emperor himself, from whom all power on earth
was believed properly to flow. The Eastern emperors claimed absolute
sovereignty, both secular and religious. They practiced Caesaropapism, or
the emperor acting as if he held authority over the church as well as over his
kingdom. By comparison, the West nurtured a separation of church and
state that began to flower in the eleventh century.
A dispute over the use of sacred images (icons) in worship, which
erupted in the eighth century, further divided the East and West. In 726,
Emperor Leo III (r. 717–741) forbade the use of images and icons by all
Christians. His intention may have been to weaken the monastic owners of
popular icons and to court populations influenced by Muslim and Jewish
contempt for image worshipers. At any rate, his attack on traditional
practices shocked the West and helped drive the Roman popes into an
alliance with Europe’s strongest emerging rulers, the Frankish kings.
Constantinople underwent a spate of iconoclasm (destruction of icons) but
reversed itself in the mid-ninth century and restored respect for sacred
images.
The Eastern church rejected several requirements of Roman Christianity.
It denied the existence of Purgatory; permitted lay divorce and remarriage;
allowed priests, but not bishops, to marry; and embraced vernacular
liturgies in place of Greek and Latin. In these matters Eastern Christians
gained opportunities and rights Christians in the West would not enjoy until
at least the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.

Read the Document

Epitome Iconoclastic Seventh Synod, 754 at myhistorylab.com

Having accumulated for centuries, differences between the Eastern and

Roman churches finally resulted in a schism in 1054. The pope’s envoy,
Cardinal Humbertus, who was sent to Constantinople to try to resolve some
of the points in contention, excommunicated his Eastern colleagues, and
they in turn condemned the West. The result was a breach that remained
until 1965, when a Roman pope and the patriarch of Constantinople met to
revoke the mutual condemnations of 1054.

THE IMPACT OF ISLAM ON EAST AND

WEST
 HOW DID the Islamic world influence medieval Western civilization?

A new drama began to unfold in the sixth century with the rise of Islam (see
Chapter 10). Emperors in Constantinople struggled with invading Arab
armies. Unlike Germanic invaders, who absorbed and adapted Roman
culture and religion, the Arabs ultimately imposed their own culture and
religion on the lands they conquered.
An Arab-Berber army under Tariq ibn Ziyad (Gibraltar, “mountain of
Tariq,” is named after him) conquered Visigothic Spain in 711, beginning a
700-year reign in what is today Andalusia. By the middle of the eighth
century Arabs were masters of the southern and eastern Mediterranean
coastline, territories today held, for the most part, by Islamic states. Muslim
armies also pushed north and east through Mesopotamia and Persia and
beyond. The Muslim conquerors generally tolerated Christians and Jews,
provided they paid taxes and made no efforts to proselytize Muslim
communities. The Arabs forbade mixed marriages and any conscious
cultural interchange. Special taxes on conquered peoples encouraged them
to convert to Islam.
Assaulted from East and West, Christian Europe developed a lasting fear
and suspicion of the Muslims. Eventually, Byzantine Emperor Leo III (r.
717–740) stopped Arab armies at Constantinople after a year’s siege (717–
718). In subsequent centuries the Byzantines further secured their borders
and for a time expanded militarily and commercially into Muslim lands. In
the West, the Franks under Charles Martel defeated a raiding party of Arabs
on the western frontier of the Frankish kingdom near Tours (today in central
France) in 732, ending the possibility of Arab expansion into the heart of
Europe. The Mediterranean remained something of a “Muslim lake” during
the High Middle Ages, and the center of the evolving western European
civilization shifted north. Yet positive contact and influence continued
between Muslims and Christians. Western trade with the East continued to
be of great importance to the Carolingians.

BYZANTIUM’S CONTRIBUTION TO ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION

The Islamic Empire found itself face to face with Byzantium: An
astonishingly vital, young phenomenon confronted what then seemed to be
an exhausted, ancient empire. A sequence of Islamic invasions and sieges
did not, however, destroy the Byzantines, and eventually borders between
the two empires were more or less established.
With the slowdown of Muslim expansion, commerce and exchange with
Byzantium intensified. The caliphates of Islam regarded Byzantium as a
model. The splendor of court culture and ceremony was adopted from the
Byzantines with the intent to intimidate and impress; Byzantine architecture
and craftsmanship were much admired; and Byzantine art and iconography
formed a foundation for later Arab illuminations and artwork.5
Arab empire-builders were curious about earlier peoples and wished to
associate themselves with an older tradition of authority. In the Byzantines,
they saw the greatest challenge to the legitimacy of the Islamic Empire. The
Muslims also wanted to understand their faith in intellectual terms. From
these diverse motives there developed considerable interest in Ancient
Greek learning, particularly in works on logic, philosophy, and medicine. A
great deal of translation was underway by the ninth century, facilitated by
such learned figures as the Caliph Ma’mun.6 Texts were acquired from
Byzantium; commentaries by Arab scholars noted that Christianity had
suppressed the study of these same works for religious reasons.

THE WESTERN DEBT TO ISLAM

Arab invasions and presence in the Mediterranean area during the Early
Middle Ages contributed both directly and indirectly to the formation of
western Europe. They did so indirectly by driving west Europeans back
onto their native tribal and inherited Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman, and
Byzantine resources, from which they created a Western culture of their
own. Also, by diverting the attention and energies of the Byzantine Empire
during the formative centuries, the Arabs prevented it from expanding into
western Europe. That allowed two Germanic peoples to gain ascendancy:
first the Franks and then the Lombards, who invaded Italy in the sixth
century and settled in the Po valley.
Despite hostilities between the Christian West and the Muslim world,
there was creative interchange between them, with the West having the
most to gain. Arab civilizations were enjoying their golden age. Between
the eighth and tenth centuries, Moorish Córdoba was a model multicultural
city embracing Arabs, Berbers, Spanish Christian converts to Islam, and
native Jews. The Arabs taught Western farmers how to irrigate fields and
Western artisans how to tan leather and refine silk. The West also gained
from its contacts with Arabic scholars. Ancient Greek works on astronomy,
mathematics, and medicine became available in Latin translation, thanks to
the Arabs. Down to the sixteenth century, the basic gynecological and child-
care manuals guiding the work of Western midwives and physicians were
compilations made by the Baghdad physician Al-Razi (Rhazes), the
philosopher and physician Ibn-Sina (Avicenna) (980–1037), and Ibn Rushd
(Averröes) (1126–1198), who was also Islam’s greatest authority on
Aristotle. Jewish scholars made important contributions; the great Moses
Maimonides (1135–1204) wrote in both Arabic and Hebrew. The Arabs,
exceptional poets, gave the West its most popular book, the folk tales of The
Arabian Nights.

THE DEVELOPING ROMAN CHURCH

WHAT WAS the doctrine of papal primacy?

Throughout the period of imperial decline, Germanic invasions, and Islamic

expansion, one Western institution remained firmly entrenched and gained
in strength: the Christian church. The church sought to organize itself
according to the centralized, hierarchical administrative structure of the
empire, with strategically placed “viceroys” (bishops) in European cities
who looked for spiritual direction to their leader, the bishop of Rome (later
pope). As the Western Empire crumbled, local bishops and cathedral
chapters (ruling bodies of clergy) filled the vacuum of authority. The local
cathedral became the center of urban life and the local bishop the highest
authority for those who remained in the cities. In Rome, on a larger and
more fateful scale, the pope took control of the city as the Western emperors
gradually departed and died out. Western Europe soon discovered that the
Christian church was its best repository of Roman administrative skills and
classical culture.
 The Christian church had been graced with special privileges, great
lands, and wealth by Emperor Constantine, whose Edict of Milan in 313
gave Christians a favored status within the empire. In 380 Emperors
Theodosius I (r. ca. 379–395) and Gratian I (r. 367–383) raised Christianity
to the official religion of the empire. Both Theodosius and his predecessors
acted as much for political effect as out of religious conviction; in 313
Christians composed about one-fifth of the population of the empire,
making Christianity the strongest among the empire’s competing religions.
Mithraism, a religion popular among army officers and restricted to males,
was its main rival.
The church could act as a potent civilizing and unifying force. It had a
religious message of providential purpose and individual worth that could
give solace and meaning to life at its worst. It had a ritual of baptism and a
creedal confession that united people beyond the traditional barriers of
social class, education, and gender. And alone in the West, the church
retained an effective hierarchical administration, staffed by the best
educated minds in Europe and centered in emperorless Rome.
Religious Diversity. A Muslim and a Christian play the ud or lute together,
from a thirteenth-century Book of Chants in the Escorial Monastery of
Madrid. Medieval Europe was deeply influenced by Arab-Islamic culture,
transmitted particularly through Spain. Some of the many works in Arabic
on musical theory were translated into Latin and Hebrew, but the main
influence on music came from the arts of singing and playing spread by
minstrels.

A Moor and a Christian playing the lute, miniature in a book of music from
the “Cantigas” of Alfonso X “the Wise” (1221–1284). Thirteenth century
(manuscript). Monastero de El Escorial, El Escorial, Spain/index/bridgeman
Art Library.

What kinds of exchanges took place between Muslims and western

Europeans during the Middle Ages?

MONASTIC CULTURE
Monastic culture proved again and again to be the peculiar strength of the
church during the Middle Ages. The first monks were hermits, such as
Anthony of Egypt (ca. 251–356), who felt compelled to withdraw from
society and give up all worldly attachments to pursue a purely spiritual life.
So many people were attracted to the hermits’ movement that communal
organizations had to be devised to serve them. The monastic life, which was
guided by the biblical “counsels of perfection” (chastity, poverty, and
obedience), came to be regarded as the purest form of religious practice.
Basil the Great (329–379), whose rule (regulations to govern a monastery)
spread widely throughout the East, urged monks to leave their protected
enclaves and serve the needs of others by caring for orphans, widows, and
the infirm.
The great organizer of Western monasticism was Benedict of Nursia (ca.
480–547). In 529 he established a monastery at Monte Cassino, in Italy,
founding the form of monasticism—Benedictine—that quickly came to
dominate in the West. Benedict wrote a sophisticated Rule for Monasteries,
a comprehensive plan that both regimented and enriched monastic life.
Benedictine monasteries were hierarchically organized and directed by an
abbot. Periods of study and religious devotion (about four hours each day of
prayers and liturgical activities) alternated with manual labor (up to eight
hours, including copying manuscripts)—a program that carefully promoted
the religious, intellectual, and physical well-being of the monks. During the
Early Middle Ages Benedictine missionaries Christianized both England
and Germany. Their disciplined organization and devotion to hard work
made the Benedictines an economic and political power as well as a
spiritual force wherever they settled.

QUICK REVIEW
Monasticism
First monks, like Anthony of Egypt, were hermits
Basil the Great encouraged service
Benedict of Nursia developed hierarchical, self-sufficient
monasteries
Monks were disciplined, respected by public

THE DOCTRINE OF PAPAL PRIMACY

Constantine and the Eastern emperors looked on the church as little more
than a department of the state. The bishops of Rome, however, opposed
royal intervention. Taking advantage of imperial weakness and distraction,
they developed the doctrine of “papal primacy,” which raised the bishop of
Rome to an unassailable supremacy within the church. As the “pope,” he
was both head of the Roman Catholic Church and Christ’s vicar on earth,
continuing the line of Christ’s apostles from St. Peter. The new title put him
in a position to claim power within the secular world, giving rise to
repeated conflicts between church and state throughout the Middle Ages.

Read the Document

St. Benedict’s Rules for Monks at myhistorylab.com

Pope Damasus I (366–384) laid the foundation for papal claims to

absolute authority by asserting Rome’s apostolic primacy. He pointed to
Jesus’ words to Peter in the Gospel of Matthew (16:18): “Thou art Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my church.” Because tradition maintained
that Peter was the first bishop of Rome and that he died there, Damasus
insisted that Rome’s popes, Peter’s successors, were heirs to the role Jesus
had decreed for Peter. Pope Leo I (440–461) assumed the title pontifex
maximus—“supreme priest”—and laid claim to a “plenitude of power,”
supremacy over all other bishops in the church. Pope Gelasius I (492–496)
stated that the authority of the clergy was “more weighty” than the power of
kings, for priests were given charge over divine affairs.

apostolic primacy
The doctrine that the popes are the direct successors to the Apostle Peter
and, as such, heads of the church.

plenitude of power
The teaching that the popes have power over all other bishops of the
church.

Read the Document

Pope Leo I on Bishop Hilary of Arles at myhistorylab.com

DIVISION OF CHRISTENDOM
The division of Christendom into Eastern (Byzantine) and Western (Roman
Catholic) churches has its roots in the Early Middle Ages and was due in
part to linguistic and cultural differences. In East and West, church
organization closely followed that of the secular state. A novel combination
of Greek, Roman, and Asian elements shaped Byzantine culture, giving
Eastern Christianity a stronger mystical dimension than Western
Christianity. This difference in outlook may have predisposed Eastern
patriarchs to submit more passively than Western popes ever could to royal
intervention in their affairs.
Differences in doctrine and practice were exacerbated when the Eastern
and Western churches both claimed jurisdiction over newly converted areas
in the northern Balkans. Beyond these issues, three major factors lay behind
the religious break between East and West. The first revolved around
questions of doctrinal authority. The Eastern church put more stress on the
authority of the Bible and the ecumenical councils of the church in the
definition of Christian doctrine than on the counsel and decrees of the
bishop of Rome. The claims of Roman popes to a special primacy of
authority were unacceptable to the East, where regional churches were
independent and autonomous. This basic issue of authority lay behind the
mutual excommunication of Pope Nicholas I and Patriarch Photius in the
ninth century, and that of Pope Leo IX (through his ambassador to
Constantinople, Cardinal Humbert) and Patriarch Michael Cerularius in
1054.
A second major issue in the separation of the two churches was the
Western addition of the filioque clause to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan
Creed. According to this anti-Arian clause, the Holy Spirit proceeds “also
from the Son” (filioque) as well as from the Father, making clear the
Western belief that Christ was fully of one essence with God the Father and
not a lesser being.

CHRONOLOGY

MAJOR POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS OF THE

EARLY MIDDLE AGES
 The third factor was the iconoclastic controversy of the first half of the
eighth century. As noted earlier, after 725 the Byzantine emperor Leo III (r.
717–741) attempted to force Western popes to abolish the use of images in
their churches. This stand met fierce official and popular resistance. To
punish the West, Leo confiscated valuable papal lands. This direct challenge
to the papacy coincided with a threat to Rome and the Western church from
the Lombards of northern Italy. Assailed on two fronts, the Roman papacy
seemed doomed. But the papacy has been one of the most resilient and
enterprising institutions in Western history. In 754 Pope Stephen II (r. 752–
757) formed an alliance with the Franks’ ruler, Pepin III, to defend the
church against the Lombards and to serve as a Western counterweight to the
Eastern emperor. This marriage of religion and politics created a new
Western church and empire and determined much of the course of Western
history thereafter.

THE KINGDOM OF THE FRANKS

WHY DID Charlemagne’s empire break up after his death?

MEROVINGIANS AND CAROLINGIANS: FROM CLOVIS TO CHARLEMAGNE

Clovis and his successors gave the Franks a major role in the recovery of
western Europe. The territory under their control included modern France,
Belgium, the Netherlands, and western Germany. In attempting to govern
this extensive kingdom, the Merovingians encountered the most persistent
problem of medieval political history—the competing claims of the “one”
and the “many,” the struggle of a lone king to impose centralized
government on local magnates.
The Merovingian kings addressed this problem by making pacts with the
landed nobility and by creating the royal office of count. The counts were
men without possessions to whom the king gave great lands in the
expectation that they would be loyal officers. But once established in office,
the Merovingian counts became territorial rulers in their own right. The
Frankish kingdom progressively fragmented into independent regions and
tiny principalities. The Frankish custom of dividing the kingdom equally
among the king’s legitimate male heirs only made matters worse. By the
seventh century, the Frankish king lacked effective executive power. Real
power was concentrated in the office of the Mayor of the Palace, who was
the spokesman at the king’s court for the great landowners. Through this
office, the Carolingian dynasty rose to power.
The Carolingians took their name from the dynasty’s greatest ruler,
Carolus (later to be known as Charlemagne). They controlled the office of
the Mayor of the Palace for over one hundred years, starting with Pepin I,
who died in 639. Pepin II (d. 714) ruled in fact, if not in title, over the
Frankish kingdom. His illegitimate son, Charles Martel (“the Hammer,” d.
741), created a great cavalry by bestowing lands known as benefices or fiefs
on powerful nobles, who, in return, agreed to be ready to serve as the king’s
army. It was such an army that checked the Arabs at Tours in 732. Then,
with the enterprising connivance of the pope, the Carolingians simply
expropriated the Frankish crown in 751.

fief
Land granted to a vassal in exchange for services, usually military.

QUICK REVIEW

Merovingians
Frankish dynasty founded by Clovis
Created royal office of count
Fragmentation of kingdom
Mayor of the Palace gained power

The fiefs so generously bestowed by Charles Martel to create his army

came in large part from landed property that he usurped from the church.
His alliance with the landed aristocracy permitted the Carolingians to have
some measure of political success where the Merovingians had failed. The
Carolingians created counts almost entirely out of the landed nobility from
which the Carolingians themselves had risen. The Merovingians, in
contrast, had tried to compete directly with these great aristocrats by raising
the landless to power. By playing to strength rather than challenging it, the
Carolingians strengthened themselves, at least for the short term. The
church, by this time dependent on the protection of the Franks against the
Eastern emperor and the Lombards, had no choice but to tolerate the seizure
of its lands. Later, the Franks partially compensated the church for the
lands.
The church played a large and enterprising role in the Frankish
government. By Carolingian times, monasteries were a dominant force.
Their intellectual achievements made them respected repositories of culture.
Their religious teaching and example imposed order on surrounding
populations. Their relics and rituals made them magical shrines to which
pilgrims came in great numbers. Thanks to their donated lands and serf
labor, many had become very profitable farms and landed estates. By
Merovingian times, the higher clergy were already employed in tandem
with counts as royal agents. It was the policy of the Carolingians to use the
church to pacify conquered neighboring tribes—Frisians, Thuringians,
Bavarians, and especially the Franks’ archenemies, the Saxons.
Conversion to Nicene Christianity became an integral part of the
successful annexation of conquered lands and people; the cavalry broke
bodies, while the clergy won hearts and minds. The Anglo-Saxon
missionary Saint Boniface (b. Wynfrith, ca. 680–754) was the most
important of the German clergy who served Carolingian kings in this way.
Christian bishops in missionary districts and elsewhere became lords,
appointed by and subject to the king—an ominous integration of secular
and religious policy in which lay the seeds of the later Investiture
Controversy of the eleventh and twelfth centuries (see Chapter 15).
The church helped the Carolingians with more than territorial expansion.
Pope Zacharias (r. 741–752) sanctioned Pepin the Short’s termination of the
vestigial Merovingian Dynasty and the Carolingian accession to kingship of
the Franks. According to legend, Saint Boniface annointed Pepin, thereby
investing Frankish rule with a sacral character from the start.
Zacharias’s successor, Pope Stephen II (r. 752–757), appealed directly to
Pepin when he was driven from Rome in 753 by the Lombards. In 754 the
Franks and the church formed an alliance against the Lombards and the
Eastern emperor, whose power was greater than the Franks’ power in
central Italy at the time. Carolingian kings became the protectors of the
Catholic Church and thereby “kings by the grace of God.” Pepin gained the
title patricius Romanorum, “father-protector of the Romans,” a title
heretofore borne only by the representative of the Eastern emperor. In 755
the Franks defeated the Lombards and gave the pope the lands surrounding
Rome, creating what came to be known as the Papal States. During this
time the papacy began to circulate a fraudulent document, Donation of
Constantine, which was intended to prove to the Franks that the church was
the heir to the legacy of Rome’s empire. It was exposed as a forgery in the
fifteenth century.

Papal States
Territory in central Italy ruled by the pope until 1870.

The papacy had looked to the Franks for an ally strong enough to protect
it from the Eastern emperors. It is an irony of history that the church found
in the Carolingian Dynasty a Western imperial government that drew almost
as slight a boundary between state and church as did Eastern emperors.
Although preferable to Eastern domination, Carolingian patronage of the
church proved to be no less constraining.

REIGN OF CHARLEMAGNE (768–814)

Charlemagne, the son of Pepin the Short, continued the role of his father as
papal protector in Italy and his policy of territorial conquest in the north.
After defeating the Lombards of northern Italy in 774, Charlemagne took
the title “King of the Lombards.” He subjugated surrounding pagan tribes,
foremost among them the Saxons, and brought the Danubian plains into the
Frankish orbit by the virtual annihilation of the Avars, a tribe related to the
Huns. The Arabs were chased beyond the Pyrenees. By the time of his
death on January 28, 814, Charlemagne’s kingdom embraced modern
France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, almost the whole of Germany,
much of Italy, a portion of Spain, and the island of Corsica (see Map 11–3,
on page 278).
Encouraged by ambitious advisers, Charlemagne reached to be a
universal emperor. His sacred palace city, Aachen (in French, Aix-la-
Chapelle), was constructed in conscious imitation of the courts of the
ancient Roman and the contemporary Eastern emperors. Although he
permitted the church its independence, he looked after it paternalistically.
He used the church above all to promote social stability and hierarchical
order throughout the kingdom. Frankish Christians were ceremoniously
baptized, professed the Nicene Creed (with the filioque clause), and learned
in church to revere Charlemagne.

QUICK REVIEW
Church and State
Church played a large role in the Frankish government
Christian bishops became lords in service of the king
Papacy looked to Franks for protection from the Eastern emperors
MAP 11–3. The Empire of Charlemagne to 814. Building on the
successes of his predecessors, Charlemagne greatly increased the Frankish
domains. Such traditional enemies as the Saxons and the Lombards fell
under his sway.

How does the extent of Charlemagne’s empire compare with that of the
ancient western Roman Empire?

See the Map

Charlemagne’s Empire, 814 at myhistorylab.com

Charlemagne realized his imperial pretensions on Christmas Day 800,

when Pope Leo III (795–816) crowned him emperor. This event created
what would later be called the Holy Roman Empire, a revival, based after
870 in Germany, of the old Roman Empire in the West. The coronation
benefited both the church and Charlemagne. Before his coronation, he had
been a minor Western potentate in the eyes of Eastern emperors; afterward,
Eastern emperors recognized his imperial dignity.
Charlemagne stood six feet, three and one half inches tall—a fact
confirmed when his tomb was opened and exact measurements of his
remains were taken in 1861. He was restless, ever ready for a hunt.
Informal and gregarious, he insisted on the presence of friends even when
he bathed and was widely known for his practical jokes, lusty good humor,
and warm hospitality. People and gifts came to Aachen from all over the
world; in 802, Charlemagne received a white elephant from the caliph of
Baghdad, Harun-al-Rashid.
Charlemagne had five official wives in succession, and many mistresses
and concubines, and he sired numerous children. This created problems. His
oldest son by his first marriage, Pepin, was jealous of the attention
Charlemagne showed to the sons of his second wife. Fearing the loss of
paternal favor, Pepin joined a conspiracy against his father. He spent the
rest of his life in confinement in a monastery after the plot was exposed.
 Charlemagne governed his kingdom through counts, of whom there were
perhaps as many as 250. Each count had three main duties: to maintain a
local army loyal to the king, to collect tribute and dues, and to administer
justice throughout his district. This last responsibility was undertaken
through a district law court known as the mallus, which heard testimony
from the parties involved in a dispute or crime, passed judgment, and
assessed a monetary compensation to be paid to the injured party. In cases
where guilt or innocence was unclear, recourse was often taken to judicial
duels or “divine” tests and ordeals. Among these was the length of time a
defendant’s hand took to heal after immersion in boiling water.
As in Merovingian times, many counts used their official position and
new judicial powers to their own advantage. As they grew stronger and
more independent, they came to regard the land grants with which they
were paid as hereditary positions rather than generous royal donations. This
development signaled the impending fragmentation of Charlemagne’s
kingdom.
Charlemagne never solved the loyalty problem. Ecclesiastical agents
proved no better than secular ones; except for their attendance to the liturgy
and to church prayers, landowning bishops were largely indistinguishable
from the lay nobility. Charlemagne sensed—rightly, as the Gregorian
reform of the eleventh century would prove—that the emergence of a
distinctive and reform-minded class of ecclesiastical landowners would be a
danger to royal government. Charlemagne purposefully treated his bishops
as he treated his counts, that is, as vassals who served at the king’s pleasure.
Charlemagne. An equestrian figure of Charlemagne (or possibly one of his
sons) from the early ninth century.

Bronze equestrian statuette of Charlemagne, 3/4 view, from Metz Cathedral,

ninth–tenth century. Louvre, Paris, France. Copyright Bridgeman-
Giraudon/Art Resource, New York.

Would you consider Charlemagne a successful leader? Why or why

not?

Read the Document

Life of Charlemagne (early ninth century) Einhard, at myhistorylab.com

Charlemagne used his wealth to attract Europe’s best scholars to Aachen.

Theodulf of Orleans (d. 821), Angilbert (d. 814), and Charlemagne’s
biographer Einhard (ca. 770–840) developed court culture and education.
The renowned Anglo-Saxon master Alcuin of York (735–804), who became
director of the king’s palace school in 782, brought classical and Christian
learning to Aachen and was handsomely rewarded for his efforts with
several wealthy monastic estates. Although Charlemagne appreciated
learning for its own sake, he also intended to upgrade the administrative
skills of the royal bureaucracy. By preparing the sons of nobles to run the
religious and secular offices of the realm, court scholarship served kingdom
building. With its special concentration on grammar, logic, rhetoric, and
basic mathematics, the school provided training in the basic tools of
bureaucracy. Charlemagne’s scholars created a new, clear style of
handwriting—Carolingian minuscule—and fostered the use of accurate
Latin in official documents, developments that helped increase lay literacy.
Charlemagne’s sister Gisela oversaw the copying of classical manuscripts,
thereby preserving the treasures of antiquity. Through personal
correspondence and visitations, Alcuin created a community of scholars and
clerics at court and infused administration with a sense of comradeship and
common purpose. A modest renaissance, or rebirth, of antiquity occurred in
the palace school as scholars collected and preserved ancient manuscripts.
Alcuin worked on a correct text of the Bible and made editions of the
monastic Rule of Saint Benedict. These scholarly activities served official
efforts to bring uniformity to church law and liturgy, educate the clergy, and
improve moral life within the monasteries.
The agrarian economy of the Middle Ages was organized and controlled
through village farms known as manors. Peasants labored as farmers in
subordination to a lord, a more powerful landowner who gave them land
and a dwelling in exchange for their services and a portion of their crops.
That part of the land farmed by the peasants for the lord was the demesne,
which on average made up about one-quarter to one-third of the arable land.
All crops grown there were harvested for the lord.

manors
Village farms owned by a lord.

demesne
The part of a manor that was cultivated directly for the lord of the manor.
Plowing the Fields. The invention of the moldboard plow greatly improved
farming. The heavy plow cut deeply into the ground and furrowed it. This
illustration from the Luttrell Psalter (ca. 1340) also shows that the traction
harness, which lessened the strangulation effect of the yoke on the animals,
had not yet been adopted. Indeed, one of the oxen seems to be on the verge
of choking.

What other improvements in farming practice occurred during this

period?
Peasants were treated according to their social status and the size of their
landholdings. A freeman—that is, a peasant with hereditary property
(property free from the claims of an overlord)—became a serf by
surrendering his property to a greater landowner (a lord) in exchange for
protection and assistance. The free serf received his land back from the lord
with a clear definition of his economic and legal rights. Although the land
was no longer his property, he had full possession and use of it, and the
number of services and amount of goods he was to supply to the lord were
carefully spelled out. Peasants who entered the service of a lord with little
real property to bargain with (perhaps only a few farm implements and
animals) ended up as unfree serfs and were much more vulnerable to the
lord’s demands, spending up to three days a week working the lord’s fields.
Truly impoverished peasants who lived and worked on the manor as serfs
had the lowest status and were the least protected.
serfs
Peasants tied to the land they tilled.

Serfs were subject to so-called dues in kind: firewood for cutting the
lord’s wood, sheep for grazing their sheep on the lord’s land, and the like.
Thus the lord, who for his part furnished shacks and small plots of land
from his vast domain, had at his disposal an army of servants who provided
him with everything from eggs to boots. That many serfs were discontented
is reflected in the high number of recorded escapes. An astrological
calendar from the period marks the days most favorable for escaping.
Fugitive serfs roamed the land as beggars and vagabonds, searching for new
and better masters.

QUICK REVIEW
Serfs
Status varied: free and unfree
All owed dues in kind to the lord of the manor
Much discontent, many escaped

By the time of Charlemagne, the moldboard plow, which was especially

needed in northern Europe where the soil was heavy, and the three-field
system of land cultivation were coming into use. These developments
greatly improved agricultural productivity. Unlike the older “scratch” plow,
which crisscrossed the field with only slight penetration, the moldboard cut
deep into the soil and turned it to form a ridge, providing a natural drainage
system for the field as well as permitting the deep planting of seeds. Unlike
the earlier two-field system of crop rotation, which simply alternated fallow
with planted fields each year, the three-field system increased the amount
of cultivated land by leaving only one-third fallow in a given year.

three-field system A medieval innovation that increased the amount of land

under cultivation by leaving only one-third fallow in a given year.

As owners of the churches on their lands, the lords had the right to raise
chosen serfs to the post of parish priest, placing them in charge of the
churches on the lords’ estates. Church law directed the lord to set a serf free
before he entered the clergy, but lords preferred a “serf priest,” one who not
only said the Mass on Sundays and holidays but also continued to serve his
lord during the week. Like Charlemagne with his bishops, Frankish lords
cultivated a docile parish clergy.
Ordinary people baptized themselves and their children, confessed the
Creed Mass, tried to learn the Lord’s Prayer, and received last rites from the
priest when death approached. Local priests were no better educated than
their congregations, and instruction in the meaning of Christian doctrine
and practice remained minimal. People became particularly attached to the
more tangible veneration of relics and saints. Charlemagne shared many of
the religious beliefs of his ordinary subjects: He collected and venerated
relics, made pilgrimages to Rome, frequented the church of Saint Mary in
Aachen several times a day, and directed in his last will and testament that
much of his great treasure be spent to endow Masses and prayers for his
departed soul.

BREAKUP OF THE CAROLINGIAN KINGDOM

Late in life, an ailing Charlemagne knew that his empire was ungovernable.
The seeds of dissolution lay in regionalism. In medieval society, a direct
relationship existed between physical proximity to authority and loyalty to
authority. Local people obeyed local lords more readily than they obeyed a
glorious but distant king. Charlemagne had been forced to recognize and
even to enhance the power of regional magnates in order to win needed
financial and military support.
The Carolingian kings did not give up easily, however. Charlemagne’s
only surviving son and successor, Louis the Pious (r. 814–840), had three
sons by his first wife. Louis acted early in his reign to break the tradition of
dividing his kingdom equally among his sons. Instead, Louis made his
eldest son, Lothar (d. 855), co-regent and sole imperial heir in 817. He gave
Lothar’s brothers important but much lesser assigned hereditary lands:
Pepin (d. 838) became king of Aquitaine and Louis “the German” (d. 876)
became king of Bavaria.
In 823 Louis’s second wife, Judith of Bavaria, bore him a fourth son,
Charles (d. 877). Determined that her son should receive more than just a
nominal inheritance, the queen incited the brothers Pepin and Louis to war
against Lothar and persuaded their father to divide the kingdom equally. As
the bestower of crowns upon emperors, the pope had an important stake in
the preservation of the revived Western Empire and the imperial title, so the
pope condemned Louis and restored Lothar to his original magnificent
inheritance. But this stirred the resentments of Lothar’s brothers, including
his half-brother, Charles, who joined in renewed war against him.
In 843, with the Treaty of Verdun, peace finally came to Louis’s
surviving heirs (Pepin had died in 838). The great Carolingian Empire was
partitioned into three equal parts. Lothar received a middle section, which
came to be known as Lotharingia and embraced roughly modern Holland,
Belgium, Switzerland, Alsace-Lorraine, and Italy. Charles the Bald received
the western part of the kingdom, or roughly modern France, and Louis the
German came into the eastern part, or roughly modern Germany. Although
Lothar retained the imperial title, the universal empire ceased to exist. Not
until the sixteenth century, with the election in 1519 of Charles I of Spain as
the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, would the Western world again see a
kingdom as vast as Charlemagne’s.
Carolingian fragmentation continued. When Lothar died in 855, his
kingdom was divided equally among his three surviving sons, leaving it
much smaller and weaker than the kingdoms of Louis the German and
Charles the Bald. Henceforth, western Europe would be divided into an
eastern and a western Frankish kingdom—roughly Germany and France—
at war over the fractionalized middle kingdom, a contest that has continued
into modern times.

QUICK REVIEW
Charlemagne’s Successors
Louis the Pious (r. 814–840) made his son Lothar sole imperial heir
Civil war broke out between Lothar and Louis’s other sons
The Treaty of Verdun (843) divided the empire into three equal parts

The political breakdown of the Carolingian Empire coincided with new

external threats. In the late ninth and tenth centuries, successive waves of
Normans (North men), better known as Vikings, swept into Europe from
Scandinavia. Vikings was a catchall term for Scandinavian peoples who
visited Europe alternately as gregarious traders and savage raiders, and their
exploits have been preserved in sagas that reveal a cultural world filled with
mythical gods and spirits. Taking to sea in oceangoing longboats of rugged,
doubled-hulled construction, they terrified their neighbors to the south,
invading and occupying English and European coastal and river towns. In
the ninth century, the Danes briefly besieged Paris, while other Vikings
turned York into a major trading post for their woolens, jewelry, and
ornamental wares. Erik the Red made it to Greenland, and his son Leif
Erikson wintered in Newfoundland 500 years before Columbus. In the
eleventh century Christian conversions and English defeat of the
Norwegians effectively restricted Vikings to their Scandinavian homelands.

A Closer Look
A Multicultural Book Cover

Carolingian education, art, and architecture served royal efforts to

unify the kingdom by fusing inherited Celtic-Germanic and Greco-
Roman-Byzantine cultures. Charlemagne, his son, and grandsons
decorated their churches with a variety of art forms, among them
illuminated manuscripts, such as the bejeweled metalwork that became
the binding of the Lindau Gospels (ca. 870).
Questions

1. Does the inclusiveness of this book cover suggest a shared heritage

among the Celts, Germans, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines?
2. How does this composite of cultures on the book cover compare
with their actual historical relations in the ninth century?
3. Since the nonsuffering Christ on the book cover presents a
distinctive Byzantine icon, does this suggest agreement among the
parties over the portrayal of the Savior’s crucifixion?
4. Do the agonizing figures on the book cover (both angels and
humans) represent other religious traditions that prefer a suffering
Christ upon the cross?
 To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com

MAP 11–4. Viking, Muslim, and Magyar Invasions to the Eleventh

Century. Western Europe was sorely beset by new waves of outsiders from
the ninth to the eleventh century. From north, east, and south, a stream of
invading Vikings, Magyars, and Muslims brought the West at times to near
collapse and of course gravely affected institutions within Europe.

How did early medieval Europe respond to invasions?

See the Map

Viking Muslim and Magyar Invasions 1000 at myhistorylab.com

Magyars, or Hungarians, who were great horsemen, also swept into

western Europe from the eastern plains, while Muslims made incursions
across the Mediterranean from North Africa (see Map 11–4). The Franks
built fortified towns and castles in strategic locations as refuges. When they
could, they bought off the invaders with grants of land and payments of
silver. In the resulting turmoil, local populations became more dependent
than ever on local strongmen for life and livelihood, creating the essential
precondition for the maturation of feudal society.

Magyars
The majority ethnic group in Hungary.

FEUDAL SOCIETY

WHAT IS a feudal society?

The Middle Ages were characterized by a chronic absence of effective

central government and the constant threat of famine, disease, and foreign
invasion. In this state of affairs the weaker sought the protection of the
stronger, and the true lords and masters became those who could guarantee
immediate protection from rapine and starvation. The term feudal society
refers to the social, political, military, and economic system that emerged
from these conditions.

feudal society
The social, political, military, and economic system that prevailed in the
Middle Ages and beyond in some parts of Europe.

In a feudal society, people require firm assurance that others can be

depended on in time of dire need. Feudalism is above all a system of mutual
rights and responsibilities. During the Early Middle Ages, the landed
nobility became great lords who ruled over their domains as miniature
kingdoms. They maintained their own armies and courts, regulated local
tolls, and even minted their own coins. Large groups of warrior vassals
were created by extensive bestowals of land, and these developed into a
prominent professional military class with its own code of knightly conduct.
In feudal society, most serfs docilely worked the land, the clergy prayed and
gave counsel, and lords and knights maintained law and order.

vassal
A person granted an estate or cash payments in return for accepting the
obligation to render services to a lord.

ORIGINS
The origins of feudal government can be found in the divisions and
conflicts of Merovingian society. In the sixth and seventh centuries,
individual freemen began to solve the problem of survival by placing
themselves under the protection of more powerful freemen, who built up
armies and became local magnates. Freemen who so entrusted themselves
to others were described collectively as vassi (“those who serve”), from
which evolved the term vassalage, meaning the placement of oneself in the
personal service of another who promises protection in return.
Landed nobles, like kings, tried to acquire as many vassals as they could,
because military strength in the Early Middle Ages lay in numbers. It
proved impossible to maintain these growing armies within the lord’s own
household, which was the original custom, or to support them by special
monetary payments, so the practice evolved of granting them land as a
“tenement.” Such land came to be known as a benefice, or a fief, and vassals
were expected to dwell on it and maintain their horses and other
accouterments of war in good order. Originally vassals, therefore, were little
more than gangs-in-waiting.

Read the Document

Feudalism, 1083, Archbishop of Cologne at myhistorylab.com

VASSALAGE AND THE FIEF

Vassalage involved fealty to the lord. To swear fealty was to promise to
refrain from any action that might threaten the lord’s well-being and to
perform personal services for him on his request. Chief among the expected
services was military duty as a mounted knight. This could involve a variety
of activities: a military expedition, escort duty, standing castle guard, or the
placement of one’s own fortress at the lord’s disposal, if the vassal was of
such stature as to have one. Continuous bargaining and bickering occurred
over the terms of service.

fealty
An oath of loyalty by a vassal to a lord, promising to perform specified
services.

CHRONOLOGY

CAROLINGIAN DYNASTY (751–987)

Limitations were placed on the number of days a lord could require

services from a vassal. In France in the eleventh century, about forty days of
service per year were considered sufficient. It also became possible for
vassals to buy their way out of military service by a monetary payment
known as scutage. The lord, in turn, applied this payment to the hiring of
mercenaries, who often proved more efficient than contract-conscious
vassals. Beyond his military duty, the vassal was also expected to give the
lord advice when he requested it and to sit as a member of his court when it
was in session.
The lord’s obligations to his vassals were very specific. He was, first of
all, obligated to protect the vassal from physical harm and to stand as his
advocate in public court. After fealty was sworn and homage paid, the lord
provided for the vassal’s physical maintenance by the bestowal of a
benefice, or fief. The fief was simply the physical or material wherewithal
to meet the vassal’s military and other obligations. It could take the form of
liquid wealth as well as the more common grant of real property. There
were so-called money fiefs, which empowered a vassal to receive regular
payments from the lord’s treasury. Such fiefs created potential conflicts
because they made it possible for one country to acquire vassals among the
nobility of another. Normally, the fief consisted of a landed estate of
anywhere from a few to several thousand acres, but it could also take the
form of a castle.
In Carolingian times, a benefice, or fief, varied in size from one or more
small villas to several mansi, which were agricultural holdings of 25 to 48
acres. The king’s vassals received benefices of at least 30 and as many as
200 such mansi. Royal vassalage with a benefice understandably came to be
widely sought by the highest classes of Carolingian society. As a royal
policy, however, it proved deadly to the king. Although Carolingian kings
jealously guarded their rights over property granted in benefice to vassals,
resident vassals were still free to dispose of their benefices as they pleased.
Vassals of the king, strengthened by his donations, in turn created their own
vassals. These vassals, in turn, created still further vassals of their own—
vassals of vassals of vassals—in a reverse pyramiding effect that
fragmented land and authority from the highest to the lowest levels by the
late ninth century.
Beginning with the reign of Louis the Pious (r. 814–840), bishops and
abbots swore fealty and received their offices from the king as a benefice.
The king formally invested these clerics in their offices during a special
ceremony in which he presented them with a ring and a staff, the symbols
of high spiritual office. This presumptuous practice of lay investiture, like
the Carolingian confiscation of church land mentioned earlier, was a sore
point for the church. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries it would provoke
a great confrontation between church and state as reform-minded clergy
rebelled against what they believed to be involuntary clerical vassalage.

Lord and Vassal. A seventh-century portrayal of a vassal, who kneels

before his lord and inserts his hands between those of his lord in a gesture
of mutual loyalty: the vassal promising to obey and serve his lord, the lord
promising to support and protect his vassal.

Spanish School (seventh century). Lord and vassal, decorated page

(vellum). Archivo de la Corona de Aragon, Barcelona,
Spain/Index/Bridgeman Art Library.

What caused fragmentation in the feudal system?

FRAGMENTATION AND DIVIDED LOYALTY

In addition to the fragmentation brought about by the multiplication of
vassalage, effective occupation of the land led gradually to claims of
hereditary possession. Hereditary possession became a legally recognized
principle in the ninth century and laid the basis for claims to real ownership.
Further, vassal engagements came to be multiplied in still another way as
enterprising freemen sought to accumulate as much land as possible. One
man could become a vassal to several different lords. This development led
in the ninth century to the concept of a “liege lord”—one master whom the
vassal must obey even to the harm of the others, should a direct conflict
among them arise.
The problem of loyalty was reflected not only in the literature of the
period, with its praise of the virtues of honor and fidelity, but also in the
development of the ceremonial acts by which a freeman became a vassal. In
the mid-eighth century, an “oath of fealty” highlighted the ceremony. A
vassal reinforced his promise of fidelity to the lord by swearing a special
oath with his hand on a sacred relic or the Bible. In the tenth and eleventh
centuries, paying homage to the lord involved not only the swearing of such
an oath but also the placement of the vassal’s hands between the lord’s and
the sealing of the ceremony with a kiss.
Despite their problems, feudal arrangements provided stability
throughout the Early Middle Ages and aided the difficult process of
political centralization during the High Middle Ages. The genius of feudal
government lay in its adaptability. Contracts of different kinds could be
made with almost anybody, as circumstances required. The process
embraced a wide spectrum of people, from the king at the top to the lowliest
vassal in the remotest part of the kingdom. The foundations of the modern
nation-state would emerge in France and England from the fine-tuning of
essentially feudal arrangements as kings sought to adapt their goal of
centralized government to the reality of local power and control.

SUMMARY

HOW DID the Byzantine Empire continue the legacy of the Roman
Empire?
The End of the Western Roman Empire. In the fifth century, Roman
authority in the West collapsed under the impact of Germanic invasions.
Imperial power shifted to the eastern part of the Roman Empire—known as
the Byzantine Empire—with its capital at Constantinople. The Byzantine
Empire would endure until the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople in
1453. The peak of Byzantine power occurred during the reign of Justinian
(527–565), whose achievements included the Corpus Juris Civilis, a
codification of Roman law on which most European law was based until the
nineteenth century. The Byzantine Empire helped protect medieval western
Europe from Muslim invaders and preserved much of classical learning.
page 263
HOW DID the Islamic world influence medieval Western civilization?
The Impact of Islam on East and West. Islamic Arab armies conquered
most of the Mediterranean rim. Christian Europe developed a lasting fear
and suspicion of Muslims. Franks under Charles Martel defeated an Arab
raiding party in central France in 732. Christian-Muslim trade continued,
and the Islamic world acted as a conduit for classical learning to the West.
Córdoba was a thriving multicultural city. page 272
WHAT WAS the doctrine of papal primacy?
The Developing Roman Church. The church was the strongest and most
prestigious institution in early medieval Europe, where it filled the vacuum
created by the collapse of Roman authority. Monastic culture was especially
strong. The greatest organizer of Western monasticism was Saint Benedict
of Nursia (480–547). Benedictine monasteries were an economic, political,
and spiritual force throughout the West. With the collapse of imperial
authority in the West, the bishops of Rome—the popes—developed the
doctrine of papal primacy by which they claimed supreme authority over
church doctrine and the clergy. These claims were unacceptable in the East,
where a separate Greek Orthodox Church developed under the control of
the Byzantine emperors. page 273
WHY DID Charlemagne’s empire break up after his death?
The Kingdom of the Franks. The Frankish ruler Charlemagne (r. 768–
814) sought to re-create a universal Western empire and was crowned
emperor by the pope in 800. Charlemagne’s realm embraced modern
France, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland, most of Germany, and parts of
Italy and Spain. He formed a close alliance with the church and relied on
churchmen as royal agents and administrators. His palace school at Aachen
was the center of a modest renaissance of classical learning under scholars
such as Alcuin of York (735–804). But Charlemagne’s empire proved to be
ungovernable. Charlemagne had increased the power of local lords whose
support he needed to rule, but their power and wealth became so great that
they were able to put their self-interest above royal authority. After
Charlemagne’s death, his empire dissolved amid quarrels among his heirs,
the revolts of powerful nobles, and invasions by Vikings, Magyars, and
Muslims. page 276
WHAT IS a feudal society?
Feudal Society. The Middle Ages were characterized by a chronic absence
of central government and the constant threat of famine, disease, and
invasion. Lords were those who could guarantee protection under these
conditions. In feudal society, a local lord offered security in return for
allegiance from his dependents or vassals. It was a system of mutual rights
and responsibilities. Medieval vassals pledged fealty to their lord in return
for a fief, or grant of land. They promised to support their “liege lord” with
troops or money when he called on them for aid.
The feudal economy was organized and controlled through agrarian
villages known as manors, worked by free peasants who had their own
modest property and economic and legal rights, or by serfs, impoverished
peasants who were bound to the land and obliged to provide their lords with
an array of services, dues in kind, and products. page 283

KEY TERMS

apostolic primacy
demesne (dih-MEEN)
fealty
feudal society
fiefs
Magyars
manors
Papal States
 plenitude of power
serf
three-field system
vassals

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Trace the history of Christianity to the reign of the emperor

Charlemagne. How did the church become a political power in the
Western Roman Empire?
2. How did the Franks become the dominant force in western Europe?
What were the characteristics of Charlemagne’s rule? Why did his
empire break apart?
3. How did the Merovingians attempt to solve the problem of “the one
versus the many”? To what extent did they succeed? How did the
Carolingian approach differ? Was it more successful?
4. How and why was the history of the eastern or Byzantine half of the
Roman Empire so different from the western half? What were the
major political and religious differences? How would you compare
Justinian to Charlemagne?
5. Compare and contrast the teachings of Islam, Roman Catholicism,
and Byzantine or Orthodox Christianity. Are they irreconcilable?
6. Discuss the role of Islam in the cultural development of western
Europe. What impacts, direct or indirect, of Islam would you
characterize as positive, and why? What about negative impacts?
7. What were the defining features of feudalism? Is a feudal society a
“backward” society?
8. Why were trust and loyalty such important issues in western
Europe’s feudal period? Can you think of a social structure in which
trust and loyalty are more important than they are in feudal society?
Can you think of one where trust and loyalty are less important?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com
 Connections

Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many

documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 11
Read the Document Reign Justinian: Secret History, Procopius, p. 266
Prologue, Corpus Civilis, ca. 530, p. 266
Epitome Iconoclastic Seventh Synod 754, p. 271
St. Benedict’s Rules for Monks, p. 274
Pope Leo I on Bishop Hilary of Arles, p. 275
Life of Charlemagne (early ninth century) Einhard, p. 279
Feudalism, 1083, Archbishop of Cologne, p. 284
See the Map Charlemagne’s Empire, 814, p. 278
Viking Muslim and Magyar Invasions, 1000, p. 283
View the Image Emperor Justinian, p. 266

Research and Explore

see the Map The Byzantine Empire under Justinian, p. 269

see the Map Byzantium, 1000–1100, p. 270

 Hear the Audio
Hear the audio file for Chapter 11 at www.myhistorylab.com
12
The Islamic World, 1000–1500

Hear the Audio for Chapter 12 at www.myhistorylab.com

Islamic World Map. The geographical treatise and collection of wondrous

tales, The Wonders of Creation, was popular in medieval and early modern
Islamic society. The map shown here portrays several creatures supporting
the world in the firmament. North is oriented at the bottom. Africa is the
large triangular landmass jutting upward.

How does the perspective of this world map comment on the worldview
of Islam in this period?
THE ISLAMIC HEARTLANDS

RELIGION AND SOCIETY

HOW DID the Sunni, Shi’ite, and Sufi traditions develop between the
years 1000 and 1500?

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTS

WHO WERE the Mamluks, and why were they able to withstand the
Mongols?

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM BEYOND THE HEARTLANDS

WHAT WERE the main ways Islam spread beyond Eurasia?

ISLAMIC INDIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM TO SOUTH ASIA

HOW DID trade and Sufi orders spread Islam?

MUSLIM-HINDU ENCOUNTER

WHAT ALLOWED Muslim rulers eventually to dominate India?

ISLAMIC STATES AND DYNASTIES

HOW DID local traditional beliefs shape Muslim practice in Southeast

Asia?

RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL ACCOMMODATION

HOW DID Islam become an enduring part of Indian civilization?

HINDU AND OTHER INDIAN TRADITIONS

WHAT WERE some characteristics of Hindu culture in this period?

Centralized caliphal power in the Islamic world had broken down by the
mid-tenth century. Regional Islamic states with distinctive political and
cultural identities dominated—a pattern that would endure to modern times
(see Map 12–1 on page 292). Yet the diverse Islamic lands remained part of
a larger civilization. Muslims from Córdoba in Spain could (and did) travel
to Bukhara in Transoxiana or Zanzibar or Malaysia and feel at home.
Regionalism and cosmopolitanism, diversity and unity, have characterized
Islamic civilization ever since.
The next 500 years saw the growth of a truly international Islamic
community, united by shared norms of communal order represented and
maintained by Muslim religious scholars (ulama). Sufism, the strand of
Islam that stressed spirituality and allegiance to a spiritual master, gained
popularity, especially after 1200. The growth of Sufi affiliations or
brotherhoods influenced Muslim life everywhere, often countering the more
legalistic aspects of ulama conformity. Shi’ite ideas offered another
alternative vision. Movements loyal to Ali and his heirs challenged but
failed to reverse centrist Sunni predominance among the majority of
Muslims, even though Shi’ite dynasties ruled much of the Islamic
heartlands in the tenth and eleventh centuries.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
THE EXPANSION OF ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION, 1000–1500
In Islamic and other Asian territories, the period from about 1000 to around
1500 is difficult to characterize simply. The spread of Islam to new peoples
or their ruling elites is an obvious theme. However, the history of Islam in
India, for example, is hardly the history of India as a whole. The vast
conquests and movements of Mongols and Central Asian Turks out of inner
Asia were among the most striking developments in this period. Their
effects on the societies they conquered were often cataclysmic, whether in
China, South Asia, West Asia, or eastern Europe. These conquests and
migrations wiped out much of the existing orders and forced countless
refugees to flee to new areas. After the initial conquests, however, the
empires created by these pastoral warriors, or ghazis, of Central Asia helped
facilitate the movement across the Eurasian continent of people,
merchandise, ideas, and, in the fourteenth century, the Bubonic pandemic.
They also contributed, even if unintentionally, new, often significant human
resources to older civilizations, such as those of China, the Islamic
heartlands, and South Asia.
In this era, Islam became a truly cosmopolitan tradition of religious,
cultural, political, and social values and institutions.
This achievement was possible because Islamic culture was highly
adaptable and open to “indigenization,” or a syncretistic blending of
cultural traits, even in seemingly hostile contexts of polytheistic Hindu,
South Asian, and African societies. The ability to adapt while maintaining
the core tenets of the Muslim faith enabled Islamic religion and culture to
take root in many different regions of the globe. Also in this period, distinct
traditions of art, language, and literature, for all their regional diversity,
became part of a larger Muslim whole. Islamic civilization had none of the
territorial contiguity or linguistic and cultural homogeneity of either
Chinese or Japanese civilization. Nevertheless, the Islamic world did
become a recognizable international reality, a true Dar al-Islam, or “House
of Islam,” in which a Muslim could travel among and exchange ideas and
goods with Muslims of radically different backgrounds from Morocco to
China and encounter them as brothers/sisters of the umma. Ibn Battuta
(1304–c. 1370), a Moroccan jurist, traveled for thirty years through Egypt
to India and then to parts of Southeast Asia and China before returning to
dictate his Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325–1354. As an Islamic judge and
Arabic speaker, he was able to journey the length and breadth of the global
Islamic world and feel himself still within the bounds of one civilization.
Indian traditional culture was not bound up with a missionary religious
tradition like that of Islam, and the developing caste system closely
associated with Hindu traditions was less adaptable and much more tied to
its homeland. Yet in this age Hindu kingdoms flourished in Indonesia,
although these kingdoms mostly rejected the caste system and thus
accommodated Hinduism and Indian culture to local conditions. Buddhism,
another highly adaptable religion, was expanding across much of Central
and Eastern Asia, thereby solidifying its place as an international
missionary tradition.
Christianity, by contrast, was not rapidly expanding in Africa, Asia, or
Europe. The somewhat disastrous experience of the Crusades (see Chapter
15) brought Europeans into closer contact with the Islamic world than ever
before but did not attract converts to Christianity or increase European
power in the Mediterranean. In the year 1000 Europe was almost a cultural
and political backwater compared to major Islamic or Hindu states, let
alone China. By 1500, however, European Christianity was poised for
internal revolution and international expansion. European civilization was
riding the crest of a commercial and cultural renaissance, enjoying
economic and political growth, and starting global exploration for gold and
silver to trade with more prosperous and cultured Asian lands. The impact
on the Indian Ocean and Chinese-Japanese trade and shipping entrepôts was
not immediate; it was only after the mid–eighteenth century that European
exploration and trade initiatives became full-scale imperial expansion and
rule that changed the rest of the globe profoundly.

See the Map The Spread of Islam at myhistorylab.com

Focus Questions

What impact did the Mongols and Central Asian Turks have on the
Islamic world?
Why were Muslims and Buddhists more successful than Hindus and
Christians in spreading their faiths in this era? What does this
suggest about the characteristics of a successful world religion?

A cultural renaissance fueled the spread of modern Persian as the major

language of Islam alongside Arabic. The Persian-dominated Iranian and
Indian Islamic world became more distinct from the western Islamic lands
where Arabic prevailed.
Two Asian steppe peoples, the Mongols and the Turks, controlled much of
the Islamic world in these centuries, but with different results. Turkish
rulers—the Saljuq sultans in Iran and Anatolia, and the “slave-kings” of
both the Mamluk sultanate in Egypt and the Delhi sultanate in north India
—infused Islamic cultures with Turkish influence. The Mongols conquered
much of the Islamic heartlands in the thirteenth century, but their culture
and religion did not become dominant. Instead, in this age Islam became
the major new influence in Central, South, and Southeast Asia, as well as
sub-Saharan Africa.

THE ISLAMIC HEARTLANDS

RELIGION AND SOCIETY

HOW DID the Sunni, Shi’ite, and Sufi traditions develop between the
years 1000 and 1500?

In this period Islamic society was shaped by the consolidation and

institutionalization of Sunni legal and religious norms, Sufi traditions and
personal piety, and Shi’ite legal and religious norms.

CONSOLIDATION OF A SUNNI ORTHOPRAXY

The ulama (both Sunni and Shi’ite) gradually became entrenched religious,
social, and political elites throughout the Islamic world, especially after the
breakdown of centralized power in the tenth century. Their integration into
local merchant, landowning, and bureaucratic classes led to stronger
identification of these groups with Islam.
From the eleventh century, the ulama’s power and fixity as a class were
expressed in the institution of the madrasa, or college of higher learning.
On the one hand, the madrasa had grown up naturally as individual experts
frequented a given mosque or private house and attracted students seeking
to learn the Qur’an, the hadith (“Tradition”), jurisprudence, Arabic
grammar, and the like. On the other hand, rulers endowed the madrasas
with buildings, scholarships, and salaried chairs, so that they could control
the ulama by appointing teachers and influencing the curriculum. In theory,
such control might combat unwelcome sectarianism. Unlike the university,
with its corporate organization and institutional degrees, the madrasa was a
support institution for individual teachers, who personally certified
students’ mastery of particular subjects. It gave an institutional base to
Islam’s long-developed system of students seeking out the best teachers and
studying texts with them until they received the teachers’ formal
certification, or “permission” to transmit and teach those same texts
themselves.

madrasa
An Islamic college of higher learning.

Largely outside ulama control, popular “unofficial” piety flourished in

local pilgrimages to saints’ tombs, in folk celebrations of Muhammad’s
birthday and veneration of him in poetry, and in ecstatic chant and dance
among Sufi groups. But the shared traditions of family and civil law, daily
worship rituals, fasting in Ramadan, and the Hegira united almost all
Muslims, even most Kharijites or Shi’ites. In the Christian world,
theological dogmas determined sectarian identity. Muslims, however,
tended to define Islam in terms of what Muslims do—by practice rather
than by beliefs. The chief arbiters of “normative” Sunni and Shi’ite Islam
among the ulama were the faqihs, or legal scholars, not the theologians.

Ramadan
The month each year when Muslims must fast during daylight hours.
MAP 12–1. The Islamic World, 1000–ca. 1500. Compare this map with
Map 10–1 on page 249. Although the Muslim world expanded into Africa,
India, and Central Asia, it also lost Spain to Christian reconquest.

Given the many Muslim states shown on this map, to what extent is it
correct to speak of a single Islamic civilization?

Sunni orthopraxy, or “correct religious practice,” discouraged religious or

social innovations. It was well established by the year 1000 as the dominant
tradition, even though Shi’ite aspirations often made themselves felt either
politically or theologically. The emergence of a conservative theological
orientation tied to one of the four main Sunni legal schools, the Hanbalites
(after Ibn Hanbal, d. 969) narrowed the scope for creative doctrinal change.
The Hanbalites relied on a literalist reading of the Qur’an and the hadith.
The ulama also became more socially conservative as they were integrated
into social aristocracies. Ulama were often as committed to the status quo
as rulers.

Read the Document Al-Ghazali, excerpt from Confessions, at

myhistorylab.com

SUFI PIETY AND ORGANIZATION

Sufi piety stresses the spiritual and mystical dimensions of Islam. The term
Sufi apparently came from the Arabic suf (“wool”), based on the old ascetic
practice of wearing only a coarse woolen garment. Sufi simplicity and
humility had roots with the Prophet and Companions but developed as a
distinctive tendency when, after about 700 C.E., male and female pietists
emphasized a godly life over and above mere observance of Muslim duties.
Some stressed ascetic avoidance of temptations, others loving devotion to
God. Sufi piety bridged the abyss between human and Divine that Muslim
insistence on an omniscient, omnipotent God implies. Socially, Sufi piety
merged with folk piety in such popular practices as saint veneration, shrine
pilgrimage, ecstatic worship, and seasonal festivals. Sufi writers collected
stories of saints, wrote treatises on the Sufi path, and composed some of the
world’s finest mystical poetry.

Sufi
Sufism is a mystic tradition within Islam that encompasses a diverse range
of beliefs and practices dedicated to Divine love and the cultivation of the
elements of the Divine within the individual human being. The chief aim of
all Sufis is to let go of all notions of duality, including a conception of an
individual self, and to realize the Divine unity.

Some Sufis were revered as spiritual masters and saints. Their disciples
formed brotherhoods with their own distinctive mystical teaching, Qur’an
interpretation, and devotional practice. These fraternal orders became the
chief instruments of the spread of Muslim faith, as well as a locus of
popular piety in almost all Islamic societies. Organized Sufism has always
attracted members from the populace at large (in this, it differs from
monasticism), as well as those dedicated to poverty or other radical
disciplines. Indeed, Sufi orders became in this age one of the typical social
institutions of everyday Islamic life. Whether Sunni or Shi’ite, many
Muslims have ever since identified in some degree with a Sufi order.
Dancing Dervishes. This image from a 1552 Persian manuscript depicts a
Sufi master dancing with his disciples. Sufis often use music and bodily
movement to induce ecstatic experiences, which they feel bring them closer
to God.

What role did Sufis play in the spread of Islam during this period?

CONSOLIDATION OF SHI’ITE TRADITIONS

Shi’ite traditions crystallized between the tenth and twelfth centuries. Many
states now came under Shi’ite rulers, but only the Fatimids in Egypt
established an important empire. A substantial Shi’ite populace developed
only in Iran, Iraq, and the lower Indus (Sind).
Two Shi’ite groups emerged as the most influential. The first were the
“Seveners,” or “Isma’ilis,” who recognized Isma’il (d. ca. 760), first son of
the sixth Alid imam, as the seventh imam. Their thought drew on Gnostic
and Neo-Platonic philosophy, knowledge of which they reserved for a
spiritual elite. Isma’ili groups were often revolutionary.
By the eleventh century, however, the majority of Shi’ites accepted a line
of twelve imams, the last of whom is said to have disappeared in Samarra
(Iraq) in 873 into a cosmic concealment from which he will eventually
emerge as the Mahdi, or “Guided One,” to usher in the messianic age and
final judgment. These “Twelvers” still focus on the martyrdom of the
twelve imams and look for their intercession on the Day of Judgment. They
have flourished best in Iran, home of most Shi’ite thought. The Buyids who
took control of the Abbasid caliphate in 945 were Twelvers. The Safavids
made Twelver doctrine the Iranian “state religion” in the sixteenth century
(see Chapter 20).

QUICK REVIEW
Islamic Higher Education
Madrasa: college of higher learning
Madrasas were support institutions for individual teachers
Operated within Islamic tradition of students seeking best teachers

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTS

WHO WERE the Mamluks, and why were they able to withstand the
Mongols?

After the tenth century the western (or Mediterranean) half of the Islamic
world had two regional foci: (1) Spain (Al-Andalus), Moroccan North
Africa, and, to a lesser extent, West Africa; and (2) Egypt, Syria-Palestine,
Anatolia, Arabia, and Libyan North Africa. The history of the eastern half
of the Islamic world in the period between 1000 and 1500 was marked by
the violent Mongol incursions of the thirteenth century.

Al-Andalus
The Arabic name given to those parts of the Iberian Peninsula governed by
Muslims, or Moors, at various times between 711 and 1492.

SPAIN, NORTH AFRICA, AND THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN

ISLAMIC WORLD
The grandeur of Spanish or Andalusian Islamic culture is visible still in
Córdoba’s Great Mosque and the remnants of the Alhambra Palace. In
European tradition, the Chanson de Roland recalls Charlemagne’s retreat
through the Pyrenees after failing to check the first Spanish Umayyad’s
growing power. That ruler, Abd al-Rahman I (r. 756–788), was the founder
of the cosmopolitan tradition of Spanish Umayyad culture at Córdoba, the
cultural center of the Western world for the next two centuries. Renowned
for medicine, science, literature, intellectual life, commercial activity,
public baths and gardens, and courtly elegance, Córdoba reached its zenith
under Abd al-Rahman III (r. 912–961), who took the title of caliph in 929.
His absolutist, but benevolent, rule saw a largely unified, peaceful Islamic
Spain. The mosque-university of Córdoba that he founded attracted students
from Europe as well as the Islamic world.
A sad irony of this cosmopolitan world was recurring religious
exclusivism, as well as conflict among Muslims and Christians alike.
Abroad, Abd al-Rahman III checked both Fatimid power in North Africa
and northern Spain’s Christian kingdoms, making possible a golden era of
Moorish power and culture. After his death, fragmentation into warring
Muslim principalities allowed a resurgence of Spain’s Christian states from
about 1000 until 1085, when the city of Toledo fell permanently into
Christian hands.
The Alhambra. Built in the fourteenth century, the Alhambra’s serene,
almost severe aspect belies its spectacular interior ornamentation.
Considered one of the greatest examples of Islamic architecture and one of
the most beautiful of all surviving medieval buildings, the Alhambra rises
within its curtain walls above Granada, the last of the great Andalusian
Moorish cities.

What were some highlights of Moorish culture?

Brief Islamic revivals in Spain and North Africa came under African
reform movements of the Almoravids and Almohads. The Almoravids
originated as a religious-warrior brotherhood among Berber nomads in
West Africa. Having subdued northwestern Africa, in 1086 they carried
their zealotry from their new capital of Marrakesh into Spain, reuniting its
Islamic kingdoms. They persecuted arabized Christians (Mozarabs) as well
as some Moorish Jews. Ensuing wars began the final major phase of the
Spanish “Reconquest” (Reconquista), in which Christian rulers regained
and Christianized Iberia. These conflicts are best known in the West for the
exploits of El Cid (d. 1099), the mercenary adventurer who became the
Spanish national hero.

Reconquista
The Christian reconquest of Spain from the Muslims from 1000 to 1492.
 The Almohads ended Almoravid rule in Morocco in 1147 and then
conquered much of southern Spain. Before their demise (1225 in Spain;
1275 in Africa), they stimulated a brilliant revival of Moorish culture.
During this era, paper manufacture reached Spain and then the rest of
western Europe from the Islamic world. The westward odyssey of Indian
fable literature through Iran and the Arab world ended in Spanish and Latin
translations in thirteenth-century Spain. The greatest lights of this Spanish
Islamic intellectual world were the major philosopher and physician Ibn
Rushd (Averroës, d. 1189); the great Muslim mystical thinker Ibn al-Arabi
(d. 1240); and the famous Jewish Arab philosopher Ibn Maymun
(Maimonides, d. 1204).

Read the Document Ibn Rushd Averroes 12th century at

myhistorylab.com

EGYPT AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN ISLAMIC WORLD: THE

FATIMIDS AND THE MAMLUKS
The major Islamic presence in the Mediterranean from the tenth to the
twelfth centuries was that of the Shi’ite Fatimids, who claimed descent
from Muhammad’s daughter, Fatima. They began as a Tunisian dynasty,
then conquered Morocco, Sicily, and Egypt (969), where they built their
new capital, Cairo (al-Qahira, “the Victorious”). Their rule as Isma’ili
Shi’ite caliphs (see Chapter 10) meant that for a time there were three
“caliphates”: in Baghdad, Córdoba, and Cairo. Content to rule a Sunni
majority in Egypt, they sought recognition as true imams by other Isma’ili
groups and were able briefly to take western Arabia and most of Syria from
the Buyid “guardians” of the Abbasid caliphate (see Chapter 10).
Decorated Ceramic Bowl. A glazed ceramic bowl with a gazelle or
antelope, symbolic of beauty and grace. From North Africa, Tunisian area,
Fatimid (tenth–twelfth centuries).

Who were the Fatimids?

Fatimid rule spawned two splinter groups that have played visible, if
minor, roles in history. The Druze of modern Lebanon and Syria originated
around 1020 with members of the Fatimid court who professed the divinity
of one of the Fatimid caliphs. The tradition they founded is too far from
Islam to be considered a Muslim sect. The Isma’ili Assassins, on the other
hand, were a radical Muslim movement founded by a Fa-timid defector in
the Elburz Mountains of Iran around 1100. The name “Assassins” derives
not from their infamous political assassinations, but from a European
corruption of Arabic Hashishiyyin (“users of hashish”). This likely
stemmed from the report that they used drugs to manipulate followers into
undertaking usually suicidal assassination missions. Their movement was
eradicated by the Mongols in the thirteenth century.
The Fatimids built the al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo as a center of learning,
a role it maintains today, albeit for Sunni, not (as then) Shi’ite, scholarship.
Fatimid rulers treated Egypt’s Coptic Christians generally as well as they
did their Sunni majority, and many Copts held high offices. Jews also
generally fared well under Fatimid rule.
After 1100 the Fatimids weakened, falling in 1171 to Salah al-Din
(Saladin, 1137–1193), a general and administrator under the Turkish ruler
of Syria, Nur al-Din (1118–1174). Saladin, a Sunni Kurd, is well known in
the West for his battles with the Crusaders, especially the retaking of
Jerusalem (1187). After Nur al-Din’s death, Saladin added Syria-Palestine
and Mesopotamia to his Egyptian dominions and founded the Ayyubid
Dynasty that, under his successors, controlled all three areas until Egypt fell
to the Mamluks in 1250 and most of Syria and Mesopotamia to the
Mongols by 1260.

CHRONOLOGY

WESTERN ISLAMIC LANDS

 Like Nur al-Din, and on the model of the Saljuks (see Chapter 10),
Saladin founded madrasas to teach Sunni law. His and his Ayyubid
successors’ reigns in Egypt saw the entrenchment of a self-conscious
Sunnism under a program of mutual recognition and teaching of all four
Sunni schools of law. Henceforward Shi’ite Islam disappeared from Egypt.
The heirs of the Fatimids and Saladin in the eastern Mediterranean were
the redoubtable Mamluk sultans (“[those with] authority”). The Mamluks
were chiefly Circassians from the Caucasus, captured in childhood and
trained as slave-soldiers. The first Mamluk sultan, Aybak (r. 1250–1257),
and his successors were elite Turkish and Mongol slave-officers originally
from the bodyguard of Saladin’s dynasty. Seizing power in Egypt from the
Ayyubids, they became the only Islamic dynasty to withstand the Mongols.
Their victory at Ain Jalut in Palestine (1260) ended the Mongols’ westward
movement. The Mamluk state was based on a military fief system and total
control by the slave-officer elite. Whereas the early Mamluks were often
succeeded by sons or brothers, succession after 1400 was typically a
survival of the fittest; no sultan reigned more than a few years.

sultans
Rulers who have almost complete sovereignty over a certain domain
without claiming the title of caliph.

The Mamluk sultan Baybars (r. 1260–1277), conqueror of the last

Crusader fortresses, figures prominently in Arab legend. To legitimize his
rule, he revived the Abbasid caliphate at least in name after Baghdad’s
devastation by the Mongols (1258) by installing an uncle of Baghdad’s last
Abbasid as caliph in Cairo. He made treaties with Byzantine and European
sovereigns, and with the newly converted Muslim ruler, or khan, of the
Golden Horde—the Mongol Tatars of southern Russia. His public works in
Cairo were numerous, and he extended Mamluk rule south to Nubia and
west among the Berbers.

QUICK REVIEW
The Mamluks
Only Islamic dynasty to withstand Mongols
Based in eastern Mediterranean, Cairo
Patronized scholars and artists

As trade relations with Mongol domains improved after 1300, the

Mamluks prospered, commanding a large empire. However, the Black
Death epidemic of 1347–1348 in the Arab Middle East hurt the Mamluk
and other regional states badly. Still, the Mamluks survived even the
Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517 to continue there as Ottoman governors
into the nineteenth century.
Architecture, much of which still graces Cairo, remains the major
Mamluk bequest to posterity. In addition, mosaics, calligraphy, and
metalwork were among the arts and crafts of special note. The Mamluks
were great patrons of scholars who excelled in history, biography,
astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. The most important of these was
Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406). Born of a Spanish Muslim family in Tunis, he
settled in Cairo as an adult. He is still recognized as the greatest Muslim
social historian and philosopher of history.

Mamluk Bottle. This elegant glass bottle was made in Mamluk workshops
in Syria in the mid-fourteenth century for the Yemenite ruler.

John Tsantes/Courtesy of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution,

Washington, DC.

Read the Document al-Tha’Alibi, Recollections of Bukhara, at

myhistorylab.com

QUICK REVIEW
Ghaznavid Culture
Mahmud of Ghazna supported Persian arts, scholarship
Mathematician/scientist al-Biruni
Poet Firdawsi helped establish “New Persian” language
THE ISLAMIC EAST: ASIA BEFORE THE MONGOL CONQUESTS
The Persian dynasties of the Samanids at Bukhara (875–999) and the
Buyids at Baghdad (945–1055) were the major successors to eastern
Abbasid dominion. Their successes epitomized the rise of regional states
that undermined the caliphate from the ninth century onward. Similarly,
their demise reflected another emerging pattern: the ascendancy of Turkish
slave-rulers (like the Mamluks in the west) and Oghuz Turkish peoples,
known as Turkomans. With the Saljuqs, what began with the use of Turkish
slave troops in ninth-century Baghdad ended in the permanent presence of
Turkish ruling dynasties in Islamic lands. As late converts, they became
typically the most zealous of Sunni Muslims.
The rule of the Samanids in Transoxiana was ended by a Turkoman
group in 999, but they had already lost eastern Iran south of the Oxus in 994
to one of their own slave governors, Subuktigin (r. 976–997). He set up his
own state at Ghazna in modern Afghanistan, whence he and his son and
successor, Mahmud of Ghazna (r. 998–1030), launched successful
campaigns against his former masters. The Ghaznavids are notable for their
patronage of Persian literature and culture and their conquests in
northwestern India, which began a lasting Muslim presence in India.
Mahmud was their greatest ruler. He is still remembered for his booty raids
and destruction of temples in western India. At its peak, his empire
stretched from western Iran to the Oxus and Indus.
Mahmud attracted to Ghazna numerous Khurasani Persian scholars and
artists, notably the great scientist and mathematician al-Biruni (d. 1048),
and the poet Firdawsi (d. ca. 1020). Firdawsi’s Shahnama (“The Book of
Kings”) is the masterpiece of Persian literature, an epic of 60,000 verses
that helped fix the “New Persian” language already developed especially by
the earlier, prolific Khurasani poet, the Isma’ili Shi’ite Rudaki (d. ca. 941).
It also helped revive pre-Islamic cultural traditions of the greater Iranian
world, which became a hallmark of later Persian literature. After Mahmud
the empire declined, although Ghaznavids ruled at Lahore until 1186.
The Saljuqs were the first major Turkish dynasty of Islam. They were a
steppe clan who settled in Transoxiana, became avid Sunnis, and extended
their sway over Khorasan in the 1030s. In 1055 they took Baghdad. As the
new guardian of the caliphate and master of an Islamic empire, the Saljuq
leader Tughril Beg (r. 1037–1063) took the title of sultan to signify his
temporal authority. He and his early successors made various Iranian cities
their capitals instead of Baghdad.

Mamluk Trade. Trade in spices and other precious commodities between

the Mamluks and western Europe was significant. In this painting from
about 1500, we see Venetian ambassadors received by the governor of
Damascus, who sits on a low platform wearing a distinctive, horn-shaped
turban.

What kinds of goods were traded between Christian Europe and the
Muslim Mediterranean?
As new Turkish tribes joined their ranks, the Saljuqs brought Islamic rule
for the first time into the central Anatolian plateau at Byzantine expense,
even capturing the Byzantine emperor in their victory at Manzikert, in
Armenia, in 1071 (see Map 12–2). They also conquered much of Syria and
wrested Mecca and Medina from the Shi’ite Fatimids. Turkish rule in
Anatolia dates from 1077, when the Saljuq governor there formed a
separate sultanate. Known as the Saljuqs of Rum (“Rome,” i.e.,
Byzantium), these rulers were only displaced after 1300 by the Ottomans,
another Turkish dynasty, who eventually conquered not only Anatolia but
southeastern Europe (see Chapter 20).
MAP 12–2. The Saljuq Empire, ca. 1095. By 1200, the Saljuqs had
conquered Persia, Mesopotamia, and Syria and defeated Byzantine armies
at Manzikert in 1071, altering the balance of power in the eastern
Mediterranean and Near East.

How do the Saljuq conquests reveal the power of steppe peoples to

overturn settled societies?

QUICK REVIEW
Saljuq Culture
Vizier Nizam al-Mulk established numerous madrasas
Muhammad al-Ghazali, Muslim religious thinker
Umar Khayyam, astronomer, mathematician, poet

The most notable Saljuq was the vizier Nizam al-Mulk, the real power
behind two sultans from 1063 to 1092. In his time new roads and
caravanserais (inns) for trade and pilgrimage were built, canals were dug,
mosques and other public buildings were founded (including the first great
Sunni madrasas), and science and culture were patronized. He also founded
in 1067 what some contend was the first Muslim “university,” the legal-
theological madrasa of the Nizamiyyah in Baghdad. He subsequently
established similar madrasas in Mesopotamia and Persia. He supported an
accurate calendar reform and authored a major work on the art of
governing, the Siyasatnameh. Before his murder by an Isma’ili assassin in
1092, he appointed as professor in the Nizamiyyah Muhammad al-Ghazali
(d. 1111), probably the greatest Muslim religious thinker. He also
patronized the mathematician and astronomer Umar Khayyam (d. 1123),
whose Western fame rests on the poetry of his “Quatrains,” or Ruba’iyat.

A Closer Look
Al-Hariri, Assemblies (Maqamat)
The maqama was a type of rhymed Arabic prose narrative that began
most prominently with the tenth-century writer Badi’ al-Zaman al-
Hamadhani and reached its apogee with Muhammad al-Hariri of
Basra (1054–1122). Hariri’s Assemblies is comprised of 50 rhetorically
extravagant stories usually centered on the exploits of a picaresque
trickster, Abu Zayd, who exposes the foibles of the powerful and
prideful and is generally a confidence man who makes his way by his
wits. The best illustrations of Hariri’s Assemblies were done by the
Iraqi miniature painter Yahya al-Wasiti in 1237. Here, one of al-
Wasiti’s illustrations for the 43rd maqama shows in realistic detail the
arrival in a village of the narrator al-Harith and Abu Zayd on camels.
Note that although Muslims have often avoided visual depiction of
human beings as infringing on God’s creativity, magnificent miniatures
such as this were created in many different ages and places in the
traditional Islamic world.
Questions

1. What kinds of activity and people can you pick out in the village?
What sources of livelihood can you identify? What kinds of
animals? How does the artist communicate so much activity and
dynamism in such a small space?
2. Other than the minaret, what distinguishes the mosque from the rest
of the village? What formal mechanisms does al-Wasiti use to make
the scene dynamic despite the portrayal of characters in a stylized
manner and layout?

Annotations by Susan Douglass.

To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to

www.myhistorylab.com
Iranian Saljuq rule crumbled and by 1194 was wholly wiped away by
another Turkish slave dynasty from Khwarizm in the lower Oxus basin. By
1200 these Khwarizm-Shahs had built a large, if shaky, empire and sphere
of influence covering Iran and Transoxiana. In the same era the Abbasid
caliph at Baghdad, al-Nasir (r. 1180–1225), established an independent
caliphal state in Iraq. Neither his heirs nor the Khwarizm-Shahs were long
to survive.
ISLAMIC ASIA IN THE MONGOL AGE
The building of a vast Mongol Empire spanning Asia from China to Poland
in the thirteenth century proved momentous not only for eastern Europe and
China (see Chapter 8), but also for Islamic Eurasia and India. A Khwarizm-
Shah massacre of Mongol ambassadors brought down the full wrath of the
Great Khan, Genghis (ca. 1162–1227), on the Islamic east. He razed entire
cities from Transoxiana and Khorasan to the Indus (1219–1222). After his
death, his empire’s division into four khanates under his four sons gave the
Islamic world respite. But in 1255 Hulagu Khan (r. 1256–1265), a grandson
of Genghis, led a massive army again across the Oxus. Adding Turkish
troops to his forces (Mongol armies typically included many Turks), he
went from victory to victory, destroying every Iranian state. In 1258, when
the Abbasid caliph refused to surrender, Hulagu’s troops plundered
Baghdad, killing at least 80,000 inhabitants, including the caliph and his
sons.
Hulagu’s wife, with Nestorian Christians and Buddhists in his inner
circle, persuaded him to spare the Christians of Baghdad. He followed this
policy in later conquests, including the sack of Aleppo—which, like
Baghdad, resisted. Thus, when Damascus surrendered Western Christians
had hopes of seeing Mamluk Cairo and Islamic power collapse, but
Hulagu’s drive west was delayed by rivalry with his kinsman Berke. A
Muslim convert, Berke ruled the khanate of the Golden Horde, the
southern-Russian Mongol state north of the Caucasus. He was in contact
with the Mamluks, and some of his Mongols even helped them defeat
Hulagu in Palestine (1260), stopping a Mongol advance into Egypt. A treaty
in 1261 between the Mamluk sultan and Berke established an alliance
confirming the breakup of Mongol unity and autonomy for the four
khanates: in China (the Yuan Dynasty), Iran (the Ilkhans), Russia (the
Golden Horde), and Transoxiana (the Chagatays).
Hulagu and his heirs ruled the old Persian Empire from Azerbaijan for
seventy-five years as viceroys (Il-Khans) of the Great Khan of China’s
viceroys (Il-Khans). As elsewhere, the Mongols did not eradicate the
society they inherited. Their native paganism and Buddhist and Christian
leanings yielded to Muslim faith, although they practiced religious
tolerance. After 1335 the Ilkhanid Empire broke up into provinces, and for
fifty years Iran was again fragmented.
This situation prepared the way for a new Turko-Mongol conquest from
Transoxiana, under Timur-i Lang (“Timur the Lame,” or “Tamerlane,”
1336–1405). Even Genghis Khan could not match Timur in the savagery of
military campaigns. Timur’s raiding between 1379 and 1405 was not aimed
at empire-building, but sheer conquest. In successive campaigns he swept
everything before him in a flood of devastation: eastern Iran (1379–1385);
western Iran, Armenia, the Caucasus, and upper Mesopotamia (1385–
1387); southwestern Iran, Mesopotamia, and Syria (1391–1393); Central
Asia from Transoxiana to the Volga and as far as Moscow (1391–1395);
North India (1398); and northern Syria and Anatolia (1400–1402). Timur’s
sole positive contributions seem to have been the buildings he sponsored at
Samarkand, his capital. He left behind him ruins, death, disease, and
political chaos across the entire eastern Islamic world, which did not soon
recover. His was, however, the last great steppe invasion, for firearms soon
destroyed the steppe horsemen’s advantage.

QUICK REVIEW
Timur-i Lang
Between 1379 and 1405, Timur’s goal was conquest
Timur’s campaigns were renowned for their brutality
Left behind destruction and chaos throughout eastern Islamic world

Timur’s sons ruled after him in Transoxiana and Iran (1405–1494). The
most successful Timurid was Shahrukh (r. 1405–1447), who for a time
controlled a united Iran. His capital, Herat, became an important center of
Persian Islamic culture and Sunni piety. He patronized the famous Herat
school of miniature painting as well as Persian literature and philosophy.
The Timurids had to share Iran with Turkoman dynasties in western Iran,
once even losing Herat to one of them. They and the Turkomans were the
last Sunnis to rule Iran. Both were eclipsed at the end of the fifteenth
century by the militant Shi’ite dynasty of the Safavids, who ushered in a
new, Shi’ite era in the Iranian world (see Chapter 20).
THE SPREAD OF ISLAM BEYOND THE
HEARTLANDS

WHAT WERE the main ways Islam spread beyond Eurasia?

The period from roughly 1000 to 1500 saw Islamic civilization spread to
become a lasting religious, cultural, social, and political force in new
regions (see Map 12–1). Expanding not only from Mesopotamia, Persia,
and the Black Sea north to Moscow under the Golden Horde, but also west
to the Balkans and the Danube basin under the Ottoman Turks, Islamic rule
covered the greater part of Eurasia in this era (see Chapter 20). Meanwhile,
India, Malaysia, Indonesia, inland West Africa, and coastal East Africa
became major spheres of Islamic political, social, cultural, and commercial
presence. In all these regions Sufi orders were most responsible for
converting people and spreading Islamic cultural influences, though
merchants, too, were major agents of cultural Islamization.
Conquest was a third (but demographically less important) means of
Islamization (and either Arabization or Persianization) in these regions.
Sometimes only ruling elites, sometimes wider circles, became Muslims,
but in India, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa much of the populace
retained their languages, heritage, and religious traditions, while their elites
learned Arabic and/or Persian as second or third languages. Nonetheless, in
the most important of these regions, India, the coming of Islam brought
epochal changes.

ISLAMIC INDIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

Indian Islamic civilization (like earlier Indian civilization) was formed by

creative interaction between invading foreigners and indigenous peoples.
The early Arab and Turkish invaders were a foreign Muslim minority; their
heirs were truly “Indian” as well as Islamic, adding a new dimension to
both Indian and Islamic civilization. From then on, Indian civilization
would both include and enrich Islamic traditions.

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM TO SOUTH ASIA

HOW DID trade and Sufi orders spread Islam?

Well before the Ghaznavids came to the Punjab, Muslims were to be found
even outside the original Arab conquest areas in Sind (see Map 12–3).
Muslim merchants had settled in the port cities of Gujarat and southern
India as diaspora communities to profit from internal Indian trade as well as
from trade with the Indies and China. Wherever Muslim traders went,
converts to Islam were attracted by business advantages as well as by the
straightforward ideology and practice of Islam and its officially egalitarian,
“classless” ethic. Sufi orders had gained a foothold in the central Deccan
and in the south, giving today’s south Indian Muslims old roots. Sufi piety
also drew converts in the north, especially when the Mongol devastation of
Iran in the thirteenth century sent refugees into North India. Muslim
refugees strengthened Muslim life in the subcontinent.

Deccan
Large plateau with varying terrain that constitutes most of southern India.

MAP EXPLORATION

To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

MAP 12–3. The Indian Subcontinent, 1000–1500.

Shown are major kingdoms and regions.

Where in India were the principal Islamic states located during this period?

View the Image

The Indian Ocean Dhow Sailing Vessel, at myhistorylab.com
MUSLIM-HINDU ENCOUNTER

WHAT ALLOWED Muslim rulers eventually to dominate India?

From the outset Muslim leaders had to rule a land dominated by utterly
different cultural and religious traditions. Much as early Muslim rulers in
Iranian territories had given Zoroastrians legal status as “people of
Scripture” (like Christians and Jews; see Chapter 10), the first Arab
conquerors in Sind (711) had treated Hindus as “protected peoples” under
Muslim sovereignty. These precedents gave Indian Muslim rulers a legal
basis for coexistence with their Hindu subjects but did not remove Hindu
resistance to Islamic rule.
The chief obstacle to Islamic expansion in India was the strength of the
Hindu warrior class that emerged after the Hun and other Asian invasions of
the fifth and sixth centuries. Apparently descended from invaders and the
native Hindu warrior (Kshatriya) class, they were known from about the
mid-seventh century as Rajputs. The Rajputs were a large group of northern
Indian clans sharing a fierce warrior ethic and strong Hindu cultural and
religious traditionalism. They fought the Muslims with great tenacity, but
their inability to unite brought them under Muslim domination in the
sixteenth century (see Chapter 20).
The Qutb Minar (Victory Tower) in Delhi is an example of classic Indo-
Muslim architecture. Constructed in the twelfth century, this soaring tower
of red sandstone commemorated Islamic military victory.

What features of this tower reflect Indian cultural traditions?

CHRONOLOGY

EASTERN ISLAMIC LANDS

ISLAMIC STATES AND DYNASTIES

HOW DID local traditional beliefs shape Muslim practice in Southeast

Asia?

A series of Turkish-Afghan rulers known as the “Slave Sultans of Delhi”

extended and maintained Islamic power over North India for nearly a
century (1206–1290). Such slave-soldiers, or mamluks, figured
prominently in the leading elites of the new regime, much as they did in the
Mamluk Dynasty in Egypt. Five descendants of Iltutmish ruled after him
until 1266. The most vigorous of these was his daughter Raziyya, who ruled
as sultana from 1237 to 1241.

mamluks
Slave-soldiers who converted to Islam, the mamluks eventually became a
powerful military caste and even governed Egypt from 1250 to 1517.

Four later Muslim dynasties—the Khaljis, Tughluqs, Sayyids, and Lodis

—continued the Delhi sultanate until nearly 1500. This run of Muslim
dynasties was interrupted by Timur’s Mongol-Turkish invasion and sack of
Delhi in 1398, from which the city took decades to recover. However, even
before this devastation—roughly from the mid-1300s—the sultanate’s
central authority waned. In the two centuries before the advent of the
Mughals in the mid-sixteenth century, many regions became partially or
wholly independent, smaller sultanates, Rajput kingdoms, or tiny Hindu or
Muslim principalities. The sultanate was often only the most prominent
among various kingdoms. Regional rule predominated across the
subcontinent.
The most important independent Islamic state was that of the Bahmanids
in the Deccan (1347–1527). These rulers were famous for architecture and
the intellectual life of their court, as well as for containing the powerful
South Indian Hindu state of Vijayanagar (1336–1565). (The first
documented use of firearms in the subcontinent was in a Bahmani battle
with the raja of Vijayanagar in 1366.) Most regional capitals fostered a rich
cultural life. Jaunpur, to the north of Benares (Varanasi), for example,
became an asylum for artists and intellectuals after Timur’s sack of Delhi
and boasted an impressive tradition of Islamic architecture. Kashmir, an
independent sultanate from 1346 to 1589, was a literary center where many
Indian texts were translated into Persian.

SOUTHEAST ASIA
Islam spread into Southeast Asia as a result of a natural extension of long-
distance Islamic (Arab and Persian) and Indian trade across the Indian
Ocean, land and sea migrations of scholars and merchants, and socialization
of Indian peoples of South Asia. This extension of much older trade
contacts eastward beyond the Indian subcontinent had unique
characteristics of its own. Because of their geographic location, the islands
in Southeast Asia readily connected India and China and thus became an
important trade route by the fifteenth century. The spread of Islam in this
region was not a steady, progressive development. Rather, the proliferation
of Islam was idiosyncratic, and a number of distinct Islamic traditions
emerged, centered largely around five areas: Java, Sumatra, Melaka, Acheh,
and Moluccas (see Map 12–4 on page 304).
In some areas, such as the Moluccas, traditional Muslim beliefs coexisted
with ancestor-worship, sorcery, or magic. Various central Islamic rites such
as the pilgrimage (Hajj) were perceived to be an Arab custom and thus
optional for “true” Muslims. Eventually, many political leaders adopted a
more stringent Islamic practice, largely because this aided in greater
centralization and consolidation of power.
One of the greatest sources of tension and conflict in this area was only
tangentially related to distinct religious views: It was the struggle between
the center and the periphery. Before the arrival of the Dutch in the early
seventeenth century, the various urban rulers, typically located in port cities,
benefited from the new global economy. They sought to subsume under
their control the hereditary chiefs, who had also converted to Islam, by
invoking Islam and their vision of a perfect society. The local traditions
proved to be durable, especially in the rural areas. Muslims in Southeast
Asia therefore adapted Islam to their needs and customs rather than simply
replacing the indigenous practices with the new universal and foreign
religion.
MAP 12–4. The Spread of Islam in Southeast Asia.

What were the main reasons for the spread of Islam in Southeast Asia?

RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL

ACCOMMODATION

HOW DID Islam become an enduring part of Indian civilization?

Despite the division of the subcontinent into multiple political units, the
five centuries after Mahmud of Ghazna saw Islam become an enduring,
influential element of Indian culture—especially in the north and the
Deccan. The Delhi sultans were able, except for Timur’s invasion, to fend
off the Mongols, as had the Mamluks in Egypt. They thereby provided a
political and social framework within which Islam could take root.
Although a Muslim minority of Persianized Turks and Afghans continued
to rule a Hindu majority, conversion went on at various levels of society.
Ghazis (“warriors”) carried Islam by conquest to pagan groups in eastern
Bengal and Assam. Some Hindu converts came from the ruling classes
serving Muslim overlords. Sufi orders converted many Hindus among the
lower classes. The Muslim aristocracy, initially mostly foreigners, was
usually treated in Indian society as a separate caste group. Lower class
Hindu converts were assimilated into lower “Muslim castes,” often
identified by occupation. (See Document, “How the Hindus Differ from the
Muslims” on page 306.)

ghazis
Warriors who carried Islam by force of arms to pagan groups.

Sanskrit had long been the common Indian scholarly language, but in this
period regional languages, such as Tamil in the south, achieved literary and
administrative status, and Persian became the intellectual and cultural
language of the North Indian ruling elites. However, the infusion of
substantial numbers of Muslims into the subcontinent produced a new
language, Urdu-Hindi, with both Perso-Arabic and Indic elements. It
began to take shape soon after the eleventh-century Muslim influx and
developed in response to the increasing need of Hindus and Muslims for a
shared language. It became the spoken idiom of the Delhi region and a
literary language of North Indian and Deccan Muslims in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. Indo-European in grammar, it used Perso-Arabic
vocabulary and script and was at first called Hindi (“Indian”) or Dakani
(“southern”), then in British times Hindustani. Eventually Urdu became the
name for its Islamic version, based on its Perso-Arabic, Turkish heritage,
and Hindi for the version associated with Hindu culture and its Sanskrit
heritage. Ultimately, Urdu became the official national language of modern
Pakistan, and Hindi, of modern India.

Urdu-Hindi
A language that combines Persian-Arabic and native Indian elements. Urdu
is the Muslim version of the language. Hindi is the Hindu version.

OVERVIEW Major Islamic Dynasties, 1000s–1500s

Indian Muslims, both immigrants and converts, were susceptible to

Hindu influence (in language, marriage customs, and caste consciousness),
much like Muslims in Africa and Asia. Unlike earlier immigrant elites, they
were never utterly absorbed into Hindu culture but remained in some
measure a group apart, proud to be distinct. The Muslim ruling classes saw
themselves as protectors and propagators of Islam in India, and most of the
Delhi sultans sought formal recognition for their rule from the nominal
Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad or, in Mamluk times, in Cairo.
Nevertheless, the reciprocal influence of Muslims and Hindus was
inevitable, especially in popular piety and among the masses as opposed to
the ruling elites. Sufi devotion had an appeal similar to that of Hindu
devotional, or bhakti movements (see Chapter 4), and each influenced the
other. Some of India’s most revered Sufi and bhakti saints date from the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. During this period, various theistic
mystics strove to transcend Hindu-Muslim antagonism and exclusivism.
They typically preached devotion to a God who saves his worshipers
without regard to either Hindu caste obligations or legalistic Muslim
observance. The poet-saints Ramananda (d. after 1400) and Kabir (d. ca.
1518) were the two most famous such reformers.
bhakti
Hindu devotional movements.

DOCUMENT
How the Hindus Differ from the Muslims
Al-Biruni (d. ca. 1050), the greatest scholar-scientist of medieval Islam,
was born in northeastern Iran. He spent much of his life at the court of
Mahmud of Ghazna, whom he accompanied on expeditions into
northwestern India. Alongside his scientific work, he learned Sanskrit,
studied the Hindus, and wrote a History of India. The following selections
from this work illustrate the reach and sophistication of his mind.

• HOW DOES the emphasis on purity and the impurity of foreigners

that Biruni imputes to the Hindus compare with the attitudes of
Islam? Other religions? Does this passage suggest why the Hindu
tradition has remained largely an Indian one while Islam became
international? To what might Biruni be referring in his comments on
the relative absence of religious controversy among Hindus?

… The barriers which separate Muslims and Hindus rest on different

causes.

First, they differ from us in everything which other nations have in

common. And here we first mention the language, although the difference
of language also exists between other nations. If you want to conquer this
difficulty (i.e., to learn Sanskrit), you will not find it easy, because the
language is of an enormous range, both in words and inflections, something
like the Arabic, calling one and the same thing by various names, both
original and derived, and using one and the same word for a variety of
subjects, which, in order to be properly understood, must be distinguished
from each other by various qualifying epithets.…
Secondly, they totally differ from us in religion, as we believe in nothing
in which they believe, and vice versa.
On the whole, there is very little disputing about theological topics
among themselves; at the utmost, they fight with words, but they will never
stake their soul or body or their property on religious controversy. On the
contrary, all their fanaticism is directed against those who do not belong to
them—against all foreigners. They call them mleecha, i.e., impure, and
forbid having any connection with them, be it by intermarriage or any other
kind of relationship, or by sitting, eating, and drinking with them, because
thereby, they think, they would be polluted. They consider as impure
anything which touches the fire and the water of a foreigner; and no
household can exist without these two elements. Besides, they never desire
that a thing which once has been polluted should be purified and thus
recovered, as, under ordinary circumstances, if anybody or anything has
become unclean, he or it would strive to regain the state of purity. They are
not allowed to receive anybody who does not belong to them, even if he
wished it, or was inclined to their religion. This, too, renders any
connection with them quite impossible, and constitutes the widest gulf
between us and them.
In the third place, in all manners and usages they differ from us to such a
degree as to frighten their children with us, with our dress, and our ways
and customs, and as to declare us to be devil’s breed, and our doings as the
very opposite of all that is good and proper. By the by, we must confess, in
order to be just, that a similar depreciation of foreigners not only prevails
among us and the Hindus, but is common to all nations towards each other.
Source: From Edward C. Sachau, Alberuni’s India, Vol. 1 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner,
1910), pp. 17, 19, 20.

HINDU AND OTHER INDIAN TRADITIONS

WHAT WERE some characteristics of Hindu culture in this period?

The history of India from 1000 to 1500 was also important for the religious
and cultural communities of India that as a whole vastly outnumbered the
Muslims. The Jain tradition flourished, notably in Gujarat, Rajputana, and
Karnataka. In the north Muslim conquests effectively ended Indian
Buddhism—which had already been waning—by the eleventh century.
 Hindu religion and culture flourished even under Muslim rule, as the
continuing social and religious importance of the Brahmans and the
popularity of bhakti movements throughout India attest. This was an age of
Brahmanic scholasticism that produced many commentaries and manuals
but few seminal works. Bhakti creativity was much greater. The great Hindu
Vaishnava Brahman Ramanuja (d. 1137) reconciled bhakti ideas with the
classical Upanishadic Hindu world-view in the Vedantin tradition. Bhakti
piety permeates the masterpiece of Hindu mystical love poetry, Jayadeva’s
Gita Govinda (twelfth century), which is devoted to Krishna, the most
important of Vishnu’s incarnations.
The south continued to be the center of Hindu cultural, political, and
religious activity. The major dynastic state in the south in this age was that
of the Cholas, who flourished from about 900 to 1300 and patronized a
famous school of bronze sculpture at their capital, Tanjore. Their mightiest
successor, the kingdom of Vijayanagar (1336–1565), subjugated the entire
south in the fourteenth century and resisted its Muslim foes longer than any
other kingdom. Vijayanagar itself was one of India’s most lavish cities and
a center of the cult of Shiva before its destruction by the Deccan Bahmanid
sultan.
Krishna Dancing on the Head of the Serpent Kaliya. This fifteenth-
century bronze figure from Vijayanagar is based on the legend of how
Kaliya infested the Jumna River’s waters until Krishna leaped in and
emerged dancing on the vanquished snake.

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. The Avery Brundage Collection

B65B72.

How were Islam and Hinduism altered by their contact with each
other?

SUMMARY

HOW DID the Sunni, Shi’ite, and Sufi traditions develop between the
years 1000 and 1500?
Religion and Society. Between 1000 and 1500, the most important
developments for the shape of Islamic society were of Sunni and Shi’ite
legal and religious norms and of Sufi traditions and personal piety. Sunnism
was the dominant tradition across the Islamic world. In both main branches
of Islam, the ulama became the religious, social, and political elites and
discouraged religious innovation. Shi’ism flourished in Iran under the
Savafid rulers. Sufi piety stresses the spiritual and mystical dimensions of
Islam. Sufi fraternal orders, whether Sunni or Shi’ite, became the chief
instruments for spreading the Muslim faith in most Islamic societies. page
290
WHO WERE the Mamluks, and why were they able to withstand the
Mongols?
Regional Developments. Despite general religious tolerance and high
cultural achievements, the Muslims were gradually pushed out of Spain by
the Spanish Christian states between 1000 and 1492. In Egypt, the Shi’ite
Fatamids established a separate caliphate from 969 to 1171. The Mamluks,
elite Turkish and Mongol slave-officers, were the only Muslim dynasty to
withstand the Mongol invasions, thanks to military might and strong
government. The Saljuqs, based in Anatolia and Iraq, were the first major
Turkish dynasty of Islam. Other notable Islamic dynasties were the
Ghaznavids in Transoxiana and the Khwarizm-Shahs in Persia. In 1255 the
Mongols invaded the Muslim world and swept all before them, conquering
Transoxiana, Persia, and Iraq, where they captured Baghdad and killed the
last Abbasid caliph in 1258, before being defeated by the Mamluks in Syria
in 1260. Thereafter, the Mongols established the Ilkhanid Dynasty in Persia
and converted to Islam. Another wave of Turko-Mongol conquest under
Timur-i Lang further devastated much of the Near East between 1379 and
1405. page 293

Read the Document

A Contemporary Describes Timur at myhistorylab.com

WHAT WERE the main ways Islam spread beyond Eurasia?

The Spread of Islam beyond the Heartlands. Islamic rulers controlled
most of Eurasia in the 1000–1500 period. Islam also gained influence in
India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and parts of West and East Africa. Trade and
commerce, Sufi orders, and conquest were among the means by which
Islam spread. page 300
HOW DID trade and Sufi orders spread Islam?
The Spread of Islam to South Asia. Muslim traders, as well as Sufi
brotherhoods, spread Islam in India, where it appealed to local needs and,
for traders, seemed to offer business advantages. page 300
WHAT ALLOWED Muslim rulers eventually to dominate India?
Muslim–Hindu Encounter. Hindus enjoyed protected status under Muslim
rule in India, but they still resisted. Over time, lack of Hindu unity allowed
Muslim rulers to increase their power. page 302
HOW DID local traditional beliefs shape Muslim practice in Southeast
Asia?
Islamic States and Dynasties. The Delhi sultanate, in which mamluks
were prominent, maintained power in Northern India for much of this
period. A variety of smaller, independent states emerged starting in the mid-
1300s, including the Islamic Bahmanids in the Deccan. In Southeast Asia,
Islam was spread by Muslim merchants and traders, as well as by Sufi
brotherhoods, and wherever it took root, it blended with local customs.
page 303
HOW DID Islam become an enduring part of Indian civilization?
Religious and Cultural Accommodation. A new language, Urdu-Hindi,
combined Persian-Arabic and indigenous Indian elements. There was
reciprocal influence between Muslims and Hindus. page 304
WHAT WERE some characteristics of Hindu culture in this period?
Hindu and Other Indian Traditions. Buddhism all but disappeared from
India during these years, but Hindu religion and culture flourished, even
under Muslim control. Hindu devotional, or bhakti, movements were
especially creative. page 306

KEY TERMS

Al-Andalus
bhakti
Deccan
ghazis
madrasa
mamluk
Ramadan
Reconquista
Sufi (soo-FEE)
sultans
Urdu-Hindi

REVIEW QUESTIONS
 1. In the 1000–1500 period, why did no Muslim leader build a unified
large-scale Islamic empire of the extent of the early Abbasids?
2. How were the ulama educated? What was their relationship to
political leadership? What social roles did they play? What was the
role of the madrasas in Islamic culture and civilization?
3. What was the impact of the institutionalization of Sufi piety and
thought? What were the social and political roles of Sufism?
4. Discuss cultural developments in Spain before 1500. Why was
Córdoba such a model of civilized culture? What were some of the
distinguishing features of al-Andalus?
5. Why did Islam survive the successive invasions by steppe peoples
(Turks and Mongols) from 945 on? What were the lasting results of
these “invasions” for the Islamic world?
6. What were the primary obstacles to stable rule for India’s Muslim
invaders and immigrants? How did they deal with these obstacles?
7. What are some examples of reciprocal influence between Muslim
and Hindu traditions in India?
8. What were noteworthy characteristics of the spread of Islam in
Southeast Asia?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections

Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many

documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

and Review Chapter 12

Read the Document Al-Ghazali, excerpt from Confessions, p. 292
Ibn Rushd Averroes 12th century, p. 294
al-Tha’Alibi, Recollection of Bukhara, p. 296
A Contemporary Describes Timur, p. 307

View the Image The Indian Ocean Dhow Sailing Vessel, p. 302

Research and Explore

See the Map The Spread of Islam, p. 291

See the Map Delhi Sultanate, 1236 C.E.

 Hear the Audio
Hear the audio file for Chapter 12 at www.myhistorylab.com
13
Ancient Civilizations of the Americas

Hear the Audio for Chapter 13 at www.myhistorylab.com

A Mixtec View of Creation. In this manuscript, which predates the Spanish

conquest, the Mixtec Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico, illustrate how their gods
created the world. The complex narrative depicted here relates the creation
of the Mother and Father of the gods by Lord and Lady One-Deer.

What is the connection between religious authority and political power

in Native American civilizations, and how does this compare with other
civilizations in the premodern period?
RECONSTRUCTING THE HISTORY OF NATIVE AMERICAN
CIVILIZATION

WHAT PROBLEMS do scholars face in reconstructing the history of

Native American civilizations?

MESOAMERICA: THE FORMATIVE PERIOD AND THE

EMERGENCE OF CIVILIZATION

WHAT GROUP dominated Olmec society?

THE CLASSIC PERIOD IN MESOAMERICA

WHAT WERE some of the main achievements of the Classic-period

civilizations in Mesoamerica?

THE POST-CLASSIC PERIOD

WHAT ROLE did human sacrifice play in the Aztec Empire?

ANDEAN SOUTH AMERICA: THE PRECERAMIC AND INITIAL

PERIODS

HOW DID Andean peoples modify their environments?

CHAVÍN DE HUANTAR AND THE EARLY HORIZON

WHY DID Chavín influence spread?

THE EARLY INTERMEDIATE, MIDDLE HORIZON, AND LATE

INTERMEDIATE PERIODS

HOW DO Tiwanaku and Huari foreshadow the achievements of the Inca?

THE INCA EMPIRE

HOW DID the Inca enlarge and organize their empire?

Humans first settled the American continents between 12,000 and 30,000
years ago. At that time glaciers locked up much of the world’s water,
lowering the sea level and opening a land bridge between Siberia and
Alaska. The earliest undisputed archaeological evidence of humans in
Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip of South America, dates to 11,000
years ago, indicating that by then the immigrants’ descendants had spread
over all of both North and South America. When the glaciers receded the
oceans rose, severing Asia from America. The inhabitants of the Americas
were isolated from the inhabitants of Africa and Eurasia and would remain
so until 1492.
Although isolated from one another, the peoples of the Americas, Africa,
and Eurasia experienced similar cultural changes at the end of the
Paleolithic. Some people shifted from hunting and gathering to an
agricultural way of life. Scholars of the early Americas call this the
Paleoindian period.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE AMERICAS
Civilization in the Americas before 1492 developed independently of
civilization in the Old World. As the pharaohs of Egypt were erecting their
pyramid tombs, the people of the desert Pacific coast of Peru were erecting
temple platforms. While King Solomon ruled in Jerusalem, the Olmec were
creating their monumental stone heads. As Rome reached its apogee and
then declined, so did the great city of Teotihuacán in the Valley of Mexico.
As Islam spread from its heartland, the rulers of Tikal brought their city to
its greatest splendor before its abrupt collapse. Maya mathematics and
astronomy rivaled those of any other peoples of the ancient world. And as
the aggressive nation-states of Europe were emerging from their feudal
past, the Aztecs and Incas were consolidating their great empires. The
agriculture, engineering, and public works of these states—as exemplified
by the famous Aztec drainage systems, the floating gardens or chiampas of
Lake Texcoco, and the Inca system of roads and their terraced agriculture—
exquisitely demonstrate an ability to master the most challenging
environments.
The encounter between Old World and New commencing at the close of
the fifteenth century, however, proved devastating for American
civilizations. The same naval and military technology that allowed
Europeans to embark on the voyages of discovery and fight destructive
wars among themselves caught the great native empires unprepared. More
important, however, was what historian Alfred Crosby has called the
“Columbian Exchange.” The peoples of the New World exchanged trade
goods, ideas, technology, and microbes among themselves, along north–
south trade routes that linked the American Southeast and Southwest to
Mesoamerica, and the peoples of the northern Andes to those of the central
and southern regions, as well as east–west routes linking eastern North
America with the Great Lakes region and beyond. The coming of the
Spanish profoundly disturbed both the patterns of trade and the ecological
balance. Most significant, the Spanish introduced new epidemic diseases
against which the peoples of the New World did not possess immunity.
During the first century after the encounter these diseases, killing vast
numbers of people and affording the Europeans a psychological edge,
played a key role in the conquest of the peoples of the New World.
Equally important in understanding the ability of small numbers of
Europeans to conquer these advanced civilizations, however, was the nature
of the civilizations themselves. Neither the Americans nor their cultures
were static or immobile; they were definitely not, in one historian’s words,
“a people without history,” even if much of that history is lost to us because
of the absence or destruction of written records. The European invaders
succeeded most rapidly in toppling the most organized of the societies in
the New World, the Aztecs and the Inca, precisely because these societies
were organized, centralized, and hierarchical.
It is important to remember that the history of New World civilizations in
the face of the encounter was tightly linked to internal developments before
the arrival of Europeans. The Aztecs and Incas, in particular, ruled over
different peoples, many of whom resented their subjugation and saw in the
arrival of the Europeans an opportunity to assert their autonomy. Thus the
Spanish in Mexico and, to a lesser extent, in Peru, found allies among the
local peoples willing to do much of the fighting for them. When Hernán
Cortés faced the Aztecs in the decisive battle for their capital city,
Tenochtitlán, he did so with at least 30,000 indigenous warriors by his side.
Consequently, the Spanish intruded into a political situation that was itself
already in flux and prepared to respond to the introduction of new military
and cultural forces.
Focus Questions

Why is it important to bear in mind that the civilizations of the New

World had long and rich histories before the arrival of Europeans?
Why is it so difficult to discover the details of the history of the
peoples of the Americas? What are our major sources of
information?
What role did the environment play in the formation of American
civilizations?

Between approximately 8000 B.C.E. and 2000 B.C.E., in what is termed the
Archaic period, climatic changes occurred in Central America. Large
animals, including mammoth, became extinct, altering humans’ food
supply. The diet of maize (corn), beans, and squash came to predominate.
The domestication of new crops led to a much more sedentary life. New
kinds of weapons and tools were developed to secure and process new
foods.
After about 2000 B.C.E., during what is called the Formative period,
remarkable civilizations emerged as societies grew increasingly stratified,
villages coalesced into urban centers, monumental architecture was
erected, and artistic traditions developed. The two most prominent centers
of pre-Columbian American civilization—and the focus of this chapter—
were Mesoamerica, in what is today Mexico and Central America, and the
Andean region of South America. At the time of the European conquest of
the Americas in the sixteenth century, two relatively recent, expansionist
empires—the Aztecs, or Mexica, in Mesoamerica, and the Inca in the Andes
—dominated their respective environments. Spanish conquerors obliterated
both of these empires and nearly succeeded in obliterating native culture.
But in both regions, Native American traditions have endured, overlaid and
combined in complex ways with Spanish culture, to provide clues to the pre-
conquest past.

RECONSTRUCTING THE HISTORY OF

NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILIZATION
 WHAT PROBLEMS do scholars face in reconstructing the history of
Native American civilizations?

Andean civilizations in South America never developed writing, and in

Mesoamerica much of the written record was destroyed by time and
conquest. Archaeologists have been able to create a picture of the economic
and social organization of ancient American civilizations, but archaeology
alone cannot produce the kind of narrative history that thousands of years of
written records have made possible for Eurasian civilizations. However,
from the ancient civilization of the Maya in Mesoamerica specimens of
writing survive, and scholars have deciphered their script and attached
names, dates, and events to silent ruins.

View the Image

Mayan Ruins, at myhistorylab.com

We also have accounts of the history and culture of the Aztecs and Inca
produced by Spanish missionaries and officials. Although these accounts
are invaluable sources of information, they are also obviously biased.
Scholars seeking to understand Native American civilization have had to
rely on the language and categories of European thought to investigate
peoples and cultures that had nothing to do with Europe. Columbus and
other early explorers (see Chapter 17), believing they had reached the East
Indies, called the people they met in the Caribbean “Indians.” This
misnomer stuck and extended to all Native American peoples who, of
course, had other names for themselves. The name America itself is
European, taken from Amerigo Vespucci (1451–1512), a Florentine who
explored the coast of Brazil in 1501 and 1502.

MESOAMERICA: THE FORMATIVE PERIOD

AND THE EMERGENCE OF
MESOAMERICAN CIVILIZATION
 WHAT GROUP dominated Olmec society?

Mesoamerica (meaning “middle America”) extends from Central Mexico

into Central America (see Map 13–1 on page 314). This is a region of great
physical diversity, ranging from lowland tropical rain forests to temperate
highlands with fertile basins and valleys. Lowland regions include the
Yucatán Peninsula and the Gulf and Pacific coasts. Highland regions
include Mexico’s central plateau and the mountainous areas of Guatemala.
Most of Mesoamerica’s mineral resources are found in the highlands. The
lowlands were the source of many important trading goods, including
hardwoods, plant dyes, and the prized feathers of exotic birds.

MAP 13–1. Mesoamerica: The Formative and Classic Periods.

What Role did trade play in the formation of Mesoamerican civilizations?

Study and Review at myhistorylab.com

 Mesoamerica also designates a distinctive cultural tradition that emerged
in this region between 1000 and 2000 B.C.E., manifested itself in a
succession of impressive states until the coming of European conquerors in
the sixteenth century, and continues to express itself in the lives of
indigenous peoples. Mesoamerica is not culturally homogeneous: The
peoples of Mesoamerica were and are ethnically and linguistically diverse.
There was no single Mesoamerican civilization, nor was there a single
linear development of civilization in the region. Nonetheless,
Mesoamerican civilizations shared many traits, including writing, a
sophisticated calendrical system, many gods and religious ideas, a ritual
ball game, and urban centers with religious and administrative buildings
symmetrically arranged around large plazas.
Long-distance trade linked the peoples of Mesoamerica. Metallurgy came
late to Mesoamerica, and it was used primarily for ceremonial objects rather
than for weapons and tools. Mesoamericans made weapons and other tools
from obsidian, a volcanic glass capable of holding a razor-sharp edge, and
for that reason a valued trade commodity.

obsidian
A hard volcanic glass that was widely used in Mesoamerica.

Mesoamerican history before the Spanish conquest is conventionally

divided into four major periods: Archaic, Formative, Classic, and Post-
classic. The term Classic, with its connotations of “best” or “highest,”
derives from European historical frameworks. It reflects the view of many
early Mesoamericanists that the Classic period, which corresponds more or
less to the time during which the Maya civilizations of the southern Yucatán
erected dated stone monuments called stelae, was the high point of
Mesoamerican civilization. Despite various controversies, this chronology
continues to provide a useful framework.
Aztec Calendar Stone. When the Aztec “calendar” was unearthed in
Mexico in 1790, it confirmed the greatness and complexity of the
Americas’ pre-Columbian civilizations.

What system was the basis for the Aztec calendar?

The transition from hunting and gathering to settled village life occurred
gradually in Mesoamerica during the Archaic period. The cornerstone of the
process was the domestication of maize (corn) and other staple crops,
including beans and squash. Other plants native to the Americas that were
domesticated in this period include tomatoes, chili peppers, and avocado.
Maize and beans were particularly important because together they provide
a richer source of protein than the grains that were the basis of the Neolithic
revolution in the ancient Near East and China. Mesoamerica was poor in
sources of animal protein, having only a few small domesticated animals—
among them dogs and turkeys—and no large herd animals like the cattle,
sheep, and goats of the Old World (see Figure 13–1).

Figure 13.1 Number of Domesticated Species Compared*

*A species is defined as a wild mammal weighing on the average over 100
pounds. Thirteen species were domesticated in Eurasia in antiquity: sheep,
goats, cows, pigs, horses, Arabian camels, Bactrian camels, donkeys,
reindeer, water buffalo, yak, Bali cattle, and mithan. Only one species was
domesticated in the Americas: llamas (alpacas), which are found in the
Andes.

Adapted from Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: W. W.
Norton, 1997).

The domestication of maize, beans, and other plants secured the people
of Mesoamerica an adequate and dependable diet. Over time they devised
myriad ways to prepare and store these staples. Since the conquest, maize
has also been one of Mesoamerica’s major contributions to the world.
Probably because they had no large draft animals, the people of the
Americas never developed the wheel. (They did make wheeled toys,
however.) In Mesoamerica, humans did all the carrying. And because there
were neither horses nor chariots, wars in Mesoamerica—and in Andean
South America—were fought by foot soldiers.
Between 5000 and 2500 B.C.E. villages began to appear in both highland
and lowland regions of Mesoamerica. By about 2000 B.C.E. settled
agricultural life had taken hold in much of the region. As in the Old World,
people began to make fired clay vessels, and ceramic technology appeared.
Nomadic hunter-gatherers have little need of storage, but farmers do, and
clay vessels filled that need. Pottery is also a medium for artistic
expression, and it played a role in religion and ritual observance.

QUICK REVIEW
Transition to Settled Village Life
Occurred during Archaic period
 Cornerstone of process was domestication of maize
Mesoamerica had few domesticated animals

Ball Court at Monte Alban. Like most ball-game courts that have
survived throughout Mesoamerica, the ball court at the Monte Alban
Temple Complex in Oaxaca has an “I” shape with a long, narrow alley
flanked on both sides by stone walls.

What purposes did Mesoamerican ball games serve?

MESOAMERICAN BALLGAMES
Peoples throughout ancient Mesoamerica played a complicated ball game
that originated before 1700 B.C.E. Ruins of approximately l,500 ball courts
from different eras have been unearthed from the Southwest of the United
States to the Amazon, as well as on Cuba. Early Spanish explorers and
missionaries witnessed the game among the Aztecs and were fascinated.
The game involved multiple players—team sizes differed from area to
area—contesting a hard rubber ball, apparently without using their hands.
Courts were shaped in the form of an “I” and were usually at least as long
as a modern football field. The goal was to move the ball to the opponents’
end court. At some point in the Classic period, the game came to involve
shooting the ball through a stone hoop.
The Mesoamerican ball game was very dangerous and often violent. The
rubber balls were hard, so players wore elaborate protective headgear and
padding for both arms and legs, as portrayed in ancient sculpture and
paintings. Some sculptures portray women in sports gear, though it is
unclear whether women actually competed. The players, like modern sports
figures, occupied prestigious positions in their societies.

Read the Document

Victory over the Underworld, at myhistorylab.com

Games often carried elaborate political and ritualistic overtones. Some

accounts tell of political disputes being settled by playing a ball game
instead of warfare. For some peoples, the game served to reenact major
events recorded in mythology. (See p. 320 regarding the Maya ball games.)
On other occasions the games were rigged to reenact past warfare, with the
team of the side that had lost the war losing the game. In some cases, losers
were sacrificed.

THE OLMEC
By about 1500 B.C.E. Mesoamerica’s agricultural villages were beginning to
coalesce into more complicated societies with towns, monumental
architecture, class divisions, long-distance trade, and sophisticated artistic
traditions (see Map 13–1). The most prominent Early Formative period
culture is the Olmec, centered on the lowlands of Mexico’s Gulf coast.
Most knowledge about the Olmecs comes from the archaeological sites of
San Lorenzo and La Venta. San Lorenzo, first occupied in about 1500 B.C.E.,
had developed into a prominent center by about 1200 B.C.E. It included
public buildings, a drainage system linked to artificial ponds, and a ball
court. The center flourished until about 900 B.C.E., and was abandoned by
about 400 B.C.E. As San Lorenzo declined, La Venta rose to prominence,
flourishing from about 900 to 400 B.C.E. La Venta’s most conspicuous
feature is the 110-foot Great Pyramid, which stands at one end of a group of
platforms and plazas aligned along a north–south axis. Many artifacts were
buried along the center line of this axis.
 Hear the Audio
Early Americas at myhistorylab.com

CHRONOLOGY

MAJOR PERIODS IN ANCIENT MESOAMERICAN

CIVILIZATION

The population of San Lorenzo and La Venta was never great, probably
less than 1,000 people. The monumental architecture and sculpture at these
sites—including massive stone heads, thought to be portraits of rulers,
carved from basalt from quarries as much as 65 miles away—suggest that
Olmec society was dominated by an elite class of ruler-priests able to
command the labor of farmers who lived in outlying villages.
Among the most pervasive images in Olmec art is that of the were-jaguar,
a half-human, half-feline creature. The were-jaguar may have been a divine
ancestor figure, perhaps providing the elite with the justification for their
authority. Similarities between the were-jaguar iconography and that of later
Mesoamerican deities suggest some of the underlying continuities linking
Mesoamerican societies over time.
The raw material for many Olmec artifacts, such as jade and obsidian,
comes from other regions of Mesoamerica. Control of trade in such high-
status materials by the Olmec elite contributed to their prestige and
authority.
Olmec Monument. A large carved monument from the Olmec site of La
Venta with a naturalistically rendered human figure.

What does the size of Olmec carvings suggest about Olmec political
power?

THE VALLEY OF OAXACA AND THE RISE OF MONTE ALBAN

Olmec civilization had disappeared by about 200 B.C.E. Some of the most
significant settlements in the Late Formative period were in the Valley of
Oaxaca. Around 500 B.C.E., Monte Albán was built on a hill where three
branches of the valley meet. Its population grew to about 5,000, and it
emerged as the capital of a state that dominated the Oaxaca region. Carved
images of bound prisoners imply that warfare played a role in establishing
its authority. These images also suggest an early origin for the ritual human
sacrifice that characterized most Mesoamerican cultures. Monte Albán
maintained its independence against the growing power of the greatest city
of the Classic period, Teotihuacán.

THE EMERGENCE OF WRITING AND THE MESOAMERICAN CALENDAR

The earliest evidence of writing and the Mesoamerican calendar has been
found in the Valley of Oaxaca. The Mesoamerican calendar is based on two
interlocking cycles, each with its own day and month names. One cycle,
tied to the solar year, was of 365 days; the other was of 260 days.
Combining the two cycles produced a “century” of 52 years, the amount of
time required before a particular combination of days in each cycle would
repeat itself. The hieroglyphs found in Oaxaca relate to the 260-day cycle.
At the time of the Spanish conquest, all the peoples of Mesoamerica used
the 52-year calendrical system.

QUICK REVIEW
The Mesoamerican Calendar
Calendar based on two interlocking cycles
First cycle, tied to solar year, was 365 days; the second was 260 days
Two cycles produced a “century” of 52 years

THE CLASSIC PERIOD IN MESOAMERICA

WHAT WERE some of the main achievements of the Classic period

civilizations in Mesoamerica?

The Classic period was a time of cultural florescence. In central Mexico, it

saw the rise of Teotihuacán, a great city that rivaled the largest cities of the
world at the time. The Maya, who built densely populated cities in the
seemingly inhospitable rain forests of the southern Yucatán, developed a
sophisticated system of mathematics and Mesoamerica’s most advanced
hieroglyphic writing. Indeed, urban life in Classic Mesoamerica was richer
and grander than that of contemporaneous Europe north of the Alps.
Scholars have recently made enormous strides in understanding Classic
civilization. Progress in deciphering Maya hieroglyphics has opened a
window on politics and statecraft. Archaeological studies have broadened
our understanding of Teotihuacán and Maya cities, providing clues to the
lives of the people who lived in them.
 Classic cities, with their many temples, plazas, and administrative
buildings, were religious and administrative centers whose rulers combined
secular and religious authority. Warfare was common, and Classic rulers did
not hesitate to use force to expand their authority. Ritual sacrifice of captive
enemies was widespread.

TEOTIHUACÁN
In the Late Formative period two centers competed for dominance over the
rapidly growing population of the Valley of Mexico. Cuicuilco was located
at the southern end of the valley, whereas Teotihuacán was located about 30
miles northeast of Mexico City. When a volcano destroyed Cuicuilco in the
first century C.E., Teotihuacán grew into a great city, perhaps Mesoamerica’s
first city-state, dominating central Mexico for centuries and strongly
influencing the rest of Mesoamerica.
Natural advantages contributed to Teotihuacán’s rise. A network of caves
recently discovered under its most prominent monument, the Pyramid of the
Sun (the name by which the Aztecs knew it), may have been considered an
entrance to the underworld. Stone quarried from the caves was used to
construct the city, creating a symbolic link between the city’s buildings and
its sacred origins. Teotihuacán is also near a source of obsidian, and it
straddled a trade route to the Gulf Coast and southern Mesoamerica. It was
surrounded by fertile farmland.

Watch the Video

Teotihuacán Ruins in Mexico at myhistorylab.com

At its height around 500 C.E., Teotihuacán extended over almost 9 square
miles and had a population of more than 150,000, making it one of the
largest cities in the world at the time. Its size and organization suggest that
it was ruled by a powerful, centralized authority. It was laid out on a rigid
grid plan dominated by a broad, 3-mile-long thoroughfare known as the
Avenue of the Dead. Religious and administrative structures and a market
occupy the center of the city. At one end of the Avenue of the Dead is the
so-called Pyramid of the Moon, and near it, to one side, is the 210-foot-high
Pyramid of the Sun. More than 2,000 residential structures surround the city
center. The lavish homes of the city’s elite lie nearest the center. Most of the
city’s residents lived in walled apartment compounds that were also centers
of craft manufacture with neighborhoods devoted to pottery, obsidian work,
and other specialties. Parts of the city were reserved for foreign traders.
Murals adorned the interiors of many residences, of common people as well
as the elite. The humble dwellings of poor farmers—who were apparently
forced to abandon their villages and move to Teotihuacán—occupied the
city’s periphery.

A Closer Look
The Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán
Teotihuacán, located outside Mexico City, remains one of the most
important and most mysterious of all the great pre-Columbian
archaeological sites. It was a vast city with a population in the
hundreds of thousands, flourishing at its height in about 500 C.E. and
becoming abandoned about 800 C.E., hundreds of years before the rise
of the Aztec Empire. Extremely little is actually known about this city,
including the name it inhabitants gave it. The name “Teotihuacán,”
meaning Where the Gods Were Born, is the name that the Aztecs gave
to it long after it had been abandoned. They also gave names to many
of the surviving structures and streets in the city.
The Pyramid of the Sun is the second largest pyramid on the
American continents and the third in the world, being just over 200 feet
high. It was constructed during the first two centuries C.E. The religious
rituals for which it was intended are unclear, though human sacrifice
appears to have occurred on it. The great structure, which was
probably topped by a small frame temple, is located over a system of
subterranean caves linked to the pyramid. This and other monuments
in Teotihuacán were admired by the later peoples who lived in central
Mexico who associated the site with their own myths. At the time
Cortés arrived, the Aztec emperor Moctezuma visited the site,
apparently hoping to receive guidance or wisdom from the ancients
who had once inhabited it.
Picture Desk, Inc./Kobal Collection.
Questions

1. How might you imagine the reactions of successive generations of

visitors to the ruins of the Pyramid of the Sun? For example, what
were the reactions of the pre-Aztec peoples who encountered it as an
abandoned site, the Aztecs who considered it a sacred place, the
early Spanish who were amazed at the size of the edifice, later
archaeologists, and still later tourists? How do differing expectations
determine what people experience when visiting ancient sites? Why
is it so difficult to imagine ancient urban sites, now abandoned with
only monuments remaining, as places once inhabited by tens of
thousands of people?
2. How does archaeological evidence, in the Americas or elsewhere in
the world, differ from written records or the artistic record?
3. How could the restoration of the Pyramid of the Sun in 1910 be used
to link modern and ancient Mexico? Do you know of other
restorations of ancient sites carried out by modern governments?
To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com

Teotihuacán’s influence extended throughout Mesoamerica. In the central

highlands, dispersed settlements were consolidated into larger centers laid
out similarly to Teotihuacán, suggesting conquest and direct control—a
Teotihuacán empire. The city’s influence in more distant regions may have
reflected close trading ties. The city’s obsidian and pottery were exchanged
widely for items like the green feathers of the quetzal bird and jaguar skins,
valued for ritual garments.
Among the deities of Teotihuacán are a storm god and his goddess
counterpart, who may be linked to the Aztec’s rain god. The people of
Teotihuacán also worshiped a feathered serpent, recognizably antecedent to
the god the Aztecs worshiped as Quetzalcoatl and the Maya as Kukulcan.
Murals also suggest that the Teotihuacán elite, like the Maya and later
Mesoamerican peoples, drew their own blood as a form of sacrifice to the
gods. They also practiced human sacrifice.
After 500 C.E. Teotihuacán’s influence began to wane, and in the eighth
century its authority collapsed. A fire swept through the city, destroying the
ritual center and the residences of the elite and hinting at an internal revolt.
Although a substantial population remained, the city never regained its
former status. It retained a hold on the imagination of succeeding
generations of Mesoamericans, however, much as the ruins of ancient
Greece and Rome influenced later Europeans. The name by which we know
it, Teotihuacán, was given by the Aztecs and means “City of the Gods.” It
was still a revered pilgrimage site at the time of the Spanish conquest.
Teotihuacán. Temple façade showing Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent,
as well as the god Tlalc, with round eyes. What were important features
of religious belief in Teotihuacán?

QUICK REVIEW
Teotihuacán
Population of more than 150,000 at its height
Dominated by Avenue of the Dead
Influence of city extended throughout Mesoamerica

THE MAYA
Maya civilization arose in southern Mesoamerica. The earliest distinctively
Maya urban sites date to around 800 B.C.E.. The most important of these is
Nakbé. The pyramid structures so popularly identified with Mayan culture
were fully developed between 300 B.C.E. and 300 C.E. During the later
Classic period, Maya civilization experienced a remarkable florescence in
the lowland jungles of the southern Yucatán. It is this last era about which
scholars now possess the most knowledge, because of inscriptions on stone
monuments. More scholarship and archaeological exploration have been
devoted to the Mayan peoples than any other culture of Mesoamerica, and
our understanding of Classic Maya civilization has changed radically in
recent decades. The Maya have also entered the modern popular
imagination.
All the pre-Spanish societies of Mesoamerica were literate, recording
historical and religious information on scrolled or screenfold books made
with deerhide or bark paper. Only a handful of these books, four of them
Mayan, have survived. (Spanish priests, who viewed native religious texts
as idolatrous, burned almost all of them.) The Maya of the Classic period,
who developed Mesoamerica’s most advanced writing system, were unique
in the extent to which they inscribed writing and calendrical symbols in
stone, pottery, and other imperishable materials.

View the Image A Mayan Town, at myhistorylab.com

Tikal, the largest city, probably had a population of between 50,000 and
70,000 at its height. Terracing, irrigation systems, and other agricultural
technologies increased yields enough to support dense populations.
Powerful ruling families and their elite retainers dominated cities, supported
by a far larger class of farmer-commoners. Maya inscriptions mostly
recount important events in the lives of rulers. Warfare between cities was
chronic. As murals and sculptures show, captured prisoners were sacrificed
to appease the gods and glorify the victorious ruler.
The Maya believed that the world had gone through several cycles of
creation before the present one. They recognized no clear distinction
between a natural and a supernatural world or between religious and
political authority. Rulers claimed association with the gods to justify their
authority. They wore special regalia and performed rituals—including
bloodletting ceremonies, the sacrifice of captives, and ball games—to
sustain the gods and the cosmic order.
 The Classic Maya developed a sophisticated mathematics and were
among the first peoples in the world to invent the concept of zero. In
addition to the 52-year calendar they shared with other Mesoamerican
societies, the Maya developed an absolute calendar, known as the Long
Count. The Long Count calendar—like the Jewish, Christian, or Muslim
calendars—was anchored to a fixed starting point in the past. The calendar
had great religious as well as practical significance for the Maya. They
viewed the movements of the celestial bodies to which the calendar was
tied—including the sun, moon, and Venus—as deities. The complexity and
accuracy of their calendar reflect Maya skills in astronomical observation.
They adjusted their lunar calendar for the actual length of the lunar cycle
(29.53 days) and may have had provisions like our leap years for the actual
length of the solar year. The calendar’s association with divine forces and
the esoteric knowledge required to master it must have been important
sources of prestige and power for its elite guardians.

Long Count
A Mayan calendar that dated from a fixed point in the past.

During the Classic period many independent units, each composed of a

capital city and smaller subject towns and villages, alternately vied and
cooperated with each other, rising and falling in relative prominence. Tikal,
at its height the largest Classic Maya city, is also one of the most thoroughly
studied. The residential center covers more than 14 square miles and has
more than 3,000 structures. The city follows the uneven terrain of the rain
forest and is not laid out on a grid. Monumental causeways link the major
structures of the site. Tikal benefited from its strategic position. It is located
near a source of flint, valued as a raw material for stone tools, and swamps
that with modification might have been agriculturally productive. It has
access to river systems that lead both to the Gulf and the Caribbean coasts,
giving it control of the trade between those regions.
Maya Calendar. This copy of a page from the Dresden codex shows
detailed calendrical observations and astronomical predictions. The original
calendar was inscribed on stone tablets. How did the Mayan calendar
relate to Mayan religious beliefs?
A single dynasty of thirty-nine rulers reigned in Tikal from the Early
Classic period until the eighth century. Early rulers in this Jaguar Paw line
were buried in a structure known as the North Acropolis, and the
inscriptions associated with their tombs provide details, including in many
cases their names, the dates of their rule, and the dates of major military
victories. Late in the fourth century links developed between Tikal and
Teotihuacán. One ruler, Curl Nose, who ascended to the throne in 379, may
have married into the ruling family from the Teotihuacán-dominated city of
Kaminaljuyu in the southern highlands.
For about a hundred years beginning in the mid-sixth century, Tikal and
most other lowland Maya sites lost much of their influence and may have
suffered a serious defeat at the hands of the city of Caracol. Then in 682 the
ruler Ah Cacau (r. 682–723?) ascended the throne and initiated a new
period of vigor and prosperity for Tikal, again expanding its influence
through conquest and strategic marriage alliances. Ah Cacau and his two
immediate successors, Yax Kin (r. 734–?) and Chitam (r. 769–?), began an
ambitious building program, creating most of Tikal’s surviving monumental
structures. Chitam was the last ruler in the Jaguar Paw Dynasty. After he
died Tikal again declined, and, like other sites in the southern lowlands, it
never recovered.

Mayan Mural. This reproduction of one of the remarkable murals found at

the Maya site of Bonampak shows the presentation of captives to the city’s
ruler, Chan Muan.

What roles did captives play in Mayan society?

Similar dynastic histories have emerged from research at other Classic

Maya sites. Inscriptions in the shrine above the tomb of Lord Pacal (r. 615–
683), the greatest ruler of the city of Palenque, record the city’s entire
dynastic history back to mythic ancestors. Two of the rulers in this
genealogy were women, including Pacal’s mother, Lady Zac Kuk (r. 612–
640).
Between 800 and 900 C.E. Classic civilization collapsed in the southern
lowlands. The ruling dynasties all came to an end, the construction of
monumental architecture and sculpture with Long Count dates ceased, and
the great cities were virtually abandoned. The cause of the collapse is still
unknown. Factors that may have contributed to it include intensifying
warfare, population growth, and attempts to increase agricultural production
that ultimately backfired.
The focus of Maya civilization shifted to the northern Yucatán. There the
site of Chichén Itzá, located next to a sacred well, flourished from the ninth
to the thirteenth centuries. Stylistic resemblances between Chichén Itzá and
Tula, the capital of the Post-Classic Toltec Empire in central Mexico
(discussed next), suggest ties between the two cities. After Chichén Itzá’s
fall, Mayapan became the main Maya center. By the time of the Spanish
conquest it too had lost sway, and the Maya had divided into small,
competing centers.

THE POST-CLASSIC PERIOD

WHAT ROLE did human sacrifice play in the Aztec Empire?

After Teotihuacán collapsed in the eighth century, warfare increased, and

several smaller militaristic states emerged, centered around fortified hilltop
cities. Interregional trade and market systems became increasingly
important, and secular and religious authority began to diverge.

THE TOLTECS
About 900 C.E. a people known as the Toltecs rose to prominence. Their
capital, Tula, is located near the northern periphery of Mesoamerica. Like
Teotihuacán, it lay close to an important source of obsidian. The Toltecs
themselves were apparently descendants of one of many “barbarian”
northern peoples (like the later Aztecs) who began migrating into
Mesoamerica during the Late Classic period.
Later Aztec mythology glorified the Toltecs as the fount of civilization,
attributing to them a vast and powerful empire to which the Aztecs were the
legitimate heirs. Other Mesoamerican peoples at the time of the conquest
also assigned legendary status to the Toltecs. The archaeological evidence
for a Toltec empire, however, is ambiguous. Tula, with 35,000 to 60,000
people, was never as large or as organized as Teotihuacán. Toltec influence
reached many regions of Mesoamerica, and the city established extensive
trade routes, especially for luxury goods. Archaeologists are uncertain
whether that influence translated into political control. Toltec iconography,
which stresses human sacrifice, death, blood, and military action, supports
their warlike reputation. Their deities are clearly antecedent to those
worshiped by the Aztecs, including the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl and
the warlike trickster Tezcatlipoca.
Whatever the reality of Toltec power, it was short-lived. By about 1100
Tula was in decline and its influence gone.

Tula Statuary. Tula, now Hidalgo, Mexico, was the capital of the Toltec
civilization. These enormous statues, known as the Atlantes, stand atop the
remains of the ancient Toltec pyramid raised in ancient Tula.

Why did the Aztecs claim links with the Toltecs?

THE AZTECS
The people commonly known as the Aztecs referred to themselves as the
Mexica, a name that lives on as Mexico. When the Spanish arrived in 1519,
the Aztecs dominated much of Mesoamerica. Their capital city,
Tenochtitlán, was the most populous yet seen in Mesoamerica. Built on
islands and landfill in the southern part of Lake Texcoco in the Valley of
Mexico, it was home to at least 200,000 people. It had great temples and
palaces. Bearing tribute to its rulers and goods to its great markets, canoes
crowded the city’s canals, and pedestrians thronged its streets and the great
causeways linking it to the mainland. The city’s traders brought precious
goods from distant regions; vast wealth flowed in constantly from subject
territories. Yet the Aztecs were relative newcomers, the foundation of their
power being less than 200 years old.

Mexica
The Aztecs’ name for themselves.

We have more information about the Aztecs than any other preconquest
Mesoamerican people. Many of the Spanish conquistadors recorded their
experiences, and postconquest administrators and missionaries collected
valuable information. Although filtered through the bitterness of defeat for
the Aztecs and the biases of the conquerors, these records nevertheless
provide detailed information about Aztec society and Aztec history.
According to their own legends, the Aztecs were originally a nomadic
people inhabiting the shores of a mythical Lake Aztlán northwest of the
Valley of Mexico. At the urging of their patron god Huitzilopochtli, they
began to migrate, arriving in the Valley of Mexico early in the thirteenth
century. Scorned by the people of the cities and states already there, but
prized and feared as mercenaries, they ended up in the marshy land on the
shores of Lake Texcoco. They finally settled on the island that became
Tenochtitlán in 1325 after seeing an eagle perched there on a prickly pear
cactus, an omen Huitzilopochtli had said would identify the end of their
wandering.
The Aztecs initially accepted a position as tributaries and mercenaries for
Azcazpotzalco, then the most powerful state in the valley, but soon became
trusted allies with their own tribute-paying territories and claims through
marriage to descent from the Toltecs. In 1428, under their fourth ruler,
Itzcoatl (r. 1427–1440), the Aztecs formed a triple alliance with Texcoco
and Tlacopan, turned against Azcazpotzalco, and became the dominant
power in the Valley of Mexico. Less than 100 years before the arrival of
Cortés, the Aztecs began the aggressive expansion that brought them their
vast tribute-paying empire (see Map 13–2).
Itzcoatl also laid the foundation of Aztec imperial ideology. He ordered
the burning of all the ancient books in the valley, expunging any history that
conflicted with Aztec pretensions, and restructured Aztec religion and ritual
to support and justify Aztec preeminence. The Aztecs now presented
themselves as the divinely ordained successors to the ancient Toltecs, and
with each new conquest and the growing splendor of Tenochtitlán, they
seemed to ratify that claim. (See Document, “Nezahualcoyotl of Texcoco
Sings of the Giver of Life.”)

MAP EXPLORATION

To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

MAP 13–2. The Aztec and Inca Empires on the Eve of the Spanish
Conquest.

What were the chief differences between the Aztec and Inca empires?

DOCUMENT
Nezahualcoyotl of Texcoco Sings of the Giver of Life
Nezahualcoyotl, ruler of Texcoco, lived from 1402 to 1472 and was admired
as a philosopher-king. In this poem he sings of the presence of the Giver of
Life who invents himself and of the ability of human beings to invoke this
divinity, but at the same time he emphasizes the impossibility of achieving
any close relationship with the divinity.
• In what ways does this song remind you of the thought and religious
traditions of the early civilizations of China, India, Egypt, and
 Greece? What are the characteristics of “He Who invents Himself”?
What kind of relationship can human beings achieve with this
being? Why does the singer compare seeking the Giver of Life with
seeking someone among flowers?

In no place can be the house of He Who invents Himself. But in all

places He is invoked, in all places He is venerated, His glory, His fame
are sought on the earth. It is He Who invents everything He is Who
invents Himself: God. In all places He is invoked, in all places He is
venerated, His glory, His fame are sought on the earth. No one here is
able, no one is able to be intimate with the Giver of Life; only He is
invoked, at His side, near to Him, one can live on the earth. He who
finds Him, knows only one thing; He is invoked, at His side, near to
Him, one can live on the earth. In truth no one is intimate with You, O
Giver of Life! Only as among the flowers, we might seek someone, thus
we seek You, we who live on the earth, while we are at Your side. Our
hearts will be troubled, only for a short time, we will be near You and
at Your side. The Giver of Life enrages us, He intoxicates us here. No
one can be perhaps at His side, be famous, rule on the earth. Only You
change things as our hearts know it: No one can be perhaps at His
side, be famous, rule on the earth.

Source: Excerpt (pp. 86–88) from Fifteen Poets of the Aztec World, by Miguel Leon-Portilla.
Copyright © 1992 by Miguel Leon-Portilla. Reprinted by permission of University of Oklahoma
Press.

Aztec conquests ultimately included almost all of central Mexico. To the

west, however, they were unable to conquer the rival Tarascan Empire with
its capital of Tzintzuntzan. And within the Aztec realm several pockets,
most prominently Tlaxcala, remained unsubdued.
The Aztec Empire was extractive. After a conquest, the Aztecs usually
left the local elite in power but demanded heavy tribute in goods and labor.
Tribute included goods of all kinds, including agricultural products, fine
craft goods, gold and jade, textiles, and precious feathers. This wealth
underwrote the grandeur of Tenochtitlán, making it “a beautiful parasite,
feeding on the lives and labour of other peoples and casting its shadow over
all their arrangements.”1
Human sacrifice on a prodigious scale was central to Aztec ideology. The
Aztecs believed that Huitzilopochtli, as sun god, required human blood to
sustain him as he battled the moon and stars each night to rise again each
day. The prime candidates for sacrifice were war captives, and the Aztecs
often engaged in “flowery wars” with traditional enemies just to obtain
captives. On major festivals, thousands of victims might perish. Led up the
steps of the temple of Huitzilopochtli, a victim was thrown backward over a
stone, his arms and legs pinned, while a priest cut out his heart. He would
then be rolled down the steps of the temple, his head placed on a skull rack,
and his limbs butchered and distributed to be eaten. Small children were
sacrificed to the rain god Tlaloc, who was believed to be pleased by their
tears.
Victims were also selected as stand-ins for particular gods, to be
sacrificed after a series of rituals. For example, each year a beautiful male
youth was chosen to represent the powerful god Tezcatlipoca. All year, the
chosen one wandered through the city dressed as the god and playing the
flute. A month before the end of his reign he was given four young women
as wives. Twenty days before his death he was dressed as a warrior, and for
a few days he virtually ruled the city. Then he was sacrificed.
No other Mesoamerican people practiced human sacrifice on the scale of
the Aztecs. It must have intimidated subject peoples. It may also have
reduced the population of fighting-age men from conquered provinces, and
with it the possibility of rebellion. Together with the heavy burden of
tribute, human sacrifice fed resentment and fear, which may help explain
why so many subject peoples were willing to throw in their lot with Cortés
when he challenged the Aztecs.
The Founding of Tenochtitlán. According to legend, the tribal god
Huitzilopochtli led the Aztecs/Mexica to a spot where an eagle sat atop a
prickly pear cactus (tenochtli) growing out of a rock and told them to build
their capital there. This symbol now graces the Mexican flag. This image
first appeared in the Codex Mendoza, a pictorial history of the Aztecs,
presumably prepared for the first viceroy of New Spain, Antonio Mendoza,
around 1541.

How did the Aztecs build their empire?

Three great causeways linked Tenochtitlán to the mainland. These met at
the ceremonial core of the city, dominated by a double temple dedicated to
Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc. The palaces of the ruler and high nobles lay just
outside the central precinct. The ruler’s palace was the empire’s
administrative center, with government officials, artisans and laborers,
gardens, and a zoo of exotic animals. The rest of the city was divided into
four quarters, which were further divided into numerous wards (calpulli).
Some calpulli were specialized, reserved for merchants (pochteca) or
artisans. The city was laid out on a grid formed of streets and canals.
Agricultural plots of great fertility known as chinampas bordered the canal
and the lake shores. Aqueducts carried fresh water from springs on the lake
shore into the city. A massive dike kept the briny water of the northern part
of Lake Texcoco from contaminating the waters around Tenochtitlán.
Aztec society was hierarchical, authoritarian, and militaristic. It was
divided into two broad classes, noble and commoner, with merchants and
certain artisans forming an intermediate category. The nobility enjoyed
great wealth and luxury. Laws and regulations relating to dress reinforced
social divisions.

calpulli
The wards into which the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán, was divided.

The Aztecs were morally austere. They valued obedience, respectfulness,

discipline, and moderation. Laws were strict and punishment was severe.
Standards for the nobility were higher than for commoners, and
punishments for sexual and social offenses were more strictly enforced the
higher one stood in the hierarchy. Drunkenness was frowned upon and
harshly punished among the elite. Parents would even execute their own
children for breaking moral laws and customs.

View the Image

Aztec Warriors at myhistorylab.com
Human Sacrifice. Illustration from a colonial-era manuscript volume,
known as the Codex Magliabecchiano, presenting Aztec ritual sacrifice on a
temple altar.

What role did human sacrifice play in Aztec society?

The highest rank in the nobility was that of tlatoani (plural tlatoque), or
ruler of a major political unit. The highest were the rulers of the three cities
of the Triple Alliance; of them, the highest was the tlatoani of Tenochtitlán.
Below them were the tetcutin, lords of subordinate units. And below them
were the pipiltin, who filled the bureaucracy and the priesthood.
The bulk of the population was made up of commoners who farmed the
chinampas, harvested fish from the lake, and provided labor for public
projects. All commoners belonged to a calpulli, each of which had its own
temple. Girls and boys alike received training in ritual and ideology in the
song houses attached to these temples. Some criminal offenses were
punished with enslavement, and serfs worked the estates of noblemen.
Professional traders and merchants—pochteca—were important figures
in Aztec society. Their activities, backed by the threat of Aztec armies, were
a key factor in spreading Aztec influence. Artisans of luxury goods—
including lapidaries, feather workers, and goldsmiths—also had their own
calpulli and enjoyed a special status.
 Markets were central to Aztec economic life. The great market at
Tlatelolco, adjacent to Tenochtitlán, impressed the Spaniards with its great
size, orderliness, and variety of goods. More than 60,000 people went there
daily. Market administrators, both women and men, regulated transactions.
Cacao beans and cotton cloaks served as mediums of exchange.
Above all else, Aztec society was organized for war. Although there was
no standing army as such, all young men received military training. Combat
was a matter of individual contests, not the confrontation of massed
infantry. A warrior’s goal was to subdue and capture prisoners for sacrifice.
Prowess in battle, as measured by the number of prisoners a warrior
captured, was key to social advancement, and failure brought social
disgrace.
Women could inherit and own property. They traded in the marketplace,
and their craftwork could provide income. Women had access to priestly
roles, although they were barred from high religious positions. In general,
the Aztec emphasis on warfare left women excluded from positions of high
authority. A woman’s primary role was to bear children, and childbirth was
compared to battle. Death in childbirth, like death in battle, guaranteed
rewards in the afterlife.

See the Map

Pre-Columbian Civilization in Mesoamerica, at myhistorylab.com

ANDEAN SOUTH AMERICA: THE

PRECERAMIC AND INITIAL PERIODS

HOW DID Andean peoples modify their environments?

The Andean region of South America—primarily modern Peru and Bolivia

—also had a long history of indigenous civilization. This is a region of
dramatic contrasts. South of the equator, a narrow strip of desert lines the
Pacific coast. Beyond this strip the Andes Mountains rise abruptly. Small
river valleys descend the western face of the mountains, cutting the desert
plain to create a series of oases. The cold waters of the Humboldt Current
sweep north along the coast from the Antarctic, carrying rich nutrients that
support abundant sea life. Within the Andes are regions of high peaks and
steep terrain, regions of grassland (puna), and deep, warm, fertile
intermontane valleys. The eastern slopes of the mountains, covered with
dense vegetation, descend into the great tropical rain forest of the Amazon
basin (see Figure 13–2).
From ancient times, the people of the coast lived by exploiting the marine
resources of the Pacific and by cultivating maize, beans, squash, and cotton.
They also engaged in long-distance trade by sea along the Pacific coast.
The people of the highlands domesticated several plants native to the
Andean region, including the potato, other tubers, and a grain called quinoa,
which they cultivated on the high slopes of the Andes. In the intermontane
valleys they cultivated maize. And in the puna grasslands they kept herds of
llamas and alpacas for their fur and meat and as beasts of burden. Since
ancient times, highland communities maintained access to the different
resources available in different altitude zones. They share this adaptation,
which anthropologists sometimes call verticality, with people in other
mountainous regions, such as the Alps and the Himalayas.2
FIGURE 13–2. The Andean environment packs tremendous ecological
diversity into a small space.

Andean civilization is conventionally divided into seven periods:

Preceramic, Initial, Early Horizon, Early Intermediate, Middle Horizon,
Late Intermediate, and Late Horizon. The Early, Middle, and Late Horizons
are periods in which a homogeneous art style spread over a wide area. The
Intermediate periods are characterized by regional stylistic diversity.
Although there have been archaeological excavations of spectacular
Andean sites, such as Machu Pichu, Andean archaeology has been less
developed than that of other regions of pre-Columbian America, in large
measure because of the difficulty of reaching the sites.
The earliest monumental architecture in Peru dates to the early third
millennium B.C.E., roughly contemporary with the Great Pyramids of Egypt.
Mostly near the shore, these earliest centers of Norte Chico civilization
consist of ceremonial mounds and plazas and predate the introduction of
pottery to Peru.
Coastal people at this time subsisted primarily on the bounties of the sea,
supplemented with squash, beans, and chili peppers cultivated in the
floodplains of the coastal rivers. They also cultivated gourds—for use as
containers and utensils—and cotton. The cotton fishing nets and other
textiles of this period represent the beginning of the sophisticated Andean
textile tradition. The Norte Chico civilization appears to have been in
decline by about 1800 B.C.E.
The earliest public buildings in the highlands date to before 2500 B.C.E.
These are typically stone-walled structures enclosing a sunken fire pit used
to burn ritual offerings. The distribution of these structures, first identified
at the site of Kotosh, suggests that highland people shared a set of religious
beliefs that archaeologists have called the Kotosh religious tradition.
Highland people during the late preceramic period cultivated maize as well
as potatoes and other highland tubers. Llamas and alpacas were fully
domesticated by about 2500 B.C.E. There is little evidence of social
stratification for the late preceramic period. The public structures of both
the coast and the highlands appear to have been centers of community ritual
for relatively egalitarian societies.

CHRONOLOGY
PERIODS OF ANDEAN CIVILIZATION

The introduction of pottery to Peru around 2000 B.C.E. corresponds to a

major shift in settlement and subsistence patterns on the coast, marking the
beginning of the Initial period. People became increasingly dependent on
agriculture as well as on maritime resources. They moved their settlements
inland, built irrigation systems, and began cultivating maize. They built
large and impressive ceremonial centers, with forms that varied by region.
Population grew and society became gradually but increasingly stratified.
Incised carvings of bodies with severed heads at Cerro Sechín and Sechín
Alto in the Casma suggest growing conflict. Centers apparently remained
independent of one another.

CHAVÍN DE HUANTAR AND THE EARLY

HORIZON

WHY DID Chavín influence spread?

The large coastal centers of the Initial period declined early in the first
millennium B.C.E. At about the same time, beginning around 900 B.C.E., a
site in the highlands, Chavín de Huantar, was growing in influence (see
Map 13–3). Located on a trade route between the coast and the lowland
tropical rain forest, Chavín was the center of a powerful religious cult with
a population of perhaps 3,000 at its height. The architecture of its central
temple complex reflects coastal influence. Its artistic iconography draws on
many tropical forest animals, including monkeys, serpents, and jaguars. The
structure known as the Old Temple is honeycombed with passageways and
drains; archaeologists think water was channeled through these drains to
produce a roaring sound. At the end of the central passageway is an
imposing stela carved in the image of a fanged deity that combines human
and feline features. A small hole in the ceiling above suggests that it may
have been an oracle whose “voice” was that of a priest in the gallery above.
Between about 400 and 200 B.C.E. Chavín influence spread widely
throughout Peru, probably because of the prestige of its cult. The
florescence of Chavín was marked by important technological innovations
in ceramics, weaving, and metallurgy. Excavations at Chavín and other
Early Horizon sites point to increasing social stratification. Examination of
skeletal remains, for example, suggests that people who lived closer to the
ceremonial center ate better than people living on the margins of the site.
MAP 13–3. Pre-Inca sites discussed in this chapter.

What were the differences between highland and coastal cultures in early
South American history?

THE EARLY INTERMEDIATE, MIDDLE

HORIZON, AND LATE INTERMEDIATE
PERIODS

HOW DO Tiwanaku and Huari foreshadow the achievements of the

Inca?

Signs of increasing warfare accompany the collapse of the Chavín culture

and the ideological unity it had brought to the Andes. During the Early
Intermediate period, increasing regional diversity combined with increasing
political centralization as the first territorial states emerged in the Andes.
Among the best-known of these cultures are the Nazca on the south coast of
Peru and the Moche on the north coast.

NAZCA
The Nazca culture, which flourished from about 100 B.C.E. to about 700 C.E.,
was centered in the Ica and Nazca valleys. The people of the Nazca valley
built underground aqueducts to tap groundwater and divert it into irrigation
canals. Cahuachi, the largest Nazca site, was empty most of the year, filling
periodically with pilgrims during religious festivals. It may have been the
capital of a Nazca confederation, with each of its many temple platforms
representing a member unit.

The Nazca Geoglyph located in the Peruvian desert depicts a vast

hummingbird. The lines were constructed by the Nazca people probably
sometime between 250 C.E. and 600 C.E. They appear to have been sacred
paths walked by Nazca people perhaps somewhat as medieval Europeans
walked a labyrinth. At the summer solstice the final parallel line points to
the sun. The features of this and other geoglyphs can only be discerned
from the air, and their exact purpose remains a matter of speculation.

How do these geoglyphs illustrate the connection between culture and

the environment?

The earlier Paracas culture on the south coast produced some of the
world’s finest, most intricate textiles. The Nazca, too, are renowned for
their textiles and their polychrome pottery, elaborately decorated with
images of Andean plants and animals. They may be most famous, however,
for their colossal earthworks, or geoglyphs, the so-called Nazca lines. These
were created by brushing away the dark gravel of the desert to reveal a
lighter-colored surface. Some geoglyphs depict figures like hummingbirds,
spiders, and killer whales that appear on Nazca pottery. These are usually
located on hillsides visible to passersby. Others, usually consisting of
radiating lines and geometric forms, are drawn on Nazca’s pampa flats and
are only visible from the air.
MOCHE
The Moche culture flourished from about 200 to 700 C.E. on the north coast
of Peru. At its height it dominated all the coastal river valleys for 370 miles.
The culture takes its name from the Moche valley, the site of two huge
structures, the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon. The cross-
shaped Pyramid of the Sun, the largest adobe structure in the Americas, was
some 1,200 feet long by 500 feet wide and rose in steps to a height of 60
feet. It was made with more than 143 million adobe bricks, each of which
had a mark that probably identified the group that made it. Archaeologists
think the marks enabled Moche lords to be sure that subject groups fulfilled
their tribute obligations. The Moche area may have been divided into
northern and southern realms, with each valley ruled from its own center,
Pampa Grande or Cerro Blanco.
The Moche were skilled potters, producing molded and painted vessels
that reveal much about Moche life, religion, and warfare. Realistic portrait
vessels may depict actual people. Other vessels provide evidence about the
appearance of Moche architecture and the kind of regalia worn by the elite.
The discovery in the late 1980s of the undisturbed tombs of Moche rulers
suggests that a central theme in Moche iconography—the sacrifice
ceremony—was an actual ritual. Depictions of the sacrifice ceremony show
elaborately dressed figures drinking the blood of sacrificed prisoners. The
Moche were also the most sophisticated metalsmiths in the Andes. They
developed innovative alloys, cast weapons and agricultural tools, and used
the lost-wax process to create small, intricate works. As with so many of the
pre-Columbian peoples, the reason for the decline of the Moche is
uncertain.
Moche Earspool. This magnificent earspool of gold, turquoise, quartz, and
shell was found in the tomb of the Warrior Priest in the Moche site of Sipan,
Peru, 300 C.E.

Courtesty of UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History/Susan

Einstein/Christopher B. Donnan.

What processes did the Moche use in their metalwork?

TIWANAKU AND HUARI

In the fifth century C.E., as Teotihuacán was reaching its height in
Mesoamerica, the first expansionist empires were emerging in the Andean
highlands. One of these was centered at Tiwanaku in the Bolivian altiplano
near the south shore of Lake Titicaca; the other was at Huari, in the south-
central highlands of Peru. Although they differ in many ways, both are
associated with productive new agricultural technologies, and both show
evidence of a form of statecraft that reflects Andean verticality and fore-
shadows the administrative practices of the later Inca Empire. The artistic
symbolism of both also shares many features, suggesting a shared religious
ideology. Archaeologists still do not have a firm grip on the chronology of
Tiwanaku and Huari or the relationship between them.
Tiwanaku lies at more than 12,600 feet above sea level, making it the
highest capital in the ancient world. Construction apparently began at the
site in about 200 C.E.
It began its expansionist phase from about 500 to 600 C.E. and collapsed
500 years later, in the eleventh century. The city occupied 1 to 2 two square
miles and may have had a population of 20,000 to 40,000 people at its
height. Laid out on a grid, it is dominated by several large and impressive
public structures and ceremonial gateways. The enormous effort expended
in transporting the stone for these monuments indicates the power of the
Tiwanaku rulers over the labor of their subjects.
A system of raised-field agriculture on the shores of Lake Titicaca
provided Tiwanaku with its economic base. This system involved farming
on artificial platforms capped with rich topsoil and separated by basins of
water. Experimental reconstructions have shown it to be extremely
productive.
Tiwanaku dominated the Titicaca basin and neighboring regions. It
probably exerted its influence through its religious prestige and by
establishing colonies and religious-administrative structures in distant
territories. As with other cultures in the region, human sacrifice played a
part in Tiwanaku rituals.
The Huari Empire flourished from about 600 to 800 C.E., dominating the
highlands from near Cuzco in the south to Cajamarca in the north. For a
brief period it also extended a fortified colony into Tiwanaku territory. The
capital, Huari, covers about 1.5 square miles. It consists of a sprawl of
large, high-walled stone enclosures, and it had a population of 20,000–
30,000.
Huari is located in an intermontane valley and its rise is associated with
the development of techniques for terracing and irrigating the slopes of the
valley to increase their productivity. The spread of this beneficial
technology may have facilitated the expansion of the Huari Empire,
explaining its acceptance without signs of military domination. Huari
administrative centers were undefended and built in accessible places.
Many archaeologists think they may have functioned like later Inca
administrative centers, housing a small Huari elite that organized local labor
for state projects. Again like the Inca, Huari administrators used quipu
record-keeping devices made of string. Inca quipu, however, used knots,
whereas Huari quipu used different colored string.

quipu
Knotted string used by Andean peoples for record keeping.

THE CHIMU EMPIRE

Although there is evidence of Huari influence on the Peruvian north coast,
it is unlikely to have taken the form of direct political control. After the
demise of Moche authority, two new states emerged on the north coast.
One, named for the site of Sican, was centered in the Lambayeque valley.
The central figure in Sican iconography, the Sican Lord, may have been a
representation of a mythical founder figure named Nyamlap, mentioned in
post-conquest Spanish chronicles. Like their Moche predecessors in the
Lambayeque valley, the Sican people were skilled smiths who produced
sumptuous gold objects.
The other new north coast state, known as Chimu, was centered in the
Moche valley. In two waves of expansion the Chimu built an empire that
incorporated the Lambayeque valley and stretched for 800 miles along the
coast, from the border of Ecuador in the north to the Chillon valley in the
south. The administrative capital of this empire, Chan Chan, was a vast city
in the Moche valley. Its walls enclosed 8 square miles, and its central core
covered over 2 square miles. Serving as the focus of the city were some ten
immense adobe-walled enclosures known as ciudadelas. With their large
open plazas, their administrative and storage facilities, and their large burial
mounds, these probably housed the empire’s ruling elite. Surrounding them
were smaller compounds that probably housed the lesser nobility. And
surrounding these were the homes and workshops of the artisans and
workers who served the elite. Two areas were apparently transport centers,
where llama caravans brought raw materials to the capital from the empire’s
territories. The total population of the city was between 30,000 and 40,000.
Human sacrifice probably marked some Chimu ceremonies.
 About 1470, only sixty years before the arrival of the Spaniards, the
Chimu Empire was swept away by a powerful new state from the southern
highlands of Peru, the Inca Empire.

Machu Picchu. The Inca city of Machu Picchu perches on a saddle

between two peaks on the eastern slopes of the Andes.
Why would the Inca have situated Machu Picchu in such a remote
location?

THE INCA EMPIRE

HOW DID the Inca enlarge and organize their empire?

In 1532, when Francisco Pizarro encountered it, the Inca Empire was one of
the largest states in the world. Its domains encompassed the area between
the Pacific coast and the Amazon basin for some 2,600 miles, from
southern Colombia to northern Chile (see Map 13–2). Its ethnically and
linguistically diverse population numbered in the millions, with settlements
linked by excellent roads. The Incas inhabited the lowland river valleys
along the coast and the highlands, but did not settle in the Amazon rain
forest.
The Inca themselves called their domain Tawantinsuyu, the Land of the
Four Quarters. Their capital, Cuzco, lay at the intersection of these
divisions. Home to the ruler (Inca) and the ruling elite, it was a city of great
splendor and magnificence. Its principal temples, dedicated to the sun and
moon, gleamed with gold and silver. Its outer boundaries had been drawn to
resemble the shape of a vast puma.
The origins of the Inca are obscure. According to Inca traditions,
expansion began in the fifteenth century in the wake of a revolt of the
Chanca people that nearly destroyed Cuzco. Inca Yupanqui, son of the city’s
aging ruler, led a heroic resistance and crushed the revolt. Assuming the
name Pachacuti, he laid the foundations of Inca statecraft; he and his
successors expanded their domains to bring the blessings of civilization to
the rest of the Andean world. There is clearly an element of imperial
propaganda in this legend. The Inca did expand dramatically in the fifteenth
century, but archaeological evidence suggests that they had been expanding
their influence for decades and perhaps centuries before the Chanca revolt.
The Inca enlarged their empire through a combination of alliance and
intimidation as well as conquest. They organized their realm into a
hierarchical administrative structure and imposed a version of their
language, Quechua, as the administrative language of the empire.
(Quechua is still widely spoken in the Peruvian Andes.) The Inca
emperorship was not conveyed by direct inheritance. A dispute over the
royal succession was occurring at the time of the Spanish arrival and was
exploited by the Spanish.

Quechua
The Inca language.
Mummified remains. A mummy, exhumed at the cemetery at Puruchuco-
Huaquerones, with a feathered headdress, thought to signify high status.
What kinds of bodies were most likely to be mummified in Inca
culture?
The Inca and the peoples they ruled were extremely devout in their
religion. The Inca saw themselves in a profound relationship to their dead
forebears; they deeply honored their ancestors. Mummified bodies of
ancestors were preserved, especially among the elite. Property of the dead
was owned communally. Consequently, the property of a deceased Inca
emperor was not inherited by his successor but by his descendants, a group
known as a Panaca. When a new Inca emperor came to power, he had to
undertake military expansion to provide property for his own descendants.
The official Inca religion was organized in a strongly hierarchical
fashion, as were the gods being worshiped. Incas sacrificed animals to their
gods and, on occasions of great communal difficulty, also sacrificed human
beings, often children. Beyond the major population centers, religion was
essentially folk worship of spirits rather than formal gods.
Unlike the Aztecs, who extracted primarily economic tribute from their
subject peoples, the Inca relied on various forms of labor taxation. They
divided agricultural lands into several categories, allowing local populations
to retain some for their own support and reserving others for the state and
the gods. In a system known as the mita, local people worked for the state
on a regular basis, receiving in return gifts and lavish state-sponsored ritual
entertainments. Men also served in the army and labored on the
construction of vast public works projects, building cities and roads, and
terracing hillsides. In a policy that reflects the Andean practice of
colonizing ecologically varied regions, the Inca also designated entire
communities as Mitimaqs, moving them about to best exploit the resources
of their empire. They sometimes settled loyal people in hostile regions and
moved hostile people to loyal regions.

mita
The Inca system of forced labor in return for gifts and ritual entertainments.

Mitimaqs
Communities whom the Incas forced to settle in designated regions for
strategic purposes.

The Inca employed several groups of people in what amounted to full-

time state service. One of these, the mamakuna, consisted of women who
lived privileged but celibate and carefully regulated lives in cities and towns
throughout the empire. Mamakuna might also be given in marriage by Inca
rulers to cement alliances. These so-called Virgins of the Sun played an
important economic as well as religious role, weaving textiles and brewing
the maize beer known as chicha for the Inca elite. Textiles were highly
prized in Andean society. Cloth and clothing were not only a principal
source of wealth and prestige in Inca society, they were also a means of
communication. Complex textile patterns served as insignia of social status,
indicating a person’s rank and ethnic affiliation. Chicha had great ritual
importance and was consumed at state religious festivals. Another group of
full-time state workers, the yanakuna, were men whose duties included
tending the royal llama herds.

mamakuna
Inca women who lived privileged but celibate lives and had important
economic and cultural roles.
chicha
A maize beer brewed by the mamakuna for the Inca elite.

The Incas made their presence felt in their empire through regional
administrative centers and warehouses linked by a remarkable system of
roads. The centers served to organize, house, and feed people engaged in
mita labor service and to impress upon them the power and beneficence of
the state with feasting and ritual. The wealth of the empire, collected in
storehouses, sustained the mita laborers, fed and clothed the army, and
enriched the Inca elite. Although the Inca lacked writing, they kept detailed
administrative records on their string quipu.
To move their armies, administer their domains, and distribute the wealth
of their empire efficiently, the Inca built more than 14,000 miles of road.
These ranged from narrow paths to wide thoroughfares. Rope suspension
bridges crossed gorges and rivers, and stairways eased the ascent of steep
slopes. A system of relay runners sped messages to Cuzco from the far
reaches of the empire. This road system later facilitated Spanish conquest of
the empire.
The Inca Quipumayoc. The grand treasurer shown holding a quipu, a
device made of knotted strings, used to record administrative matters and
sacred histories. Information was encoded in the colors of the strings and
the style of the knots.

How did the Inca organize their empire?

Over their long history the people of the Andes adapted to their
challenging environment in ways that allowed them to prosper, bringing
more land under cultivation than is the case today. Building on ancient
Andean traditions, the Inca engineered a productive economy that brought
its people a measure of well-being that would not survive the destruction of
the empire by Spanish invaders. When those invaders arrived in the 1530s,
they found the Inca Empire in political strife as two brothers contested the
title of Inca. The Spanish also confronted an Inca population that had been
significantly lessened by a small pox epidemic during the previous decade.
That disease, introduced to Mexico in 1520, had spread rapidly in the
Americas and reached the Andes before the Europeans themselves. The
Spanish conquest meant that the most extensive and administratively
sophisticated empire of pre-Columbian America had endured less than a
century.

SUMMARY

WHAT PROBLEMS do scholars face in reconstructing the history of

Native American civilizations?
Reconstructing History. Some Maya written accounts survive, but much
of the history of Native Americans is reconstructed through archaeological
evidence. Accounts written after the Spanish conquest can provide valuable
information, but they must be interpreted carefully. page 312
WHAT GROUP dominated Olmec society?
Mesoamerica. Mesoamerica means “middle America.” It extends from
central Mexico to Central America. Although there was no single
Mesoamerican civilization, the civilizations of the Olmecs, the peoples of
Monte Albán and Teotihuácan, the Maya, the Toltecs, and the Aztecs shared
many features: urban centers with monumental buildings arranged on large
plazas, writing, a sophisticated calendrical system, religious ideas that
included human sacrifice, and the cultivation of certain crops, especially
maize and beans. The cities of Mesoamerica were also linked by trade. Elite
ruler-priests dominated Olmec society, and probably other Mesoamerican
societies. page 313
WHAT WERE some of the main achievements of the Classic period
civilizations in Mesoamerica?
The Classic Period. The great city of Teotihuacán influenced much of
Mesoamerica. Maya civilization featured writing, sophisticated
mathematics and astronomy, and religious ritual. page 317
WHAT ROLE did human sacrifice play in the Aztec Empire?
The Post-Classic Period. Warfare increased, and secular and religious
authority began to separate as the Classic period’s political structures
disintegrated. The brief era of Toltec power was followed by the Aztecs,
who established the largest Mesoamerican state before the coming of the
Spanish in the sixteenth century. The Aztec Empire depended on tribute
from conquered peoples. Aztec society was organized for war and was
divided into nobles and commoners, with merchants and certain artisans
forming intermediate categories. The Aztecs practiced wide-scale human
sacrifice to provide blood to the sun god. Most of the victims were captured
warriors, so the Aztecs went to war frequently. Women could own property
and participate in trade but were subordinate to men and excluded from
positions of high authority. page 321
HOW DID Andean peoples modify their environments?
Andean South America. Monumental architecture and public buildings in
Peru date from the third millennium B.C.E. When pottery first appeared in
Peru, around 2000 B.C.E., a process of increasing reliance on agriculture
began. This process was reinforced by expanding ceremonial centers and
population growth. page 326
WHY DID Chavín influence spread?
Chavín de Huantar. Chavín de Huantar was a trade center. It was also the
home of a powerful religious cult that gained regional influence because of
its prestige. page 328
HOW DO Tiwanaku and Huari foreshadow the achievements of the
Inca?
Early Intermediate, Middle Horizon, and Late Intermediate Periods.
Territorial states including the Nazca and the Moche were followed by the
expansionist Tiwanaku and Huari empires. Tiwanaku and Huari rulers, like
the Incas later on, were able to mobilize large numbers of laborers for
immense state projects. The Chimu Empire was swept away by the Incas.
page 328
HOW DID the Inca enlarge and organize their empire?
The Inca Empire. The Incas built the most extensive Andean empire. It
extended for 2,600 miles from Ecuador to Chile between the Pacific coast
and the Amazon basin. Inca rule relied on conquest, intimidation, and
alliances with other peoples. The Inca exacted taxation in terms of forced
labor and constructed over 14,000 miles of roads and numerous rope
bridges. Although the Inca lacked writing, they kept detailed accounts using
knotted strings. page 331

KEY TERMS

calpulli
chicha
Long Count
Mexica (meh-HEE-kah
mamakuna
mita
Mitimaqs
obsidian
Quechua (KEHTCH-oo-ah)
quipu (KEE-poo)

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What tools have historians used to study the early history of peoples
in the Americas? How has understanding of Native American
civilizations changed over time?
2. Describe the rise of civilization in Mesoamerica and Andean South
America. What does it have in common with the rise of civilization
elsewhere? In what ways was it unique?
3. What role did the environment play in the formation of American
civilizations?
4. The appearance of monumental architecture in the ancient world
was often associated with hierarchical agricultural societies. Was
this the case for the Peruvian coast?
5. What were some of the accomplishments of the Classic civilizations
of Mesoamerica? How do they compare with contemporary
 civilizations elsewhere in the world?
6. How was the Aztec Empire organized? How does it compare to the
early empires of the ancient world in the Near East, Europe, and
Asia?
7. How was the Inca Empire organized? How does it compare to the
early empires of the ancient world in the Near East, Europe, and
Asia?
8. Both the Aztec and Inca empires fell in the early sixteenth century
when confronted with Spanish forces of a few hundred men. What
factors might have contributed to their defeat?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections

Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many

documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 13
Read the Document Victory over the Underworld, p. 316
View the Image Mayan Ruins, p. 313
A Mayan Town, p. 319
Aztec Warriors, p. 325
Watch the Video Teotihuacán Ruins in Mexico, p. 317
Hear the Audio Early Americas, p. 316

Research and Explore

See the Map Pre-Columbian Civilization in Mesoamerica, p. 326

See the Map Civilizations in North America

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 13 at www.myhistorylab.com
14
Africa ca. 1000–1700

Hear the Audio for Chapter 14 at www.myhistorylab.com

The Great Mosque at Kilwa, ca. 1100 C.E. The Swahili city of Kilwa, on
the coast of present-day Tanzania, was likely founded by Muslim traders
with strong links to the Indian Ocean world. The insides of its domes were
lined with Chinese porcelain. Now in ruins, this large congregational
mosque was probably in its day the largest fully enclosed structure in sub-
Saharan Africa.

What characterizes Swahili culture?

NORTH AFRICA AND EGYPT

HOW DID the Ottomans govern North Africa and Egypt?

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM SOUTH OF THE SAHARA

HOW DID Islam spread south of the Sahara?

SAHELIAN EMPIRES OF THE WESTERN AND CENTRAL SUDAN

WHAT WERE the four most important states in the Sahel between 1000
and 1600?

THE EASTERN SUDAN

WHY DID Christianity gradually disappear in Nubia?

THE FORESTLANDS: COASTAL WEST AND CENTRAL AFRICA

HOW DID the arrival of Europeans affect the peoples of West and central
Africa?

EAST AFRICA

HOW DID Swahili language and culture develop?

SOUTHERN AFRICA

HOW DID slavery affect race relations in Cape Colony?

Different parts of the African continent had very different histories early in
the second millennium C.E. Many regions had substantial interactions with
the Islamic and European worlds; others engaged in trade and cultural
exchanges within the continent.
The Atlantic slave trade affected almost all of Africa between the fifteenth
and nineteenth centuries. This subject is treated in detail in Chapter 17, but
here, we cannot overlook its importance in disrupting and reconfiguring
African economies, social organization, and politics.
We begin with Africa above the equator, where Islam’s influence
increased and substantial kingdoms and empires flourished. Then we
discuss West, East, central, and southern Africa and the effects of Arab-
Islamic and European influence.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
AFRICA, 1000–1700
Long-distance trade—the supply-and-demand-driven movement of goods,
people, and cultural attitudes and practices—typically stimulates historical
change. This was as true in Africa in the early second millennium as in the
Americas, Europe, Asia, or anywhere in the world. Different regions in
Africa were oriented differently in relation to trade routes and trading
partners, and these regions developed in markedly different ways between
1000 and 1700.
The North African coast and the Sahel lay amidst trading networks
linking the Mediterranean world, the growing Dar al-Islam (“House of
Submission”—the Islamic realm), and the rich kingdoms of West Africa.
The East African coast was integrated into the trading and cultural networks
of the Indian Ocean basin and was firmly engaged with the Muslim world
there. The rest of sub-Saharan Africa was culturally diverse; people here
engaged primarily in intra-African trade with cultures that occupied other
ecological niches. It is important to remember that Africa is a continent that
is home to many societies with different histories, languages, religions, and
cultures. In this way it is similar to Europe, but Africa is also much larger
than Europe and more ethnically and culturally diverse.

Dar al-Islam
In Arabic, the “House of Submission,” or Islamic world. This term has
many shades of meaning, ranging from a place where the government is
under Muslim control to a place where individuals are free to practice
Islamic beliefs.

See the Map

Trade Routes in Africa at myhistorylab.com

Along the Mediterranean, the key new factor in African history at this
time was the Ottomans’ imperial expansion into Egypt and the Maghreb.
The long Ottoman hegemony altered the political configuration of the
Mediterranean world. Merchants and missionaries carried Islam and
Arabian cultural influences across the Sahara from North Africa and the
Middle East to the western, central, and Nilotic Sudan, where Muslim
conversion played a growing social and political role, especially among the
ruling elites who profited most from brokering trade between their lands
and the Islamic north. Islam provided a shared arena of expression for at
least some classes and groups in societies over a vast area from Egypt to
Senegambia. In Africa as elsewhere, new converts modified Islam through
a process of syncretism. Distinctively African forms of Islam emerged,
faithful to the central tenets of the religion, but differing in observances and
customs from those of the Arabian cultural sphere, especially in attitudes
toward women and relationships between the sexes.

Maghreb
Literally, in Arabic, “place of sunset,” or the west; refers to the northwest of
Africa, and specifically what is now Morocco.

South of the Sahara, dynamic processes of state-building and trade were

the main forces for cultural change. In central and South Africa, except
along the eastern coast, and in the West African forests, older African
traditions held sway, and there was little or no evidence of Islam beyond
individual Muslims involved in trade. On the eastern coast, however, Islam
influenced the development of the Swahili culture and language, a unique
blend of African, Indian, and Arabian traditions, and Islamic traders linked
the region to India, China, and the Indies. In subSaharan Africa, the spread
of Islam took place almost entirely through peaceful means.
Along the Atlantic and Indian Ocean coasts of Africa, the key
development of the fifteenth century was the arrival of ships carrying
traders and missionaries from Christian Europe. The strength of African
societies and the biological dangers to Europeans venturing into the interior
meant that most of the trade between the African interior and Europeans on
both coasts remained under the control of Africans for generations. Even
before Europeans themselves reached the interior, however, the trade in
slaves, weapons, and gold that they fostered greatly altered African political
and social structures not only along the coasts but also in regions untouched
by the outsiders. The European voyages of discovery of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries presaged the African continent’s involvement in a new,
expanding, and, by the eighteenth century, European-dominated global
trading system. This system generally exploited rather than bolstered
African development, as the infamous Atlantic slave trade (see Chapter 17)
and the South African experience illustrate.

See the Map

Discovery: The Maghrib and West Africa, Fourteenth Century differing in
observances and customs at myhistorylab.com

Hear the Audio

Influences in Africa 2 at myhistorylab.com

Focus Questions

Where in Africa was Islamic influence concentrated? How did Islam

spread? What does this reveal about the relationship between
commerce and cultural diffusion?
Why did different regions in Africa develop in different ways
between 1000 and 1700?

NORTH AFRICA AND EGYPT

HOW DID the Ottomans govern North Africa and Egypt?

As we saw in Chapter 12, Egypt and other North African societies played a
central role in Islamic and Mediterranean history after 1000 C.E. From
Tunisia to Egypt, Sunni religious and political leaders and their Shi’ite,
especially Isma’ili, counterparts struggled for the minds of the masses. By
the thirteenth century, the Shi’ites had become a small minority among
Muslims in Mediterranean Africa. In general, a feisty regionalism
characterized states, city-states, and tribal groups north of the Sahara and
along the lower Nile. No single power controlled them for long.
Regionalism persisted even after 1500, when most of North Africa came
under the influence—and often, direct control—of the Ottoman Empire
centered in Istanbul.
By 1800 the nominally Ottoman domains from Egypt to Algeria were
effectively independent. In Egypt the Ottomans had established direct rule
after their defeat of the Mamluks in 1517, but by the seventeenth century
power had passed to Egyptian governors descended from the Mamluks. The
Mediterranean coastlands between Egypt and Morocco were officially
Ottoman provinces, or regencies, but by the eighteenth century, Algiers,
Tripoli (in modern Libya), and Tunisia had institutionalized their own
political structures.
Morocco, ruled by a succession of Sharifs (leaders claiming descent
from the family of the Prophet Muhammad), was the only North African
sultanate to remain fully independent after 1700. The most important
Sharifian Dynasty was that of the Sa’dis (1554–1659). One major reason
for Morocco’s independence was that its Arab and Berber populations
united after 1500 to oppose the Portuguese and the Spaniards.

Sharifs
A term for leaders who are direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad
through his first grandson, Hasan ibn Ali.

Watch the Video

Piracy at myhistorylab.com

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM SOUTH OF THE

SAHARA

HOW DID Islam spread south of the Sahara?

Islamic influence in sub-Saharan Africa began as early as the eighth

century. By 1800 it affected most of the Sudanic belt and the coast of East
Africa. The process was generally peaceful, gradual, and partial.
Conversion to Islam was rare beyond the ruling or commercial classes, and
Islamic faith tended to coexist or blend with indigenous beliefs. Agents of
Islam brought commercial and political changes as well as the Qur’an, new
religious practices, and literate culture.
In East Africa, Muslim traders moving down the coastline with the
ancient monsoon trade routes had begun to “Islamize” ports and coastal
regions even before 800 C.E. From the thirteenth century on, Islamic trading
communities and city-states developed along the coast from Mogadishu to
Kilwa.
In the western and central parts of the continent, Islam was introduced
primarily by traders from North Africa and the Nile valley. Berbers who
plied the desert routes (see Chapter 5) to trading towns such as Awdaghast
on the edge of the Sahel as early as the eighth century were Islam’s chief
agents. From there Islam spread south to centers such as Kumbi Saleh and
beyond, southeast across the Niger, and west into Senegambia. Migrating
Arab tribal groups that settled in the central sub-Saharan Sahel also helped
spread Islam.
The year 985 marks the first time a West African royal court—that of the
kingdom of Gao, east of the Niger bend—officially became Muslim (see
Chapter 5), though Gao rulers did not try to convert their subjects.

See the Map

East African Coast to 1600 at myhistorylab.com

By contrast, the rulers of the later kingdom of Ghana long maintained

their indigenous traditions even though they traded with Muslims and had
Muslim advisers. Starting in the 1030s zealous militants known as
Almoravids (see Chapter 12) began a conversion campaign that eventually
swept into Ghana’s territory, taking first Awdaghast and later, in 1076,
Kumbi Saleh. Thereafter, the forcibly converted Soninke ruling group of
Ghana spread Islam among their own populace and farther south in the
savannah. They converted Mande-speaking traders, who brought Islam
south into the forests.
Farther west, the Fulbe rulers of Takrur became Muslim in the 1030s and
propagated their new faith among their subjects. The Fulbe, or Fulani,
remained important carriers of Islam over the next eight centuries as they
migrated gradually into new regions as far east as Lake Chad, where some
rulers were Muslim as early as 1100.
Major groups in West Africa strongly resisted Islamization, especially the
Mossi kingdoms founded in the Volta region at Wagadugu around 1050 and
Yatenga about 1170.

SAHELIAN EMPIRES OF THE WESTERN

AND CENTRAL SUDAN

WHAT WERE the four most important states in the Sahel between
1000 and 1600?

As we noted in Chapter 5, substantial states had risen in the first

millennium C.E. in the Sahel just south of the Sahara.1 From about 1000 to
1600, four of these developed into relatively long-lived empires: Ghana,
Mali, and Songhai in the western Sudan, and Kanem-Bornu in the central
Sudan.

GHANA
Ghana established the model for later Sahelian empires in the western
Sudan. Well north of modern Ghana (and unrelated to it except by name), it
lay between the inland Niger Delta and the upper Senegal. A Ghanaian
kingdom existed as early as 400–600 C.E., but Ghana emerged as a regional
power only near the end of the first millennium to flourish for about two
centuries. Its capital, Kumbi (or Kumbi Saleh), on the desert’s edge, was
well sited for the Saharan and Sahelian trade networks. Ghana’s major
population group was the Soninke; Ghana is the Soninke term for “ruler.”
Ghanaian rulers were descended matrilineally (through the previous
king’s sister) and ruled through a council of ministers. Contemporaneous
reports, especially from the eleventh-century Muslim writer al-Bakri,
indicate that the king was supreme judge and held court regularly to hear
grievances. The royal ceremonies held in Kumbi Saleh were embellished
with the wealth and power befitting a king held to be divinely blessed, and
perhaps semidivine.
Slaves were at the bottom of Ghana’s hierarchical society; farmers and
draftsmen above them; merchants above them; and the king, his court, and
the nobility on top. Ghana’s power rested on a solid economic base. Tribute
from the empire’s many chieftaincies and taxes on royal lands and crops
supplemented duties levied on all incoming and outgoing trade. This trade
—north–south between the Sahara and the savannah, and especially east–
west through the Sahel between Senegambia and more easterly trading
towns like Gao on the Niger Bend—involved a variety of goods. Imported
salt, cloth, and metal goods such as copper from the north were probably
exchanged for gold and kola nuts from the south. The regime apparently
also controlled the gold (and, presumably, the slave) trade that originated in
the savanna to the south and west.
Although the Ghanaian king and court did not convert to Islam, they
made elaborate arrangements to accommodate Muslim traders and
government servants in a separate settlement a few miles from Khumbi’s
royal preserve. Muslim traders were prominent at court, literate Muslims
administered the government, and Muslim legists advised the ruler.
A huge, well-trained army secured royal control, enabling the kings to
extend their sway in the late tenth century to the Atlantic shore and to the
south (see Map 14–1 on page 342). In 992, Ghanaian troops wrested
Awdaghast from the Berbers. The empire was, however, vulnerable to
attack from the desert, as Almoravid Berber forces proved in 1054 when
they took Awdaghast in a single raid.
Ghana’s empire was probably destroyed in the late twelfth century by the
anti-Muslim Soso people from the mountains southeast of Kumbi Saleh;
they were a Malinke clan who had long been part of the Ghanaian Empire.
Their brief ascendancy between 1180 and 1230 ended the once great
transregional power centered at Kumbi Saleh.2

QUICK REVIEW
Mali
Keita clan forged Mali in mid-thirteenth century
Keita kings controlled the flow of West African gold
Agriculture and cattle farming were primary occupations of Mali’s
people
MALI
With Ghana’s collapse and the Almoravids’ focus on North Africa, the
western Sudan broke up into smaller kingdoms. In the early twelfth century
Takrur’s control of the Senegal valley and the gold-producing region of
Galam made it the strongest state in the western Sudan. Like Ghana,
however, it was soon eclipsed, first by the brief Soso ascendancy and then
by the rise of Mali.
In the mid-thirteenth century, the Keita ruling clan of Mali forged a new
and lasting empire, built on monopolization of the lucrative north–south
gold trade. The Keita kings dominated enough of the Sahel to control the
flow of West African gold from the Senegal regions and the forestlands
south of the Niger to the trans-Saharan trade routes and the influx of copper
and salt in exchange. Based south of their Ghanaian predecessors, in the
fertile land along the Niger, they controlled all trade on the upper Niger, as
well as the Gambia and Senegal trade to the west. They used captives for
plantation labor in the Niger inland delta to produce surplus food for trade.
Agriculture and cattle farming were the primary occupations of Mali’s
population. Rice was grown in the river valleys and millet in the drier parts
of the Sahel. Together with beans, yams, and other agricultural products,
this made for a plentiful food supply. Fishing flourished along the Niger and
elsewhere. Cattle, sheep, and goats were plentiful. The chief craft
specialties were metalworking (iron and gold) and weaving of cotton grown
within the empire.
The Malinke, a southern Mande-speaking people of the upper Niger
region, formed the core population of the new state. They apparently lived
in walled urban settlements typical of the western savanna region. Each
walled town held 1,000 to 15,000 people and was linked to neighboring
cities by trade and intermarriage.
The Great Mosque at Jenne. Jenne was one of the important commercial
centers controlled by the empire of Mali in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. The thriving market in front of the mosque reflects the enduring
vitality of trade and commerce in the region.

How widely was Islam adopted in western Sudan?

The Keita Dynasty had converted to Islam around 1100 C.E. Keita’s rulers
even claimed descent from Muhammad’s famous muezzin Bilal ibn Ribah,
a former black slave from Abyssinia whose son was said to have settled in
the Mande-speaking region. During Mali’s heyday in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, its kings often made the pilgrimage to Mecca, bringing
back with them military aids, such as Barbary war horses, and new ideas
about political and military organization. Through Muslim traders’
networks, Mali was connected to other areas of Africa, especially to the
east.

muezzin
The leader of a mosque’s call to prayers.

MAP EXPLORATION
To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

MAP 14–1. Africa ca. 900–1500. Shown are major cities and states
referred to in the text. The main map shows the region of West Africa
occupied by the empire of Ghana from ca. 990 to ca. 1180. The inset shows
the region occupied by Mali between 1230 and 1450.
Why was Ghana’s location important for its prosperity?

Read the Document

Excerpts from Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali, 1235 at myhistorylab.com

Mali’s imperial power was built largely by the Keita King Sundiata (or
Sunjaata, r. 1230–1255). Sundiata and his successors exploited their
agricultural resources, significant population growth, and Malinke
commercial skills to build an empire even more powerful than that of
Ghana. Sundiata extended his control west to the Atlantic coast and east
beyond Timbuktu. By controlling the commercial entrepôts of Gao, Walata,
and Jenne, he dominated the Saharan as well as the Niger trade. He built his
capital, Niani, into a major city. Niani was located on a tributary of the
Niger in the savannah at the edge of the forest in a gold- and iron-rich
region. It had access to the forest trade products of gold, kola nuts, and
palm oil; it was easily defended by virtue of its surrounding hills; and it was
readily reached by river.
The empire that Sundiata and his successors built ultimately
encompassed three major regions and language groups of Sudanic West
Africa: (1) the Senegal region (including Takrur), populated by speakers of
the West Atlantic Niger-Kongo language group; (2) the central Mande
states between Senegal and Niger, occupied by the Niger-Kongo-speaking
Soninke and Mandinke; and (3) the peoples of the Niger in the Gao region
who spoke Songhai, the only Nilo-Saharan language west of the Lake Chad
basin. Mali was less a centralized bureaucratic state than the center of a vast
sphere of influence that included provinces and tribute-paying kingdoms.
Many individual chieftaincies were independent but recognized the
sovereignty of the supreme, sacred mansa, or “emperor,” of the Malian
realms.

mansa
Malian emperor, from Mandinka word meaning “king of kings.”

The greatest Keita king was Mansa Musa (r. 1312–1337), famous for his
pilgrimage through Mamluk Cairo to Mecca in 1324. He spent or gave
away so much gold in Cairo alone that he started massive inflation lasting
over a decade. He brought many Muslim scholars, artists, scientists, and
architects back to Mali, where he consolidated his power and secured peace
throughout his vast dominions. The devout ruler fostered the spread of
Islam. Under Musa’s rule, Timbuktu became famous for its madrasas and
libraries, making it the leading intellectual center of sub-Saharan Islam and
a major trading city of the Sahel—roles it retained long after Mali’s empire
declined.3
After Musa, rivalries for the throne diminished Mali’s dominance. The
empire slowly withered until a new Songhai power supplanted it after about
1450.

QUICK REVIEW
King Sundiata (r. 1230–1255)
Built Mali’s imperial power
Mali’s empire was more powerful than its Ghanaian predecessor
Empire encompassed three major regions: Senegal, the central
Mande states, and the peoples of Niger in the Gao region

Read the Document

The Travels of Ibn Battuta “Ibn Battuta in Mali” at myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

Al-Umari describes Mansa Musa of Mali at myhistorylab.com

SONGHAI
There was a Songhai kingdom around Gao, on the eastern arc of the great
bend of the Niger, as early as the eleventh or twelfth century. In 1325
Mansa Musa gained control of the Gao region. Mali’s domination ended
with the rise of a dynasty in Gao known as the Sunni or Sonni around 1375.
The kingdom became an imperial power under the greatest Sunni ruler,
Sonni Ali (r. 1464–1492). For more than a century the Songhai Empire was
arguably the most powerful state in Africa (see Map 14–2 on page 344).
With a strong military built around a riverboat flotilla and cavalry, Sonni
Ali took Jenne and Timbuktu. He pushed the Tuareg Berbers back into the
northern Sahel and Sahara and stifled threats from the southern forestland.
Mansa Musa, King of Mali. The fourteenth-century Catalan Atlas shows
King Mansa Musa of Mali, seated on a throne holding a nugget of gold. A
camel rider approaches him.

Why would a fourteenth-century European atlas show Mansa Musa?

MAP EXPLORATION

To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

MAP 14–2. Africa ca. 1500–1700. Important towns, regions, peoples, and
states. The inset shows the empire of Songhai at its greatest extent in the
early sixteenth century.

What was Songhai’s major source of wealth?

His successor Askia Muhammad al-Turi (r. 1493–1528) continued Sonni

Ali’s expansionist policies. Between them, these two rulers built an empire
that stretched west nearly to the Atlantic, northwest into the Sahara, and
east into the central Sudan. Like their Ghanaian predecessors, they took
advantage of their control of access to gold and other West African
commodities to cultivate and expand the caravan trade to the North African
coast. This provided their major source of wealth.
Unlike Sonni Ali, who maintained his people’s traditional faith, Askia
Muhammad and his Askia successors were emphatically Muslim. At-Turi
modeled the Songhai state on the Islamic empire of Mali. (See Document,
“Muslim Reform in Songhai.”) In his reign, many Muslim scholars came to
Gao, Timbuktu, and Jenne. He appointed Muslim judges (qadis) throughout
the empire and made Timbuktu a major intellectual and legal training
center. He replaced native Songhais with Arab Muslim immigrants as
government officials. Like Mansa Musa before him, Muhammad made a
triumphal pilgrimage to Mecca, where he was hailed as “Caliph of the
western Sahara.” From his vast royal treasury he supported the poor and
Sufi leaders, or marabouts, and built mosques throughout the realm.
Nevertheless, he failed to Islamize the empire or to ensure a strong central
state for his successors.

marabout
In Sunni Islam as practiced in West Africa, a marabout is a spiritual leader,
versed in the Koran, who often guides the personal lives of his followers.
A Marabout Creates a Grigri. A verse from the Qur’an is copied onto a
piece of paper, which will be folded and put in a leather pouch. The pouch
is worn as an amulet, to protect the wearer from sickness, harm, or evil.

Are you aware of the use of amulets in non-Muslim religious

traditions?
The last powerful Askia leader was Askia Dawud (r. 1549–1583), under
whom Songhai prosperity and intellectual life reached its apogee. Both
trans-Saharan trade and royal patronage of the arts rose to new levels. Still,
difficulties mounted. The last Askias battled the Mossi to the south and
Berbers from the north. Civil war broke out over the royal succession in
1586, dividing the empire. In 1591 an assay sent by the Sa’dis of Morocco
used superior gunpowder weapons, coupled with the aid of disaffected
Songhai princes, to defeat the last Askia of Gao, and the Gao Empire
collapsed.

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African Empires in the Western Sudan at myhistorylab.com

KANEM AND KANEM-BORNU

A fourth sizable Sahelian Empire—this one in the central Sudan—arose
after 1100. Called Kanem, it began as a southern Saharan confederation of
the nomadic tribes known as Zaghawah. By the twelfth century a Zaghawah
group, the Kanuri, had settled in Kanem. From there they began a campaign
of military expansion during the thirteenth century. Their leader, Mai
Dunama Dibbalemi (r. ca. 1221–1259), was a contemporary of Sundiata in
Mali. Dibbalemi was a Muslim, and he used a synthesis of Islam and
African traditions of sacred kingship to sanction his rule. Islam provided a
rationale for expansion through jihad, or holy “struggle” against polytheists.

CHRONOLOGY
SAHELIAN EMPIRES OF THE WESTERN SUDAN
 Dibbalemi and his successors extended Kanuri power north into the
desert and northeast along the Sahelian-Saharan fringe. In both directions
they controlled important trade routes—north to Libya and east to the Nile.
The next two centuries saw the mixing of Kanuri and local Kanembu
peoples. There was a corresponding transformation of the Kanuri leader
from nomadic shaykh to Sudanic king and of Kanem from a nomadic to a
largely sedentary, quasi-feudal kingdom. Like Mali to the west, Kanem’s
dominion was of two kinds: direct rule over and taxation of core territories,
and indirect control over and collection of tribute from a wider region of
vassal chieftaincies. Islamic acculturation progressed most rapidly in the
core territories.

shaykh
Arabic word for a tribal elder or Islamic scholar; can also be rendered as
sheikh, sheik, or cheikh.

DOCUMENT
Muslim Reform in Songhai
Around 1500 Askia Muhammad al-Turi, the first Muslim Songhai ruler,
wrote to the North African Muslim theologian Muhammad al-Maghili (d.
1504) about proper Muslim practices. In these excerpts from al-Turi’s
seventh question, we glimpse the new convert’s zeal for conformity to
traditional religious norms, as well as the king’s desire for bettering social
order and his concern for justice. The answers from al-Maghili reflect the
puritanical “official line” of the conservative ulama who did not want to
allow syncretism to emerge among newly converted groups.

• WHAT are the problems and corresponding solutions described in

the letters? Which problem did al-Maghili find most serious? Why?
Which do you think would have been most serious? Why?

FROM ASKIA MUHAMMAD AL-TURI’S SEVENTH QUESTION

Among the people [of the Songhay Empire], there are some who claim
knowledge of the supernatural through sand divining and the like, or
through the disposition of the stars… [while] some assert that they can
write (talismans) to bring good fortune… or to ward off bad fortune.…
Some defraud in weights and measures.…
One of their evil practices is the free mixing of men and women in the
markets and streets and the failure of women to veil themselves… [while]
among the people of Djenné [Jenne] it is an established custom for a girl
not to cover any part of her body as long as she remains a virgin… and all
the most beautiful girls walk about naked.…
So give us legal ruling concerning these people and their ilk, and may
God Most High reward you!
FROM MUHAMMAD AL-MAGHILI’S ANSWER
The answer—and God it is who directs to the right course—is that
everything you have mentioned concerning people’s behavior in some parts
of this country is gross error. It is the bounden duty of the commander of
the Muslims and all other believers who have the power to change every
one of these evil practices.
As for any who claims knowledge of the supernatural in the ways you
have mentioned… he is a liar and an unbeliever.… Such people must be
forced to renounce it by the sword. Then whoever renounces such deeds
should be left in peace, but whoever persists should be killed with the
sword as an unbeliever; his body should not be washed or shrouded, and he
should not be buried in a Muslim graveyard.…
 As for defrauding in weights and measures it is forbidden (haram)
according to the Qur’an, the Sunna and the consensus of opinion of the
learned men of the Muslim community. It is the bounden duty of the
commander of the Muslims to appoint a trustworthy man in charge of the
markets, and to safeguard people’s means of subsistence. He should
standardize all the scales in each province.… Similarly, all measures both
large and small must be rectified so that they conform to a uniform
standard.…
Now, what you mentioned about the free mixing of men and women and
leaving the pudenda uncovered is one of the greatest abominations. The
commander of the Muslims must exert himself to prevent all these things.…
He should appoint trustworthy men to watch over this by day and night, in
secret and in the open. This is not to be considered as spying on the
Muslims; it is only a way of caring for them and curbing evildoers,
especially when corruption becomes widespread in the land as it has done
in Timbuktu and Djenné.…
Source: From The African Past, trans. by J. O. Hunwick, reprinted in Basil Davidson (Grosset and
Dunlap, The Universal Library), pp. 86–88. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd. Copyright
© 1964 by Basil Davidson.

Civil strife, largely over royal succession, weakened the Kanuri state.
After 1400 the locus of power shifted from Kanem to Bornu, southwest of
Lake Chad. Here, in the 1490s, a new Kanuri Empire arose almost
simultaneously with the collapse of the Askia Dynasty of the Songhai
Empire at Gao. Firearms and Turkish military instructors acquired after a
pilgrimage to Mecca enabled the Kanuri leader Idris Alawma (r. ca. 1575–
1610) to unify Kanem and Bornu. He set up an avowedly Islamic state and
extended his rule as far as Hausaland, between Bornu and the Niger. The
center of trading activity as well as political power now shifted from the
Niger Bend east to Kanuri-controlled territory.
Deriving its prosperity from the trans-Saharan trade, Idris Alawma’s
regional empire survived for nearly a century. It was broken up by a long
famine, Tuareg attacks, weak leadership, and loss of control over trade to
smaller, better-organized Hausa states to the west. The ruling dynasty held
out until 1846, but by 1700 its power had been sharply reduced.
CHRONOLOGY
CENTRAL SUDANIC EMPIRES

THE EASTERN SUDAN

WHY DID Christianity gradually disappear in Nubia?

The Christian states of Maqurra and Alwa in the Nilotic Sudan, or Nubia,
lasted for more than 600 years, beginning in the early seventh century. They
maintained political, religious, and commercial contact with Egypt, the Red
Sea world, and much of the Sudan.
After 1000 C.E. Maqurra and Alwa continued treaty relations with their
more powerful northern Egyptian neighbors. However, the Mamluks
intervened repeatedly in Nubian affairs, and Arab nomads constantly
threatened the Nubian states. Both Maqurra and Alwa were subject to
immigrating Muslim Arab tribesmen and to traders and growing Muslim
minorities. Long-term intermingling of Arabic and Nubian cultures created
a new Nilotic Sudanese people and culture.
A significant factor in the gradual disappearance of Christianity in Nubia
was its elite character there and its association with the Egyptian world of
Coptic Christianity. Maqurra became officially Muslim at the beginning of
the fourteenth century, although Christianity persisted briefly. The
Islamization of Alwa came later, under the long-lived Funj sultanate that
replaced the Alwa state.
The Funj state flourished between the Blue and White Niles and to the
north along the main Nile from just after 1500 until 1762. The Funj were
originally cattle nomads who apparently adopted Islam soon after setting up
their kingdom. During the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Funj
developed an Islamic society whose Arabized character was unique in sub-
Saharan Africa. A much reduced Funj state survived until an Ottoman
Egyptian invasion in 1821.

THE FORESTLANDS—COASTAL WEST AND

CENTRAL AFRICA

HOW DID the arrival of Europeans affect the peoples of West and
central Africa?

WEST AFRICAN FOREST KINGDOMS: THE EXAMPLE OF BENIN

Many states with distinct political, religious, and cultural traditions had
developed in the southern and coastal regions of West Africa. The forest
kingdom of Benin reflects the sophistication of West African culture before
1500; its art, in particular, is renowned for its enduring beauty.

QUICK REVIEW
Changing Roles of Edo Kings
Edo leaders invited limited rule by Ife prince around 1300
King Ewuare developed military and ceremonial authority in
fifteenth century
Kings became religious figures with supernatural powers in
seventeenth century
Deceased kings honored by human sacrifice in nineteenth century
 The Edo speakers of Benin have occupied the southern Nigerian region
between Yorubaland and the Ibo peoples east of the lower Niger for
millennia. Traditional Edo society is organized according to a patrilineal
system emphasizing primogeniture. The village is the fundamental political
unit, and authority is built around the organization of males into age-grade
units.4
Traditional Edo culture was closely linked to that of Ife, one of the most
prominent Yoruba states northwest of Benin. A distinct kingdom of Benin
existed as early as the twelfth century, and traditional accounts of both Ife
and Edo agree that an Ife prince was sent to rule in Benin around 1300. The
power of the oba, or king, was sharply limited by the Edo leaders who
invited the foreign ruler. These leaders were known as the uzama, an order
of hereditary chiefs. According to tradition, the fourth oba managed to
wrest more control from these chiefs and expanded his ceremonial
authority. In the fifteenth century, with King Ewuare, Benin became a royal
autocracy and a large state of regional importance.

oba
Title of the king of Benin.

uzama
An order of hereditary chiefs in Benin.

Ewuare rebuilt the capital—known today as Benin City—and named it

and his kingdom Edo. He exercised his sweeping authority in light of the
deliberations of a royal council. Ewuare formed this council not only from
the palace uzama but also from the townspeople. He gave each chief
specific administrative responsibilities and rank in the government
hierarchy. Ewuare and his successors developed a tradition of military
kingship and engaged in major wars of expansion, into Yorubaland to the
west and Ibo country to the east, across the Niger River. They claimed for
the office of oba an increasing ritual authority that presaged more radical
developments in the king’s role.

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Influences in Africa 2 at myhistorylab.com
 In the seventeenth century the oba was transformed from a military
leader into a religious figure with supernatural powers. Human sacrifice,
specifically of slaves, seems to have accompanied the cult of deceased
kings and became even more frequent later in the nineteenth century.
Succession by primogeniture was discontinued, and the uzama chose obas
from any branch of the royal family.
Benin’s court art—the splendid terra-cotta, ivory, and especially the
famous brass sculpture of Ife-Benin—is among the glories of human
creativity. Some scholars trace the artistic and technical lineage of these
magnificent works to the sculptures of the Nok culture of ancient West
Africa (see Chapter 5). Cast bronze plaques depicting legendary and
historical scenes were mounted in the royal palace in Benin City before the
sixteenth century. There are also brass heads, apparently of royalty, that
resemble the many life-size terra-cotta and brass heads found at Ife. Similar
sculptures have been found both to the north and in the Niger Delta.

EUROPEAN ARRIVALS ON THE COASTLANDS: SENEGAMBIA AND THE

GOLD COAST
Along the coasts of West and central Africa, between 1500 and 1800, the
changes wrought by the burgeoning Atlantic slave trade are notorious (see
Chapter 17). But there were other significant developments. The
introduction of food crops from the Americas—maize, peanuts, squash,
sweet potatoes, cocoa, and cassava (manioc)—had far-reaching impacts.
Africa’s gradual involvement in the emerging global economic system
paved the way for European colonial domination. The European names for
segments of the coastline—the Grain (or Pepper) Coast, the Ivory Coast, the
Gold Coast, and the Slave Coast—identify the main exports that could be
extracted by ship.

CHRONOLOGY
BENIN
A Closer Look
Benin Bronze Plaque with Chief and Two Attendants
BENIN ARTISTS AND ARTISANS produced spectacular sculptures
from the late thirteenth century until the coming of the British in 1897.
Their figures typically have the head-to-body proportions of this
example, about one to four—perhaps emphasizing the head’s
importance as a marker of identity and behavior and a symbol of life.
The details of the clothing might have been “readable” as to the
wearer’s rank and family. The stylized faces are typical of Benin
bronzes (often actually of brass); dating the piece is hard, but given the
two small European figures depicted in the upper field and the
sophisticated detail, it is most likely sixteenth or seventeenth century.
Benin Plaque. Brass. Lost wax. W. Africa 16th–17th century C.E. Hillel
Burger/Peabody Museum, Harvard University © President and Fellows of
Harvard College. All rights reserved.
Questions

1. The sophisticated Benin bronze artistry allowed for highly detailed

sculpture that, for all its stylization, captured its subjects vividly and
in great detail. What do you make of the differences between the
depictions of the Benin Africans and the two European figures?
2. It has been speculated that this was a piece of court art and the
depiction of the royal figure and attendants was intended to exalt
royal power and prestige. Do you see evidence of this? If so, what is
the evidence?
To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com

In West Africa, Senegambia—which takes its name from the Senegal and
Gambia rivers—was one of the earliest regions affected by European trade.
Senegambia’s maritime trade with European powers, like the older overland
trade from the interior, was primarily in gold and products such as salt,
cotton goods, hides, and copper. For roughly a century Senegambian states
also provided slaves for European purchase; perhaps a third of all African
slaves exported during the sixteenth century came from Senegambia.
Thereafter, however, the focus of the slave trade shifted south and east
along the coast (see Chapter 17). Over time, Portuguese-Africans and the
British came to control the Gambia River trade, while the French won the
Senegal River markets.
The Gold Coast was another West African coastal district heavily
affected by the arrival of international maritime trade. As the name
suggests, after 1500 the region served as the outlet for the gold fields in the
forestland of Akan. Beginning with the Portuguese at Elmina in 1481, but
primarily after 1600, European states and companies built coastal forts to
protect their trade and to serve as depots for inland goods. The trade in
gold, kola nuts, and other commodities seems to have encouraged the
growth of larger states, perhaps because they could better handle and
control the overland commerce.
 The intensive contact of the Gold Coast with Europeans also led to the
importation and spread of American crops, notably maize and cassava. The
success of these crops in West and central Africa likely contributed to
substantial population growth in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The Gold Coast was an importer of slaves until long after 1500. Slaves
became major exports in the late seventeenth century, especially in the
Accra region. The economy was so disrupted by the slave trade that gold
mining declined sharply. Eventually more gold came into the Gold Coast
from the sale of slaves than went out from its mines (see Chapter 17).

Ife figure, ca. twelfth – fifteenth centuries C.E. The serene classicism of Ife
art is equaled only by that of ancient Greece.

What other artistic traditions seem to be linked to Ife?

CENTRAL AFRICA: THE KONGO KINGDOM AND ANGOLA

Before 1500 natural barriers—including swamps in the north, coastal rain
forests to the west, highlands to the east, and deserts in the south—impeded
international contact and trade with the vast center of the continent. In
tropical central Africa, there had long been regional interactions in
movements of peoples and in trade and culture (see Chapter 5). Political,
economic, and social units varied in size; peoples such as the Lunda and the
Luba, on the southern savannah below the rain forest, carved out sizable
kingdoms by the fifteenth century and expanded their control over
neighboring areas into the eighteenth century.
The Portuguese came to the western coastal regions looking for gold and
silver but found none. Ultimately, their main export was slaves. At first,
slaves were taken for gang labor to the Portuguese sugar plantations on Sao
Tomé island in the Gulf of Guinea and then, in vast numbers, to perform
similar plantation labor in Brazil. In the 1640s the Dutch briefly succeeded
the Portuguese as the major suppliers of African slaves to English and
French plantations in the Caribbean.

CHRONOLOGY
CENTRAL AFRICA

The Kongo Kingdom was located on a fertile, well-watered plateau south

of the lower Zaïre River valley. Astride the border between forest and
grassland, the Kongo kings had built a central government based on a
pyramid structure of tax or tribute collection, dating from the fourteenth
century. The king’s authority was tied to his role as a spiritual spokesman
for the gods or ancestors. By 1600 Kongo was half the size of England and
boasted a high state of specialization in weaving and pottery, salt
production, fishing, and metalworking.
When the Portuguese came to central Africa in 1483, Kongo was the
major state with which they dealt. The Portuguese brought Mediterranean
goods, preeminently luxury textiles from North Africa, to trade; slaves
became the primary export. Although imported luxuries augmented the
prestige and wealth of the ruler and his elites, they did nothing to replace
the labor pool lost to slavery. At first the Portuguese put time and effort into
education and Christian proselytizing, but the desire for more slaves
eventually outweighed these concerns. As demand grew, local rulers
increasingly attacked neighbors to garner slaves for Portuguese traders (see
Chapter 17).

Queen Nzinga of Ndongo, who ruled from 1615 to 1660. This

contemporary engraving shows her negotiating a treaty with the Portuguese.
She is seated on the back of a slave.

Who seems to have the most power in this scene?

The Kongo ruler Affonso I (r. ca. 1506–1543) was a Christian convert
who initially welcomed Jesuit missionaries and supported conversion. But
in time he broke with the Jesuits. Affonso had constant difficulty curbing
the more exploitative slaving practices and independent-minded provincial
governors, who undermined royal authority by dealing directly with the
Portuguese. Affonso’s successor finally restricted Portuguese activity to
Mpinda harbor and the Kongo capital of Mbanza Kongo (São Salvador). A
few years later, Portuguese attempts to name the Kongo royal successor
caused a bloody uprising against them that led in turn to a Portuguese
boycott on trade with the kingdom.
Thereafter, disastrous internal wars shattered the Kongo state. Slavery
contributed to provincial unrest. Independent Portuguese traders and
adventurers soon did their business outside government channels and tried
to manipulate the Kongo kings.
Kongo, however, enjoyed renewed vigor in the seventeenth century. The
Kongo kings ruled as divine-right monarchs at the apex of a complex
sociopolitical pyramid. Royal power came to depend on hired soldiers
armed with muskets. The financial base of the kingdom rested on tribute
from officials and taxes and tolls on commerce. Christianity, the state
religion, was accommodated to traditional beliefs. Sculpture, iron and
copper technology, dance, and music flourished.
To the south, in Portuguese Angola, the experience was even worse than
in Kongo. The Ndongo Kingdom flourished among the Mbundu people
during the sixteenth century, though the Portuguese controlled parts of
Angola as a proprietary colony (the first white colonial enterprise in black
Africa). By the end of the 1500s Angola was exporting thousands of slaves
yearly through the port of Luanda. In less than a century the hinterland had
been depopulated. New internal trade in salt and the spread of American
food crops such as maize and cassava (which became part of the staple diet
of the populace) produced some positive changes in the interior, but in the
coastal region the Portuguese brought catastrophe.

Read the Document

Voyage from Lisbon at myhistorylab.com

View the Image

Loango, the Capital of the Kingdom of the Congo at myhistorylab.com

EAST AFRICA
 HOW DID Swahili language and culture develop?

SWAHILI CULTURE AND COMMERCE

The participation of East African port towns in the lucrative South Seas
trade was ancient. Arabs, Indonesians, and even some Indians had been
absorbed into what had become, during the first millennium C.E., a
predominantly Bantu-speaking population from Somalia south. From the
eighth century onward Islam traveled with Arab and Persian sailors and
merchants to these southerly trading centers of what the Arabs called the
land of the Zanj, or “Blacks” (hence “Zanzibar”). Conversion to Islam,
however, occurred only along the coast. In the thirteenth century Muslim
traders from Arabia and Iran began to dominate coastal cities from
Mogadishu to Kilwa. By 1331 the traveler Ibn Battuta wrote of Islamic
rulers, inhabitants, and mosques all along the coast.5

Read the Document

Descriptions of the cities of Zanj at myhistorylab.com

QUICK REVIEW
East African Port Towns
Part of trade with Middle East, Asia, and India
Tied together by common language, Swahili
Swahili civilization reached its peak in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries

A shared language called Swahili, or Kiswahili (from the Arabic plural

sawahil, “coastlands”), developed along the coast. Its structure is Bantu; its
vocabulary is largely Bantu but incorporates many words with Arabic roots;
it is written in Arabic script. Like the language, Swahili culture is basically
African with a large contribution by Arab, Persian, and other extra-African
elements. This admixture created a new consciousness and identity. Today,
many coastal peoples who share the Swahili language join African to
Persian, Indian, Arab, and other ancestries.
Swahili
A language and culture that developed from the interaction of Africans and
Arabs along the East African coast.

Like the Swahili language and culture, the spread of Islam was largely
limited to the coastal civilization, with the possible exception of the
Zambezi valley, where Muslim traders penetrated upriver. This contrasts
with the Horn of Africa, where Islamic kingdoms developed both in the
Somali hinterland and on the coast.
Swahili civilization reached its apogee in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. The harbor trading towns were the administrative centers of the
local Swahili states, and most of them were sited on coastal islands or easily
defended peninsulas. Merchants came from abroad and from the African
hinterlands. These towns were impressive, with stone mosques, fortress-
palaces, harbor fortifications, fancy residences, and commercial buildings
combining African and Arabo-Persian elements.
The Swahili states’ ruling dynasties were probably African in origin,
though elite families often included Arab or Persian members. Swahili
coastal centers boasted an advanced, cosmopolitan culture; by comparison,
most of the populace in the small villages lived in mud or sometimes stone
houses and earned their living farming or fishing. Society seems to have
consisted of three principal groups: the local nobility, the commoners, and
resident foreigners engaged in commerce. Slaves constituted a fourth class,
although their local extent (as opposed to their sale) is disputed.
The flourishing trade of the coastal centers was based on ivory taken
from inland elephants. Other exports included gold, slaves, turtle shells,
ambergris, leopard skins, pearls, fish, sandalwood, ebony, and cotton cloth.
The chief imports were cloth, porcelain, glassware, glass beads, and glazed
pottery. Cowrie shells were a common currency in the inland trade, but
coins minted at Mogadishu and Kilwa from the fourteenth century on were
increasingly used in the trading centers.
The Malindi Mosque on Zanzibar Island is an example of Islamic
influence in Swahili culture.

What are some other examples of Islamic influence on Swahili culture?

THE PORTUGUESE AND THE OMANIS OF ZANZIBAR

The original Swahili civilization declined in the sixteenth century. Trade
waned with the arrival of the Portuguese, who destroyed both the Islamic
commercial monopoly on the oceanic trade and the main Islamic city-states
along the coast. Decreases in rainfall or invasions of Zimba peoples from
inland regions may also have contributed to the decline.
The Portuguese undoubtedly intended to gain control of the South Seas
trade (see Chapter 17). In Africa, as everywhere, they saw the Moors (the
Spanish and Portuguese term for Muslims) as their implacable enemies;
they viewed the struggle to wrest the commerce and the ports of Africa and
Asia from Islamic control as a Christian crusade.
Moors
The Spanish and Portuguese term for Muslims.

After the initial Portuguese victories along the African coast, there was
no concerted effort to spread Christianity beyond fortified coastal
settlements. Thus the long-term cultural and religious consequences of the
Portuguese presence were slight. The Portuguese did, however, cause
widespread economic decline. Inland Africans refused to cooperate with
them, and Muslim coastal shipping from India and Arabia was reduced
sharply. Ottoman efforts in the late sixteenth century failed to defeat the
Portuguese, but after 1660 the strong eastern Arabian state of Oman raided
the African coast with impunity. In 1698 the Omanis took Mombasa and
ejected the Portuguese everywhere north of Mozambique.
Under the Omanis, Zanzibar became a new and major power center in
East Africa. Control of the coastal ivory and slave trade fueled prosperity
by the later eighteenth century. Zanzibar itself benefited from the
introduction of clove cultivation in the 1830s; cloves became its staple
export. (The clove plantations also became the chief market for a new
internal slave trade.) Omani African sultans dominated the east coast until
1856, when Zanzibar and its coastal holdings became independent under a
branch of the same family that ruled in Oman. Zanzibar passed eventually
to the British in the late 1880s. Still, the Islamic imprint on the coast
survives today.

CHRONOLOGY
EAST AND SOUTHEAST AFRICA

SOUTHERN AFRICA
SOUTHEASTERN AFRICA: “GREAT ZIMBABWE”

HOW DID slavery affect race relations in Cape Colony?

About the same time that the east coast trading centers were beginning to
flourish, a different kind of civilization was thriving farther south, in the
rocky, savannah-woodland watershed between the Limpopo and Zambezi
rivers (now southern Zimbabwe). This civilization was sited far enough
inland never to have felt the impact of Islam. It was founded in the tenth or
eleventh century by Bantu-speaking Shona people, and it became a large
and prosperous state between the late thirteenth and late fifteenth centuries.
We know it only through the archaeological remains of approximately 150
settlements.

See the Map

African Climate Zones and Bantu Migration Routes, ca. 3000 B.C.E. at
myhistorylab.com
Great Zimbabwe. Ruins of the Conical Tower inside the Great Enclosure
at Great Zimbabwe.

What were some probable sources of Great Zimbabwe’s power?

The most impressive of these ruins is the apparent capital known today as
“Great Zimbabwe,” a huge site encompassing two major building
complexes. One, called the acropolis, is a series of stone enclosures on a
high hill. It overlooks a larger enclosure that contains many ruins and a
circular tower, all surrounded by a massive wall some 32 feet high and up to
17 feet thick. The acropolis complex may have contained a shrine, whereas
the larger enclosure was apparently the royal palace and fort. The
stonework reflects a wealthy and sophisticated society. Artifacts from the
site include gold and copper ornaments, soapstone carvings, and imported
beads, as well as glass and porcelain of Chinese, Syrian, and Persian
origins.
The state seems to have partially controlled the gold trade between inland
areas and the east coast port of Sofala. Its territory lay east and south of
substantial gold-mining enterprises. This large settlement was probably
home to the ruling elite of a prosperous empire. Its wider domain was made
up mostly of smaller settlements whose inhabitants lived by subsistence
agriculture and cattle raising.
Earlier Iron Age sites farther south suggest that other large state entities
may have preceded Great Zimbabwe. The specific impetus for Great
Zimbabwe may have been a significant immigration around 1000 C.E. of
Late Iron Age Shona speakers who brought with them mining techniques
and farming innovations, along with their ancestor cults. Improved farming
and animal husbandry could have led to substantial population growth. The
expanding gold trade linked the flourishing of Zimbabwe to that of the East
African coast from about the thirteenth century.
We may never know why this impressive civilization declined after
dominating its region for nearly 200 years. It appears that the northern and
southern sectors of the state split up, and people moved away from Great
Zimbabwe, probably because the farming and grazing land there was
exhausted. The southern successor kingdom, Changamire, was powerful
from the late 1600s until about 1830. The northern successor state, which
stretched along the Zambezi, was known to the first Portuguese sources as
the kingdom ruled by the Mwene Mutapa, or “Master Pillager,” the title of
its sixteenth-century ruler, Mutota, and his successors.

Carving from Great Zimbabwe. This soapstone carving of a bird

comprises the top portion of a monolith from Great Zimbabwe, c. 1200 –
1400 C.E. [H: Bird—14 1/2” (36.8 cm); H: Monolith—5” 4 1/2” (1.64 m).]
Stone-carved birds are national emblems in Zimbabwe and were commonly
found on walls and monoliths dating back to Great Zimbabwe in the
eleventh century.

What is known about the culture at Great Zimbabwe?

THE PORTUGUESE IN SOUTHEASTERN AFRICA

Portuguese attempts to obtain gold from the Zambezi region of the interior
by controlling trade on the Swahili coast were failures. The Portuguese then
established fortified posts up the Zambezi and meddled in Shona politics. In
the 1690s the Changamire Shona Dynasty conquered the northern Shona
territory and pushed the Portuguese out of gold country.
All along the Zambezi, a lasting consequence of Portuguese intrusion
was the creation of quasi-tribal chiefdoms. These were led by prazeros,
interracial descendants of the area’s first Portuguese estate holders,
Africans, and Indian immigrants. By the end of the eighteenth century, they
formed a few clanlike groups that controlled vast landholdings and
commanded armies, often made up largely of slaves. They functioned as
warlords, too strong for either the Portuguese or the regional African rulers
to control.

prazeros
Portuguese and mixed-race owners of large estates in the Zambezi valley.

SOUTH AFRICA: THE CAPE COLONY

In South Africa the Dutch planted European colonials almost inadvertently,
yet the consequences were far-reaching. The first Cape settlement was built
in 1652 by the Dutch East India Company as a resupply point for Dutch
vessels traveling between the Netherlands and the East Indies. The support
station grew gradually, becoming by century’s end a large settler
community (the population of the colony in 1662, including slaves, was
392; by 1714 it had reached 3,878).6 These settlers were the forebears of the
Afrikaners of modern South Africa.
Local Khoikhoi people were gradually incorporated into the colonial
economy. The Khoikhoi (see Chapter 5) were mostly pastoralists; they had
neither traditions of strong political organization nor an economic base
beyond their herds. At first they freely bartered livestock for iron, copper,
and tobacco. However, when settlers began to displace the Khoikhoi in the
southwestern Cape, conflicts ensued. The results were the consolidation of
European landholdings and a breakdown of Khoikhoi society. Dutch
military success led to even greater control over the Khoikhoi by the 1670s.
Treated as free persons, they became the chief source of colonial wage labor
—labor that was in ever greater demand as the colony grew.
The colony also imported slaves from all along the South Seas trade
routes, including India, East Africa, and Madagascar. Slavery set the tone
for relations between the emergent, and ostensibly “white,” Afrikaner
population and the “coloreds” of other races. Free or not, the latter were
eventually all too easily identified with slave peoples.

Early European View of Khoikhoi. This seventeenth-century illustration

of Khoikhoi reflects a European view of daily life near the Cape of Good
Hope.

What economic role did the Khoikhoi play in the Cape Colony?
After the first settlers spread out around the company station, nomadic
white livestock farmers, or Trekboers, moved more widely afield, leaving
the richer but limited farming lands of the coast for the drier interior
tableland. There they contested wider groups of Khoikhoi cattle herders for
the best grazing lands. The Trekboers developed military techniques—
notably the “commando,” a collective civilian raid—to secure their way of
life by force. Again the Khoikhoi were the losers. By 1700 they were
stripped almost completely of their own pasturages, and their way of life
was destroyed. Increasing numbers of Khoikhoi took up employment in the
colonial economy. Others moved north to join with other refugees from
Cape society (slaves, mixed bloods, and some freedmen) to form raiding
bands operating along the frontiers of Trekboer territory close to the Orange
River. The disintegration of Khoikhoi society continued in the eighteenth
century, accelerated sharply by smallpox—a European import against which
this previously isolated group had no immunity.

Trekboers
White livestock farmers in Cape Colony.

Cape society in this period was diverse. The Dutch East India Company
officials (including Dutch Reformed ministers), the emerging Afrikaners
(both settled colonists and Trekboers), the Khoikhoi, and the slaves played
differing roles. Intermarriage and cohabitation of masters and slaves added
to the social complexity, despite laws designed to check such mixing.
Accommodation of nonwhite minority groups within Cape society
proceeded; the emergence of Afrikaans, a new vernacular language of the
colonials, shows that the Dutch immigrants themselves were subject to
acculturation. By the time of English domination after 1795, the
sociopolitical foundations of modern South Africa—and the bases of
apartheid—were firmly laid.

Afrikaans
The new language, derived from Dutch, that evolved in the seventeenth-
and eighteenth-century Cape Colony.

apartheid
“Apartness,” the term referring to racist policies enforced by the white-
dominated regime that existed in South Africa from 1948 to 1992.

SUMMARY
 HOW DID the Ottomans govern North Africa and Egypt?
North Africa and Egypt. Developments in African history from 1000 to
1700 varied from region to region. In North Africa, the key new factor was
the imperial expansion of the Ottoman Empire as far west as Morocco. But
the development of independent regional rulers soon rendered Ottoman
authority in North Africa purely nominal. page 338
HOW DID Islam spread south of the Sahara?
The Spread of Islam South of the Sahara. Islam was introduced between
the eighth century and 1800. In most cases, the process was slow, peaceful,
and partial; ruling elites and traders were more likely to practice Islam,
whereas most commoners followed traditional practices. page 339
WHAT WERE the four most important states in the Sahel between
1000 and 1600?
Sahelian Empires of the Western and Central Sudan. Several substantial
states arose south of the Sahara: Ghana, Mali, Songhai, and Kanem. The
ruling elites of these states converted to or were heavily influenced by
Islam, although most of their populations practiced local religions or
engaged in syncretism. Much of the wealth of these states was tied to their
control of the trans-Saharan trade routes. page 340
WHY DID Christianity gradually disappear in Nubia?
The Eastern Sudan. The Nubian Christian states of Maqurra and Alwa
were gradually Islamized. page 347
HOW DID the arrival of Europeans affect the peoples of West and
central Africa?
The Forestlands: Coastal West and Central Africa. In the coastal
forestlands of West Africa, a substantial kingdom arose in Benin, famous
for its brass sculptures. Senegambia and the Gold Coast were influenced by
contact with European traders and the introduction of food crops from the
Americas. Social, political, and economic structures in Kongo and Angola
were disrupted by Portuguese slave trading. page 347
HOW DID Swahili language and culture develop?
East Africa. On the east coast, Islam influenced the development of the
distinctive Swahili culture and language, and Islamic traders linked the
region to India and East Asia. Omanis gained control of Zanzibar. page 351
HOW DID slavery affect race relations in Cape Colony?
Southern Africa. The ruins at Great Zimbabwe leave many questions
unanswered. The Portuguese followed the Zambezi to the gold fields that
fed the trade at the Swahili coast, but they were unable to profit much. In
southernmost Africa, Trekboers displaced Khoikhoi. The Trekboers
imported slaves from India and other parts of Africa, and soon the master–
slave relationship became their model for all interactions with nonwhites.
page 353

KEY TERMS

Afrikaans (AF-rih-KAHNS)
apartheid (a-PART-HAYT)
Dar al-Islam (DAR-ahl-his-LAHM)
Maghreb (MUHG-RUHB)
mansa (MAHN-SAH)
marabouts (MAYR-uh-BOOZ)
Moors
muezzin (myoo-EHZ-ihn)
oba (OH-bah)
prazeros
Sharifs (shuh-REEFS)
shaykh (SHAYK)
Swahili (swah-HEE-lee)
Trekboers (TREHK-BORZ)
uzama

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Why did Islam succeed in the Sudanic belt and East Africa? What
role did warfare play in its success? What role did trade have in it?
 2. What is the importance of the empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai
to world history? Why was the control of the trans-Saharan trade so
important to these kingdoms? What was the importance of Islamic
culture to them? Why did each of these empires break up?
3. What was the impact of the introduction of food crops from the
Americas on various regions of Africa during this period?
4. How did Swahili culture form? Describe its defining characteristics.
Why has its impact on the East African coast endured?
5. What was the impact of the Portuguese on East Africa and central
Africa? How did European coastal activities affect the African
interior?
6. Why did Ottoman influence decline in northern Africa in the
eighteenth century?
7. How did the Portuguese and Dutch differ from or resemble the
Arabs and other Muslims who came as outsiders to sub-Saharan
Africa?
8. What is known about Great Zimbabwe? What questions remain?
How might the remaining questions be answered?
9. Discuss the diversity of Cape society in South Africa before 1700.
Who were the Trekboers, and what was their conflict with the
Khoikhoi? How was the basis for apartheid formed in this period?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections

Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many

documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 14
Read the Document Excerpts from Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali,
1235, p. 342
The Travels of Ibn Battuta “Ibn Battuta in Mali,” p. 343
Al-Umari describes Mansa Musa of Mali, p. 343
Voyage from Lisbon, p. 351
Descriptions of the cities of Zanj, p. 352

See the Map Trade Routes in Africa, p. 338

Discovery: The Maghrib and West Africa, Fourteenth Century, p. 338

East African Coast to 1600, p. 339
African Empires in the Western Sudan, p. 345
African Climate Zones and Bantu Migration Routes, ca. 3000 B.C.E., p. 353
View the Image Loango, the Capital of the Kingdom of the Congo, p.
351
Hear the Audio Influences in Africa 2, p. 339
Influences in Africa 2, p. 348

Research and Explore

Watch the Video Piracy, p. 338

Watch the Video West African States

 Hear the Audio
Hear the audio file for Chapter 14 at www.myhistorylab.com
15
Europe to the Early 1500s: Revival,
Decline, and Renaissance

Hear the Audio for Chapter 15 at www.myhistorylab.com

The Medieval Universe. In medieval Europe, the traditional geocentric or

earth-centered universe was usually depicted by concentric circles. In this
popular German work on natural history, medicine, and science, Konrad
von Megenberg (1309–1374) depicted the universe in a most unusual but
effective manner. The seven known planets are contained within straight
horizontal bands that separate the earth below from heaven, populated by
the saints, above.

Which realm seems more important to the artist, heaven or earth?

REVIVAL OF EMPIRE, CHURCH, AND TOWNS

WHAT IMPACT did the Crusades have on Medieval European Society?

MEDIEVAL SOCIETY

WHAT NEW group was added to the three traditional groups in medieval
society?

GROWTH OF NATIONAL MONARCHIES

HOW DID England and France develop strong royal governments by the
thirteenth century?

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL BREAKDOWN

WHAT WERE the consequences of the Black Death?

ECCLESIASTICAL BREAKDOWN AND REVIVAL: THE LATE

MEDIEVAL CHURCH

WHY DID France’s king support the Great Schism?

THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY (1375–1527)

WHY WAS the Renaissance a transition from the medieval to the modern
world?

REVIVAL OF MONARCHY: NATION BUILDING IN THE FIFTEENTH

CENTURY
WHAT WERE the bases for the rise of the modern sovereign state in the
fifteenth century?

The High Middle Ages (the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries in
Europe) were a period of political expansion and consolidation and of
intellectual flowering and synthesis. The Latin, or Western, church
established itself as a spiritual authority independent of secular
monarchies, which became more powerful and self-aggrandizing. The
parliaments and popular assemblies that accompanied the rise of these
monarchies laid the foundations of modern representative institutions.
An agricultural revolution increased food supplies and populations.
Trade and commerce revived, towns expanded, banking and credit
developed, and a “new rich” merchant class rose to power in Europe’s
cities. Universities were established. Contact with the Arab world gave
access to the writings of the ancient Greek philosophers, which stimulated
the great expansion of Western culture during the late Middle Ages and the
Renaissance.
The late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, roughly from 1300 to 1500,
were a time of both unprecedented calamity and bold new beginnings in
Europe. France and England grappled with each other in a bitter conflict
known as the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453). Bubonic plague (the
“Black Death”) killed as much as one third of the population in many
regions between 1348 and 1350. A schism divided the church (1378–1417).
And in 1453 the Turks captured Constantinople. But at the same time, the
late Middle Ages witnessed a rebirth that would continue into the
seventeenth century. Scholars began criticizing medieval assumptions about
the nature of God, humankind, and society. Printing was invented, and local
languages—Europe’s vernaculars—gained recognition. Patriotism and
incipient nationalism became major forces in the independent nation-states
of Europe.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES IN WESTERN EUROPE
With its borders finally secured, Western Europe during the High Middle
Ages was able to concentrate on its political institutions and cultural
development, which had been ignored during the early Middle Ages. For
Western Europe, the High Middle Ages were a period of clearer self-
definition during which individual lands gained much of the geographic
shape we recognize today. Europe also began to escape its relative isolation
from the rest of the world, which had prevailed since the early Middle
Ages. Two factors contributed to this increased engagement: the Crusades
and renewed trade along the Silk Road linking China and Europe, made
possible by the Mongol conquests in Asia.
Under the Song Dynasty (960–1279), before Mongol rule, China
continued its technological advance. In addition to the printing press, the
Chinese invented the abacus and gunpowder. They also enjoyed a money
economy unknown in the West. But culturally, these centuries between
1000 and 1300 were closed and narrow by comparison with those of the
Tang Dynasty. Politically, the Song were far more autocratic. This was also
an era of expansion for Chinese trade, and one of the few in Chinese history
in which merchants as a group were able to advance in wealth and status.
Although the imperial reach of the Song was limited, Chinese culture in this
period was more open to outside influences than in any previous era.
In the late twelfth century Japan shifted from civilian to military rule; the
Kamakura bakufu governed by mounted warriors who were paid with rights
to income from land in exchange for their military services. This rise of a
military aristocracy marked the beginning of Japan’s “medieval,” as distinct
from its “classical,” period. Three Mongol invasions in the thirteenth
century also fostered a strong military to resist them. With a civilian court
also in existence, Japan actually had a dual government (that is, two
emperors and two courts) until the fourteenth century. However, this
situation differed greatly from the deep and permanent national divisions
developing at this time among the emerging states and autonomous
principalities of Western Europe.
Within the many developing autonomous Islamic lands at this time, the
teachings of Muhammad created an international culture. Religious identity
enabled Muslims to transcend their new and often very deep regional
divisions. Similarly, Christianity allowed Englishmen, Frenchmen,
Germans, and Italians to think of themselves as one people and to unite in
crusades to the Holy Land. As these Crusades got under way in the late
eleventh century, Islam too was on the march, penetrating Anatolia and
Afghanistan and impinging upon India, where it met a new challenge in
Hinduism.
 The legacy of the Crusades was mixed. They accomplished few of the
goals that originally motivated the European Crusaders; the Holy Land
remained under Islamic control, the Crusader kingdoms there collapsed
within a few generations of their founding, and the animosity toward
Christians fostered by the Crusades resonates even today in the Middle
East. Still, the Crusades brought Europeans into more direct and frequent
contact with the non- European world than they had known since the
heyday of the Roman Empire. Crusaders sampled and sent home products
from the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa, creating new tastes in food,
art, and even fashion. The resulting growth in demand for these products
impelled rising numbers of European merchants to seek these products
beyond Europe. Eventually Europeans sought to bypass the Islamic world
entirely and secure supplies of Eastern products, especially spices, by going
directly to the sources in India and East Asia. By such development
European isolation was ended.
Focus Questions
How did the High Middle Ages in Europe differ from the early
Middle Ages?
What was the legacy of the Crusades for Europe? In what ways did
they signal the start of new relationships between Europe and the
wider world?

REVIVAL OF EMPIRE, CHURCH, AND

TOWNS

WHAT IMPACT did the Crusades have on medieval European

society?

OTTO I AND THE REVIVAL OF THE EMPIRE

The fortunes of both the old empire and the papacy began to revive when
the Saxon Henry I (“the Fowler”; d. 936) became the first non-Frankish
king of Germany in 918. Henry rebuilt royal power. His son Otto I (r. 936–
973) maneuvered his relatives into power in Bavaria, Swabia, and
Franconia and then invaded Italy and proclaimed himself its king in 951. In
955 he defeated the Hungarians at Lechfeld, securing German borders
against new barbarian attacks and earning the title “the Great.”
Otto enlisted the help of the church in rebuilding his realm. He appointed
bishops and abbots to administer his land, since these men possessed a
sense of universal empire but they could not marry and found families to
compete with his own. In 961, Otto responded to a call for help from Pope
John XII (955–964), and in 962, Otto received in return an imperial
coronation. The church was brought ever more under royal control, but it
was increasingly determined to assert its independence.

THE REVIVING CATHOLIC CHURCH: THE CLUNY REFORM

MOVEMENT AND THE INVESTITURE STRUGGLE
Otto’s successors became so preoccupied with Italy that they allowed their
German base to disintegrate. As the German Empire began to crumble in
the eleventh century, the church, unhappy under imperial domination,
declared its independence by embracing the Cluny reform.
The great monastery at Cluny had been founded in 910 in east-central
France. The Cluny reformers maintained that clergy should not be
subservient to kings; clergy should serve under the direct authority of the
pope. They denounced “secular” parish clergy, who lived with concubines
in marriage-like relationships. Distinctive features of Western religion—
separation of church and state, and the celibacy of the Catholic clergy—had
their origins in the Cluny reform movement. From Cluny, reformers were
dispatched throughout France and Italy, and in the late eleventh century the
papacy embraced their proposals.
Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073–1085) advocated other reforms, too. In 1075,
he condemned under penalty of excommunication the well-established
custom of a king appointing bishops to administer his estates, “investing”
them with the ring and staff that symbolized their ecclesiastical office.
Emperor Henry IV of Germany saw this as a direct challenge to his
authority. In contrast, Germany’s territorial princes supported the pope, for
they believed that anything that weakened the emperor strengthened them.
The lines of battle were quickly drawn. Henry assembled his loyal
German bishops at Worms in January 1076 and had them proclaim their
independence from Gregory. Gregory promptly excommunicated Henry and
absolved all Henry’s subjects from loyalty to him. The German princes
were delighted, and Henry faced a general revolt. He had no choice but to
come to terms with Gregory. In a famous scene, he prostrated himself
outside the pope’s castle in northern Italy in January 1077, reportedly
standing barefoot in the snow off and on for three days before the pope gave
him absolution. Papal power seemed to triumph, but the struggle was not
yet over.
The Investiture Controversy was finally settled in 1122 with the
Concordat of Worms in which the new Emperor Henry V (r. 1106–1125)
agreed not to invest bishops with the ring and staff, and Pope Calixtus II (r.
1119–1124) recognized the emperor’s right to grant bishops their secular
fiefs. The emperor effectively retained the right to nominate or veto a
candidate. The settlement created separate spheres of ecclesiastical and
secular authority; it also set the stage for future conflicts between church
and state.

QUICK REVIEW
Church and State
Investiture crisis centered on authority to appoint and control clergy
Pope Gregory excommunicated Henry IV when Henry proclaimed
his independence from the papacy
Crisis settled in 1122 with Concordat of Worms

THE CRUSADES
What the Cluny reform was to the clergy, the Crusades to the Holy Land
were to the laity: an outlet for the heightened religiosity of the late eleventh
and twelfth centuries.

Crusades
Religious wars directed by the church against “infidels” and “heretics.”
MAP 15–1. The Early Crusades. Routes and several leaders of the
Crusades during the first century of the movement are shown. The names
on this map do not exhaust the list of great nobles who went on the First
Crusade. The even showier array of monarchs of the Second and Third
Crusades still left the Crusades, on balance, ineffective in achieving their
goals.

What obstacles did the Crusaders encounter?

Late in the eleventh century, the Byzantine Empire was under severe
pressure from the Seljuk Turks. The Eastern emperor, Alexius I Comnenus,
appealed for Western aid. At the Council of Clermont in 1095, Pope Urban
II responded by launching the First Crusade. Scholars debate the motives of
the Crusaders. Genuine religious piety played a major part. The papacy
promised Crusaders forgiveness for all their sins should they die in battle,
and a crusade to the Holy Land was the ultimate religious pilgrimage. The
pope and others may also have hoped to stabilize the West by sending large
numbers of restless, feuding young nobles off to foreign lands. (About
100,000 took part in the First Crusade.) Younger sons of noblemen, for
whom there were no estates at home, may have hoped that a crusade would
make their fortunes. Urban also saw the Crusades as an opportunity to
reconcile Eastern and Western Christianity.
Drawn by the dream of liberating the holy city of Jerusalem, which the
Seljuk Turks had held since the seventh century, three great armies gathered
in France, Germany, and Italy. As the Crusaders marched by different
overland routes toward Constantinople, they seized the opportunity to rid
Europe of Jews as well as Muslims. Jewish communities, especially in the
Rhineland, suffered bloody pogroms (see Map 15–1).

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Expulsion, Jews from France, 12th Century at myhistorylab.com

The Eastern emperor was suspicious of the uncouth, spirited soldiers who
gathered at his capital, and his subjects, whose villages the Westerners
plundered, were openly hostile. Nevertheless, the Crusaders succeeded in
doing what Byzantine armies had failed to do. They routed the Seljuks, and
on July 15, 1099, they took the city of Jerusalem. They owed their success
to their superior military discipline and weaponry and to the fact that the
Muslims failed to unite to oppose them.
The victorious Crusaders set up a “kingdom of Jerusalem” composed of a
number of tiny feudal states. These were tenuously held islands in a sea of
Muslims intent on their destruction. As the Crusaders built castles for the
defense of their new territories, their focus shifted from conquest to
economic development. Some, like the military-religious order of the
Knights Templar, acquired vast fortunes.

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Arab-Syrian Gentleman Discusses Franks at myhistorylab.com
 After about forty years, the Crusader states began to fall. The Second
Crusade, preached by the Cistercian monk Bernard of Clairvaux (1091–
1153), attempted a rescue but met with dismal failure. In October 1187,
Saladin (r. 1138–1193), king of Egypt and Syria, reconquered Jerusalem, a
victory so brilliant and unexpected that Pope Urban III was said to have
dropped dead upon hearing about it. Save for a brief interlude in the
thirteenth century, the holiest of cities remained in Islamic hands until the
twentieth century.

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The Major Crusades at myhistorylab.com

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The Magna Carta 1215 at myhistorylab.com

The Third Crusade in the twelfth century (1189–1192) attempted to

reclaim Jerusalem, under three of Europe’s greatest rulers: Richard the
Lion-Hearted of England, Frederick Barbarossa of the Holy Roman Empire,
and Philip Augustus of France. Barbarossa died in an accident en route to
the front, and Philip Augustus returned to France to prey on Richard’s
lands. Left alone, Richard could do little. On his way home, Richard was
captured by Emperor Henry VI. England paid a huge ransom to win his
release. Popular resentment at the failed, costly venture contributed to the
events that produced the Magna Carta in 1215, an effort to curb the power
of England’s kings.

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Politically and religiously the first three Crusades were a failure. But they
stimulated Western trade with the East, as Venetian, Pisan, and Genoan
merchants followed the Crusaders across Byzantium to lucrative new
markets.

CHRONOLOGY
THE CRUSADES
 Venetian commercial ambitions shaped the Fourth Crusade. Thirty
thousand Crusaders gathered in Venice in 1202, intending to sail to Egypt.
When they could not raise the money to pay for their transport, they
negotiated: In exchange for passage, they agreed to take the rival Christian
port of Zara for Venice. Europe was stunned, but worse was to come. The
Crusaders were next diverted to Constantinople, which fell to their assault
in 1204. A Latin ascended the Byzantine throne, and Venice became the
dominant commercial power in the eastern Mediterranean.
Pope Innocent III was chagrined by the misdirection of a Crusade he had
authorized, but once Constantinople was in Latin hands, he changed his
mind. The opportunity to bring Greek Christians under the control of the
Latin church was too tempting. The Greeks, however, could not be
reconciled to Latin rule, and in 1261 the man they recognized as their
legitimate emperor, Michael Paleologus, recaptured the city. He had help
from Venice’s rival, Genoa. The Fourth Crusade did nothing to heal the
political and religious divisions that separated East and West.
Foundry in Florence. Skilled workers were an integral component of the
commerce of medieval towns. This scene shows the manufacture of
cannons in a foundry in Florence.

What parts of this image are most detailed? Why?

TOWNS AND TOWNSPEOPLE

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, most towns were small. Only about 5
percent of western Europe’s population were urban dwellers, but they were
some of the most creative members of medieval society.

A Closer Look
European Embrace of a Black Saint
St. Maurice, patron saint of Magdeburg, Germany, was a third-century
Egyptian Christian, who commanded the Egyptian legion of the Roman
army in Gaul. In 286 C.E. he and his soldiers were executed for impiety
after refusing to worship the Roman gods. Maurice’s cult began in 515,
and he became a favorite saint of Charlemagne and other pious,
warring German kings.
Portrayed as a white man for centuries, St. Maurice first appeared as
a black man in the mid-thirteenth century. In the era of the Crusades,
rulers had their eyes on new possessions in the Orient, and an Eastern-
looking patron saint (Maurice) seemed the perfect talisman as Western
merchants and armies ventured forth to trade and conquer. At this
time, artists also began to paint as a black man one of the three Magi
who visited baby Jesus on his birthday. The name Maurice was close to
the German word for black dye (“Mauro”) and later Moors
(“Mohren”). Progressively, the third-century saint was transformed
into a black African. By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, his head
adorned the coats-of-arms of leading Nuremberg families who traded
in the Near East, among them the Tuchers, Nuremberg’s great cloth
merchants, and Albrecht Dürer, Germany’s most famous Renaissance
artist.

Questions

1. Did Charlemagne and other German kings embrace Maurice as their

favorite saint for mercenary, religious, or military motives?
2. Was racism behind the portrayal of Maurice as a white man for
eleven centuries, before painters presented him as the black saint he
had always been?
3. Why would some of Nuremberg’s wealthy, leading families adorn
their coats-of-arms with the head of an African saint?
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 Towns were dominated at first by the feudal lords whose charters
guaranteed the towns’ safety. The purpose of towns was originally to
concentrate skilled laborers who could manufacture the finished goods
desired by lords and bishops. As towns grew, they attracted serfs who used
their skills and industriousness to raise themselves into higher social ranks.
Lords in the countryside had to offer serfs better terms of tenure to keep
them on the land, so the growth of towns improved conditions for all serfs.

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The first merchants may have been enterprising serfs. Long-distance

traders were often people who had nothing to lose and everything to gain
from the enormous risks of foreign trade. They traveled together in armed
caravans and convoys, buying goods and products as cheaply as possible at
the source and selling them for all they could get in Western ports (see Map
15–2 on page 366). Merchants were outside the traditional social groups of
nobility, clergy, and peasantry, but as they gained wealth, they gained
respect and imitators. They also challenged traditional authority.

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Medieval Town Customs: Town, Chester, England at myhistorylab.com

Townspeople needed simple, uniform laws and a government

sympathetic to new forms of business activity. Commerce was incompatible
with the fortress mentality of the lords of the countryside. Merchants
especially wanted to end the arbitrary tolls and tariffs imposed by regional
magnates. Small shopkeepers and artisans identified far more with
merchants than with aloof lords and bishops. The lesser nobility (small
knights) outside the towns also supported the new mercantile economy.
During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the burgher upper classes
successfully challenged the old noble urban lords. Towns allied with kings
against the nobility in the countryside, rearranging the centers of power and
dissolving classic feudal government. Many towns in the High and Late
Middle Ages formed their own independent communes.

QUICK REVIEW
Town Charters
Towns originally dominated by feudal lords
Town charters granted townspeople safety and independence
Growth of towns improved conditions for serfs generally

With urban autonomy came new models of self-government. Around

1100 the old urban nobility and the new burgher upper class merged into an
urban patriciate. From this new ruling class was born the aristocratic town
council. Enriching and complicating the situation was the fact that small
artisans and craftspeople slowly developed their own protective
associations or guilds and began to gain a voice in government. The towns’
opportunities for the “little person” had created the slogan “Town air brings
freedom.” Townspeople thought of themselves as citizens with basic rights,
not subjects at the mercy of their masters’ whim.

guild
An association of merchants or craftsmen that offered protection to its
members and set rules for their work and products.
The University of Bologna in central Italy was distinguished as the center
for the revival of Roman law. This carving on the tomb of a Bolognese
professor of law shows students attending one of his lectures.

Why were universities important in medieval history?

Towns became a major force in the transition from feudal societies to

national governments. They were a ready source of educated bureaucrats
and lawyers who knew Roman law, the tool for running the state. Money
earned by townspeople enabled kings to hire their own armies, freeing them
from dependence on the nobility. Towns, in turn, won royal political
recognition and had their constitutions guaranteed. In France, towns became
integrated early into royal government. In Germany, they fell under ever
tighter control by the princes. In Italy, uniquely, towns became genuine city-
states during the Renaissance.
Towns attracted Jews, who plied trades in small businesses. Many
became wealthy as moneylenders to kings, popes, and businesspeople.
Jewish intellectual and religious culture both dazzled and threatened
Christians. Suspicion and distrust among Christians led to an unprecedented
surge in anti-Jewish sentiment in the late twelfth and early thirteenth
centuries.
In the twelfth century, translations and commentaries by Byzantine and
Spanish Islamic scholars introduced western Europeans to the works of
Aristotle, Euclid, and Ptolemy, the texts of Greek physicians and Arab
mathematicians, and the corpus of Roman law. The resulting intellectual
ferment gave rise to modern Western universities such as Bologna
(established 1158) and the University of Paris.
In the High Middle Ages, people assumed that truth was already known
and only needed to be properly organized, elucidated, and defended. Under
this model of learning, known as Scholasticism, students summarized and
compared the traditional authorities, elaborated their arguments pro and
con, and drew the logical conclusions. After Aristotle’s works were
popularized in the West, logic and dialectic became the new tools for
disciplining thought and knowledge. Dialectic was the art of discovering a
truth by pondering the arguments against it. Together with aspiring
philosophers, theologians, and lawyers, even medical students learned their
vocation by debating the authoritative texts in their field, not by clinical
medical practice.

Scholasticism
Method of study based on logic and dialectic that dominated the medieval
schools. It assumed that truth already existed; students had only to organize,
elucidate, and defend knowledge learned from authoritative texts, especially
those of Aristotle and the Church Fathers.

MAP EXPLORATION
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MAP 15–2. Medieval Trade Routes and Regional Products. Trade in
Europe varied in intensity and geographical extent in different periods
during the Middle Ages. The map shows some of the channels that came to
be used in interregional commerce. Labels tell part of what was carried in
that commerce.

How strong were the connections among Europe, the Middle East, and
Africa at this time?
Peter Abelard (1079–1142) was the boldest advocate for the new
Aristotelian learning. The leading philosopher and theologian of his day, he
became Master of Students at Notre Dame. His thinking was unique in its
appreciation of subjectivity. He claimed, for instance, that a person’s
motives determined whether the person’s actions were good or evil, not the
acts themselves. He also said that an individual’s feeling of repentance was
a more important factor in receiving God’s forgiveness than the church’s
sacrament of penance.
His audacious logical critique of religious doctrine earned him powerful
enemies. Abelard, as he laments in his autobiography, played into their
hands by seducing Heloise, a young woman he was hired to tutor. She was
the niece of a powerful church leader. After she became pregnant, Abelard
wed her—but kept the marriage secret, for university teachers, like clergy,
were required to be celibate. Her uncle hired men to castrate Abelard.
Thereafter he became a monk, and she entered a convent. They exchanged
letters in which he denigrated his love for her as wretched desire.
Repentance failed to ingratiate him with the church authorities. In 1121, his
works were burned, and in 1140, nineteen propositions that he had taught
were condemned as heresies. Heloise outlived him by twenty years and won
renown for her efforts to improve conditions for cloistered women.

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Abelard Defends Himself at myhistorylab.com

MEDIEVAL SOCIETY
 WHAT NEW group was added to the three traditional groups in
medieval society?

THE ORDER OF LIFE

In the art and literature of the Middle Ages, three basic social groups were
represented: the landed nobility; the clergy; the peasantry and village
artisans. After the eleventh century, long-distance traders and merchants
emerged as a fourth social group.
No medieval social group was absolutely uniform. Noblemen formed a
broad spectrum. Dignity and status within the nobility were directly related
to the exercise of authority over others. By the Late Middle Ages, separate
classes of higher and lower nobility had evolved in both town and country.
The higher were the great landowners and territorial magnates, long the
dominant powers in their regions; the lower were petty landlords, the
descendants of minor knights, newly rich merchants, or wealthy farmers.
Waging war was the nobleman’s sole profession. In the eighth century,
the adoption of stirrups made mounted warriors Europe’s most valued
military assets. The chief virtues of these knights were physical strength,
courage, and belligerency.
By the Late Middle Ages, several factors forced the landed nobility into a
steep economic and political decline from which it never recovered.
Climatic changes and agricultural failures created large famines, while the
great plague (discussed later) brought about unprecedented population
losses. Changing military tactics (the use of infantry and heavy artillery
during the Hundred Years’ War) made the noble cavalry nearly obsolete.
And the alliance of wealthy towns with the king weakened the nobility.
After the fourteenth century, land and wealth counted for far more than
lineage as qualification for entrance into the highest social class.
Unlike the nobility or peasantry, one was not born into the clerical estate.
It was acquired by religious training and ordination and was, in theory, open
to anyone. There were two fundamental categories of clergy. The regular
clergy were the monks who lived according to a special ascetic rule
(regula) in cloisters apart from the world. In the thirteenth century, two new
orders were sanctioned, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, whose
members went out into the world to preach the church’s mission and to
combat heresy. The secular clergy, who lived and worked directly among
the laity in the world (saeculum), formed a vast hierarchy. At the top were
the wealthy cardinals, archbishops, and bishops. Below them were the
urban priests, the cathedral canons, and the court clerks. Finally, there was
the great mass of poor parish priests, who were neither financially nor
intellectually much above the common people they served.

regular clergy
Monks and nuns who belong to religious orders.

secular clergy
Parish clergy who did not belong to a religious order.
Dominicans (top) and Franciscans (bottom). Unlike the other religious
orders, the Dominicans and Franciscans did not live in cloisters but
wandered about preaching and combating heresy. They depended for
support on their own labor and the kindness of the laity.

Cliche Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.

Why are books so prominent in both these images?

During most of the Middle Ages, the clergy were honored as the first
estate, and theology was the queen of the sciences. There was great
reverence for the clergy’s function as mediators between God and humanity.
The priest brought the Son of God down to earth when he celebrated the
sacrament of the Eucharist, and his absolution released penitents from
punishment for sin. Mere laypeople did not presume to judge priests.

QUICK REVIEW
Peasant Life
Peasants were the largest and lowest social group
Many peasants worked on manors
Serfs were not chattel slaves

The largest and lowest social group in medieval society was one on
whose labor the welfare of all others depended: the agrarian peasantry.
Many peasants lived and worked on the manors of the nobility. The lord of
the manor required a certain amount of produce (grain, eggs, and the like)
and services from the peasant families, and he held judicial and police
authority over them. The lord owned and operated the machines that
processed crops into food and drink, and he had the right to subject his
tenants to exactions known as banalities. He could, for example, force them
to breed their cows with his bull, and pay for the privilege, or make their
wine in his wine press. The lord also collected as an inheritance tax a serf’s
best animal. Without the lord’s permission, a serf could neither travel nor
marry outside the manor in which he served. Serfs were not chattel slaves,
however. It was to a lord’s advantage to keep his serfs healthy and happy;
his welfare, like theirs, depended on a successful harvest. Serfs had their
own dwellings and modest strips of land, and they lived off the produce of
their own labor. They could sell any surpluses, and serfs could pass their
property on to their children.
Two basic changes transformed the peasantry during the Middle Ages.
The first was the increasing importance of single-family holdings: As
families retained property from generation to generation, family farms
replaced manorial units. The second was the conversion of the serf’s dues
into money payments, a change made possible by the revival of trade and
the return of a monetary economy. By the thirteenth century, many peasants
held their land as rent-paying tenants and no longer had servile status.
In the mid-fourteenth century, when the great plague and the Hundred
Years’ War created a labor shortage, nobles in England and France tried to
turn back the clock by increasing taxes on the peasantry and restricting their
migration to the cities. Their efforts triggered rebellions, which were
brutally crushed. As growing national sentiment would break European
society’s political unity, and heretical movements end its nominal religious
unity, the peasantry’s revolts revealed the absence of medieval social unity.

MEDIEVAL WOMEN
The image of women in the Middle Ages was quite different than the reality
of women’s lives. The image was sketched by celibate male clergy who
viewed virginity as morally superior to marriage and claimed that women
were physically, mentally, and morally inferior to men. They defined only
two respectable roles for women: subjugated housewife or confined nun.
Many medieval women were neither.

Medieval Marketplace. A fifteenth-century rendering of an eleventh- or

twelfth-century marketplace. Medieval women were active in all trades, but
especially in the food and clothing industries.

© Scala/Art Resource, New York.

How did the realities of women’s lives compare to the image cultivated
by Christian clergy?
 The clerical view of women was contradicted both within the church
itself and in secular society. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the
burgeoning popularity of the cult of the Virgin Mary, of chivalric romances,
and of courtly love literature celebrated women as natural moral superiors
of men. Peter Lombard (1100–1169), an influential theologian, taught that
God created Eve from Adam’s rib because God intended woman neither to
rule nor to be ruled but to be at man’s side as his partner in a mutual
relationship.
Germanic law treated women better than Roman law had done,
recognizing basic rights. German women could inherit, administer, and
dispose of property, and they could take men to court and sue for bodily
injury and rape. German women married husbands of similar age, and a
German bride was entitled to a gift of property from her husband that she
retained in case of his death.
The nunnery was an option for single women who could afford it:
Entrance required a dowry. Within a nunnery a woman could rise to a
position of leadership and exercise authority, but even cloistered women
had to submit to supervision by male clergy. The number of women in
cloisters was never very large; in late medieval England no more than 3,500
women entered the cloister.
In the ninth century, the Carolingian monarchs obeyed the church and
began to enforce monogamy. This was both a gain and a loss for women.
Wives were accorded greater dignity and legal security, but their burdens as
household managers and bearers of children multiplied. The life span of
Frankish women decreased in the ninth century.
The vast majority of medieval women worked for income. Between the
ages of 10 and 15, girls and boys were apprenticed to learn productive
trades. Married women often operated their own shops or became partners
in the shops of their husbands. Women appeared in virtually every “blue-
collar” trade, from butcher to goldsmith, but mostly worked in the food and
clothing industries. Women belonged to guilds, just like men, and they
could become craftmasters, but they were paid less than men who did the
same jobs. In the late Middle Ages, townswomen had some opportunities
for schooling and to acquire vernacular literacy, but they were excluded
from the learned professions of scholarship, medicine, and law.

vernacular
The everyday language spoken by the people, as opposed to Latin.

GROWTH OF NATIONAL MONARCHIES

HOW DID England and France develop strong royal governments by

the thirteenth century?

ENGLAND: HASTINGS (1066) TO MAGNA CARTA (1215)

Medieval England’s political destiny was determined by the response to the
death of the childless Anglo-Saxon ruler Edward the Confessor (r. 1042–
1066). Through a connection with Edward’s mother, a Norman princess,
Duke William of Normandy (d. 1087) laid claim to the English throne. The
Anglo-Saxon assembly preferred a native nobleman, Harold Godwinsson
(ca. 1022–1066). William invaded England, defeating Harold’s army at
Hastings on October 14, 1066. William I “the Conqueror” was crowned
king of England in Westminster Abbey.
William established a strong monarchy but kept the Anglo-Saxon tax
system, the practice of court writs (legal warnings) as a flexible form of
central control over localities, and the Anglo-Saxon quasi-democratic
tradition of frequent parleying—that is, the holding of conferences between
the king and lesser powers who had vested interests in royal decisions. The
result was a balancing of monarchical and parliamentary elements that
continues to characterize English government today.

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The Battle of Hastings 1066 at myhistorylab.com

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England and France ca. 1180 at myhistorylab.com
 William’s grandson, Henry II (r. 1154–1189), had large French holdings
through inheritance and his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122–1204).
Henry II’s increasing autocracy was met with strong political resistance
from both the nobility and the clergy. Under Henry’s successors, the
brothers Richard the Lion-Hearted (r. 1189–1199) and John (r. 1199–1216),
burdensome taxation turned resistance into rebellion. With the full support
of the clergy and the townspeople, the barons forced King John to recognize
the Magna Carta (“Great Charter”) in 1215, a document that reaffirmed
traditional rights and personal liberties. This famous cornerstone of modern
English law put limits on royal power and secured the right of
representation in government to the privileged.

Magna Carta
The “Great Charter” limiting royal power that the English nobility forced
King John to sign in 1215.

Battle of Hastings. William the Conqueror on horseback urging his troops

into combat with the English at the Battle of Hastings (October 14, 1066).

Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry, scene 51, c. 1073–1083. Musee de la

Tapisserie, Bayeaux, France. Photo copyright Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art
Resource, New York.

How did changes in military tactics influence relationships between

monarchs and nobles in the Middle Ages?
MAP 15–3. Germany and Italy in the Middle Ages. Medieval Germany
and Italy were divided lands. The Holy Roman Empire (Germany)
embraced hundreds of independent territories that the emperor ruled only in
name. The papacy controlled Rome and tried to enforce its will in central
Italy. Under the Hohenstaufens (mid-twelfth to mid-thirteenth century),
internal German divisions and papal conflict reached new heights; German
rulers sought to extend their power to southern Italy and Sicily.
Why were emperors unable to unite Germany and Italy in the Middle
Ages?

FRANCE: BOUVINES (1214) TO THE REIGN OF LOUIS IX

Powerful feudal princes dominated France from the beginning of the
Capetian Dynasty (987) until the reign of Philip II Augustus (1180–1223).
During this period, the Capetian kings wisely concentrated their limited
resources on securing the territory surrounding Paris, by then the center of
French government and culture.
The Duke of Normandy, who after 1066 was master of England, was also
a vassal of the French king. Philip Augustus acted decisively to maintain
control over his Norman vassal: His armies occupied all the English
territories on the French coast except for Aquitaine. At Bouvines on July
27, 1214, the French won handily over the English and their German allies.
The victory unified France around the monarchy and thereby laid the
foundation for French ascendancy in the Late Middle Ages.
Louis IX (r. 1226–1270), the grandson of Philip Augustus, embodied the
medieval view of the perfect ruler. He inherited a unified and secure
kingdom. Under him, the efficient French bureaucracy became an
instrument of order and fair play in local government. He sent royal
commissioners to monitor the local officials and act as champions of the
people. Louis abolished private wars and serfdom within his own royal
domain, gave his subjects the right of appeal from local to higher courts,
and made the tax system more equitable. The French people came to
associate their king with justice, and a unifying national identity grew
strong.
During Louis’s reign, French society and culture became an example to
all of Europe, a pattern that continued into the modern period. Northern
France became the showcase of monastic reform, chivalry, and Gothic art
and architecture. It was the golden age of Scholasticism, and Europe’s
greatest thinkers converged on Paris.

THE HOHENSTAUFEN EMPIRE (1152–1272)

While stable governments developed in both England and France during the
Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Empire fragmented (see Map 15–3).
Frederick I Barbarossa (1152–1190), the first of the Hohenstaufens,
reestablished imperial authority but also initiated a new phase in the contest
between popes and emperors. In 1186 his son—the future Henry VI (r.
1190–1197)—married Constance, heiress to the kingdom of Sicily. The
Papal States were now encircled, antagonizing the popes. When Henry VI
died in 1197, Germany was thrown into civil war. Henry VI’s four-year-old
son, Frederick, had for his own safety been made a ward of Pope Innocent
III (r. 1198–1215). Innocent had both the motive and the means to challenge
the Hohenstaufens.
In December 1212, the pope supported his ward’s coronation as Emperor
Frederick II. But Frederick soon disappointed his papal sponsor by giving
the German princes what they wanted—undisputed authority over their
territories. Germany was fragmenting into petty kingdoms. The papacy
punished Frederick by excommunicating him (four times) and leading
German princes in revolt against him. This transformation of the papacy
into a formidable political and military power made the church highly
vulnerable to criticism from religious reformers and royal apologists.
When Frederick died in 1250, the German monarchy died with him. The
princes established an electoral college in 1257 to pick the emperor, and the
“king of the Romans” became their puppet.

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL BREAKDOWN

WHAT WERE the consequences of the Black Death?

HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR

The Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) started when the English king
Edward III (r. 1327–1377), grandson of Philip the Fair of France (r. 1285–
1314), claimed the French throne. But the war was more than a dynastic
quarrel. England and France were territorial and economic rivals with a
long history of animosity, making the Hundred Years’ War a struggle for
national identity.

See the Map

The Hundred Years’ War at myhistorylab.com

France had three times the population of England, was far wealthier, and
fought on its own soil. But most major battles were stunning English
victories. Unlike England, France was still struggling to make the transition
from a fragmented feudal society to a centralized modern state. France’s
defeats also resulted from incompetent leadership and English military
superiority. The English infantry was more disciplined than the French, and
English archers could fire six arrows a minute with enough force to pierce
the armor of a knight at 200 yards. Eventually, thanks in part to the
inspiring leadership of Joan of Arc (1412–1431) and a sense of national
identity and self-confidence, the French were able to expel the English. By
1453, all that remained to the English was their coastal enclave of Calais.

See the Map

The 100 Years’ War at myhistorylab.com

The Hundred Years’ War had lasting political and social consequences. It
devastated France, but it also awakened French nationalism and hastened
the country’s transition from a feudal monarchy to a centralized state. In
both France and England the burden of the war fell most heavily on the
peasantry, who were forced to support it with taxes and services.

THE BLACK DEATH

Agricultural improvements spurred population growth in the Late Middle
Ages. Europe’s population roughly doubled between the years 1000 and
1300. There were more people than there was food to feed them or jobs to
employ them, and the average European faced the probability of extreme
hunger at least once during his or her expected thirty-five-year life span.
Between 1315 and 1317, for example, cold weather and crop failures
produced a great famine. Decades of overpopulation, economic depression,
famine, and bad health made Europeans vulnerable to a virulent plague that
struck with full force in 1348.

See the Map

Black Death and Peasant Revolts at myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

Black Death, 1349, Henry Knighton at myhistorylab.com
MAP 15–4. Spread of the Black Death. Apparently introduced by sea-
borne rats from areas around the Black Sea where plague-infested rodents
have long been known, the Black Death had great human, social, and
economic consequences. According to one of the lower estimates, it killed
25 million people in Europe. The map charts the spread of the plague in the
mid-fourteenth century. Generally following trade routes, it reached
Scandinavia by 1350, and some believe it then went on to Iceland and even
Greenland. Areas off the main trade routes were largely spared.

What were some social and economic consequences of the plague?

The Black Death, so-called because it discolored the body, followed the
trade routes from Asia into Europe. Appearing in Sicily in late 1347, it
entered Europe through the port cities of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa in 1348,
and swept rapidly northward. Areas outside the major trade routes, like
Bohemia, remained virtually unaffected. Bubonic plague made numerous
reappearances in succeeding decades. It is estimated that western Europe
had lost as much as two-fifths of its population by the early fifteenth
century (see Map 15–4).

Black Death
The bubonic plague that killed millions of Europeans in the fourteenth
century.

The plague was transmitted by fleas and rats, but it also entered the lungs
and could be spread by sneezes. Contemporary physicians had little
understanding of how diseases worked. Popular wisdom held that bad air
caused the disease. Some thought that earthquakes had released poisonous
fumes. Psychological reactions varied tremendously. Some hoped that
moderation and temperance would save them; some indulged in sexual
promiscuity; some fled in panic; some developed a morbid religiosity.
Parades of flagellants whipped themselves, hoping to induce God to show
mercy and intervene. Jews were baselessly accused of spreading the
disease, and pogroms flared. The church tried to maintain order, but across
western Europe people developed an obsession with death and a deep
pessimism that endured for decades.
 Watch the Video at myhistorylab.com

Whole villages vanished. The labor supply shrank, so wages increased

and those of skilled artisans soared. Many serfs substituted money
payments for their labor services and pursued more rewarding jobs in the
cities. Agricultural prices fell because of lowered demand, and the price of
luxury and manufactured goods—the work of skilled artisans—rose. The
noble landholders suffered the greatest decline in power. They were forced
to pay more for finished products and for farm labor, while receiving a
smaller return on their agricultural produce. Rents declined everywhere.

QUICK REVIEW
The Black Death
Popular name for bubonic plague
High mortality
Spread along trade routes
Many contemporary theories about its causes and cure
Altered fundamental socioeconomic relationships

Some landowners converted arable land to sheep pasture, substituting

more profitable wool production for labor-intensive grain crops. The
propertied classes also used their political influence to pass repressive
legislation that forced peasants to stay on their farms and froze wages at
low levels. The result was an eruption of peasant rebellions in France and
England.
Although the plague hit urban populations hard, cities recovered
relatively quickly. Cities had always protected their interests by regulating
competition and immigration from rural areas. After the plague, the reach of
such laws was extended to include the lands of nobles and landlords, many
of whom were now integrated into urban life. Guilds used their political
influence to pass restrictive legislation that protected their markets. Master
artisans wanted to keep their numbers low to limit competition, but the
journeymen they employed wanted access to the guild so that they could set
up shops of their own. To the old conflict between the urban patriciate and
the guilds was now added a struggle within the guilds themselves.
Black Death. Men and women carrying plague victims in coffins to the
burial ground in Tournai, Belgium, 1349.

How did the high mortality rates of the Black Death alter
socioeconomic relationships?
There was gain as well as loss for the church, too. Many clergy died—up
to one-third in places—as they dutifully ministered to the sick and dying.
As a great landholder, the church’s income and, therefore, its political
influence declined. But it received new revenues from the vastly increased
demand for religious services for the dead and the dying and from new gifts
and bequests.

Read the Document

Peasant Revolt in England at myhistorylab.com

ECCLESIASTICAL BREAKDOWN AND

REVIVAL: THE LATE MEDIEVAL CHURCH

WHY DID France’s king support the Great Schism?

BONIFACE VIII AND PHILIP THE FAIR
By the fourteenth century popes faced rulers far more powerful than
themselves. When Pope Boniface VIII (r. 1294–1303) issued a bull, Clericis
Laicos, which forbade lay taxation of the clergy without prior papal
approval, King Philip the Fair of France (r. 1285–1314) unleashed a ruthless
antipapal campaign. Boniface made a last-ditch stand against state control
of national churches when he issued the bull Unam Sanctam in 1302,
declaring that temporal authority was “subject” to the spiritual power of the
church. The French responded with force. Philip sent troops that beat the
pope badly and might even have executed him had not an aroused populace
rescued him. No pope ever again seriously threatened kings and emperors.
Future relations between church and state tilted toward state control of
religion within particular monarchies.

Read the Document

Unam Sanctam 1302, Pope Boniface VIII at myhistorylab.com
Papal Authority. Pope Boniface VIII (r. 1294–1303), who opposed the
taxation of the clergy by the kings of France and England, issued one of the
strongest declarations of papal authority, the bull Unam Sanctam. This
statue is in the Museo Civico, Bologna, Italy.

Scala/Art Resource, New York.

Why did royal power grow relative to papal power in this period?

THE GREAT SCHISM (1378–1417) AND THE CONCILIAR

MOVEMENT TO 1449
Boniface VIII’s successor, Clement V (r. 1305–1314), moved the papal
court to Avignon on the southeastern border with France, where it remained
until Pope Gregory XI (r. 1370–1378) reestablished the papacy in Rome in
1377. When Pope Urban VI (r. 1378–1389) proclaimed his intention to
reform the papal government in the Curia, France’s Charles V (r. 1364–
1380) feared a loss of influence. Charles V supported the Great Schism,
which began on September 20, 1378, when thirteen cardinals (twelve of
whom were French) elected a cousin of the French king as Pope Clement
VII (r. 1378–1397). Clement returned to Avignon. Allegiance to the
competing papal courts divided along political lines. England and its allies
—the Holy Roman Empire (based on the old Roman Empire, mostly
Germany and northern Italy), Hungary, Bohemia, and Poland—retained
their allegiance to Urban VI. France and its orbit—Naples, Scotland,
Castile, and Aragon—supported Clement VII. In 1409 a council at Pisa
deposed both the Roman and the Avignon popes and elected yet another
pope, recognized by neither Rome nor Avignon. This intolerable situation
lasted until November 1417, when a church legal council elected a new
pope, Martin V (r. 1417–1431), and reunited the church.

Curia
The papal government.

Great Schism
The appearance of two, and at times three, rival popes between 1378 and
1415.

Holy Roman Empire

The revival of the old Roman Empire, based mainly in Germany and
northern Italy, that endured from 870 to 1806.

The papacy regained much of its prestige and authority. But the recourse
to church councils had planted the conviction that the leader of an
institution must be responsive to its members.

THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY (1375–1527)

 WHY WAS the Renaissance a transition from the medieval to the
modern world?

The Renaissance is the term used to describe fourteenth- and fifteenth-

century efforts to revive ancient learning. It marked a transition from the
medieval to the modern world. Medieval Europe, especially before the
twelfth century, had been a fragmented feudal society with an agricultural
economy, its thought and culture dominated by the church. Renaissance
Europe, especially after the fourteenth century, was characterized by
growing national consciousness and political centralization, an urban
economy based on organized commerce and capitalism, and ever greater
secular control of thought and culture.

Renaissance
The revival of ancient learning and the supplanting of traditional religious
beliefs by new secular and scientific values that began in Italy in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The distinctive features and achievements of the Renaissance are most

striking in Italy from roughly 1375 to 1527, the year of the infamous sack
of Rome by imperial soldiers. What was achieved in Italy during these
centuries deeply influenced northern Europe.

THE ITALIAN CITY-STATE: SOCIAL CONFLICT AND DESPOTISM

The Renaissance began in the cities of late medieval Italy. Italy was the
natural gateway between East and West; Venice, Genoa, and Pisa traded
with the Middle East throughout the Middle Ages. During the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, the trade-rich Italian cities became powerful city-
states, dominating the political and economic life of their regions. By the
fifteenth century, the great Italian cities had become the bankers for much
of Europe. There were five major states in Italy: the duchy of Milan, the
republics of Florence and Venice, the Papal States, and the kingdom of
Naples.
 Social strife and competition for political power were so intense within
the cities that most had evolved into despotisms by the fifteenth century.
Venice, ruled by a successful merchant oligarchy, was the notable
exception. Elsewhere, the new social classes and divisions within society
produced by rapid urban growth fueled chronic, near-anarchic conflict. In
Florence, true stability was not established until the ascent to power in 1434
of the wealthy Cosimo de’ Medici (1389–1464), who controlled the city
from behind the scenes. His grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449–
1492, r. 1478–1492) ruled Florence in near-totalitarian fashion.
Despotism was less subtle elsewhere in Italy. Dominant groups in many
cities cooperated in the hiring of a strongman, known as a podesta, to
maintain law and order. Political turbulence and warfare also fostered
diplomacy. City-states strove to stay abreast of foreign military
developments and, if shrewd enough, gained power and advantage without
actually going to war.

HUMANISM
Humanism was the scholarly study of the Latin and Greek classics and the
ancient Church Fathers, both for their own sake and to promote a rebirth of
ancient norms and values. Humanists advocated the studia humanitatis, a
liberal arts program that embraced grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history,
politics, and moral philosophy. The first humanists were orators and poets.
They wrote original literature inspired by the newly discovered works of the
ancients, and they taught rhetoric within the universities. They were sought
as secretaries, speech writers, and diplomats in princely and papal courts.

humanism
The study of the Latin and Greek classics and of the Church Fathers both
for their own sake and to promote a rebirth of ancient norms and values.

studia humanitatis
During the Renaissance, a liberal arts program of study that embraced
grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, philosophy, and politics.
 Classical and Christian antiquity had been studied before, but the Italian
Renaissance of the Late Middle Ages was more secular and lay dominated,
had broader interests, recovered more manuscripts, and possessed far
superior technical skills compared to earlier rebirths of antiquity. Unlike
their Scholastic rivals, humanists drew their own conclusions after reading
original sources in Latin or Greek. (See Document, “Pico della Mirandola
States the Renaissance Image of Man” on page 376.)

Read the Document

Letters to Cicero, 14th c., Petrarch at myhistorylab.com

Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374), the father of humanism, celebrated

ancient Rome in his writings and tirelessly collected ancient manuscripts.
His critical textual studies, elitism, and contempt for the allegedly useless
learning of the Scholastics were shared by many later humanists. Dante
Alighieri’s (1265–1321) Vita Nuova and Divine Comedy—together with
Petrarch’s sonnets—form the cornerstones of Italian vernacular literature.
Petrarch’s student and friend Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) wrote the
Decameron, 100 bawdy tales told in various voices, and assembled an
encyclopedia of Greek and Roman mythology.

Read the Document

Dante’s Divine Comedy, 1321 at myhistorylab.com

The classical ideal of a useful education that produces well-rounded,

effective people inspired far-reaching reforms. The most influential Italian
Renaissance tract on education, Pietro Paolo Vergerio’s (1349–1420) On the
Morals That Befit a Free Man, was written directly from classical models.
Vittorino da Feltre (d. 1446) directed his students to a highly disciplined
reading of ancient authors, together with vigorous physical exercise.
Educated and cultured noblewomen had a prominent place at
Renaissance courts, among them Christine de Pisan (1365–1434). She was
an expert in classical, French, and Italian languages and literature whose
most famous work, The City of Ladies, describes the accomplishments of
history’s great women.

DOCUMENT
 Pico della Mirandola States the Renaissance Image of Man
One of the most eloquent Renaissance descriptions of the abilities of
humankind comes from the Italian humanist Pico della Mirandola (1463–
1494). In his famed Oration on the Dignity of Man (ca. 1486), Pico
described humans as free to become whatever they choose.

• In what does the dignity of humankind consist? Does Pico reject the
biblical description of Adam and Eve’s fall? Does he exaggerate a
person’s ability to choose freely to be whatever he or she wishes?
What inspired such seeming hubris during the Renaissance?

The best of artisans [God] ordained that that creature (man) to whom He
[God] had been able to give nothing proper to himself should have joint
possession of whatever had been peculiar to each of the different kinds of
being. He therefore took man as a creature of indeterminate nature and,
assigning him a place in the middle of the world, addressed him thus:
“Neither a fixed abode nor a form that is thine alone or any function
peculiar to thyself have we given thee, Adam, to the end that according to
thy longing and according to thy judgment thou mayest have and possess
what abode, what form, and what functions thou thyself shalt desire. The
nature of all other beings is limited and constrained within the bounds of
laws prescribed by Us. Thou, constrained by no limits, in accordance with
thine own free will, in whose hand We have placed thee, shall ordain for
thyself the limits of thy nature. We have set thee at the world’s center that
thou mayest from thence more easily observe whatever is in the world. We
have made thee neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal,
so that with freedom of choice and with honor, as though the maker and
molder of thyself, thou mayest fashion thyself in whatever shape thou shalt
prefer. Thou shalt have the power to degenerate into the lower forms of life,
which are brutish. Thou shalt have the power, out of thy soul’s judgment, to
be reborn into the higher forms, which are divine.” O supreme generosity of
God the Father, O highest and most marvelous felicity of man! To him it is
granted to have whatever he chooses, to be whatever he wills.

Source: From Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man, in The Renaissance
Philosophy of Man, ed. by E. Cassirer et al., Phoenix Books, 1961, pp. 224–225. Reprinted by
permission of The University of Chicago Press.
RENAISSANCE ART IN AND BEYOND ITALY
Throughout Renaissance Europe, the values and interests of the laity were
less subordinated to those of the clergy than in previous centuries. In
education, culture, and religion, the secular world’s purely human pursuits
were appreciated as ends in themselves.

View the Image

Da Vinci, Mona Lisa at myhistorylab.com

This perspective is especially prominent in the painting and sculpture of

the High Renaissance (late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries), when
Renaissance art reached its maturity. In imitation of Greek and Roman art,
painters and sculptors created well-proportioned and even heroic figures.
Whereas Byzantine and Gothic art had been religious and idealized,
Renaissance art, especially in the fifteenth century, reproduced nature and
human nature realistically in both its physical beauty and grotesqueness.

View the Image

Michelangelo’s David at myhistorylab.com

Italian artists led the way, taking advantage of new technical skills and
materials developed during the fifteenth century: oil paints, the technique of
shading to enhance realism (chiaroscuro), and sizing figures to convey to
the viewer a feeling of continuity with a painting (linear perspective).
Compared with their flat Byzantine and Gothic counterparts, Renaissance
paintings seem filled with energy and life. The great masters of the High
Renaissance include Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Raphael (1483–
1520), and Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564). A modernizing,
experimental style known as Mannerism followed, reaching its peak in the
late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Tintoretto (d. 1594) and the
Spaniard El Greco (d. 1614) were Mannerism’s supreme representatives.

chiaroscuro
The use of shading to enhance naturalness in painting and drawing.

Mannerism
A style of art in the mid- to late sixteenth century that permitted artists to
express their own “manner” or feelings in contrast to the symmetry and
simplicity of the art of the High Renaissance.

Watch the Video at myhistorylab.com

ITALY’S POLITICAL DECLINE: THE FRENCH INVASIONS (1494–

1527)
Italy’s autonomous city-states had always cooperated to oppose foreign
invaders. In 1494, however, Naples, supported by Florence and the Borgia
pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), prepared to attack Milan. The Milanese
despot Ludovico il Moro (r. 1476–1499) invited the French to revive their
dynastic claim to Naples. Within five months the French king Charles VIII
(r. 1483–1498) had crossed the Alps and raced as conqueror through
Florence and the Papal States into Naples. Ferdinand of Aragon (r. 1479–
1516), who was also king of Sicily, helped create a counteralliance, the
League of Venice, which forced Charles to retreat. The French returned to
Italy under Louis XII (r. 1498–1515), this time assisted by the Borgia pope
Alexander VI (1492–1503). Alexander, probably the most corrupt pope in
history, sought to secure a political base in Romagna, officially part of the
Papal States, for his son Cesare. Seeing that a French alliance could allow
him to reestablish control over the region, Alexander abandoned the League
of Venice. Louis successfully invaded Milan in August 1499. In 1500 he
and Ferdinand of Aragon divided Naples between themselves, while the
pope and Cesare Borgia conquered the Romagna.
Jan van Eyck, “Adam and Eve” (1432). In the wings of the Dutch painter
Jan van Eyck’s earliest work, the Ghent Altarpiece, Adam and Eve appear
after their fall. Unlike the Italian Renaissance masters, the Netherlandish
master portrays them as true-to-life humans, not heroic, idealized figures.
Above their heads their son Cain kills his brother Abel, a commentary on
human behavior after the Fall.

Why would church paintings be important during this period?

See the Map

Empire and the Papacy in Italy at myhistorylab.com

In 1503 Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere became Pope Julius II (1503–

1513). He suppressed the Borgias and placed their newly conquered lands
in Romagna under papal jurisdiction. After securing the Papal States with
French aid, Julius changed sides and sought to rid Italy of the French
invaders. Julius, Ferdinand of Aragon, and Venice formed a Holy League in
October 1511, and soon Emperor Maximilian I (r. 1493–1519) and the
Swiss joined them. By 1512 the French were in full retreat.

Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam.” The High Italian Renaissance

obsession with the muscular, robust, heroic body finds expression in
Michelangelo’s rendering of the “The Creation of Adam” in the Sistine
Chapel.

What emotional responses does this image seem designed to elicit in

viewers?
The French invaded Italy again under Francis I (r. 1515–1547). French
armies massacred Swiss soldiers of the Holy League in 1515. That victory
won from the Medici pope Leo X (r. 1513–1521) an agreement known as
the Concordat of Bologna (1516), which gave the French king control over
the French clergy and the right to collect taxes from them in exchange for
French recognition of the pope’s superiority over church councils. This
helped keep France Catholic after the outbreak of the Protestant
Reformation. But the new French entry into Italy also led to the first of four
major wars with Spain in the first half of the sixteenth century, the
Habsburg–Valois wars, none of which France won.

Niccolò Machiavelli. Santi di Tito’s portrait of Machiavelli, perhaps the

most famous Italian political theorist, who advised Renaissance princes to
practice artful deception and inspire fear in their subjects if they wished to
succeed.

Scala/Art Resource, New York.

Is Machiavelli’s advice still relevant today?

NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI
These invasions made a shambles of Italy. Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–
1527) became convinced that Italian political unity and independence were
ends that justified any means. Machiavelli admired the heroic acts of
ancient Roman rulers, what Renaissance people called their Virtù.
Juxtaposing the strengths of idealized ancient Romans with the failures of
his contemporaries, Machiavelli became famously cynical. Only an
unscrupulous strongman, he concluded, could impose order on so divided
and selfish a people. Machiavelli hoped to see a strong ruler emerge from
the Medici family. But the second Medici pope, Clement VII (r. 1523–
1534), watched helplessly as Rome was sacked by the army of Emperor
Charles V (r. 1519–1556) in 1527, the year of Machiavelli’s death.

Read the Document

The Prince, 1519, Machiavelli at myhistorylab.com

REVIVAL OF MONARCHY: NATION

BUILDING IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

WHAT WERE the bases for the rise of the modern sovereign state in
the fifteenth century?

After 1450, unified national monarchies progressively replaced fragmented

and divisive feudal governance. The dynastic and chivalric ideals of
feudalism did not disappear: Minor territorial princes survived, and
representative assemblies even gained influence in some regions. But by the
late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the old problem of the one and
the many was being decided in favor of monarchy.
In the feudal monarchy of the High Middle Ages, the basic powers of
government were divided between the king and his semi-autonomous
vassals. The nobility and the towns acted with varying degrees of success
through such evolving representative bodies as the English Parliament, the
French Estates General, and the Spanish Cortes to thwart the centralization
of royal power. As a result of the Hundred Years’ War and the schism in the
church, however, the landed nobility and the clergy were in decline in the
Late Middle Ages. Towns began to ally with the king, and townspeople
staffed the royal offices. This new alliance between king and town slowly
broke the bonds of feudal society and facilitated the rise of the modern
sovereign state.
In a sovereign state, the powers of taxation, war making, and law
enforcement are concentrated in the monarch and exercised by his chosen
agents. Monarchies began to create standing national armies in the fifteenth
century. As the noble cavalry receded and the infantry and the artillery
became the backbone of armies, mercenary soldiers were recruited from
Switzerland and Germany to form the mainstay of the “king’s army.” The
growing cost of warfare increased the need to develop new national sources
of royal income. The highest classes stubbornly believed they were immune
from government taxation, so royal revenue grew at the expense of those
least able to resist and least able to pay. Monarchs had several options. As
feudal lords they could collect rents from their royal domain. They might
also levy national taxes on basic food and clothing, such as the gabelle or
salt tax in France and the alcabala or 10 percent sales tax on commercial
transactions in Spain. Kings could also levy direct taxes on the peasantry
and on commercial transactions in towns under royal protection. The
French taille was such a tax. Sale of public offices and the issuance of high-
interest government bonds were innovative fund-raising devices. Kings
turned for loans to rich nobles and to the great bankers of Italy and
Germany.

taille
A direct tax imposed by the French monarchy on land owned by non-
nobles.

CHRONOLOGY
MAJOR POLITICAL EVENTS OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
(1375–1527)
MEDIEVAL RUSSIA
In the late tenth century Prince Vladimir of Kiev (r. 972–1015), then
Russia’s dominant city, received delegations of Muslims, Roman Catholics,
Jews, and Greek Orthodox Christians, each group hoping to win the
Russians to its religion. Prince Vladimir chose Greek Orthodoxy, adding a
new cultural bond to the long-standing commercial ties between Russia and
the Byzantine Empire.

Read the Document

Vladimir Kiev’s Acceptance of Christianity at myhistorylab.com

Vladimir’s successor, Yaroslav the Wise (r. 1016–1054), developed Kiev

into a magnificent political and cultural center, but after his death, rivalry
among princes made it just one of several national centers.
Mongol (or Tatar) armies (see Chapters 8 and 12) invaded Russia in
1223, and Kiev fell in 1240. Russian cities became tribute-paying
principalities of the segment of the Mongol Empire called the Golden
Horde, which had its capital on the lower Volga. Mongol rule further
separated Russia from the West but left Russian political institutions and
religion largely intact. Thanks to their far-flung trade, the Mongolians
brought most Russians greater peace and prosperity than they had enjoyed
before. The princes of Moscow grew wealthy and expanded the principality.
Ivan III, called Ivan the Great (d. 1505), brought all of northern Russia
under Moscow’s control and ended Mongol rule in 1480. By the last quarter
of the fifteenth century, Moscow had replaced Kiev as the political and
religious center of Russia. In Russian eyes it was destined to become the
“third Rome” after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453.

Golden Horde
Name given to the Mongol rulers of Russia from 1240 to 1480.

FRANCE
There were two cornerstones of French nation building in the fifteenth
century: England’s retreat from the continent following its loss of the
Hundred Years’ War, and the defeat of Charles the Bold (r. 1467–1477) and
his duchy of Burgundy. The dukes of Burgundy were probably Europe’s
strongest rulers in the mid-fifteenth century, and they hoped to build a
dominant middle kingdom between France and the Holy Roman Empire.
Continental powers joined forces to oppose them, and Charles the Bold was
killed in battle at Nancy in 1477.
The dissolution of Burgundy left Louis XI (r. 1461–1483) free to secure
the monarchy in his expanded kingdom. Louis harnessed the nobility and
expanded trade and industry. It was because Louis’s successors inherited
such a secure and efficient government that France was able to pursue
Italian conquests in the 1490s and to fight a long series of losing wars with
the Habsburgs in the first half of the sixteenth century. By the mid-sixteenth
century France was again a defeated nation, almost as divided as it had been
during the Hundred Years’ War.

SPAIN
Spain, too, became a strong country in the late fifteenth century. Both
Castile and Aragon had been poorly ruled kingdoms until the 1469 marriage
of Isabella of Castile (r. 1474–1504) and Ferdinand of Aragon (r. 1479–
1516). Castile was by far the richer and more populous of the two. Each
retained its own government agencies and cultural traditions. Together,
Isabella and Ferdinand were able to subdue their realms, secure their
borders, and venture abroad militarily. Townspeople allied themselves with
the crown and progressively replaced the nobility within the royal
administration. The crown also extended its authority over the wealthy
chivalric orders.
Spain had long been remarkable as a place where Islam, Judaism, and
Christianity coexisted with a certain degree of toleration. This toleration
ended decisively. Ferdinand and Isabella exercised almost total control over
the Spanish church as they placed religion in the service of national unity.
They appointed the higher clergy and the officers of the Inquisition. Spanish
spiritual life became uniform and regimented, which is a major reason
Spain became a base for Europe’s Counter-Reformation in the sixteenth
century.
The anti-French marriage alliances Isabella and Ferdinand arranged for
their children influenced European history for decades. Their patronage of
the Genoese adventurer Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) led to the
creation of the Spanish Empire in the New World. Gold and silver from
mines in Mexico and Peru helped make Spain Europe’s dominant power in
the sixteenth century.

See the Map

Spain 1491 at myhistorylab.com

ENGLAND
The last half of the fifteenth century was especially difficult for the English.
Following the Hundred Years’ War, civil war broke out in England between
two rival branches of the royal family, the House of York and the House of
Lancaster. This conflict, named the Wars of the Roses (York’s symbol,
according to legend, was a white rose, and Lancaster’s a red rose), kept
England in turmoil from 1455 to 1485.
The Lancastrian monarchy of Henry VI (r. 1422–1461) was challenged
by the Duke of York and his supporters in prosperous southern towns. In
1461 Edward IV (r. 1461–1483), son of the Duke of York, seized power.
His brother and successor was Richard III (r. 1483–1485), whose reign saw
the growth of support for the exiled Lancastrian Henry Tudor. Henry
returned to England to defeat Richard in 1485 and became King Henry VII
(r. 1485–1509), founder of a Tudor dynasty that endured until 1603.
To bring the rival royal families together and give his offspring an
incontestable hereditary claim to the throne, Henry married Edward IV’s
daughter, Elizabeth of York. With the aid of a much-feared instrument of
royal power, the Court of Star Chamber, he imposed discipline on the
English nobility. He shrewdly construed legal precedents to the advantage
of the crown and used English law to further his own ends. He confiscated
so much noble land and wealth that he was able to govern without
depending on Parliament for grants. Henry constructed a powerful
monarchy that became one of early modern Europe’s most exemplary
governments during the reign of his granddaughter, Elizabeth I (r. 1558–
1603).

SUMMARY

WHAT IMPACT did the Crusades have on medieval European

society?
Revival of Empire, Church, and Towns. Germany’s Otto I breathed new
life into both empire and papacy. In the tenth century, the Cluny reform
movement increased popular respect for the church and strengthened the
clergy. In the Investiture Controversy, the papacy secured the independence
of the clergy by enlisting the support of the German princes against the
Holy Roman Emperors, thus weakening imperial power in Germany. The
Crusades were based on the intense passions of popular piety. The rise of
merchants, self-governing towns, and universities helped restructure power.
By supporting rulers against the nobility, towns gave kings the resources to
build national governments. page 360
WHAT NEW group was added to the three traditional groups in
medieval society?
Medieval Society. In theory, medieval society was divided into three main
groups: clergy (those who prayed), nobility (those who fought as mounted
warriors), and laborers (peasants and artisans). But merchants became a
fourth group. Women faced constraints, but their lives were far richer and
more varied than Christian imagery suggested. page 367
HOW DID England and France develop strong royal governments by
the thirteenth century?
Growth of National Monarchies. Much of medieval history involved the
struggle by rulers to assert their authority over powerful local lords and the
church. In England and France, monarchs and nobles reached
accommodation, and national identity was strengthened. The Holy Roman
Empire, however, disintegrated. page 369
WHAT WERE the consequences of the Black Death?
Political and Social Breakdown. Both the Hundred Years’ War and the
Black Death weakened the nobility. Bubonic plague devastated areas
surrounding trade routes. Population loss had many consequences,
including a shortage of labor and high demand for luxury goods leading to a
rise in status for artisans. Cities and kings were, on balance, strengthened.
page 371
WHY DID France’s king support the Great Schism?
Ecclesiastical Breakdown and Revival: The Late Medieval Church. By
the end of the thirteenth century, kings had become more powerful than
popes, and the French king, Philip the Fair, was able to defy the papacy. In
the fourteenth century, the Great Schism further weakened papal prestige.
The papacy never recovered its authority over national rulers. page 373
WHY WAS the Renaissance a transition from the medieval to the
modern world?
The Renaissance in Italy (1375–1527). The Renaissance, which began in
the Italian city-states in the late fourteenth century, marks the transition
from the medieval to the modern world. Humanism promoted a rebirth of
ancient norms and values and the classical ideal of an educated, well-
rounded person. The growth of secular values led to a great burst of artistic
activity by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo.
The political weakness of the Italian states invited foreign intervention. The
sack of Rome in 1527 marks the end of the Renaissance. page 374
WHAT WERE the bases for the rise of the modern sovereign state in
the fifteenth century?
Revival of Monarchy: Nation Building in the Fifteenth Century. By the
fifteenth century, England, France, and Spain had developed into strong
national monarchies with centralized bureaucracies and professional armies.
Although medieval institutions, such as the English Parliament, limited
royal power in theory, in practice monarchs in these countries held
unchallenged authority. In previous centuries, the Great Schism, the
Hundred Years’ War, and the Black Death weakened the church and the
nobility. Townspeople supported the kings. A similar process was beginning
in Russia, where the rulers of Moscow were extending their authority after
throwing off Mongol rule. page 378

KEY TERMS

Black Death
chiaroscuro (KEY-ahr-uh-SKYOOR-oh)
Crusades
Curia
Golden Horde
Great Schism
guild
Holy Roman Empire
humanism
Magna Carta
Mannerism
regular clergy
Renaissance
Scholasticism
secular clergy
studia humanitatis
taille
vernacular

REVIEW QUESTIONS
 1. How do you account for the success of the Cluny reform
movement? Can major features of the modern Catholic Church be
found in the Cluny reforms?
2. Was the Investiture Controversy a political or religious conflict?
Summarize the respective arguments of Gregory VII and Henry IV.
Is the conflict a precedent for the modern doctrine of the separation
of church and state?
3. Why did Germany remain divided while France and England began
to coalesce into reasonably strong states during the High Middle
Ages?
4. How did the responsibilities of the nobility differ from those of the
clergy and the peasantry during the High Middle Ages? How did
each social class contribute to the stability of society?
5. Describe the circumstances that gave rise to towns. How did towns
change traditional medieval society?
6. How did the Hundred Years’ War, the Black Death, and the Great
Schism in the church affect the course of history? Which had the
most lasting effects on the institutions it touched?
7. Was the church an aggressor or a victim in the Late Middle Ages
and the Renaissance? How successful was it in its confrontations
with Europe’s emerging dynastic states?
8. What was “reborn” in the Renaissance? Were the humanists the
forerunners of modern secular education and culture or eloquent
defenders of a still medieval Christian view of the world against the
church’s secular and pagan critics?
9. Historians find features of modern states developing in Europe
during the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance. What modern
features can you identify in the governments of the Italian city-
states, the northern monarchies, and in Russia?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections
 Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 15

Read the Document Expulsion, Jews from France 12th Century, p. 362
Arab-Syrian Gentleman Discusses Franks, p. 363
The Magna Carta 1215, p. 363
Medieval Town Customs: Town, Chester, England, p. 365
Abelard Defends Himself, p. 367
The Battle of Hastings 1066, p. 369
Black Death, 1349, Henry Knighton, p. 371
Peasant Revolt in England, p. 373
Unam Sanctam 1302, Pope Boniface VIII, p. 373
Letters to Cicero, 14th c., Petrarch, p. 375
Dante’s Divine Comedy, 1321, p. 375
The Prince, 1519, Machiavelli, p. 378
Vladimir Kiev’s Acceptance of Christianity, p. 379
See the Map The Major Crusades, p. 363
England and France ca. 1180, p. 369
The Hundred Years’ War, p. 371
100 Years’ War, p. 371
Black Death and Peasant Revolts, p. 371
Empire and the Papacy in Italy, p. 377
Spain 1491, p. 380
View the Image Da Vinci, Mona Lisa, p. 376
Michelangelo’s David, p. 376

Research and Explore

Watch the Video Plague, p. 373

See the Map Medieval Manor

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 15 at www.myhistorylab.com
16
Europe 1500–1650: Expansion,
Reformation, and Religious Wars

Hear the Audio for Chapter 16 at www.myhistorylab.com

Allegory of the Jesuits and their missions in the four continents from the
church of San Pedro, Lima, Peru. Anonymous painter (eighteenth century).
St. Ignatius is flanked on his left by Francis Xavier, sporting a chasuble
with Asian motifs. In the background, Jesuits living all over the world and
occupying a variety of hierarchies within the church, including those
wearing Chinese costumes and prelate robes, preside over the conversion of
the faithful in India, China, Africa, and the Americas. Like Atlas, the Jesuits
carry the globe on their shoulders.

Why do you think the peoples of India, China, Africa, and the
Americas are shown smaller than the European missionaries in this
painting?

THE DISCOVERY OF A NEW WORLD

WHY DID western Europeans start exploring, trading, and settling around
the world in the fifteenth century?

THE REFORMATION

WHO WERE the early Protestant leaders?

THE REFORMATION AND DAILY LIFE

HOW DID family life change during the Reformation era?

THE WARS OF RELIGION

WHY DID religious divisions lead to war?

SUPERSTITION AND ENLIGHTENMENT: THE BATTLE WITHIN

WHO WERE some of the most significant writers and thinkers between
1500 and 1700?

For Europe the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were years of
unprecedented territorial expansion. Permanent colonies were established
in the Americas, and the exploitation of the New World’s human and
mineral resources began.
Starting early in the sixteenth century, a powerful religious movement
spread rapidly throughout northern Europe, altering society and politics as
well as the spiritual lives of individuals. Attacking what they believed to be
burdensome superstitions and corrupt practices, Protestant reformers led a
revolt against the medieval church. Hundreds of thousands of people from
all social classes set aside the beliefs of centuries and adopted a simplified
religious practice.
The Protestant Reformation challenged aspects of the Renaissance,
especially its tendency to follow classical sources in glorifying human
nature and its loyalty to traditional religion. Protestants were more
impressed by the human potential for evil than by the inclination to do
good. But Protestants also embraced many Renaissance values, especially
humanist educational reforms and the study of ancient languages, which
gave them tools to master Scripture and challenge the papacy. Reform
within the church (Counter-Reformation) gave birth to new religious orders
and won many Protestant converts back to Catholicism.
As different groups identified their political and social goals with either
Protestantism or Catholicism, bloody confrontations spread across Europe.
During the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), international armies of varying
religious persuasions clashed in central and northern Europe.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
EUROPEAN EXPANSION
The European turn to the Atlantic was a consequence of its weakness in the
East due to Muslim domination there. However, a recovering Europe was
now able to compete for access to valuable goods in Eastern markets by
navigating the high seas. In the late fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries,
Europeans sailed far from their own shores to Africa, southern and eastern
Asia, and the New World of the Americas. From Japan to Peru, they
directly confronted civilizations other than their own and that of Islam, with
which they already had contact in the form of trade and, more often, by
force of arms. A major motivation for the voyages, which began with a
reconnaissance of the West African coast, was to circumvent the Muslim
monopoly on the movement of spices from the Indian Ocean into Europe, a
grip that had only strengthened with the rise of the Ottomans. A wealthier,
more self-confident Europe, now recovered from the great plague-induced
population decline of the fourteenth century—its taste for Asian spices
long-since whetted during the Crusades—was ready to take those spices at
their sources.
For much the same reasons (trade and self-aggrandizement) voyages of
exploration also set forth from Ming China—especially between 1405 and
1433—reaching India, the Arabian Gulf, and East Africa. Had those
voyages been followed up, they might have prevented Europeans from
establishing a presence in the Indian Ocean. But the Chinese faced both
serious pressures on their northern and western borders, and the problem of
administrating a vast, multicultural empire stretching into Central Asia,
where non-Chinese rivals had to be kept under control. Moreover, the
dominant Neo-Confucian philosophy espoused by the scholar-bureaucrats
in the imperial court disdained merchants and commerce, extolling instead a
peasant agrarian economy.
These factors led the Chinese to turn inward and abandon overseas trade
and exploration precisely at the moment when Europeans were exploring
the coast of Africa on their way to the Indian Ocean. It was a fateful choice
because it meant that the Asian power best able to resist the establishment
of European commercial and colonial empires in the Indian Ocean had
abdicated that role, leaving a vacuum of power for Europeans to fill. Still,
Chinese merchants continued to ply ocean trade routes and settle as far
from home as the Philippines and, in later centuries, the west coasts of
North and South America. Wherever there was commerce in Chinese
goods, there were Chinese merchants, albeit now operating without support
from their government.
Although parallels may be drawn between the court culture of the
Forbidden Palace in Beijing and that of King Louis XIV in seventeenth-
century France, the Chinese government, with its philosophy of
Confucianism, remained more unified and patriarchal than its counterparts
in the West. The Chinese, at first, tolerated other religions, warmly
embracing Jesuit missionaries, in part because political power in China was
not bound to a particular religion. The Japanese were also admirers of the
Jesuits, who arrived in Japan with the Portuguese in 1543. The admiration
was mutual, leading to 300,000 Christian converts by 1600. Tolerance of
Christianity did not last as long in Japan as in China. Hideyoshi, in his drive
for internal unity, banned Christianity in the late sixteenth century.
Nonetheless China and Japan, as well as many Islamic societies, including
the Ottomans and the Mughals, demonstrated more tolerance for foreign
religions, such as Christianity, than did the West for Islam, or Asian
religious traditions.
Focus Questions
Why did Europeans launch voyages of exploration in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries? What role did the Crusades and the rise of
the Ottoman Empire play in this enterprise?
Why did the Chinese voyages of exploration under the Ming come to
a halt? What were the consequences for world history?
What was the biological impact of the European discovery of
America?

THE DISCOVERY OF A NEW WORLD

WHY DID western Europeans start exploring, trading, and settling

around the world in the fifteenth century?

The discovery of the Americas dramatically expanded the horizons of

Europeans, both geographical and intellectual. Knowledge of the New
World’s inhabitants and exploitation of its mineral and human wealth set
new cultural and economic forces in motion. Beginning with the voyages of
the Portuguese and Spanish in the fifteenth century, commercial supremacy
progressively shifted from the Mediterranean and Baltic seas to the Atlantic
seaboard, and western Europe’s global expansion began in earnest (see Map
16–1 on page 388).

THE PORTUGUESE CHART THE COURSE

Seventy-seven years before Columbus sailed under Spain’s flag, Portugal’s
Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) began exploration of Africa’s
Atlantic coast. The Portuguese first sought gold and slaves. During the
second half of the fifteenth century, the Portuguese delivered 150,000
slaves to Europe. By the end of that century, they were hoping to find a sea
route around Africa to spice markets in Asia.

Hear the Audio at myhistorylab.com

Overland routes to India and China had long existed, but they were
difficult, expensive, and monopolized by Venetians and Turks. The first
exploratory voyages were slow and tentative, but they provided experience
that taught sailors the skills needed to cross the oceans to the Americas and
Asia.
In 1455, the pope gave the Portuguese rights to all the lands, goods, and
slaves they might discover from the coast of Guinea to the Indies. The
church hoped that conquests would be followed by mass conversions. The
explorers also kept an eye out for “Prester John,” rumored to be a potential
Christian ally against the Muslims. Bartholomew Dias (d. 1500) opened the
Portuguese Empire in the East when he rounded the Cape of Good Hope at
the tip of Africa in 1487. A decade later, in 1498, Vasco da Gama (d. 1524)
stood on the shores of India. When he returned to Portugal, his cargo was
worth sixty times the cost of the voyage. Later, the Portuguese established
colonies in Goa and Calcutta and successfully challenged the Arabs and the
Venetians for control of the European spice trade.
While the Portuguese concentrated on the Indian Ocean, the Spanish set
sail across the Atlantic, hoping to establish a shorter route to the East
Indies. Rather than beat the Portuguese at their own game, however,
Columbus unwittingly discovered the Americas.
Christopher Columbus in old age (d. 1506) by Sebastiano del Piombo.

What did Columbus intend to do when he sailed west across the

Atlantic?

Read the Document

Duarte Barbosas to Africa, India at myhistorylab.com

THE SPANISH VOYAGES OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

On October 12, 1492, after a thirty-three-day voyage from the Canary
Islands, Columbus landed in San Salvador (Watlings Island) in the eastern
Bahamas. He thought San Salvador was an outer island of Japan, for his
knowledge of geography was based on Marco Polo’s thirteenth-century
account of his years in China and a global map by a Nuremberg mapmaker,
which showed only ocean between the west coast of Europe and the east
coast of Asia (see Map 16–2 on page 389).
 Naked, friendly natives met Columbus and his crew. They were Taino
Indians, who spoke a variant of the Arawak language. Believing he had
landed in the East Indies, Columbus called these people Indians. The
natives’ generosity amazed Columbus, as they freely gave his men corn,
yams—and many sexual favors. “They never say no,” Columbus marveled,
observing how easily they could be enslaved.
Soon Amerigo Vespucci (1451–1512), after whom America is named,
and Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521) carefully explored the coastline of
South America. Their travels proved that the new lands were part of an
entirely unknown continent that opened on the great Pacific Ocean.

Read the Document

Columbus journal and letter at myhistorylab.com

MAP 16–1. European Voyages of Discovery and the Colonial Claims of

Spain and Portugal in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. The map
dramatizes Europe’s global expansion in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries.
Why did western Europeans want to find a sea route to Asia?

MAP 16–2. Martin Behaim’s “Globe Apple.” What Columbus knew of

the world in 1492 was contained in this map by Nuremberg geographer
Martin Behaim (1440–1507), creator of the first spherical globe of the
earth. The ocean section of Behaim’s globe is reproduced here. Departing
the Canary Islands (in the second section from the right), Columbus
expected his first major landfall to be Japan, or what he calls Cipangu (in
the second section from the left). When he landed at San Salvador, he
thought he was on an outer island of Japan; after reaching Cuba, he
believed it to be Japan. Only slowly did it dawn on him that these new lands
had never before been seen by Europeans.

From Admiral of the Ocean Sea by Samuel Eliot Morison. Copyright 1942
© renewed 1970 by Samuel Eliot Morison. By permission of Little, Brown
and Company, Boston, MA.

How did this map influence Columbus’s worldview?

IMPACT ON EUROPE AND AMERICA
Unbeknownst to those who undertook and financed it, Columbus’s first
voyage marked the beginning of more than three centuries of Spanish
conquest, exploitation, and administration of a vast American empire. The
wars Christian Aragon and Castile waged against the Islamic Moors had
just ended, and the early Spanish explorers retained their zeal for converting
non-Christians.
The voyages to the New World had important consequences for both
Europe and America. They created Europe’s largest and longest-surviving
trading bloc and yielded great wealth for Spain. This wealth fueled
European-wide economic expansion and spurred other European countries
to undertake their own colonial ventures.
European expansion also had major consequences for ecosystems.
Numerous species of fruits, vegetables, and animals were introduced to
Europe from America and vice versa. European diseases also devastated
America’s natives. (See the discussion of the “Columbian Exchange” in
Chapter 17.) Spain’s imprint on the new territories—Roman Catholicism,
economic dependence, and a hierarchical society—is still visible today (see
Chapter 33).

QUICK REVIEW
Impact of Columbus’s First Voyage on Europe and America
Spurred other European nations to colonial expansion
Financed Spain’s role in the age’s political and religious conflicts
Brought disease, war, and destruction to native peoples

THE REFORMATION

WHO WERE the early Protestant leaders?

The Reformation was a sixteenth-century religious movement that sought
to reform the church. It led to the establishment of Protestantism and the
religious division of Western Christendom.

Reformation
The sixteenth-century religious movement that sought to reform the Roman
Catholic Church and led to the establishment of Protestantism.

RELIGION AND SOCIETY

The Reformation broke out first in the free imperial cities of Germany and
Switzerland. There were sixty-five such cities, each a small kingdom unto
itself. Most had Protestant movements. Some turned Protestant and
remained so, while others developed mixed confessions that allowed
Catholics and Protestants to coexist.
Certain groups favored the Reformation more than others. In many
places, trade guilds were in the forefront of the Reformation. Evidence
suggests that people who felt bullied by either local or distant authority—a
guild by an autocratic local government, a city by a prince or king—saw the
Protestant movement as an ally.
Social and political experience thus coalesced with religious issues in
both town and countryside. When Martin Luther wrote, preached, and sang
about a priesthood of all believers and ridiculed papal laws as arbitrary
human inventions, he touched political as well as religious nerves.

QUICK REVIEW
Criticism of the Church
Many people did not see the church as a foundation for religious
piety
Laity and clerics were interested in alternatives and reform
Laypersons were increasingly willing to take initiative

POPULAR MOVEMENTS AND CRITICISM OF THE CHURCH

The Protestant Reformation could not have occurred without the
monumental crises of the late medieval church and the Renaissance papacy.
Laity and clerics alike began to seek a more heartfelt, idealistic piety. The
Late Middle Ages saw independent lay and clerical efforts to reform local
religious practice.
A variety of factors contributed to lay criticism of the church. The laity in
the cities was learning more about the world and those who controlled their
lives. They traveled widely—as soldiers, pilgrims, explorers, and traders.
New postal systems and the printing press increased the information at their
disposal. The new age of books and libraries raised literacy and heightened
lay curiosity, confidence, and criticism.

SECULAR CONTROL OVER RELIGIOUS LIFE

On the eve of the Reformation, Rome’s international network of church
offices began to be pulled apart by a growing sense of regional identity
(incipient nationalism) and the increasing competence of local secular
administrations. Rare was the late medieval German town that did not have
complaints about the maladministration, concubinage, or fiscal misconduct
of its clergy.
City governments also sought to restrict clerical privileges and to
improve local religious life by bringing the clergy under the local tax code
and by endowing new clerical positions for well-trained and conscientious
preachers.

View the Image

Early Print Shop at myhistorylab.com

THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE

The scholarly works of northern humanists created a climate favorable to
religious and educational reforms. Northern scholars tended to come from
more diverse social backgrounds and to be more devoted to religious
reforms and new lay freedoms than were their Italian counterparts.
 The growth of schools and lay education combined with the invention of
cheap paper to create a mass audience for printed books. Johann Gutenberg
(d. 1468) invented printing with movable type in the German city of Mainz
around 1450. By 1500, printing presses operated in more than 200 cities
throughout Europe, providing a new medium for politicians, humanists, and
reformers alike.
The most famous northern humanist was Desiderius Erasmus (1466–
1536). Idealistic and pacifistic, Erasmus aspired to unite the classical ideals
of humanity and civic virtue with the Christian ideals of love and piety. He
summarized his own beliefs with the phrase philosophia Christi, a simple,
ethical piety in imitation of Christ, as opposed to what he saw as the
dogmatic, ceremonial, and factious religious practice of his contemporaries.
Erasmus edited the works of the Church Fathers and published a Greek
edition of the New Testament (1516), which became the basis for a new,
more accurate Latin translation (1519). Martin Luther later used both of
these works as the basis for his famous German translation.

QUICK REVIEW
Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536)
Most famous northern humanist
Saw study of Bible and classics as best path to reform
Edited the works of the Church Fathers and completed a Greek
edition of the New Testament

The best known early English humanist was Sir Thomas More (1478–
1535), a close friend of Erasmus. More’s Utopia (1516), a criticism of
contemporary society, depicts an imaginary society based on reason and
tolerance that requires everyone to work and has rid itself of all social and
political injustice. Although More himself remained staunchly Catholic,
humanism paved the way for the English Reformation.
In Spain, humanism served the Catholic Church. Francisco Jiménez de
Cisneros (1437–1517) was a confessor to Queen Isabella and, after 1508
Grand Inquisitor, a position from which he was able to enforce the strictest
religious orthodoxy. Jiménez was a conduit for humanist scholarship and
learning. He founded the University of Alcalá near Madrid, printed a Greek
edition of the New Testament, and translated many religious tracts that
aided clerical reform and control of lay religious life. His greatest
achievement, taking fifteen years to complete, was the Complutensian
Polyglot Bible, a six-volume work that placed the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin
versions of the Bible in parallel columns.

The Gutenberg Bible. Print and Protestantism would drive the history of
the sixteenth century. Well established by the mid-fifteenth century, the
printing press made possible the diffusion of both secular and religious
learning. In addition to Humanistic scholarship, print also served the
educational and propaganda campaigns of princes and religious reformers,
increasing literacy in both Latin and vernacular languages. Among the
printed works preparing the way none was more stimulating than
Gutenberg’s Latin Bible. In the mid-1520s Martin Luther made separate
German translations of the New and the Old Testaments, henceforth to
become the battering rams of the Protestant Reformation.

Why were Bibles printed in the vernacular particularly important to

Protestants?

MARTIN LUTHER AND GERMAN REFORMATION TO 1525

Unlike France and England, late medieval Germany lacked the political
unity to enforce “national” religious reforms during the Late Middle Ages.
As popular resentment of clerical immunities and ecclesiastical abuses
spread, opposition to Rome formed. German humanists had long voiced
such criticism, and by 1517 it provided a solid foundation for Martin
Luther’s reform.

View the Image

Martin Luther at myhistorylab.com

Luther (1483–1546) was educated by teachers who had been influenced

by the Northern Renaissance. His family hoped he would study law, but
instead he entered a monastery and was ordained in 1507. In 1510 he
traveled to Rome and witnessed the abuses for which the papacy was being
criticized. In 1511, he was transferred to the Augustinian monastery in
Wittenberg, where he earned his doctorate in theology and became a leader
within the monastery, the new university, and the spiritual life of the city.
Luther was plagued by the disproportion between his own sense of
sinfulness and the perfect righteousness that God required for salvation
according to medieval theology. Traditional church teaching and the
sacraments were no consolation. Between 1513 and 1518 Luther gradually
concluded that the righteousness God demands does not come from
religious works but is present in full measure in those who believe and trust
in the redemptive life and death of Christ. Luther’s belief is known as
“justification by faith alone.”

The Electoral Princes of Saxony, by Lucas Cranach the Elder (ca. 1532).
The three princes Luther served: Frederick the Wise, John the Constant, and
John Frederick the Magnanimous.

Why did some German princes support Luther?

Luther criticized the church practice of granting indulgences. According
to medieval theology, God rightly imposed punishments for all sins. When a
penitent received absolution from a priest for a mortal sin, God’s eternal
penalty was transformed into a temporal penalty, a “work of satisfaction”
that could be performed in earthly time (for example, through prayers,
fasting, almsgiving, and pilgrimages). Penitents who failed to complete
their works of satisfaction would suffer in purgatory unless they received an
indulgence, a remission of the temporal penalty. Originally, indulgences had
been granted for significant self-sacrifice, such as going on a Crusade to the
Holy Land.

indulgence
Remission of the temporal penalty of punishment in purgatory that
remained after sins had been forgiven.

In 1343, Pope Clement VI (r. 1342–1352) had proclaimed the existence

of a “treasury of merit,” an infinite reservoir of good works in the church’s
possession that could be dispensed at the pope’s discretion. The church sold
“letters of indulgence,” which covered the works of satisfaction owed by
penitents. By Luther’s time, they were regularly dispensed for small cash
payments and presented as remitting not only the donor’s punishments but
also those of their dead relatives presumed to be suffering in purgatory.

Read the Document

Erasmus Julius Excluded Heaven at myhistorylab.com

In 1517, an indulgence was preached on the borders of Saxony in the

territories of Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz, who had large debts. The
selling of the indulgence was a joint venture by Albrecht, German bankers,
and Pope Leo X (r. 1513–1521), half the proceeds going to the pope and
half to Albrecht and his creditors. The famous indulgence preacher John
Tetzel (d. 1519) exhorted the crowds: “Don’t you hear the voices of your
dead parents and other relatives crying out, ‘Have mercy on us, for we
suffer great punishment and pain. From this you could release us with a few
alms.’ “1
When Luther, according to tradition, posted his ninety-five theses for
reform on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, on October 31, 1517, he
protested the impression that indulgences actually remitted sins and
released the dead from punishment in purgatory. Luther believed such
claims made salvation look like something that could be bought and sold.

ninety-five theses
Document posted on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, on
October 31, 1517, by Martin Luther protesting, among other things, the
selling of indulgences.

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Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses 1517 at myhistorylab.com

Luther’s proposals made him famous overnight. They were embraced by

humanists, but the church began disciplinary proceedings. Emperor
Maximilian I’s death in January 1519 diverted official attention to the
contest for a new emperor. Charles I of Spain, then 19 years old, succeeded
his grandfather and became Emperor Charles V (r. 1519–1556). The
electors won political concessions from Charles that prevented him from
taking unilateral action against Germans, something for which Luther later
had cause to be grateful. (See Map 16–3.)
In a June 1519 debate with Professor John Eck (1486–1543), Luther
challenged the infallibility of the pope and the inerrancy of church councils,
arguing for the first time that Scripture held sole and sovereign authority
over faith. He burned all his bridges to the old church when he defended
John Huss, a condemned heretic. In 1520, Luther issued three pamphlets
elaborating on his beliefs. In April 1521, Luther defended his religious
teaching before the imperial Diet of Worms, over which newly elected
Emperor Charles V presided. Ordered to recant, Luther declared that he
could not act against Scripture, reason, and his own conscience. On May
26, 1521, he was placed under the imperial ban and became an “outlaw.”
Friends hid him in a secluded castle, where he spent almost a year
translating the New Testament into German and attempting by
correspondence to oversee the first stages of the Reformation in Wittenberg.

Diet of Worms
The meeting of the representative (diet) of the Holy Roman Empire
presided over by the Emperor Charles V at the German city of Worms in
1521 at which Martin Luther was ordered to recant his ninety-five theses.

MAP 16–3. The Empire of Charles V. Dynastic marriages and good

fortune concentrated into Charles’s hands rule over the lands shown here,
plus Spain’s overseas possessions. Crowns and titles rained down on him;
election in 1519 as emperor gave him new burdens and responsibilities.

What were the geographical advantages and disadvantages of the empire of

Charles V?

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Martin Luther Statue in Hesse Germany at myhistorylab.com

The Reformation was greatly helped in these early years by the

emperor’s wars with France (the Habsburg-Valois Wars) and the advance of
the Ottoman Turks into eastern Europe. Against both adversaries Charles V
needed German troops, so he promoted friendly relations with the German
princes. In 1526, each German territory was given freedom to enforce the
Edict of Worms against Luther “so as to be able to answer in good
conscience to God and the emperor.” German princes effectively gained
religious sovereignty. In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg enshrined local
control over religion in imperial law.
In the late 1520s and the 1530s, Protestant preachers built sizable
congregations in many cities that pressured urban governments to adopt
religious reforms. Many magistrates had long pushed for reform and
welcomed the preachers as allies. Religious reform became a territorial
political movement as well, led by the elector of Saxony and the prince of
Hesse. Like the urban magistrates, the princes recognized political and
economic opportunities for themselves in the demise of the Roman Catholic
Church, and they urged the reform on their neighbors. By the 1530s, there
was a powerful Protestant alliance prepared for war with the Catholic
emperor.

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Religious Divisions of Europe at myhistorylab.com

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Against Murderous Thieving Hordes Peasants at myhistorylab.com

There were early divisions within the Protestant movement. German

peasants, for example, had at first believed Luther to be an ally. They
solicited his support of their political and economic rights, including their
revolutionary request for release from serfdom. But Lutherans were not
social revolutionaries. Luther believed that Christian freedom was an inner
release from guilt and anxiety, not the right to an egalitarian society. When
the peasants revolted in 1524–1525, Luther condemned them as
“unchristian” and urged the princes to crush their revolt without mercy.
Tens of thousands of peasants died.
Luther also had a disturbing perspective on Jews. In 1523 he published
the pamphlet, “Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew,” in which he urged Christians
to be kind to Germany’s Jews in the hope that they might convert to
reformed Christianity. But in the late 1530s and early 1540s, he urged
German princes forcibly to remove nonconverting Jews to a land of their
own, as France, Spain, and Bohemia had already done. Instead, the Jews
found a protector in Emperor Charles V.

Execution of a Peasant Leader. The punishment of a peasant leader in a

village near Heilbronn. After the defeat of rebellious peasants in and around
the city of Heilbronn, Jacob Rorbach, a well-to-do peasant leader from a
nearby village, was tied to a stake and slowly roasted to death.

Why did Luther not support rebellious peasants?

ZWINGLI AND THE SWISS REFORMATION
Switzerland was a loose confederacy of thirteen autonomous cantons or
states and allied areas. Some became Protestant, some remained Catholic,
and a few managed to compromise. The two preconditions of the Swiss
Reformation were the growth of national sentiment and a desire for church
reform.
Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531), based in Zurich, was widely known for
opposing superstition and the sale of indulgences. Zwingli’s reform
guideline was simple and effective: Whatever lacked literal support in
Scripture was to be neither believed nor practiced. After a public
disputation in January 1523, Zurich became effectively a Protestant city and
the center of the Swiss Reformation. Its harsh discipline in pursuit of
religious ideals made it one of the first examples of a “puritanical”
Protestant city.

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The Swiss Confederation at myhistorylab.com

Landgrave Philip of Hesse (1504–1567) sought to unite Swiss and

German Protestants in a mutual defense pact. His efforts were spoiled by
theological disagreements between Luther and Zwingli over the nature of
Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. Zwingli maintained a symbolic
interpretation of Christ’s words, “This is my body,” claiming that Christ
was only spiritually present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Luther
insisted that Christ’s human nature shared the properties of his divine
nature; where Christ was spiritually present, he could also be bodily
present. For Luther, the Eucharistic miracle was not transubstantiation, as
Rome taught, but “consubstantiation”: Christ’s body and blood being one
with, but not of, the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Philip of Hesse
brought Luther and Zwingli together in October 1529, but they were unable
to work out their differences. The disagreement splintered the Protestant
movement theologically and politically.

transubstantiation
The doctrine that the entire substances of the bread and wine are changed in
the Eucharist into the body and blood of Christ.

consubstantiation
The doctrine that the substances of both bread and wine, and the body and
blood of Christ, are present in the Eucharistic offering.

ANABAPTISTS AND RADICAL PROTESTANTS

Many people wanted a more rapid and thorough implementation of
primitive Christianity. The most important of these radical groups were the
Anabaptists, the sixteenth-century ancestors of the modern Mennonites and
Amish. The Anabaptists rejected infant baptism, insisting that only the
baptism of a consenting adult conforms to Scripture. (Anabaptism derives
from the Greek word meaning “to rebaptize.”) Anabaptists withdrew from
society to form communities modeled on the example of the first Christians.
Political authorities saw their separatism as a threat, and in 1529 rebaptism
became a capital offense throughout the Holy Roman Empire.

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Anabaptist Torture in Muenster at myhistorylab.com

JOHN CALVIN AND THE GENEVAN REFORMATION

Calvinism was the religious ideology that inspired or accompanied massive
political resistance in France, the Netherlands, and Scotland. Believing in
both divine predestination and the individual’s responsibility to create a
godly society, Calvinists were zealous reformers. In a famous and
controversial study, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
(1904), the German sociologist Max Weber argued that this peculiar
combination of religious confidence and self-disciplined activism produced
an ethic congenial to emergent capitalism.
On May 21, 1536, Geneva voted to adopt the Reformation: “to live
according to the Gospel and the Word of God… without… any more
masses, statues, idols, or other papal abuses.” John Calvin (1509–1564), a
reform-minded humanist and lawyer, arrived in Geneva soon thereafter. He
wrote articles for the governance of the new church, as well as a catechism
to guide and discipline the people. Calvin’s measures were too strong for
Genevans’ tastes, however, and in February 1538 the reformers were exiled
from the city.
Calvin then spent two years in Strasbourg, a model Protestant city. He
married and wrote a second edition of his masterful Institutes of the
Christian Religion, which many consider the definitive theological
statement of the Protestant faith. Calvin was invited to return to Geneva in
1540.
Calvin and his followers thought the “elect” should live a manifestly
God-pleasing life. The consistory, a judicial body composed of clergy and
laity, enforced strict moral discipline and was unpopular with many
Genevans. But after 1555 the city’s magistrates were all devout Calvinists,
and more than one-third of Geneva’s population was Protestants who had
been driven out of France, England, and Scotland, so Calvin had strong
support.

Christ Blessing the Children, by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1538). This
novel painting was a Lutheran protest against the Anabaptists, who refused
to recognize the efficacy of infant baptism. Appealing to the example of
Jesus, who had been baptized as an adult, Anabaptists (the name means
“rebaptism”) disavowed their infant baptism and sought another when they
were old enough to grasp what it meant. Here, Jesus joins a throng of new
mothers to caress, kiss, and commend their babies to God. After 1529,
Anabaptism became a capital offense in the Holy Roman Empire.

Why were there early divisions within the Protestant movement?

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Calvin Ecclesiastical Ordinances at myhistorylab.com

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Calvin on Predestination 16th century at myhistorylab.com

CHRONOLOGY
PROGRESS OF PROTESTANT REFORMATION ON THE
CONTINENT

POLITICAL CONSOLIDATION OF THE LUTHERAN REFORMATION

In the 1530s German Lutherans formed regional consistories, which
oversaw and administered the new Protestant churches. These consistories
replaced the old Catholic episcopates. Under the leadership of Philip
Melanchthon (1497–1560), educational reforms established compulsory
primary education, schools for girls, a humanist revision of the school
curriculum, and instruction of the laity in the new religion.
The Reformation also took root elsewhere. In Denmark, Lutheranism
became the state religion under Christian III (r. 1536–1559). In Sweden,
Gustavus Vasa (r. 1523–1560) confiscated church property and subjected
the clergy to royal authority. The absence of a central political authority
made Poland a model of religious pluralism and toleration in the second
half of the sixteenth century.
Charles V attempted to enforce a compromise agreement between
Protestants and Catholics in 1540–1541. Then he turned to a military
solution: In 1547 imperial armies crushed the Protestant Schmalkaldic
League. The emperor issued the Augsburg Interim, an order that Protestants
everywhere must readopt Catholic beliefs and practices. But Protestants
resisted fiercely, and the emperor relented. The Peace of Augsburg in
September 1555 made the division of Christendom permanent by
recognizing what had already been established in practice: cuius regio, eius
religio, meaning that the ruler of a land would determine the religion of the
land. Lutherans were permitted to retain all church lands forcibly seized
before 1552. Those discontented with the religion of their region were
permitted to migrate. Calvinism, however, was not recognized by the Peace
of Augsburg. Calvinists organized to lead national revolutions throughout
northern Europe.

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Thomas Cranmer’s Execution at myhistorylab.com

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION TO 1553

Late medieval England had a well-earned reputation for defending the
rights of the crown against the pope. The marriage of King Henry VIII (r.
1509–1547) finally precipitated England’s break with the papacy.
Henry married Catherine of Aragon (d. 1536), a daughter of Ferdinand
and Isabella of Spain and the aunt of Emperor Charles V, in 1509. By 1527
the union had produced only a single surviving child, Mary Tudor (d.
1558). Henry came to believe that his marriage was cursed because
Catherine had briefly been the wife of his late brother, Arthur.
Henry wanted to marry Anne Boleyn (ca. 1504–1536), one of Catherine’s
young ladies in waiting. This required papal annulment of the marriage to
Catherine, which Henry could not get. Henry’s ministers proposed a simple
solution: The king could declare his supremacy over English spiritual
affairs, as he did over English temporal affairs. Then he could decide the
status of his own marriage.
In 1529 Parliament convened for what would be a seven-year session. In
1533 the “Reformation Parliament” put the clergy under royal jurisdiction,
and Henry wed the pregnant Anne Boleyn. Parliament’s later Act of
Supremacy declared Henry “the only supreme head on earth of the church
of England.”
Despite his political break with Rome, Henry continued to endorse
Catholic doctrine in a country seething with Protestant sentiment. When
Edward VI (r. 1547–1553), Henry’s son by his third wife, Jane Seymour,
became king at age 10, his regents enacted much of the Protestant
Reformation. In 1553, when Mary Tudor succeeded to the throne, she
restored Catholic doctrine and practice with a single-mindedness that
rivaled that of her father. It was not until the reign of Anne Boleyn’s
daughter Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603) that a lasting religious settlement was
worked out in England.

DOCUMENT
Ignatius of Loyola’s “Rules for Thinking with the Church”
As leaders of the Counter-Reformation, the Jesuits attempted to live by and
instill in others the strictest obedience to church authority. The following
are some of the eighteen rules included by Ignatius in his Spiritual
Exercises to give Catholics positive direction. These rules also indicate the
Catholic reformers’ refusal to compromise with Protestants.
 • Would Protestants find any of Ignatius’s “rules” acceptable? Might
any of them be controversial among Catholic laity as well as among
Protestant laity?

In order to have the proper attitude of mind in the Church Militant we

should observe the following rules:

1. Putting aside all private judgment, we should keep our minds

prepared and ready to obey promptly and in all things the true
spouse of Christ our Lord, our Holy Mother, the hierarchical
Church.
2. To praise sacramental confession and the reception of the Most Holy
Sacrament once a year, and much better once a month, and better
still every week.…
3. To praise the frequent hearing of Mass.…
4. To praise highly the religious life, virginity, and continence; and also
matrimony, but not as highly.…
5. To praise the vows of religion, obedience, poverty, chastity, and
other works of perfection and supererogation.…
6. To praise the relics of the saints… [and] the stations, pilgrimages,
indulgences, jubilees, Crusade indulgences, and the lighting of
candles in the churches.
7. To praise the precepts concerning fasts and abstinences… and acts
of penance.…
8. To praise the adornments and buildings of churches as well as
sacred images.…
9. To praise all the precepts of the church.…
10. To approve and praise the directions and recommendations of our
superiors as well as their personal behaviour.…
11. To praise both the positive and scholastic theology.…
12. We must be on our guard against making comparisons between the
living and those who have already gone to their reward, for it is no
small error to say, for example: “This man knows more than St.
Augustine”; “He is another Saint Francis, or even greater.”…
13. If we wish to be sure that we are right in all things, we should
always be ready to accept this principle: I will believe that the white
 that I see is black, if the hierarchical Church so defines it. For I
believe that between… Christ our Lord and… His Church, there is
but one spirit, which governs and directs us for the salvation of our
souls.
Source: From The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans. by Anthony Mottola, pp. 139–141.
Copyright © 1964 by Doubleday, a division of Bantam, Doubleday, Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Used
by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.

CATHOLIC REFORM AND COUNTER-REFORMATION

The medieval church had already faced internal criticisms and efforts at
reform before the Counter-Reformation was launched in reaction to
Protestant successes.

Counter-Reformation
The sixteenth-century reform movement in the Roman Catholic Church in
reaction to the Protestant Reformation.

Sixteenth-century popes had resisted efforts to change the laws and

institutions of the church. Many new religious orders, however, led a broad
revival of piety within the church. The Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) was
instrumental in the success of the Counter-Reformation. Organized by
Ignatius of Loyola in the 1530s, within a century the society had more than
15,000 members scattered throughout the world, including thriving
missions in India, Japan, and the Americas.

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QUICK REVIEW
The Jesuits
The Society of Jesus founded in 1530s by Ignatius of Loyola
Achieve spiritual self-mastery through discipline and passion for
spirituality
 Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) began his spiritual pilgrimage in 1521
while recuperating from battle wounds. Reading Christian classics, he was
so impressed with the heroic self-sacrifice of the church’s saints that he
underwent a profound religious conversion. Ignatius devised a program of
religious and moral self-discipline called the Spiritual Exercises, which
outlined a path to absolute spiritual self-mastery. Ignatius believed that a
person could shape his or her own behavior, even create a new religious
self, through disciplined study and regular practice. Ignatius’s exercises
were intended to teach Catholics to submit to higher church authority and
spiritual direction. (See Document, “Ignatius of Loyola’s ‘Rules for
Thinking with the Church’” on page 397.) The potent combination of
discipline, self-control, and passion for traditional spirituality and mystical
experience helped counter the Reformation and won many Protestants back
to Catholicism, especially in Austria and Germany.

The Miracle of St. Ignatius of Loyola, by Peter Paul Rubens. Here, the
founder of the Society of Jesus, surrounded by angels and members of the
new Jesuit Order, preaches to an aroused assembly.
What elements of this painting capture the spirit of the Counter-
Reformation?
Pope Paul III (r. 1534–1549) called a general council to reassert church
doctrine. Three sessions, spread over eighteen years, met in the imperial
city of Trent in northern Italy under firm papal control. The Council of
Trent’s most important reforms concerned internal church discipline. The
selling of church offices was forbidden. The authority of local bishops was
strengthened. Parish priests were required to be neatly dressed, educated,
strictly celibate, and active among their parishioners. The council did not
make a single doctrinal concession to the Protestants, instead reaffirming
traditional beliefs and practices. Parish life revived under the guidance of a
devout and better-trained clergy.

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Ignatius of Loyola, at myhistorylab.com

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Council of Trent 1545–1563 at myhistorylab.com

THE REFORMATION AND DAILY LIFE

HOW DID family life change during the Reformation era?

Although politically conservative, the Reformation brought about far-

reaching changes in traditional religious practices and institutions.

RELIGION IN FIFTEENTH-CENTURY LIFE

In the fifteenth century, the church calendar regulated daily life. About one-
third of the year was given over to some kind of religious observance or
celebration. Clerics made up 6 to 8 percent of the total population of the
great cities of central Europe, exercising considerable political as well as
spiritual power.
Monasteries and nunneries were influential institutions. Local aristocrats
were closely identified with particular churches and chapels. The Mass and
liturgy were read entirely in Latin. Images of saints were regularly
displayed, and on certain holidays their relics were paraded about and
venerated. Pilgrims gathered by the thousands at religious shrines,
searching for cures or seeking diversion. Several times during the year,
special preachers appeared with letters of indulgence to sell. Many clergy
lived openly with concubines and had children in relationships tolerated by
the church if penitential fines were paid.
People complained about the clergy’s exemption from taxation and, in
many instances, also from the civil criminal code. People grumbled about
having to support church offices whose occupants actually worked
elsewhere, and many felt that the church had too much influence over
education and culture.

RELIGION IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY LIFE

In these same cities after the Reformation had firmly established itself, the
same aristocratic families governed; the rich generally got richer and the
poor poorer. But overall numbers of clergy fell by two-thirds and religious
holidays shrank by one-third. Monasteries and nunneries were nearly
absent, many having been transformed into hospices for the sick and poor
or into educational institutions. In the churches, which had also been
reduced in number by at least a third, worship was conducted almost
completely in the vernacular. Local shrines were closed down, and anyone
found openly venerating saints, relics, and images was subject to fine and
punishment. Copies of Luther’s translation of the New Testament, or
excerpts from it, were in private homes. The clergy could marry, and most
did. They paid taxes and were punished for their crimes in civil courts.
Domestic moral life was regulated by committees composed of roughly
equal numbers of laity and clergy, over whose decisions secular magistrates
had the last word.
Not all Protestant clergy were enthusiastic about this new lay authority in
religion, and the laity, too, was ambivalent about some aspects of the
Reformation. Over half of the original converts returned to the Catholic fold
before the end of the sixteenth century. Half of Europe’s population was
Protestant in the mid-sixteenth century, but by the mid-seventeenth century
only a fifth remained Protestant.2

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Europe after the Reformation at myhistorylab.com

QUICK REVIEW
Marriage, 1500–1800
Couples married later in life
20 percent of women never married
Couples had children every two years; many died
“Wet nursing” was controversial
Remarriage after death of a spouse was often quick

FAMILY LIFE IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE

Changes in the timing and duration of marriage, family size, and infant and
child care suggest that social and economic pressures were influencing
family life. The Reformation was only one factor in these changes.
Between 1500 and 1800, men and women in western Europe and
England married at later ages than they had previously: men in their mid- to
late twenties and women in their early to mid-twenties. After the
Reformation, both Protestants and Catholics required parental consent and
public vows in church before a marriage could be deemed fully licit. Late
marriage in the West reflected the difficulty couples had supporting
themselves independently. In the sixteenth century, one in five women
never married, and an estimated 15 percent were widows. Women who bore
children for the first time at advanced ages had higher mortality rates.
Delayed marriage increased premarital sex and the number of illegitimate
children.
Marriage tended to be “arranged” in the sense that the parents met and
discussed the terms of the marriage. But the wealth and social standing of
the bride and the bridegroom were not the only things considered. By the
fifteenth century, it was usual for the future bride and bridegroom to have
known each other, and their feelings were respected by parents.
The western European family was conjugal, or nuclear, consisting of two
parents and two to four children who survived into adulthood. Infant
mortality and child death were common. The family lived within a larger
household, including in-laws, servants, laborers, and boarders.
Artificial birth control has existed since antiquity, but early birth control
measures were not very effective, and for both historical and moral reasons
the church opposed them. The church and physicians encouraged women to
suckle their own newborns rather than hand them off to wet nurses
(lactating women who sold their services). Because nursing has a
contraceptive effect, some women nursed to space out their pregnancies,
while those who wanted many children used wet nurses.

Portrait of His Wife and Two Elder Children, by Hans Holbein the
Younger (1528). German-English painter Hans Holbein’s painting of his
wife and two of his children.

What was it like to be a child in early modern Europe?

A Closer Look
A Contemporary Commentary of the Sexes

Taming the Lion

A No man is ever so high or good

That he cannot be managed by a woman
Who does his will
In friendly love and service.

B Although he is tyranical wild,

He is soon calmed by a woman.
She boldly strokes his open mouth,
His anger fades, he does not bite.
C The lion, most lordly of beasts,
Famous for his strength and nobility,
Favors us women with heartfelt gifts
And good humor accompanies his kindness.

D How wonderfully you reflect

Your taming at woman’s hand,
Bearing patiently what another
Does to you against your will.

E O powerful king and greatest lord

Your equal is neither near nor far.
Excelling all, both large and small,
Upon your head should lie a crown.

F Lord lion, although you are feared by all,

A woman knows how to saddle you,
Bending you to her will by love.
True love finds a home with a good man.

G How well you have been groomed!

Now how lively and cheerful!
One so spirited
May have the company of women.

H Lord lion, you may have your every wish.

Cover your trail with your tail
And you will not be tracked down.
Those who love in secret know this well.

Lion I let the women amuse themselves by serving me.

What harm can they possibly do me?
If I want, I can suddenly turn fierce again.
He is a fool who lets himself be taught by women.

Questions
 1. In the scene above, who controls the relationship between the sexes?
Is the lion a truly forbidding patriarch, or is the matriarch the one on
top?
2. How does this artistic portrayal of womankind compare with the
lives of historical women featured in the chapter?
3. Compare the scene with: “Christ Blessing the Children” (p. 395);
Holbein’s portrait of his wife and children (p. 399); and Hans
Baldung Grien’s portrayal of witches (p. 406).
4. What general conclusions can be drawn about the relationship of the
sexes?
To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com

Family life had features that seem cold and distant to us today. Children
between the ages of 8 and 13 were sent from their homes into
apprenticeships, school, or employment. Widowers and widows often
remarried within a few months of a spouse’s death, and marriages with
extreme disparity in age between partners also suggest limited affection. In
response to such modern-day criticism, it must be remembered that a well-
apprenticed child was a self-supporting child, and hence one with a future.
Given the primitive living conditions, contemporaries appreciated the
utilitarian and humane side of marriage and understood when widowers and
widows quickly remarried.

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Office and Dutie Husband Juan Luis Vives at myhistorylab.com

THE WARS OF RELIGION

WHY DID religious divisions lead to war?

After the Council of Trent adjourned in 1563, Catholics began a Jesuit-led

counteroffensive against Protestants. At the time of John Calvin’s death in
1564, Geneva had become both a refuge for Europe’s persecuted Protestants
and an international school for Protestant resistance, producing leaders fully
equal to the new Catholic challenge. Genevan Calvinism and the reformed
Catholicism of the Council of Trent were two equally dogmatic, aggressive,
and irreconcilable church systems.
Calvinism adopted a presbyterian form of church government, in which
elders representing individual congregations determined church policy. By
contrast, the Counter-Reformation affirmed Catholicism’s dedication to a
centralized episcopal system, governed by a clerical hierarchy and owing
absolute obedience to the pope. Calvinism attracted proponents of political
decentralization who opposed totalitarian rulers, whereas Catholicism was
congenial to proponents of absolute monarchy who believed that order
required “one king, one church, one law.”
Wars of religion were both national conflicts and international wars.
Catholics and Protestants struggled for control of France, the Netherlands,
and England. The Catholic governments of France and Spain fought the
Protestant regimes in England and the Netherlands. The Thirty Years’ War,
which began in 1618, drew in every major European nation before it ended.

FRENCH WARS OF RELIGION (1562–1598)

When Henry II (r. 1547–1559) died in 1559, his sickly 15-year-old son,
Francis II (d. 1560), came to the throne under the regency of the queen
mother, Catherine de Médicis (1519–1589). With the monarchy weakened,
three powerful families competed for control. The Guises were by far the
strongest, and they were militant Catholics. The Bourbon and
Montmorency-Châtillon families, in contrast, developed strong Huguenot
sympathies, largely for political reasons. (French Protestants were called
Huguenots.)

Huguenots
French Calvinists.

Ambitious aristocrats and discontented townspeople joined Calvinist

churches in opposition to the Guise-dominated French monarchy. Many
apparently hoped to establish within France a principle of territorial
sovereignty akin to that secured within the Holy Roman Empire by the
Peace of Augsburg.
After Francis II died, Catherine de Médicis continued as regent for her
second son, Charles IX (r. 1560–1574). Wanting a Catholic France but not a
Guise-dominated monarchy, Catherine sought allies among the Protestants.
Early in 1562 she granted Protestants limited freedoms—though even
limited royal toleration ended when the Duke of Guise surprised a
Protestant congregation worshiping illegally at Vassy in Champagne and
proceeded to massacre several score of them, marking the beginning of the
French wars of religion.
In 1572, apparently to cover up her role in an attempt to assassinate a
Huguenot leader, Catherine convinced Charles that a Huguenot coup was
afoot. On the eve of Saint Bartholomew’s Day, August 24, 1572, 3,000
Huguenots were butchered in Paris. Within three days an estimated 20,000
Huguenots were executed throughout France. This event changed the nature
of Protestant–Catholic conflict both within France and beyond. In
Protestant eyes, it became an international struggle for survival against an
adversary whose cruelty justified any means of resistance.

The St. Bartholemew’s Day Massacre. In this notorious event, here

depicted by the contemporary Protestant painter François Dubois, 3,000
Protestants were slaughtered in Paris, and an estimated 20,000 others died
throughout France. The massacre transformed the religious struggle in
France from a contest for political power into an all-out war between
Protestants and Catholics.

Do you think these events would be portrayed differently by a Catholic

artist?

Read the Document

Account: Massacre St. Bartholomew 1572 at myhistorylab.com

Henry III (r. 1574–1589) sought to steer a middle course, and in this
effort he received support from a growing body of neutral Catholics and
Huguenots who put the political survival of France above its religious unity.
Such politiques, as they were called, were prepared to compromise religious
creeds to save the nation. Henry III allied with his Protestant cousin and
heir, Henry of Navarre, against the Catholic League, supported by the
Spanish, which dominated Paris in the mid-1580s. When a fanatical
Dominican friar murdered Henry III, the Bourbon Henry of Navarre
became Henry IV of France (r. 1589–1610).
Henry IV believed that a royal policy of tolerant Catholicism would be
the best way to achieve peace. On July 25, 1593, he publicly abjured the
Protestant faith and embraced the traditional religion of his country. “Paris
is worth a Mass,” he is reported to have said. Henry IV’s famous Edict of
Nantes (1598) recognized and sanctioned minority religious rights within
what was to remain an officially Catholic country. This religious truce
granted the Huguenots, who by this time numbered well over a million,
freedom of public worship, the right of assembly, admission to public
offices and universities, and permission to maintain fortified towns.
Henry IV was assassinated in 1610. Although he is best remembered for
the Edict of Nantes, the political and economic policies he put in place laid
the foundations for the transformation of France into the absolutist state it
would become in the seventeenth century.

Read the Document

The Edict of Nantes 1598 at myhistorylab.com
IMPERIAL SPAIN AND THE REIGN OF PHILIP II (1556–1598)
Until the English defeated his mighty Armada in 1588, Philip II of Spain
was the late-sixteenth century’s greatest ruler. He focused first on Turkish
expansion. On October 7, 1571, a Holy League of Spain, Venice, and the
pope defeated the Turks at Lepanto. Before the engagement ended, 30,000
Turks had died and over one-third of the Turkish fleet had been sunk or
captured. But Philip failed when he attempted to impose his will within the
Netherlands and on England and France.
The Netherlands was the richest area in Europe. Its merchant towns were
Europe’s most independent, and many were Calvinist strongholds. A
stubborn opposition to the Spanish overlords formed when Philip II insisted
on enforcing the decrees of the Council of Trent in the Netherlands.
William of Nassau, the Prince of Orange (r. 1533–1584), emerged as the
leader of a broad movement for the Netherlands’ independence from Spain.
Like other successful rulers in this period, William of Orange was a
politique who placed the Netherlands’ political autonomy and well-being
above religious creeds.

The Milch Cow. This sixteenth-century satirical painting depicts the

Netherlands as a land all the great powers of Europe wish to exploit.
Elizabeth of England is feeding her (England had long-standing commercial
ties with Flanders); Philip II of Spain is attempting to ride her (Spain was
trying to reassert its control over the entire region); William of Orange is
trying to milk her (he was the leader of the anti-Spanish rebellion); and the
king of France holds her by the tail (France hoped to profit from the
rebellion at Spain’s expense).

The “Milch Cow.” Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Which character shown here could be considered most successful in the

way history actually played out?
The ten largely Catholic southern provinces (roughly modern Belgium)
came together in 1576 with the seven largely Protestant northern provinces
(roughly the modern Netherlands) in unified opposition to Spain. This
union, known as the Pacification of Ghent, declared internal regional
sovereignty in matters of religion. In January 1579 the southern provinces
made peace with Spain. The northern provinces continued the struggle.
Spain was preoccupied with France and England, and the northern
provinces drove out all Spanish soldiers by 1593.

ENGLAND AND SPAIN (1558–1603)

Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603), the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn,
may have been the most astute politician of the sixteenth century. She
repealed the anti-Protestant legislation of her predecessor Mary Tudor and
guided a religious settlement through Parliament that prevented England
from being torn asunder by religious differences in the sixteenth century.
Catholic extremists hoped to replace Elizabeth with the Catholic Mary
Stuart, Queen of Scots (1542–1587), but Elizabeth acted swiftly against
assassination plots and rarely let emotion override her political instincts.

See the Map

The Netherlands during the Dutch Revolt, ca. 1580 at myhistorylab.com

Elizabeth dealt cautiously with the Puritans, Protestants who sought to

“purify” the national church. The Puritans had two special grievances: (1)
the retention of Catholic ceremony and vestments within the Church of
England, and (2) the continuation of the episcopal system of church
governance. Sixteenth-century Puritans were not separatists, however. They
worked through Parliament to create an alternative national church of
semiautonomous congregations governed by representative presbyteries
(hence, Presbyterians). More extreme Puritans wanted every congregation
to be autonomous. Elizabeth refused to tolerate these Congregationalists,
whose views she considered subversive.
Despite religious differences, both Elizabeth and Spain’s Philip II hoped
to maintain a peaceful coexistence between their nations. Nonetheless, a
series of events—culminating in Elizabeth’s execution of Mary, Queen of
Scots, on February 18, 1587—led inexorably to war between England and
Spain. On May 30, 1588, a mighty fleet of 130 Spanish ships bearing
25,000 sailors and soldiers set sail for England. But the day belonged
completely to the English. English and Dutch ships, assisted by an “English
wind,” dispersed the waiting Spanish fleet, over a third of which never
returned to Spain.
The Armada’s defeat gave heart to Protestant resistance everywhere.
Spain never fully recovered. By the time of Philip’s death on September 13,
1598, his forces had been rebuffed by the French and the Dutch. His
seventeenth-century successors were all inferior leaders. The French soon
dominated the Continent, while the Dutch and the English whittled away
Spain’s overseas empire. Elizabeth died on March 23, 1603, leaving behind
her a strong nation poised to expand into a global empire.
Elizabeth I (1558–1603), Standing on a Map of England in 1592. An
astute, if sometimes erratic, politician in foreign and domestic policy,
Elizabeth was one of the most successful rulers of the sixteenth century.

National Portrait Gallery, London/SuperStock.

What qualities of kingship are conveyed in this portrait of Elizabeth I?

THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR (1618–1648)

The Thirty Years’ War in the Holy Roman Empire was the last and most
destructive of the wars of religion. Religious and political hatreds had
become entrenched, and various groups were determined to sacrifice all for
their territorial sovereignty and religious beliefs. As the conflicts multiplied,
it became the worst European catastrophe since the Black Death of the
fourteenth century. When the hostilities ended in 1648, the peace terms
shaped much of the map of northern Europe as we know it today.
 During the second half of the sixteenth century, Germany was an almost
ungovernable land of 360 autonomous political entities. In 1555, the Peace
of Augsburg had given each a significant degree of sovereignty within its
own borders. Political decentralization and fragmentation characterized
Germany as the seventeenth century opened; it was not a unified nation like
Spain, England, or even strife-torn France. (See Map 16–4.)
The Holy Roman Empire was about equally divided between Catholics
and Protestants, the latter having perhaps a slight numerical edge by 1600.
After the Peace of Augsburg, Lutherans had gained political control in
many Catholic areas, as had the Catholics in a few previously Lutheran
areas. There was also religious strife between liberal and conservative
Lutherans and between Lutherans and the growing numbers of Calvinists.
Calvinism had not been recognized as a legal religion by the Peace of
Augsburg, but it established a strong foothold within the empire when the
devoutly Calvinist Elector Frederick III (r. 1559–1576) made it the official
religion within the Palatinate in 1559. By 1609 Palatine Calvinists headed a
Protestant defensive alliance supported by Spain’s sixteenth-century
enemies: England, France, and the Netherlands.
Jesuits were also active within the Holy Roman Empire. From staunchly
Catholic Bavaria, supported by Spain, Jesuits launched successful missions
throughout the empire. In 1609 Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria (1573–1651),
organized a Catholic League to counter the Palatine-based Protestant
alliance. When the Catholic League fielded a great army, it launched the
Thirty Years’ War.
In 1648 all hostilities within the Holy Roman Empire were brought to an
end by the Treaty of Westphalia. It firmly reasserted the major feature of the
Peace of Augsburg: Rulers were again permitted to determine the religion
of their lands. The treaty also gave the Calvinists their long-sought legal
recognition, while denying it to sectarians. The independence of the Swiss
Confederacy and the United Provinces of Holland, long recognized in fact,
now became law.
The Treaty of Westphalia perpetuated German division and political
weakness into the modern period, although Austria and Brandenburg-
Prussia attained international significance during the seventeenth century. In
Europe at large, distinctive nation-states, each with its own political,
cultural, and religious identity, reached maturity in the seventeenth century
and firmly established the competitive nationalism of the modern world.
MAP EXPLORATION
To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com.

MAP 16–4. Religious Division ca. 1600. By 1600 few could expect
Christians to return to a uniform religious allegiance. In Spain and southern
Italy Catholicism remained relatively unchallenged, but note the existence
elsewhere of large religious minorities, both Catholic and Protestant.

Why did the wars of religion fail to reestablish religious uniformity in the
Holy Roman Empire?
SUPERSTITION AND ENLIGHTENMENT:
THE BATTLE WITHIN

WHO WERE some of the most significant writers and thinkers

between 1500 and 1700?

Religious reform and warfare moved intellectuals to rethink human nature

and society. One side of that reconsideration was dark and cynical, perhaps
because the peak years of religious warfare had also been those of the great
European witch hunts. Another side was brilliantly skeptical and
constructive, reflecting the growing scientific movement of the years
between 1500 and 1700.

WITCH HUNTS AND PANIC

The witch hunts and panics that erupted in almost every Western land reveal
the dark side of early modern thought and culture. Between 1400 and 1700,
courts sentenced an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people to death for
harmful magic (maleficium) and diabolical witchcraft. In addition to
harming their neighbors, witches were said to fly to mass meetings known
as sabbats. They were accused of indulging in sexual orgies with the devil,
practicing cannibalism (especially the devouring of small Christian
children), and engaging in a variety of rituals that denied or perverted
Christian beliefs.
Many factors contributed to the great witch panics of the second half of
the sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries. Religious division and
warfare were major influences. The church had traditionally provided
defenses against the devil and demons; the Reformation forced people to
find alternative ways to handle their anxieties. The growing strength of
governments intent on weeding out nonconformists also played a part.
Two Witches by Hans Baldung Grien (1523). German artist Hans Baldung
Grien presents the powers and temptations of two enchanted, monumental
witches as they sow the wind.

What types of people were most vulnerable to accusations of

witchcraft?

Read the Document

Malleus Maleficarum 1486 at myhistorylab.com

QUICK REVIEW
Witch Hunts
“Cunning folk” traditionally helped villagers
Christian clergy monopolized “magic”
Older, single women were most vulnerable to accusations of
witchcraft
Witch trials could be destabilizing
 In village societies, feared and respected “cunning folk” had long helped
people cope with natural disasters and disabilities by magical means. For
local people, these were important services, and possession of magical
powers made one an important person in the village. Vulnerable people,
such as old, single women, often claimed power. Witch beliefs may also
have been a way for villagers to defy urban Christian society’s attempts to
impose its beliefs, laws, and institutions on the countryside.
The Christian clergy also practiced magic, transforming bread and wine
into the body and blood of Christ, and converting eternal punishments for
sins into temporal ones. Clergy exorcised demons, too. In the late thirteenth
century the church declared its magic the only legitimate magic. Since such
power was not human, the theologians reasoned, anyone who practiced
magic outside the church did so on behalf of the devil. Attacking accused
witches became a way for the church to extend its spiritual hegemony. To
accuse, try, and execute witches was a declaration of moral and political
authority.
Roughly 80 percent of the victims of witch hunts were women, most
single and between 45 and 60 years of age. Older single women were
particularly vulnerable for many reasons. More women than men laid claim
to supernatural powers, so they were at disproportionate risk. Many of these
women were midwives, so they were associated with deaths during
childbirth. Both the church and their neighbors were prepared to think and
say the worst about them.
Many factors helped end the witch hunts. A more scientific worldview
made it difficult to believe in the powers of witches. Witch hunts also
tended to get out of hand. Tortured witches sometimes alleged having seen
leading townspeople at sabbats, at which point the trials threatened anarchy.

Watch the Video at myhistorylab.com

WRITERS AND PHILOSOPHERS

By the end of the sixteenth century, many could no longer embrace either
the old Catholic or new Protestant absolutes. Intellectually as well as
politically, the seventeenth century would be a period of transition. Some
writers and philosophers of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
tried to straddle the two ages (Cervantes and Shakespeare), others ignored
or opposed new developments that seemed to threaten traditional values
(Pascal), and still others embraced emerging ideas and social structures
(Spinoza, Hobbes, and Locke).
In Spain, the intertwining of Catholic piety and Spanish political power
fostered a literature preoccupied with medieval chivalric virtues, especially
honor and loyalty. Generally acknowledged to be the greatest Spanish
writer of all time, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547–1616) educated
himself by insatiable reading in vernacular literature and immersion in the
school of life. In 1570 he became a soldier and was decorated for gallantry
at Lepanto (1571). He began his most famous work, Don Quixote, in prison
in 1603, after conviction for theft.
Many believe the intent of Don Quixote was to satirize the chivalric
romances so popular in Spain, but Cervantes shows deep affection for his
characters. Don Quixote, a none-too-stable middle-aged man, is driven mad
by reading too many chivalric romances. He comes to believe that he is an
aspirant to knighthood and must prove his worthiness. He acquires a rusty
suit of armor, mounts an aged horse, and chooses for his inspiration a
peasant girl whom he fancies to be a noble lady. Sancho Panza, a wise
peasant who serves as Don Quixote’s squire, watches with skepticism and
sympathy as his lord repeatedly makes a fool of himself. The story ends
tragically with Don Quixote’s humiliating defeat by a well-meaning friend
who forces him to renounce his quest for knighthood. Throughout Don
Quixote, Cervantes juxtaposed the down-to-earth realism of Sancho Panza
with the old-fashioned religious idealism of Don Quixote. Cervantes
admired the one as much as the other and demonstrated that to be truly
happy, men and women need dreams—even impossible ones—just as much
as a sense of reality.
Surprisingly little is known about William Shakespeare (1564–1616), the
greatest playwright in the English language. He apparently worked as a
schoolteacher, acquiring broad knowledge of Renaissance learning and
literature. He took the new commercialism and the bawdy pleasures of the
Elizabethan Age in stride and with amusement. References to contemporary
political events fill his plays. By modern standards he was a political
conservative, accepting the social rankings and the power structure of his
day and demonstrating unquestioned patriotism.
 Shakespeare was a playwright, actor, and part owner of a theater. His
work brought together the best past and current achievements in the
dramatic arts. He particularly mastered the psychology of human
motivation and passion. Shakespeare wrote histories, comedies, and
tragedies. Four of his best tragedies were written within a three-year period:
Hamlet (1603), Othello (1604), King Lear (1605), and Macbeth (1606). In
his lifetime and ever since, Shakespeare has been immensely popular with
both audiences and readers. As Ben Jonson (1572–1637), a contemporary
classical dramatist who created his own school of poets, put it in 1623: “He
was not of an age, but for all time.”
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) was a French mathematician and a physical
scientist widely acclaimed by his contemporaries. He was torn between the
continuing dogmatism and the new skepticism of the seventeenth century.
Pascal believed that reason and science, though attesting to human dignity,
remained of no avail in religion. Here only the reasons of the heart and a
“leap of faith” could prevail. Pascal saw two essential truths in the Christian
religion: A loving God, worthy of human attainment, exists; and human
beings, because they are corrupted in nature, are utterly unworthy of God.
Pascal made a famous wager with the skeptics. It is a better bet, he
argued, to believe that God exists and to stake everything on his promised
mercy than not to do so; if God does exist, everything will be gained by the
believer, whereas the loss incurred by having believed in a nonexistent God
is minimal. Pascal urged his contemporaries to seek self-understanding by
“learned ignorance” and to discover humankind’s greatness by recognizing
its misery, thereby countering what he saw as the false optimism of the new
rationalism and science.
The most controversial thinker of the seventeenth century was Baruch
Spinoza (1632–1677), the son of a Jewish merchant of Amsterdam. He
criticized the dogmatism of Dutch Calvinists and championed freedom of
thought. Spinoza’s most influential writing, Ethics, appeared after his death
in 1677. Religious leaders universally condemned it for its apparent
espousal of pantheism. According to Spinoza there is only one substance,
which is self-caused, free, and infinite, and God is that substance.
Everything that exists is in God and cannot even be conceived of apart from
him. Such a doctrine is not literally pantheistic, but in Spinoza’s view,
statements about the natural world are also statements about divine nature.
Mind and matter are seen to be extensions of the infinite substance of God;
what transpires in the world of humankind and nature is a necessary
outpouring of the Divine.

Leviathan. Thomas Hobbes’s political treatise, Leviathan, portrayed rulers

as absolute lords over their lands, incorporating in their persons the
individual wills of all their people. Look closely at this picture: What
does it show?

Read the Document

Leviathan at myhistorylab.com

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) was the most original political philosopher

of the seventeenth century. Although he never broke with the Church of
England, he came to share basic Calvinist beliefs, especially the low view
of human nature and the ideal of a commonwealth based on a covenant,
both of which find eloquent expression in his political philosophy. Hobbes
was an enthusiastic supporter of the new scientific movement. During the
1630s he visited Paris, where he came to know Descartes; after the outbreak
of the Puritan Revolution (see Chapter 19) in 1640, he lived as an exile in
Paris until 1651. Hobbes also spent time with Galileo (see Chapter 21) in
Italy and took a special interest in the works of William Harvey, the
physiologist famed for the discovery of how blood circulates through the
body.
Hobbes was driven to political philosophy by the English Civil War (see
Chapter 19). In 1651 his Leviathan appeared. Its subject was the political
consequences of human passions, and its originality lay in (1) its making
natural law, rather than common law (i.e., custom or precedent), the basis of
all positive law, and (2) its defense of a representative theory of absolute
authority against the theory of the divine right of kings. Hobbes maintained
that statute law found its justification only as an expression of the law of
nature and that rulers derived their authority from the consent of the people.
The key to Hobbes’s political philosophy is a brilliant myth of the
original state of humankind. According to this myth, human beings in the
natural state are generally inclined to a “perpetual and restless desire of
power after power that ceases only in death.”3 Whereas earlier and later
philosophers saw the original human state as a paradise from which
humankind had fallen, Hobbes saw it as a corruption from which only
society had delivered people. According to Hobbes, people escape the
impossible state of nature only by entering a social contract that creates a
commonwealth tightly ruled by law and order. The social contract obliges
every person, for the sake of peace and self-defense, to agree to set aside
personal rights. The social contract also establishes the coercive force
necessary to compel compliance. Hobbes conceived of the ruler’s power as
absolute and unlimited. There is no room in Hobbes’s political philosophy
for political protest in the name of individual conscience or for resistance to
legitimate authority by private individuals—features of Leviathan criticized
by Catholics and Puritans alike.
John Locke (1632–1704) has proved to be the most influential political
thinker of the seventeenth century.4 His political philosophy was embodied
in the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688 to 1689 (Chapter 19).
Although he was not as original as Hobbes, his political writings were a
major source of the later Enlightenment criticism of absolutism, and they
gave inspiration to both the American and French Revolutions.
 Locke’s two most famous works are the Essay Concerning Human
Understanding (1690) (discussed in Chapter 21) and Two Treatises of
Government (1690), in which he argued that rulers are not absolute in their
power. Rulers remain bound to the law of nature, which is the voice of
reason, teaching that “all mankind [are] equal and independent, [and] no
one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions,”5 since
all human beings are the images and property of God. People enter social
contracts, empowering legislatures and monarchs to arbitrate their disputes,
precisely to preserve their natural rights, not to give rulers an absolute
power over them. From Locke’s point of view, absolute monarchy was
“inconsistent” with civil society and could be “no form of civil government
at all.”6

SUMMARY

WHY DID western Europeans start exploring, trading, and settling

around the world in the fifteenth century?
The Discovery of a New World. In the late fifteenth century, Europe began
to expand around the globe. Driven by both commercial and religious
motives, the Portuguese pioneered a sea route around Africa to India and
the Far East, and the Spanish discovered the Americas. The social, political,
and biological consequences were immense. page 386
WHO WERE the early Protestant leaders?
The Reformation. The Reformation began in Germany with Martin
Luther’s attack on indulgences in 1517. The Reformation shattered the
religious unity of Europe. In Switzerland, Zwingli and Calvin launched
their own versions of Protestantism. In England, Henry VIII repudiated
papal authority when the pope refused to grant him a divorce. The different
Protestant sects were often as hostile to each other as they were to
Catholicism. The Roman Catholic Church also acted to reform itself. The
Council of Trent tightened church discipline and reaffirmed traditional
doctrine. The Jesuits converted many Protestants back to Catholicism. page
389
 HOW DID family life change during the Reformation era?
The Reformation and Daily Life. The Reformation led to far-reaching
changes in religious beliefs, practices, and institutions. Family life changed
in this period, as couples married later in life. page 398
WHY DID religious divisions lead to war?
The Wars of Religion. The religious divisions of Europe led to more than a
century of warfare from the 1520s to 1648. The chief battlegrounds were in
France, the Netherlands, and Germany. When the Thirty Years’ War ended
in 1648, Europe was permanently divided into Catholic and Protestant
areas. page 401
WHO WERE some of the most significant writers and thinkers
between 1500 and 1700?
Superstition and Enlightenment: The Battle Within. The Reformation
led to both dark and constructive views of human nature. Witch crazes
erupted across Europe. Thousands of innocent people, mostly women, were
persecuted and executed as witches between 1400 and 1700. In literature
and philosophy, these years witnessed an outpouring of creative thinking.
Among the greatest thinkers of the age were Cervantes, Shakespeare,
Pascal, Spinoza, Hobbes, and Locke. page 405

KEY TERMS

consubstantiation
Counter-Reformation
Diet of Worms
Huguenots (HYEW-guh-nahts)
indulgence
ninety-five theses
Reformation
transubstantiation

REVIEW QUESTIONS
 1. What impact did expansion have on European economies?
2. What were the main problems of the church that contributed to the
Protestant Reformation? Why was the church unable to suppress
dissent as it had earlier?
3. How did the theologies of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin differ? Were
their differences only religious, or did they have political
consequences for the Reformation as well?
4. Why did the Reformation begin in Germany and not in France, Italy,
England, or Spain?
5. What was the Catholic Reformation? Did the Council of Trent alter
the character of traditional Catholicism?
6. Why did Henry VIII break with the Catholic Church? Was the
“new” religion he established really Protestant?
7. Were the wars of religion really over religion? Explain.
8. Henry of Navarre (later Henry IV of France), Elizabeth I, and
William of Orange have been called politiques. What does that term
mean, and how might it apply to each?
9. Why was England more successful than other lands in resolving its
internal political and religious divisions peacefully during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?
10. Consider some of the leading intellectuals of this period:
Cervantes, Shakespeare, Pascal, Spinoza, Hobbes, and Locke.
Whose ideas do you find most challenging, and why? Which one
would you most like to meet?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections

Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many

documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com
 Read and Review
Study and Review Chapter 16
Read the Document Duarte Barbosas to Africa, India, p. 387
Columbus journal and letter, p. 387
Erasmus Julius Excluded Heaven, p. 392
Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses 1517, p. 392
Against Murderous Thieving Hordes Peasants, p. 393
Calvin Ecclesiastical Ordinances, p. 395
Calvin on Predestination 16th c., p. 395
The Act of Supremacy (England), 1534, p. 396
Council of Trent 1545–1563, p. 398
Office and Dutie Husband Juan Luis Vives, p. 401
Account: Massacre St. Bartholomew 1572, p. 402
The Edict of Nantes 1598, p. 402
Malleus Maleficarum 1486, p. 406
Leviathan, p. 408

See the Map Religious Divisions of Europe, p. 393

The Swiss Confederation, p. 394

Europe after the Reformation, p. 399
The Netherlands during the Dutch Revolt, ca. 1580, p. 403
View the Image Early Print Shop, p. 390
Martin Luther, p. 391
Martin Luther Statue in Hesse Germany, p. 393
Anabaptist Torture in Muenster, p. 394
Thomas Cranmer’s Execution, p. 396
Ignatius of Loyola, p. 398

Research and Explore

Watch the Video Jesuits, p. 397

 Watch the Video Witch Hunts, p. 406

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 16 at www.myhistorylab.com

CHRISTIANITY

RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD

Christianity is based on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew who lived

in Palestine during the Roman occupation. His simple message of faith in
God and self-sacrificial love of one’s neighbor attracted many people. The
Roman authorities, perceiving his large following as a threat, crucified him.
After Jesus’ crucifixion, his followers proclaimed that he had been
resurrected from the dead and that he would return in glory to defeat sin,
death, and the devil, and take all true believers with him to heaven—a
radical vision of judgment and immortality that has driven Christianity’s
appeal since its inception. In the teachings of the early church, Jesus
became the Christ, the son of God, the long-awaited Messiah of Jewish
prophecy. His followers called themselves Christians.
Christianity proclaimed the very incarnation of God in a man, the visible
presence of eternity in time. According to early Christian teaching, the
power of God’s incarnation in Jesus lived on in the preaching and
sacraments of the church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. According
to the Christian message, in Jesus, eternity has made itself accessible to
every person here and now and forevermore.
The new religion attracted both the poor and powerless and the socially
rising and well-to-do. For some, the gospel of Jesus promised a better
material life. For others, it imparted a sense of spiritual self-worth
regardless of one’s place or prospects in society.
In the late second century the Romans began persecuting Christians as
“heretics” (because of their rejection of the traditional Roman gods) and as
social revolutionaries (for their loyalty to a lord higher than the emperor of
Rome). At the same time dissenting Christians, particularly sects claiming
direct spiritual knowledge of God apart from Scripture, internally divided
the young church. To meet these challenges the church established effective
weapons against state terrorism and Christian heresy: an ordained clergy, a
hierarchical church organization, orthodox creeds, and a biblical canon (the
New Testament). Christianity not only gained legal status within the Roman
Empire, but also, by the fourth century, most favored religious status thanks
to Emperor Constantine’s embrace of it.
Pentecost. This exquisite enamel plaque, from the Mosan school that
flourished in France in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, shows the
descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, fifty days after the resurrection
of Jesus, on the ancient Jewish festival called the “feast of weeks,” or
Pentecost.

Mosan, The Pentecost, ca. 1150—1175. Champleve enamel on copper gilt;

4 1/16 × 4 1/6 in. (10.3 × 10.3cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The
Cloisters Collection, 1965 (65.105). Photograph 1989 The Metropolitan
Museum of Art.

How did the church gain power in Europe?

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century C.E.,
Christianity became one of history’s great success stories. Aided by the
enterprise of its popes and the example of its monks, the church cultivated
an appealing lay piety centered on the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed,
veneration of the Virgin, and the sacrament of the Eucharist. Clergy became
both royal teachers and bureaucrats within the kingdom of the Franks.
Despite a growing schism between the Eastern (Byzantine) and Western
churches, and a final split in 1054, by 1000 the church held real economic
and political power. In the eleventh century reform-minded prelates put an
end to presumptuous secular interference in its most intimate spiritual
affairs by ending the lay investiture of clergy in their spiritual offices. For
several centuries thereafter the church remained a formidable international
force, able to challenge kings and emperors and inspire Crusades to the
Holy Land.
By the fifteenth century the new states of Europe had stripped the church
of much of its political power. It was thereafter progressively confined to
spiritual and moral authority. Christianity’s greatest struggles ever since
have been not with kings and emperors over political power, but with
materialistic philosophies and worldly ideologies, matters of spiritual and
moral hegemony within an increasingly pluralistic and secular world. Since
the sixteenth century a succession of humanists, skeptics, Deists,
Rationalists, Marxists, Freudians, Darwinians, and atheists have attempted
to explain away some of traditional Christianity’s most basic teachings. In
addition, the church has endured major internal upheavals. After the
Protestant Reformation (1517–1555) made the Bible widely available to the
laity, the possibilities for internal criticism of Christianity multiplied
geometrically. Beginning with the split between Lutherans and Zwinglians
in the 1520s, Protestant Christianity has fragmented into hundreds of sects,
each claiming to have the true interpretation of Scripture. The Roman
Catholic Church, by contrast, has maintained its unity and ministry
throughout perilous times, although present-day discontent with papal
authority threatens the modern Catholic Church almost as seriously as the
Protestant Reformation once did.

Gay bishop. V. Gene Robinson is applauded after his investiture as the

Episcopal Church’s bishop of New Hampshire in March 2004. Robinson is
the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop. The issue of homosexuality
has divided Christian churches across the world.

What other controversies have divided Christians?

Christianity has remained remarkably resilient. It possesses a simple,
almost magically appealing gospel of faith and love in and through Jesus. In
a present-day world whose religious needs and passions still run deep,
evangelical Christianity has experienced a remarkable revival. The Roman
Catholic Church, still troubled by challenges to papal authority, has become
more pluralistic than in earlier periods. The pope has become a world
figure, traveling to all continents to represent the church and advance its
position on issues of public and private morality. A major ecumenical
movement emerging in the 1960s has promoted unprecedented cooperation
among evangelical Christian denominations. Everywhere Christians of all
stripes are politically active, spreading their divine, moral, and social
messages. Meanwhile, old hot-button issues, such as the ordination of
women, are being overtaken by new ones, particularly the marriage of gay
men and women and the removal of clergy who do not maintain the moral
discipline of their holy orders.

• Over the centuries what have been some of the chief factors
attracting people to Christianity?
• What forces have led to disunity among Christians in the past? What
factors cause tensions among modern Christians?
17
Conquest and Exploitation: The
Development of the Transatlantic
Economy

Hear the Audio for Chapter 17 at www.myhistorylab.com

Slave Auction Notice. Africans who survived the voyage across the
Atlantic were immediately sold into slavery in the Americas. This
eighteenth-century advertisement relates to a group of slaves whose ship
had stopped at Charleston, South Carolina, and then landed elsewhere in the
region to auction its human cargo. Notice the concern to assure potential
buyers that the slaves were healthy, as a smallpox epidemic was then raging
on the mainland. Why were Africans treated as commodities during the
era of the transatlantic slave trade?

PERIODS OF EUROPEAN OVERSEAS EXPANSION

WHAT WERE the four periods of European contact with the world?

MERCANTILIST THEORY OF ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION

WHAT WAS mercantilism?

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SPANISH EMPIRE IN AMERICA

WHAT ROLES did the Roman Catholic Church play in Spanish America?

ECONOMIES OF EXPLOITATION IN THE SPANISH EMPIRE

HOW DID Spaniards attempt to control labor in the Americas?

COLONIAL BRAZIL

HOW WERE sugar and slavery entwined in colonial Brazil?

FRENCH AND BRITISH COLONIES IN NORTH AMERICA

HOW WERE the economies of the French and British North American
colonies integrated into the transatlantic economy?

THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE: DISEASE, ANIMALS, AND

AGRICULTURE

WHAT WAS the “Columbian Exchange”?

SLAVERY IN THE AMERICAS

WHY WAS the transatlantic slave trade so economically important?

AFRICA AND THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

HOW DID the slave trade impact Africa?

The fifteenth-century encounter between the European and American

continents changed the entire world. Centuries of European domination and
government made the Americas a region where European languages, legal
and political institutions, trade patterns, and religion prevail. African
populations, economies, and political structures were altered by the slave
trade into the Americas. Europe gained more influence over other world
cultures than it could otherwise have achieved.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
THE ATLANTIC WORLD
The exchanges of people, goods, ideas, and plants, animals, and
microorganisms between the American, European, and African continents
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries transformed world history. In the
Americas, the native peoples—whose ancestors had migrated from Asia
millennia before—had established a wide variety of civilizations. Some of
their most remarkable architectural monuments and cities were constructed
during the very centuries when European civilizations were reeling from the
collapse of Roman power. (See Chapter 13.) While trade and culture had
long linked parts of Africa and regions in Eurasia (see Chapter 14) the
civilizations of the Americas and the civilizations of Eurasia and Africa had
had no significant contact with each other prior to the era of European
exploration.
Within half a century of the landing of Columbus, millions of America’s
native peoples in Florida, the Caribbean islands, Mesoamerica, and South
America had experienced the impact of Europeans intent on conquest,
exploitation, and religious conversion. The Europeans’ rapid conquest was
the result of several factors—their advanced weapons and navies; the new
diseases they brought with them; and internal divisions among the Native
Americans. Thereafter, Spain and Portugal dominated Central and South
America (what we now, as a result of this history, call Latin America), and
England, France, and Holland set out to settle North America. The
Europeans imported their own food crops, such as wheat and apples, while
also taking advantage of American plants, such as potatoes, corn, tomatoes,
and tobacco.
Throughout the Americas and the Caribbean basin, Europeans
established economies of exploitation. In Latin America, they developed
various institutions to extract native labor. Plantation owners from the Mid-
Atlantic English colonies through the Caribbean and into Brazil preferred
slaves forcibly imported from Africa. African slaves were hardier than
indigenous laborers, who lacked immunity to European diseases, and they
could be better controlled than indentured servants from Europe. With the
exception of tobacco, plantation crops derived largely from the Old World;
some Africans were already familiar with the cultivation of, for example,
rice. The emergent Atlantic world drew the economies and peoples of
Europe, Africa, and the Americas into a vast worldwide web of production
based on slave labor.
Slavery had its most striking impact on the lives of the millions of
humans who over the centuries were torn from their birthplaces, their
families, and their cultures. The slave trade corroded the political and social
structures of African societies. African slaves suffered from high mortality
and sharply reduced birthrates; they were subjected to harsh working
conditions and brutally dehumanizing treatment.

Focus Questions

How did the encounter of Europe and Africa with the Americas
change the global ecological balance?
Why was the Spanish Empire based on economies of exploitation?
How was the labor of non-European peoples drawn into the
economy of this empire?
How and why did the plantation economy develop? Why did it rely
on African slaves for its labor? What were the consequences of the
slave trade for individuals and institutions in each of the three
continents constituting the Atlantic world?
 Why do we think of the plantation economy as a global, rather than
regional, system of production? Why was it the “engine” of Atlantic
basin trade?

El Morro, Puerto Rico. This fortress was built by the Spanish in the
sixteenth century to protect Spain’s valuable trading rights against British,
Dutch, and pirate ships.

Why did Spain strive to control sea lanes?

Within decades of the European voyages of discovery, Native Americans,

Europeans, and Africans began to interact in a manner unprecedented in
human history. The Native Americans of North and South America
encountered bands of European conquerors and missionaries.
Technological and military superiority as well as political divisions among
the Native Americans allowed the Europeans to realize their material and
religious ambitions. By the middle of the sixteenth century Europeans had
begun to import Africans into the American continents as chattel slaves,
converting them to Christianity in the process. By the close of the sixteenth
century Europe, the Americas, and Africa had become linked in a vast
transatlantic economy that extracted material and agricultural wealth from
the American continents largely on the basis of the nonfree labor of
impressed Native Americans and imported African slaves.
The next century would see English and French colonists settling in
North America and the Caribbean, introducing both Protestantism and
different political values. As they exploited the North American wilderness,
the colonists interacted with Native Americans, sometimes destroying
indigenous cultures and whole peoples, sometimes converting Native
Americans to Christianity; Native Americans, too, were drawn into the
transatlantic economy.
Beginning in the sixteenth century, the importation of African slaves and
the use of slave labor were fundamental to the plantation economy that
eventually extended from Maryland to Brazil. Slaveholding and economic
entanglement in the slave trade also extended into the British colonies north
of Maryland. The slave trade intimately connected portions of Africa to the
transatlantic economy. The slave trade had a devastating effect on the
African people and cultures involved in it, but it also enriched the Americas
with African culture and religion.

Hear the Audio at myhistorylab.com

PERIODS OF EUROPEAN OVERSEAS

EXPANSION

WHAT WERE the four periods of European contact with the world?

Since the late fifteenth century, European contacts with the rest of the world
have gone through four distinct stages. The first was the European
discovery, exploration, initial conquest, and settlement of the Americas and
commercial expansion elsewhere. The second was an era of trade rivalry
among Spain, France, and Great Britain. During this period (to 1820), the
British colonies of North America and the Spanish colonies of Mexico and
Central and South America broke free from European control. The third
period spanned the nineteenth century and was characterized by the
development of European empires in Africa and Asia. Imperial ideology at
this time involved theories of trade, national honor, race, religion, and
military strength. The last period of European experience with empire
occupied the mid-twentieth century and was a time of decolonization—a
retreat from empire.
Technological advantages—naval power and gunpowder, not innate
cultural superiority—enabled Europeans to exercise global dominance
disproportionate to Europe’s size and population for four and a half
centuries. The legacy of European imperialism continues to influence
contemporary events.

MERCANTILIST THEORY OF ECONOMIC

EXPLOITATION

WHAT WAS mercantilism?

The early modern European empires of the sixteenth through the

eighteenth centuries were based on commerce. Extensive trade rivalries
sprang up around the world, and competitors developed navies to protect
their interests. Spain, with the largest empire, constructed elaborate naval,
commercial, and political structures to exploit and govern it. These empires
depended largely on slave labor. The Atlantic slave trade forcibly brought
together the lives and cultures of peoples in Africa and the New World. It
also enriched many European merchants.
Mercantilism. As this painting of the Custom House Quay in London
suggests, trade from European empires and the tariffs imposed on it were
expected to generate revenue for the home country. But behind many of the
goods carried in the great sailing ships in the harbor and landed on these
docks lay the labor of African slaves working on the plantations of North
and South America.

Samuel Scott, “Old Custom House Quay” Collection. V&A Images, the
Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

What kinds of trade goods are visible in this painting?

To the extent that any formal economic theory lay behind the conduct of
these empires, it was mercantilism, a system in which governments heavily
regulate trade and commerce to increase national wealth. From beginning to
end, the economic well-being of the home country was the primary concern.
Mercantilists believed that a nation had to gain more gold and silver bullion
than its rivals and that one nation’s economy could grow only at the
expense of others. Nations grew by establishing colonies overseas to
provide markets and natural resources for the home country, which
furnished military security and political administration for the colonies. The
home country and its colonies were to trade exclusively with each other.
The colonies were assumed to be inferior partners in a monopolistic
relationship.

mercantilism
Term used to describe close government control of the economy that sought
to maximize exports and accumulate as much precious metal as possible to
enable the state to defend its economic and political interests.

By the early eighteenth century, it was clear that mercantilist assumptions

did not correspond with reality. Colonial and home markets did not mesh.
Spain, for instance, could not produce enough goods for South America,
while manufacturing in the British North American colonies challenged
production in England and led to British attempts to limit certain colonial
industries. Colonists of different countries wished to trade with each other.
English colonists could buy sugar more cheaply from the French West
Indies than from English suppliers. The eighteenth century became the
“golden age of smugglers.”1 Governments could be dragged into war by
clashes among their colonies. Problems associated with the mercantile
empires led to conflicts around the world.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SPANISH EMPIRE

IN AMERICA

WHAT ROLES did the Roman Catholic Church play in Spanish

America?

CONQUEST OF THE AZTECS AND THE INCAS

Within twenty years of the arrival of Columbus (1451–1506), Spanish
explorers in search of gold had claimed the major islands of the Caribbean
and brutally suppressed the native peoples. These actions presaged what
was to occur on the continent.
In 1519 Hernán Cortés (1485–1547) landed in Mexico with about 500
men and a few horses. He opened communication with Moctezuma II
(1466–1520), the Aztec emperor. Moctezuma may initially have believed
Cortés to be the god Quetzalcoatl, who, according to legend, had been
driven away centuries earlier but had promised to return. Whatever the
reason, Moctezuma hesitated to confront Cortés, attempting at first to
appease him with gifts of gold. Cortés forged alliances, most importantly
with Tlaxcala, a traditional enemy of the Aztecs. His forces then marched
on the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán (modern Mexico City), where
Moctezuma welcomed him. Cortés soon made Moctezuma a prisoner.
When Moctezuma died in unexplained circumstances, the Spaniards were
driven from Tenochtitlán and nearly wiped out. But they returned, and the
Aztecs were defeated in late 1521. Cortés proclaimed the Aztec Empire to
be New Spain.

Read the Document

2nd Letter, Hernan Cortez to King Charles V at myhistorylab.com

Read the Document del Castillo, History of Conquest at

myhistorylab.com

In 1532, Francisco Pizarro (ca. 1478–1541) landed on the western coast

of South America to take over the Inca Empire. His force included about
200 men armed with guns, swords, and horses. Pizarro lured the Inca ruler,
Atahualpa (ca. 1500–1533), into a conference, then seized him and had him
garroted in 1533. The Spaniards then captured Cuzco, the Inca capital,
ending the Inca Empire. The Spanish faced insurrections, however, and
fought among themselves for decades. Effective royal control was not
established until the late 1560s.

QUICK REVIEW
Francisco Pizarro (ca. 1478–1541)
Invasion force landed in South America in 1532
Forces included 200 men, horses, guns, and swords
 Executed the Inca ruler and captured Cuzco in 1533

The conquests of Mexico and Peru are among the most dramatic and
brutal events in modern world history. Small military forces armed with
advanced weapons and in alliance with indigenous enemies of the rulers
subdued two advanced, powerful peoples. European diseases, especially
smallpox, aided the conquest, since much of the native population
succumbed to diseases against which they had no immunity. But beyond the
drama and bloodshed, these conquests marked a turning point. Whole
civilizations with long histories and a record of enormous social,
architectural, and technological achievement were effectively destroyed.
Native American cultures endured, but European culture had the upper
hand.

Spanish Conquest of Mexico. A sixteenth-century drawing depicts a battle

during the Spanish conquest of Mexico. The Aztecs are on the right. Note
how the Spaniards bring up the rear, behind their native allies, the
Tlaxcalteca.
How does the position of the Tlaxcalteca leading the attack on the
Aztecs offer a different perspective on the conquest of the Americas?

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN SPANISH AMERICA

The Spanish conquest of the West Indies, Mexico, and South America
opened a vast region to the Roman Catholic faith. Religion played a central
role; as in the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors, the
obligation Christians felt to spread their faith was used to justify military
conquest and political control. As a consequence, the Roman Catholic
Church in the New World was a conservative force working to protect the
power and prestige of the Spanish authorities. Indeed, the papacy turned
over much of the control of the church in the New World to the Spanish
monarchy. In the sixteenth century, as the papacy and the Habsburg
monarchy fought Protestantism, the Roman Catholicism that spread
throughout the Spanish domains of America was the zealous faith of the
Counter-Reformation.
The Roman Catholic Church, with the aid first of the Franciscans and the
Dominicans and later the Jesuits, sought to convert the Native Americans
and eradicate Indian religious practices. Converts, however, did not enjoy
equality with Europeans. Real tension existed between the early Spanish
conquerors and the mendicant friars. Without conquest the church could not
convert the Native Americans, but the priests often deplored the harsh
conditions imposed on indigenous peoples. By far the most effective and
outspoken critic was Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474–1566), a Dominican.
He contended that conquest was not necessary for conversion. One result of
his campaign was new royal regulations after 1550.

Read the Document

New Laws Indies for Good Treatment 2 at myhistorylab.com

Las Casas’s writings inspired the “Black Legend,” according to which

all Spanish treatment of Native Americans was inhumane. Although
substantially true, the Black Legend exaggerated the case against Spain.
Certainly the rulers of the native empires had often themselves been cruel to
their subject peoples.
Black Legend
The argument that Spanish treatment of Native Americans was uniquely
inhumane.

Read the Document

Account of Devastation of Indies at myhistorylab.com

By the end of the sixteenth century, the church in Spanish America

largely upheld the colonial status quo. Although individual priests defended
the communal rights of Native American tribes, the colonial church
prospered through its exploitation of the resources of the New World. By
the late eighteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church had become one of
the most conservative forces in Latin American society.

ECONOMIES OF EXPLOITATION IN THE

SPANISH EMPIRE

HOW DID Spaniards attempt to control labor in the Americas?

Colonial Spanish America had an economy of exploitation in two senses.

First, its organization of labor involved dependent servitude or slavery.
Second, America’s resources were exploited for the economic advantage of
Spain.

VARIETIES OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY

The early conquistadores (“conquerors”) had been interested primarily in
gold, but by the middle of the sixteenth century silver mining provided the
chief source of metallic wealth. The great silver mining centers were in
northern Mexico and Potosí, in present-day Bolivia. The Spanish crown
received one-fifth (the quinto) of all mining revenues. Overall, silver was a
great source of wealth, and its production for the benefit of Spaniards and
the Spanish crown epitomized the extractive economy on which Latin
American colonial life was based.

conquistadores
A term meaning “conquerors”; the Spanish conquerors of the New World.

The Silver Mines of Potosí. Worked by conscripted Indian laborers under

extremely harsh conditions, these mines provided Spain with a vast treasure
in silver.

What does the puny size of the Indians in this painting suggest about
their status in the Spanish American society?

This extractive economy required labor, but there were too few Spanish
colonists to provide it, and most of the colonists who came to the Americas
did not want to work for wages. So, the Spaniards turned first to the native
population for workers and then to African slaves. Indian labor dominated
on the continent and African labor in the Caribbean.
The Spanish devised a series of institutions to exploit Native American
labor. The first was the encomienda, a formal grant by the crown of the
right to the labor of a specific number of Native Americans for a particular
time. But the Spanish monarchy was distressed by reports from clergy that
the Native Americans were being mistreated and feared that encomienda
holders were becoming a powerful noble class in the New World.
Encomienda as an institution declined by the middle of the sixteenth
century.

encomienda

The grant by the Spanish crown to a colonist of the labor of a specific

number of Native Americans for a set period of time.

The encomienda was followed by another arrangement of labor

servitude, the repartimiento, which was largely copied from the mita labor
practices of the Incas. Repartimiento required adult male Native Americans
to devote a set number of days of labor annually to Spanish economic
enterprises. The time limitation on repartimiento led some Spanish
managers to work teams of men to exhaustion—sometimes to death—
before replacing them with the next rotation.

repartimiento
A labor tax in Spanish America that required adult male Native Americans
to devote a set number of days a year to Spanish economic enterprises.

Outside the mines, the hacienda dominated rural and agricultural life in
Spanish colonies on the continent. Royal land grants led to the
establishment of large landed estates owned by peninsulares (whites born
in Spain) or Creoles (whites born in America). The core activity of the
haciendas, livestock grazing, required less labor than did the mines. But
laborers on the hacienda were usually in formal servitude to the owner and
had to buy goods for everyday living on credit from him. They were rarely
able to repay their debts and thus could not leave. This system was known
as debt peonage. The hacienda economy produced foodstuffs for mining
areas and urban centers, and haciendas became one of the most important
features of Latin American life.

hacienda
A large landed estate in Spanish America.

peninsulares
Native-born Spaniards who emigrated from Spain to settle in the Spanish
colonies.

debt peonage
A system that forces agricultural laborers (peons) to work and live on large
estates (haciendas) until they have repaid their debts to the estate’s owner.

COMMERCIAL REGULATION AND THE FLOTA SYSTEM

Because Queen Isabella of Castile (r. 1474–1504) had commissioned
Columbus, the legal link between the New World and Spain was the crown
of Castile. Its powers were subject to few limitations. Government of
America was assigned to the Council of the Indies, which, in conjunction
with the monarch, nominated the viceroys of New Spain and Peru. These
viceroys were the chief executives in the New World. Each of the
viceroyalties included subordinate judicial councils known as audiencias.
Local officers included the corregidores, who presided over municipal
councils. These offices provided the monarchy with a vast array of
opportunities for patronage. Political power flowed from the top of this
political structure downward; there was little or no local initiative or self-
government (see Map 17–1).

MAP EXPLORATION

To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

MAP 17–1. The Americas, ca. 1750. Spain organized its vast holdings in
the New World into viceroyalties, each of which had its own governor and
other administrative officials. The English colonies clung to the North
American seaboard. French possessions centered on the St. Lawrence River
and the Great Lakes. Portuguese holdings in Brazil were mostly confined to
the coast.
Based on this map, what were the strengths and weaknesses of the Spanish
Empire in the Americas?

Colonial political structures supported the commercial goals of Spain.

Spanish control of its American empire involved a system of monopolistic
trade regulation, although Spain’s trade monopoly was often breached. The
Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) in Seville regulated all trade with
the New World; it was the single most influential institution of the Spanish
Empire. Each year a fleet of commercial vessels (the flota) controlled by
Seville merchants, escorted by warships, carried merchandise from Spain to
a few specified ports in America. These included Portobello, Veracruz, and
Cartagena; there were no authorized ports on the Pacific coast. Buenos
Aires and other areas received goods only after the shipments had been
unloaded at an authorized port. After selling their wares, the ships were
loaded with silver and gold bullion. They usually wintered in heavily
fortified Caribbean ports and then sailed back to Spain. Each year a Spanish
ship also crossed the Pacific from Spanish Manila to Acapulco, bringing
Chinese silk and porcelain. It returned to Manila laden with Mexican silver.
The flota system worked imperfectly, but trade outside it was illegal.
Spanish colonists were prohibited from trading directly with each other, and
foreign merchants were forbidden to breach the Spanish monopoly.

COLONIAL BRAZIL

HOW WERE sugar and slavery entwined in colonial Brazil?

Spain and Portugal originally had rival claims to the Americas. In 1494, by
the Treaty of Tordesillas, the pope divided the seaborne empires of Spain
and Portugal by drawing a line west of the Cape Verde Islands. In 1500 a
Portuguese explorer landed on the coast of present-day Brazil, which
extended east of the papal line of division, and thus Portugal gained a major
hold on the South American continent. Portugal, however, had fewer
resources to devote to its New World empire than did Spain. Its rulers left
exploitation of the region to private entrepreneurs. Because the native
peoples in the lands that Portugal claimed were nomadic, the Portuguese,
unlike the Spanish, imported Africans as slaves rather than using the native
Indian population as their workforce.

See the Map

Spanish and Portuguese Exploration at myhistorylab.com

By the mid-sixteenth century, sugar production had gained preeminence

in the Brazilian economy. Because sugarcane was grown on large estates
(fazendas) with African slave labor, the dominance of sugar also meant the
dominance of slavery. Slavery became even more important when, in the
early eighteenth century, significant gold deposits were discovered in
southern Brazil. The expansion of gold mining increased the importation of
African slaves. Nowhere, except perhaps in the West Indies, was slavery as
important as it was in Brazil, where it persisted until 1888.

QUICK REVIEW
Brazil’s Colonial Economy
Indigenous peoples were nomads, so Portuguese entrepreneurs
imported African slaves for labor
Sugar production and gold mining were most significant elements of
economy
Portuguese crown was less involved in colonial administration than
Spanish crown
Sugar plantations of Brazil and the West Indies were a major source of the
demand for slave labor. Slaves are here shown grinding sugarcane and
refining sugar, which was then exported to the consumer markets in Europe.

How did the labor requirements for sugar production differ from those
for other colonial economic activities?

The taxation and administration associated with gold mining brought

new, unexpected wealth to the Portuguese monarchy, allowing it to rule
without recourse to the Cortés or traditional parliament for taxation.
Through transatlantic trade the new wealth generated from Brazilian gold
also filtered into all the major trading nations, which could sell their goods
to Portugal as well as profit from the slave trade.
In Brazil, the basic unit of production was the plantation, which did not
require a vast colonial administration; agricultural products were much
easier to keep track of than the precious metals of Spanish American mines.
The Portuguese were willing to allow more local autonomy than was Spain.
In Spanish America the use of Native American labor was supervised by
the government. Brazil, less dependent on Native American labor, felt no
such constraints. Indeed, the Portuguese government condoned policies
whereby indigenous tribes were driven into the back country or
exterminated. Throughout the eighteenth century the Portuguese
government favored the continued importation of slaves.

FRENCH AND BRITISH COLONIES IN

NORTH AMERICA

HOW WERE the economies of the French and British North

American colonies integrated into the transatlantic economy?

Both England and France had important sugar islands in the Caribbean with
plantations worked by African slaves. The trade and commerce of the
northern British colonies were closely related to meeting the needs of these
islands. The major presence of both nations, however, spread across
different parts of the North American continent.
French explorers had pressed down the St. Lawrence River valley in
Canada during the seventeenth century. French fur traders and Roman
Catholic Jesuit missionaries had followed, with the French government
supporting the missionary effort. By the end of the seventeenth century, a
significant but sparsely populated French presence existed in Canada (see
Map 17–1). The largest settlement was Quebec, founded in 1608. Since
trade rather than settlement generally characterized the French effort, there
was little conflict between the French and the Native Americans; some
Frenchmen married Native American women. It was primarily through the
fur trade that French Canada participated in the early transatlantic economy.

Read the Document Albanel from Jesuit Relation at

myhistorylab.com

From the first successful settlement in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607,

through the establishment of Georgia in 1733, English colonies spread
along the eastern seaboard of the future United States. The Dutch, Swedes,
and others founded settlements too, but all of them were taken over during
the seventeenth century by the English. Settlements were founded for a
variety of reasons. Virginia and New Amsterdam (after 1664, New York)
aimed for profits through farming and trade. Others, such as the Carolinas,
were developed by royal favorites who were given vast land tracts. James
Oglethorpe founded Georgia as a refuge for English debtors. The pursuit of
religious liberty was the driving force of the Pilgrim and Puritan founders
of Massachusetts, the Baptist Roger Williams in Rhode Island, the Quaker
William Penn in Pennsylvania, and the Roman Catholic Lord Baltimore in
Maryland.

See the Map

European Empires ca. 1600 at myhistorylab.com

With the exception of Maryland, these colonies were Protestant. The

Church of England dominated the southern colonies. In New England,
varieties of Protestantism associated with or derived from Calvinism were
in the ascendancy. In their religious affiliations, the English-speaking
colonies manifested two important traits derived from the English
experience. First, much of their religious life was organized around self-
governing congregations. Second, their religious outlook derived from
those forms of Protestantism that were suspicious of central political
authority. In this regard, their cultural and political outlook differed sharply
from that of the Roman Catholics of the Spanish Empire. In a sense, the
ideologies of the extreme Reformation and Counter-Reformation
confronted each other in the Americas.

Fur Trade. A Native American hands a pelt to a European buyer while two
spectators—one European, one Indian—nonchalantly observe the
transaction. By 1700 the fur trade had decimated the beaver population in
southern Canada and New England.

1777 engraving. © The Granger Collection, New York.

How did the relationships between French traders and Native

Americans tend to differ from the relationships between English
settlers and Native Americans?

The English colonists had complex interactions with the Native

American populations. They had only modest interest in missionary
enterprise. New diseases imported from Europe took a high death toll
among the native population. North America had no large Native American
cities; indigenous populations were dispersed, and intertribal animosity was
intense. The English often encountered well-organized resistance, as from
the Powhatan conspiracy in Virginia and the Pequots in New England. The
most powerful of the Native American groups was the Iroquois Nation,
organized in the early eighteenth century in New York. The Iroquois battled
successfully against other tribes and long negotiated successfully with both
the Dutch and the English. The English often used one tribe against another,
and the Native Americans also tried to use the English or the French in their
own conflicts. Struggles between the English settlers and the Native
Americans rarely resulted in full victory for either side. From the late
seventeenth century through the American Revolution, Native American
alliances became important for the Anglo-French conflict on the Continent,
which was intimately related to their rivalry over transatlantic trade (see
Chapter 19).

Hear the Audio at myhistorylab.com

The economies of the English-speaking colonies were primarily

agricultural. From New England through the Middle Atlantic, small farms
were mostly tilled by free white labor; from Virginia southward a plantation
economy dependent on slavery predominated. The principal ports of
Boston, Newport, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston were
the chief centers through which goods moved back and forth between the
colonies and England and the West Indies. The commercial economies of
these cities were all related to the transatlantic slave trade.
Until the 1760s the political values of the Americans resembled those of
their English counterparts. The colonials were thoroughly familiar with
events in England and sent many of their children there to be educated.
They were monarchists but suspicious of monarchical power. Their politics
involved vast amounts of patronage and individual favors. Their society
was clearly hierarchical, with an elite that functioned like a colonial
aristocracy and many ordinary people who were dependent on that
aristocracy. Throughout the colonies during the eighteenth century, the
Anglican Church grew in influence and membership. The prosperity of the
colonies might eventually have led them to separate from England, but in
1750 few people thought that would occur.
QUICK REVIEW
British North America
Jamestown, Virginia: Became first successful British settlement in
1607
Religion shaped the organization of British colonies
English colonies had a complex relationship with Native Americans

THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE: DISEASE,

ANIMALS, AND AGRICULTURE

WHAT WAS the “Columbian Exchange”?

The European encounter with the Americas produced remarkable ecological

transformations that have shaped the world to the present time (see Map
17–2). Alfred Crosby, the leading historian of the process, has named this
cross-continental flow the Columbian Exchange.

Columbian Exchange

Biological exchange of plants, animals, and diseases between the Americas

and the rest of the world.
MAP 17–2 Biological Exchanges. The worldwide movement of plants,
animals, and diseases.

How did the Columbian Exchange alter environments around the world?

DISEASES ENTER THE AMERICAS

The American continents had been biologically separated from Europe,
Africa, and Asia for tens of thousands of years. The only animal native to
the Americas that could serve as a beast of burden was the llama, which
could transport only about a hundred pounds. The American continents
included vast grassland that lacked grazing animals to transform plants into
animal protein. It appears that native peoples had not experienced major
epidemics.
By the second voyage of Columbus (1493), that picture began to change
in remarkable ways. Columbus brought a number of animals and plants to
Hispaniola and other islands of the Caribbean that were previously
unknown to the New World. His sailors and the men on subsequent
European voyages also carried diseases new to the Americas.

Read the Document

Smallpox epidemic in Mexico 1520 and Smallpox epidemic in New
England at myhistorylab.com

European diseases ultimately played at least as big a role in defeating

indigenous Americans as advanced European weaponry did. Much
controversy surrounds the question of the actual size of the populations of
Native Americans in the Caribbean islands, Mexico, Peru, and the North
Atlantic coast. Those populations were significant, with those of Mexico
numbering many millions. In the first two centuries after the encounter,
wherever Europeans went, extremely large numbers of Native Americans
died from diseases they had never before encountered. Smallpox, the most
deadly, destroyed millions of people. Bubonic plague, typhoid, typhus,
influenza, measles, chicken pox, whooping cough, malaria, and diphtheria
produced localized epidemics. An unknown disease, possibly typhus,
caused major losses among the Native Americans of New England between
approximately 1616 and 1619.
Smallpox. Introduced by Europeans to the Americas, smallpox had a
devastating effect on Native American populations. It swept through the
Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán soon after the Spaniards arrived, contributing
to the fall of the city. This illustration of the effect of the plague in the
Aztec capital is from a postconquest history known as the Florentine Codex
compiled for Spanish church authorities by Aztec survivors.

What other diseases did Europeans bring to the Americas?

On the reverse side of the equation it seems likely that syphilis originated
in the New World. Until the discovery of penicillin in the 1940s, this
rampant sexually transmitted disease remained a major public health
concern throughout the world.

ANIMALS AND AGRICULTURE

The introduction of European livestock revolutionized American
agriculture. The most important new animals were pigs, cattle, horses,
goats, and sheep. The horse became first the animal of conquest and then
the animal of colonial Latin American culture. Native Americans had no
prior experience with such large animals that would obey the will of a
human rider; they were initially fearful of the mounted Spanish horsemen.
After the conquest, however, the Americas from Mexico southward became
the largest horse-breeding region of the world. By the nineteenth century,
the possession of horses allowed the Plains Indians of North America to
resist European encroachment. Pigs, cattle, and sheep produced enormous
quantities of hides and wool. The Americas from the sixteenth century
through the present supported a diet more plentiful in animal protein than
anywhere else in the world.
Europeans also brought plants to the New World, including peaches,
oranges, grapes, melons, bananas, rice, onions, radishes, and various green
vegetables. Sugarcane cultivation created the major demand for slavery.
European wheat, over time, allowed the Americas not only to feed
themselves but also to export large amounts of grain throughout the world.
Global Foods. A woman in the African country of Uganda offers beans and
pineapples for sale, both of which originated in the Americas.
What other American plants were introduced to Africa?
The only American animal that came to be raised in Europe was the
turkey. The Americas, however, were the source of plants that eventually
changed the European diet. Maize and potatoes had the greatest impact.
Both crops grow rapidly, supplying food quickly and steadily if not attacked
by disease. There is good reason to believe the cultivation of the potato was
a major cause of the population increase in eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century Europe. Africa received many of these same foodstuffs as well.
Maize became a staple in Africa. Tobacco also originated in the Americas.

OVERVIEW The Columbian Exchange

 Watch the Video at myhistorylab.com

SLAVERY IN THE AMERICAS

WHY WAS the transatlantic slave trade so economically important?

Slavery was the final mode of forced or subservient labor in the New
World. Unlike the labor exploitation of Native Americans, enslavement of
Africans and their descendants extended throughout the Spanish Empire,
Portuguese Brazil, and the English-speaking colonies of North America.
The heartland of transatlantic slavery lay in the Caribbean islands.

Read the Document

Slavery in Africa late 1700s, Mungo Park at myhistorylab.com

THE BACKGROUND OF SLAVERY

Virtually every premodern state around the globe depended on slavery to
some extent (see Map 17–3 on page 428). Slave institutions in sub-Saharan
Africa were ancient. The Islamic states of southwestern Asia and North
Africa imported slaves from both the Sudan and Horn of Africa as well as
the East African coast, although they took even more slaves from eastern
Europe and Central Asia. Both Mediterranean Christian and Islamic peoples
were using slaves—mostly Greeks, Bulgarians, Turkish prisoners of war,
and Black Sea Tartars, but also Africans—well before the voyages of
discovery opened sub-Saharan sources of slaves for the new European
colonies overseas.
Not all forms of slavery were as dehumanizing as the chattel slavery that
came to predominate—with the sanction of Christian authorities—in the
Americas. Chattel slaves were outright possessions of their masters,
indistinguishable from any material possession; they were not recognized as
persons under the law, so they had no legal rights; they could not claim any
control over their bodies, their time, their labor, or even their own children.
MAP EXPLORATION
To explore this map further, go to www.myhistorylab.com

MAP 17–3. The Slave Trade, 1400–1860. Slavery is an ancient institution,

and complex slave-trading routes were in existence in Africa, the Middle
East, and Asia for centuries, but it was the need to supply labor for the
plantations of the Americas that led to the greatest movement of peoples
across the face of the earth.

How does this map show the global nature of the slave trade?
 African societies suffered immense political, economic, and social
devastation when they were the chief supplier of slaves to the world. The
New World societies that were built to a great extent on the exploitation of
African slavery also suffered enduring consequences, including racism.

ESTABLISHMENT OF SLAVERY
As the numbers of Native Americans in South America declined due to
disease and exploitation, the Spanish and the Portuguese turned to the labor
of imported African slaves. By the late 1500s, in the West Indies and many
cities of South America, black slaves surpassed the white population.
On much of the South American continent dominated by Spain, slavery
declined during the late seventeenth century, but it continued to thrive in
Brazil and in the Caribbean. In British North America, beginning with the
importation of slaves to Jamestown in 1619, it quickly became a
fundamental institution.
One of the forces that led to the spread of slavery in Brazil and the West
Indies was the cultivation of sugar. Sugarcane required a large investment in
land and equipment, and only slave labor could provide enough low-cost
workers to make the plantations profitable. As the European appetite for
sugar grew, so did the slave population. By 1725, black slaves may have
constituted almost 90 percent of the population of the West Indies. There
and in Brazil and the British colonies in the South, prosperity and slavery
went hand in hand. The wealthiest colonies were those that raised consumer
staples, such as sugar, rice, tobacco, or cotton, by slave labor.

THE PLANTATION ECONOMY AND TRANSATLANTIC TRADE

The plantation economy encompassed plantations that stretched from
Maryland through the West Indies and into Brazil. They formed a vast
corridor of slave societies in which social and economic subordination was
based on both involuntary servitude and race. This kind of society, in its
total dependence on slave labor and racial differences, had never existed
before. The social and economic influence of plantation slavery persisted
through the British effort to outlaw the slave trade during the first half of
the nineteenth century, the Latin American wars of independence, the
Emancipation Proclamation issued in 1863 in the United States, and the
Brazilian emancipation of 1888. Every society in which it existed still
contends with its effects.

plantation economy
The economic system stretching between the Chesapeake Bay and Brazil
that produced crops, especially sugar, cotton, and tobacco, using slave labor
on large estates.

The slave trade was part of the larger system of transatlantic trade that
linked Europe, Africa, and the European colonies in South America, the
Caribbean, and North America. The Americas supplied labor-intensive raw
materials such as tobacco, sugar, coffee, precious metals, cotton, and
indigo. Europe supplied manufactured goods such as textiles, liquor, guns,
metal wares, and beads, and cash in various forms. Africa supplied gold,
ivory, wood, palm oil, gum, and other products, as well as the slaves whose
labor created the American products. By the eighteenth century slaves were
Africa’s predominant export.

SLAVERY ON THE PLANTATIONS

The American plantations to which African slaves arrived were located in
rural isolation. The plantation might raise food for its owners and their
slaves, but the main production was intended for export. Plantation owners
imported virtually all the finished or manufactured goods they used.

See the Map

Atlantic Slave Trade at myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

Overseer in Cotton Plantation at myhistorylab.com

The living conditions of plantation slaves varied. Most owners possessed

few slaves. Black slaves living in Portuguese areas had the fewest legal
protections. In the Spanish colonies the church attempted to provide some
protection for black slaves but devoted much more effort to protecting
Native Americans. Slave codes were developed in the British and the
French colonies during the seventeenth century, but they provided only the
most limited protection. Virtually all slave owners feared a slave revolt;
slave laws favored the master rather than the slave. Masters were permitted
to punish slaves by whipping and other harsh corporal punishment, and
slaves were often forbidden to gather in groups lest they plan a revolt. Slave
marriages generally had no legal standing. The child of an enslaved woman
was born a slave, the property of the mother’s owner. Owners could
separate slave families.
The daily life of most slaves was one of hard agricultural labor, poor diet
and clothing, and inadequate housing. The death rate among slaves was
high. Their welfare and their lives were sacrificed to make their owners
wealthy and to produce the goods demanded by consumers in Europe.
The African slaves who were transported to the Americas were, like the
Native Americans, converted to Christianity: in the Spanish domains to
Roman Catholicism, and in the English colonies to Protestantism. They
were forbidden to practice their traditional faiths: Activities that were not
directly related to economic production, or that suggested links to African
culture, were suppressed. Some African practices survived in muted forms,
however, and slaves managed to mix African religion with Christianity.
European settlers and slave traders were prejudiced against black
Africans. Many Europeans thought Africans were savage, and many
European languages attached negative connotations to blackness. In
virtually all plantation societies, race was an important element in keeping
black slaves subservient. Although racial thinking in regard to slavery
became more important in the nineteenth century, the fact that slaves were
differentiated from the rest of the population by race as well as by their
status as chattel property was fundamental to the system.
African American Culture. This eighteenth-century painting depicts a
celebration in the slave quarters on a South Carolina plantation. One
planter’s description of a slave dance seems to fit this scene: the men
leading the women in “a slow shuffling gait, edging along by some unseen
exertion of the feet, from one side to the other—sometimes curtseying
down and remaining in that posture while the edging motion from one side
to the other continued.” The women, he wrote, “always carried a
handkerchief held at arm’s length, which was waved in a graceful motion to
and fro as she moved.”

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, Colonial Williamsburg

Foundation, VA.

Why did slave owners suppress traditional African religious practices?

AFRICA AND THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE

TRADE

HOW DID the slave trade impact Africa?

The establishment of plantations reliant on slave labor drew Africa and its
peoples into the heart of the transatlantic economy. The Portuguese were the
principal carriers early in the African slave trade. Their virtual monopoly
was broken by the Dutch in the 1640s. The French and the English came
into the trade later, yet during the eighteenth century, which saw the greatest
number of slaves shipped, they carried almost half the total traffic.
Americans, too, were avid slavers who managed to make considerable
profits, even after Britain and the United States outlawed the transatlantic
slave trade in 1807 and 1808, respectively.
 Slaving was an important part of the massive new overseas trade that
financed much European and American economic development during the
nineteenth century. The success and considerable profits of this trade,
bought at the price of immense human suffering, helped propel Europe and
some of its colonial offshoots in the Americas into world dominance.

SLAVERY AND SLAVING IN AFRICA

The trade that supplied African slaves to the Mediterranean and Asia long
before the fifteenth century has conventionally been termed the “Oriental”
slave trade. The Sudan and the Horn of Africa were the main sources of
slaves for this trade. The Afro-European trade, conventionally called the
“Occidental” slave trade, can be traced at least to the thirteenth century,
when Europeans established sugarcane plantations on Cyprus. This industry
subsequently spread westward to Crete and Sicily and, in the fifteenth
century, to the Portuguese Atlantic islands of Madeira and São Tomé. The
Portuguese developed the plantation system of slave labor as they began
their expansion into the Atlantic. Voyages beginning in the fifteenth century
by the Portuguese and other Europeans made the western coasts of Africa
as far south as Angola the prime slaving areas. A less important source
region for both Occidental and Oriental trades was the eastern coast of
Africa below the Horn.

“Occidental” slave trade

The trade in slaves from Africa to the Islamic Mediterranean and Asia that
predated the transatlantic slave trade.

Prior to the full development of the transatlantic slave trade, slavery and
slave trading had been no more significant in Africa than anywhere else in
the world.2 Indigenous African slavery resembled that of other premodern
societies. Probably about 10,000 slaves per year, most of them female, were
taken from sub-Saharan Africa through the Oriental slave trade.

CHRONOLOGY
CONQUEST OF THE AMERICAS AND THE TRANSATLANTIC
SLAVE TRADE
 By about 1650 the Occidental slave trade had become as large as the
Oriental trade and for the ensuing two centuries far surpassed it. It affected
all of Africa, disrupting especially western and central African societies. As
a result of the demand for young male slaves on the plantations of the
Americas, West Africa experienced a sharp drain on its productive male
population. Moreover, as the external trade destroyed the regional male–
female population balance, an internal market for female slaves arose.
Internal warfare in western and central Africa increased. These
developments accelerated during the eighteenth century. Slave prices
increased. Owing to population depletion and regional migrations, however,
the actual number of slaves sold declined in some areas.
As European and American nations slowly began to outlaw first the slave
trade and then slavery itself in the nineteenth century, the Oriental and
internal trades increased. Slave exports from East Africa and the Sudan and
Horn increased significantly after about 1780, and indigenous African
slavery, predominantly of women, also expanded. By about 1850 the
internal African trade surpassed the combined Oriental and (outlawed)
Occidental trade. This traffic was dominated by the same figures—
merchants, warlords, and rulers—who had previously profited from
external trade.

View the Image

West African Slave Market at myhistorylab.com

African slavery began a real decline only at the end of the nineteenth
century, in part because of the dominance of European colonial regimes and
in part because of internal changes. The formal end of African indigenous
slavery occurred only in 1928 in Sierra Leone. Late in the twentieth century,
however, in various locations around the world—mostly places with
endemic, severe poverty and weak civil authority, including the Sudan—
patterns of involuntary servitude and human trafficking emerged that
constitute modern-day slavery.

King Affonso I of the Kongo holds an audience with European

ambassadors who kneel before him.

What roles did Africans play in the transatlantic slave trade?

THE AFRICAN SIDE OF THE TRANSATLANTIC TRADE
Africans were actively involved in the transatlantic slave trade. Except for
the Portuguese in central Africa, European slave traders generally obtained
their human cargoes from Africans at coastal forts or simply at anchorages
along the coast. Africans were motivated to control the inland trade, and
Europeans were vulnerable to tropical disease. Thus it was largely African
middlemen who undertook the actual capture or procurement of slaves and
the difficult, dangerous task of marching them to the coast. These
middlemen were generally either wealthy merchants who could mount
slaving expeditions inland or the agents of African kingdoms who sought to
profit from the trade.
The media of exchange for slaves varied. At first they usually involved
mixed barter for goods that ranged from gold dust or firearms to beads and
alcohol. As time went on they came increasingly to involve monetary
payment. This exchange drained productive resources (human beings) from
Africa in return for nonproductive wealth.
MAP 17–4 Origins of African Slaves Sent to the Americas. Captive
Africans came from eight regions. West Central Africa sent more captives
to the Americas than any other region.

What factors influenced the origins of enslaved Africans?

The chief western and central African slaving regions provided different
numbers of slaves at different times, and the total number of exported
slaves varied sharply between periods (see Map 17–4). When one area was
unable to produce sufficient numbers to meet demand, the European traders
shifted their buying to other points. Between 1526 and 1550 the major
sources of slaves for the transatlantic trade were the Kongo-Angola region
(34 percent), the Guinea coast of Cape Verde (25.6 percent), and
Senegambia (23.5 percent).3 By contrast, between 1761 and 1810 the
French drew some 52 percent of their slaves from Angola and 24 percent
from the Bight of Benin, but only 4.8 percent from Senegambia, whereas
the British relied most heavily on the Bight of Biafra and central Africa.4
Traders naturally went where population density and the presence of active
African suppliers promised the most slaves and the lowest prices, although
prices do not seem to have varied radically in a given period.

View the Image

Diagram: Slave Ship Filled for Middle Passage at myhistorylab.com

THE EXTENT OF THE SLAVE TRADE

The overall number of African slaves exported during the Occidental trade
—effectively between 1451 and 1870—is still debated. A major unknown
for both the Occidental and the Oriental trades is the number of slaves who
died under the brutal conditions to which they were subjected when
captured and transported overland and by sea. The Middle Passage, the
portion of the journey in which Africans were packed onto dangerous and
unhealthy boats for the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, claimed untold
numbers; others were lost to other forms of brutality associated with the
trade. (See Document, “A Slave Trader Describes the Atlantic Passage” on
page 434.)

Middle Passage
The transatlantic crossing of ships carrying slaves from Africa to the
Americas and Caribbean.

Historians now estimate that from the sixteenth through the nineteenth
century over 35,000 transatlantic slave ship voyages forcibly transported
more than 11 million Africans to America. The slave trade varied sharply in
extent from period to period (see Figure 17–1). The period of greatest
activity, from 1701 to 1810, accounted for over 60 percent of the total.
Despite Great Britain’s abolition of the slave trade in its colonies in 1807
and the United States’ abolition of the slave trade in 1808, the Portuguese
still transported more than a million slaves to Brazil between 1811 and
1870. Other nations also continued to trade in slaves in the nineteenth
century. In fact, more slaves landed in the Americas in the final years of the
trade than during the entire seventeenth century.5
Estimates for the older, smaller, and more dispersed Oriental trade are
even more problematic, but a figure of million or more is probably realistic.
According to one expert’s estimate, an additional 15 million people were
enslaved within African societies themselves.6
FIGURE 17–1. The Atlantic Slave Trade, 1400–1800. From Caizares-
Esguerra, Jorge; Seeman, Eric, The Atlantic in Global History; 1500–2000,
© 2007. Electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education,
Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Why did the slave trade increase so dramatically in the eighteenth

century?

DOCUMENT
A Slave Trader Describes the Atlantic Passage
During 1693 and 1694, Captain Thomas Phillips carried slaves from Africa
to Barbados on the ship Hannibal. The financial backer of the voyage was
the Royal African Company of London, which held an English crown
monopoly on slave trading. Phillips sailed to the west coast of Africa, where
he purchased the Africans who were sold into slavery by an African king.
Then he set sail westward.
 • Who are the various people described in this document who in one
way or another were involved in or profited from the slave trade?
What dangers did the Africans face on the voyage? What
contemporary attitudes could have led this captain to treat and think
of his human cargo simply as goods to be transported? What are the
grounds of his self-pity for the difficulties he met?

Having bought my complement of 700 slaves, 480 men and 220 women,
and finish’d all my business at Whidaw [on the Gold Coast of Africa], I
took my leave of the old king and his cappasheirs [attendants], and parted,
with many affectionate expressions on both sides, being forced to promise
him that I would return again the next year, with several things he desired
me to bring from England.… I set sail the 27th of July in the morning,
accompany’d with the East-India Merchant, who had bought 650 slaves, for
the Island of St. Thomas.… from which we took our departure on August
25th and set sail for Barbadoes.

We spent in our passage from St. Thomas to Barbadoes two months

eleven days, from the 25th of August to the 4th of November following: in
which time there happened such sickness and mortality among my poor
men and Negroes. Of the first we buried 14, and of the last 320, which was
a great detriment to our voyage, the Royal African Company losing ten
pounds by every slave that died, and the owners of the ship ten pounds ten
shillings, being the freight agreed on to be paid by the charter-party for
every Negro delivered alive ashore to the African Company’s agents at
Barbadoes.… The loss in all amounted to near 6500 pounds sterling.
The distemper which my men as well as the blacks mostly died of was
the white flux, which was so violent and inveterate that no medicine would
in the least check it, so that when any of our men were seized with it, we
esteemed him a dead man, as he generally proved.…
The Negroes are so incident to [subject to] the small-pox that few ships
that carry them escape without it, and sometimes it makes vast havoc and
destruction among them. But tho’ we had 100 at a time sick of it, and that it
went thro’ the ship, yet we lost not above a dozen by it. All the assistance
we gave the diseased was only as much water as they desir’d to drink, and
some palm-oil to annoint their sores, and they would generally recover
without any other helps but what kind nature gave them.…
 But what the smallpox spar’d, the flux swept off, to our great regret, after
all our pains and care to give them their messes in due order and season,
keeping their lodgings as clean and sweet as possible, and enduring so
much misery and stench so long among a parcel of creatures nastier than
swine, and after all our expectations to be defeated by their mortality.…
No gold-finders can endure so much noisome slavery as they do who
carry Negroes; for those have some respite and satisfaction, but we endure
twice the misery; and yet by their mortality our voyages are ruin’d, and we
pine and fret ourselves to death, and take so much pains to so little purpose.
Source: From Thomas Phillips, “Journal,” A Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 6, ed. by
Awnsham and John Churchill (London, 1746), as quoted in Thomas Howard, ed., Black Voyage:
Eyewitness Accounts of the Atlantic Slave Trade (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1971), pp.
85–87.

A Closer Look
The Slave Ship Brookes
This print, published in 1788 in England by the Plymouth Chapter of
the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, became the
single most important and widely circulated abolitionist image of the
horrific conditions of the Middle Passage. It records the main decks of
the 320-ton slave ship Brookes, which measured 25 feet wide and 100
feet long.
(See Document “ A Slave Trader Describes the Atlantic Passage.”)

Questions

1. What response is this image, showing the crowded conditions on the

slave ship Brookes, expected to arouse in the viewer? How do you
think the response of viewers in the early twenty-first century might
differ from those in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth
centuries?
2. In recent years some commentators have criticized this image as
indicating passivity on the part of the enslaved Africans and activity
only on the part of the abolitionists. Why might this interpretation
be directed toward the image?
3. Do you think that British viewers of this image of the Brookes
would necessarily have associated their own nation with the slave
trade? Why or why not?
 To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com

CONSEQUENCES OF THE SLAVE TRADE FOR AFRICA

These statistics hint at the massive impact slave trading had on African life
and history. The question of specific effects remains difficult.
We cannot be certain whether the transatlantic trade brought net
population loss or gain to specific areas of West Africa. The wide and rapid
spread of maize and cassava cultivation after these plants had been
imported from the Americas may have fueled African population increases
that offset slave-trade losses. We know, however, that slaving took away
many of the strongest young men in various areas and, in the Oriental trade
zones, most of the young women.
Similarly, we do not know if more slaves were captured as by-products of
local wars or from targeted slave raiding. Nor do we know if slaving always
inhibited development of trade or perhaps sometimes stimulated it because
commerce in a range of African products—from ivory to wood and hides—
often accompanied that in slaves. We do know that the exchange of
productive human beings for money or goods that were generally not used
to build a productive economy was a great loss for African society as a
whole.
Finally, because we do not yet have accurate estimates of the total
population of Africa at different times over the four centuries of the
transatlantic slave trade, we cannot determine with certainty its
demographic impact. We can, however, make some educated guesses. If, for
example, tropical Africa had possibly 50 million inhabitants in 1600, it
would then have had 30 percent of the combined population of the
Americas, the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa. If in 1900, after the
depredations of the slave trade, it had 70 million inhabitants, its population
would have dropped to only slightly more than 10 percent of the combined
population of the same world regions. Accordingly, current best estimates
indicate that overall African population growth suffered significantly as a
result of the devastating numbers of people lost to enslavement or to the
increased warfare and decreased birthrate tied to the slave trade. Figures
like these also give some idea of slavery’s probable impact on Africa’s
ability to engage with developments that, elsewhere in the world, led to the
emergence of the modern industrializing world.7
It is important to remember that even in West and central Africa, which
bore the brunt of the transatlantic trade, its impact and the response to it
were varied. In a few cases, kingdoms such as Dahomey (the present
Republic of Benin) seem to have sought and derived immense economic
profit by making slaving a state monopoly. Other kingdoms, such as Benin,
sought to stay almost completely out of slaving. In instances including the
rise of Asante power or the fall of the Yoruba Oyo Empire, it appears that
increased slaving was a result as well as a cause of regional instability and
change. Increased warfare meant increased prisoners to be enslaved and a
surplus to be sold off. Whether slaving was a motive for war is still an
unanswered question.
Similarly, the consequences of the major increase in indigenous slavery
are unknown, and they varied with the specifics of regional situations. For
example, in West Africa relatively more men were taken as slaves than
women, whereas in the Sahelian Sudanic regions relatively more women
than men were taken. In the west the loss of so many men increased the
pressures for polygamy, whereas in the Sahelian Sudanic regions the loss of
women may have stimulated polyandry and reduced the birthrate
significantly.
Job ben Solomon. Captured by Mandingo enemies and sold to a Maryland
tobacco planter, Job ben Solomon accomplished the nearly impossible feat
of returning to Africa as a freeman. By demonstrating his talents as a
Muslim scholar, including his ability to write the entire Qur’an from
memory, he astonished his owners and eventually convinced them to let
him go home.

“The Fortunate Slave,” An Illustration of African Slavery in the early

eighteenth century by Douglas Grant (1968). From “Some Memoirs of the
Life of Job,” by Thomas Bluett 1734. Photo by Robert D. Rubic/Precision
Chromes, Inc., Rare Books Division, the New York Public Library, Lenox
and Tilden Foundations/Art Resource, New York.

What was a more typical fate for a slave in the Americas?

QUICK REVIEW
Difficulties in Determining Consequences of the Slave Trade
Do not know how the slave trade affected specific West African
regions
Cannot determine number of slaves captured during wars and
captured during slave raiding
Do not know how slave trading affected commerce in African
products

Even though slavery existed previously in Africa, the scale of the

transatlantic trade was unprecedented and, hence, had an unprecedented
impact on indigenous social, political, and economic realities. The slave
trade measurably changed patterns of life and balances of power, whether
by stimulating trade or warfare, by disrupting previous market and political
structures, by substantially increasing slavery inside Africa, or by disturbing
the male–female ratio and, consequently, the workforce balance and
birthrate patterns. The overseas slave trade siphoned indigenous energy into
ultimately counterproductive or destructive directions. True economic
development was inhibited, especially in central and coastal West Africa.
The transatlantic slave trade must by any standard be described as one of
the most tragic aspects of European involvement in Africa.
 Watch the Video at myhistorylab.com

SUMMARY

WHAT WERE the four periods of European contact with the world?
Periods of European Overseas Expansion. Europe’s disproportionate
influence on world history has gone through four phases: conquest and
commercial exploitation (roughly 1500–1700); trade rivalry, especially
among Spain, France, and Great Britain (roughly 1700–1820); European
colonization in Africa and Asia (nineteenth century and first half of
twentieth century); and decolonization (mid-twentieth century). page 417
WHAT WAS mercantilism?
Mercantilist Theory of Economic Exploitation. Early European empires
were based on mercantilism, the idea that the nation could be enriched by
controlling trade with colonial markets. page 417
WHAT ROLES did the Roman Catholic Church play in Spanish
America?
Establishment of the Spanish Empire in America. Within half a century
of the landing of Columbus, millions of America’s native peoples had
encountered Europeans intent on conquest, exploitation, and religious
conversion. Because of their advanced weapons, navies, and the new
diseases they brought with them, as well as internal divisions among the
Native Americans, the Europeans achieved a rapid conquest. The Roman
Catholic Church was generally aligned with the conquerers, but some
priests became advocates for Native Americans. page 418
HOW DID Spaniards attempt to control labor in the Americas?
Economies of Exploitation in the Spanish Empire. In Spanish America,
various institutions were developed to extract native labor. The flota,
controlled by administrators in Seville, sought to monopolize trade. page
420
HOW WERE sugar and slavery entwined in colonial Brazil?
Colonial Brazil. Brazil was Portugal’s largest American holding. The
Brazilian economy was dominated by sugarcane, which depended on
African slave labor. page 422
HOW WERE the economies of the French and British North
American colonies integrated into the transatlantic economy?
French and British Colonies in North America. Early French colonists
were few in number. They were more interested in commerce (especially
transatlantic fur-trading) and Christianity than in settlement, so their
relationships with Native Americans were relatively nonconfrontational.
English colonists were mostly agriculturalists who had varied and
complicated interactions with Native American populations. The economies
of North America’s port cities were intertwined with the transatlantic slave
trade. page 423
WHAT WAS the “Columbian Exchange”?
The Columbian Exchange: Disease, Animals, and Agriculture. Until the
European explorations, the civilizations of the Americas, Eurasia, and
Africa had had no significant contact with each other. Native Americans
had no immunity to several significant European diseases, so many died.
Exchanges of plants and animals transformed agriculture in the Americas,
Europe, and Africa. page 424
WHY WAS the transatlantic slave trade so economically important?
Slavery in the Americas. From the Mid-Atlantic English colonies through
the Caribbean and into Brazil, slave-labor plantation systems were
established. The economies and peoples of Europe, Africa, and the
Americas were thus drawn into a vast worldwide web of production based
on slave labor. page 427
HOW DID the slave trade impact Africa?
Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. On the African continent, the
impact of the slave trade was immense, though difficult to document
specifically. The social, economic, and personal effects were enormous,
given the extent and duration of the trade. The loss of population and
productive resources helped set the stage for European colonization. The
Atlantic slave trade’s impact continues to be felt at both ends of the original
“trade.” page 430
KEY TERMS

Black Legend
Columbian Exchange
conquistadores (kon-KEES-tuh-DOR-ays)
debt peonage
encomienda (EN-koh-MYEN-dah)
hacienda (HAH-see-EN-dah)
mercantilism (MUR-kuhn-tihl-izm)
Middle Passage
“Occidental” slave trade
peninsulares
plantation economy
repartimiento (ray-PAHR-tih-MYEN-toh)

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. How were small groups of Spaniards able to conquer the Aztec and
Inca Empires?
2. What was the basis of the mercantilist theory of economics? What
was the relationship between the colonial economies and those of
the homelands?
3. What was the relationship between conquistadores and missionaries
in Spain’s American colonies?
4. Describe the economies of Spanish America and Brazil. What were
the similarities and differences between them and the British and
French colonies in the Caribbean and North America? What role did
the various colonies play in the transatlantic economy?
5. Explain the chief factors involved in the Columbian Exchange.
Which animals from Europe flourished in the Americas? Why?
Which American plants produced broad impact in Europe and
elsewhere in the world?
 6. Why did forced labor and slavery develop in tropical colonies? How
was slavery in the Americas different from slavery in earlier
societies?
7. What historical patterns emerged in the slave trade(s) within and out
of Africa? Consider the gender and age distribution of slaves, their
places of origin, and their destinations.
8. Compare and contrast the Oriental and Occidental slave trades.
What was the effect of the transatlantic slave trade on West African
societies? On East Africa? What role did Africans themselves play
in the slave trade?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections

Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many

documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 17
Read the Document 2nd Letter, Hernan Cortez to King Charles V, p.
418
del Castillo, History of Conquest, p. 418
New Laws Indies for Good Treatment 2, p. 419
Account of Devastation of Indies, p. 419
Albanel from Jesuit Relation, p. 423
Smallpox epidemic in Mexico 1520 and Smallpox epidemic in New
England, p. 425
Slavery in Africa late 1700s, Mungo Park, p. 427
Overseer in Cotton Plantation, p. 429

See the Map Spanish and Portuguese Exploration, p. 422

European Empires ca. 1600, p. 423

Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 429
View the Image West African Slave Market, p. 431
Diagram: Slave Ship Filled for Middle Passage, p. 433

Research and Explore

Watch the Video Columbian Exchange, p. 427

Watch the Video Triangle Trade Routes, p. 437

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 17 at www.myhistorylab.com
18
East Asia in the Late Traditional Era

Hear the Audio for Chapter 18 at www.myhistorylab.com

Seventeenth-century screen painting of a Shintō river festival in

Tsushima (a town near Nagoya city) held annually in July to ward off
epidemics in the heat of the summer. Among the throng of spectators at the
river’s edge are shopkeepers, other townspeople, Buddhist priests, and
palanquin bearers (at the left). Of the five boats on the river (which are not
shown), each with 550 lanterns, only one mast with five red lanterns can be
seen at the center of the panel.
Tosa (attributed to): people along the river. Detail from screen representing
the River Festival. 17th century. Painting on paper. Photo: Arnaudet. Musee
des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet, Paris, France. Reunion des Musees
Nationaux/Art Resource, New York.

What overall impression of Japanese society is conveyed by this

painting?

LATE IMPERIAL CHINA

MING (1368–1644) AND QING (1644–1911) DYNASTIES

WHERE DID China expand under the Qing?

JAPAN

WARRING STATES ERA (1467–1600)

WHAT IMPACT did military technology have on Japanese society in this
period?

TOKUGAWA ERA (1600–1868)

HOW WAS Japanese culture transformed during the Tokugawa era?

KOREA AND VIETNAM

KOREA
WHAT WAS Korea’s relationship to China?

VIETNAM

HOW DID Vietnam expand southward during this time?

East Asian countries shared cultural traits. A range of social values was
shared, at least by the elites. To the extent that it was based on
Confucianism, the similarity may have been greatest in the mid-nineteenth
century, when China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam had become more
Confucian than ever before.
 But when we examine histories and institutions, the similarities are fewer.
China and Japan were furthest apart. Korea and Vietnam, even while
forging an identity in reaction to their borrowings from China, were more
directly influenced by China. Tang Dynasty China (618–907) had forged a
pattern of government so efficient and closely geared to the deeper familial
and educational constitution of the society that it was rebuilt after each
dynastic breakdown. The histories of the Ming (1368–1644) and the Qing
(1644–1911) dynasties have a recognizable cyclical cast, though they also
demonstrate historical trends that cut across dynastic lines. Japanese
political history, in contrast, is not cyclical. The Nara, early Heian,
Kamakara bakufu, Ashikaga, Warring States, and “feudal” periods of
Japanese history each reflect a new and different configuration. Like
Europe, Japan never found a pattern of rule that worked so well and was so
deeply embedded in the institutions of the society that it was re-created over
and over again.
This chapter underlines the dynamism of both China and Japan during
these late centuries. In both countries society became more integrated, and
the apparatus of government more sophisticated than ever before. Korea
and Vietnam did not lack dynamism, though they also had problems aplenty.
But we must note that, in the West, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the
Scientific Revolution, the formation of nation-states, the industrial
revolution, the Enlightenment, and the democratic revolution happened
while the Ming and the Qing dynasties were reigning in China. All these
developments, in the East and in the West, shaped East Asian responses to
the West during the nineteenth century.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
EAST ASIA IN THE LATE TRADITIONAL ERA
Why did the West, and not East Asia or any other region, open the door to
modernity? Why did an industrial revolution not develop within the
sophisticated commercial economies of Japan and China? The answer,
obviously, must be found within Western history. Still, a few comparisons
with the West may illuminate aspects of premodern East Asia.

1. The sociologist Max Weber saw Western capitalism as inspired by

the Protestant ethic—which he found lacking in India, China, and
Catholic Europe. But is the East Asian family-centered ethic of
 frugality, savings, and hard work not a “Protestant ethic” of sorts?
And if a deeper Calvinist anxiety about salvation is required, as
Weber theorized, then why has East Asia achieved such explosive
growth since World War II?
2. Was the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century critical to
the industrial revolution? Some historians say that industry was well
under way before science began to make a substantial contribution
from the late nineteenth century.
3. The self-educated technicians of England who invented the water
loom and steam engine reaped enormous honors and rewards. In
China and Japan no patents protected inventors, and no economists
wrote of inventors as the benefactors of society. Wealth and honors
were reserved for officials and gentry, who were literary and
political in orientation and despised those who worked with their
hands. (Of course, in earlier dynasties, Chinese had been brilliantly
inventive without patent protection.)
4. Bureaucracy is sometimes viewed as a key component of modernity.
Bureaucracy does for administration what the assembly line does for
production: It breaks complex tasks into simple ones, to achieve
huge gains in efficiency. In the West bureaucracies appeared only in
recent centuries. They strengthened monarchies and nation-states
against landed aristocrats; they represented the triumph of ability
over hereditary privilege. Chinese bureaucrats shared many of the
same virtues. They were an elite of talent educated in the Confucian
classics as British officials were educated in those of Greece and
Rome. But they were somehow different. They had wielded power
for at least a millennium and were a segment of the landed gentry
class in a country from which hereditary aristocrats had long since
disappeared. Despite their talent, in the nineteenth century they
would constitute a major obstacle to modernity. Were samurai
bureaucrats of the Tokugawa era closer to their Western
counterparts?

Putting aside comparisons with Europe, we also note the difference

between Chinese and Japanese attitudes toward outside civilizations. When
the Jesuits tried to introduce science, the Chinese response was occasional
curiosity and general indifference. A few Jesuits were appointed as
interpreters or court astronomers or were used to cast cannons for China’s
armies. The Chinese lack of interest in foreign cultures can be explained by
the coherence of China’s core institutions: the emperor, bureaucracy,
examination system, Confucian schools, and gentry. These were so deeply
rooted and highly appreciated as to constitute a closed system. In contrast,
despite a national policy of seclusion, the Japanese reached out for Dutch
medicine and science—as they had earlier reached out for Chinese Neo-
Confucianism. In the middle of the nineteenth century, this openness helps
explain Japan’s rapid advance.
That Vietnam and Korea did not achieve industrial revolutions requires
less explanation. They were smaller and less commercially developed than
China or Japan. Vietnam was preoccupied with wars and its expansion to
the south. In Korea—sometimes called the “hermit Kingdom”—the elites
were open only to Chinese culture and engaged in endless factional
struggles.
Focus Questions
What features of Japan or China, other than those mentioned above,
bear on their lack of progress from commerce to industry? What
other factors presented in the chapters on Europe are relevant?
Why was Tokugawa Japan more open to Western learning than Qing
China? Was population a positive, a negative, or a neutral factor?

LATE IMPERIAL CHINA

MING (1368–1644) AND QING (1644–1911)

DYNASTIES

WHERE DID China expand under the Qing?

The Ming and the Qing were China’s last dynasties. The Ming was Chinese,
whereas the Qing was a foreign dynasty (Manchus) established by
conquest. The two were nevertheless remarkably similar in their institutions
and pattern of rule; historians sometimes speak of “Ming–Qing despotism”
as if it were a single system. Certain demographic and economic trends also
exhibited striking continuities through the Ming and Qing dynasties.

LAND AND PEOPLE

China’s population reached about 410 million people in the mid-nineteenth
century, from a level of 60 to 90 million at the start of the Ming Dynasty
(1368). This population density stimulated commerce and gave new
prominence to the scholar-gentry class.
An increase in the food supply paralleled population growth. During the
Ming, the spread of Song agricultural technology and new strains of rice
accounted for 40 percent of the higher yields, and newly cultivated lands
accounted for the rest. During the Qing, half the increased food supply was
due to new lands and the other half to better seeds, fertilizers, and irrigation.
New crops introduced from the Americas during the late Ming, such as
maize, sweet potatoes, and peanuts, also bolstered the food supply.
In north China the population had declined from 32 million to 11 million
during the Mongol conquests. The Ming government repopulated its open
lands; the movement of people to the north continued until the nineteenth
century. In the north, most farmers owned the land they worked and at times
used hired labor. The land consisted mainly of irrigated dry fields, and the
chief crops were millet, sorghum, and wheat.
South and southwest China also saw an influx of migrants from the
densely populated lower Yangzi region, many settling in agriculturally
marginal foothills. Other Chinese crossed over to Taiwan or emigrated
overseas. During the Qing Dynasty, large Chinese mercantile communities
became established in Southeast Asia.
The Yangzi basin, meanwhile, became even more densely populated. The
lower Yangzi region and the delta, well supplied with waterways, had long
been the rice basket of China, but from the late Ming agricultural cash
crops, such as silk and cotton, predominated. Absentee landlords owned
almost half of the land. South China also had extensive absentee
landlordism, but far more land was owned collectively by clans.
 See the Map
Ming and Qing China at myhistorylab.com

There are many unanswered questions regarding the population growth

during these centuries. Was there a decline in the death rate? Or did the
development of new lands and technology enable more mouths to be fed?
Certainly, the Ming–Qing era was the longest continuous period of good
government in Chinese history. How much did good governance contribute
to population growth? The growth of China’s population more than
overcame losses to plagues and epidemics in 1586–1589, 1639–1644, 1756,
and 1820–1822. Because of the growth in agriculture and population, most
accounts view the eighteenth century as the most prosperous in Chinese
history. But by the early nineteenth century the Chinese standard of living
may have begun to decline. An ever-increasing population was no blessing.

CHINA’S THIRD COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION

Commerce in China expanded and contracted cyclically. Early Ming
emperors were isolationists with an agrarian orientation. They established
government monopolies that stifled enterprise and depressed the
southeastern coastal region by restricting maritime trade and shipping. In
the mid-sixteenth century, commerce started to grow again, buoyed by the
surge of population and agriculture and a relaxation of government controls.
If the growth during the Han and Song dynasties may be called China’s first
and second commercial revolutions, then the expansion between 1500 and
1800 was its third. By the early nineteenth century, China was the most
highly commercialized nonindustrial society in the world.
One stimulus to commerce was imported silver. The Chinese balance of
trade was favorable. Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, silver from
Japan entered China, and from the 1570s, Spanish galleons brought in
Mexican and Peruvian silver. In the eighteenth century, private Shanxi
banks opened branches throughout China to facilitate the transfer of funds
and extend credit for trade.

Shanxi banks
Private financial institutions specializing in long-distance funds transfers
for business and trade; they appeared first in Shanxi province.

The influx of silver and the overall increase in liquidity led to inflation in
China, as it did in Europe. The price of land rose steadily. During the
sixteenth century the thirty or forty early Ming taxes on land that were
payable in grain, labor service, and cash were consolidated into one tax
payable in silver, the so-called Single Whip Reform. To obtain the silver,
some farmers switched from grain to cash crops.

A porcelain enameled plate, from the Ming Dynasty, late sixteenth

century.
Plate, Ming Dynasty, late 16th–early 17th century, “Kraakporselein,”
probably from the Ching-te Chen kilns. Porcelain, painted in underglaze
blue. Diameter 14 1/4 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund,
1916 (16.13). Photograph (c)1980 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Art
Resource, New York.
What was China’s role in world trade during the Ming Dynasty?
 Urban growth between 1500 and 1800 was mainly at the level of market
towns, which provided the link between the local markets and the larger
provincial capitals and cities. Interregional trade also gained, but China did
not develop a national economy. Seven or eight regional economies, each
the size of a large European nation, were the focus for most economic
activity. But a new level of trade developed among them, especially where
water transport made such trade economical. A final feature of eighteenth-
century Chinese economic life was the so-called putting out system in
textiles, under which merchant capitalists organized and financed each stage
of production from fiber to dyed cloth.
The Confucian family ideal changed little. A woman was expected to
obey her parents, then her husband, and finally her son. Physically, women
were more restricted as footbinding spread through the upper classes and to
some commoners (see Figure 18–1). Most girls were subjected to this cruel
and deformative procedure. One exception to the rule was the Hakka people
of south China. Hakka women with unbound feet worked in the fields
alongside their male kinsmen. Another exception was the Manchus. One
Manchu (Qing) emperor issued an edict banning foot-binding, but the
Chinese ignored it.
As population grew and the size of the average landholding shrank, more
women worked at home, making textiles and other products for commercial
markets. And as their contribution to the household income grew, their
voice in household decisions became larger. But at the same time, women’s
property rights—to inheritance and control of dowries—became more
limited. Furthermore, the commercial revolution increased the number of
rich townsmen who could afford concubines and patronized tea houses,
restaurants, and brothels. (See Document, “The Thin Horse Market” on
page 446.)
FIGURE 18–1. A Bound Foot. This diagram shows the twisted and
cramped bone structure of a bound (“lily”) foot, as compared with that of a
normal foot. Bound tightly with cloth from the age of 5, a little girl’s foot
grew painfully into this deformed but erotically admired shape.

From East Asia, The Great Tradition, E.O. Reischauer, JK FairBank,

Houghton Mifflin 1960.

What were the roles of women in late imperial China?

QUICK REVIEW
Women under Qing and Ming
Confucian family ideals changed little during the Ming and Qing
eras
Footbinding spread among the upper classes and some commoners
As population grew, more women worked at home

POLITICAL SYSTEM
Despite these massive demographic and economic changes, political
structures in China changed little. Government during the Ming and Qing
was much like that of the Song or Yuan, only stronger. Sources of strength
included the spread of education, the use of Confucianism as an ideology,
stronger emperors, better government finances, more competent officials,
and a larger gentry class with an expanded role in local society.
Confucian teachings were more widespread than ever before. There were
more schools in villages and towns. Academies preparing candidates for the
civil service examinations multiplied. Publishing flourished, and literacy
outpaced population growth. The Confucian view of society was
patriarchal. The family, headed by the father, was the basic unit. The
emperor, the son of heaven and the ruler-father of the empire, stood at its
apex. In between were the district magistrates, the “father–mother
officials.” The idea of the state as the family writ large was not just a matter
of metaphor but also carried with it duties and obligations at every level.
In comparison to Europe, where religious philosophies were less
involved with the state and where a revolution in science was reshaping
religious and political doctrines, Neo-Confucian metaphysics gave China
greater unity and a more integrated worldview.

DOCUMENT
The Thin Horse Market
In China, ancestors without descendants to perform the rites ran the danger
of becoming hungry ghosts or wandering spirits. Consequently, having a
son who would continue the family line was an act of filial piety. If a wife
failed to produce an heir, an official, merchant, or wealthy landowner might
take a concubine and try again. Or he might do so simply because he was
able to, because it gave him pleasure and because it was socially
acceptable. For a poor peasant household, after a bad harvest and faced
with high taxes, the sale of a comely daughter often seemed preferable to
the sale of ancestral land.

• CONCUBINES usually had no choice in the matter, but neither did

many brides in premodern China. Was a woman better off as the
wife of a poor peasant, experiencing hardship, hunger, and want, or
as the concubine in a wealthy household with servants, good food,
and the likelihood that her children would receive an education?
 What does the following passage tell us about attitudes toward
women in premodern China?

Upwards of a hundred people in Yangzhou earn a living in the “thin horse”

business.* If someone shows an interest in taking a concubine, a team of a
broker, a drudge, and a scout stick to him like flies. Early in the morning,
the teams gather to wait outside the doors of potential customers, who
usually give their business to the first team to arrive. Any teams coming late
have to wait for the next opportunity. The winning team then leads their
customer to the broker’s house. The customer is then served tea and seated
to wait for the women. The broker leads out each of them, who do what the
match-maker tells them to do. After each of her short commands, the
woman bows to the customer, walks forward, turns toward the light so the
customer can see her face clearly, draws back her sleeves to show him her
hands, glances shyly at him to show her eyes, says her age so he can hear
her voice, and finally lifts her skirt to reveal whether her feet are bound. An
experienced customer could figure out the size of her feet by listening to the
noise she made as she entered the room. If her skirt made noise when she
walked in, she had to have a pair of big feet under her skirt. As one woman
finishes, another comes out, each house having at least five or six. If the
customer finds a woman to his liking, he puts a gold hairpin in her hair at
the temple, a procedure called “inserting the ornament.” If no one satisfies
him, he gives a few hundred cash to the broker or the servants.

*A horse market is for the sale of horses. A “thin horse” market is the
market for concubines. The name implies a measure of criticism.

If the first broker gets tired, others will willingly take his place. Even if a
customer has the stamina to keep looking for four or five days, he cannot
finish visiting all the houses. Nevertheless, after seeing fifty to sixty white-
faced, red-dressed women, they all begin to look alike and he cannot decide
which are pretty or ugly. It is like the difficulty of recognizing a character
after writing it hundreds or thousands of times. Therefore, the customer
usually chooses someone once his mind and eyes can no longer
discriminate. The owner of the woman brings out a piece of red paper on
which are listed the “betrothal presents,” including gold jewelry and cloth.
Once he agrees to the deal, he is sent home. Before he even arrives back at
his lodgings, a band and a load of food and wine are already waiting there.
Before long, presents he was to send are prepared and sent back with the
band. Then a sedan chair and all the trimmings—colorful lanterns, happy
candles, attendants, sacrificial foods—wait outside for the customer’s
arrangement. The cooks and the entertainer for the wedding celebration also
arrive together with foods, wine, candy, tables, chairs, and tableware.
Without the customer’s order, the colorful sedan chair for the girl and the
small sedan chair for her companion are dispatched to get the girl. The new
concubine performs the bowing ceremony with music and singing and
considerable clamor. The next morning before noon the laborers ask for
rewards from the man, then leave to prepare another wedding for another
customer in the same manner.
Source: Reprinted with the permission of The Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster Adult
Publishing Group, from Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, Second Edition by Patricia Buckley
Ebrey. Copyright © 1993 by Patricia Buckley Ebrey. All rights reserved.

Ming–Qing emperors made all important decisions. They wielded

despotic powers at their courts. They had secret police and prisons where
those who committed even minor offenses might be tortured. The
dedication and loyalty even of officials who were cruelly mistreated attest
to the depth of their Confucian ethical training. During the Qing the life-
and-death authority of emperors did not diminish, but officials were
generally better treated. As foreign rulers, the Manchu emperors took care
not to alienate Chinese officials.

Read the Document

Mitamura at myhistorylab.com

The Forbidden Palace in Beijing was an icon of the emperor’s majesty.

The entire palace complex focused on the ruler. Its massive walls and vast
courtyards progressed to the audience hall where the emperor sat on an
elevated dais above the officials, who knelt before him. Behind the
audience hall were the emperor’s private chambers and his harem. By the
seventeenth century, there were 9,000 palace ladies and perhaps as many as
70,000 eunuchs.
 Government was better financed than during earlier dynasties. As late as
the 1580s, huge surpluses were accumulated at both the central and the
provincial levels. Only during the last fifty years of the Ming did soaring
military expenses bankrupt the government. When, in the second half of the
seventeenth century, the Manchus reestablished a strong central
government, they restored the flow of taxes to levels close to those of the
Ming.
The good government of the Ming–Qing system in China was largely a
product of the ethical commitment and ability of its officials. No officials in
the world today approach in power or prestige those of the Ming and the
Qing. When the Portuguese arrived early in the sixteenth century, they
called these officials “mandarins.” The rewards of an official career were so
great that the competition to enter it became ever fiercer. After being
screened at the district office, a candidate took the county examination. If
he passed, he became a member of the gentry and was exempted from state
labor service. This examination required years of study. About half a
million passed each year. The second hurdle was the provincial examination
held every third year. Only one in a hundred was successful. The final
hurdle was the metropolitan examination, passed by fewer than ninety each
year.
The gentry class was an intermediate layer between the elite bureaucracy
above and the village below. The Chinese gentry was largely urban, living
in market towns or district seats. Socially and educationally, its members
were of the same class as the bureaucracy’s district magistrates—a world
apart from clerks, runners, or village headmen. As absentee landlords
whose lands were worked by sharecroppers, they were often exploitative,
but they were also local leaders, representing community interests to the
bureaucracy. They performed quasi-official functions on behalf of their
communities: maintaining schools and Confucian temples; repairing roads,
bridges, canals, and dikes; and writing local histories. The gentry class was
the local upholder of Confucian values.

gentry
In China, a largely urban, landowning class that represented local interests
and functioned as quasi-bureaucrats under the magistrates.
 The collapse of the Ming Dynasty in 1644 and the establishment of
Manchu rule was less of a break than might be imagined. First, the
transition was short. Second, the Manchus, unlike the Mongols, were
already partially Sinicized. Even before entering China, they had ruled over
the Chinese settled in Manchuria.
In the late sixteenth century an able leader unified the Manchurian tribes
and proclaimed a new dynasty, establishing a Confucian government with
Chinese institutions. When the Ming collapsed and rebel forces took over
China, the Manchus presented themselves as the conservative upholders of
the Confucian order. The Chinese gentry preferred the Manchus to Chinese
rebel leaders. Most Chinese scholars and officials served the new dynasty.
The Qing as a Chinese dynasty dates from 1644, when the capital was
moved to Beijing.

Examination Stalls. The dilapidated remains of the examination stalls at

Nanjing. Doors to individual cubicles can be seen to the right and left of the
three-story gate. Thousands of such cubicles made up the old examination
stalls. Those who passed the exams governed China.

Why was the examination system so central to Chinese government?

As a tiny minority, the Manchus adopted institutions to maintain

themselves as an elite group. One was their military organization. Manchu
garrison forces were segregated and not put under the jurisdiction of
Chinese officials. They were given stipends and lands to cultivate. They
were forbidden to marry Chinese, their children had to study Manchu, and
they were not permitted to bind the feet of their daughters. In 1668,
northern and central Manchuria was cordoned off by a willow palisade to
keep Chinese immigrants out.

CHRONOLOGY

LATE IMPERIAL CHINA

The second institutional feature was the appointment of one Chinese and
one Manchu to each key post in the central government. At the provincial
level, Chinese governors were overseen by Manchu governor-generals.
Most officials and all district magistrates beneath the governors were
Chinese.
An important strength of the Manchu Dynasty was the long reigns of two
extremely able emperors, Kangxi (1661–1722) and Qianlong (1736–1795).
Kangxi was a model emperor. A man of great vigor, he rose at dawn to read
official documents before meeting with officials. He presided over palace
examinations. Well versed in the Confucian classics, he won the support of
scholars. Kangxi studied European science with Jesuit court astronomers;
he opened four ports to foreign trade; he carried out public works; and he
made six tours of China’s southern provinces.
Qianlong, Kangxi’s grandson, began his reign in 1736. Under his rule the
Qing Dynasty attained its highest level of prosperity and power. But in his
last years Qianlong permitted a court favorite to practice corruption on an
almost unprecedented scale. In 1796, the White Lotus Rebellion broke out.
Qianlong’s successor put down the rebellion, but the ample financial
reserves that had existed throughout the eighteenth century were never
reestablished. China nevertheless entered the nineteenth century with its
government intact and with a peaceful and stable society.

Emperor Qianlong. The great Manchu emperor Qianlong (r. 1736–1795).

Unidentified Artist, 16th century. Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). Hanging

scroll; ink and color on silk; Overall: 63 1/2 × 30 1/2in. (161.3 × 77.5cm).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1942. (42.141.8).
Photograph © 1980 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Art Resource, New
York.
How did the Manchus maintain control over a much larger Chinese
population?

MING–QING FOREIGN RELATIONS

Some scholars have contended that post-Song China was not an aggressive
or imperialist state. The early Ming convincingly disproves this contention.
The first Ming emperor (r. 1368–1398) oversaw the vigorous expansion of
China’s borders. At his death, China controlled the northern steppe from
Hami at the gateway of Central Asia to the Sungari River in Manchuria and
had regained control of the southern tier of Chinese provinces as well. The
Mongols were expelled from Yunnan in 1382 (see Map 18–1 on page 450).
During the reign of the third Ming emperor (1402–1424), China became
even more aggressive. The emperor sent troops into northern Vietnam,
which became a Chinese province for two decades. He also personally led
five expeditions into the Gobi Desert in pursuit of Mongol troops.
Whenever possible, the third emperor and his successors “managed”
China’s frontiers with the tribute system. Ambassadors of vassal kings acted
out their subordination to the universal ruler of the celestial kingdom by
approaching the emperor, performing the kowtow (kneeling three times and
each time bowing his head to the floor three times), and presenting gifts. In
return, the vassal kings were sent seals confirming their status, given
permission to use the Chinese calendar and year-period names, and
appointed to the Ming nobility.
The most far-ranging ventures of the third Ming emperor were the
maritime expeditions that sailed to Southeast Asia, India, the Arabian Gulf,
and East Africa between 1405 and 1433. They were commanded by the
eunuch Zheng He, a Muslim from Yunnan (see Map 18–1). The first of
these armadas had sixty-two major ships and carried 28,000 sailors,
soldiers, and merchants. The expeditions were intended to make China’s
glory known to distant kingdoms and to enroll them in the tribute system.
They ended abruptly: They were costly and offered little return at a time
when the dynasty was fighting in Mongolia and building Beijing. What was
remarkable about these expeditions was not that they came half a century
earlier than the Portuguese voyages of discovery, but that China had the
necessary maritime technology and yet decided not to use it. China lacked
the combination of restlessness, greed, religious faith, and curiosity that
would motivate the Portuguese.

Read the Document

A Ming Naval Expedition 15th century at myhistorylab.com

MAP 18–1. The Ming Empire and the Voyages of Zheng He. The inset
map shows the voyages of Zheng He to Southeast Asia and India. Some
ships of his fleet even reached East Africa. (Zheng himself did not.)

What was the purpose of Zheng He’s voyages?

Giraffe with Attendant. Some emperors had private zoos and gladly
received exotic animals as gifts from tribute states.

A painting by Shen Du (1357–1438), “The Tribute: Giraffe with

Attendant.” Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of John T. Dorrance, 1977.

Besides keeping exotic animals, what were some other ways Chinese
emperors made their power visible?

The chief threat to the Ming Dynasty was the Mongols. In disarray after
the collapse of their rule in China, the Mongols had broken up into eastern,
western, and southern tribes. The Chinese, “using the barbarian to control
the barbarian,” made allies of the southern tribes (those settled just north of
the Great Wall) against the more fearsome grassland Mongols. This policy
worked most of the time, but twice the Mongols formed confederations—
pale imitations of the war machine of Genghis—strong enough to defeat
Chinese armies: In the 1430s they captured the emperor, and in 1550 they
overran Beijing. The Mongol forces involved in the latter attack were
defeated by a Chinese army in the 1560s and signed a peace treaty in 1571.
 A second threat came from Japan, whose pirates raided the Chinese coast
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. After Hideyoshi unified Japan, he
twice invaded and occupied Korea in 1592 and between 1597 and 1598.
China sent troops, and the Japanese withdrew after the death of Hideyoshi.
But the strain on Ming finances had severely weakened the dynasty.
The final foreign threat to the Ming was the Manchus. After coming to
power in 1644, the Manchu court spent decades consolidating its rule
within China. The emperor Kangxi took Taiwan in 1683, making it part of
China for the first time.
As always, the principal foreign threats to Qing China came from the
north and northwest. By the 1660s, Russian traders, trappers, and
adventurers had reached northern Manchuria, where they built forts and
traded with the eastern Mongols. During the 1680s, Kangxi drove the
Russians from the lower Amur River. This victory during the early years of
the reign of Peter the Great (1682–1725) led to the 1689 Treaty of
Nerchinsk, which excluded Russia from northern Manchuria while
permitting its caravans to visit Beijing.
In the west there was a complex, three-sided relationship among Russia,
the western Mongols, and Tibet. Kangxi, and then Qianlong, campaigned
against the Mongols, invaded Tibet, and in 1727 signed a new treaty with
Russia. During the campaigns, the Chinese temporarily came to control
millions of square miles of new territories. Ever since, even after China’s
borders contracted, the Chinese have insisted that the Manchu conquests
define their legitimate borders. The roots of present-day border contentions,
and the Chinese claim to Tibet, go back to these events during the
eighteenth century.
Europeans had reached China during the Tang and the Yuan dynasties.
But only with Europe’s oceanic expansion in the sixteenth century did they
arrive in large numbers. Some came as missionaries, of whom the most
successful were the Jesuits. The Jesuits studied Chinese and the Confucian
classics and conversed with scholars. They used their knowledge of
astronomy, geography, engraving, and firearms to win entry to the court at
Beijing and appointments in the bureau of astronomy. When the Manchus
came to power, the Jesuits kept their position. They tried to propagate
Christianity, attacking Daoism and Buddhism, but arguing that
Confucianism as a rational philosophy complemented Christianity. They
interpreted the Confucian rites of ancestor worship as secular and
compatible with Christianity. A few high court officials were converted. But
the Jesuits’ rivals, the Franciscans and Dominicans, reported to Rome that
the Jesuits condoned Confucian rites. Papal bulls in 1715 and 1742 forbade
Chinese Christians to participate in ancestor worship, and the emperor
banned Christianity in China.

QUICK REVIEW
Chinese Contacts with the West
Europeans arrived in China in large numbers after the sixteenth
century
The most successful missionaries were the Jesuits
By the eighteenth century, Europeans could trade only at Canton

Other Europeans came to China to trade. The Portuguese came first in the
early sixteenth century but behaved badly and were expelled. They returned
in midcentury and were permitted to trade on a tiny peninsula at Macao that
was walled off from China. They were followed by Dutch from the East
Indies (Indonesia), by the British East India Company in 1699, and by
Americans in 1784. By the early eighteenth century, Westerners could trade
only at Canton. They could not bring their wives to China. They were
subject to Chinese law and were controlled by official merchant guilds.
Nevertheless, the trade was profitable to both sides.
The British East India Company developed a triangular commerce among
China, India, and Britain. For China, this trade produced an influx of specie,
and the Chinese officials in charge grew immensely wealthy. Chafing under
the restrictions, in 1793 the British government sent negotiators. The
emperor Qianlong permitted Lord Macartney (1736–1806) to present his
gifts, which the Chinese described as tribute, but he turned down
Macartney’s requests. Western trade remained encapsulated at Canton.
Jesuit Missionary. A late seventeenth-century color engraving of the Jesuit
missionary Johann Adam Schall depicts him in traditional Confucian dress
holding a sextant and a compass. A globe is behind him on the left.
Why were the Manchus interested in Western science?

MING–QING CULTURE
One thing that can be said of Ming–Qing culture, like population or
agricultural productivity, is that there was more of it. Whether considering
gentry, scholar officials, or a professionalized class of literati, their numbers
and works were far greater than in previous dynasties. Even local literary
figures or philosophers were likely to publish their collected works or have
them published by admiring disciples. Bookstores came of age in the Ming,
selling not only books but also colored prints, novels, erotica, and model
answers for the civil service examinations.
Chinese culture had begun to turn inward during the Song in reaction to
Buddhism. This tendency was accelerated by the Chinese antipathy to
Mongol rule and continued into the Ming and Qing, when Chinese culture
became virtually impervious to outside influences. Even works on
mathematics and science translated into Chinese by the Jesuits left few
traces in Chinese scholarly writings. Chinese cultural self-sufficiency
reflected a tradition and a social order that had stood the test of time, but it
also indicated a closed system of ideas with weaknesses that would become
apparent in the nineteenth century. Orthodox thought during these five
centuries was Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism. From the mid- to the late Ming,
some perturbations were caused by the Zen-like teachings of the
philosopher Wang Yangming (1472–1529), whose activism caused him to
be jailed, beaten, and exiled at one point in an otherwise illustrious official
career.
Several other original thinkers had only a limited influence on their own
times. The most interesting was Gu Yanwu, who wrote on both philology
and statecraft. He used philology and historical phonetics to get at the
original meanings of the classics and contrasted their practical ethics with
the “empty words” of Wang Yangming. Gu’s successors extended his
philological studies, developing empirical methods for textual studies, but
lost sight of their implications for politics. The Manchus clamped down on
unorthodox thought, and the seventeenth-century burst of creativity
narrowed into a bookish, conservative scholasticism. Not until the end of
the nineteenth century did thinkers draw from these studies the kind of
radical inferences that philological studies of the Bible had produced in
Europe.
Ming and Qing Chinese esteemed most highly the traditional categories
of high culture: painting, calligraphy, poetry, and philosophy. Porcelains of
great beauty were also produced. In the early Ming the blue-on-white glazes
predominated. During the later Ming and Qing more decorative wares with
enamel painted over the glaze became widespread. The pottery industry of
Europe was begun during the sixteenth century to imitate these wares, and
Chinese and Japanese influences have dominated Western ceramics ever
since.
Chinese today, however, look back and see the novel as the characteristic
cultural achievement of the Ming and Qing. The Chinese novel grew out of
plot-books used by earlier storytellers. Most authors were scholars who had
failed the examinations, which may account for their caustic comments on
officials. They generally used pseudonyms and wrote in colloquial Chinese.
 Two collections of lively short stories from this period have been
translated into English: Stories from a Ming Collection and The Courtesan’s
Jewel Box. Many other stories were pornographic. In fact, the Ming may
have invented the humorous pornographic novel. One example available in
English is The Carnal Prayer Mat. This genre was suppressed in China
during the Qing and rediscovered in Japanese collections in the twentieth
century.

JAPAN

The two segments of “late traditional” Japan could not be more different.
The Warring States era (1467–1600), which was really the last phase of
Japan’s medieval history, saw the unleashing of internal wars and anarchy
that scourged the old society from the bottom up. Within a century all
vestiges of the old manorial or estate system had been scrapped, and
virtually all of the Ashikaga lords had been overthrown. The Tokugawa era
(1600–1868) that followed saw Japan reunited and stable, with a more
competent government than ever. The culture was also brilliantly
transformed, preparing it for the challenge it would face during the mid-
nineteenth century.

WARRING STATES ERA (1467–1600)

WHAT IMPACT did military technology have on Japanese society in

this period?

War is the universal solvent of old institutions. Nowhere in history was this
clearer than in Japan between 1467 and 1600. In 1467 a dispute arose over
who would be the next Ashikaga shōgun. The dispute led to war between
territorial lords who supported the respective contenders. Conflicts raged
throughout Japan for eleven years. Most of Kyoto was destroyed in the
fighting, and the authority of the Ashikaga bakufu came to an end. This first
war ended in 1477, but the fighting resumed and continued for more than a
century.

WAR OF ALL AGAINST ALL

Even before 1467, the Ashikaga equilibrium had been precarious. The
regional daimyo lords had relied on their relationship to the bakufu to hold
their stronger vassals in check, while relying on these vassals to preserve
their independence against strong neighbors. The collapse of bakufu
authority after 1467 left the regional lords standing alone, removing the last
barrier to internecine wars. The regional lords became prey to the stronger
among their vassals as well as to powerful neighboring states.

daimyo
A term meaning “great name”; these men were the most powerful feudal
leaders in Japan from the tenth to the nineteenth century.

By the end of the sixteenth century virtually all Ashikaga daimyo had
fallen. In their place emerged hundreds of little “Warring States daimyo,”
each with his own warrior band. In one prefecture along the Inland Sea, the
remains of 200 hillside castles of such daimyo have been identified. The
constant wars among these men were not unlike those of the early feudal
era in Europe. A Japanese term for “survival of the fittest”—“the strong eat
and the weak become the meat”—is often applied to this century of warfare.
Of the daimyo bands, the most efficient in revamping their domain for
military ends survived.
Daimyo Castle. Construction of the “White Heron” castle in Himeji was
begun during the Warring States era and was completed shortly after 1600.
During the Tokugawa peace, it remained as a monument to the glory of the
daimyo. Today it can be seen from the “bullet train.”

Morris Simoncelli, Japan Airlines Photo.

How was central authority reasserted over the daimyo?

As fighting continued, hundreds of local states gave way to tens of

regional states. The castles of such regional states were often located on
plains, and as castle towns grew up around them, merchants flocked to
supply the needs of their growing soldiery. Eventually, alliances of these
regional states fought it out, until in the late sixteenth century all of Japan
was brought under the hegemony of a single lord. Oda Nobunaga (1534–
1582) completed the initial unification of central Honshu and would have
finished the job had a treacherous vassal not assassinated him in 1582.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598), who had begun life as a lowly foot
soldier, completed the unification in 1590. After his death his vassal
generals once again went to war, and it was only with the victory of
Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616) at the battle of Sekigahara in 1600 that true
unification was finally achieved. Ieyasu’s unification of 1600 superficially
resembled that of the Minamoto in 1185 but was in fact based on a
sweeping transformation of Japan’s society.

FOOT SOLDIER REVOLUTION

During the Warring States period, the foot soldier replaced the aristocratic
mounted warrior as the backbone of the military. Soldiers were still called
samurai and were still vassals of a lord, but their numbers, social status, and
techniques of warfare changed dramatically. All public lands and estates,
including the emperor’s, were seized and converted into fiefs, which were
privately governed by the fief holder. A fief was not divided among heirs
but passed intact to the ablest son.
With larger revenues, Warring States daimyo built bigger armies. They
recruited mainly from the peasantry. By the late sixteenth century hundreds
of thousands of troops were deployed in major campaigns. In the mid-
fourteenth century a new weapon was developed: a thrusting spear with a
thick shaft and a heavy chisel-like blade. Held in both hands, it could
penetrate medieval armor; it could also be swung about like a quarterstaff.
It was used by soldiers positioned at intervals of three feet in a pincushion
tactic to impale charging cavalry. The weapon spelled the end of the
aristocratic warrior in Japan. Its use coincided with the recruitment of
peasant soldiers, for it required only short training. A second change in
military technology was the introduction of the musket by the Portuguese in
the mid-sixteenth century. Warring States generals quickly adopted it. As
individual combat gave way to mass armies, warfare became pitiless, cruel,
and bloody.

CHRONOLOGY
WARRING STATES JAPAN AND THE ERA OF UNIFICATION
(1467–1600)
 The society that emerged from the Warring States period was, in some
senses, feudal. By the late sixteenth century, all warriors in Japan were part
of a pyramid of vassals and lords headed by a single overlord, and warriors
of rank held fiefs and vassals of their own. But in other respects, Japan was
more like post-feudal Europe. First, most of the military class was made up
of soldiers, not aristocrats. Even though they were called samurai and were
vassals, they were something new. They were not given fiefs but were paid
stipends of rice bales. Second, in mid-sixteenth-century Japan the military
class may have reached 7 or 8 percent of the population (in feudal England,
for example, it was about one quarter of 1 percent). It was more of a size
with the mercenary armies of Europe during the fifteenth or sixteenth
century. Third, the recruitment of village warriors added significantly to the
power of Warring States daimyo but gave rise to problems as well. Taxes
became harder to collect. Local samurai were often involved in uprisings.
When organized by Pure Land Buddhist congregations, these uprisings
sometimes involved whole provinces. Again, the parallels with post-feudal
Europe seem closer. Fourth, even in a feudal society, not everything is
feudal. The commercial growth of the Kamakura and Ashikaga periods
continued through the dark decades of the Warring States era.
Arrival of the Portuguese in Japan. Portuguese merchants arrived in
Japan in 1543 from India and the East Indies. Their crews were multiethnic,
and they brought Jesuit priests as well.

“Arrival of the Portuguese in Japan” Detail—central section of the boat,

1594–1618. Screen. Paint, gold, paper. Museo, Soares Dos Reis, Porto,
Portugal. Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, New York.

How are the Portuguese depicted in this painting?

FOREIGN RELATIONS AND TRADE

Japanese pirate-traders plied the seas of East Asia during the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. To halt their depredations, the Ming emperor invited the
third Ashikaga shōgun to trade with China. An agreement was reached in
1404. However, piracy stopped only after Japan was reunified at the close
of the sixteenth century.
Early Japanese exports to China were raw materials, but by the sixteenth
century, manufactured goods were rising in importance. In exchange, Japan
received copper cash, porcelains, paintings, books, and medicines. After
establishing his hegemony over Japan, Hideyoshi permitted only ships with
his vermilion seal to trade with China, a policy the Tokugawa continued.
Between 1604 and 1635 over 350 ships went to China in this “vermilion-
seal trade.” Then, in 1635, the policy of national seclusion ended Japan’s
foreign trade. No Japanese were permitted to leave Japan, and the
construction of large ships was prohibited.
Overlapping Japan’s maritime expansion in the seas of East Asia was the
arrival of European ships. Portuguese pirate-traders made their way to Goa
in India, to Malacca, to Macao in China, and arrived in Japan in 1543.
Spanish galleons came in 1587 via Mexico and the Philippines. The
Iberians were followed by the Dutch and the English after the turn of the
century.
The Portuguese, from a tiny country with a population of 1.5 million,
were motivated by a desire for booty and profits, and by religious zeal.
Their ships were superior. Taking advantage of the Chinese ban on maritime
commerce, they became important as shippers. They carried Southeast
Asian goods and Japanese silver to China and Chinese silk to Japan and
then used their profits to buy Southeast Asian spices for the European
market.
Traders brought with them Jesuit missionaries, who concentrated their
efforts on the samurai. Christian converts numbered about 300,000 in 1600
—a higher percentage of Japanese than are Christian today. It is difficult to
explain why Christianity met with greater success in Japan than in other
Asian lands. There seemed little difference to the Japanese between the
cosmic Buddha of Shingon and the Christian God, between the paradise of
Amida and the Christian heaven, or between prayers to Kannon—the
female bodhisattva of mercy—and to the Virgin Mary. The Japanese also
noted the theological similarity between the pietism of the Pure Land sect
and that of Christianity. To Japanese ears, the passage in Romans 10:13,
“whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,” was
reminiscent of the Pure Land practice of invoking the name of Amida. The
Jesuits, too, noted these parallels and felt that the devil had established
these sects in Japan to test their faith. Although Jesuit intolerance gave rise
to certain tensions and animosities, the personal example of the Jesuits—
their asceticism, devoutness, and learning—was also important in
facilitating the spread of Christianity.
The fortunes of Christianity began to decline in 1597, when six Spanish
Franciscans and twenty Japanese converts were crucified in Nagasaki,
apparently because a Spanish pilot had boasted that merchants and priests
were preparing Japan for conquest. Sporadic persecutions continued until
1614, when Tokugawa Ieyasu formally banned the foreign religion. The last
resistance was an uprising in 1637 to 1638 in which 37,000 Christians died.
After that, Christianity survived in Japan only as a hidden religion with
secret rites and devotions to “Maria-Kannon,” the mother of Jesus
represented or disguised as the Buddhist goddess of mercy holding a child
in her arms.
A few of these “hidden Christians” reemerged in the later nineteenth
century. Otherwise, apart from muskets and techniques of castle building,
all that remained of the Portuguese influence were certain loan words that
became a permanent part of the Japanese language: pan for bread, birōdo
for velvet, kasutera for sponge cake, karuta for playing cards, and tempura
for that familiar Japanese dish.

TOKUGAWA ERA (1600–1868)

HOW WAS Japanese culture transformed during the Tokugawa era?

POLITICAL ENGINEERING AND ECONOMIC GROWTH DURING THE

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
From 1467 to 1590 Japan’s energies were absorbed in wars. But after the
unifications of 1590 and 1600 Japan’s leaders sought to create a peaceful,
stable, orderly society. The transition was slow. By the middle or late
seventeenth century, however, Japan’s society and political system had been
radically reengineered. Vigorous economic and demographic growth had
also occurred. This combination of political and economic change made the
seventeenth century a period of great dynamism.
One pressing problem faced by Japan’s unifiers was how to cope with an
armed peasantry. In war, village warriors fought for their lord: The benefit
they offered the lord was greater than their cost. In peace, only the cost
remained: their resistance to taxation and the threat of local uprisings.
Accordingly, in the summer of 1588 Hideyoshi ordered a “sword hunt” to
disarm the peasants. Once the hunt was completed, the 5 percent of the
population who remained samurai used their monopoly on weapons to
control the other 95 percent.
Hideyoshi next froze the social classes. Samurai were prohibited from
quitting the service of their lord. Peasants were barred from abandoning
their fields to become townspeople. Samurai, farmers, and townspeople
tended to marry within their respective classes. Each class developed a
unique cultural character—though we must note the vast range of social
gradations within each class. A farmer who was a landlord and a district
official, for example, was a more important figure than most lower samurai
and lived in a different social world from a landless “water-drinking”
peasant too poor to buy tea.
“Picture-treading” Plaque. Fumi-e, or “picture-treading” plaques are
bronze images representing Christ or the Virgin, used by the Tokugawa with
increasing intensity from 1614 onward to extirpate the foreign religion. In
the fumi-e ceremony suspected converts were obliged to tread on the
plaques to show that they rejected Christianity.

DNP Archives.Com Company, Ltd./Tokyo National Museum.

Why was Christianity banned in Japan?

Having disarmed the peasantry, Hideyoshi ordered land surveys, which

defined each parcel of land by location, size, soil quality, product, and
cultivator’s name. Hideyoshi’s survey laid the foundations for a systematic
land tax. Based on these surveys, domains and fiefs were henceforth ranked
in terms of their assessed yield.
Despite all the evidence of Warring States political behavior, Hideyoshi
assumed that his vassals would honor their oaths of loyalty to his heir. He
was especially trustful of his great ally Tokugawa Ieyasu. His trust was
misplaced. After his death in 1598, Hideyoshi’s former vassals, paying little
attention to his heir, broke apart into two opposing camps. In 1600, they
fought a great battle from which Ieyasu emerged victorious.
Like the Minamoto of twelfth-century Kamakura, Ieyasu spurned the
Kyoto court and established his headquarters in Edo (today’s Tokyo), in the
center of his military holdings in eastern Japan (see Map 18–2 on page
459). He took the title of shōgun in 1603 and called his government the
bakufu. In Edo he built a great castle, surrounded by massive fortifications
of stone and concentric moats (the inner portions remain today as the
Imperial Palace). Ieyasu then used his military power to reorganize Japan.

Read the Document

Injunctions, Tokugawa Shogunate at myhistorylab.com

Ieyasu’s first move was to confiscate the lands of his defeated enemies
and to reward his vassals and allies. During the first quarter of the
seventeenth century the bakufu confiscated the domains of 150 daimyo,
some of former enemies and some for infractions of the Tokugawa legal
code, and transferred 229 daimyo from one domain to another. The transfers
completed the work of Hideyoshi’s sword hunt by severing long-standing
ties between daimyo and their disarmed former village retainers. When a
daimyo was transferred to a new fief, he took his samurai retainers with
him. During the second quarter of the seventeenth century transfers and
confiscations ended and the system settled down. The rearrangement
created a defensive system, with the staunchest Tokugawa supporters
nearest to the center of power.
The Tokugawa also established other systemic controls. Legal codes
regulated the imperial court, temples and shrines, and daimyo. Military
houses were enjoined to use men of ability and to practice frugality. They
were prohibited from engaging in drinking parties, wanton revelry, sexual
indulgence, habitual gambling, or the ostentatious display of wealth. Only
with bakufu consent could daimyo marry or repair their castles.
A second control was a hostage system, firmly established by 1642, that
required the wives and children of daimyo to reside permanently in Edo and
the daimyo themselves to spend every second year in Edo. Like the policy
of French king Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715) at Versailles, this requirement
transformed feudal lords into courtiers. The palatial Edo compounds of the
daimyo contained hundreds or thousands of retainers and servants and
occupied much of the city.
A third key control, established during the 1630s, was the national policy
of seclusion. Seclusion was no barrier to cultural imports from China and
Korea. But except for small Chinese and Dutch trading contingents at
Nagasaki, no foreigners were permitted to enter Japan, and on pain of death,
no Japanese were allowed to go abroad. Nor could oceangoing ships be
built. This policy was strictly enforced until 1854. Seclusion enclosed the
system of Tokugawa rule, cutting off outside political contacts.

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Edo Castle. Edo first became a castle town in the mid-fifteenth century.
Tokugawa Ieyasu made the castle his residence and headquarters in 1590,
and, after his great victory in 1600, rebuilt and extended it. This early Edo
period screen painting shows (upper right) the keep or inner citadel, which
was not rebuilt after a fire in 1657. Korean envoys (bottom center) enter the
castle grounds. They have brought tiger skins and other gifts. Onlookers
gawk at their unfamiliar garb. Warriors (top, far right) practice archery. The
inner castle compounds shown in the painting were only the central part of
an elaborate system of moats, stone-block ramparts, and gates. In 1868,
after the Meiji Restoration, Edo was renamed Tokyo (Eastern Capital) and
became the residence of the emperor.

How does Edo castle symbolize the power of Tokugawa Ieyasu?

Forces of political centralization and decentralization were delicately
balanced. Representing the forces of centralization was the bakufu, which
governed its own domain and also administered the controls over the whole
system. Representing decentralization were the domains of the 260 or so
daimyo. Their domain governments, like miniature bakufu, were staffed by
their samurai vassals. Each domain had its own autonomous military,
finances, judiciary, schools, paper money, and so on. Some Japanese
scholars label the Tokugawa polity the “bakufu-domain system.”
 The political dynamism of the period from Hideyoshi through the first
century of Tokugawa rule was matched by economic growth. The spread of
improved agricultural techniques had been impeded by regionalism and
wars. During the seventeenth century methods of water control and
irrigation that made double-cropping easier, better tools, new seed strains,
the use of bony fish or of night soil from cities as fertilizers, and other
techniques were widely applied. Resources no longer needed for war were
allocated to land reclamation. This doubled food production, which led to a
doubling of population from about 12 million in 1600 to 24 million in 1700.
The production of agricultural by-products, including cotton, silk, indigo,
lumber, dyes, and sake, also grew.
On coming to power, Nobunaga and Hideyoshi knew that political
unification alone was not enough. They recognized that prosperity would
make their rule easier, and, acknowledging the enterprise of merchants, they
abolished the medieval guilds and freed Japan’s central markets from
monopolistic restrictions. The result was a burgeoning of trade and the
formation of a national market network atop the domain economies. As this
network expanded during the seventeenth century, economic functions
became more differentiated and efficient.
The sharp decline in foreign trade caused by seclusion did not dampen
Japan’s domestic economy because of the tax system and consumption
patterns. Tokugawa tax policy was based on land, not commerce. Taxes
took about one-third of the peasant’s production. It was a heavier tax rate
than that in neighboring China and bespeaks the effective grasp that the
military class had on Japanese society. The 87 percent of the population
who lived in the countryside paid almost one-third of the country’s
agricultural wealth to the 5 percent in the military class. The remaining 8
percent of townspeople also lived off the tax flow by providing goods and
services for samurai. This distribution of benefits was mirrored in the three-
area city planning common to all castle towns: a large parklike area with
castle, trees, stone walls, and moats for the daimyo and his government; an
extensive samurai quarter; and a meaner townspeople’s quarter. Just as the
castle towns were the consumption centers of the regional tax economies,
so was Edo the national consumption center and a super-castle town. It had
the same three-area layout on a grander scale. By 1700 Edo had a
population of about 1 million.
 To support their Edo establishments, the daimyo sold tax rice in Osaka.
The “kitchen of Japan,” Osaka became the redistribution center from which
competing fleets of coastal shippers brought food, clothing, lumber, oil, and
other supplies to Edo. By 1700 Osaka’s population was about 400,000.
Kyoto, rebuilt after its destruction in the early Warring States period, was
almost as big. It continued as a center of handicraft production. It also was
the location of the “captive” imperial court, which, after suffering penury
during the Warring States era, was given support lands equivalent in
revenues to those of a small daimyo.
The system of alternate-year attendance at Edo contributed to the
development of overland transportation. The most traveled grand trunk road
was the Tōkaidō Road between Edo and Kyoto (see Map 18–2). The artist
Hiroshige (1797–1858) made a series of woodblock prints that depicted the
scenery at its fifty-three post stations.
MAP EXPLORATION
To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com
MAP 18–2. Tokugawa Japan and the Korean Peninsula. The area
between Edo and Osaka in central Honshu was both the political base of the
Tokugawa bakufu and its rice basket. The domains that would overthrow
the Tokugawa bakufu in the late nineteenth century were mostly in outlying
areas of southwestern Japan.

What controls did the Tokugawa impose to restrain the daimyo?

The growth of a national economy led to a richness and diversity in urban

life. Townsmen governed their districts. Samurai city managers watched
over the city as a whole. Public schools, police, and companies of
firefighters provided public services. There were also servants, cooks,
messengers, restaurant owners, priests, doctors, teachers, sword sharpeners,
book lenders, instructors in the martial arts, prostitutes, and bathhouse
attendants. In the world of popular arts there were woodblock printers and
artists, book publishers, puppeteers, acrobatic troupes, storytellers, and
Kabuki and Nō actors. Merchant establishments included money changers,
pawnbrokers, peddlers, small shops, single-price retail establishments like
the House of Mitsui, and great wholesale merchants. Merchant households
furnished the raw materials for the person-ae of Edo fiction: the skinflint
merchant who pinches every penny, the profligate son who runs through an
inheritance to an inevitable bankruptcy, an erring wife, or the clerk involved
in a hopeless affair with a prostitute.

Kabuki
A realistic form of Japanese theater similar to English Elizabethan drama.
Nō
A highly stylized form of Japanese theater performed on a simple stage.
The Commercial District of Osaka, the “kitchen” of Tokugawa Japan.
Warehouses bear the crests of their merchant houses. Ships (upper right)
loaded with rice, cotton goods, sake, and other goods are about to depart for
Edo (Tokyo). Their captains vied with one another to arrive first and get the
best price.

How did commerce develop in the Tokugawa period?

QUICK REVIEW
The Japanese Economy
Agricultural production doubled from 1600 to 1700
Peace sustained economic growth
Economic growth and national integration led to a rich and diverse
urban society

EIGHTEENTH AND EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURIES

By the late seventeenth century, the political engineering of the Tokugawa
state was complete. In the economy, too, dynamic growth gave way to
slower growth within a high-level equilibrium. Yet changes of a different
kind were under way.
The eighteenth century began with high drama. In 1701, a daimyo at Edo
Castle drew his sword and wounded an official who had insulted him. It
was a capital crime to unsheath a sword within the castle, and the daimyo
was ordered to commit harakiri (that is, to disembowel himself), which he
promptly did. This made his retainers rōnin, masterless samurai.
Twenty-one months later, on a snowy night in January, forty-seven of the
retainers attacked the residence of the bakufu official, took his head, and
then surrendered to the authorities. Their act struck the imagination of the
citizenry of Edo and was widely acclaimed. But the bakufu council ordered
all forty-seven to commit harakiri. The incident embodied the perennial
theme of duty versus human feelings. Writers of Kabuki drama and puppet
theater quickly took up the incident. To this day, there have been many
characterizations of Ōishi Kuranosuke, the leader of the band of forty-
seven, as the story has been reworked into novels, movies, and television
scripts.
Viewed historically, three points may be noted about the incident. First,
in a similar situation the more practical samurai of the Warring States
period would have forgotten their former lord and rushed to find a new one.
But in the Tokugawa era, with the authority of the daimyo backed by that of
the shōgun, there was no room for disloyalty. So loyalty became deeply
internalized and was viewed almost as a religious obligation. Second, the
incident tells something of the state in Tokugawa Japan. The 1615 “Laws
for the Military Houses” contains the passage: “Law is the basis of the
social order. Reason may be violated in the name of law, but law may not be
violated in the name of reason.”1 One Tokugawa law forbade private
vendettas. So, despite the moral purity of their act, the forty-seven “virtuous
warriors” had to die. Third, loyalty and idealism were not the monopoly of
males. In the drama, at least, samurai wives and daughters displayed the
same heroic spirit of self-sacrifice.

A Closer Look
Bridal Procession
Yohime, the twenty-first daughter of the eleventh shogun, approaches
the main Edo estate of the Kaga daimyo.
Questions
1. What was the political meaning of such a marriage?
2. What does this print say of the steeply hierarchical nature of the
Tokugawa warrior class?
To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com

Most political history of late Tokugawa Japan is written in terms of

alternating cycles of laxity and reform. Even during the mid-seventeenth
century, the expenses of the bakufu and daimyo states were often greater
than their income. Taxes were based on agriculture in an economy that was
becoming commercial. It was simple mathematics: After the samurai were
paid their stipends, not enough was left for the expenses of domain
government and the costs of the Edo establishments. Meanwhile, daimyo
and retainers of rank had developed a taste for luxury.
Over the years a pattern emerged. To make ends meet, domains would
borrow from merchants. Then, as finances became even more straitened, a
reformist clique of officials would appear, take power, and return the
domain to a more frugal and austere way of life. Debts would be repaid or
repudiated. A side effect of reform was the depression of the local merchant
economy. Since no one likes to practice frugality forever, after some of the
goals of the reform had been achieved, a new clique would take over the
government and a new round of spending would begin. The bakufu carried
out three great reforms on Tokugawa lands:

1716–1733 Tokugawa Yoshimune 17 years

1787–1793 Matsudaira Sadanobu 6 years
1841–1843 Mizuno Tadakuni 2 years

The first two were long and successful; the third was not. Its failure set
the stage for the ineffective response of the bakufu to the West in the mid-
nineteenth century. Daimyo domains also carried out reforms. Some were
successful, enabling them to respond more effectively to the political crisis
of the mid-nineteenth century.
The balance between centralization and decentralization lasted until the
end of the Tokugawa era. Not a single domain ever tried to overthrow the
bakufu hegemony. Nor did the bakufu ever try to extend its control over the
domains. But bureaucracy grew steadily. Public authority extended into
areas that had been private. In 1600 most samurai fiefs were run by their
samurai fief holders. By 1850, however, district officials administered all
but the largest of samurai fiefs. They collected the standard domain taxes
and forwarded their income to the samurai. In periods of retrenchment,
samurai were often paid only half the amount due. Paperwork proliferated:
records of births, adoptions, name changes, samurai ranks, fief registers,
court proceedings, and so on.
Of course, there were limits to bureaucratization. Only samurai could
aspire to official posts, and decision-making posts were limited to upper-
ranking samurai. But in periods of financial crises a demand arose for men
of ability, and middle- or lower-middle-ranking samurai became staff
assistants to bureaucrats of rank.
By 1700, the economy approached the limit of expansion within the
available technology. The population reached 26 million early in the
eighteenth century and remained at that level into the mid-nineteenth
century, a period during which the population of China more than doubled.
After 1700, taxes were stabilized and land surveys were few. Evidence
suggests little increase in grain production and only slow growth in
agricultural by-products. Some families made conscious efforts to limit
their size to raise their standard of living. Contraception and abortion were
commonplace, and infanticide was practiced in hard times. But periodic
disease, shortages of food, and late marriages among the poor were more
important factors in limiting population growth.
Some farmers remained independent cultivators, but by the mid-
nineteenth century, about a quarter of all cultivated lands were worked by
tenants. Most landlords had small holdings. The misery of the lower stratum
of rural society contributed to an increase in peasant uprisings during the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Authorities had no difficulty
quelling them, and no uprising in Japan approached those that erupted in
late Manchu China.
Commerce grew slowly during the late Tokugawa. In the early eighteenth
century, it was again subjected to regulation by guilds. Merchants paid set
fees in return for monopoly privileges in central marketplaces. Guilds were
also reestablished in the domains, and some domains created domain-run
monopolies on products such as wax, paper, indigo, or sugar. The problem
facing domain leaders was how to share in the profits without injuring the
competitive standing of domain exports. Most late Tokugawa commercial
growth was in rural industries—sake, soy sauce, dyes, silks, or cotton.
Some were organized and financed by city merchants. Others competed
with city merchants, shipping directly to the end markets to circumvent
monopoly controls. The expansion of labor in rural industries may explain
why the population of late Tokugawa cities declined.
The largest question about the Tokugawa economy concerns its relation
to Japan’s rapid industrialization in the late nineteenth century. Some
scholars have suggested that Japan had a “running start.” Others have
stressed Japan’s backwardness in comparison with European developers.
The question remains unresolved.
Mother Bathing Her Son. Woodblock print by Kitagawa Utamaro (1753–
1806). Utamaro was so popular a master of his genre that publishers hired
unknown artists to produce fakes in his name. This led him to sign some
works “the genuine Utamaro.” He boasted of his high fees, comparing
himself to a great courtesan and his imitators to streetwalkers. Note the
tub’s skillful design, the mother’s wooden clog, and her simple yet elegant
kimono. A second kimono hangs to dry at the upper-right corner.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri (Purchase:

Nelson Trust). © The Nelson Gallery Foundation. All Reproduction Rights
Reserved.

What commentary on women’s roles does this woodblock print

provide?

TOKUGAWA CULTURE
Two hundred and fifty years of peace and prosperity provided a base for an
ever more complex culture and a broader popular participation in cultural
life. A satire by Saikaku (1642–1693), a drama by Chikamatsu (1653–
1724), or a woodblock print of a beauty by Utamaro (1753–1806) may be
taken to represent the new urban culture of the Tokugawa era. In such
works, one discerns a new secular consciousness, an exquisite taste put to
plebeian ends, occasional vulgarities, and a sense of humor only
occasionally encountered in the earlier Japanese tradition.
In the villages, Buddhism became more deeply rooted, and new folk
religions proliferated. By the early nineteenth century, most well-to-do
farmers could read and write. The aristocratic culture of the ranking
samurai houses also remained vigorous. Nō plays continued to be staged.
The medieval tradition of black ink painting was continued by the Kanō
school and other artists. The Ashikaga tradition of restraint, simplicity, and
naturalness in architecture was extended. The gilded and colored screen
paintings that had surged in popularity during Hideyoshi’s rule developed
further, culminating in the powerful works of Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716).
Zen Buddhism, having declined during the Warring States period, was
revitalized by the monk Hakuin (1686–1769), who was also a writer, a
painter, a calligrapher, and a sculptor.
Some scholars have described Tokugawa urban culture as having two
divisions. One was the work of serious, high-minded samurai, who
produced a vast body of Chinese-style paintings, poetry, and philosophical
treatises. The other was the product of the townspeople: low-brow,
irreverent, secular, satirical, and often scatological. The samurai esteemed
Song-style paintings of mountains and waterfalls, often adorned with
quotations from the Confucian classics or Tang poetry. The townspeople
collected prints of people and scenes from everyday life. Samurai moralists
saw money as the root of evil; merchants saw it as their goal in life. (In
Osaka, merchants even held an “abacus festival,” at which their adding
machines were consecrated to the gods of wealth and commerce.)
In poetry, too, a double structure appeared. Bashō (1644–1694) was born
a samurai but gave up his status to live as a wandering poet. He is famous
for his travel journal, The Narrow Road of Oku, and especially for his
haiku, exquisitely crafted and elevated word-picture poems. The haiku of a
townsman would be more likely to exemplify worldly humor.
The greatest works of literature and philosophy of Tokugawa Japan were
produced between 1650 and 1725, just as the initial political transformation
was being completed, but the economy was still growing and the society
was not yet set in its ways. One of the major literary figures and certainly
the most entertaining was Ihara Saikaku (1642–1693), who is generally
credited with having recreated the Japanese novel with works including The
Life of an Amorous Man and its sequel, The Life of an Amorous Woman.
Saikaku wrote more than twenty other works, including The Japanese
Family Storehouse, which humorously chronicles the contradictions
between the pursuit of wealth and the pursuit of pleasure.

QUICK REVIEW
Japanese Theater
Three kinds of Kabuki plays: dance, domestic drama, and historical
Kabuki actors use dramatic realism
Nō dramas very stylized
Actresses forbidden in 1629; all roles performed by men
Puppet theater, other forms popular at various times

Another major figure was the dramatist Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653–

1724). Born a samurai, Chikamatsu wrote for both the Kabuki and the
puppet theater. In contrast to Saikaku’s protagonists, the men and women in
Chikamatsu’s dramas struggle to fulfill the duties and obligations of their
stations in life. Only when their passions become uncontrollable, which is
generally the case, do the plays end in tragedy.
Kabuki had begun early in the seventeenth century as suggestive skits
and erotic dances performed by actresses. In 1629, the bakufu forbade
women to perform on the stage. By the 1660s, Kabuki had evolved into a
more serious drama with male actors playing both male and female roles. In
the early eighteenth century Kabuki was displaced in popularity by the
puppet theater (Bunraku). The word puppet does not do justice to the half-
life-sized human figures. Manipulated by a team of three, they rival Nō
masks in their artistry. In the late eighteenth century the puppet theater, in
turn, declined, and Kabuki again blossomed as Japan’s premier form of
drama.
The most important change in Tokugawa intellectual life was that the
ruling elite abandoned the religious worldview of Buddhism in favor of the
more secular values of Confucianism. The great figures of Tokugawa
Confucianism adapted Chinese Confucianism to fit Japanese society in the
late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. For example, in Chinese
Confucianism there was no place for a shōgun, whereas in the Japanese
tradition of sun-line emperors, there was no room for the Mandate of
Heaven. Most Tokugawa thinkers handled this discrepancy by saying that
heaven gave the emperor its mandate and that the emperor then entrusted
political authority to the shōgun. (This solution was not very realistic, since
the emperor was just a figurehead.) Another problem was the difference
between China’s centralized bureaucratic government and Japan’s system of
lord–vassal relationships. Samurai loyalty was clearly not that of a scholar-
official to the Chinese emperor. Some Japanese Confucianists solved this
problem by saying that it was China that had deviated from the feudal
society of the Zhou sages, whereas in Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu had re-
created that society. A third problem concerned the “central flowery
kingdom” and the barbarians around it. No philosopher could bring himself
to say that Japan was the real middle kingdom, but some argued that
centrality was relative, whereas others suggested that China under barbarian
Manchu rule had lost its claim to universality.
Japanese thought retained its intellectual vitality into the mid-nineteenth
century. Thinkers were stimulated in part by disputes among different
schools of Confucianism and, perhaps, by Japan’s lack of an examination
system. The best energies of its samurai youth were not channeled into
writing sterile essays. Official preferment—within the constraints of Japan’s
hereditary system—was more likely to be obtained by writing a proposal
for domain reforms.
Schools expanded rapidly, beginning in the early eighteenth century. By
the mid-nineteenth century, about 40 to 50 percent of the male population
and 15 to 20 percent of the female population was literate—a far higher rate
than in most of the world and on a par with late developers in Europe.
For Tokugawa scholars, the emotional problem of how to deal with China
was vexing. Their response was usually ambivalent. They praised China as
the teacher country and respected its creative tradition. They studied its
history, philosophy, and literature, and began a tradition of scholarship on
China that has remained powerful to this day. But they also sought to retain
a separate Japanese identity. Most scholars dealt with this problem by
adapting Confucianism to fit Japan. But two schools—never in the
mainstream of Tokugawa thought, but growing in importance during the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries—arrived at more radical
positions.
 Two important schools of scholarship—National Studies and Dutch
Studies—were diametrically opposed in most respects but alike in
criticizing the Chinese influence on Japanese life and culture. National
Studies began as a philological examination of ancient Japanese texts.
Scholars in the National Studies tradition tried to find in the Japanese
classics the original true character of Japan before it had been influenced by
Chinese ideas. They concluded that the early Japanese spirit was
spontaneous, lofty, and honest, in contrast to the Chinese spirit, which they
characterized as rigid, cramped, and artificial. National Studies also
reaffirmed Japan’s imperial institution. National Studies became influential
during the late Tokugawa era and influenced the Meiji Restoration. Its
doctrines continued thereafter as one strain of Japanese ultranationalism.

National Studies
A Japanese intellectual tradition that emphasized native Japanese culture
and institutions and rejected the influence of Chinese Confucianism.

A second development was Dutch Studies. After Christianity had been

proscribed and the policy of seclusion adopted, all Western books were
banned in Japan. The ban on Western books (except for those propagating
Christianity) was ended in 1720 by the shōgun Tokugawa Yoshimune (r.
1716–1745). Japanese pioneers recognized early that Western anatomy texts
were superior to Chinese. By the mid-nineteenth century, there were
schools of Dutch Studies in the main cities of Japan. Those who studied
Dutch focused on medicine, but some knowledge of other Western sciences
and arts also entered Japan.

Dutch Studies
Scholarship based on books imported by Dutch traders, particularly medical
and scientific texts.

Starting in the late eighteenth century, the Japanese began to think of the
West, and especially of Russia, as a threat to Japan. A sudden expansion in
Dutch Studies occurred after Commodore Matthew Perry’s visits to Japan
in 1853 and 1854. During the 1860s, Dutch Studies became Western
Studies, as English, French, German, and Russian were added to the
languages studied at the bakufu Institute for the Investigation of Barbarian
Books. Dutch Studies was not a major influence on Tokugawa thought, but
it laid a foundation on which the Japanese built quickly when the need for
knowledge of the West arose.

CHRONOLOGY
TOKUGAWA ERA (1600–1868)

KOREA AND VIETNAM

Korea and Vietnam are an unlikely duo. Korea is a northern land; Vietnam
is tropical. Yet both countries, like Japan, took in Tang civilization and
adapted it to their own purposes. Chinese civilization in the sixth and
seventh centuries was the only high civilization in the area. Chinese laws,
philosophies, and political institutions may be thought of as a technology of
a kind. That other countries would borrow them was little different from
Third World countries today that borrow the science, technology, and
political ideas of the recent West.
But Koreans and Vietnamese also gained identities separate from China.
In time, they took pride in their independence. Germany might be a parallel
case in Europe: It borrowed the heartland Greco-Christian culture of the
Mediterranean area, but it kept its original tongue and elements from its
earlier culture.
KOREA

WHAT WAS Korea’s relationship to China?

Geography shaped Korean history. A range of mountains along its northern

rim divides the Korean peninsula from Manchuria, making it a distinct
geographical unit. Mountains continue south through the eastern third of
Korea, while in the west and south are coastal plains and broad river
valleys. Two further geographical factors affected Korean history. One was
that the northwestern corner of Korea was only 300 miles from the
northeastern corner of historical China: close enough for Korea to be
vulnerable to invasions by its powerful neighbor but far enough away so
that most of the time China found it easier to treat Korea as a tributary than
to control it directly. The second factor was that the southern rim of Korea
was just 100 miles distant from the Japanese southern island of Kyushu
across the Tsushima Straits (see Map 18–3).

EARLY HISTORY
During its old and new stone ages, Tungusic tribes moving south from
northeast Asia peopled Korea. They spoke an Altaic tongue—related to
Japanese and to Manchurian, Mongolian, and Turkic. They lived by
hunting, gathering, and fishing, and, like other early peoples of northeast
Asia, they made comb-patterned pottery and practiced an animistic religion.
They worshiped the sun, moon, sea, and other forces of nature, and they
communicated with the spirits of the dead through shamans. Important
leaders were buried in megalithic tomb mounds. The early society was
transformed by the introduction of bronze in 1300 B.C.E., agriculture in 1000
B.C.E., and iron in 400–300 B.C.E. Most of the population originally lived in
small coastal or riverside villages and only gradually spread inland.
Koreans were still ruled by tribal chiefdoms in 108 B.C.E. when the Han
emperor Wudi sent an army into North Korea to menace the flank of the
Hunnish Xiongnu Empire that spread across the steppe to the north of
China. Wudi built a Chinese city—near Pyongyong, the present-day capital
of North Korea—which survived into the fourth century C.E., and
established commanderies and prefectures to administer the land.

MAP 18–3. Early Korean States.

How is early Korean history shaped by geography?

Between the fourth and seventh centuries C.E., as Chinese control
collapsed, three archaic states emerged from earlier tribal confederations.
One of them, Silla, conquered the other two in the seventh century, with
help from Tang armies. The Chinese armies wanted to stay and rule Korea,
but they withdrew after battles with Silla troops, and Silla was recognized
by China in 675 as an autonomous tribute state. The period of Silla rule
may be likened to eighth-century Nara Japan. The capital was laid out, like
China’s Chang’an, on a checkerboard pattern. Korea borrowed Chinese
writing, established government offices on the Chinese model, sent annual
embassies to the Tang court, and sent thousands of students to study at the
Tang capital. It embraced Chinese Buddhism, arts, and philosophies. Yet
within the Silla government, birth mattered more than scholarship and rule
by aristocrats continued, while in village Korea, the worship of nature
deities was only lightly touched by the Buddhism that spread among the
ruling elites.
Silla underwent a normal end-of-dynasty decline, with coups, wars, and
barbarian attacks across the frontier. Rebel kingdoms fought until 918,
when a warlord general founded a new dynasty, the Koryo. The English
word “Korea” is derived from this dynastic name. This was a creative
period. Korean scholars advanced in their mastery of Chinese principles of
government. New genres of poetry and literature appeared. Korean potters
made celadon vases rivaling those of China. The craft of history advanced:
The earliest surviving history of Korea was compiled in 1145. Printing
using movable metallic type was invented during the thirteenth century.
Most important of all was the growth of Buddhism. Temples, monasteries,
and nunneries were built throughout the land, and Buddhist arts flourished.
During the thirteenth century, Buddhist scholars produced in classical
Chinese a printed edition of the Tripitaka, a huge compendium of sutras and
other sacred writings.
The Koryo was more “Chinese” than the Silla: Government offices
resembled those in China and Chinese-type laws were enacted. But even
then, the aristocracy monopolized posts in the central government, and only
a third of the 300 district magistates were sent out from the capital; the rest
were appointed from local nobles or dignitaries. Apart from nobles, Koryo
society was made up of commoners (the “good people”) and slaves.
Commoners were burdened by heavy taxes of rice, labor, and military
service. Hereditary slaves made up almost one-third of the population.
Pulguksa temple, built in 751 (and recently restored) near the ancient Silla
capital of Kyongju. At right is a stupa containing a sutra, or relic of the
Buddha.

What role did Silla play in early Korean history?

Despite cultural advances, the Koryo state was weak. For one thing, the
Koryo economy was undeveloped: Trade was by barter, money did not
circulate, and Chinese missions commented on the extravagance of officials
in the capital and the squalor of commoners and slaves in Korea’s villages.
For another, the dynasty was aristocratic from the start, and as centuries
passed, private estates and armies arose, and civil officials were replaced by
military figures. Furthermore, frequent Mongol incursions from across the
northern border weakened state finances. The Koryo court survived as long
as it did by becoming in succession the tributary of the Song, Liao, Jin, and
Mongol dynasties.

CHOSON DYNASTY
In 1392, a Koryo general, Yi Songgye, was sent to fight invading Ming
(Chinese) armies. He decided that assuming power in Korea was more
advantageous; he made peace with the Chinese and founded the Choson
Dynasty. It lasted until 1910. Its amazing longevity was directly related to
the stability of Ming–Qing China; it served China’s interest to prop up an
obliging Korean state.
In the fifteenth century 10 to 15 percent of Korea’s population was
composed of noble families—yangban—who were the ruling class. Most
had possessed yangban status during the previous dynasty; only families
that had opposed the Yi’s coming to power lost their position. A little over
30 percent of the population were slaves. Early Choson Korea was the only
“slave society” in the history of East Asia. Korean scholars argue that
Korean slaves were not like slaves in other lands: There were no slave
auctions, and, in line with Confucian teachings, wives and husbands were
not separated. But slaves were nonetheless property. They were often
attached to land, they could be given as gifts, and their children were slaves
to be used as their owners willed. During the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, the number declined sharply, possibly because it was easier to tax
agricultural slaves than to own them. By the nineteenth century, only
household slaves remained. A majority of the Korean population were
commoner farmers, who were heavily taxed and usually bore their lot
stoically.

yangban
Elite Korean families of the Choson period.

If the preceding Koryo period was Korea’s age of Buddhist faith, the
Choson was its Neo-Confucian age. Confucian teachings as interpreted by
Zhu Xi became firmly established as the state orthodoxy. Civil and military
examinations, for which only the yangban had the time and means to
prepare, became the primary route to official promotion. Schools and
academies increased in number. By the late fifteenth century, Korean
philosophers were making original contributions to Zhu Xi philosophy. The
shift from Buddhism to Neo-Confucianism as the ideology of the ruling
elite may be seen as “East Asian” in that it paralleled changes that had
occurred in China during the Song Dynasty and would occur in Japan
during the Tokugawa era.
The history of Choson kings and their courts is filled with colorful
drama. There were good ministers and bad, usurpations, assassinations,
purges, and reforms. The yangban domination of the bureaucracy enabled
them to resist any reform by the throne that would have injured their
propertied interests. But they were united only in defense of their
prerogatives, and more often were divided into factions that waged bitter
struggles. The struggles can be explained, in part, by the fact that exam-
passers outnumbered the official posts available. Contention between
bureaucratic cliques for control of the government in Seoul was almost
constant, losers often being executed or imprisoned. As the struggles
continued, the effectiveness of government declined, except for a brief
recovery during the early eighteenth century. High officials in Seoul used
their power to garner private agricultural estates and establish schools to
prepare their kinsmen for examinations.

A Badge of Rank. In Choson Korea—as in China—the rank of an official

was indicated by the embroidered square affixed to his gown. Some squares
showed ducks, pheasants, egrets, leopards, or tigers. Here we see a crane
flying among the clouds and rainbows below.
How did badges of rank reflect Confucian values in Korean society?
Wise rulers and periods of good government should also be noted. An
early ruler, King Sejong (r. 1418–1450), reformed land taxes, made loans of
grain to farmers during spring planting, and encouraged the spread of better
agricultural technology. He also reformed the army and navy, attacked
pirate strongholds on Tsushima Island, and expanded Korea’s borders north
of the Yalu River. In 1420, he established a Hall of Worthies to encourage
scholarship. Scholars at his court made sundials, water clocks, and
astronomical instruments. But even Sejong suffered setbacks. The
outstanding achievement of the Hall of Worthies was the creation of an
alphabetic script known as hangu. But the script was never widely used and
then only for informal purposes. Chinese remained the language of
scholarship and official communications: it had prestige, authority, and the
support of the educated yangban class. Sejong also promoted the use of
coins and paper money to stimulate commerce, but they never caught on.
Artisans for the most part were attached to noble households, and barter
remained the rule. King Sejong was also unable to provide for an orderly
succession: he had twenty sons and fourteen daughters, but after his death,
his uncle usurped the Korean throne.

CHRONOLOGY
KOREAN HISTORY
 At mid-dynasty, invasions dealt a severe blow to Choson society. Having
brought all of Japan under his control, Hideyoshi decided to conquer China
by invading through Korea. His samurai armies devastated Korea in 1592
and 1596. The invasions ended with his death in 1598. On both occasions
the Ming court sent troops to aid its tributary, but the Chinese armies
devastated the land almost as badly as the Japanese. A third disaster
occurred in 1627 and 1637 when Manchu troops invaded pro-Ming Korea.
The result of these multiple incursions was a roughly 75 percent drop in
taxable land. Behind this statistic lay famine, death, and misery.
Had the Choson government been stronger, it might have recovered.
Instead, from the mid-seventeenth century on, Korea offers a mixed picture.
Literacy rose, and a new popular fiction of fables, romances, and novels
appeared. Women writers became important for the first time. Among some
yangban there was a call for “practical learning” to renew Korean society,
and scholars outlined plans for administrative reforms and the
encouragement of commerce. Their recommendations were not adopted,
and society continued its decline. More Koreans died in the famine of 1671
than during Hideyoshi’s invasions. Overtaxation, drought, floods,
pestilence, famine, and crime became commonplace. Disgruntled officials
led peasants in revolts in 1811 and 1862. Because of the concentration of
officials, wealth, and military power at Seoul and because of Manchu
support for the ruling house, neither revolt toppled the dynasty, but Korea
was weak. It had neither the will nor the means to meet the challenges it
would soon face.

VIETNAM

HOW DID Vietnam expand southward during this time?

VIETNAM IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

Four movements shaped the historical civilizations of Southeast Asia.
Vietnam was touched by each and by a fifth, as well. The first was the
movement of peoples and languages from north to south. Ranges of
mountains rising in Tibet and South China extend southward, dividing
Southeast Asia into river valleys. The Mon and Burmese peoples had
moved from the southeast slopes of the Tibetan plateau into the Upper
Irrawaddy by 500 B.C.E. and continued south along the Irrawaddy and
Salween rivers, founding the kingdom of Pagan in 847 C.E. Thai tribes
moved south from China down the valley of the Chao Phraya River
somewhat later, founding the kingdoms of Sukhothai (1238–1419) and
Ayutthaya (1350–1767). Even today Thai-speaking peoples are found in
several southern provinces of China. The origins of the Vietnamese are less
clear, but they, too, first inhabited the north and moved into present-day
central and southern Vietnam only in recent historical times.
A second movement was the Indianization of Southeast Asia. Between
the first and fifteenth centuries Indian traders and missionaries crossed the
Bay of Bengal and established outposts throughout Southeast Asia. As
Hinduism and Buddhism spread throughout the region, Indian-type states
with god-kings were established, and Indian scripts, legal codes, literature,
drama, art, and music were adopted by the indigenous peoples. Today,
Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia retain an Indian-type Buddhism; Bangkok
temple walls are painted with scenes from the great Hindu epic, the
Mahabharata. This early wave of Buddhism reached Vietnam but was later
supplanted by Chinese Buddhism.
A third movement was of Arab and Indian traders who sailed across the
Indian Ocean to trade with the Spice Islands (the Moluccas of present-day
Indonesia) between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Settling on the
coasts and islands of Southeast Asia, they married into local ruling families
and spread the teachings of Islam. Local rulers who converted became
sultans. Today Malaysia and Indonesia are predominantly Muslim. The
Cham state (located in what today is central Vietnam) also became Muslim.
Islam did not directly affect Vietnam, although Arab and Indian traders en
route to China would visit Vietnamese coastal harbors or travel up the Red
River to Hanoi.
A fourth movement, much later, was the Chinese diaspora. The
emigration of Chinese throughout the world but especially to Southeast
Asia gathered momentum after 1842 and the post–Opium War treaties.
Most Chinese went, initially, as indentured labor to work on plantations.
But in time many moved to cities and opened shops. The mercantile ethos
of the Chinese was more developed than that of peoples to the south. Even
today the casual visitor to Bangkok sees shopkeepers sitting in front of their
shops reading Chinese newspapers. Their children became educated; some
entered banking or law. In most of Southeast Asia the urban economies
were largely developed and controlled by Chinese. Assimilation occurred
but at a generational pace. The greatest concentrations of Chinese, apart
from Singapore (three quarters of the population), were in Malaysia,
Indonesia, and Thailand. But many of the “boat people” who fled Vietnam
after the Vietnam War were Chinese Vietnamese.
A fifth movement or event, which affected only Vietnam and made it a
part of East Asia, was conquest by China.

VIETNAMESE ORIGINS
Another perspective on Vietnam begins with geography. Vietnam has been
likened to two baskets on a carrying pole. One basket is the Red River
basin, centering on Hanoi in the north, the other the delta of the Mekong
River, centering on Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in the south. The carrying
pole is the narrow mountainous strip of central Vietnam, with little river
valleys opening to the South China Sea (see Map 18-4).
Until the late fifteenth century, the Vietnamese people inhabited only the
basin of the Red River, which flows from west to east and empties into the
Gulf of Tongking. The Chams, a wholly different people, occupied central
Vietnam and part of the southeastern coast. The seafaring Chams became
Hindu-Buddhist and later Muslim. They were united in the kingdom of
Champa and waged intermittent wars against the Vietnamese to their north.
A third people, the Khmers or Cambodians, inhabited the Mekong River
Delta. They were a part of the Hindu-Buddhist Cambodian (Khmer) Empire
that had its capital at Angkor in present-day Cambodia.
The early history of the Vietnamese in the Red River valley is known
only through archaeology. Agriculture began early; slash-and-burn
techniques were practiced in the highlands and crude paddy fields in the
lowlands. Bronze entered, probably from China, during the first millennium
B.C.E. and iron during the first or second century B.C.E. Pots made on potting
wheels and bronze arrowheads and fishhooks are found in excavations, but
plows were still tipped with stone. The people lived in villages under tribal
leaders and worshiped the spirits of nature; men tattooed their bodies.

MAP 18–4. Vietnam and Neighboring Southeast Asia

How did China’s proximity influence Vietnamese history?

A MILLENNIUM OF CHINESE RULE: 111 B.C.E.–939 C.E.

Vietnamese political history began in 208 B.C.E. when a renegade Han
Dynasty general formed the state of Nan Yueh. Its capital was near the
present-day Chinese city of Guangzhou. It ruled over peoples in both
southeastern China and the Red River basin. The Chinese ideograph for
Yueh is read Viet in Vietnamese. The name Vietnam, literally, “Viet to the
south,” is derived from the name of this early state. Nan Yueh lasted for a
century until Han armies conquered it and brought it under Chinese control
in 111 B.C.E. After that, the Red River basin was ruled by China for more
than 1,000 years.
For the first seven centuries, Vietnam was governed by a Chinese
military commandery like those established in Korea. The Chinese
governor ruled indirectly through local Vietnamese chiefs or magnates.
Refugees fleeing China after the fall of the Former Han Dynasty were
appointed as officials in Vietnam. In a famous incident of 39 C.E., the Trung
sisters led a revolt against Chinese rule. But in that age there was little sense
of “country,” and the only consequence of the revolt was a further
strengthening of Chinese controls.

Bronze drum engraved with intricate geometric designs from circa 800
B.C.E. Vietnam. An artifact of the early Bronze Age, it was made for
ceremonial purposes. Whether early Vietnamese bronze technology was
indigenous or whether it came from China is an open question.

What role did China play in the development of early Vietnamese

culture?
Vietnamese society changed during the centuries of Chinese rule. New
agricultural techniques and metal plows, introduced from China, allowed
permanent settlements and denser populations. Tribal organization gave
way to village society and matrilineal to patrilineal descent—though
women continued to enjoy a higher status than in China. Buddhism mingled
with earlier animistic beliefs. Chinese officials sometimes married
Vietnamese women, and a Sino-Vietnamese social elite arose in the capital.
During the Tang Dynasty (618–907), Vietnam was still treated as a
border region, but Chinese administration became stronger. The Red River
basin was divided into provinces, which the Chinese referred to collectively
as Annam, the “pacified south.” When the French came to Vietnam in the
nineteenth century, they picked up the term and called the north Vietnamese
Annamese.

Annam
The name given by the Chinese to modern-day Vietnam, meaning
“peaceful” or “pacified South.”

There are parallels between the introduction of Tang culture in Vietnam

and in Japan and Korea: In all three societies Buddhism entered, flourished
in the capitals, and gradually percolated into local areas, where it absorbed
elements from earlier indigenous religions. In all three, other aspects of
China’s higher culture affected mainly the elites, while an older way of life
continued in villages with only small changes. But where Japanese and
Korean rulers reached out for Chinese learning and technology and used it
for their own ends, the Vietnamese had it thrust upon them.
Ten major revolts occurred during the thousand years of Chinese rule—
not an unusual number for a Chinese border region with a non-Chinese
population. The last revolt, which took place in 939, when China was weak,
led to the establishment of an independent Vietnamese government.
Vietnam never again became a part of China.

AN INDEPENDENT VIETNAM
The history of independent Vietnam is conventionally divided into dynastic
blocks named after the ruling family: Ly (1009–1225), Tran (1225–1400),
Le (1428–1787), and Nguyen (1802–1880s). But Vietnamese “dynasties”
were not strong, centralized, bureaucratic states like those of China. There
were tensions between the center and peripheries. At the center were the
social elites who ruled the population of the Red River Delta. At the
periphery were magnates, powerful local figures, who controlled upland
peoples and possessed armies of their own. Thanh Hoa, a province 100
miles south of Hanoi, was of particular importance with magnates who
often opposed the “dynasty.” Often, several independent states coexisted
during the timespan of a single “dynasty.”
Chinese invasions also affected Vietnamese history. Some Chinese
dynasties, as they expanded, attempted to reconquer the “south” that had
once been a part of China. Ming armies occupied Vietnam for twenty years
beginning in 1407. But Vietnam was distant and hard to control. Rather
than engaging in wars, Chinese rulers found it easier to enroll Vietnam as a
tributary: Vietnamese dynasties sent ambassadors who professed the
Vietnamese ruler’s submission to the Chinese emperor. In official
communications to China the Vietnamese rulers styled themselves as
“kings,” indicating a subordinate status.
Their submission, however, was purely formal. Within Vietnam,
Vietnamese rulers styled themselves as “emperors” and claimed that their
mandate to rule came directly from Heaven. It was separate but equal to the
mandate received by the Chinese emperor. They also denied the universality
of the Chinese imperium by referring to China not as the Middle Kingdom
but as the Northern Court—their own government being the Southern
Court.

THE MARCH SOUTH

After twenty years of exploitative Ming rule, Le Loi, a landowner from
Thanh Hoa, drove out the occupying Chinese armies in 1427. He used war-
elephants in his attack against the Chinese forces. After his victory, he
established the Le Dynasty (1428–1787).
Two momentous developments began in Vietnam during the fifteenth
century and continued during the centuries that followed. One was a more
extensive adoption of Chinese institutions. For Vietnam’s rulers, Chinese
institutions and culture were not so much “Chinese” as they were an
advanced technology that could be used for their own purposes. The
reforms of Le Thanh Tong (1442–1497), an immensely talented early ruler,
were especially notable. He divided his realm into thirteen provinces and
then into prefectures, counties, and departments. He weakened the nobility
by holding civil service examinations for the selection of officials, and he
set up nine ranks of civil and military officials. He established schools,
introduced Neo-Confucian learning, and promoted public works. He
registered the population and reinstituted a Chinese-type land tax. After his
death, some of these reforms broke down, but in time other reformers
appeared and continued his work. Chinese institutions and culture proved
far more powerful than Chinese armies.
The second development, also begun by Le Thanh Tong, was what
Vietnamese historians call “the march to the south.” The “march” took
more than two centuries. In the first leg of the march, in 1471, Le armies
moved south to conquer the Muslim state of Champa. To secure the
Champa lands, Le established self-supporting colonies of Vietnamese
soldier-peasants along the coast of the former kingdom. These gradually
merged with the local population. To rule the Muslim Chams, in 1483 he
promulgated a Confucian-tinged legal code that remained in effect for a
century or more. It appealed to “universal” values that both Vietnamese and
Chams could accept. Successors to the Le throne, however, were unable to
maintain control over the central coast, and autonomous Vietnamese states
arose. These impeded the passage of settlers from the densely populated
Red River basin to the south during the sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries.

CHRONOLOGY
VIETNAMESE HISTORY
 The second leg of the march south was the conquest of the Mekong
Delta. Within Vietnam there had emerged a balance between the Trinh (the
Le had become figureheads), who held power in Hanoi, and the Nguyen
who ruled the central coast from their capital at Hue. The Nguyen gradually
extended their power to the sparsely settled Mekong Delta in the south:
They seized control of Saigon in 1698 and by 1757 ruled the south as far
west as the Gulf of Siam. Political control facilitated the flow of people
from the north and the central coast to the south, though Vietnamese
remained a minority in southern Vietnam throughout the eighteenth century.
The last phase of premodern Vietnamese history was the Nguyen
conquest of the north in 1802. This led to the founding of the Nguyen
Dynasty with its capital at Hue. Several French advisers and adventurers
who had aided the first Nguyen emperor were rewarded with high posts in
the new government. But from the time of the second emperor, the Nguyen
Dynasty turned against the French and began a new wave of borrowing
from China. It adopted the law codes of Qing China, recruited civil and
military officials by examination, and established in Hue Chinese
institutions such as the Six Boards, the Hanlin Academy, and a Censorate.
These moves were designed to placate Confucian scholars in the north,
strengthen the authority of the court, and weaken the generals who had
helped the dynasty’s rise.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, Vietnam was governed
better than in any previous era and better than any other Southeast Asian
state. By any traditional standard, it was competent. But it had weaknesses
as well. There were tensions between the north, which was overpopulated,
well schooled, and furnished most of the official class, and the south, which
was ethnically diverse, educationally backward, and poorly represented in
government. Commerce and artisanal skills were less developed than in
China and Japan, only small amounts of specie circulated, and periodic
markets were more common than market towns. The government rested on
a society composed largely of self-sufficient villages. In sum, Vietnam
entered the second half of the nineteenth century less prepared than China
or Japan for the challenges it would soon face.
Hue. A gate from the imperial citadel. Where is Hue?

SUMMARY

WHERE DID China expand under the Qing?

China: Ming and Qing Dynasties. China’s last two imperial dynasties
were the Ming (1368–1644) and the Qing or Manchus (1644–1911).
Chinese society became more integrated and its government more
sophisticated. The population reached 410 million, cities grew, and
commerce expanded. Chinese government rested on a bureaucracy educated
in Confucian teachings and the gentry class. Under the Qing, China
expanded to the west and east, establishing claims to Tibet, Central Asia,
and Taiwan. Trade with the West grew under the control of Chinese
officials. page 442
WHAT IMPACT did military technology have on Japanese society in
this period?
Japan: Warring States Era. With the collapse of the Ashikaga bakufu,
daimyo lords fought among themselves. The military was transformed by
new weapons and tactics, and Europeans arrived as traders and
missionaries. page 453
HOW WAS Japanese culture transformed during the Tokugawa era?
Japan: Tokugawa Era. The Tokugawa shōgun (1600–1868) restored order.
The government, based at Edo, controlled the military houses and
encouraged economic growth. Japan became closed to the outside world
except for a small Dutch presence at Nagasaki. Japanese drama, literature,
and art flourished, as did commercial life. page 456
WHAT WAS Korea’s relationship to China?
Korea. Korea was a tributary of China but developed according to its own
internal dynamics. Korea was notable for its Confucian culture and yangban
aristocracy. page 466
HOW DID Vietnam expand southward during this time?
Vietnam. Vietnamese history during this period was notable for its
conquest and peopling of the Mekong Delta. Fifteenth-century ruler Le
Thanh Tong took an early lead in introducing administrative reforms based
on Chinese government, and in expanding to the south. page 469

KEY TERMS

Annam
daimyo (dye-myoh)
Dutch Studies
gentry
Kabuki
Nō
National Studies
Shanxi banks
yangban (yahng-bahn)

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What factors led to economic and population growth in late

traditional China? Was the pattern the same in Japan during those
centuries?
2. How was Manchu rule like Mongol rule during the Yuan Dynasty?
How was it like the rule by Chinese emperors during the Ming?
3. What were the social and administrative foundations of the absolute
power of Ming–Qing emperors?
4. Compare and contrast the bureaucracies of China and Japan in this
period. What influences might you expect their differences to have
on the later histories of these countries?
5. How did advances in military technology change warfare in
sixteenth-century Japan? How was the strategic balance of power
reflected in the government created by Tokugawa Ieyasu?
 6. Did literacy change the samurai? How did literate samurai “fit” the
changed society of the late eighteenth century?
7. What was Dutch Studies? With what ideas did Dutch Studies
compete, and why is it important?
8. Who were the yangban, and how did they influence Korean history?
9. How and why did Vietnam expand to the south?
10. Summarize the relationship between Vietnam and China and
between Korea and China. Was either relationship stronger or more
significant? Explain.

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections

Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many

documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 18
Read the Document Mitamura, p. 447
A Ming Naval Expedition 15th c., p. 449
Injunctions, Tokugawa Shogunate, p. 457
Shohatto, p. 457

See the Map Ming and Qing China, p. 443

Research and Explore

See the Map Trade Routes in Southeast Asia, 1300–1650

See the Map Voyages of Zheng-He

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 18 at www.myhistorylab.com
19
State Building and Society in Early
Modern Europe

Hear the Audio for Chapter 19 at www.myhistorylab.com

Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna. Between 1743 and 1763 the Austrian

Empress Maria Theresa carried out the construction of the Schonbrunn
Palace on the outskirts of Vienna to symbolize Habsburg authority. Like
other European monarchs, she was influenced by Louis XIV of France. In
the seventeenth century, to symbolize his vast royal authority, Louis XIV
had constructed a vast new palace at Versailles outside Paris as the center of
his government.

Compare this photograph of Schonbrunn Palace with the painting of

Versailles on page 482 [A Closer Look]. How are the two buildings
similar?

EUROPEAN POLITICAL CONSOLIDATION

HOW DID England and France provide models for governance in early
modern Europe?

EUROPEAN WARFARE: FROM CONTINENTAL TO WORLD

CONFLICT

WHY WERE the European wars of the eighteenth century global in scope?

THE OLD REGIME

WHAT WERE the political and economic structures of the Old Regime?

FAMILY STRUCTURES AND THE FAMILY ECONOMY

WHAT WAS the role of women in the family economy?

THE REVOLUTION IN AGRICULTURE

WHAT WAS the connection between population increase and agricultural

improvements in the eighteenth century?

THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: AN

EVENT IN WORLD HISTORY

WHY DID the industrial revolution begin in England?

EUROPEAN CITIES

HOW DID population growth lead to changes in urban social structures?

THE JEWISH POPULATION: AGE OF THE GHETTO

HOW WERE European Jews segregated from European society?

From the early seventeenth to mid-twentieth centuries, Europe dominated

the world politically, militarily, and economically, as no region had before.
Two broad factors accounted for this situation. First, by the mid-eighteenth
century, five major states—Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and
Russia—had come to dominate European politics and would continue to do
so until at least World War I. These states began to fight among themselves,
first in Europe and then also in their colonial empires, in the late
seventeenth century. These conflicts had major consequences for the non-
European world.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
EARLY MODERN EUROPE
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries political and economic
developments occurred in Europe that set the continent on a path that by the
nineteenth century resulted in a period of European world domination that
ultimately proved temporary. The major states of northwestern Europe
consolidated themselves politically and militarily in strong, often aggressive
political units. The economy of this region of Europe would take the first
steps toward industrialization and the capacity to produce vast quantities of
both consumer and capital goods. The Netherlands, France, and Great
Britain developed sophisticated financial structures that fueled overseas
commercial empires, protected by strong navies.
These world-transforming developments occurred slowly. At the
beginning of this era of political and economic consolidation, much of
Europe resembled other major world civilizations. European states
displayed certain problems that also characterized the governments of
China and Japan during the same epochs. In particular, as in Japan, the
problem of a balance between centralization and decentralization arose in
virtually all the European states. In France, Russia, and Prussia, the forces
of centralization proved quite strong. In Austria the forces of
decentralization were powerful. England achieved a rather delicate balance.
Furthermore, as in Tokugawa Japan, European states of the eighteenth
century generally saw an increase in legal codification and in the growth of
bureaucracy. Only in Prussia did the military influence on society resemble
that in Japan.
The role of the personality of the monarch in Europe bore some
resemblance to that of certain Manchu emperors in China, such as Kangxi
(1662–1722) and Qianlong (r. 1736–1795). Louis XIV and Peter the Great
had no less influence on their nations than did these great Manchu
emperors. All of them built up military strength and fostered innovation.
However, although European rulers developed state bureaucracies, none of
them put together so brilliant a group of trained civil servants as those who
administered China. The roots of the Chinese civil service went back
centuries, and Chinese civil servants, unlike those in Europe, tended to
resist modernization of the Chinese government and economy for both
practical and ideological reasons. Civil servants in Europe tended to foster
rather than obstruct modernization, which posed no threat to their power or
worldview.
The global commercial empires of the Netherlands, France, Spain, and
England gave rise to fierce commercial rivalries. The drive for empire and
commercial supremacy propelled these states into contact with Africa, Latin
America, India, China, and Japan. Spain and Portugal had long exploited
Latin America as their own monopoly, an arrangement that England
challenged in the eighteenth century. China’s lack of interest in dominating
the Indian Ocean opened the way for European adventurers and traders in
India. France and England fought for commercial supremacy in India, and
by the 1760s England had, in effect, conquered the subcontinent. The slave
trade between Africa and the New World flourished throughout the
seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. European merchants and navies
also sought to penetrate East Asia, although their success was limited until
the advent of nineteenth-century “gunboat diplomacy.” As this term
implies, European success in Africa, Asia, and the Indian Ocean was
always closely linked to its sophisticated military technology, and
especially the construction of sturdy ships able to carry heavy cannons. As a
result of these developments, European commerce dominated the world for
the next two centuries. Moreover, beginning in the early eighteenth century
with the slow but later steady growth of industrialism, the political power of
the European states became linked to a qualitatively different economic
base than any seen elsewhere in the world. That political and economic
combination allowed Europe to dominate the world from the 1750s to the
Second World War II.

Focus Questions

How did European states resemble those in other parts of the world
in the mid-eighteenth century? How did they differ?
What was the relationship between military technology, especially
naval power, and the growth of European colonial empires?
What factors led to the political and economic transformation of
western Europe and its emergence as a region that would eventually
(for a time) dominate much of the world?

The second factor was a series of economic advances, primarily in

northwestern Europe, that laid the foundation for the social and economic
transformation of the world. For the first time in their history, Europeans
began to achieve a more or less stable food supply. The population of
Europe commenced a major period of growth. New inventions and
institutions, known collectively as the industrial revolution, gave Europe a
productive capacity previously unknown in human history. Economic
advances provided Europeans the tools to dominate much of the world.

EUROPEAN POLITICAL CONSOLIDATION

HOW DID England and France provide models for governance in

early modern Europe?
TWO MODELS OF EUROPEAN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
In the second half of the sixteenth century, changes in European military
organization, weapons, and tactics sharply increased the cost of warfare and
forced monarchs to seek new revenues. Rulers like the king of France, who
established secure financial bases without the support of nobles or
assemblies, exercised absolute rule. The English monarch, by contrast,
could govern only with Parliament by the end of the seventeenth century.
These two governmental systems—absolutism in France and
parliamentary monarchy in England—shaped Europe’s political
evolution.

absolutism

Term applied to strong centralized continental monarchies that attempted to

make royal power dominant over aristocracies and other regional
authorities.

parliamentary monarchy

A state headed by a monarch but whose power is shared with a national

representative body.

TOWARD PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND

When Elizabeth I died childless in 1603, the English crown passed to James
VI of Scotland, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots. He became James I of
England (r. 1603–1625), founder of the Stuart Dynasty. The Stuart kings
aspired to absolute power, and their pursuit of an income to support it
threatened the economic well-being of the nobility and elites represented in
Parliament. These groups invoked traditional English liberties and
effectively resisted the Stuarts. Puritans (Calvinists), who wanted a more
radical reformation of the Anglican Church, also opposed the kings. Both
James I and his son Charles I (r. 1625–1649) had Catholic sympathies and
favored peaceful relations with the Roman Catholic powers Spain and
France. Consequently, the first two Stuarts confronted a combined political
and religious opposition to their absolutist policies.

Puritans

English Protestants who sought to “purify” the Church of England of any

vestiges of Catholicism.

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The Divine Right of Kings, 1598, James I at myhistorylab.com

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Allegorical View: Cromwell as Savior England at myhistorylab.com

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Cromwell Abolishes English Monarchy 1651 at myhistorylab.com

In 1642, the conflict between Charles I and Parliament erupted into civil
war, which the parliamentary and Puritan forces won in 1645. In 1649, a
“rump” Parliament (one from which the opposition had been removed)
beheaded Charles I and abolished the monarchy, the House of Lords, and
the established church. England became a Puritan republic led by the
victorious general Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658). After Cromwell died,
disillusionment with Puritan strictness and republican mismanagement
prompted restoration of the Stuart monarchy under Charles II (r. 1660–
1685). His Parliament was dominated by conservative members of the
Church of England, and the policies it pursued severely restricted both
Protestant Non-Conformists and Roman Catholics. Parliament’s Test Act
established as a qualification for office an oath that no Roman Catholic
could take in good conscience.
 James II (r. 1685–1688), the brother who succeeded Charles in 1685, was
a Roman Catholic. He decreed toleration for both Roman Catholics and
Protestant Non-Conformists and imprisoned seven Anglican bishops who
refused to publicize his suspension of laws against Catholics. James’s
policy of toleration had as its goal the extension of royal authority over all
English institutions.
The English political classes had hoped that James would be succeeded
by Mary (r. 1689–1694), his Protestant eldest daughter. She was married to
William of Orange (1650–1702), stadtholder of the Netherlands and the
leader of European opposition to Louis XIV. But on June 20, 1688, James
II’s Catholic second wife gave birth to a son.

QUICK REVIEW

Charles II (r. 1660–1685)

England returned to the 1642 status quo when Charles assumed the
throne
Charles favored religious toleration
Issued Declaration of Indulgence in 1672 suspending all laws against
non-Anglicans

There was now a Catholic male heir to the throne. The parliamentary
opposition invited William to invade England to preserve its “traditional
liberties,” that is, the Protestant Church of England and parliamentary
government.

THE “GLORIOUS REVOLUTION”

William of Orange arrived with his army in November 1688. James fled to
France. Parliament in 1689 proclaimed William III and Mary II the new
monarchs, thus completing the so-called Glorious Revolution (its glory lay
in its supposed bloodlessness). William and Mary, in turn, recognized a Bill
of Rights that limited the powers of the monarchy and guaranteed the civil
liberties of the English privileged classes. Henceforth, England’s monarchs
would be subject to law and would rule by the consent of Parliament, which
was to be called into session every three years. The Bill of Rights also
prohibited Roman Catholics from occupying the English throne. The
Toleration Act of 1689 permitted worship by all Protestants but outlawed
Roman Catholics and those who denied the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

Glorious Revolution

The largely peaceful (at least within England) replacement of James II by

William and Mary as English monarchs in 1688-1689. It marked the
beginning of constitutional monarchy in Britain.

The Glorious Revolution has traditionally been seen as a relatively

peaceful event. Recent scholarship, however, has disclosed considerable
resistance in both Scotland and Ireland, which resulted in significant loss of
life. Conversely, events in England itself now appear to have been driven
not only by the long-recognized actions of the political elite but also by a
genuinely popular resistance to James II. Furthermore, the political results
of the revolution went well beyond the assertion of parliamentary authority.
William and Mary introduced many new policies, including those favoring
more modern economic activity, and a foreign policy shift toward direct
opposition to France.
The Act of Settlement in 1701 ended a century of strife by bequeathing
the English crown to Germany’s Protestant House of Hanover if Anne (r.
1702–1714), the second daughter of James II and the heir to the childless
William and Mary, died childless. At Queen Anne’s death in 1714, the
Elector of Hanover became George I of England (r. 1714–1727), the third
foreigner to occupy its throne in just more than a century.
Charles I ruled for several years without calling Parliament, but once he
began a war with Scotland, he needed revenues that only Parliament could
supply.

Anthony van Dyck, “Portrait of Charles I. Hunting.” c. 1635. Oil on

Canvas. 8’11” × 6’11 1/2” (2.72 × 2.12 m). Musee du Louvre, Paris. RMN
Reunion des Musees Nationaux/Art Resource, New York.

Compare this image of Charles I with the portraits of Louis XIV on

page 481 and the Qianlong emperor on page 449. How are the three
portraits similar? How are they different?

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The English Bill of Rights, 1689 at myhistorylab.com

 Under the Hanoverians, Britain achieved political stability and economic
prosperity during the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Robert Walpole
(1676–1745), George I’s chief minister from 1721 to 1742, was adept at
handling the House of Commons and exercising influence through
patronage. He maintained peace abroad and promoted the status quo at
home. Because the dominant economic groups were represented in
Parliament, they were willing to pay the taxes to support a powerful
military force, particularly a strong navy. As a result, Great Britain became
not only a European power of the first order, but also eventually a world
power.
The power of the British monarchs and their ministers was limited, and
Parliament could not ignore popular pressure. Many members of Parliament
held independent views. Newspapers and public debate flourished. Free
speech could be exercised, as could freedom of association. No standing
army intimidated the populace. The English state showed how military
power could coexist with political liberty, and Britain became the model for
European progressives who opposed the absolutist regimes on the
Continent. The political ideas that emerged in the British Isles during the
seventeenth century also took root in Britain’s North American colonies.

CHRONOLOGY

ENGLAND
RISE OF ABSOLUTE MONARCHY IN FRANCE: THE WORLD OF LOUIS
XIV
The French monarchy trod a very different political path. Louis XIV (r.
1643–1715) came to the throne at the age of 5. During his childhood his
chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin (1602–1661), tried to impose direct royal
administration on France. These efforts aroused a series of widespread
rebellions among French nobles between 1649 and 1652 known as the
Fronde (after the French word for the slingshot used by street boys).

YEARS OF PERSONAL RULE

After Mazarin’s death in 1661, Louis XIV assumed personal control of the
government. Louis concentrated unprecedented authority in the monarchy
but, with the Fronde in mind, respected local social and political
institutions. Because he governed directly, rebels could not defend
themselves from a charge of treason by claiming that they opposed only bad
ministers and not the king.
Louis XIV was innovative in the use of the physical setting of his court
to enhance his political power. The palace at Versailles, which was built
between 1676 and 1708, was a temple to royalty. Its splendor proclaimed
the majesty of the Sun King, as Louis was known. It housed thousands of
the more important nobles, royal officials, and servants, and preoccupation
with elaborate court ceremonies kept nobles from the real business of
government.
Louis XIV of France (r. 1643–1715) was the dominant European monarch
in the second half of the seventeenth century. The powerful centralized
monarchy he created established the prototype for the mode of government
later termed absolutism.

What do you notice about Louis XIV’s body, his clothes, and his
surroundings?

A Closer Look
Versailles
Louis XIV constructed his great palace at Versailles, as painted here in
1668 by Pierre Patel the Elder (1605–1676), to demonstrate the new
centralized power he sought to embody in the French monarchy.
Pierre Patel, “Perspective View of Versailles.” Châteaux de Versailles et de
Trianon, Versailles, France. Photo copyright Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art
Resource, New York.

Questions

1. How might the size alone of Versailles, as experienced by visitors

and by viewers of paintings and prints of the structure, have served
to overawe Louis’s subjects? What other buildings of the day might
have approached Versailles in size? In particular, how might French
nobility have reacted to the setting?
2. Do you think some people who saw Versailles or images of it might
have wondered how this extraordinary royal community was
financed and might have drawn critical conclusions about the
structure of French taxes?
3. By the end of his life Louis rarely ventured outside Versailles, and
neither did his eighteenth-century royal successors. How might the
 limitation of so much royal experience to the region of Versailles
have distorted the monarchs’ view of their kingdom?
4. How might the images of Louis in mythological scenes have created
a sense that his character and his power were vaster than those of
ordinary mortals?
To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com

Louis owed his concept of royal authority to his devout tutor, the political
theorist Bishop Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704). Bossuet defended
what he called the “divine right of kings.” He cited examples of Old
Testament rulers divinely appointed by and answerable only to God.
Medieval popes had insisted that only God could judge a pope; so Bossuet
argued that only God could judge the king. As God’s regents on Earth,
kings could not be bound by nobles and parliaments, for as Louis XIV
allegedly explained: “L’état, c’est moi” (“I am the state”).

divine right of kings

The theory that monarchs are appointed by and answerable only to God.

Louis was determined to unify France religiously, and in October 1685

he revoked the Edict of Nantes (1598), which had protected France’s
Huguenots. Protestant churches and schools were closed, Protestant
ministers exiled, nonconverting laity condemned as galley slaves, and
Protestant children taken to be baptized by Catholic priests. More than a
quarter million people fled and joined France’s opponents in England,
Germany, the Netherlands, and the New World.
As will be seen later in the chapter, Louis used most of the wealth and
authority he had amassed to lead France into a long series of wars that
ultimately weakened the nation by the time of his death in 1715. Yet despite
those failures he had established a model of strong centralized monarchy
that other monarchs in central and eastern Europe would copy.

QUICK REVIEW
Versailles
Palace of Versailles: Central element in the image of the French
monarchy
Nobles who wanted Louis’s favor congregated at Versailles
Life at Versailles governed by elaborate etiquette

RUSSIA ENTERS THE EUROPEAN POLITICAL ARENA

The emergence of Russia as an active European power was a new
development. Previously, Russia had hardly been considered part of
Europe, and prior to 1673 it maintained no permanent ambassadors in
western Europe. Hemmed in by Sweden on the Baltic and by the Ottoman
Empire on the Black Sea, Russia had no warm-water ports. Its chief outlet
for trade to the west was Archangel on the White Sea, which was ice-bound
part of the year.

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Ivan the Terrible at myhistorylab.com

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Michael Romanov at myhistorylab.com

BIRTH OF THE ROMANOV DYNASTY

The last half of the reign of Ivan IV (r. 1533–1584), or Ivan the Terrible,
was a time of enormous political turmoil in Russia. An era called the Time
of Troubles followed, and in 1613, an assembly of nobles tried to stabilize
the situation by electing as tsar a 17-year-old boy, Michael Romanov (r.
1613–1645). He began the dynasty that ruled Russia until 1917, but his
country remained weak and impoverished. The boyars, the old nobility,
controlled its bureaucracy, and the streltsy, or guards of the Moscow
garrison, constantly threatened mutiny.
boyars

The Russian nobility.

streltsy

Professional troops who made up the Moscow garrison. They were

suppressed by Peter the Great.

PETER THE GREAT

In 1682, a 10-year-old boy named Peter (r. 1682–1725) ascended the throne
with the help of the streltsy, who expected to exploit him. Like Louis XIV,
the turmoil of his youth convinced Peter that the power of the tsar had to be
made supreme over the boyars and the streltsy and that the tsar needed a
strong military.
Northwestern Europe, particularly the military resources of the maritime
powers, fascinated Peter I, who eventually became known as Peter the
Great. In 1697, Peter toured western Europe incognito (allowing him to
avoid the ceremony that would have attended an official royal visit). He
spent his happiest moments inspecting shipyards, docks, and shops that
produced military hardware, and he returned to Moscow determined to copy
the technology he had seen abroad. He also understood that his plans for
making Russia into a great nation would require him to oppose the long-
standing power and traditions of the Russian nobles.

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Peter the Great at myhistorylab.com

While Peter was abroad, the streltsy had rebelled. On his return, Peter
suppressed the revolt. Approximately a thousand rebels were put to death,
and their corpses remained on public display to discourage future disloyalty.
Peter then built a new military that would serve him, not itself. He
employed ruthless methods of conscription and over the course of his reign
drafted about 300,000 men. He adopted policies for the officer corps and
general military discipline patterned on those of west European armies.
Peter attacked the boyars and their attachment to tradition. He personally
shaved the long beards of the court boyars and sheared off the customary
long hand-covering sleeves of their shirts and coats, which had made them
the butt of jokes among other European courts. Peter skillfully balanced one
group against another as he rebuilt Russian government and military forces
along the lines of the more powerful European states.
Peter built a navy to compete with the Ottoman Empire in the Black Sea,
and in 1695 he began a war with the Ottomans. He also constructed a Baltic
fleet to fight the Great Northern War with Sweden (1700–1721). In 1721,
the Peace of Nystad confirmed Russia’s conquest of Estonia, Livonia, and
part of Finland. Peter had acquired the ice-free ports that were to give
Russia influence in European affairs.
Peter’s domestic and foreign policies intersected on the Gulf of Finland
where he founded his new capital city, St. Petersburg, in 1703. He built
government structures and compelled the boyars to construct town houses.
St. Petersburg symbolized a new Western orientation for Russia and Peter’s
determination to hold his position on the Baltic coast.
Peter was jealous of his son Aleksei, who had never demonstrated much
intelligence or ambition. Late in 1717, Peter suspected that Aleksei had
become the focal point for a seditious plot. He personally interrogated
Aleksei, who was eventually condemned to death and died under
mysterious circumstances on June 26, 1718.
The interrogations surrounding Aleksei had revealed greater degrees of
court opposition than Peter had suspected. Recognizing he could not
eliminate his numerous opponents the way he had attacked the streltsy in
1698, Peter undertook radical administrative reforms designed to bring the
nobility and the Russian Orthodox Church more closely under the authority
of persons loyal to the tsar.
In 1717 Peter reorganized his domestic administration, using the model
of Swedish institutions called colleges—bureaus of several persons
operating according to written instructions rather than departments headed
by a single minister. He established eight colleges to handle matters such as
the collection of taxes, foreign relations, war, and economic affairs. Each
college had a foreign adviser, and by making careful appointments Peter
balanced influence within these colleges between nobles and people he
trusted.
He also curtailed the independence of the Russian Orthodox Church,
some of whose clergy sympathized with the tsar’s son. In 1721, Peter
abolished the post of patriarch and submitted the church to a government
department called the Holy Synod, consisting of several bishops headed by
a layman. The Holy Synod made sure that the church supported the tsar’s
secular agenda.

Peter the Great (r. 1682–1725), seeking to make Russia a military power,
reorganized the country’s political and economic structures. His reign saw
Russia enter fully into European power politics. Here he is depicted as a
latter-day St. George, slaying a dragon.

The Apotheosis of Tsar Peter I the Great 1672–1725 by unknown artist

1710. Historical Museum Moscow Russia. E.T. Archive. Art
Archive/Picture Desk Inc./Kobal Collection.
What forces might the dragon symbolize?

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Battle of Poltava, 1709 at myhistorylab.com

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at myhistorylab.com

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Peter the Great with Alexis Russia at myhistorylab.com

St. Petersburg. Peter the Great built St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland
to provide Russia with better contact with western Europe. He moved
Russia’s capital there from Moscow in 1703. This is an eighteenth-century
view of the city.
Why would an image of St. Petersburg emphasize its position on the
sea?

In 1722 Peter published a Table of Ranks intended to draw the nobility

into state service. That table equated a person’s social position and
privileges with his rank in the bureaucracy or the military rather than with
his lineage among the traditional landed nobility. Peter thus made the social
standing of individual boyars a function of their willingness to serve the
state.

Table of Ranks

An official hierarchy established by Peter the Great in imperial Russia that

equated a person’s social position and privileges with his rank in the state
bureaucracy or army.

For all the decisive actions Peter had taken since 1717, he still had not
settled on a successor. Consequently, when he died in 1725, there was no
clear line of succession to the throne. For more than thirty years, soldiers
and nobles again determined who ruled Russia. Peter had laid the
foundations of a modern Russia, but not the foundations of a stable state.

CHRONOLOGY

RISE OF RUSSIAN POWER

THE HABSBURG EMPIRE AND THE PRAGMATIC SANCTION
After 1648 the Habsburg family retained a firm hold on the title of Holy
Roman Emperor, but the emperor’s power rested on the allegiance of
various political bodies in the empire. These included German states, cities,
bishoprics, and other territories. The Habsburgs also began to consolidate
their power within their hereditary possessions outside the Holy Roman
Empire, including the kingdom of Bohemia (in modern Czechoslovakia),
the duchies of Moravia and Silesia, Hungary, Croatia, and Transylvania. In
each of their many territories, the Habsburgs ruled by virtue of a different
title and needed the cooperation of the local nobility. They often had to
bargain with nobles in one part of Europe to maintain their position in
another.
Despite these internal weaknesses, Leopold I (r. 1658–1705) blocked the
advances of the Turks into central Europe and thwarted aggression by Louis
XIV. The Ottomans recognized his sovereignty over Hungary in 1699, and
he extended his territorial holdings over much of the Balkan Peninsula and
present-day western Romania (see Map 19-1).
 In the early eighteenth century the Habsburg emperor Charles VI (r.
1711–1740) had no male heir, and there was only a weak precedent for a
female ruler of the Habsburg domains. Charles feared that on his death the
Austrian Habsburg lands might fall prey to the surrounding powers.
Determined to prevent that disaster and to provide his domains with the
semblance of legal unity, he devoted most of his reign to seeking the
approval of his family, the estates of his realms, and the major foreign
powers for a document called the Pragmatic Sanction.

Pragmatic Sanction

The legal basis negotiated by the Emperor Charles VI (r. 1711–1740) for
the Habsburg succession through his daughter Maria Theresa (r. 1740–
1780).

This instrument provided the legal basis for a single line of inheritance
within the Habsburg dynasty through Charles VI’s daughter Maria Theresa
(r. 1740–1780). When Charles VI died, he believed that he had secured
legal recognition of the unity of the Habsburg Empire and the succession of
his daughter. However, his failure to provide Maria Theresa with a strong
army or a full treasury left her lands vulnerable to foreign aggression. Less
than two months after his death in December 1740, Frederick II of Prussia
invaded the Habsburg province of Silesia, and Maria Theresa had to fight
for her inheritance.

See the Map

Expansion of Russia under Peter Great at myhistorylab.com

MAP 19–1. The Austrian Habsburg Empire, 1521–1772. The empire had
three main units—Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary. Expansion was mainly
eastward: eastern Hungary from the Ottomans (seventeenth century) and
Galicia from Poland (1772). Silesia was lost after 1740, but the Habsburgs
remained Holy Roman Emperors.

How did Europe’s ruling families try to minimize the risks associated with
succession?

THE RISE OF PRUSSIA

The rise of Prussia occurred within the German power vacuum created by
the Peace of Westphalia. It is the story of the extraordinary Hohenzollern
family, which had ruled Brandenburg since 1417. Through inheritance the
family had acquired a series of territories, most of which were not
contiguous with Brandenburg. By the late seventeenth century, however,
their scattered holdings constituted a block of territory within the Holy
Roman Empire second only to that of the Habsburgs. Beginning in the mid-
seventeenth century, Hohenzollern rulers forged their geographically
separated holdings into a powerful state and built an army that empowered
them to rule without the approval of the local nobility.
There was, however, a political and social trade-off between the
Hohenzollerns and their nobles, the Junkers. In exchange for obedience to
the Hohenzollerns, the Junkers received the right to total authority over the
serfs on their estates. Furthermore, the heaviest taxes were imposed on the
peasants and the urban classes. Junkers increasingly dominated the army
officer corps, and all officials and army officers took an oath of loyalty to
the Hohenzollern rulers. The army provided the state with a semblance of
unity and made Prussia a desirable ally. As thanks for aiding the Habsburg
emperor in 1701, the Hohenzollerns were permitted the title of “King” in
Prussia, one of their parcels of territory that lay inside Poland and outside
the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor.

Junkers

The noble landlords of Prussia.

See the Map

Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia, 1618–1786 at myhistorylab.com

Under Frederick William I (r. 1713–1740) the Prussian military grew

from about 39,000 in 1713 to over 80,000 in 1740, making it the third- or
fourth-largest army in Europe. Prussia’s population, in contrast, ranked
thirteenth in size. Separate laws applied to the army and to civilians. Laws,
customs, and royal attention made the officer corps the highest social class
of the state.
A Prussian Military Camp. This print shows a Prussian encampment in
the Pomerania, on the south coast of the Baltic Sea. By 1800 this entire
region had come under Prussian control.

What role did the military play in the Prussian rise to power?
Although Frederick William I built the best army in Europe, he avoided
conflict. His army was a symbol of Prussian power and unity, not an
instrument of aggression. At his death in 1740 he passed to his son
Frederick II (Frederick the Great, r. 1740–1786) this superb military
machine, but not the wisdom to refrain from using it. Almost immediately,
Frederick II upset the Pragmatic Sanction and invaded Silesia. He thus
crystallized the Austrian-Prussian rivalry for the control of Germany that
would dominate central European affairs for over a century.

EUROPEAN WARFARE: FROM

CONTINENTAL TO WORLD CONFLICT
 WHY WERE the European wars of the eighteenth century global in
scope?

Whereas religious zeal had largely fueled the European wars of the
Reformation era, dynastic and commercial rivalry drove wars from the
reign of Louis XIV through the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War in
1763. Each round of warfare was geographically more widespread. Through
these conflicts the European powers extended their military and political
presence to match their expanding commercial presence in the Americas
and in Asia.

THE WARS OF LOUIS XIV

By the late 1660s France had become superior to any other European nation
in administrative bureaucracy, armed forces, and national unity. Louis XIV
could afford to raise and maintain a large and powerful army and was in a
position to dominate Europe.
In 1667, Louis XIV led France into the first of four major wars designed
to expand his territory, and he was soon regarded as a menace to the whole
of western Europe, Catholic and Protestant alike. In 1681, Louis’s forces
occupied the free city of Strasbourg, prompting defensive coalitions to form
against him. One of these, the League of Augsburg, grew to include
England, Spain, Sweden, the United Provinces, and the major German
states, including the Habsburg Empire. Between 1689 and 1697, the League
of Augsburg and France battled each other on European fronts in the Nine
Years’ War, while England and France also warred in North America. In
1697, the Peace of Ryswick secured Holland’s borders and thwarted Louis’s
expansion into Germany.
Then on November 1, 1700, Charles II of Spain (r. 1665–1700) died and
bequeathed his estate to Louis’s grandson, Philip of Anjou, or Philip V of
Spain (r. 1700–1746). This tipped the balance of power in Europe in
France’s favor, and England, Holland, and the Holy Roman Empire formed
the Grand Alliance as a countermeasure. The War of the Spanish
Succession (1701–1714) soon enveloped western Europe. France finally
made peace with England at Utrecht in July 1713 and with Holland and the
emperor at Rastadt in March 1714. Philip V retained Spain, but England got
Gibraltar, a base for action in the Mediterranean. The long war left France
economically and politically exhausted. (See Map 19-2.)

See the Map

Europe after the Treaty of Utrecht, 1714 at myhistorylab.com

THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY COLONIAL ARENA

The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 established boundaries for the colonial
empires of the first half of the eighteenth century. Except for Portugal’s
Brazil, Spain claimed all of mainland South America, Mexico, Cuba, half of
Hispaniola, Florida, and California. Britain held the North Atlantic
seaboard, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Jamaica, and Barbados as well as a
few trading stations on the Indian subcontinent. The Dutch controlled
Surinam (Dutch Guiana) and various trading stations in Ceylon, Bengal,
and Java (modern-day Indonesia). The French claimed the St. Lawrence
River valley; the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys; Saint Domingue
(Haiti), Guadeloupe, and Martinique in the West Indies; and trading stations
in India and West Africa. French and English settlers in North America
clashed throughout the eighteenth century (see Map 19-3 on page 490).

MAP EXPLORATION

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MAP 19–2. Europe in 1714. The War of the Spanish Succession ended a
year before the death of Louis XIV. The Bourbons had secured the Spanish
throne, but Spain had forfeited its possessions in Flanders and Italy.

Which regions of Europe seem to have experienced political consolidation,

and which seem most splintered?

Each of the powers sought to make its imperial holdings into

impenetrable trading areas, but the Spanish government in particular lacked
the capacity to maintain a commercial monopoly over its sprawling
territory. The Treaty of Utrecht gave the British a thirty-year asiento, or
contract, to furnish slaves to the Spanish Empire and the right to send one
ship each year to the trading fair at Portobello (in present-day Panama). The
British cheated, and when the Spanish decided to enforce its restrictions, the
stage was set for conflict.

MAP 19–3. The Colonial Arena. The acquisition of overseas colonies by

European powers led to intense rivalries on a global scale. Territories
frequently changed hands during the eighteenth century.
Why were colonies central to European conflicts in the eighteenth century?

A Dutch Merchant and His Wife in Batavia (Java). Attributed to Jacob

Cuyp (1594–1651), this painting from 1650 shows the Dutch merchant
Jacob Mathieusen and his wife in front of Batavia’s harbor, on the island of
Java in the East Indies. The merchant points to his ships while a slave
shelters the couple from the tropical sun with a parasol.

How is the relation between the merchant and his wife depicted?
Between the Europeans and the non-European?

WAR OF JENKINS’S EAR

In 1731, when a Spanish patrol boarded a British vessel to search for
contraband, a fight ensued and an English captain, Robert Jenkins, had his
ear cut off. He preserved it in a jar of brandy and in 1738 displayed it to the
British Parliament as evidence of alleged Spanish atrocities inflicted on
British merchants. Late in 1739, Great Britain went to war with Spain and,
in conjunction with Prussia’s aggression on the continent, began a series of
worldwide European wars.

THE WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION (1740–1748)

In December 1740, as noted earlier in the chapter, Frederick II of Prussia
seized the Austrian province of Silesia. Maria Theresa of Austria preserved
the Habsburg Empire by sacrificing some of the power of its crown. She
ensured the loyalty of the Magyars of Hungary, the most important of her
domains, by granting them considerable local autonomy. The link between
her war with Prussia, the War of the Austrian Succession, and the British–
Spanish commercial conflict was made by France. French aristocrats
pushed their government to support Prussia against Austria, France’s long-
standing enemy. French aid to Prussia helped consolidate a new and
powerful German state, a threat that brought Great Britain into the
continental war against France and Prussia. In 1744, the conflict expanded
beyond the continent when France decided to support Spain against Britain
in the New World. The war ended in stalemate in 1748. By the Treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle, Prussia retained Silesia. This was a truce, not a permanent
peace.

CHRONOLOGY

EUROPEAN CONFLICTS OF THE MID–EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR (1756–1763)

Before the rivalries again erupted into war, a dramatic shift of alliances took
place. In 1756 Prussia and Great Britain signed the Convention of
Westminster. The Prussians and the British hoped that their alliance would
dissuade Russia and France from invading Germany. When Austria
countered the loss of its British ally by turning to France, the European
alliances of the previous century were reversed.

The Taking of Quebec. The capture of Quebec in September 1759 by

British forces, followed by the seizure of Montreal a year later, signaled the
demise of French power in Canada.

How did the French lose control in Canada?

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The Seven Years’ War (1756–1763)

Prussian invasion of Saxony sparked war
War spread into North America
Treaty of Paris ended war in 1763

In August 1756, Prussia invaded Saxony to head off what Frederick II

thought was a conspiracy by Saxony, Austria, and France. This began the
Seven Years’ War. In the spring of 1757, France and Austria formed a new
alliance targeted at Prussia, and Sweden, Russia, and the smaller German
states joined them. Two factors in addition to Frederick’s strong leadership
saved Prussia: British financial aid and the death in 1762 of Empress
Elizabeth of Russia (r. 1741–1762). Her successor, Tsar Peter III (d. 1762),
fervently admired Frederick and immediately made peace with Prussia. The
Treaty of Hubertusburg of 1763 ended the Seven Years’ War with no
changes in borders.
More impressive than Prussia’s survival were Great Britain’s victories in
every theater of conflict. These were the work of William Pitt the Elder
(1708–1778), who was named secretary of state in charge of the war in
1757. North America, however, was Pitt’s real concern. He won control of
all of North America east of the Mississippi for Great Britain in what
American historians call the French and Indian War. Pitt’s aspirations were
global. He took Quebec from the French in 1759 and Montreal a year later.
The French West Indies fell to the British fleet. British forces on the Indian
subcontinent, under Robert Clive (1725–1774), defeated the French in 1757
and cleared the way for the conquest of all India by the British East India
Company. Never had a European power experienced such a complete
worldwide military victory.
The Treaty of Paris of 1763 was somewhat less triumphant. George III (r.
1760–1820) had succeeded to the British throne, and Pitt was no longer in
office. Britain received all of Canada, the Ohio River valley, and the eastern
half of the Mississippi River valley. France retained footholds in India at
Pondicherry and Chandernagore and regained the West Indies sugar islands
of Guadeloupe and Martinique.
The midcentury wars among European powers resulted in a new balance
of power on the European continent and the high seas. Great Britain gained
a world empire, and Prussia was recognized as a great continental power.
With the surrender of Canada, France retreated from North America and
thus opened the way for a continent largely dominated by the English
language and Protestantism. By contrast, Latin America remained
dominated by the Spanish and Portuguese languages and Roman
Catholicism. For many years, West Africa would continue to furnish slaves
to the economies of both Americas. On the subcontinent of India the
foundations were laid for almost two centuries of British dominance.

THE OLD REGIME

 WHAT WERE the political and economic structures of the Old
Regime?

During the turmoil of the French Revolution and its aftermath, it became
customary to refer to the patterns of social, political, and economic
relationships that had existed in France before 1789 as the ancien régime, or
the Old Regime. The term has come to be applied generally to the social
life and institutions of all prerevolutionary Continental Europe. Politically,
it meant the rule of theoretically absolute monarchies with growing
bureaucracies and aristocratically led armies. Economically, the Old
Regime was characterized by food shortages, the predominance of
agriculture, slow transport, a low level of iron production, comparatively
unsophisticated financial institutions, and, in some cases, competitive
commercial overseas empires. Socially, men and women saw themselves
less as individuals than as members of distinct corporate bodies that
possessed certain privileges or rights as a group. Few persons outside the
political, commercial, and intellectual elite actually wanted change or
innovation. As yet, only Britain had experienced early industrial
development.

Old Regime

Term applied to the pattern of social, political, and economic relationships

and institutions that existed in Europe before the French Revolution.

HIERARCHY AND PRIVILEGE

The medieval sense of hierarchy became more rigid during the eighteenth
century. Eighteenth-century Europeans did not enjoy what Americans
regard as individual rights. Instead, persons enjoyed such rights and
privileges as were guaranteed to the communities or groups of which they
were a part. The “community” might include the village, the nobility, the
guild, a university, or the parish. Each of these bodies enjoyed certain
privileges, ranging from exemption from taxation or degrading punishment,
to the right of one’s children to pursue a particular occupation, or for the
church, the right to collect the tithe.

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Servants under the Old Regime

Worked in exchange for room, board, and wages
Usually young and not socially inferior to the employer
Work as servants allowed young people to save toward independence

ARISTOCRACY
The eighteenth century was the great age of the aristocracy. Nobles
constituted about 1 to 5 percent of the population of any given country.
They were the single wealthiest group, and land was the chief source of
their income. They possessed the widest range of powers and dominated
polite society. Aristocracy everywhere was a matter of birth and legal
privilege, but in other respects, aristocrats differed markedly from country
to country. Great Britain boasted the smallest, wealthiest, and most socially
responsible aristocracy. Moving eastward across Europe, aristocrats became
more numerous, not always wealthy, but possessing increasing degrees of
arbitrary, repressive authority.
An aristocratic resurgence marked the eighteenth century as various
nobilities sought to defend their privileges against the expanding power of
monarchies and the growing wealth of commercial classes. The nobles
restricted entry into their ranks and institutions. They tried to curtail royal
authority by using institutions they already controlled: the British
Parliament, the French parlements, their local estates, and provincial diets.
Nobles also pressed the peasantry for higher rents or long-forgotten feudal
dues as a way to shore up their position and reassert traditional privileges.
To contemporaries, this aristocratic resurgence was one of the most
fundamental political facts of the day and one to which monarchs had to
pay attention.
aristocratic resurgence

Eighteenth-century aristocratic efforts to resist the expanding power of

European monarchies.

An Aristocratic Couple. Portraits such as this one of the English

landowner Robert Andrews and his wife, by Thomas Gainsborough (1728–
1788), contain many clues to the aristocratic dominance of landed society:
Andrews’s gun and dog indicate his exclusive right to hunt game on his
land. His wife’s sitting against the expanse of his landed estate suggests the
character of their legal relationship, whereby he could have controlled her
property, which would have thus become an extension of his. The market
price of the wheat raised on his estate (known in England as corn) would
have been protected by various import laws enacted by the English
Parliament, whose membership was dominated by landowners such as
Andrews himself.

© National Gallery, London/Art Resource.

What seems to be the relationship between husband and wife? Between

the humans and the land?

PEASANTS AND SERFS

Land was the economic basis of eighteenth-century life in Europe as it was
throughout the rest of the world. Well over three-fourths of Europe’s
population lived on the land. Most spent their entire lives within a few
miles of their birthplaces; they were poor, and their lives were hard.
Those who worked the land were subject to domination by landowners.
This was true to different degrees for free peasants, such as English tenants
and most French cultivators, and for the serfs of Germany, Austria, and
Russia, who were bound to individual plots of land and particular lords.
Generally, the power of landlords increased the farther east one traveled,
but nearly all peasants were subject to feudal dues and to forced labor on a
lord’s estate for a certain number of days each year.

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Domat: Social Order, Monarchy at myhistorylab.com

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Voltaire: Condition, 18th Century France at myhistorylab.com

Throughout continental Europe the burden of state taxation fell on the

tillers of the soil. Through various legal privileges and the ability to demand
concessions from their monarchs, the landlords escaped the payment of
numerous taxes. In Prussia and Austria, despite attempts by the monarchies
to improve the lot of serfs, landlords exercised almost complete control
over them. The serf’s condition was worst in Russia, where they were
regarded merely as economic commodities. Landlords could demand up to
six days a week of labor from them, and like Prussian and Austrian
landlords, they could punish their serfs. Although serfs had little recourse
against their lords, custom, tradition, and law provided a few protections.
For example, the marriages of serfs, unlike those of most slaves, were
legally recognized. The landlord could not disband the family of a serf.
Peter the Great gave whole villages of serfs to favored nobles, and
Catherine the Great (r. 1762–1796) confirmed the authority of the nobles
over their serfs in exchange for the nobility’s political cooperation. More
than fifty peasant revolts between 1762 and 1769 culminated between 1773
and 1774 in Pugachev’s Rebellion, the largest peasant uprising of the
eighteenth century. When it was brutally suppressed, any discussion of
liberalizing the condition of Russia’s serfs was postponed for a generation.
Smaller peasant revolts or disturbances occurred in Bohemia in 1775, in
Transylvania in 1784, in Moravia in 1786, and in Austria in 1789. Peasants
and serfs normally directed their wrath against property rather than persons,
and they sought to reassert traditional or customary rights against practices
they perceived as innovations. In this respect, the peasant revolts were
conservative.

FAMILY STRUCTURES AND THE FAMILY

ECONOMY

WHAT WAS the role of women in the family economy?

In preindustrial Europe, the household was the basic unit of production and
consumption. Very few productive establishments employed more than a
handful of people not belonging to the owner’s family. The household mode
of organization predominated on farms, in artisans’ workshops, and in small
merchants’ shops. With that mode of economic organization, there
developed what is known as the family economy.

family economy

The basic structure of production and consumption in preindustrial Europe.

Interdependent family members functioned as an economic unit.

THE FAMILY ECONOMY

Throughout Europe, family members saw themselves as working together
in an interdependent rather than an independent or individualistic manner.
The goal of the family household was to produce or secure through wages
enough food to support its members. In the countryside, they usually
farmed. In cities and towns, artisan production or working for another
person was the usual pattern. Almost everyone lived within a household.
Except for members of religious orders, people living outside a household
were viewed as potentially criminal, disruptive, or a drain on the charity of
others.
Within the family economy, all of the goods and income produced
benefited the household, not individual family members. The need to
survive poor harvests or economic slumps meant no one could be idle. Few
peasant households in western Europe had enough land to support
themselves by farming alone. One or more family members had to work
elsewhere and send wages home. It was not uncommon for a father to
become a migrant worker and shift the burden of farm work to his wife and
children.
In the urban version of the family economy, the father was usually a chief
craftsman who employed one or more servants. But he also expected his
children to work in his shop. His eldest child was usually trained in the
trade, and his wife might sell the wares he produced or pursue another
trade. The wife of a merchant also often ran her husband’s business,
especially when he traveled to purchase new goods. When business was
poor, family members looked for other employment to help the family unit
survive.
Farm Family. Painted by the English artist Francis Wheatley (1747–1801)
near the close of the eighteenth century, this scene is part of a series
illustrating a day in the life of an idealized farm family. Note the artist’s
assumptions about the division of labor by gender. Men work in the fields,
while women work in the home or look after the needs of men and children.
As other illustrations in this chapter show, many eighteenth-century women
in fact worked outside the home, but considerable social pressure was
developing at this time to restrict them to domestic roles. This painting and
the others in the series are thus more prescriptive than descriptive, intended
in part to persuade their viewers that women belonged in their separate
family sphere. Many, perhaps most, families living in the countryside could
not maintain the closeness that these paintings extol. To survive, many had
to send members to work on other farms or even to other regions.

Francis Wheatley (RA) (1747–1801), “Evening,” signed and dated 1799, oil
on canvas, 17 1/2 × 21 1/2 in. (44.5 × 54.5 cm), Yale Center for British Art,
Paul Mellon Collection, Bridgman Art Library (B1977.14.118).

How have images such as this one influenced the way we view
preindustrial society?

WOMEN AND THE FAMILY ECONOMY

The family economy shaped the lives of women in preindustrial western
Europe. A woman’s life experience was largely a function of her ability to
establish and maintain a household. Marriage was an economic necessity,
since a woman outside a household was highly vulnerable. Unless she was
an aristocrat or a member of a religious order, she probably could not
support herself. Consequently, much of a woman’s life was devoted first to
serving her parents’ household and then to establishing one of her own. In
most cases, bearing and rearing children were subordinate to these goals.
By the age of 7, a girl was expected to begin to do household work. On a
farm, she might look after chickens or water animals or carry food to adults
working the land. In an urban artisan’s household, she would do some form
of light work, such as cleaning, carrying, sewing, or weaving. She remained
in her parents’ home until they found more remunerative work for her
elsewhere. An artisan’s daughter might not leave home until marriage
because she was learning valuable skills from her parents. Girls who grew
up on farms usually left home by the age of 12 or 14. They were likely to
migrate to a nearby town or city to become household servants but would
rarely travel more than 30 miles from their parents’ home. (See Document,
“Priscilla Wakefield Demands More Occupations Be Opened to Women.”)
Marriage within the family economy was a joint economic undertaking.
A young woman’s chief goal was to accumulate a dowry, capital she could
contribute to setting up a household. It might take ten years or more to
accumulate a dowry, so marriage was usually postponed until a woman’s
mid- to late twenties. Within marriage, domestic duties, childbearing, and
child rearing were subordinate to economic survival. Consequently, couples
often practiced birth control, usually through the imperfect method of coitus
interruptus, or male withdrawal before ejaculation.
Women held active, often decisive roles in the family economy. If
economic disaster struck, more often than not it was the wife who took the
lead in sending off family members to find work elsewhere or even to beg
in the streets.

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Women in Preindustrial Society

By age 7 girls contributed to household work
Most girls left home between the ages of 12 and 14
A young woman’s chief goal was to accumulate a dowry

THE REVOLUTION IN AGRICULTURE

WHAT WAS the connection between population increase and

agricultural improvements in the eighteenth century?
The main goal of traditional European peasant society was to ensure the
stability of the local food supply. That supply was never certain and became
more uncertain the farther east one traveled. A failed harvest could mean
death from either outright starvation or protracted debility. Food was often
harder to find in the country than in cities because city governments usually
stored reserve supplies of grain.

French Peasants. During the seventeenth century the French Le Nain

brothers painted scenes of French peasant life. Although the images
softened many of the harsh realities of peasant existence, the clothing and
the interiors were based on actual models and convey the character of the
life of better off French peasants whose lives would have continued very
much the same into the eighteenth century.

What evidence here suggests that these were among the “better off”
French peasants of their time?

DOCUMENT
Priscilla Wakefield Demands More Occupations Be Opened to Women
At the end of the eighteenth century, several English women writers began
to demand a wider life for women. Priscilla Wakefield was among such
authors. She was concerned that women found themselves able to pursue
only occupations that paid poorly or excluded from work on the grounds of
their alleged physical weakness. She also believed that women should
receive equal wages for equal work. Many of the issues she raised have yet
to be adequately addressed on behalf of women.
• FROM reading this passage, what do you understand to have been
the arguments at the end of the eighteenth century to limit the kinds
of employment that women might enter? Why did women receive
lower wages for work similar to or the same as that done by men?
What occupations traditionally filled by men does Wakefield believe
women might also pursue?
Another heavy discouragement to the industry of women, is the inequality
of the reward of their labor, compared with that of men; an injustice which
pervades every species of employment performed by both sexes.
In employments which depend on bodily strength, the distinction is just;
for it cannot be pretended that the generality of women can earn as much as
men, when the produce of their labor is the result of corporeal exertion; but
it is a subject of great regret, that this inequality should prevail even where
an equal share of skill and application is exerted. Male stay-makers,
mantua-makers, and hair-dressers, are better paid than female artists of the
same professions; but surely it will never be urged as an apology for this
disproportion, that women are not as capable of making stays, gowns,
dressing hair, and similar arts, as men; if they are not superior to them, it
can only be accounted for upon this principle, that the prices they receive
for their labor are not sufficient to repay them for the expense of qualifying
themselves for their business; and that they sink under the mortification of
being regarded as artisans of inferior estimation.…
Besides these employments which are commonly performed by women,
and those already shown to be suitable for such persons as are above the
condition of hard labor, there are some professions and trades customarily
in the hands of men, which might be conveniently exercised by either sex.–
Watchmaking requiring more ingenuity than strength, seems peculiarly
adapted to women; as do many parts of the business of stationer,
particularly, ruling account books or making pens. The compounding of
medicines in an apothecary’s shop, requires no other talents than care and
exactness; and if opening a vein occasionally be a indispensable requisite, a
woman may acquire the capacity of doing it, for those of her own sex at
least, without any reasonable objection.… Pastry and confectionery appear
particularly consonant to the habits of women, though generally performed
by men; perhaps the heat of the ovens, and the strength requisite to fill and
empty them, may render male assistants necessary; but certain women are
most eligible to mix up the ingredients, and prepare the various kinds of
cakes for baking.–Light turnery and toy-making depend more upon
dexterity and invention than force, and are therefore suitable work for
women and children.…
Farming, as far as respects the theory, is commensurate with the powers
of the female mind: nor is the practice of inspecting agricultural processes
incompatible with the delicacy of their frames if their constitution be good.
Source: From Priscilla Wakefield, Reflections on the Present Condition of the Female Sex (1798),
(London, 1817), pp. 125–127, as quoted in Bridget Hill, ed., Eighteenth-Century Women: An
Anthology. Copyright © 1984 George Allen & Unwin, pp. 227–228.

During the eighteenth century, bread prices rose slowly but steadily,
spurred by demand from a growing population. Prices rose faster than urban
wages and brought no advantage to the small peasant producer. The
beneficiaries were landlords and the wealthier peasants who had surplus
grain to sell. The increasing price of grain encouraged innovation in farm
production and began an agricultural revolution.

agricultural revolution

The innovations in farm production that began in the eighteenth century and
led to a scientific and mechanized agriculture.

NEW CROPS AND NEW METHODS

The agricultural revolution began during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries in the Low Countries, where Dutch landlords and farmers devised
better ways to build dikes and to drain land so that they could farm more
extensive areas. They also experimented with new crops, such as clover and
turnips, that increased the supply of animal fodder and replenish the soil.
 These methods spread to England during the early eighteenth century.
Agricultural innovations were adopted slowly; many were incompatible
with the existing organization of land in Britain. In 1700 approximately half
the arable land in Britain was farmed by the “open-field method.” Small
cultivators in village communities usually tilled unconnected strips, and
their traditional two- or three-field systems of rotation left much land fallow
and unproductive each year. Decisions about planting were made
communally. The system discouraged innovation and aimed to produce a
steady, but not a growing, supply of food. By the second half of the century,
the rising price of wheat encouraged landlords to consolidate or enclose
their lands to increase production. Enclosure involved fencing common
lands, reclaiming previously untilled waste, and transforming cultivated
strips into block fields. These procedures disrupted the economic and social
life of the countryside and incited riots. The larger landlords resorted to
parliamentary acts for help in enclosing lands. Between 1761 and 1792,
almost 500,000 acres were enclosed through parliamentary acts. In 1801, a
general enclosure act streamlined the process.

enclosure

The consolidation or fencing in of common lands by British landlords to

increase production and achieve greater commercial profits. It also involved
the reclamation of waste land and the consolidation of strips into block
fields.

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English Common Lands Enclosed by Acts at myhistorylab.com

The enclosures have remained controversial. They increased food

production but disrupted small traditional communities. They forced off the
land some independent farmers, who had needed the common pasturage,
and very poor cottagers, who had lived on the reclaimed waste land. In
some counties where the enclosures took place, however, the population
increased. New soil had come into production, and services subsidiary to
farming also expanded. This advance in food production was necessary for
an industrial society to develop. It ensured adequate food for the cities and
freed surplus agricultural labor for industrial production.

The Lincolnshire Ox (1790) by George Stubbs. The “Lincolnshire Ox”

was a prize Hereford that grew to an enormous size by being fed solely on
grass. The fascination with the Lincolnshire Ox, which was displayed for
over a year in London, was characteristic of the general interest in
agricultural improvements.

How did agricultural improvements alter traditional peasant lives?

POPULATION EXPANSION
Agricultural improvement was both a cause and a result of an immense
growth in the population of Europe. Exact figures are lacking, but the best
estimates suggest that in 1700 Europe’s population was between 100
million and 120 million people. By 1800, the figure had risen to almost 190
million, and by 1850, to 260 million (see Figure 19–1). Such extraordinary
growth put new demands on all resources and considerable pressure on
existing social organization. The causes of this growth are unclear. The
death rate declined, thanks to fewer wars and epidemics in the eighteenth
century. But changes in the food supply itself may have been the chief
reason for sustained population growth. One contributing factor was the
widespread cultivation of a New World tuber, the potato. Enough potatoes
could be raised on a single acre to feed one peasant’s family for an entire
year. With this more certain food supply, more children could be reared, and
more could survive.

FIGURE 19-1. Population of Europe, 1500–1800. What caused

population growth to accelerate in the eighteenth century?
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION: AN EVENT IN WORLD
HISTORY

WHY DID the industrial revolution begin in England?

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Friend of Men: Treatise on Population at myhistorylab.com

In the second half of the eighteenth century the European economy began
very slowly to industrialize. This development, more than any other,
distinguished the West from the rest of the world for the next two centuries.
While this economic development was occurring, people did not call it a
revolution. That term was applied to technology-based advances in
productivity only after the French Revolution, when writers contended that
what had taken place in Britain was the economic equivalent of the political
events in France. From this comparison arose the concept of an industrial
revolution.
The European industrial revolution of the eighteenth century permitted
sustained economic growth, despite subsequent downturns and depressions.
At considerable social cost and dislocation, industrialism produced more
goods and services than ever before in human history and eventually
overcame the economy of scarcity. The new means of production demanded
new kinds of skills, new discipline in work, and a large labor force. In the
long run, industrialism raised living standards; the poverty in which most
Europeans had always lived was overcome.

industrial revolution

Mechanization of the European economy that began in Britain in the second

half of the eighteenth century.
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Over time the wealth produced by industrialism upset the political and
social structures of the Old Regime and led to political and social reforms.
The economic elite of the emerging industrial society eventually challenged
the political dominance of the aristocracy. Industrialization also undermined
traditional communities and, along with the growth of cities, displaced
many people. These processes repeated themselves virtually everywhere
that industrialization occurred during the next two centuries.
The consumer products of industrialization encouraged more
international trade in which Western nations supplied finished goods in
exchange for raw materials. Other areas of the globe became economically
dependent on European and American demand. The wealth achieved
through this uneven commerce allowed Europeans to dominate world
markets for almost two centuries. Furthermore, by the early nineteenth
century iron and steel production and the new technologies of manufacture
allowed European states and later the United States to build more powerful
military forces, especially navies, than those of Africa, Latin America, or
Asia. Both the economic and the military dominance of the West arose
directly from industrialization.
Much of the history of the non-Western world from the middle of the
eighteenth century to the present can be understood in terms of how the
nonindustrialized nations initially reacted to exposure to Europeans and
Americans made wealthy and powerful through industrialized economies.
Africa and Latin America became generally dependent economies. Japan,
by the middle of the nineteenth century, decided it must imitate the
European pattern and did so successfully. China did not make that decision
and became indirectly ruled by Europeans. The Chinese revolutions of the
twentieth century largely represented efforts to achieve real self-direction.
Southeast Asia and the Middle East became drawn into the network of
resource supply to the West; they could achieve movement toward
economic independence only through imitation or, like Arab nations in the
early 1970s, by refusing to supply oil to the West. The process of
industrialization that commenced in small factories in eighteenth-century
Europe has changed the world more than any other single development in
the last two centuries.
INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP OF GREAT BRITAIN
Great Britain remained the industrial leader of Europe and the world until
the late nineteenth century (see Map 19–4). Several factors contributed to
the early start of industrialization in Britain. Britain was the single largest
free-trade area in Europe, with good roads and waterways and no internal
trade barriers. There were rich deposits of coal and iron ore. The political
structure was stable, and property rights were secure. Banking and public
credit systems created a good investment climate. Taxation was heavy, but
fair. There was both domestic consumer demand and demand from the
North American colonies. Finally, British society was relatively open and
allowed people who earned money to rise socially.
Textile production inaugurated the industrial revolution. The peasant
family living in a one- or two-room cottage, not the factory, was the basic
unit of production in the eighteenth century. The same peasants who tilled
the land in spring and summer often spun thread or wove textiles in winter.
Under the domestic or putting-out system, agents of urban textile
merchants distributed wool or other fibers to the homes of peasants, who
spun it into thread. The agent then transported the thread to other peasants,
who wove it into cloth, and the merchant sold the final product. Sometimes
the spinners or weavers owned their own equipment, but more often than
not the merchant capitalist owned the machinery as well as the raw
material.

domestic or putting-out system

Method of production in which agents furnished raw materials to

households, whose members created finished products, which the agents
then sold.

By midcentury, production bottlenecks had developed within the

domestic system. Thanks to population growth, especially in Great Britain,
demand for cotton textiles was growing more rapidly than production. The
most famous inventions of the industrial revolution were devised in
response to consumer demand for cotton textiles. John Kay’s invention of
the flying shuttle in the 1730s gave weavers the technical capacity to
produce enough fabric to satisfy demand, but spinners could not make
enough thread for the weavers. Manufacturers offered prizes for the
invention of a machine to correct this imbalance, and in about 1765 James
Hargreaves (d. 1778) invented the spinning jenny.

spinning jenny

A machine invented in England by James Hargreaves around 1765 to mass-

produce thread.

The spinning jenny was a piece of machinery for cottage use. The
invention that moved cotton textile manufacture into the factory was
Richard Arkwright’s (1732–1792) water frame, patented in 1769. When
Arkwright lost his patent rights, other manufacturers used his invention, and
numerous factories sprang up in the countryside near streams that provided
water power. By 1815, cotton composed 40 percent of the value of British
domestic exports, and by 1830 just over 50 percent.

water frame

A water-powered device invented by Richard Arkwright to produce a more

durable cotton fabric. It led to the shift in the production of cotton textiles
from households to factories.
MAP 19–4. The Industrial Revolution in Britain. Richly endowed with
coal and iron ore and possessing many natural ports and a network of
navigable waterways, Britain exploited these advantages to become the
world’s first industrial nation.

How does this map show the connections between industry and
urbanization?
The critical invention that enabled industrialization to spread from one
industry to another was the steam engine. For the first time in history,
human beings were able to tap an unlimited source of inanimate power.
Unlike engines powered by water or wind, the steam engine, fueled by coal,
provided a portable, steady source of power that could be applied to many
industrial and transportation uses.
CHRONOLOGY

MAJOR INVENTIONS IN THE TEXTILE-MANUFACTURING

REVOLUTION

OVERVIEW Why the Industrial Revolution Began in Britain

Great Britain was the home of the industrial revolution, and until the middle
of the nineteenth century, it maintained the industrial leadership of Europe.
Several factors contributed to the early industrialization of Britain.
Natural Britain had extensive deposits of coal and iron ore.
Resources
Infrastructure Britain had an extensive network of roads and canals that
facilitated the shipment of raw materials and goods.
Society 1. The predominance of London: London was the
largest city in Europe and the social, commercial,
financial, and political center of Britain. It was thus
both an enormous market for consumer goods itself
and created a demand for these goods in the rest of
Britain, which sought to emulate London fashions.
2. The prevalence of newspapers: Newspapers thrived
in Britain, and advertisements in them increased
consumer demand for goods.
3. Wealth in Britain brought status: British society
was relatively mobile. Wealthy merchants and
entrepreneurs could rise socially, enter the
aristocracy, and enjoy political influence.
1. The rule of law: Britain had a stable government
Government, that guaranteed property rights. Institutions, and
Financial Empire

2. Britain was a free-trade area. No internal tolls

inhibited the shipment of goods and raw materials
within Britain.
3. Britain had a sound system of banking and public
credit that created a stable climate for investing in
commerce and industry.
4. Taxes were collected efficiently and fairly. No class
was exempt from paying taxes.
5. The colonial empire: British colonies were both a
market for British goods and sources of raw
materials for British manufacturers.

The first practical engine using steam power was invented by Thomas
Newcomen (1663–1729) in the early eighteenth century. It was large,
inefficient, and practically immovable, but English mine operators used it to
pump water out of coal and tin mines. In 1769, James Watt (1736–1819)
patented an improved design, but it required precise metalwork. Watt’s
partner Matthew Boulton (1728–1809), a toy manufacturer, worked with
John Wilkinson (1728–1808), a cannon manufacturer, to find ways to drill
the precise metal cylinders required by Watt’s engines. Boulton then
persuaded Watt to adapt the engine for use in running cotton mills. By the
early nineteenth century the steam engine had become the prime mover in
every industry. Applied to ships and then to wagons on iron rails, it also
revolutionized transportation.
The manufacture of high-quality iron was essential for industrial
development. In the course of the eighteenth century, British ironmakers
began to use coke (derived from coal) instead of charcoal to smelt ores, and
the steam engine provided power for high-temperature blast furnaces.
Britain had large coal deposits, and the steam engine improved iron
production while increasing demand for iron. In 1784, Henry Cort (1740–
1800) introduced a new method for melting and stirring molten ore that
yielded a purer iron. He also developed a rolling mill that shaped molten
metal into bars, rails, or other forms. (Previously, metal had been pounded
into shape.) All of these innovations achieved a better, more versatile, and
cheaper product, and by the early nineteenth century, annual British iron
production amounted to more than a million tons. The lower cost of iron in
turn lowered the cost of steam engines and allowed them to be used more
widely.

Blacksmith Shop. During the eighteenth century, most goods were

produced in small workshops, such as this English blacksmith shop shown
in a painting by Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797), or in the homes of
artisans. Not until very late in the century, with the early stages of
industrialization, did a few factories appear.

How does this painting reveal the artist’s attitude toward what is going
on here?

EUROPEAN CITIES
 HOW DID population growth lead to changes in urban social
structures?

PATTERNS OF PREINDUSTRIAL URBANIZATION

Remarkable changes occurred in the pattern of city growth between 1500
and 1800. In 1500 there were approximately 156 cities within Europe
(excluding Hungary and Russia) with a population greater than 10,000.
Only Paris, Milan, Venice, and Naples had more than 100,000 inhabitants.
By 1800 approximately 363 cities had 10,000 or more inhabitants, and 17
of those had populations larger than 100,000. The percentage of the
European population living in urban areas had risen from just over 5
percent to just over 9 percent. The urban concentration had also shifted
from southern Mediterranean Europe to the north.

URBAN CLASSES
At the top of the urban social structure stood a generally small group of
nobles, major merchants, bankers, financiers, clergy, and government
officials. These men usually constituted a self-appointed and self-electing
oligarchy who governed the city through its corporation or city council. In a
few cities, artisan guilds also participated in government.
The middle class, or bourgeoisie—merchants, tradesmen, bankers, and
professional people—were the most dynamic element of the urban
population. The middle class had less wealth than most nobles but more
than urban artisans. They lived in the cities and towns, and their sources of
income had little or nothing to do with the land. They normally supported
reform, change, and economic growth. Resenting aristocratic privilege and
social exclusiveness, they wanted rational regulations for trade and
commerce.
As the century passed, the bourgeoisie increasingly begrudged the
aristocracy, and as the middle class grew in size and wealth and aristocratic
control of political and ecclesiastical power tightened, tension increased.
The middle class tended to fear the lower urban classes as much as they
resented the nobility. The lower orders constituted a potentially violent
element in society; a potential threat to property; and, in their poverty, a
drain on national resources. The lower orders, however, were much more
varied than either the city aristocracy or the middle class cared to admit.

Dress Shop. Consumption of all forms of consumer goods increased greatly

in the eighteenth century. This engraving illustrates a shop, probably in
Paris. Here women, working apparently for a woman manager, are making
dresses and hats to meet the demands of the fashion trade.

What spurred the growing demand for consumer goods?

Shopkeepers, artisans, and wage earners constituted the single largest
group in any city, and they suffered from the grasping of both the middle
class and the local nobility. They had their own culture, values, and
institutions and, like the rural peasants, were conservative. Their economic
position was highly vulnerable, and their lives centered on their work. They
usually lived near or at their place of employment and worked in shops with
fewer than a half dozen other people. They formed guilds to protect their
interests, particularly in central Europe, but by the eighteenth century these
had declining influence and reinforced conservative values.
QUICK REVIEW

Urban Classes
Upper classes: nobles, large merchants, bankers, financiers, clergy,
government officials
Middle class: prosperous merchants, tradesmen, bankers,
professionals
Lower orders: shopkeepers, wage earners, artisans

THE JEWISH POPULATION: AGE OF THE

GHETTO

HOW WERE European Jews segregated from European society?

Although the small Jewish communities of Amsterdam and other western

European cities became famous for their intellectual life and financial
institutions, most European Jews lived in eastern Europe. In the eighteenth
century, at least 3 million Jews dwelled in Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine.
There were perhaps 150,000 in the Habsburg lands, primarily in Bohemia,
around 1760. Fewer than 100,000 lived in Germany and approximately
40,000 in France. England and Holland had Jewish populations of fewer
than 10,000. There were even smaller groups of Jews in Italy.
In 1762, Catherine the Great of Russia specifically excluded Jews from a
manifesto that welcomed foreigners to settle in Russia, although she eased
this restriction a few years later. The first partition of Poland in 1772 (see
Chapter 22) gave Russia a large Jewish population and created larger
Jewish communities in Prussia and Austria.
Jews did not have the same rights as Christians, unless such rights were
specifically granted to them by a sympathetic monarch. They were resident
aliens whose status could change at the whim of a government. Under the
Old Regime, they lived apart from non-Jews, in separate villages in the
countryside or in urban districts called ghettos. Thus this period in Jewish
history, which may be said to have begun with the expulsion of the Jews
from Spain in 1492, is known as the age of the ghetto.

ghettos

Separate communities in which Jews were required by law to live.

Ghetto in Cracow. During the Old Regime, European Jews were separated
from non-Jews, typically in districts known as ghettos. Relegated to the
least desirable section of a city or to rural villages, most lived in poverty.
This watercolor painting depicts a street in Kazimlesz, the Jewish quarter of
Cracow, Poland.

Judaica Collection. Max Berger, Vienna Austria/©Erich Lessing/Art

Resource, New York.

Even though this painting shows an outwardly peaceful scene, how does
it also show segregation?
During the seventeenth century a few Jews helped finance the wars of
major rulers. These financiers often grew close to the rulers and came to be
known as “court Jews.” They tended to marry among themselves. Perhaps
the most famous was Samuel Oppenheimer (1630–1703), who helped the
Habsburgs finance their struggle against the Turks, including the defense of
Vienna. Their position at court and their financial abilities may have
brought them privilege and fame, but court Jews, including Oppenheimer,
often failed to have their loans repaid.
Most European Jews lived in poverty. A few were moneylenders, but
most worked at the lowest occupations. Their religious beliefs, rituals, and
community set them apart. A wall of laws and social institutions—as well
as the physical walls of the ghetto—kept them in positions of social
inferiority. They were not free to pursue the professions; they could be
expelled from the cities where they dwelled, and their property could be
confiscated. Jews could be required to listen to sermons that insulted them
and their religion; their children could be taken away and given Christian
instruction. And they knew their non-Jewish neighbors might suddenly turn
violently against them.
Under the Old Regime, it is important to emphasize, this discrimination
was based on religious separateness. Jews who converted to Christianity
could participate in the political and social institutions of European society.
As will be seen in subsequent chapters, the end of the Old Regime brought
major changes in the lives of Jews and in their relationship to the larger
culture.

SUMMARY

HOW DID England and France provide models for governance in

early modern Europe?

European Political Consolidation. In the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries, Britain, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia emerged as great
powers in Europe. Through their military strength, economic development,
and in some cases colonial empires, they would affect virtually every other
world civilization. In the seventeenth century, conflict between the Stuart
kings and Parliament led to civil war, the execution of Charles I, a short-
lived English republic under Oliver Cromwell, and the Glorious Revolution
(1688–1689) that finally established the supremacy of Parliament. Under
Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715), France became the model of an absolute
monarchy. Russia became a great power under Peter the Great (r. 1682–
1725), who opened Russia to Western influence. The Habsburgs remained
Holy Roman Emperors, but the rise of Prussia under the Hohenzollerns
challenged Habsburg dominance in central Europe. The Hohenzollern rulers
built Prussia into a great power by developing a powerful army. page 478

WHY WERE the European wars of the eighteenth century global in

scope?

European Warfare: From Continental to World Conflict. In a series of

worldwide colonial struggles with France, Britain profited from France’s
entanglements in Europe and emerged supreme in North America and India.
Louis pursued an aggressive foreign policy that expanded France’s borders
but cost France dearly in wealth and resources and provoked strong
opposition from the other European powers. In the War of the Spanish
Succession, he succeeded in placing his grandson on the throne of Spain,
but the war left France exhausted. Prussia emerged as one of the strongest
European states and the rival to Habsburg power in central Europe. page
488

WHAT WERE the political and economic structures of the Old

Regime?

The Old Regime. Eighteenth-century European society was traditional,

hierarchical, corporate, and privileged—features that had characterized
Europe and the world for centuries. All societies also confronted scarce
food supplies. For the eighteenth century, however, an improved food
supply helped support a larger population. New agricultural techniques and
the expanding population created pressures on social structures. page 493

WHAT WAS the role of women in the family economy?

Family Structures and the Family Economy. Production and

consumption in preindustrial Europe were organized around the household.
The family, not the individual, was the basic economic unit. Women’s
dowries helped establish households, and marriages were economic
partnerships. page 495

WHAT WAS the connection between population increase and

agricultural improvements in the eighteenth century?

The Revolution in Agriculture. Traditional agriculture focused on

avoiding famine; it discouraged innovation. Growing population and new
techniques transformed food production. Agriculture became more
commercialized, and increased food production contributed to population
growth. page 496

WHY DID the industrial revolution begin in England?

The Eighteenth-Century Industrial Revolution: An Event in World

History. The eighteenth century witnessed the beginning of industrial
production. New inventions greatly increasing productive capacity first
appeared in the English textile industry. The steam engine provided a
portable source of energy. Industrialization affected Europe’s relations with
the rest of the world. page 499

HOW DID population growth lead to changes in urban social

structures?

European Cities. Cities expanded and commerce grew during the

eighteenth century. The expansion of the European population stimulated
change and challenges to tradition and hierarchy. New wealth meant that
birth would cease to determine social relationships. page 503

HOW WERE European Jews segregated from European Society?

The Jewish Population: Age of the Ghetto. Europe’s Jews were

segregated from non-Jews in separate villages or, within cities, in ghettoes.
They did not have the same rights and privileges as their compatriots,
unless those rights had been specifically granted by their monarch. page
504

KEY TERMS

absolutism
agricultural revolution
aristocratic resurgence
boyars
divine right of kings
domestic or putting-out system
enclosures
family economy
ghettos
Glorious Revolution
industrial revolution
Junkers (YOONG-kurs)
Old Regime
parliamentary monarchy
Pragmatic Sanction
Puritans
spinning jenny
streltsy
Table of Ranks
water frame

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. By the end of the seventeenth century, England and France had

different systems of government with different religious policies.
What were the main similarities and differences? Why did each
nation develop as it did?
2. How and why did Russia emerge as a great power? Discuss the
character of Peter the Great. How were his domestic reforms related
 to his military ambitions?
3. What were the main points of conflict between Britain and France in
North America, the West Indies, and India? What were the results of
these conflicts by 1763? Which countries emerged stronger from the
Seven Years’ War and why?
4. Why were Europe’s wars during this period so significant for the
rest of the world?
5. In what ways could aristocrats and peasants be described as
conservative? Was conservatism a wise choice for nobles? For
peasants? Why or why not?
6. How would you define the term family economy? In what ways were
the lives of women constrained by the family economy in
preindustrial Europe?
7. What caused the agricultural revolution? How did technological
innovations help change European agriculture? What were some of
the reasons for peasant revolts in Europe in the eighteenth century?
8. What factors led to the industrial revolution of the eighteenth
century? What were some of the technological innovations, and why
were they important? Why did Great Britain take the lead in the
industrial revolution?
9. Describe city life during the eighteenth century. What changes took
place in the distribution of population in cities and towns?
10. What was the status of European Jews in the Old Regime? How
were they made to live as a people apart from the rest of the
European population?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections

Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many

documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com
Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 19

Read the Document The Divine Right of Kings, 1598, James I, p. 479

Cromwell Abolishes English Monarchy, 1651, p. 479

The English Bill of Rights, 1689, p. 480
Peter the Great with Alexis Russia, p. 484
Domat: Social Order, Monarchy, p. 494
Voltaire: Condition, 18th Century France, p. 494
Gluckel of Hameln: Memoirs, p. 498
Friend of Men: Treatise on Population, p. 499

See the Map Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia, 1618–1786, p. 487

Europe After the Treaty of Utrecht, 1714, p. 488

English Common Lands Enclosed by Acts, p. 498

View the Image Allegorical View: Cromwell as Savior England, p. 479

Ivan the Terrible, p. 483

Michael Romanov, p. 483
Peter the Great, p. 483
Battle of Poltava, 1709, p. 484

Research and Explore

See the Map Russia under Peter the Great, p. 486

See the Map Rise of Prussia, 1440–1795

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 19 at www.myhistorylab.com
20
The Last Great Islamic Empires, 1500–
1800

Hear the Audio for Chapter 20 at www.myhistorylab.com

Akbar Inspecting the Construction of Fatehpur-Sikri, ca. 1590.

Sometime around 1570, construction began on a new Mughal capital,
Fatehpur-Sikri (“City of Victory”), a few miles southwest of Agra. Akbar (r.
1556–1605), the emperor who ordered the building of Fatehpur-Sikri, had a
keen interest in architecture. Here he stands at the construction site,
gesturing to a mason as the imperial entourage looks on. In every sense, he
lived up to his epithet as the “architect of the spiritual and material world.”

Why was cultural patronage important to a ruler like Akbar?

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE EAST MEDITERRANEAN

WORLD

WHY DID the Ottoman Empire find it increasingly difficult to compete

with European powers?

THE SAFAVID EMPIRE AND THE WEST ASIAN WORLD

WHAT ROLE did Shi’ite ideology play in the Safavid Empire?

THE MUGHALS

WHAT ROLE did religious intolerance play in the decline of the Mughal
Empire?

CENTRAL ASIA: ISLAMIZATION IN THE POST-TIMUR ERA

WHAT WERE the most important Islamic states in Central and southern
Asia?

POWER SHIFTS IN THE SOUTHERN OCEANS

HOW DID the arrival of Europeans affect maritime trade in Southeast

Asia?

Between 1450 and 1650 Islamic culture, society, and statecraft blossomed.
The creation of three powerful empires and several strong regional states
was the culmination of long processes in the Islamic eastern Mediterranean
and West Asia. During this time the ideal of a universal Islamic caliphate
yielded to the reality of multiple secular, albeit distinctively “Islamic,”
sultanates.
The simultaneous growth of the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires,
sometimes called the “gunpowder empires,” marked the global apogee of
Islamic society, culture, and economic power. By 1600 the Ottoman Turks
controlled Asia Minor, the Fertile Crescent, the Balkans, Crimean Europe,
the eastern Mediterranean, and Arabia; the Safavids ruled all of greater
Iran; and descendants of Timur—the Mughals—governed Afghanistan and
most of South Asia. Around these empires were arrayed Islamic khanates of
Central Asia and Russia, sultanates of Southeast Asia, savannah empires of
West Africa, the port cities of East Africa, the Sharifian state of Morocco,
and regional empires of the Sudan in which Islam was significant (see Map
20–1, p. 512).
In 1600 Islamic civilization seemed as strong as that of Europe, China, or
Japan. But military, economic, and political strength were partially
deceptive. By the late seventeenth century, Islamic power was in retreat
before the rising tide of western European military and economic
imperialism, even though Islamic cultural life and Muslim religion
flourished.
In this chapter we turn first to the period’s three major Islamic empires
and then briefly to the smaller Islamic political-cultural centers of Central,
South, and Southeast Asia, where European power was encroaching on
what had been a virtual Muslim monopoly on maritime trade.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
THE LAST GREAT ISLAMIC EMPIRES
The Islamic region’s vitality between 1450 and 1800 was exemplified by
the three great, prosperous imperial states of the Ottomans, Safavids, and
Mughals. Each built extensive civilian and military bureaucracies, enjoyed
inspired military and civilian leaders, revived Islamic social and cultural
life, and improved on its predecessors.
Islamic ideology, society, and culture were important to the success of the
Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals; military, social, and commercial
innovations were key to each dynasty’s rise to global importance. Their
rulers built arguably the greatest cities of their time in Istanbul, Isfahan, and
Delhi. They patronized the arts, stimulating new traditions of Islamic
literature, calligraphy, painting, and architecture. Yet all were essentially
conservative societies. Economically they remained closely tied to
agricultural production, long-distance trade, and taxation based on land.
Perhaps because they were so successful, these societies did not undergo the
kind of social or religiopolitical revolutions that rocked Europe after 1500.
Thus, much like the societies of China and Japan in the same period, they
did not experience the sort of generative changes in material and intellectual
life that the comparatively underdeveloped western European societies, for
all their diversity, saw in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries. There was no compelling challenge to traditional Islamic ideals
of societal organization and human responsibility, even though many
Islamic movements in the eighteenth century did call for communal and
personal reform.
As one historian has put it, the striking growth of Islamic societies and
cultures in this age was “not one of origination, but rather one of
culmination in a culture long already mature.” In their heydays, these
empires produced much scientific work, but no scientific revolution; much
art, architecture, and literature of high quality, but none that departed
radically from previous traditions; political consolidation and also
expansion, but no conquest of significant new markets or territories;
prosperous long-distance trade, but no beginnings of a commercial or
industrial revolution. By the mid-nineteenth century, all three empires were
at various stages of economic, political, social, and military disarray in
comparison to Europe. By contrast, western Europe, having lagged behind
the Islamic world in economic, social, and cultural development as well as
political and military might since the Early Middle Ages, was by the
nineteenth century in the midst of industrial, financial, social, and military
revolutions and poised to challenge the Islamic empires from the
Mediterranean to South Asia.
Thus it is not entirely surprising that European global expansionism
gradually dominated Africa, India, Indonesia, and the heartland culture of
the Islamic world, rather than the reverse. Neither the great imperial Islamic
states, the smaller Islamic sultanates and emirates, the diverse Hindu
kingdoms, nor the varied African states (let alone the smaller societies of
Africa, the Americas, and the South Pacific) fared well in their eventual
clashes with European expansion during this age. The growing European
domination of the seas, of the flow of gold and silver, and of global
consumable products allowed Europeans to contain as well as to bypass the
major Islamic lands in their quest for commercial empires. Ironically, the
Islamic states’ hold on the Silk Road from the East may have been one
factor in Europe’s turn to the Atlantic.
Industrial development and military technology joined economic wealth,
social prosperity, and political stability by the early 1800s to give western
Europe global military supremacy for the first time. Before 1800 the
Europeans were able to bring only minor Islamic states under colonial
administrations. The footholds they gained in Africa, India, and Southeast
Asia laid the groundwork for rapid colonial expansion by the 1850s. The
age of the last great Islamic empires was the beginning of the first great
modern European empires. The colonialism of the nineteenth century
accompanied the aggressive advance of west European industrial,
commercial, and military power that held sway into the mid-twentieth
century.

Focus Questions

How did the trajectory of development between the Islamic empires

and Europe differ in the period 1500–1850?
Why, after centuries as the “underdog,” was Europe by the early
nineteenth century finally able to challenge the power of the Islamic
empires?
Why was the Islamic world, more than China and Japan, increasingly
subject to European intrusion during the early modern period?

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE EAST

MEDITERRANEAN WORLD

WHY DID the Ottoman Empire find it increasingly difficult to

compete with European powers?
ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE OTTOMAN STATE BEFORE 1600
The Ottomans were a Turkish dynasty that originated in the groups of
western Oghuz Turks from the steppes of Central Asia who came to
Anatolia as settlers and Muslim frontier warriors.1 The Ottomans reached
Anatolia (Asia Minor) in the time of the Seljuks of Rum (1098–1308), the
first western Turks to have founded a lasting state there (see Chapter 12).
By about 1300, the newcomers ruled one of several small military states
along the Byzantine-Seljuk frontier in western Anatolia. In the ensuing
century several vigorous leaders expanded their territory east into central
Anatolia and (in 1356) west across the Dardanelles into the European
Byzantine lands of Macedonia and modern Bulgaria. Exchanging grants of
revenue-producing, conquered land (timars) for military service, the
Ottomans built both a formidable fighting force and a loyal military
aristocracy.
By 1402 the center of Ottoman rule had shifted northwest to Edirne on
the Balkan Peninsula itself. Ottoman control then extended northwest to the
Danube and east across central Anatolia. Constantinople formed an alien
pocket in these dominions, and it finally fell in 1453 to Sultan Mehmed II,
“the Conqueror” (r. 1451–1481). Renamed “Istanbul,” it became the
Ottoman capital. After centuries of power, Byzantium, the center of Eastern
Christendom, had vanished, although the Ottomans allowed the Christian
patriarch to remain in Istanbul to preside over the Eastern church. The
conquest of Constantinople was both the culmination of previous war
efforts and a springboard for Ottoman European ambitions. As the
Ottomans’ extraordinary, expansionist conquests continued, often justified
in the name of Islam, they became in Christian European eyes the feared
scourge of God.
By 1512 Ottoman rule was secure in virtually all of southeastern Europe
and north of the Black Sea in most of the Ukraine. Under Selim I (r. 1512–
1520) and Süleyman, “the Lawgiver” (known in the West as “the
Magnificent,” r. 1520–1566), Ottoman sovereignty expanded. Selim
subjugated the Egyptian Mamluks (1517) and annexed Syria-Palestine,
most of North Africa, the Yemen, and Mecca and Medina. He also nullified
the Shi’ite threat from Iran in the east (see below). Süleyman took control
of Kurdistan, Georgia (in the Caucasus), Mesopotamia, and Iraq, and
advanced Ottoman borders in eastern Europe. Having won much of
Hungary and nearly taken Vienna by siege in 1526–1529, he was able by
battle and treaty to bring virtually all of Hungary under direct rule in the
1540s.
The Ottoman ruler could now claim to be the Abbasid heir and caliph for
all Muslims. This was symbolized by the addition (by Selim I, after the
Mamluk conquest in 1517) of the title “Protector of the Sacred Places
[Mecca and Medina]” to that of emperor, padishah. At this point, Ottoman
military might was unmatched globally, except possibly by China. Its vast
territories—home to numerous linguistic and ethnic groups—made it truly
an empire (see Map 20–2, p. 513).

padishah

Persian for “master-king”; the title is comparable to emperor.

Read the Document

Mehmed II (15th century) at myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, “Süleyman the Lawgiver,” at

myhistorylab.com

See the Map

The Ottoman Empire to 1566, at myhistorylab.com

THE “CLASSICAL” OTTOMAN ORDER

Mehmed II was the true founder of the Ottoman Empire. He replaced tribal
chieftains with loyal servants of the ruler, initiated a tradition of formal
governmental legislation with his Qanun-name (“Lawbook”), and
organized the ulama hierarchically under a single “Sheikh of Islam.” In the
next century Süleyman earned his title “Lawgiver” by his legislation
touching all aspects of life and all social ranks, his reconciliation of
customary law and Shari’a (religious law), and his regularization of both
law and bureaucracy.

Qanun-name

A book of laws promulgated by Ottoman sultans.

Shari’a

Islamic religious law.

MAP EXPLORATION

To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

MAP 20–1. The Islamic Heartlands, ca. 1700. The three rival
“gunpowder” empires—the Safavid, Mughal, and Ottoman empires—
dominated the Islamic heartlands.

Does this map suggest that the Islamic world was in decline by 1700?
The entire Ottoman state was organized as one vast military institution.
All members, whatever their function, held military ranks as the standing
“army” of the state under the hereditary leadership of the sultan. This
centralized state was supported by the productivity of its Muslim and non-
Muslim subjects, such as Jewish and Armenian merchants. The ruling class
was Muslim, shared the common Ottoman culture, and had to give utter
allegiance to the sultan. The state organization included the palace, the
administrative or ruling institution, the military institution, and the religious
or learned institution. The palace included the sultan, his harem, his
ministers, and the servants. The privy council, headed by the grand vizier,
together with the chancery, the imperial treasury, and the remaining civil
bureaucracy, formed the backbone of the ruling or administrative
institution. Although men held the keys to power, women also had
important roles, generally concealed from the public eye. Traditional
Turkish customs assumed that power was vested collectively in the family.
Women had some ceremonial functions, but also played vital roles in court
politics, especially in selecting officers and negotiating economic policy.

harem

The wives, concubines, female relatives, and servants in a Muslim

household; they were usually confined to a section of a house or palace.

MAP 20–2. The Ottoman Empire at Its Zenith. This large and
multiethnic empire spanned three continents and lasted more than 400
years. It is shown here at its largest extent around 1600.

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the Ottoman Empire’s

geographical position?
Several measures helped ensure the strength of the sultan. Young
Ottoman princes received administrative and leadership training in the
provinces, which kept them from being sheltered in the palace and gave
them experience of life outside the capital. Stability of succession was
traditionally guaranteed by the practice of fratricide in the ruling family:
While theoretically left to God, succession to the sultanate went to the
aspirant who could assert himself and seize power, after which he was
expected to execute his brothers to eliminate competing claims to the
throne. Legalized in Mehmed II’s Qanun-name, this practice continued until
the late sixteenth century.

Read the Document Women in Ottoman society at myhistorylab.com

Istanbul, from a 1537 Turkish map. Its strategic location on the Bosphorus
straits enabled it to dominate trade in the eastern Mediterranean.

What features of Istanbul does this map draw attention to?

The Ottomans co-opted the legal-religious and educational-intellectual

roles of the religious scholars, or ulama, for the service of the state. They
were an arm of the government under a single religious authority, the
Grand Mufti or “Sheikh of Islam.” This highly organized branch of state
was open only to Muslim men and included the entire system of courts and
judges. It was based on a comprehensive network ranging from local
mosque schools to the four elite madrasas built around the Süleymaniye
Mosque in Istanbul during Süleyman’s reign. Scholars’ ranks within the
graded ulama hierarchy reflected the level of schooling and teaching they
had attained.

Grand Mufti

The chief religious authority of the Ottoman Empire. Also called “the
Shaykh of Islam.”

The state itself was formally committed to maintaining the divinely

ordained Shari’a, and the ulama enjoyed great esteem. This helps explain
why the Ottoman ulama usually functioned tamely as part of the state
apparatus, whereas the ulama in both Safavid Iran and Mughal India often
differed with their rulers.
Although the religious establishment upheld the supremacy of the
Shari’a and the sultan recognized its authority, the functional law of the
land was the highly organized state administrative law—the practical code,
or Qanun, established by the ruler. Still, the Shari’a as interpreted by the
ulama theoretically governed the Qanun. The conformity of these
regulations to the Shari’a sometimes reflected the genuine piety of a
particular administrator or ruler, and sometimes was only a pious fiction—
something also true for Safavid Iran and Mughal India.
Qanun

Ottoman administrative law.

The key ingredient of Ottoman power, however, was the military. The
Ottoman rulers kept the military’s loyalty by two means. First, the state
checked the power of the cavalry-gentry through careful registry and
control of revenue-bearing lands. Second, the sultan employed slave
soldiers whose allegiance was only to him. The state held all conquered
agricultural land as its direct property, granting peasants hereditary land use
but not ownership. Under the timar system, the tax revenues from parcels of
conquered lands were granted for specified periods to cavalry officers, in
lieu of cash wages. Careful records were kept of the revenue due on all
lands, and as long as the state was strong, so too was its control over
productive land and the aristocracy whom timar revenues supported. But
even as early as 1400 the Ottoman rulers tried to reduce the cavalry-
gentry’s preeminence by employing specialized infantry troops of well-
trained and well-paid slave soldiers (equipped, unlike the cavalry, with
firearms) whose loyalty was to the sultan alone.
To sustain the quality of these slave troops, the Ottomans developed a
unique institution: the provincial slave levy, or devshirme. This institution
selected young Christian boys from the provincial peasantry to be raised as
Muslims; most came from the Balkans. They were trained to serve in both
army and bureaucracy at all levels. The most famous slave corps was the
yeni cheri (young troops), or Janissaries, the elite infantry troops of the
empire. Muslim boys were not allowed into the slave corps, although some
parents tried to buy them a place in what offered the most promising careers
in the empire. Until 1572 marriage was forbidden to the slave soldiers,
which further ensured loyalty and prevented hereditary claims on office.

devshirme

The system under the Ottoman Empire that required each province to
furnish a levy of Christian boys who were raised as Muslims and became
soldiers in the Ottoman army.
Janissaries

Elite Ottoman troops who were recruited through the devshirme.

AFTER SÜLEYMAN: CHALLENGES AND CHANGE

The reign of Süleyman marked the peak of Ottoman prestige and power.
Further territorial gains were made in the seventeenth century, and the
Ottoman state long remained a major force in European and Asian politics.
But beginning with the reign of Süleyman’s weak son, Selim II (1566–
1574), the empire was plagued by military corruption, governmental
decentralization, and maritime setbacks. Economically there were
agricultural failures, commercial imbalances, and inflation. Yet culturally
and intellectually, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were periods of
impressive activity and accomplishments. For these two centuries, the state
alternated between decline and vitality.
The post-Süleyman era began badly, with the loss of territory in the
Caucasus and Mesopotamia to the Safavids of Iran (1603). The Ottoman
military apparatus was already weakened, partly from fighting two-front
wars with the Safavids and the Habsburgs and partly by European advances
in military and naval technology. The Janissaries became increasingly
disruptive. By 1600 they had largely replaced the provincial cavalry as new
warfare styles made cavalry obsolete. By 1600 Muslims were allowed into
the Janissary corps, marriage was possible, and the devshirme was declining
in use. During the seventeenth century, the Janissaries became increasingly
corrupt as they tampered with politics and tried to influence dynastic
succession. Finally, the increasing employment of mercenaries resulted in
the peacetime release of masses of armed men into the countryside, leading
to the sacking of provincial towns, banditry, and revolts.
Murad IV (r. 1623–1640) introduced reforms and ruled with an iron
hand, but his death left a weak central authority. Two capable viziers, the
Koprülüs, father and son (r. 1656–1676), briefly renewed strong
administrative control and military success, but thereafter the central
institutions decayed.
Financing the Ottoman state became ever more difficult. The increase in
the Janissary corps from 12,000 to 36,000 men during the sixteenth century
drained state coffers. Inflation grew as the coinage was debased. In contrast
to mercantilist and protectionist policies of European powers, the Ottomans
discouraged exports and encouraged imports to keep domestic prices low.
This damaged the economy in the long run. The population doubled in the
sixteenth century, and unemployment grew after 1600. Increased
decentralization paved the way for the rise of provincial notables—ayan—
who became virtually independent in the eighteenth century. Tax farming
went hand-in-glove with the rise of large private estates. New taxes were
imposed, old emergency levies regularized, and taxes demanded in cash
rather than in kind—and increasingly on a communal rather than individual
basis.

ayan

Ottoman notables.
Süleyman the Lawgiver. Süleyman giving advice to the Crown Prince,
Mehmed Khan. From a contemporaneous Ottoman miniature.

Suleyman I (Kanuni); Shehzade by Talikizade Suphi. Folio 79a of the

Talikizade Shehnamesi, Library at the Topkapi Palace Museum, A3592,
Photograph courtesy of Talat Halman.

What regions did Süleyman bring under Ottoman control?

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The Decline of the Ottoman Empire at myhistorylab.com

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were an era of genuine vitality

in poetry, prose, music, painting, cartography, historiography, astronomy,
and other fields. The Ottomans’ patronage of the arts and sciences was one
way to assert their claim to Islamic and universal authority. The seventeenth
century saw especially lively intellectual exchange, both religious and
secular. But it was also a time when the ulama became an aristocratic,
increasingly corrupt elite. Major religious posts became hereditary
sinecures for members of a handful of families who had produced
prominent ulama, and the posts were often sold or leased. (See Document,
“The Distinctiveness of Ottoman Identity and Culture” on page 516.)
Of many learned individuals in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
Katib Chelebi (d. 1657) was the most illustrious; he wrote histories, social
commentary, geographies, and encyclopedic works. Other important writers
were the great historian of the Ottomans, Na’ima (d. 1716), the tireless
traveler and travel writer Evliya Chelebi (d. ca. 1685), and probably the
greatest Ottoman poet, Nedim (d. 1730). Ottoman art had been highly
eclectic in the first century after Mehmed II, but in the later sixteenth
century a more conservative turn produced distinctively Ottoman artistic
and architectural forms. The greatest name here is that of the imperial
master architect Sinan (d. 1578). The first half of the eighteenth century
was the golden age of Ottoman poetry and art; it also saw the first Ottoman
printing press and the beginning of strong European influence in the arts,
architecture, and manners. In the popular sphere, the now classical form of
Turkish theater (in which two men play male and female parts) began as
early as the sixteenth century, perhaps under Jewish immigrant influence.
Socially, the period saw the consolidation of Ottoman society as a
multiethnic, multireligious state. The empire encompassed a dizzying array
of languages, religions, and ethnic identities. All subjects, Muslim and non-
Muslim, were organized into communities called millets that were
responsible for their members from the cradle to the grave. The millets
administered educational, charitable, and judicial affairs and assisted the
central government in collecting taxes. Typically the millets were headed by
a religious leader and enjoyed some degree of internal autonomy. Thus
early on the Ottoman Empire became a haven for numerous minority
groups, especially Jews. Considerable immigration of Jews into Ottoman
societies following their expulsion from Spain during the Spanish
Inquisition (1492) had brought new craftsmen, physicians, bankers,
scholars, and even entertainers. The large Christian population of the
empire was generally well treated, but in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries they began to suffer from increasing taxes and other
discrimination. As a result Ottoman Christians began to look to Christian
Europe and Russia for liberation.

millets

Within the Ottoman Empire, religious communities that administered their

own educational, charitable, and judicial affairs.

QUICK REVIEW

Ottoman Culture
Katib Chelebi (d. 1657): most illustrious figure in Ottoman literature
Distinctly Ottoman artistic forms emerged in the late sixteenth
century
Sinan (d. 1578) was the leading Ottoman architect of his day
 DOCUMENT
The Distinctiveness of Ottoman Identity and Culture
P residing over a pluralistic culture, the Ottoman Turks, themselves a
people from the periphery of the central Islamic lands, developed an
“Ottoman” identity and culture that was especially evident in their ruling
elite. The following selections from members of that elite describe some of
the values and qualities they saw as important to Ottoman identity. In the
first, Mustafa Ali (d. 1600), a major historian, intellectual, and state
official, lists the special divine favors granted the Ottoman rulers. In the
second, another historian, Kinalizade Ali, adopts an ancient political
saying attributed to Aristotle and others to describe the prerequisites for an
ordered polity under the Shari’a.
• COMPARE the two passages. What common themes emerge?

1 THE GIFTS OF DIVINE FAVOR GIVEN THE OTTOMAN

DYNASTY
The first gift: They reside all by themselves in a palace like unique jewels in
the depth of the oyster-shell, and totally sever all relations with relatives
and dependents. The slave girls and slave pages that have access to their
honored private quarters (harem), who are evidently at least three to four
thousand individuals, are all strangers and the person of the monarch is like
a single gem in their midst.…
The second gift: Their religious convictions being immaculate and their
character like a shining mirror, it has never happened that a single member
of that noble family ever swerved from the road of orthodoxy or that one
valiant sultan befriended himself with an unseemly doctrine.
The third gift: The Lord, the Creator and Protector, has always hidden
that great race under His protection and it has never been heard that the
plague would have entered their flourishing palace or that an individual
belonging to that blemishless progeny would have been struck by the horror
of the pestilence and would have died of it.
The fourth gift: Whenever they conquered a province and, destroying and
eradicating its castles and estates, were confronted with the necessity of
appointing a magistrate and assigning a substantial force on their own
authority they considered it a sign of weakness, like Alexander the Great, to
appoint again one of the great of that province and to assign him certain
revenues; may [that province] be as far away as can be, they would opt to
send one of the attendants of their Gate of Happiness [there] as san-jaq
begi, and to Yemen and Ethiopia and to very remote places like Algeria a
begler-begi. No such absolute power was given to the earlier sovereigns.
The fifth gift: The various special troops in their victory-oriented army
and the various tools of war and battle use that are given to them were not
available to the brawny fists of anyone of the countless armies [of previous
times]. To their attacks going downward and going upward are the same, to
their victory-imprinted military music low and high notes are of the same
level and equal. In their eyes, as it were, the conquest of a castle is like
destroying a spider’s web, and in their God-assisted hands to beat the
enemies is clearly like pulling out a hair from the beard of a decrepit old
man.
The sixth gift: The coherence of the figures in the registers of their
revenues and the order of the recordings in the ledgers of their expenses are
so strict that they and their salaried classes are free of worries.
Consequently, their income exceeds their necessary expenses, their gain is
larger than [the expenses for] the important affairs of state.

2 THE NEED OF AUTHORITY TO UPHOLD THE SHARI’A

There can be no royal authority without the military
There can be no military without wealth
The subjects produce the wealth
Justice preserves the subjects’ loyalty to the sovereign
Justice requires harmony in the world
The world is a garden, its walls are the state
The Holy Law [Shari’a] orders the state
There is no support for the Holy Law except through royal authority.
Source: Selection 1 from Andreas Tietze, Mustafa Ali’s Counsel for Sultans of 1581, Verlag Der
Osterreichischen Akademie Der Wissenshaften, Vienna, 1979, pp. 38–39. Selection 2 from Cornell
H. Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Ali (1541–
1600), Princeton University Press, 1986, p. 262.
Devshirme. An Ottoman portrayal of the devshirme. This miniature
painting (c. 1558) depicts the recruiting of Christian youths for the sultan’s
elite Janissary corps. The boys, dressed in red, are at the bottom, while their
parents, who look pleased, congregate on the right.

Arifi, “Suleymanname,” Topkapi Palace Museum, II 1517, fol. 31b,

photograph courtesy of Talat Halman.

Why would parents be pleased at their children’s recruitment as

Janissaries?
State policy encouraged just treatment of all subjects. In the eighteenth
century, however, relations between Muslims and non-Muslims
deteriorated, in part because of the remarkable rise in the economic and
social status of non-Muslims—in particular the mercantile middle class.
Non-Muslims virtually monopolized foreign trade, and in the eighteenth
century European countries gave many of them citizenship. This qualified
them for the trade privileges that the sultan granted to foreign governments.
 Read the Document

Portrait of an Ottoman Gentleman at myhistorylab.com

One of the major social institutions of later Ottoman society, the

coffeehouse, flourished from the mid–1500s on. It probably originated as a
Sufi institution that accompanied coffee to the Mediterranean from the
Yemen. The Ottoman coffeehouse rapidly became a major common space
for socializing. People gathered to drink coffee, play games, watch puppet
shows, read books, discuss public affairs, and even engage in political
agitation. The sheikh of Islam banned coffee because of its stimulant
qualities, but it could not be suppressed. (Neither could another imported
habit, cigarette smoking.) The coffeehouse fostered a common Ottoman
urban culture among lower and middle classes.

CHRONOLOGY

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

THE DECLINE OF OTTOMAN MILITARY AND POLITICAL POWER
After their failure in 1683 to take Vienna, the Ottomans were driven out of
Hungary and Belgrade and never again threatened Europe. In 1774 Russia
took the Crimea and formally became protector of Orthodox Christians in
the Ottoman Empire. Whereas in the seventeenth century the Empire was
relatively self-contained and self-sufficient, by the late 1700s it was
increasingly dependent on international market systems, particularly those
of western Europe. Previously the empire’s economic growth had been
based on conquest and control of land as a source of wealth. But as its
expansion was stopped, the Sultanate was unprepared for an increasingly
Europe-dominated world economy geared toward capitalist accumulation
and industrialization. Henceforth, the Ottomans were prey to the West,
never regaining their earlier power and influence before their collapse in
1918.
 Outflanked by Russia to the north and European sea power south and
west, the Ottomans were blocked in the east by their Safavid foes in Iran.
They could not sustain sufficient external trade to support their expensive
wars, especially when, in the eighteenth century, Italian, French, British,
and Dutch traders obtained special concessions for their trade in the Fertile
Crescent, Persian Gulf, and Red Sea regions, which Ottoman merchants did
not receive. Ultimately, Ottoman dependence on a decentralized agrarian-
age, local-market economy proved insufficient to face the rising
commercial and industrial powers of Europe.

A Turkish Coffeehouse. This early nineteenth-century rendering of a

coffeehouse in Istanbul reflects the exoticism that Europeans cultivated in
their portrayals of things Islamic.

What role did coffeehouses play in Ottoman society?

THE SAFAVID EMPIRE AND THE WEST

ASIAN WORLD
 WHAT ROLE did Shi’ite ideology play in the Safavid Empire?

ORIGINS
As noted in Chapter 12, Iranian history changed after 1500 under the
Safavid Dynasty. The Safavids had begun in the fourteenth century as
hereditary Turkish spiritual leaders of a Sunni Sufi order in Azerbaijan, in
northwestern Iran. In the 1400s the Safavid order evolved a new, militant
Shi’ite Sufi ideology. By claiming descent from the imams of Twelver
Shi’ism (see Chapter 12), Safavid spiritual masters (sheikhs or pirs) became
the focus of Shi’ite religious allegiance. Many adherents were won to the
tariqa, or Sufi brotherhood, and eventually to Shi’ism from among the
Turkoman tribesmen of eastern Anatolia, northern Syria, and northwestern
Iran. These mounted warriors were called Qizilbash (“Red Heads”) after
their distinctive crimson uniform hats that signaled allegiance to the twelve
Shi’ite imams and their Safavid Sufi master.

Sufi

Sufism is a mystic tradition within Islam that encompasses a diverse range

of beliefs and practices dedicated to Divine love and the cultivation of the
elements of the Divine within the individual human being. The chief aim of
all Sufis is to let go of all notions of duality, including a conception of an
individual self, and to realize the Divine unity.

pirs

Shi’ite holy men.

See the Map

Atlas Map: Iran Under the Safavids, ca. 1252–1524, at myhistorylab.com

 The growing strength of the Safavid brotherhood engendered conflicts
with the dominant Sunni Turkoman groups around Tabriz. The Safavids
emerged victorious in 1501 under the leadership of the young Safavid Sufi-
master-designate Isma’il. Recognized as a divinely appointed representative
of the “hidden” imam (see Chapter 10), Isma’il gained sovereignty over the
southern Caucasus, Azerbaijan, the Tigris-Euphrates valley, and all of
western Iran by 1506. By 1512, unified under a common religious identity
and in league with Babur, the Timurid ruler of Kabul, the Safavids took
from the Uzbek Turks all of eastern Iran from the Oxus south to the Arabian
Sea. Because of the loss of these territories, the largely pastoralist Uzbeks
became implacable foes of the Safavids. Throughout the ensuing century
the Safavids were often forced to fight a debilitating two-front war against
Uzbeks in the east and Ottomans in the west.
Strong central rule now united traditional Iranian lands for the first time
since the heyday of the Abbasid caliphate. It was a regime based on existing
Persian bureaucratic institutions, which in turn stemmed from Seljuk
institutions. Shah Isma’il ruthlessly enforced Shi’ite conformity, which
slowly took root across the realm—perhaps bolstered by a rising Iranian
self-consciousness in the face of the Sunni Ottomans, Arabs, Uzbeks, and
Mughals who surrounded Iran. In the latter part of his reign, Shah Isma’il
took steps to rule, both culturally and politically, through a reconstruction of
the historic Iranian monarchy, rather than as leader of a Sufi brotherhood.
Although Isma’il had loyal tribal and religious support internally, he had
tenuous ties with his neighbors. The Ottoman sultans vigorously fought the
spread of his Sufi-inspired Shi’ite monarchy into eastern Anatolian lands
widely populated by other Sufi orders.
In 1514 the better-armed Ottoman army of Selim I defeated the Safavid
forces at Chaldiran in Iranian Azerbaijan, initiating an extended series of
Ottoman-Safavid border wars over the next two centuries. Chaldiran
marked the beginning of Qizilbash disaffection with Shah Isma’il and
fueled subsequent efforts to seize power from the Safavids. This defeat
brought Ottoman control to the Fertile Crescent, forcing the Safavids to
move their capital and their focus eastward to Qazwin and subsequently
Isfahan.

Read the Document

Shah Isma’il Describes Himself to His Followers, at myhistorylab.com

SHAH ABBAS I
Isma’il’s successor, Tahmasp I (r. 1524–1576), survived repeated attacks by
both Ottomans and Uzbeks, thanks to the strength of Shi’ite religious
feeling and the allegiance of the Iranian bureaucracy. Twelve years later, the
most able Safavid ruler, Shah Abbas I (r. 1588–1629) brought real
leadership to Safavid Iran. He regained provincial land for the state and
used the revenue to support new troops from his Caucasian territories as a
counterweight to the unruly Qizilbash. They, like the Ottoman cavalry, were
supported by land-revenue assignments. Abbas not only pushed the
Ottomans out of Azerbaijan and Iraq but also repelled new Uzbek invasions
in Khorasan. He sought alliances with the Ottomans’ European enemies.
This tactic, used by several Safavid rulers, reflected one of several military
and economic divisions in the often-assumed unity of the Islamic world.
Empires, Islamic or not, were essentially divided from each other by self-
interested desire for absolute control of their territories and resources.
Abbas also broke the century-long Portuguese monopoly on trade along
Persian shores and opened trade relations with the English and Dutch East
India commercial companies. His reign brought considerable prosperity to
Iran. The magnificent capital he built at Isfahan epitomized Safavid
grandeur and vision, most vividly in its regal central square, the Maydan-i
Shah.
The enduring element of Safavid consolidation of power was the
replacement in Iran of Sunni with Shi’ite Islam as the majority faith.
Because Twelver Shi’ism was not as strongly grounded in Iranian religious
tradition as Sufi traditions were, the Safavids imported religious scholars
(ulama), primarily from today’s Lebanon and Syria, to lend legitimacy to
the government. They discouraged pilgrimage to Mecca and instead
emphasized visits to Karbala and the shrine of Husayn, the Prophet
Muhammad’s grandson. Eventually, however, the government–ulama
relations became strained. By the 1600s, the ulama withdrew from political
participation, refusing to confer direct legitimacy on the shah.
Dancing Sufis, their arms raised in ecstasy, congregate at the tomb of the
great Persian medieval poet, Sa’adi. What were some highlights of
Persian culture under the Safavids?

Read the Document

Fathers Simon and Vincent Report on Shah Abbas I, the Safavid Ruler of
Persia, at myhistorylab.com
Maydan-i-Shah. The enormous rectangular-shaped plaza at the top of this
aerial photo connects with the equally impressive Masjid-i-Shah Mosque,
constructed between 1611 and 1638.

How does this photo show the close connection between spiritual and
temporal power in Safavid society?

SAFAVID DECLINE
After Shah Abbas, the empire rarely again enjoyed able leadership. The
chief causes of eventual decline and collapse were (1) continued two-front
pressure from Ottoman and Uzbek forces, (2) economic decline, (3) social
unrest among the provincial elites, and (4) the increasing landholding power
of the Shi’ite ulama. The conservative ulama introduced a form of Islamic
legalism and emphasized their own authority as interpreters of the law over
that of the monarch. They persecuted religious minorities and encouraged
anti-Sunni hatred. Some of the Iranian ulama and merchant class sought
closer ties with European commercial communities. Local administrators
were content to maintain the traditional decentralized Safavid system in
their own interests, which only increased dependency on the increasingly
corrupt Safavid family.
In the end, an Afghan leader captured Isfahan and forced Husayn I
(1694–1722) to abdicate. A few Safavid princes managed to retake control
of western Iran, but the empire’s greatness was gone. A revived, formally
Safavid monarchy under the talented Qizilbash tribal leader Nadir Shah (r.
1736–1747) and several successors restored much of Iran’s lost territories,
but military ventures sapped the empire’s finances. After Nadir’s brutal,
autocratic reign ended in 1747, Iran’s provincial elites, ulama, and
merchants struggled to regain some political and economic stability. Only
by the early nineteenth century was some success achieved under the Qajar
kings (see Chapter 26).
Safavid Art. Woman with a Veil, by Riza Abbasi, ca. 1595. In Safavid
times, artists began to depict everyday life and people, such as this graceful,
sinuous young woman.

What were the roots of the Safavid artistic tradition?

CULTURE AND LEARNING

The Safavid age also saw a distinctively Shi’ite and Sufi piety develop to
give a firmly Shi’ite character to Iranian culture and traditions. It focused
on commemorating the suffering of the imams, life as a struggle for social
justice, and loyalty to the Shi’ite ulama, who alone provided guidance in
the absence of the hidden imam (see Chapter 10).
Safavid patronage of scholarship and the arts was funded by fortunes
from trade in silk, silver, and other long-distance commodities. The
Safavids supported an impressive cultural and intellectual renaissance in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Traditions of painting, with their
origins in the powerful miniatures of the preceding century, were cultivated
and modified in Safavid times. Portraiture and scenes from everyday life
became popular. High-quality craft-works included ceramic tiles,
porcelains, shawls, and carpets. The magnificent city of Isfahan, especially
the exquisite gardens and grand arches and domes constructed under Shah
Abbas, gives breathtaking evidence of the Safavid sense of proportion,
color, and design as well as the superb architectural technology and urban
planning. Isfahan was said to be “half the world,” a lofty epithet suggesting
it to be the quintessence of Iranian global preeminence. It marks a high
point in the sophisticated use of space and lavish deployment of ceramic
tiles.
In intellectual life, the Ishraqi or “Illuminationist” school was a form of
Shi’ite religious speculation about the nature of divine truth and its
accessibility to human reason and imagination. It drew on both the mystical,
Sufi bent of Iranian Islamic thought and the long Islamic traditions of
Aristotelianism and Platonism. Transcendence and a “realm of images”
were key concepts for the Illuminationists. They conceived of
transcendence in terms of a divine light, the Light of Truth, expressed most
fully in Muhammad and the Shi’ite imams. The realm of images was a
sphere in which the attuned spirit could experience true visions. These ideas
reconceived human experience of the Divine in a way that transcended
logic, requiring individual experience. At stake were basic notions of the
human psyche and the larger cosmos. The most prominent Iranian exponent
of the Ishraqi school was Mulla Sadra (d. 1640).

THE MUGHALS

WHAT ROLE did religious intolerance play in the decline of the

Mughal Empire?

ORIGINS
In a recurring pattern of Indian history, invaders from beyond the Oxus
River to the northwest began a new era in the subcontinent in the early
sixteenth century. These invaders were Chaghatay Turks descended from
Timur (Tamerlane) and known to history as the Mughals (a Persianate form
of Mongol). They ended the political fragmentation that by 1500 had
reduced the Delhi sultanate to only one among many Indian states. In 1525
to 1527 the founder of the Mughal Dynasty, Babur, marched on India,
replaced the last sultan of Delhi, and then defeated a Rajput confederacy.
Before his death in 1530, he ruled an empire stretching from the Oxus to
Bihar and the Himalayas to the Deccan. But the real founder of the Mughal
Empire and the greatest Indian ruler since Ashoka (ca. 264–223 B.C.E.) was
Akbar “the Great” (r. 1556–1605). He was at least as great a ruler as his
famous contemporaries, Elizabeth I of England (r. 1558–1603), the Holy
Roman Emperor Charles V (r. 1519–1556), and Shah Abbas I (r. 1587–
1629).

Mughals

Descendants of the Mongols who established an Islamic Empire in India in

the sixteenth century with its capital at Delhi.
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Akbar, Emperor of India, at myhistorylab.com

AKBAR’S REIGN
Akbar began his reign with impressive military successes. He added North
India and the northern Deccan to the Mughal dominions. Even more
significant were his governmental reforms, cultural patronage, and religious
toleration. He completely reorganized central and provincial government
and rationalized the tax system. His marriages with Rajput princesses and
his appointment of Hindus to positions of power eased Muslim-Hindu
tensions. So did his cancellation of the poll tax on non-Muslims (1564) and
his efforts to reduce the power of the more literalist, “hard-line” ulama.
Under his leadership the Mughal Empire became a truly Indian Empire.
Akbar was a religious eclectic who showed not only tolerance but also
unusual interest in different religious traditions. He frequently brought
together representatives of all faiths—Jain and Buddhist monks, Brahmans,
ulama, Parsis (Zoroastrians), and Jesuits—to discuss religion. These
debates took place in a special hall in Akbar’s magnificent palace complex
at Fatehpur-Sikri outside the Mughal capital, Agra.

QUICK REVIEW

Akbar (r. 1556–1605)

Added North India and the northern Deccan to Mughal Empire
 Carried out extensive governmental reforms
Interested in a variety of religious faiths

THE LAST GREAT MUGHALS

Akbar’s three immediate successors were Jahangir (r. 1605–1627), Shah
Jahan (r. 1628–1658), and Awrangzeb (r. 1658–1707). They left behind
significant achievements, but the problems of sustaining an Indian empire
gradually undercut Mughal strength. The reigns of Jahangir and Shah Jahan
were arguably the golden age of Mughal culture, notably in architecture and
painting, when a distinctive Mughal style based on traditional Hindi and
Persian styles solidified. But the costs of new building, military campaigns,
and the erosion of Akbar’s administrative and tax reforms brought
economic decline. Jahangir set a fateful precedent in permitting English
merchants to establish a trading post, or “factory,” at Surat on the western
coast in Gujarat. Shah Jahan brought the Deccan wholly under Mughal
control but lost Kandahar to Safavid forces in 1648. His wars further
strained the Mughal economy. Other financial burdens were his elaborate
building projects, the most magnificent of which was the white-stoned Taj
Mahal (built 1632–1653), the unparalleled tomb with its Persian-style dome
that he built for his beloved consort, Mumtaz.
With Shah Jahan, internal disorder and instability hastened the decline of
Mughal power. Religious toleration retreated; the narrow religious
conservatism of his son, Awrangzeb, all but reversed Akbar’s earlier
policies. He persecuted non-Muslims, destroying Hindu temples,
reimposing the poll tax (1679), and alienating the Rajput leaders, whose
forebears Akbar had so carefully cultivated. His intransigent policies
coincided with and likely contributed to the rise of the Sikh movement’s
militant reformism throughout the Punjab, and Hindu Maratha nationalism
in western India.

QUICK REVIEW

Awrangzeb (r. 1658–1707)

Reversed policy of religious toleration
Persecuted non-Muslims
 Policies coincided with spread of militant Sikh movement and rise of
Hindu Maratha nationalism

See the Map Mughal Empire at myhistorylab.com

SIKHS AND MARATHAS

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the Sikhs, who trace
their origins to the irenic teachings of Guru Nanak (d. 1538), became a
distinctive religious movement. Neither Muslim nor Hindu, they had their
own scripture, ritual, and moralistic, reformist ideals. Awrangzeb earned
their opposition by persecution culminating in the martyrdom of their ninth
leader, or guru, Teg Bahadur, in 1675. Thereafter, the tenth and last Sikh
guru, Gobind Singh (d. 1708), developed the Sikhs into a formidable
military force whose repeated uprisings plagued Awrangzeb and his
successors.
The Hindu Marathas, led by the charismatic Shivaji (d. 1680), rose in
religious and nationalistic fervor to found their own regional empire in
about 1646. At Shivaji’s death, the Maratha state controlled the
mountainous Western coast, and its army was the most disciplined force in
India. Despite Awrangzeb’s subsequent defeat of the Marathas and his
conquest of the entire south of India, the Marathas continued to fight. After
his death they built a confederation of almost all the Deccan states under
their leadership. After about 1740, while formally acknowledging Mughal
sovereignty, the Marathas actually controlled far more of India than did the
Mughals.

See the Map

The Maratha Kingdoms 1 at myhistorylab.com

POLITICAL DECLINE
In addition to the Rajput, Sikh, and Maratha wars, other factors sealed the
fate of the once-great Mughal Empire after Awrangzeb’s death in 1707: the
rise in the Deccan of the powerful Islamic state of Hyderabad in 1724; the
Persian invasion of North India by Nadir Shah in 1739; invasions (1748–
1761) by the Afghan tribal leader Ahmad Shah Durrani (r. 1747–1773),
“founder of modern Afghanistan”; and British victories over Bengali forces
at Plassey in Bengal (1757) and over the French on the southeastern coast
(1740–1763). By 1819 the dominance of the British East India Company
had eclipsed Mughal as it did Maratha and almost all regional Indian power,
even though the Mughal line did not officially end until 1858.

Fatehpur-Sikri. The Diwan-i-Khas, one of the many pavilions in the

enormous imperial palace complex.

How does this building reflect the grandeur of Mughal imperial

architecture?

RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS
The period from about 1500 to 1650 was of major importance for Indian
religious life. Akbar’s eclecticism mirrored the atmosphere of the sixteenth
century in India. A number of religious figures preached a spiritually or
mystically oriented piety that transcended the legalism of both the ulama
and the Brahmans and rejected caste distinctions.

A Closer Look
The Mughal Emperor Jahangir Honoring a
Muslim Saint over Kings and Emperors
BICHITR (d. late 1650s), Mughal miniaturist master who painted from
ca. 1620, depicts the Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-27) seated on an
hourglass throne with sands running through it, showing preference to
the Sufi saint and shaykh of the Chishti Sufi order, Husayn, over three
temporal rulers: the Ottoman emperor, the king of England, and a
Hindu prince. One of the inscriptions reads, “although to all
appearances kings stand before him, Jahangir looks inwardly towards
the [Sufi] dervishes.”

Bichitr, Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings, ca. 1660–70, Album

Page; Opaque watercolor, gold and ink on paper, 25.3 × 18.1 cm. Courtesy
of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

Questions
 1. What allegorical meaning might Jahangir’s elevated seat above the
hour-glass, the royal rulers, and even the Muslim saint suggest here?
2. The radiant Sun disk combined with the crescent moon is clearly
symbolic or allegorical as well, and one of the inscriptions speaks of
Jahangir as “light of the faith.” What might Bichitr be saying with
these symbols and texts about Jahangir’s exalted status?
3. What do the disparate elements of the painting tell us about the
relative international awareness of the Indian court in the early
1600s?
To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com

CHRONOLOGY

INDIA: THE MUGHALS AND CONTEMPORARY INDIAN

POWERS

In these ideas, we can see both Muslim Sufi and Hindu bhakti influences
at work. Ramananda and Kabir were two forerunners of such reformers (see
Chapter 12). Guru Nanak took up Kabir’s ideas and preached faith and
devotion to one loving, merciful God. He opposed narrow allegiance to
particular creeds and excessive pride in external religious observance.
Nanak’s hymns of praise contain both Hindu and Muslim ideas and
imagery. Dadu (d. 1603) preached a similar message. He was born a
Muslim but, like Kabir and Nanak, preached that one must transcend either
Muslim or Hindu allegiance in love and service of God.
There was also an upsurge of bhakti devotionalism that amounted to a
Hindu revival. It was epitomized by the Bengali Krishna devotee Chaitanya
(d. ca. 1533), who stressed total devotion to Lord Krishna. The forebears of
present-day Hare Krishna devotees, his followers spread widely his ecstatic
public praise of God and his message that all are equal in God’s sight. The
other major Hindu devotional figure in this era was Tulasidas (d. 1623),
whose Hindi retelling of the Sanskrit Ramayana epic remains among the
most popular works of Indian literature. Tulasidas used the story of Rama’s
adventures to present bhakti ideas that remain as alive in everyday Hindu
life as do his verses.
Muslim eclectic tendencies came primarily from Sufis. By 1500 many
Sufi retreat centers had been established in India. Sufis’ enthusiastic forms
of worship and inclination to play down the externals of religion meshed
well with Indian sensibilities. Sufis were, however, often opposed by more
puritanical ulama, many of whom held powerful positions as royal advisers
and judges. To check ulama puritan bigotry, Akbar named himself the
supreme spiritual authority in the empire, ordering that toleration be the law
of the land.
After Akbar’s death the inevitable reaction set in. The Indian leader of
the central Asian Sufi order of the Naqshbandiya, Ahmad Sirhindi (d.
1624), sought to purge Sufism of popular practices not sanctioned by the
schools of law, for example. He especially condemned practices reflecting
Hindu influence and rejected toleration of Hindus themselves. Among
Akbar’s successors, Awrangzeb, as noted above, was known for strictures
against non-Muslims. While his persecutions are often exaggerated, his
narrowness of spirit did finally win out. The possibilities for Hindu–Muslim
rapprochement in Akbar’s time gradually waned, presaging the communal
strife that has marred South Asian history in recent times.

Read the Document

A Sikh Guru’s Testimony of Faith at myhistorylab.com

CENTRAL ASIA: ISLAMIZATION IN THE
POST-TIMUR ERA

WHAT WERE the most important Islamic states in Central and

southern Asia?

Islam established a solid footing in Central Asia in the post-Timur era of the
fifteenth century. In the preceding century, as the peoples of western Central
Asia had begun to shift from a nomadic to a settled existence, the familiar
pattern of Islamic diffusion from trading and urban centers to the
countryside had set in. Islamization by Sunni and Shi’ite Sufis, traders, and
tribal rulers went on apace thereafter, even as far as western China and
Mongolia. It was slowed only in the late 1500s by the conversion of the
tribes of Mongolia proper to the Buddhism of the Tibetan lamas. Thus, after
1500 the Safavid Shi’ite Empire was bounded by Islamic Sunni states in
India, Afghanistan, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Transoxiana, and western
Turkistan (Khwarizm, between the Aral and Caspian seas). In these last two
areas, the most important states were ruled by Uzbek and Chaghatay Turks.

UZBEKS AND CHAGHATAYS

During the fifteenth century Timur’s heirs had ruled Transoxiana and most
of Iran (see Chapter 12). To the north, above the Jaxartes River (Syr Darya)
and the Aral Sea, a new steppe khanate had been formed by the unification
in 1428 of assorted clans of Turks and Mongols known as the Uzbeks.
Muhammad Shaybani (d. 1510), an Uzbek leader who was descended from
Genghis Khan, invaded Transoxiana (1495–1500). There he founded a new
Uzbek Islamic empire that replaced Timurid rule, which shifted south to
Kabul and eventually India, as described earlier. Muhammad’s line
continued Uzbek rule in Transoxiana at Bukhara into the eighteenth century,
while another Uzbek line ruled the independent khanate of Khiva in western
Turkestan from 1512 to 1872.
 Of the other Central Asian Islamic states after 1500, the most significant
was that of the Chaghatay Turks. The Chaghatays had been the successors
of Genghis Khan in the whole region from the Aral Sea and the Oxus River
to China (see Map 20–1). After 1350, Timur’s invasion broke up their
khanate. From about 1514 a revived Chaghatay state flourished in eastern
Turkestan. Although the Chaghatay rulers lasted until 1678 in one part of
the Tarim basin, their real power was lost after about 1555 to various Khoja
princes, Sunni zealots who claimed to be Sharifs (descendants of the
Prophet).

CONSEQUENCES OF THE SHI’ITE RIFT

On the face of it, the Ottoman, Mughal, Safavid, and Central Asian Islamic
states had much in common: Muslim faith and culture, similar systems of
taxation and law, the Persian language, and Turkish rulers. Yet the deep
religious division between the Shi’ite Safavids and all their Sunni neighbors
proved stronger than their common bonds. The result was a serious
geographic division that isolated Central Asian Muslims.
Shi’ite-Sunni political competition was sharpened by Safavid militancy,
to which the Sunni states responded in kind. Attempts to form alliances
with non-Muslim states, previously unheard of in the Islamic world,
became a commonplace of Shi’ite political strategy. The Sunnis also
resorted to such tactics: The Ottomans, for example, made common cause
with Protestants against their Catholic Habsburg enemies. Although trade
continued, the presence of a militant Shi’ite state astride the major overland
trade routes of the larger Islamic world hurt the international flow of
Islamic commerce.
The Safavid Shi’ite schism also changed the shared cultural traditions of
the “Abode of Islam.” This change was especially reflected in the fate of
Persian literary culture. As a result of its association with Shi’ism after the
rise of the Safavids, Persian made little further progress as a potential
common language alongside Arabic in Sunni lands. Outside Iran it was
destined to remain a language of high culture, the court, and bureaucracy,
where it was the mark of the educated person: Mastery of the Persian
language and Persian classic texts largely defined what it meant to be an
Ottoman or Mughal “gentleman.” In India, Urdu became the shared Muslim
idiom (see Chapter 12), and in Ottoman and Central Asian lands, various
Turkic tongues were spoken in everyday life. The Persian classics inspired
Persian learning among educated Sunnis, but Safavid Persian literature was
largely ignored.

The Great Central Square of the Registan, in Samarkand, with the

seventeenth-century Shir Dar Madrasa on the right and the fifteenth-century
Ulugh Beg Madrasa on the left. Samarkand and other major Central Asian
cities were centers of Islamic culture and learning as well as political power.

What are the similarities between this square and the Maydan-i-Shah
(see page 520) and Fatehpur-Sikir (see page 522)? What does this
suggest?
Central Asia was ultimately the Islamic region most decisively affected
by the Shi’ite presence in Iran. Combined with the growing pressure of
Christian Russian power, Iran’s militant Shi’ism isolated Central Asia from
the rest of the Muslim world. Political, economic, cultural, and religious
interchange with other Islamic lands became increasingly difficult after
1500. However healthy Islam remained in this region, its contact with the
original Islamic heartlands and India shrank. Contact came primarily
through a few pilgrims, members of Sufi orders, ulama, and students.
Central Asian Islam mostly developed in isolation, peripheral to the Islamic
mainstream communities.
POWER SHIFTS IN THE SOUTHERN
OCEANS

HOW DID the arrival of Europeans affect maritime trade in Southeast

Asia?

SOUTHERN-OCEANS TRADE
The period from 1000 to 1500 witnessed the gradual spread of Islamic
religion and culture along the southern rim of Asia, from the Red Sea and
East Africa to Indonesia and the South China Sea. In ports of Java,
Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, South India, Gujarat, East Africa,
Madagascar, and Zanzibar, Islamic traders established thriving
communities. Their enclaves often became centers of local life. Initially the
Muslims’ economic stature attracted especially the socially mobile groups
in these cosmopolitan ports; many also found Muslim ideas and practices
compelling. Typically these first conversions were followed by Islam’s
transmission to surrounding areas and finally to inland centers. In this, Sufi
orders and their preachers and holy men played the main roles. However,
conquest by Muslim coastal states accelerated the process in Indonesia and
East Africa.
The international trade network Muslims inherited from the Indian Ocean
to the South China sea was ancient. Before 1200, much of the trade in these
waters had been dominated by Hindu or Buddhist kingdoms of the Malay
Peninsula or Sumatra (see Chapter 12). Arab traders had also been active in
the Indian Ocean. Hindu culture had been carried, along with an Indonesian
language, as far west as Madagascar in the first millennium C.E. Hindus
were the chief religious community the Muslims displaced. In the East,
Islam never ousted the Indian Buddhist cultures of Burma, Thailand, and
Indochina, although Muslim traders thrived in their ports. Islam did,
however, gradually win most of Malaysia, Sumatra, Java, and the “Spice
Islands” of the Moluccas—first the coastal areas, then inland regions.
Afro-Indian merchant. This superb painting of an Indian of African origin
shows the many connections linking the Indian Ocean world together. The
man in this image is a merchant, probably a member of the Janjeera people,
originally from Ethiopia. Janjeera merchants immigrated to India in the
Middle Ages. Some remained there, and from the fifteenth century they and
their descendants obtained positions of power and authority in local
governments. The sumptuous dress and dignified bearing of this man
suggest wealth and influence.

How did European traders in the Indian Ocean and South Seas differ
from traders who had come before?

CONTROL OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS

The Portuguese reached the East African coast in 1498. In the ensuing three
centuries, the history of the lands along the sea trade routes of Asia, from
East Africa to Indonesia, was intertwined not only with Islamic religious,
cultural, and commercial networks, but also with the rising power of
Christian western Europe. The key attractions of these diverse lands were
their commercial and strategic possibilities (see Map 20–3).

MAP 20–3. European Commercial Penetration of Southeast Asia.

Beginning with the Portuguese and Spanish in the sixteenth century, and
then the Dutch and British in the seventeenth, West European powers
established commercial bases throughout Southeast Asia, often cooperating
with local Islamic, Hindi, or Buddhist rulers.

What were the motives for European maritime imperialism in Southeast

Asia?
OVERVIEW The Religions of Southeast Asia

Predominately Burma
Buddhist
Thailand, with a significant Muslim minority
Cambodia
Laos
Vietnam, with a large Roman Catholic minority
Singapore, with Muslim, Christian, and Hindu
minorities
Predominately Indonesia, with a large Christian minority and the
Muslim Hindu island of Bali
Malaysia, with Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese, and
Christian minorities
Brunei
Predominately The Philippines, with a sizable Muslim minority
Christian
East Timor

In the sixteenth century the Europeans began to forcibly displace the

Muslims who, by 1500, dominated the maritime southern rim of Asia.
European success was based on two key factors: the national support
systems that backed their naval and commercial ventures, and their superior
warships. In the early sixteenth century, this combination enabled the
Portuguese to carve out a major power base along the west coast of India at
the expense of the Muslims who dominated Indian maritime trade. They did
so through superior naval power and by exploiting indigenous rivalries and
terrorizing all who opposed them.
However, in the southern-seas trade centers, Islamization continued, even
in the face of Christian proselytizing and growing European political and
commercial presence. The Muslims, unlike most European Christians, were
everywhere largely assimilated with the local populations. They rarely
abandoned their faith, which proved generally attractive to new peoples
they encountered. The result was typically an Islamized, racially mixed
population.
 As a result, while European gunboat imperialism had considerable
military and economic success, often at the expense of Islamic states,
European culture and Christianity made little headway against Islam. From
East Africa to the Pacific, only in the northern Philippines did a substantial
population become largely Christian.

THE EAST INDIES: ACHEH

The Indonesian archipelago’s history has always been heavily influenced by
international demand for its spices, peppers, and other produce. By the
fifteenth century its coastal Islamic states were centered on the trading ports
of the Malay Peninsula, the north shores of Sumatra and Java, and the
Moluccas, or “Spice Islands.” The last great Hindu kingdom of inland Java
was defeated by an Islamic coalition of states in the early 1500s. Several
substantial Islamic sultanates arose in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, even as Europeans were carving out economic empires in the
region. The most powerful Islamic state was Acheh, in northwestern
Sumatra (ca. 1524–1910).

CHRONOLOGY

THE SOUTHERN SEAS: ARRIVAL OF THE EUROPEANS

In its early years Acheh provided the only counterpoise to Portuguese

presence across the straits in Malacca (Malaysia). Although the Acheh
sultans were unable to defeat the better-armed invaders, neither could the
Portuguese subdue them. Despite Portuguese control of Indies commerce,
Acheh continued to thrive and dominated the Sumatran pepper trade until
nearly 1600. In the first half of the seventeenth century the sultanate
controlled both coasts of Sumatra and parts of the Malay Peninsula.
Meanwhile, the Dutch replaced the Portuguese in milking the Indies of their
wealth, and by the 1700s they were doing so just as ruthlessly and more
efficiently. The Dutch finally won full control in the region, but only after
nearly forty years of intermittent war with Acheh (1873–1910).

SUMMARY

WHY DID the Ottoman Empire find it increasingly difficult to

compete with European powers?

The Ottoman Empire and the East Mediterranean World. The period
from 1500 to 1800 marks the cultural and political blossoming of the last
Islamic empires and their gradual decline. The Ottoman Empire built up
from a small principality in the fourteenth century to a great empire under
rulers including Mehmet II and Süleyman in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. The empire was well organized and had one of the strongest
militaries in the world. In the seventeenth century, it still posed a threat to
Europe, but in the eighteenth century it declined, particularly in relation to
the industrializing West. page 510

WHAT ROLE did Shi’ite ideology play in the Safavid Empire?

The Safavid Empire and the West Asian World. Shi’ite Sufi Safavids
unified the traditional Iranian heartland under Shah Isma’il early in the
sixteenth century. Shah Abbas I, whose rule straddled the turn of the
seventeenth century, was a masterful ruler who consolidated Shi’te power in
Iran. Safavid artists and intellectuals left a rich legacy, and the capital city
of Isfahan was renowned as “half the world.” page 518
 WHAT ROLE did religious intolerance play in the decline of the
Mughal Empire?

The Mughals. India was reunified under the Mughals in the sixteenth
century. The great ruler Akbar (1558–1603) expanded Mughal territory and
modeled religious tolerance. But Hindu–Muslim tensions increased after
Akbar’s reign, and both Sikhs and Hindu Marathas resisted Mughal
authority. In the nineteenth century, the British East India Company gained
power. page 521

WHAT WERE the most important Islamic states in Central and

southern Asia?

Central Asia: Islamization in the Post-Timur Era. The Uzbeks and

Chaghatays of Central Asia were Sunni Muslims, geographically isolated
from the mainstream Islamic community by the militant Shi’ism of the
Safavids. page 524

HOW DID the arrival of Europeans affect maritime trade in Southeast

Asia?

Power Shifts in the Southern Oceans. Islamic traders attracted converts

and established vibrant, multiethnic seaport communities around the rim of
East Africa and southern Asia. Europe’s growing economic and naval
dominance allowed it to control many southern sea trade centers, but
Islamization continued. page 526

KEY TERMS

ayan
devshirme (dev-sheer-MEH)
Grand Mufti (grand MOOF-tee)
harem
Janissaries (JANN-ihss-AYR-ees)
 millets
Mughals (MOO-gahlz)
padishah
pirs
Qanun
Qanun-name
Shari’a (sha-REE-ah)
Sufi (SOO-fee)

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Why did the Ottoman Empire expand so rapidly? Why did the
empire fail to hold certain areas in Europe?
2. Why did the Safavid Empire succeed in Iran? What roles did Islamic
religion and favorable geography have in this development? Who
were the major foes of this empire?
3. What were the most important elements that united all Islamic
states? Why was there a lack of unity between these states from
1500 to 1850? How and why were the European powers able to
promote division among these various states?
4. What were Akbar’s main policies toward the Hindu population?
Why did he succeed and his followers fail in this area? What were
his main governmental reforms?
5. How and why did the Sikhs develop into a formidable military
power? Why did they become separatists in their orientation to the
larger Indian world?
6. Akbar, Abbas, and Süleyman are considered some of the most
successful world leaders in history. Compare and contrast their
strengths, weaknesses, and long-term influence.
7. Compare the Sunni–Shi’ite differences and similarities within the
Islamic world (1500–1800) with that of the Protestant–Catholic split
within the Christian world during that same period. For example,
can we compare relations between England and Spain in the
 sixteenth century to those between the Ottomans and the Safavids?
Explain.
8. Why were outside powers attracted to the lands of the southern
seas? Why did the European powers triumph in the struggle to
control this area?
9. Which of the cultures described in this chapter seems most
appealing to you? Which would you most like to live in, and why?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 20

Read the Document Mehmed II (15th century), p. 511

Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, “Süleyman the Lawgiver,” p. 511

Women in Ottoman society, p. 513
Portrait of an Ottoman Gentleman, p. 517
Shah Isma’il Describes Himself to His Followers, p. 519
Fathers Simon and Vincent Report on Shah Abbas I, the Safavid Ruler
of Persia, p. 519
A Sikh Guru’s Testimony of Faith, p. 524

See the Map The Ottoman Empire to 1566, p. 511

Atlas Map: Iran under the Safavids, ca. 1252–1524, p. 518

Mughal Empire, p. 522
 The Maratha Kingdoms 1, p. 522

View the Image Akbar, Emperor of India, p. 521

Research and Explore

Watch the Video Why Does It Matter How We Use The Term “Empire”?

See the Map The Decline of the Ottoman Empire, p. 515

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 20 at www.myhistorylab.com
21
The Age of European Enlightenment

Hear the Audio for Chapter 21 at www.myhistorylab.com

Enlightenment Salon. The salon of Madame Marie-Thérèse Geoffrin

(1699–1777) was one of the most important gathering spots for
Enlightenment writers during the middle of the eighteenth century. Well-
connected women such as Madame Geoffrin were instrumental in helping
the philosophes they patronized to bring their ideas to the attention of
influential people in French society and politics.

Chäteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Preau, Rueil-Malmaison. Bridgeman-

Giraudon/Art Resource, New York.
What kinds of people are depicted here?

THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

WHY IS the Scientific Revolution important to world history?

THE ENLIGHTENMENT

HOW DID Enlightenment thinkers argue for the reform of society?

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND RELIGION

WHY DID the philosophes regard the church as the chief enemy of reform
and human happiness?

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND SOCIETY

HOW DID the philosophes hope that reason would change society?

ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM

WHAT WERE the goals of enlightened absolute rulers?

Western science, and the technology that flows from a scientific

understanding of nature, have transformed every region of the world during
the past three centuries. The impact of scientific thinking was felt first in
Europe and then elsewhere only when the conviction spread that change
and reform were possible and desirable. This attitude came into its own in
Europe after 1700. The movement that fostered it is called the
Enlightenment. It was an expression of confidence in the power of rational
criticism to challenge the intellectual authority of tradition and revealed
religion. Enlightenment thinkers believed human beings could comprehend
the operation of physical nature and mold it to the ends of material and
moral improvement. The rationality of the material world became a
standard against which the customs and traditions of society could be
measured and criticized. The spirit of innovation and improvement came to
characterize modern Western society and became perhaps the most
important European cultural export to the rest of the world.

Enlightenment

The eighteenth-century movement led by the philosophes that held that

change and reform were both possible and desirable through the application
of reason and science.

THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

WHY IS the Scientific Revolution important to world history?

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed a sweeping change in the

scientific view of the universe. From being considered the center of the
universe, the earth was now seen as only another planet orbiting the sun.
The sun itself became one of millions of stars. This transformation led to a
vast rethinking of moral and religious matters as well as of scientific theory.
Science and the scientific method became so impressive and so influential
that they set a new standard for evaluating knowledge in the Western world.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
THE EUROPEAN ENLIGHTENMENT
Of all the movements of modern European thought, the most influential are
the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. A direct line of
intellectual descent exists from those movements to the science and social
criticism of the present day. From the eighteenth century to the present, the
writers of the Enlightenment provided a pattern for intellectuals who
wished to make their societies more rational, scientific, economically
productive, reform-minded, and religiously tolerant. The Enlightenment
model of society in the West (and via the West, in the rest of the world)
became synonymous with “modern.”
This particular view of modernization tended to frame the European and
later North American experience as the necessary pattern for all advanced
societies. This outlook originated with the majority of Enlightenment
writers themselves. A minority of those writers of the eighteenth century, as
with many present-day commentators, questioned whether even a rational,
critical, and economically productive Europe should be the pattern for all
human societies. Thus the Enlightenment also fostered its own internal self-
criticism.
In terms of political thought, the heritage of the Enlightenment was
complex with different strands of political thought often in tension or
outright conflict with each other. Virtually all Enlightenment writers
believed in some form of religious toleration or recognition of religious
pluralism. Beyond that viewpoint there was much disagreement. Some
Enlightenment thinkers drawing upon the English political experience
championed constitutionalism and other modes of government that
circumscribed the authority of the central government. Montesquieu, for
example, influenced the Constitution of the United States and the numerous
constitutions which that document, in turn, influenced. Another strand of
Enlightenment political thought, found in Voltaire, contributed to the
growth of strong monarchical governments, associated with enlightened
absolutism. Such writers believed that a monarch and a strong central
bureaucracy could formulate and impose rational solutions to political and
social problems and hence overcome competing social and political
interests. Still another variety of Enlightenment political thought, arising
from Rousseau, led to the socialist concern with inequality of wealth and a
desire for radical democratic government. Because of the complexity of
Enlightenment political thought, modern governments displaying
liberalism, socialism, and bureaucratic centralism may find roots in
eighteenth-century thinkers.
Present-day political movements finding themselves essentially at odds
with the Enlightenment heritage are those attached to radical Islamic groups
who define themselves in opposition to most Western values. Those values
tend to be derived from the Enlightenment. Most particularly these groups
oppose the religious pluralism, cultural relativism, and expansion of
traditional social roles for women that have flowed over time from the
expansion of Enlightenment values.
As we observed in Chapter 17, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
whose ideas fostered the Enlightenment, also saw the rise of European
colonial empires and the establishment of plantation economies based on
slavery. Europeans’ treatment of non-Europeans, as well as their warfare
against each other in this era, often belied the principles of the
Enlightenment. Certain Enlightenment writers, a minority, sharply criticized
those empires. In this respect, contemporary critics of Western influence
throughout the world can find roots in this eighteenth-century critique of
empire.

Focus Questions

How did Enlightenment values, including Enlightenment admiration

of science, become one of the chief defining qualities of societies
regarded as advanced, progressive, and modern?
How has the political thought of the Enlightenment influenced the
development of modern political philosophies and modern
governments?
How could modes of thought developed to criticize various aspects
of eighteenth-century European society be transferred to other
traditions of world civilizations?

The process that established the new view of the universe is normally
termed the Scientific Revolution. The revolution-in-science metaphor must
be used carefully, however. Not everything associated with the “new”
science was necessarily new. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century natural
philosophers were often reexamining and rethinking theories and data from
the ancient world and the Late Middle Ages. Moreover, the word revolution
normally denotes rapid, collective political change involving large numbers
of people. The Scientific Revolution was not rapid. It was a complex
movement with many false starts and many brilliant people suggesting
wrong as well as useful ideas. It involved only a few hundred people who
labored in widely separated studies and crude laboratories located in
Poland, Italy, Bohemia, France, and Great Britain. The achievements of the
new science were not simply the function of isolated brilliant scientific
minds: The leading figures of the Scientific Revolution drew upon the aid
of artisans and craftspeople to help them construct new instruments for
experimentation and to carry out their experiments. Thus, the Scientific
Revolution involved a reappropriation of older knowledge as well as new
discoveries. In addition, because the practice of science involves social
activity as well as knowledge, the revolution also saw the establishment of
new social institutions to support the emerging scientific enterprise.

Scientific Revolution

The sweeping change in the scientific view of the universe that occurred in
the West in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

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Science and the Enlightenment, ca. 1450, at myhistorylab.com

NICOLAUS COPERNICUS REJECTS AN EARTH-CENTERED UNIVERSE

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) was a Polish astronomer who had a good
reputation, though he was not considered an original thinker. In 1543, the
year of his death, Copernicus published On the Revolutions of the Heavenly
Spheres, which provided an intellectual springboard for a complete
criticism of the then-dominant view of the position of the earth in the
universe.

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At the time, the standard explanation of the place of the earth in the
heavens was the Ptolemaic system. It combined the mathematical
astronomy of Ptolemy, contained in the Almagest (150 C.E.), with the
physical cosmology of Aristotle. Over the centuries, most writers
commenting on Ptolemy’s system had assumed that the earth was the center
of the universe, an outlook known as geocentricism. Drawing on Aristotle,
these commentators assumed that above the earth lay a series of concentric
spheres, one of which contained the moon, another the sun, and still others
the planets and the stars. At the outer regions of these spheres lay the realm
of God and the angels. The earth had to be the center because of its
heaviness. The stars and the other heavenly bodies had to be enclosed in the
spheres so that they could move, since nothing could move unless
something was actually moving it. The state of rest was presumed natural;
motion required explanation. This was the astronomy found in such works
as Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Ptolemaic system

The pre-Copernican explanation of the universe, which placed the earth at

the center of the universe.

Numerous problems with the Ptolemaic model had long been recognized.
The most important was the observed motions of the planets, which at times
appeared to go backwards. The Ptolemaic system explained these strange
motions by proposing the epicycle: a second revolution by a planet in an
orbit tangent to its primary orbit around the earth. The Ptolemaic
explanations were effective as long as one accepted Aristotelian physics and
the Christian belief that the earth rested at the center of the created universe.
The Ptolemaic System. The “Emperor’s Astronomy” (dedicated to the
Holy Roman emperor Charles V) elegantly depicts the cosmos and heavens
according to the 1,400-year-old Ptolemaic system, which maintained that
the sun revolved around the earth. By means of hand-colored maps, Petrus
Apianus (1495–1552) laid out the mechanics of a universe that was earth-
and human-centered. Within three years of Apianus’s book, this view was
challenged by Copernicus’s assertion that the earth revolved around the sun.

Why was the question of the earth’s position in the universe of such
importance?
Copernicus challenged this picture in the most conservative way
possible. He suggested that if the earth were assumed to move around the
sun in a circle, there were fewer difficulties with the Ptolemaic system.
With the sun at the center of the universe, mathematical astronomy would
make more sense. The epicycles became smaller, and the retrograde motion
of the planets could be explained as an optical illusion arising from an
observer viewing the planets from a moving earth. Except for the
modification in the position of the earth, most of Copernicus’s book was
Ptolemaic. It prompted others who were discontented with the Ptolemaic
system to think in new ways, however. Copernicus’s combination of
mathematics, empirical data, and observation established the model for
scientific thinking.

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TYCHO BRAHE AND JOHANNES KEPLER

Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) spent most of his life
opposing Copernicus and advocating a different kind of earth-centered
system. He suggested that the moon and the sun revolved around the earth
and that the other planets revolved around the sun. His major weapon
against Copernican astronomy was a series of new astronomical
observations made with the naked eye. Brahe constructed the most accurate
tables of observations that had been drawn up for centuries. Brahe’s data
ended up disproving both his own and Copernicus’s hypotheses.
When Brahe died, his tables came into the possession of Johannes Kepler
(1571–1630), a German astronomer. Kepler was a convinced Copernican
for philosophical, not scientific, reasons. Kepler was deeply influenced by
Renaissance Neo-Platonists who, following Plato’s (ca. 428–ca. 328 B.C.E.)
association of knowledge with light, honored the sun. These Neo-Platonists
searched for mathematical harmonies that would support a sun-centered
universe. After much work, Kepler discovered that to keep the sun at the
center of things, he must abandon the Copernican concept of circular orbits.
The mathematical relationships that emerged from Brahe’s observations
suggested that the orbits of the planets were elliptical. Kepler published his
findings in 1609 in a book entitled On the Motion of Mars. He had solved
the problems of planetary orbits by using Copernicus’s sun-centered
universe and Brahe’s empirical data.
None of the available theories could explain why the planetary orbits
were elliptical. That solution awaited the work of Sir Isaac Newton.
Tycho Brahe in the Uranienburg Observatory on the Danish island of Hven
(1587). Brahe made the most important observations of the stars since
antiquity. Kepler used his data to solve the problem of planetary motion in a
way that supported Copernicus’s sun-centered view of the universe.
Ironically, Brahe himself had opposed Copernicus’s view.

How was empiricism at the center of the Scientific Revolution?

GALILEO GALILEI
In 1609 an Italian scientist named Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) first turned a
telescope on the heavens. He saw stars where none had been known to
exist, mountains on the moon, spots moving across the sun, and moons
orbiting Jupiter. The heavens were far more complex than anyone had
formerly suspected. None of these discoveries proved that the earth orbited
the sun, but they did reveal the inadequacy of the Ptolemaic system. Some
of Galileo’s colleagues at the University of Padua were so unnerved that
they refused to look through the telescope because it revealed the heavens
to be different from the teachings of the church and from Ptolemaic
theories.
Galileo publicized his findings in his Dialogues on the Two Chief
Systems of the World (1632). It was condemned by the Roman Catholic
Church, which compelled him to recant his opinions. He did so, but
reputedly muttered, “It [the earth] still moves.”
Galileo’s most important achievement was to articulate the concept of a
universe totally subject to mathematical laws. Copernicus had proposed that
the heavens exhibited mathematical regularity; Galileo saw this regularity
throughout all physical nature. He believed that the smallest atom behaved
with the same mathematical precision as the largest heavenly sphere.

FRANCIS BACON: THE EMPIRICAL METHOD

In the course of the seventeenth century, both mathematical analysis and
empirical induction proved fundamental to scientific investigation.
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was a multitasking Englishman: He was a
lawyer, a high royal official, and the author of histories, moral essays, and
philosophical discourses. Traditionally, he has been regarded as the father
of empiricism and of experimentation in science. Much of this reputation
was unearned, but he did help set an intellectual tone and create a climate
conducive to scientific work.

empiricism

The use of experiment and observation derived from sensory evidence to

construct scientific theory or philosophy of knowledge.

In books including The Advancement of Learning (1605), the Novum

Organum (1620), and the New Atlantis (1627), Bacon attacked the
scholastic belief that most truth had already been discovered. He urged
contemporaries to strike out on their own in search of a new understanding
of nature, based on an examination of empirical evidence. Bacon was one
of the first major European writers to champion the desirability of
innovation and change. He believed that human knowledge should produce
useful results. In particular, knowledge of nature should be brought to the
aid of the human condition.
Bacon directed investigators of nature to a new method and a new
purpose. Bacon’s own theory of induction from empirical evidence was
unsystematic, but his insistence on appealing to experience influenced
others whose methods were more productive. Bacon’s linkage of science
and material progress, though not fully accurate, has continued to influence
Western civilization up to the present. It has made science and those who
can appeal to the authority of science major forces for change and
innovation. As a person actively associated with politics, Bacon believed
that the pursuit of new knowledge would increase the power of
governments and monarchies. Here, his thought opened the way for the
eventual strong linkage between governments and the scientific enterprise.

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Francis Bacon (1561–1626)

Attacked belief that most truth had already been discovered
One of the first Europeans to champion innovation and change
Persuaded others that scientific thought must proceed by means of
empirical observation

ISAAC NEWTON DISCOVERS THE LAWS OF GRAVITATION

The question that continued to perplex seventeenth-century scientists who
accepted the theories of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo was how the
planets and other heavenly bodies moved in an orderly fashion. When the
Englishman Isaac Newton (1642–1727) successfully addressed this issue,
he established a basis for physics that endured for more than two centuries.
In 1687 Newton published The Mathematical Principles of Natural
Philosophy, better known by its Latin title of Principia Mathematica.
Galileo’s mathematical bias permeated Newton’s thought, as did Galileo’s
view that inertia applied to bodies both at rest and in motion. Newton
reasoned that the planets and all other physical objects in the universe
moved through mutual attraction, or gravity. Every object in the universe
affected every other object through gravity. Newton proved the gravitational
relationship between the planets mathematically; he made no attempt to
explain the nature of gravity itself.

Newton’s Telescope. Behind it is a copy of Principia Mathematica, his

most famous work.

What was the significance of Newton’s work on gravity?

Newton was a great mathematical genius, but he also upheld the
importance of empirical data and observation. Like Bacon, he believed that
one must observe phenomena before attempting to explain them. The final
test of any theory or hypothesis for him was whether it described what was
actually observed. Consequently, as Newton’s own theory of universal
gravitation became increasingly accepted, so, too, was Baconian
empiricism.

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Isaac Newton, from Opticks at myhistorylab.com

WOMEN IN THE WORLD OF THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

The same factors that had long excluded women from participating in most
European intellectual life continued to exclude them from working in the
emerging natural philosophy. The institutions of European intellectual life
—monasteries and universities—were associated with celibate male clerical
culture. With a few exceptions in Italy, women were not admitted to
European universities until the end of the nineteenth century. Women
influenced princely courts where natural philosophers, such as Galileo,
sought patronage, but they usually did not determine those patronage
decisions or benefit from them. Queen Christina of Sweden was an
exception by engaging René Descartes, the major French philosopher of
science, to provide the regulations for a new science academy. When
scientific societies were founded, women were not admitted to membership.
Yet a few isolated women from two very different social settings—
noblewomen and women from the artisan class—managed to engage in the
new scientific activity. In both cases, they did so through their husbands or
other men in their families.
The social standing of certain noblewomen allowed them to command
the attention of ambitious natural philosophers who were part of their
husbands’ social circles. Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673), whose marriage
to the duke of Newcastle introduced her into a circle of natural
philosophers, made significant contributions with scientific works including
Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (1666) and Grounds of
Natural Philosophy (1668). She was the only woman in the seventeenth
century to be allowed to visit a meeting of the Royal Society of London.
Women associated with artisan crafts achieved greater freedom in
pursuing the new sciences than did noblewomen. Traditionally, women had
worked in artisan workshops, often with their husbands, and they
sometimes took over the business when their spouse died. Much German
astronomy, for example, occurred with women assisting their fathers or
husbands. German astronomer Maria Cunitz published a book on
astronomy that many people thought her husband had written until he added
a preface supporting her sole authorship. Elisabetha and Johannes Hevelius
constituted a wife-and-husband astronomical team, as did Maria
Winkelmann and her husband Gottfried Kirch. Although Winkelmann
discovered a comet in 1702, not until 1930 was the discovery ascribed to
her rather than to her husband.
Some women were able to use books or personal friendships to get
around exlusionary policies. Cavendish wrote a Description of a New
World, Called the Blazing World (1666) to introduce women to the new
science. Other scientific writings for a female audience were Bernard de
Fontenelle’s Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds and Francesco
Algarotti’s Newtonianism for Ladies (1737). During the 1730s, Emilie du
Châtelet aided Voltaire in his composition of an important French
popularization of Newton’s science. Her knowledge of mathematics was
more extensive than his and crucial to completing the book.
Women and Learning. René Descartes, the French philosopher, is on the
right, tutoring Queen Christina (1626–1689) of Sweden, seated on the left.

Pierre-Louis the Younger Dumesnil (1698–1781), “Christina of Sweden

(1626-89) and her Court: detail of the Queen and Rene Descartes (1596-
1650) at the Table.” Oil on canvas. Chateau de Versailles,
France/Bridgeman Art Library.

What roles did women play in the Scientific Revolution?

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Galileo Galilei, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1630s) at

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Still, with only a few exceptions, women were barred from science and
medicine until the late nineteenth century, and not until the twentieth
century did they enter these fields in any significant numbers. Not only did
the institutions of science exclude them, but also the ideas associated with
medical practice, philosophy, and biology suggested that women and their
minds were essentially different from, and inferior to, men and theirs. By
the early eighteenth century, it had become a fundamental assumption of
European intellectual life that the pursuit of natural knowledge was a male
vocation.

JOHN LOCKE
John Locke (1632–1704) attempted to discover laws governing the human
mind similar to those that Newton had discovered as explanations for
natural phenomena. No other philosopher had so profound an impact on
European and American thought during the eighteenth century.
Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) postulated that
the human mind is blank at the time of birth. People have no innate ideas.
All their knowledge derives from information that comes through their
physical senses. Given that people’s intellects are shaped by the interaction
between their minds and the world, Locke argued that human nature could
be modified by changing the environment. Locke’s thinking thus
represented an early form of behaviorism. Locke in effect rejected the
Christian view that human beings were flawed by original sin. Human
beings do not need to wait for divine aid; they can take charge of their own
destinies.
In his Two Treatises of Government, written during the reign of Charles II
(r. 1660–1685), Locke made a case against absolute monarchy. The law of
nature, he argued, teaches that human beings are equal and independent;
they should not harm one another or disturb one another’s property because
all persons are the images and property of God. People voluntarily
relinquish some of their freedom and contract with their rulers for the
protection and preservation of their natural rights. Rulers are, therefore, not
absolute but bound by natural laws. A monarch who does not comply with
natural law can legitimately be overthrown. In his Letter Concerning
Toleration, Locke argued that governments existed to protect property and
civil order. They should not legislate on religion, for the pursuit of salvation
is the responsibility of the individual. Locke himself drew the line in
England against toleration of Roman Catholics and Unitarians. During the
eighteenth century, however, the logic of his argument was extended to
advocate toleration for those faiths as well.

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OVERVIEW Major Figures in the Scientific Revolution

Nicolaus On the basis of mathematical analysis argued that the

Copernicus earth moved around the sun.
(1473–
1543)
Tycho Compiled accurate tables of astronomical observations.
Brahe
(1546–
1601)
Johannes Used Brahe’s data to argue that the orbits of the planets
Kepler were elliptical.
(1571–
1601)
Galileo First astronomer to use a telescope. Argued that
Galilei mathematical laws governed the universe.
(1564–
1642)
Francis Argued that scientific thought must conform to empirical
Bacon evidence. Championed innovation and change.
(1561–
1626)
Isaac Described the effect of gravity mathematically and
Newton established a theoretical basis for physics that endured
(1642– until the late nineteenth century.
1727)
John Argued that the human mind is a blank slate that may be
Locke molded by modifying the environment. Human beings
(1632– could thus take charge of their own destiny without
1704) divine aid.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT

HOW DID Enlightenment thinkers argue for the reform of society?

The movement known as the Enlightenment included writers living at
different times in various countries. Its early exponents, the philosophes,
popularized the rationalism and scientific ideas of the seventeenth century.
They exposed contemporary social and political abuses and argued that
reform was necessary and possible. They confronted oppression and
religious condemnation and by midcentury had brought enlightened ideas to
the European public in a variety of formats.

philosophes

The eighteenth-century writers and critics who forged the new attitudes
favorable to change. They sought to apply reason and common sense to the
institutions and societies of their day.

VOLTAIRE
The most influential of the philosophes was the French writer François
Marie Arouet, called Voltaire (1694–1778). In 1733, after visiting England,
he published Letters on the English, which praised the intellectual and
political freedom found in England and indirectly criticized French society.
In 1738, he published Elements of the Philosophy of Newton, which
popularized the thought of the great scientist. Voltaire’s essays, history,
plays, stories, and letters made him the literary dictator of Europe. He
turned the bitter venom of his satire and sarcasm against one evil after
another in French and European life. His most famous satire is Candide
(1759), in which he attacked war, religious persecution, and what he
regarded as unwarranted optimism about the human condition. Like most
philosophes, Voltaire believed that human society could and should be
improved. But he was never certain that reform, if achieved, would be
permanent. The optimism of the Enlightenment constituted a tempered
hopefulness rather than a glib certainty. Pessimism was an undercurrent in
most of the works of the period.

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Science and the Enlightenment, ca.1450, at myhistorylab.com

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Voltaire, Letters on England at myhistorylab.com

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA
One of the greatest monuments of the Enlightenment was the Encyclopedia.
Under the heroic leadership of Denis Diderot (1713–1784) and Jean le
Rond d’Alembert (1717–1783), the first volume appeared in 1751. When
completed in 1772, it numbered seventeen volumes of text and eleven of
plates. The Encyclopedia was a collective effort of more than 100 authors,
and its editors had solicited articles from all the major French philosophes.
Attempts were made to censor it and halt its publication, but it was
ultimately completed. The Encyclopedia made a plea for freedom of
expression and set forth the most advanced critical ideas in religion,
government, and philosophy. It also provided practical information in areas
such as manufacturing, canal building, and agriculture. (See Document:
“The Encyclopedia Praises Mechanical Arts and Artisans.”)
Denis Diderot was the heroic editor of the Encyclopedia, which was
published in seventeen volumes of text and eleven volumes of prints
between 1751 and 1772. Through its pages many of the chief ideas of the
Enlightenment reached a broad audience of readers.

Jean-Simon Berthelemy (1743–1811), “Denis Diderot” (1713–1784). Writer

and Encyelopaedist. Oil on canvas, 55 × 46 cm. Inv.: P 2082. Photo: Bulloz.
Musee de la Ville de Paris, Musee Carnavalet, Paris, France/Art Resource,
New York.

Which has more influence on society, the dissemination of information

or the creation of new knowledge?
Between 14,000 and 16,000 copies of various editions of the
Encyclopedia were sold before 1789. The project had been designed to
secularize learning, and the articles concentrated on humanity and its well-
being. The encyclopedists looked to antiquity rather than to the Christian
centuries for their inspiration, and they believed that the welfare of
humankind lay not in the pursuit of revelation but in the application of
reason to human relationships. The Encyclopedia diffused enlightened
thought throughout the continent and drew German and Russian thinkers
into the movement (see Map 21–1 on page 542).

DOCUMENT
The Encyclopedia Praises Mechanical Arts and Artisans
One of the most remarkable features of the Encyclopedia is the vast quantity
of information it included about the mechanical arts of the day. Not only are
there many articles on such work, but a large number of engravings
portrayed eighteenth-century French artisans in their workplace. In the
“Preliminary Discourse,” which served as a general introduction to the
Encyclopedia, D’Alembert explained the importance of the mechanical arts
as well as the manner whereby the authors had explored these arts and the
workshops where they were carried out.
• HOW does D’Alembert defend the importance of the mechanical
arts? Why does he think they have not always received proper
attention and appreciation? How did the authors of the Encyclopedia
familiarize themselves with such work? What kind of conversation
might have occurred between one of those authors and a skilled
artisan operating his machinery?
The mechanical arts, which are dependent upon manual operation and are
subjugated (…) to a sort of routine, have been left to those among men
whom prejudices have placed in the lowest class.… However, the
advantage that the liberal arts have over the mechanical arts… is
sufficiently counterbalanced by the quite superior usefulness which the
latter for the most part have for us. It is this very usefulness which reduced
them perforce to purely mechanical operations in order to make them
accessible to a larger number of men. But while justly respecting great
geniuses for their enlightenment, society ought not to degrade the hands by
which it is saved.…
*********
Too much has been written on the sciences; not enough has been written
well on the mechanical arts.… Thus everything impelled us to go directly to
the workers.
We approached the most capable of them… We took the trouble of going
into their shops, of questioning them, of writing at their dictation, of
developing their thoughts and of drawing therefrom the terms peculiar to
their professions, of setting up tables of these terms and of working out
definitions for them, of conversing with those from whom we obtained
memoranda, and (an almost indispensable precaution) of correcting through
long and frequent conversations with others what some of them imperfectly,
obscurely, and sometimes unreliably had explained. There are some artisans
who are also men of letters, and we would be able to cite them here; but
their numbers are very small. Most of those who engage in the mechanical
arts have embraced them only by necessity and work only by instinct.…
But there are some trades so unusual and some operations so subtle that
unless one does the work oneself, unless one operates a machine with one’s
own hands, and sees the work being created under one’s own eyes, it is
difficult to speak of it with precision. Thus several times we had to get
possession of the machines, to construct them, and to put a hand to the
work. It was necessary to become apprentices, so to speak, and to
manufacture some poor object ourselves in order to learn how to teach
others the way good specimens are made.
Source: Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encylopedia of Diderot, Richard N.
Schwab, trans. (Indianapolis, IN: ITT Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing Company, 1985), pp.
41–42, 122–123.

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Diderot’s Encyclopedia—Plate Illustrating Agricultural Techniques at

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MAP 21–1. Subscriptions to Diderot’s Encyclopedia throughout
Europe.

Why are the greatest number of subscriptions to the Encyclopedia

concentrated in western Europe?

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND RELIGION

WHY DID the philosophes regard the church as the chief enemy of
reform and human happiness?

In the eyes of the philosophes, the chief enemy of the improvement and
happiness of humankind was the church. They were especially critical of
Roman Catholicism. But all the Christian churches advocated a religious
rather than a scientific view of humankind and taught that human beings
were sinful and in need of divine grace. Religion turned attention away
from this world and the solution to its problems to the world to come. The
philosophes also indicted the churches for fostering intolerance and bigotry.

DEISM
The philosophes believed that religion should be reasonable and lead to
moral behavior. Newton argued that nature was a rational system; many
believed that the God who had created it must also be rational. Locke
argued that all human knowledge derived from empirical experience,
casting doubt on the possibility of divine revelation.
The rational religion of the Enlightenment is called deism. The deists
regarded God as resembling a divine watchmaker who had set the
mechanism of nature to work and then let it operate without intervention.

deism

A belief in a rational God who had created the universe, but then allowed it
to function without his interference according to the mechanisms of nature
and a belief in rewards and punishments after death for human action.

There were two major points in the deists’ creed. The first was a belief in
the existence of God, which they thought could be empirically deduced
from the contemplation of nature. Because nature provided evidence of a
rational God, that Deity must also favor rational morality. The second point
in the deists’ creed was a belief in life after death, when rewards and
punishments would be meted out according to the virtue of the life a person
led on this earth.
Deism was empirical, tolerant, reasonable, and capable of encouraging
virtuous living. It was the major positive religious component of the
Enlightenment.

TOLERATION
The centuries immediately preceding the Enlightenment had been
characterized by bloody religious wars, and philosophes hoped that the
triumph of reason and science would end denominational hatred and
establish religious toleration.
Voltaire championed this cause. In 1762, the French authorities tortured
and executed a Huguenot named Jean Calas (1698–1762) for having
allegedly murdered his son to prevent him from converting to Roman
Catholicism. In 1763, Voltaire published the Treatise on Toleration, and he
continued to hound the authorities until the decision against Calas was
reversed in 1765. For Voltaire, the case illustrated the dangers of religious
fanaticism and the need for rational judicial reform. In 1779, Gotthold
Lessing’s (1729–1781) play about a Jew, Nathan the Wise, broadened the
plea for toleration beyond Christian sects to include all religious faiths.
These calls for toleration argued that secular values were more important
than religious ones.

ISLAM IN ENLIGHTENMENT THOUGHT

Except in the Balkan Peninsula, Islam had few adherents in eighteenth-
century Europe. Although European merchants traded with the Ottoman
Empire and other Islamic regions, most Europeans learned what little they
knew about Islam through books that were generally hostile to Islam and
deeply misleading.
Islam continued to be seen as a rival to Christianity. European writers
portrayed Islam as a false religion and Muhammad as an impostor because
he had not performed miracles. They also attacked Islam as a sexually
promiscuous religion because of its teaching that heaven was a place of
sensuous delights, its permission for a man to have more than one wife, and
the presence of harems in the Islamic world. Christian authors ignored the
Islamic understanding of the life and mission of Muhammad. They referred
to Islam as Muhammadanism, implying that Muhammad was divine rather
than a human being with whom God had chosen to communicate.
Enlightenment philosophes had conflicting views regarding Islam.
Voltaire indicated his opinion in the title of his 1742 tragedy, Fanaticism, or
Mohammed the Prophet. Islam in general represented one more example of
the religious fanaticism he so often criticized among Christians. Some
philosophes criticized Islam on cultural and political grounds. In The
Persian Letters (1721), the political philosopher Montesquieu (1689–1755)
used Islamic culture as a foil to criticize his own European society. But by
the time he wrote his more influential Spirit of the Laws (1748), discussed
later in this chapter, Montesquieu associated Islamic society with the
passivity of people subject to political despotism. Like other Europeans,
Montesquieu believed the excessive influence of Islamic religious leaders
prevented the Ottoman Empire from adapting itself to new advances in
technology.

Illustration from the Encyclopedia. The Encyclopedia included

illustrations of machinery and working people from across the globe.
Encyclopedia editor Denis Diderot was deeply hostile to slavery. This
engraving illustrated a sugar mill and sugar boiling house run with slave
labor in the New World. The sugar produced in such mills was used in the
European coffee houses where the ideas of the philosophes were often
discussed.
How does this illustration demonstrate the Encyclopedia’s emphasis on
practical learning?

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Voltaire, “On Universal Toleration” at myhistorylab.com

Map of Turkey and View of Constantinople (Istanbul). Few Europeans

visited the Ottoman Empire. What little they knew about it came from
reports of travelers and from illustrations such as this view of Istanbul, the
empire’s capital.

Why did the Ottoman Empire arouse so much interest among

Enlightenment thinkers?

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Enlightenment and Islam: Cross-Cultural Views

European popular view of Islam biased
 European scholarship on Islam hostile
Lady Montagu provided sympathetic view of Islam
Islam dismissive of Christianity, disinterested in European writers

CHRONOLOGY

MAJOR PUBLICATION DATES OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

Some Enlightenment writers, however, spoke well of the Islamic faith.

The deist John Toland, who opposed prejudice against both Jews and
Muslims, contended that Islam derived from early Christian writings and
was thus a form of Christianity (thus offending both Christians and
Muslims). Edward Gibbon (1737–1794), who blamed Christianity for
contributing to the fall of the Roman Empire, wrote with respect of
Muhammed’s leadership and Islam’s success in conquering so vast a
territory in the first century of its existence. Other commentators approved
of Islam’s tolerance and the charitable work of Muslims.
 One of the most positive commentators on eighteenth-century Islam was
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762). Between 1716 and 1718, she
lived in Constantinople with her husband, the British ambassador to Turkey.
In her Turkish Embassy Letters (1763), she praised much about Ottoman
society and urged the English to copy the Turkish practice of vaccination
against smallpox. Unlike European males, Montagu had access to the
private quarters of women in Istanbul, and she thought upper-class Turkish
women were remarkably free and well treated by their husbands. Montagu
declared that many of the hostile comments about Islam and Islamic
morality were simply wrong.
Yet the European voices demanding fairness for Islam were rare. Nor
were Muslims very curious about the Christian West. Only a handful of
people from the Ottoman or Safavid empires visited western Europe in the
eighteenth century. The ulama, the Islamic religious establishment, taught
that God’s revelations to Muhammed meant Islam had superseded
Christianity; therefore, there was little to be learned from the Christian
culture of Europe.

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Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Letters: (a) on Constantinople; (b) on

Smallpox; (c) on Vaccination in Turkey at myhistorylab.com

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND SOCIETY

HOW DID the philosophes hope that reason would change society?

Humanity was the center of the philosophes’ interest. The philosophes

believed that the application of human reason to society would reveal laws
in human relationships similar to those found in physical nature. Although
the term did not appear until later, the idea of social science originated with
the Enlightenment. The purpose of discovering social laws was to remove
the inhumanity that was a by-product of ignorance.
MONTESQUIEU AND THE SPIRIT OF THE LAWS
Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu’s (1689–1755) The
Spirit of the Laws (1748) was perhaps the most influential book of the
century. Montesquieu took an empirical approach to the study of law,
evaluating legal texts from ancient as well as modern nations. He concluded
that no single set of laws could apply to all peoples at all times and in all
places. Only a careful analysis of many variables could reveal what mode of
government would prove most beneficial for a given people.
The French, Montesquieu believed, would be served best by a monarchy
whose power was limited by intermediary institutions: the aristocracy, the
towns, the parlements, and other corporate bodies whose liberties the
monarch had to respect. Their role was to preserve the liberty of subjects by
restraining the power of their ruler. Montesquieu was a political
conservative, but he believed that France’s oppressive and inefficient
monarchy was degrading life in France and that it needed reform.
One of Montesquieu’s most influential ideas was the division of power.
He thought that Great Britain’s government provided an excellent example.
It vested executive power in its monarch, legislative power in its
Parliament, and judicial power in its courts, and any two of these branches
of government could check the power of the other. His perception of the
eighteenth-century British constitution was incorrect, but his analysis made
a strong case for limiting the power of rulers by constitutional means and
relying on legislatures, not monarchs, to make laws. Montesquieu’s ideas
had a profound and enduring effect on the liberal democracies of the next
two centuries.

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The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu: Frontispiece, at myhistorylab.com

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Baron de Montesquieu, Excerpt from The Spirit of the Laws at

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Printing Shops. Shops such as this were the productive centers for the
book trade and newspaper publishing, which spread the ideas of the
Enlightenment.

How did tradespeople, craftsmen, and artisans contribute to the

Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment?

ADAM SMITH ON ECONOMIC GROWTH AND SOCIAL PROGRESS

The most important Enlightenment exposition of economics was Adam
Smith’s (1723–1790) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth
of Nations (1776). Smith urged abolition of England’s mercantile system. It
was a basic assumption of mercantilism that the earth’s resources are
limited and scarce, so that one nation can acquire wealth only at the
expense of others. Smith saw the resources of nature—water, air, soil, and
minerals—as boundless. He believed that if individuals were unleashed to
pursue their self-interest, the result would be economic expansion, for the
rational demands of the marketplace would guide their productive activities.
In effect, Smith was saying that the nations and peoples of Europe need not
be poor.

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Adam Smith, Intro. to the Wealth of Nations (1776) and Wealth of Nations,
Adam Smith (1776) at myhistorylab.com

Smith is usually regarded as the founder of laissez-faire economic

thought and policy, which favors a limited role for the government in
economic life. The Wealth of Nations was, however, a complex book. For
example, he did not oppose all government activity touching the economy.
The state, he argued, should provide schools, armies, navies, and roads. It
should also undertake certain commercial ventures, such as the opening of
dangerous new trade routes that were economically desirable but too
expensive or risky for private enterprise. Smith, like most of the
philosophes, was less doctrinaire than any brief summary of their thought
suggests.

laissez-faire

French phrase meaning “allow to do.” In economics, the doctrine of

minimal government interference in the working of the economy.

Smith’s theories helped to justify Western imperialism. Smith endorsed a

model popular with other social theorists of his day: the four-stage theory.
It divided human societies into four categories according to their economic
basis: hunting and gathering, pastoral or herding, agricultural, and
commercial. Movement through these stages was assumed to be progress.
This meant that economic development was the indicator of where a group
fell on the continuum between barbarism and civilization. Smith’s theory
allowed Europeans to view their society as the pinnacle of human
achievement and to justify their pursuit of imperial domination of the world
as a civilizing mission.

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Adam Smith (1723–1790)

Advocated abolition of mercantile system
Saw nature as a set of physical resources to be exploited by human
beings
 Was in favor of limited government activity in the economy

ROUSSEAU
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) held a different view of political
power. Rousseau was a strange, isolated genius who never felt comfortable
with the other philosophes. More than any other writer of the mid-
eighteenth century, he transcended the thought and values of his own time.
His Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences (1750)
contended that civilization and enlightenment had corrupted, not elevated,
human nature. In a Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755), he argued
that maldistribution of property, not lack of production, was the world’s
greatest economic problem. Rousseau felt that the purpose of society should
be to nurture better, not wealthier, people.
His vision of reform was much more radical than that of other
philosophers. Most eighteenth-century political thinkers regarded society as
a collection of independent individuals pursuing selfish goals, and they
advocated liberating these individuals from the undue bonds of government.
Rousseau, by contrast, opens The Social Contract (1762) with the
declaration, “All men are born free, but everywhere they are in chains.”1
The rest of the volume constitutes a defense of the chains of a properly
organized society over its members. Rousseau claimed that society was
more important than the individual because individuals become moral
creatures only through their relationship to the larger community. Rousseau,
drawing on Plato and Calvin, claimed that true freedom was obedience to
law—that is, rules determined by the general will. The opinion of the
majority of voting citizens, acting with adequate information and under the
influence of virtuous customs and morals, was always right.
Rousseau’s assault on the eighteenth-century cult of the individual and
selfishness and was at odds with the commercial spirit that was
transforming his world.

ENLIGHTENED CRITICS OF EUROPEAN EMPIRE

Most European thinkers associated with the Enlightenment favored the
extension of European empires across the world, believing that this
amounted to the spread of progress and civilization. There were, however, a
few Enlightenment voices who criticized the European empires. They were
troubled by the European conquest of the Americas, the treatment of Native
Americans, and the enslavement of Africans on the two American
continents. The most important of these critics were Denis Diderot and two
German philosophers, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and Johann Gottfried
Herder (1744–1803).
These critics shared important ideas. As Sankar Muthu has recently
written, “The first and most basic idea is that human beings deserve some
modicum of moral and political respect simply because of the fact that they
are human.”2 In other words, the Enlightenment critics of empire argued for
the existence of a form of shared humanity that the sixteenth-century
European conquerors in the Americas and other imperialists had ignored.
Diderot, Kant, and Herder rejected this dismissive outlook and the harsh
policies that flowed from it. They believed no single definition of human
nature could be made the standard throughout the world and then used to
dehumanize people whose appearance or culture differed from that
standard.
A second essential idea was the conviction that the people whom
Europeans had encountered in the Americas possessed cultures that should
have been respected and understood, rather than being destroyed. They
embraced an outlook later known as cultural relativism.
A third, closely related idea was that human beings may develop distinct
cultures possessing intrinsic values that cannot be directly compared. Each
culture possesses deep inner social and linguistic complexities that make
any simple comparison impossible. Indeed, Diderot, Kant, and Herder
argued that one fundamental aspect of humanity is the ability to develop a
variety of distinctly different cultures.
These arguments critical of empire often involved criticism of New
World slavery and were part of the antislavery movement (see Chapter 22).
Whereas the antislavery arguments took strong hold in both Europe and
America from the late eighteenth century onward, the arguments critical of
empire did not. They stand generally isolated from the rest of
Enlightenment political thought and were not widely deployed until new
anticolonial voices were raised at the close of the nineteenth century.
Rousseau. The writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) raised
some of the most profound social and ethical questions of the
Enlightenment. This portrait by Maurice Quentin was made in about 1740.

What did Rousseau believe should be the goal of Enlightened reform?

WOMEN IN THE THOUGHT AND PRACTICE OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

Women, especially in France, helped promote the careers of the
philosophes. In Paris the salons of women such as Marie-Thérèse Geoffrin
(1699–1777), Julie de Lespinasse (1733–1776), and Claudine de Tencin
(1689–1749) gave the philosophes access to useful social and political
contacts and a receptive environment for their ideas. The marquise de
Pompadour (1721–1764), the mistress of Louis XV, for example, played a
key role in overcoming efforts to censor the Encyclopedia.
Despite their reliance on female patrons, their general enthusiasm for
reform, and their tendency to reject ascetic views of sexual relations, the
philosophes advocated no radical changes in the social condition of women.
Montesquieu, for example, believed that women were not naturally inferior
to men and that they should play a greater role in society, but he also
believed that men should dominate marriage and family. Although he
opposed laws that oppressed women, he exalted chastity as the primary
female virtue.
The views about women expressed in the Encyclopedia were less
generous. Diderot and d’Alembert saw little need to include articles by
women. Most of the articles that dealt with women emphasized their
physical weakness and inferiority, usually attributed to menstruation or
childbearing. Contributors disagreed on the social equality of women. The
encyclopedists discussed women primarily in a family context and
considered motherhood their most important occupation. On sexual
behavior, the encyclopedists upheld a double standard. In contrast to the
articles, however, illustrations in the Encyclopedia showed women deeply
involved in the economic activities of the day. The illustrations also showed
the activities of lower- and working-class women, about whom the articles
have little to say.
Rousseau urged women to embrace their traditional roles. In his novel
Émile (1762), he declared that women should be educated to be subordinate
to men and to center their lives on bearing and rearing children. He
portrayed women as weaker and inferior to men, except perhaps for their
capacity for feeling and giving love. He excluded them from public affairs
and confined them to the domestic sphere. Many of these attitudes were not
new—some have roots in Roman law—but Rousseau’s powerful
presentation and the influence of his other writings gave them new life,
including in the legislation of the French Revolution.
Paradoxically, despite these views (and his own ill treatment of the many
women he impregnated), Rousseau achieved a vast following among
women. They may have responded to the stress he put on women’s
emotions and subjective feelings. By portraying domestic life and the roles
of wife and mother as noble vocations, he gave middle- and upper-class
women confidence that their lives had purpose.
In 1792 in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft
(1759–1797) brought Rousseau before the judgment of the rational
Enlightenment ideal of progressive knowledge. Wollstonecraft (who, like
many women of her day, died shortly after childbirth of puerperal fever)
argued that to confine women to the separate domestic sphere was to make
them the sensual slaves of men. As victims of male tyranny, women could
never achieve their own moral or intellectual identity. Denying good
education to women impeded the progress of all humanity. Wollstonecraft
was demanding for women the kind of intellectual liberty that male writers
of the Enlightenment had been championing for men for more than a
century.

ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM

WHAT WERE the goals of enlightened absolute rulers?

During the last third of the century it seemed that several European rulers
had embraced many of the reforms set forth by the philosophes.
Enlightened absolutism indicates monarchical government dedicated to the
rational strengthening of the central absolutist administration at the cost of
lesser centers of political power. The monarchs most closely associated with
it—Frederick II of Prussia, Joseph II of Austria, and Catherine II of Russia
—often found that the political and social realities of their realms caused
them to moderate both their enlightenment and their absolutism. Frederick
II corresponded with the philosophes, invited Voltaire to his court, and even
wrote history and political tracts. Catherine II consciously cultivated the
image of being enlightened, to make her nation seem more modern and
Western. She read the works of the philosophes, befriended Diderot and
Voltaire, and made frequent references to their ideas. Joseph II continued
numerous initiatives begun by his mother, Maria Theresa, and imposed a
series of religious, legal, and social reforms that contemporaries believed he
had derived from suggestions of the philosophes.
The relationship between these monarchs and the writers of the
Enlightenment was complicated. The rulers did wish to see their subjects
enjoy better health, more accessible education, a more rational political
administration, and economic prosperity. But they also sought the rational
economic and social integration of their realms so they could achieve
military strength. After the Seven Years’ War all the states of Europe
understood that they required stronger armed forces, which meant they
needed new revenues. The search for more political support for their rule
led these monarchs to make “enlightened” reforms. Consequently, they and
their advisers used rationality to pursue many goals admired by the
philosophes but also to further what the philosophes considered irrational
militarism.

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JOSEPH II OF AUSTRIA
No eighteenth-century ruler embodied rational, impersonal authority more
than Emperor Joseph II of Austria. He prided himself on his narrow,
passionless rationality, but he genuinely wanted to improve the lot of his
people. Paradoxically, his well-intentioned efforts prompted rebellions by
both aristocrats and peasants from Hungary to the Austrian Netherlands.
The Habsburgs’ empire was Europe’s most diverse political entity. Its
rulers never succeeded in creating a unified government or enlisting the
loyalties of its various groups of aristocrats. Maria Theresa preserved the
monarchy during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) by
guaranteeing independence for aristocrats, especially the Hungarians. She
also improved her position in Austria and Bohemia by imposing a more
comprehensive and efficient system of tax collection. She expanded
primary schooling and redirected educational institutions to training
officials for royal service. Concern for peasants and serfs (from whom she
recruited her military manpower) led her to limit the services that
landowners could demand from them.
Joseph II’s reforms were more wide ranging than his mother’s. He
aspired to expand at the expense of Poland, Bavaria, and the Ottoman
Empire. But his greatest ambition was to overcome the pluralism of the
Habsburg holdings by increasing the power of the central monarchy in areas
of political and social life that Maria Theresa had wisely not disturbed. In
particular, Joseph sought to lessen Hungarian autonomy. He refused to have
himself crowned king of Hungary and even had the Crown of Saint Stephen
sent to Vienna. He thus avoided having to guarantee existing or new
Hungarian privileges in a coronation oath. He reorganized local government
in Hungary to increase the authority of his own officials, and he required
the use of the German language in all governmental matters. But the
Magyar nobility resisted, and in 1790 Joseph had to rescind most of his
centralizing measures.
Another target of Joseph’s absolutism was religion. In October 1781
Joseph extended freedom of worship to Lutherans, Calvinists, and the
Greek Orthodox. They were permitted to have their own churches, sponsor
schools, enter skilled trades, and hold academic appointments and public
service positions. From 1781 through 1789 Joseph relieved the Jews of
certain taxes and signs of personal degradation and gave them the right of
private worship. (Jews still did not enjoy general legal rights equal to those
of other Habsburg subjects.) Above all, Joseph sought to bring the various
institutions of the Roman Catholic Church directly under his control. He
forbade direct communication between the bishops of his realms and the
pope, dissolved over 600 monasteries, and replaced the traditional Roman
Catholic seminaries with eight general seminaries that emphasized parish
duties. Joseph’s policies ended the influence of the church as an
independent institution in Habsburg lands. In many respects his policies,
known as Josephinism, prefigured those of the French Revolution.

A Closer Look
An Eighteenth-Century Artist Appeals to the
Ancient World
Jacques Louis David completed The Oath of the Horatii in 1784. Like
many of his other works, it used themes from the supposedly morally
austere ancient Roman Republic to criticize the political life of his own
day. David intended the painting to contrast ancient civic virtue with
the luxurious aristocratic culture of contemporary France.
Jacques Louis David (1748–1825) “The Oath of the Horatii,” c. 1784, oil on
canvas, 330 × 425 cm Inv: 3692. Photo: G. Blot / C. Jean. (c) Reunion des
Musees Nationaux/Art Resource, New York/Louvre, Paris, France.

Questions

1. The Enlightenment is usually associated with modern or progressive

ideas. How and why did enlightened writers and readers still find
the ancient world important to their reformist agendas?
2. How does the portrayal of women in this painting enter into the
contemporary debate over the role of women in public life?
3. Do you think this painting and similar images of ancient virtue
would have effectively undermined social respect and confidence in
the eighteenth-century French aristocracy or was the audience for
such paintings too small?
To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com
 Regarding serfdom and the land, Joseph II expanded policies initiated by
Maria Theresa. He introduced reforms that touched the heart of rural
society. He abolished the legal status of serfdom defined in terms of
servitude to another person. He gave peasants much more personal
freedom: They could marry, engage in skilled work, or have their children
trained without permission of the landlord. The procedures of the manorial
courts were reformed, and avenues of appeal to royal officials were opened.
Joseph also encouraged landlords to change land leases, so that it would be
easier for peasants to inherit them or to transfer them to another peasant
without bringing into doubt the landlord’s title of ownership. Joseph
believed that reducing traditional burdens would make the peasant tillers of
the land more productive and industrious.
In 1789 Joseph proposed a new and daring system of land taxation. All
proprietors were to be taxed, regardless of social status. He commuted
peasants’ compulsory service into a monetary tax, split between the
landlord and the state. The decree was drawn up, but resistance from the
nobles delayed its implementation. Joseph died in 1790, and the decree
never went into effect. However, his measures had stirred up turmoil
throughout the Habsburg realms. Peasants revolted, and nobles protested.
On Joseph’s death, the crown went to his brother Leopold II (r. 1790–
1792). Although sympathetic to Joseph’s goals, Leopold repealed many of
the most controversial decrees, including land tax reform.

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Joseph II of Austria (r. 1765–1790)

Attempted widespread reforms based on Enlightenment principles
Resistance forced Joseph to rescind most of his centralizing efforts
Abolished serfdom and gave peasants more personal freedom

CATHERINE THE GREAT OF RUSSIA

After the death of Peter the Great in 1725, the court nobles and the army
determined the Russian succession. As a result, the crown fell into the
hands of people with little talent until 1741, when Peter’s daughter
Elizabeth came to the throne. At her death in 1762 Elizabeth was succeeded
by Peter III, one of her nephews. He was a weak and possibly insane ruler
who had been married in 1745 to a young German princess, the future
Catherine the Great (r. 1762–1796). Catherine had neither love nor loyalty
for her demented husband. When Peter III was deposed and murdered (with
Catherine’s approval, if not aid), she was immediately proclaimed empress.
Catherine’s familiarity with the Enlightenment and the general culture of
western Europe convinced her that Russia needed to make major reforms if
it were to remain a great power. In 1767 Catherine summoned over 500
delegates drawn from all sectors of Russian life to advise her on revising
law and government. Before this Legislative Commission convened,
Catherine wrote a set of Instructions, containing ideas drawn from the
political writings of the philosophes. The revision of Russian law, however,
did not occur for more than half a century. In 1768 Catherine dismissed the
commission before several of its key committees had reported. Yet the
commission had gathered a vast amount of information about the conditions
of local administration and economic life throughout Russia. The
inconclusive debates and the absence of programs from the delegates
themselves suggested that most Russians saw no alternative to an autocratic
monarchy. Catherine herself had no intention of departing from absolutism.
Catherine the Great ascended to the Russian throne after the murder of her
husband. She tried initially to enact major reforms, but she never intended
to abandon absolutism. She assured the nobility of their rights and by the
end of her reign had imposed press censorship.

Did Catherine the Great achieve her goals for Russia?

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Catherine the Great at myhistorylab.com

Catherine proceeded to carry out limited reforms on her own authority

while supporting the rights and local power of the nobility. In 1775 she
reorganized local government to solve problems brought to light by the
Legislative Commission. She put most local offices into the hands of nobles
rather than creating a royal bureaucracy. In 1785 Catherine issued the
Charter of the Nobility, which guaranteed many noble rights and privileges.
She issued a similar charter to the towns of her realms. In part, the empress
had to favor the nobles. There were too few educated subjects in her realm
to establish an independent bureaucracy, and the treasury could not afford
an army strictly loyal to the crown. So Catherine wisely made a virtue of
necessity: She strengthened the stability of her crown by a convenient
alliance with her nobles and urban leaders.
Catherine continued the Russian drive for warm-water ports (see Map
21–2). This led to warfare with the Turks between 1768 and 1774, when the
Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardji gave Russia a direct outlet on the Black Sea,
free navigation rights in its waters, and free access through the Bosphorus.
Moreover, the Crimea became an independent state, which Catherine
painlessly annexed in 1783.

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 See the Map

Expansion of Russia 1689–1796 at myhistorylab.com

MAP 21–2. Expansion of Russia, 1689–1796. The overriding territorial

aim of the two most powerful Russian monarchs of the eighteenth century,
Peter the Great (in the first quarter of the century) and Catherine the Great
(in the last half of the century) was to secure navigable outlets to the sea in
both the north and the south for Russia’s vast empire; hence Peter’s push to
the Baltic Sea and Catherine’s to the Black Sea. Russia also expanded into
Central Asia and Siberia during this time period.

Which empire came into direct conflict with Russian expansion?

THE PARTITION OF POLAND

These Russian military successes made the other states of eastern Europe
uneasy. Their anxieties were allayed by the First Partition of Poland. The
Russian victories along the Danube River in what is today Romania were
most unwelcome to Austria, which had its own ambitions there. At the
same time, the Ottoman Empire was pressing Prussia for aid against Russia.
Frederick the Great made a proposal to Russia and Austria that would give
each something it wanted, prevent conflict among them, and save
appearances. After long, complicated, secret negotiations, the three powers
agreed that Russia would abandon the Danubian provinces in return for a
large chunk of Polish territory with almost 2 million inhabitants. As a
reward for remaining neutral, Prussia annexed most of the Polish territory
between East Prussia and Prussia proper, which allowed Frederick to unite
two previously separate sections of his realm. Finally, Austria took Galicia,
with its important salt mines, and other Polish territory with over 2.5
million inhabitants. The Polish state had lost approximately one-third of its
territory.
There were two additional partitions of Poland by Russia and Prussia,
and one more by Austria. They occurred in 1793 and 1795 and removed
Poland from the map of Europe until 1919. The great powers contended that
they were saving themselves, and by implication the rest of Europe, from
Polish anarchy. The argument was plausible to some contemporaries
because of fears spurred by the French Revolution (see Chapter 22).
However, the truth was that Poland’s political weakness made the country
and its resources a rich field for plunderous aggression.
Charter of Nobility. Granted by Empress Catherine II in 1785, this charter
concluded the legal consolidation of Russian nobility as a class and
provided for its political and corporate rights, privileges, and principles of
self-organization. In this printing, the imperial title is hand written in gold
and is surrounded by engraved coats of arms of the provinces of the Russian
Empire.

Zhalovannaia Gramota Dvorianstvu (Charter Granted to the Nobility),

1785.

How does this charter illustrate the principles of enlightened

absolutism?

SUMMARY
 WHY IS the Scientific Revolution important to world history?

The Scientific Revolution. The scientific ideas of the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries changed the way Western intellectuals thought about
the world and hu-mankind. Western thinkers came to rely on mathematical
laws, empirical data, and experimentation. Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo
overturned the ancient idea that the earth was the center of the universe.
Galileo and Descartes maintained that the world was governed by
mathematical laws. Francis Bacon encouraged observation and
experimentation. Newton hypothesized gravity and established an enduring
basis for physics. Locke argued that human beings are shaped by their sense
experiences and are hence creatures of their environment subject to reform
and possible progress. Women were largely excluded from scientific
practice. page 533

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Immanuel Kant defines the Enlightenment, 1784, at myhistorylab.com

HOW DID Enlightenment thinkers argue for the reform of society?

The Enlightenment. The Enlightenment philosophes used reason as a basis

for reform and to advocate progressive social, economic, and political
movements. Voltaire’s prodigious literary output outlined major issues in
Enlightenment thought, and Diderot’s Encyclopedia helped Enlightenment
ideas diffuse throughout Europe. page 540

WHY DID the philosophes regard the church as the chief enemy of
reform and human happiness?

The Enlightenment and Religion. The philosophes believed that the

Christian church distracted people from finding rational solutions to their
problems. They particularly attacked religious intolerance. Many were
followers of deism, a belief in a rational, “divine watchmaker” God. Like
most Europeans of their age, many philosophes had a distorted view of
Islam, but some admired aspects of Islamic culture. page 542

HOW DID the philosophes hope that reason would change society?

The Enlightenment and Society. Montesquieu and other philosophes

argued for limited, constitutional government. Adam Smith linked
economics and social progress. Rousseau wished to reform society in the
name of virtue rather than material happiness. He maintained that in the
pursuit of virtue the needs of society were more important than those of the
individual. Enlightenment thinkers criticized imperial conquest as
dehumanizing, but they generally failed to support improvements in
women’s social standing. The competing strands of the Enlightenment
continue to pervade Western society. page 545

WHAT WERE the goals of enlightened absolute rulers?

Enlightened Absolutism. Enlightened absolutism was a form of

monarchical government dedicated to the rational strengthening of the
central government. Many of the reforms enlightened monarchs imposed
were influenced by the ideas of the philosophes, but the chief goal of these
rulers was to increase their own authority and military strength, as
witnessed by the partitions of Poland among Russia, Prussia, and Austria at
the end of the eighteenth century. The most important enlightened monarchs
were Frederick II of Prussia, Joseph II of Austria, and Catherine the Great
of Russia. page 548

KEY TERMS

deism (DEE-izm)
empiricism
Enlightenment
laissez-faire (leh-say-FAYR)
philosophes (FILL-uh-SOHFS)
 Ptolemaic system (TAHL-uh-MAY-ik)
Scientific Revolution

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What was the Scientific Revolution? What were the major

contributions of Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, Bacon, and
Newton? Do you think they regarded themselves as revolutionaries?
2. How and to what extent did women participate in the Scientific
Revolution?
3. Define the Enlightenment. Is it best seen as a single movement or as
a series of related movements? What was the relationship of the
Enlightenment to the new science? How did the Enlightenment
further the idea of progress and the superiority of European
civilization?
4. Why did the philosophes believe they must comment so extensively
on religion? Why did they criticize Christianity? Why did some of
them champion deism?
5. What were the differing views of the philosophes toward Islam?
6. Was there a single Enlightenment view of politics? Why could
writers so dedicated to reform have so many different political paths
to achieve reform?
7. How has the political thought of the Enlightenment influenced the
development of modern political philosophies and modern
governments?
8. Summarize the Enlightenment critique of European empires. Do you
see any flaws in this line of reasoning? Why do you think it was not
more influential?
9. What were the prevailing attitudes of the philosophes toward
women and women’s roles? Do these attitudes present any
contradiction to other Enlightenment positions? Explain.
10. Define enlightened absolutism. What were the similarities in the
policies of Frederick the Great, Joseph II, and Catherine the Great?
 To what extent do their policies actually seem to stem from the ideas
of the Enlightenment philosophes?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 21

Read the Document Nicolaus Copernicus: On the Revolution of the

Heavenly Spheres (1500s), p. 534 and p. 540

Francis Bacon, from Novum Organum, p. 537

Isaac Newton, from Opticks, p. 538
Galileo Galilei, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1630s), p. 538
John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, p. 539
Voltaire, Letters on England, p. 540
Diderot’s Encyclopedia—Plate Illustrating Agricultural Techniques, p.
541
Voltaire, “On Universal Toleration,” p. 543
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Letters:
(a) on Constantinople;
(b) on Smallpox;
(c) on Vaccination in Turkey, p. 545
Baron de Montesquieu, Excerpt from The Spirit of the Laws, p. 545
Adam Smith, Intro. to the Wealth of Nations (1776) and Wealth of
Nations, Adam Smith (1776), p. 546
Catherine the Great’s Constitution (1767), p. 552
Immanuel Kant defines the Enlightenment, 1784, p. 553
 View the Image The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu: Frontispiece, p.
545

Catherine the Great, p. 552

Research and Explore

See the Map Science and the Enlightenment, p. 534 and p. 540

See the Map Expansion of Russia, 1689–1796, p. 552

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 21 at www.myhistorylab.com
22
Revolutions in the Transatlantic World

Hear the Audio for Chapter 22 at www.myhistorylab.com

Guerrilla Warfare. Haitian slaves ambush French forces during their

successful revolt led by Toussaint L’Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines
in 1794. The Haitian Revolution included the largest emancipation of slaves
to occur in the eighteenth century.
Why was the Haitian Revolution the great exception in the American
Wars of Independence in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries?

REVOLUTION IN THE BRITISH COLONIES IN NORTH AMERICA

WHAT WAS radical about the American Revolution?

REVOLUTION IN FRANCE

HOW DID the French Revolution and Napoleon transform France’s

government and society?

WARS OF INDEPENDENCE IN LATIN AMERICA

WHY WAS the Haitian Revolution significant to world history?

TOWARD THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE TRANSATLANTIC

ECONOMY

WHY DID slavery become unacceptable in Western society?

Between 1776 and 1824 a world-transforming series of revolutions

occurred in France and the Americas. Within half a century the peoples of
the two American continents established their independence. The French
monarchy collapsed from the forces of aristocratic resistance and popular
revolution. All the revolutionary leaders sought to establish new
governments based largely, though never entirely, on Enlightenment
principles.
From start to finish these revolutions were connected. The financial
pressures from the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) had led Britain, Spain,
and France to seek revenues in ways that destabilized the Americas and
France itself. Once the American Revolution began, France aided the
colonists, exacerbating its own financial problem. The French Revolution
and the ensuing Napoleonic Wars created situations in Spain and Portugal
to which the colonial elites in Latin America responded by seeking
independence.
The era also witnessed the beginning of a vast international crusade, first
to abolish the slave trade and then to abolish slavery in the transatlantic
world. Opponents of slavery were inspired by the same Enlightenment ideas
that inspired many of the revolutionaries, as well as by religious
convictions. The political and economic dislocations of the revolutionary
era helped the antislavery forces achieve their goals. The political, social,
and economic life of the transatlantic world would never be the same.

REVOLUTION IN THE BRITISH COLONIES

IN NORTH AMERICA

WHAT WAS radical about the American Revolution?

RESISTANCE TO THE IMPERIAL SEARCH FOR REVENUE

After the Treaty of Paris in 1763 ended the Seven Years’ War (see Chapter
19), the British government faced two problems. The first was the cost of
defending the empire it had acquired. The second was the need to organize
a vast new territory: all of North America east of the Mississippi.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
THE TRANSATLANTIC REVOLUTIONS
The revolutions and the crusade against slavery that occurred throughout
the transatlantic world between 1776 and the 1830s transformed the
political, social, and economic life of three continents. First in North
America, then in France and other parts of Europe, and finally in South
America bold political experiments challenged colonial government,
monarchies, and aristocratic governments and laid the foundations for
modern liberal democracy. These revolutions and the effort to abolish
slavery owed much to the philosophical inspiration of the Enlightenment
and bear witness to its immense influence in world history.
As a result of the events of this age of transatlantic revolution, the largest
republic since ancient times was established in North America. In Europe
the absolutist governments were overthrown across the continent by the
impact of the French Revolution and the armies of Napoleon. Slaves on
Haiti overthrew the French colonial regime and established the first black
republic. By the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century wars of
independence across Latin America had closed the era of European empire
with the establishment of republics everywhere except Brazil.
No less important, this era witnessed the beginning of an international
effort to bring about the abolition of the slave economies that had long
dominated the transatlantic economy.
The expanding forms of political liberty found their counterparts in an
economic life freed from the constraints of the old colonial empires and
eventually from the economies based on plantation slave labor. The new
American republic constituted a vast free-trade zone, with its commerce and
ports open to the entire world.
For the first time since the encounter with Europe, all of Latin America
could trade freely with its own peoples and those of the rest of the world.
In Europe the reforms of the French Revolution and the new Napoleonic
Code of law removed many regional economic barriers and led to more
standard weights and measures.
National law formed the framework for economic activity. The
movement to abolish slavery fostered a wage economy of free laborers.
That kind of economy generated its own set of problems and social
dislocation, including a sort of sharecrop-ping serfdom for many former
slaves, but it was nonetheless an economy of free human beings who were
the chattel of no other human being.
Finally, the age of transatlantic revolutions saw the emergence of
nationalism as a political force. All of the revolutions, because of their
popular political base, had given power to the idea of nations defined by
their own character and historical past rather than by dynastic rulers.
Americans saw themselves as forming a new kind of nation. The French
had demonstrated the power of a nation fully mobilized for military
purposes. In turn France’s aggression had aroused national sentiment,
especially in Great Britain, Spain, and Germany. The new nations of Latin
America also sought to define themselves by their heritage and historical
experience rather than by their past in the Spanish and Portuguese empires.
These various revolutions, their political doctrines, and their social and
economic departures provided examples to peoples elsewhere in the world.
But even more important, the transformations of the transatlantic
revolutions and eventual abolition of slavery meant that new political
classes and newly organized independent nations would become actors on
the world scene. Europeans would have to deal with a score of new nations
in the Americas. The rest of the world confronted new nations freed from
the direction and authority of European powers. In turn, the political
changes in Europe meant that those nations and their relationships with the
rest of the world would be directed by a broader range of political groups
and forces than in the past. Ironically, however, by the close of the
nineteenth century several of the European nations as well as the United
States that had become liberal democratic states would commence a new
wave of colonialism throughout Africa and Asia and would impose new
economic dominance on the republics of Latin America.

Focus Questions

What is the relationship between the Enlightenment and the

transatlantic revolutions? Between the Enlightenment and the
crusade against slavery?
How did the transatlantic revolutions fundamentally alter the
relationship between Europe and the Americas?
What is the relationship between the transatlantic revolutions and
nationalism? Why did such a relationship exist?

The British drive for revenue began in 1764 with the Sugar Act. Britain
hoped to enhance revenue from imports of sugar into the colonies by the
rigorous collection of what was actually a reduced tax. Smugglers were to
be tried in admiralty courts without juries. A year later, Parliament passed
the Stamp Act, a tax on legal documents and other items. The British
considered these taxes just because they had been approved by Parliament
and because the revenue was to be spent in the colonies that paid them. The
Americans, however, objected that they were not represented in Parliament
and insisted that they alone had the right to tax themselves. Furthermore,
the Americans feared that if colonial government were financed from
Britain, they would cease to control it. Following disorder in its American
lands (particularly in Massachusetts), Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in
1766 but asserted its right to legislate for the colonies.

AMERICAN POLITICAL IDEAS

The political ideas of the American colonists had largely arisen from the
struggle of seventeenth-century English aristocrats and gentry against the
absolutism of the Stuart monarchs. The American colonists believed that
the English Revolution of 1688 had established liberties that belonged to
them as well as to the British. They claimed that George III (r. 1760–1820)
and the British Parliament were dissolving the bonds of allegiance that
united the two peoples by attacking those liberties. These Whig political
ideas, derived largely from John Locke (1632–1704), were only a part of
the English ideological heritage that affected the Americans. Colonists also
had become familiar with a series of British political writers called the
Commonwealthmen. These authors held republican political ideas that
stemmed from the radical branches of the Puritan revolution. They
dismissed much parliamentary taxation as nothing more than a means of
financing political corruption, and they feared standing armies as
instruments of tyranny. The policy of Great Britain toward America after
the Treaty of Paris made many colonists believe that the suspicions of the
Commonwealthmen were correct.

CRISIS AND INDEPENDENCE

In May 1773, Parliament allowed the East India Company to import tea
directly into the American colonies. Although the law lowered the price of
tea, it levied a tea tax that was imposed without the colonists’ consent.
Protestors in Boston reacted by throwing a shipload of tea into the harbor,
an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party.
The British ministry of Lord North (1732–1792) was determined to assert
the authority of Parliament over the colonies. In 1774, Parliament closed the
port of Boston, reorganized the government of Massachusetts, quartered
troops in private homes, and transferred the trials of royal customs officials
to England. Parliament also extended the boundaries of Quebec to include
the Ohio River valley, an act that the Americans regarded as an attempt to
prevent them–and their political ideas–from spreading westward beyond the
Appalachian Mountains.
Committees of correspondence, composed of citizens critical of Britain,
had been established throughout the colonies, and in September 1774, these
committees organized the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. This
body failed to persuade Parliament to abandon its attempt at direct
supervision of colonial affairs. In 1775, the battles of Lexington, Concord,
and Bunker Hill were fought, and the Second Continental Congress
undertook to govern the colonies. In August 1775, George III declared the
colonies in rebellion. During the winter, Thomas Paine’s (1737–1809)
pamphlet Common Sense galvanized public opinion in favor of separation
from Great Britain. A colonial army and navy were organized, and on July
4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of
Independence. The War of the American Revolution continued until 1781,
when the forces of George Washington (1732–1799) defeated those of Lord
Cornwallis (1738–1805) at Yorktown. Meanwhile, the war had widened
into a European conflict. In 1778, the French government supported the
rebellion in the hope of weakening its traditional enemy, Great Britain. In
1779, Spain also came to the aid of the colonies. The 1783 Treaty of Paris
concluded the conflict and recognized the independence of the thirteen
American colonies.
Boston Massacre. This view of the Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770, by
Paul Revere owes more to propaganda than to fact. There was no order to
fire, and the innocent citizens portrayed here were really an angry, violent
mob.

What were the purposes of propaganda such as this painting?

CHRONOLOGY

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

 As the crisis with Britain unfolded, the American colonists at first saw
themselves as preserving traditional English liberties. As the war went on,
however, they developed a different understanding of what liberty meant.
By the mid-1770s, they had rejected monarchy and embraced
republicanism. After the Constitution was adopted in 1788, a bill of rights
was added to protect civil liberties. The colonists rejected the aristocratic
social hierarchy that had existed in the colonies in favor of democratic
ideals. Although they limited the right to vote, they asserted the equality of
white male citizens before the law and in social relations. They rejected
social ranking based on birth and inheritance and asserted that all citizens
must have the opportunity to improve their social standing and economic lot
by engaging in free commercial activity. Although the American
Revolution did not free slaves or address the rights of women and Native
Americans, it produced a society freer than any the world had yet seen—
one in which political and social liberties would continue to increase. The
American Revolution was a genuinely radical movement, the influence of
which increased as Americans moved across the continent and as other
peoples began to question traditional European government. The political
and social values of the American Revolution would inspire the wars of
independence in Latin America and, to a lesser extent, political movements
in Europe.

Hear the Audio at myhistorylab.com

REVOLUTION IN FRANCE

HOW DID the French Revolution and Napoleon transform France’s

government and society?

The French monarchy emerged from the Seven Years’ War defeated and
deeply in debt. Then French support for the American Revolution
exacerbated their financial difficulties. Given France’s economic vitality,
the government debt was not overly large, but the government was unable
to collect sufficient taxes to stay solvent.
Between 1786 and 1788, Louis XVI (r. 1774–1792) appointed several
different ministers to deal with the financial crisis. All failed to persuade the
aristocracy and the church to pay more taxes. As these negotiations dragged
on, the parlement of Paris declared that only the Estates General could
institute new taxes. The Estates General had not met since 1614, but in
1788, Louis XVI agreed to convene it the following year.

REVOLUTIONS OF 1789
The Estates General had three divisions: the First Estate of the clergy, the
Second Estate of the nobility, and the Third Estate, representing everyone
else. Before the Estates General met at Versailles in May 1789, there had
been much public debate over how its votes should be conducted. The
nobility wanted all votes to be taken by estate, which would have allowed
the nobles and clergy to outvote the Third Estate. The Third Estate wanted
each member to vote individually so that, with its larger membership, it
would dominate.

Third Estate

The branch of the French Estates General representing all of the kingdom
outside the nobility and the clergy.

The Third Estate invited the clergy and the nobles to join it in organizing
a new legislative body. A few of the lower clergy did so. On June 17 that
body declared itself the National Assembly.
Three days later, finding themselves accidentally locked out of their usual
meeting place, the National Assembly moved to an indoor tennis court.
There, its members took the famous Tennis Court Oath, pledging to
continue to sit until they had given France a constitution. Louis XVI
ordered the National Assembly to desist, but shortly afterward most of the
clergy and many nobles joined the assembly. On June 27 the king
capitulated, and the National Assembly reorganized as the National
Constituent Assembly, where voting would occur by head rather than by
order.
Two new factors soon intruded. First, Louis XVI tried to regain the
initiative by mustering troops near Versailles and Paris. The National
Constituent Assembly was beginning to demand a constitutional monarchy.
Louis refused to consider this proposal and hoped that a show of military
force would head off revolution.
The second new factor was the populace of Paris. The mustering of royal
troops created anxiety in the city, where already there had been several
bread riots. Parisians began organizing a citizen militia. On July 14 a crowd
marched to the Bastille, a great fortress that had once held political
prisoners, in search of weapons for the militia. Troops in the Bastille fired
into the crowd, killing ninety-eight. The crowd then stormed the fortress,
released its seven prisoners (none of whom was there for political reasons),
and killed several soldiers and the governor. They found no weapons, but
the fall of the Bastille signaled that the political future of the nation would
not be decided solely by the National Constituent Assembly. Similar
disturbances took place in the provincial cities. Soon Louis XVI came to
Paris and recognized both the newly elected government of the city and its
National Guard.
As disturbances erupted in various cities, the Great Fear swept across the
French countryside. Peasants rose up to vent their anger at injustices and
reclaim rights and property that they had lost during the aristocratic
resurgence of the previous quarter century. Châteaux were burned,
documents were destroyed, and peasants refused to pay feudal dues. On
August 4, 1789, liberal nobles and churchmen in the assembly surrendered
their special rights and exemptions, formally relinquishing what they had
already lost. Now France’s laws applied equally to all citizens.

View the Image

Oath of the Tennis Court at myhistorylab.com

QUICK REVIEW

National Assembly
June 17, 1789: Third Estate declares itself National Assembly
Tennis Court Oath: Pledge to sit until France had a constitution
June 27, 1789: King capitulates to National Assembly
Women’s March. The women of Paris marched to Versailles on October 7,
1789. The following day the royal family was forced to return to Paris with
them. Henceforth, the French government would function under the
constant threat of mob violence.

Anonymous, eighteenth century, “To Versailles, to Versailles.” The Women

of Paris going to Versailles, October 7, 1789. French, Musée de la Ville de
Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Paris, France. Photograph copyright Bridgeman-
Giraudon/Art Resource, New York.

Looking at the individual faces and dresses, what kinds of women seem
to be participating in this demonstration?

On August 27, 1789, the assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of
Man and Citizen, drawing on the political language of the Enlightenment. It
proclaimed that all men were born free and equal with natural rights to
liberty, property, and personal safety. Governments existed to protect those
rights. All political sovereignty resided in the nation and its representatives.
All citizens were equal before the law and equally eligible for public
offices. There was to be due process of law, and innocence was to be
presumed until proof of guilt. Freedom of religion was affirmed. Taxation
was to be apportioned equitably according to capacity to pay. Property
rights were declared sacred.
Louis XVI stalled before ratifying either the declaration or the
aristocratic renunciation of feudalism. Meanwhile, bread shortages
continued. On October 5 several thousand Parisian women marched to
Versailles, demanding more bread. This was one of several occasions when
women played a major role in the actions of the Parisian crowd. The king
agreed to sanction the decrees of the assembly. Then the crowd insisted that
Louis and his family return to Paris. On October 6, 1789, the king and his
family followed the women back to Paris and settled in the palace of the
Tuileries. The assembly joined them. Things then remained relatively quiet
until the summer of 1792.

A Closer Look
Challenging the French Political Order
This late eighteenth-century cartoon satirizes the French social and
political structure as the events and tensions leading up to the outbreak
of the French Revolution unfolded. This image embodies the highly
radical critique of the French political structure that erupted from
about 1787, when the nobility and church refused to aid the monarchy
in overcoming a financial crisis.

Questions

1. This image points to the monarchy, the aristocracy, and established

French Roman Catholic Church as political units in conflict with
each other. How did they come into conflict? How did their conflicts
allow the poor French citizens shown here at the bottom of the heap
to come to the fore as agents of social and political change?
2. Does this cartoon illustrate all of the political and social tensions
ready to erupt in France at the time of the Revolution? What others
emerged? Why did all of these conflicts then lead to the intervention
of foreign powers against the revolution? Why are no foreign
powers portrayed in this cartoon?
 3. If leaders of the American Revolution had viewed this cartoon and
then wanted to draw one of their own, how might theirs have
appeared? How might one drawn by the leaders of the Haitian
Revolution have appeared? What common forces did all of the
revolutions of the day seek to overturn—or were there no common
forces?
To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, 1789 at myhistorylab.com

RECONSTRUCTION OF FRANCE
The National Constituent Assembly set about reorganizing France. The
assembly was determined to protect property, but limit the political
influence of small property owners and those who did not own property.
While championing equality before the law, the assembly spurned social
equality and extensive democracy. In this it charted a course that
nineteenth-century liberals across Europe and in other areas of the world
were to follow.
The Constitution of 1791 established a constitutional monarchy. There
was a unicameral Legislative Assembly. The monarch could delay, but not
halt, legislation. Only about 50,000 male citizens in the French nation of 26
million could actually elect or serve in the Legislative Assembly.
Olympe de Gouges (d. 1793), a butcher’s daughter who became a leading
radical in Paris, quickly composed a Declaration of the Rights of Woman
(1793), which she ironically addressed to Queen Marie Antoinette (1755–
1793). The document was based on the Declaration of the Rights of Man
and Citizen with the word “woman” strategically inserted; it called for
women to be regarded as citizens and not merely as daughters, sisters,
wives, and mothers of citizens. de Gouges further outlined property,
marriage, and educational rights for women. These demands illustrated how
the public listing of rights in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and
Citizen created universal civic expectations. (See Document: “Olympe de
Gouges Issues a Declaration of the Rights of Woman” on page 564.)
The National Constituent Assembly reorganized provincial
administration, instituted uniform courts, simplified legal procedures, and
abolished the most degrading punishments. It also suppressed the guilds,
removed regulations on the grain trade, and established the metric system of
uniform weights and measures. In 1790, it placed the burden of proof and
the obligation to pay compensation on peasants who tried to rid themselves
of residual feudal dues. In 1791, it forbade worker associations, crushing
efforts by urban workers to protect their wages. Peasants and laborers were
left to the mercy of the free market.
The National Constituent Assembly decided to pay the troublesome royal
debt by confiscating and selling the lands of the Roman Catholic Church in
France. The Assembly issued assignats, or government bonds, guaranteed
by the revenue to be generated from the sale of church property. When the
assignats began to circulate as currency, the Assembly issued increasing
quantities of them, causing their value to fall. Inflation put new stress on the
lives of the urban poor.

assignats

Government bonds based on the value of confiscated church lands issued

during the early French Revolution.

In July 1790 the Assembly issued the Civil Constitution of the Clergy,
transforming the Roman Catholic Church in France into a branch of the
state. The measure aroused immense opposition within the French church.
The Assembly unwisely demanded that all clergy take an oath to support
the Civil Constitution; few did. In reprisal, the Assembly removed those
who refused from their clerical functions.
In February 1791 the pope condemned not only the Civil Constitution of
the Clergy but also the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. This
marked the opening of a Roman Catholic offensive against liberalism in
Europe and revolution throughout the world that continued for over a
century. Within France itself, many were torn between religious devotion
and revolutionary loyalty.
QUICK REVIEW

Constitution of 1791
Established constitutional monarchy
Monarch could delay, but not halt, acts of unicameral Legislative
Assembly
Voting limited to 50,000 elite men

DOCUMENT
Olympe de Gouges Issues a Declaration of the Rights of Woman
On August 26, 1789, the National Assembly passed the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and Citizen. Its very broad principles could readily be
extended beyond the domestic male French citizens to whom it applied.
Within months various civically disadvantaged groups stepped forward to
demand inclusion within the newly proclaimed realm of civic rights.
In September 1791 Olympe de Gouges published a Declaration of the
Rights of Woman, which paralleled in many respects the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and Citizen. A self-educated butcher’s daughter, she had
written widely on a number of reform topics. Radical as she was, she
remained loyal to the monarchy and was eventually executed by the
revolutionary government in 1793.
• WHAT are the specific parallels that de Gouges drew between the
rights of man and the rights of woman? How does her declaration
suggest civic responsibilities for women as well as rights? How does
the language suggest her familiarity with Enlightenment writers?
Mothers, daughters, sisters [and] representatives of the nation demand to be
constituted into a national assembly.… Consequently, the sex that is as
superior in beauty as it is in courage during the sufferings of maternity
recognizes and declares in the presence and Woman and of Female Citizens.

ARTICLE I

Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights. Social distinctions
can be based only on the common utility.

ARTICLE IV
Liberty and justice consist of restoring all that belongs to others; thus, the
only limits on the exercise of the natural rights of woman are perpetual
male tyranny; these limits are to be reformed by the laws of nature and
reason.…

ARTICLE VI

The law must be the expression of the general will; all female and male
citizens must contribute either personally or through their representatives to
its formation; it must be the same for all: male and female citizens, being
equal in the eyes of the law, must be equally admitted to all honors,
positions, and public employment according to their capacity and without
other distinctions besides those of their virtues and talents.…

ARTICLE XVII

Property belongs to both sexes whether united or separate; for each it is an

inviolable and sacred right; no one can be deprived of it, since it is the true
patrimony of nature, unless the legally determined public need obviously
dictates it, and then only with a just and prior indemnity.

POSTSCRIPT

Woman, wake up; the tocsin of reason is being heard throughout the whole
universe; discover your rights.
Source: As quoted in Darline Gay Levy, Harriet Branson Applewhite, and Mary Durham Johnson,
eds., Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1795 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980), pp. 87–
96.

In the summer of 1791, the queen and some nobles persuaded Louis XVI
to flee, but the royal family was caught and returned to Paris. Assembly
leaders now saw the king as a counterrevolutionary. On August 27, 1791,
Leopold II of Austria (r. 1790–1792), brother of Marie Antoinette, and
Frederick William II (r. 1786–1797) of Prussia promised to intervene in
France to protect the royal family if the other major European powers
agreed that they could do so. The latter provision rendered the declaration
meaningless, since Great Britain would not consent. France’s
revolutionaries, however, became convinced that they were surrounded by
monarchical foes.

DOCUMENT
A Free Person of Color from Saint Domingue Demands Recognition of
His Status
In the spring of 1791 Julian Raymond, a free person of color from the
French Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue (Haiti), petitioned the French
National Assembly invoking the Declaration of the rights of Man and
Citizen to recognize persons such as himself as free citizens. The National
Assembly did so in May 1791, but later rescinded the decree. Only in March
1792 did the Assembly firmly recognize the civic equality of such persons.
The background for the request and for the confusion of the French
National Assembly over the matter was the eruption of the slave revolution
in Haiti.
• HOW does Raymond portray himself as free but still victimized by
the Assembly in Saint Domingue being composed exclusively of
white members? In a slave society such as that on Saint Domingue,
how might a person such as Raymond be legally free but still
subject to various modes of discrimination? How can he invoke the
principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen to
apply pressure on the French National Assembly?
Remaining to this day under the oppression of the white colonists, we dare
hope that we do not ask the National Assembly in vain for the rights, which
it has declared, belong to every man.
In our just protests, if the troubles, the calumnies that you have witnessed
until today under the legislation of white colonists, and finally, if the truths
which we had the honor of presenting yesterday to the bar of the Assembly
do not overcome the unjust pretensions of the white colonial legislators who
want to [proceed] without our participation, we beg the Assembly not to
jeopardize the little remaining liberty we have, that of being able to
abandon the ground soaked with the blood of our brothers and of permitting
us to flee the sharp knife of the laws they will prepare against us.
If the Assembly has decided to pass a law which lets our fate depend on
twenty-nine whites [in the colonial Assembly], our decided enemies, we
demand to add an amendment to the decree which would be rendered in this
situation, that free men of color can emigrate with their fortunes so that they
can be neither disturbed nor hindered by the whites.
Mr. President, this is the last recourse which remains for us to escape the
vengeance of the white colonists who menace us for not having given up
our claims to the rights which the National Assembly has declared belong
to every man.
Source: As quoted in Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, The French Revolution: A Document
Collection (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999), p. 109.

Near its close in September 1791 the National Constituent Assembly

forbade any of its own members to sit in the Legislative Assembly then
being elected. This new body met on October 1 to confront immense
problems.

A SECOND REVOLUTION
Since the earliest days of the revolution, clubs of politically like-minded
persons had sprung up in Paris. The best organized were the Jacobins, who
had links with similar groups in the provinces. On April 20, 1792, the
Legislative Assembly, led by a group of Jacobins known as the Girondists
(because many came from the department of the Gironde), voted to declare
war on Austria, which was allied to Prussia. The war with Austria led to
what is usually called the second revolution, which overthrew the
constitutional monarchy and established a republic.

Jacobins

The radical republican party during the French Revolution.

The war went badly, and the looming threat radicalized French politics.
Late in July, under radical working-class pressure, the government of Paris
passed from the elected council to a committee, or commune, of
representatives from the municipal wards. On August 10, 1792, a large
crowd invaded the Tuileries, forcing Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to
take refuge in the Legislative Assembly. Several hundred of the royal
guards and many Parisians were killed, the royal family was imprisoned,
and the king’s political functions were suspended.
The Paris Commune compelled the Legislative Assembly to call for the
election, by universal manhood suffrage, of a new assembly to write a
democratic constitution. That body, called the Convention after its
American counterpart of 1787, met on September 21, 1792. The
Convention declared France a republic.

Convention

French radical legislative body from 1792 to 1794.

The second revolution had been the work of Jacobins more radical than
the Girondists, and of the people of Paris known as the sans-culottes,
meaning “without breeches.” (Working men wore long trousers instead of
the knee breeches favored by aristocratic courtiers.) The sans-culottes were
shopkeepers, artisans, wage earners, and a few factory workers. The politics
of the Old Regime had ignored them, and the policies of the National
Constituent Assembly had not protected them from an unregulated free-
market economy.

sans-culottes

Meaning “without breeches.” The lower middle classes and artisans of Paris
during the French Revolution.

The sans-culottes, whose labor and military service were needed for the
war effort, generally knew what they wanted, beginning with price controls
for food. They resented most forms of social inequality and were hostile to
the aristocracy and the original leaders of the revolution. They advocated a
community of small property owners. They were antimonarchical,
republican, and suspicious of government. The Jacobins, by contrast, were
republicans who favored representative government and an unregulated
economy. However, once the Convention began its deliberations, the more
extreme Jacobins, known as the Mountain because of their seats high in the
assembly hall, worked with the sans-culottes to pass revolutionary reforms
and win the war.
In December 1792, Louis XVI was put on trial and convicted of
conspiring against the state. He was beheaded on January 21, 1793. The
killing of a king shocked Europe, and France found itself isolated and at
war with virtually everyone. Civil war broke out as well. In March 1793,
aristocratic officers and priests raised a royalist revolt in western France and
won local popular support.

Execution of Louis XVI. On January 21, 1793, the Convention executed

Louis XVI.

Execution of Louis XVI. Aquatint. French, eighteenth century. Musée de la

Ville de Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Paris, France. Giraudon/Art Resource,
New York.

Why would the execution of Louis XVI be held in public?

See the Map

Revolutionary France at myhistorylab.com

THE REIGN OF TERROR AND ITS AFTERMATH
The Reign of Terror is the name given to the months of quasi-judicial
executions and murders stretching from the autumn of 1793 to the
midsummer of 1794. The Terror can be understood only in the context of
the internal and external wars, on the one hand, and the revolutionary
expectations of the Convention and the sans-culottes, on the other.

Reign of Terror

The period between the summer of 1793 and the end of July 1794 when the
French revolutionary state used extensive executions and violence to defend
the Revolution and suppress its alleged internal enemies.

In April 1793, the Convention established a Committee of Public Safety

charged with saving the revolution from enemies at home and abroad. It
eventually assumed quasi-dictatorial power and generally enjoyed a
working political relationship with the sans-culottes of Paris.
In June 1793, the Parisian sans-culottes invaded the Convention, drove
out the Girondists, and gave the Mountain complete control. On August 23
the Convention decreed a levée en masse, or general military requisition of
population. It conscripted males into the army and mobilized economic
production for military purposes. On September 29, price controls were
imposed in accordance with the sans-culottes’ demands. During these same
months, the armies of the revolution crushed many of the
counterrevolutionary disturbances in the provinces.

levée en masse

The French revolutionary conscription (1793) of all males into the army and
the harnessing of the economy for war production.

Revolutionary women established their own institutions. In May 1793

Pauline Léon and Claire Lacombe founded the Society of Revolutionary
Republican Women. Its members sought stricter price controls and worked
to ferret out food hoarders. The women demanded the right to wear the
revolutionary cap that male citizens had adopted. By October 1793, the
Jacobins in the Convention had begun to fear the turmoil the increasingly
radical society was causing, and it banned all women’s clubs and societies.
Other women’s political activities were repressed, too. When Olympe de
Gouges spoke out against the Terror, she was tried and guillotined in
November 1793. Women were excluded from the French army and from
entering the galleries to watch the debates of the Convention.
The pressures of war made it relatively easy to dispense with legal due
process. But the Convention and the Committee of Public Safety felt
morally justified, for they saw themselves as creating something new in
history: a republic devoted to eradicating aristocratic and monarchical
corruption and promoting civic virtue. Marie Antoinette, other members of
the royal family, and many aristocrats were executed in October 1793. They
were followed by Girondist politicians. By early 1794, the Terror had
moved to the provinces, where thousands were executed.
The “republic of virtue” attempted to dechristianize France. In the
autumn of 1793 the Convention proclaimed a new calendar dating from the
first day of the French Republic. There were twelve months of thirty days
with names associated with the seasons and climate. The Cathedral of Notre
Dame was renamed the Temple of Reason. The legislature enforced
dechristianization in the provinces by closing churches and persecuting
clergy and believers. Dechristianization roused much opposition and
alienated the provinces from the revolutionary government in Paris.
During late 1793 and early 1794, Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794)
emerged as the chief figure on the Committee of Public Safety. The Jacobin
Club provided his base of power, and he had the support of the sans-
culottes of Paris. He considered dechristianization a political blunder and
concluded that the worship of reason was too abstract for most citizens. In
May 1794, at the height of his power, he inaugurated the Cult of the
Supreme Being. But he did not preside over this new religion for long: On
July 27 his opponents staged a coup, and Robespierre was executed the next
day.

QUICK REVIEW

The Terror
Began with creation of revolutionary tribunals in summer of 1793
 Executions spread from Paris to the provinces
Reign of Terror claimed about 40,000 victims

Revolutionary Calendar. To symbolize the beginning of a new era in

human history, French revolutionary legislators established a new calendar.
This calendar for Year Two (1794) proclaims the indivisible unity of the
revolution and the goals of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.

How would the creation of a new calendar further the aims of a

revolutionary regime?

The Reign of Terror soon ended, having claimed as many as 40,000

victims. Most were peasants and sans-culottes. The tempering of the
revolution, a phase called the Thermidorian Reaction, began in July 1794
with the establishment of a new constitutional regime. Wealthy middle-class
and professional people gained influence. By late summer, provincial
uprisings had been crushed, and the war against foreign enemies was going
well. Many of the people responsible for the Terror were removed from
public life, and the Jacobin Club of Paris was closed.

Thermidorian Reaction

The reaction against the radicalism of the French Revolution that began in
July 1794. Associated with the end of Terror and establishment of the
Directory.

The Thermidorian Constitution of the Year III was a conservative

document that provided for bicameral legislative government dedicated to
protecting the rights of property owners. Its executive branch was a five-
person Directory elected by the upper legislative house.
By the Treaty of Basel of March 1795, the Convention concluded peace
with Prussia and Spain. With the war effort succeeding, the Convention
severed its ties with the san-sculottes. Price ceilings were repealed. Rising
prices led to food riots during the winter of 1794–1795, but the Convention
suppressed them. On October 5, 1795, when a Paris mob rioted, a general
named Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) commanded the cannon and with
what he termed a “whiff of grapeshot” dispersed the crowd.

Read the Document

Maximilien Robespierre “Speech to National Convention: The Terror

Justified” at myhistorylab.com

CHRONOLOGY

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

THE NAPOLEONIC ERA
Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769 to a poor noble family in Corsica.
Because France had annexed Corsica in 1768, he was able to obtain a
commission as a French artillery officer. At the start of his career, he was a
fiery Jacobin. In 1793, he played a leading role in recovering the port of
Toulon from the British. This won him promotion to the rank of brigadier
general, and his defense of the Directory in 1794 won him a command in
Italy. By October 1797, he had crushed the Austrians and concluded the
Treaty of Campo Formio, which took Austria out of the war and left France
dominant over Italy and Switzerland.

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Napoleon 1 at myhistorylab.com

In November 1797, the triumphant Bonaparte returned to Paris to

confront France’s only remaining enemy, Britain. Judging it impossible to
invade England, he decided to try to capture Egypt from the Ottoman
Empire and cut off Britain’s communication with India. However, Admiral
Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) destroyed the French fleet and stranded the
French army in Egypt. The Russians, Austrians, and Ottomans then joined
Britain to form the Second Coalition, and in 1799, the Russian and Austrian
armies defeated the French in Italy and Switzerland and threatened to
invade France.
Bonaparte abandoned his men in Egypt and returned to France. On
November 10, 1799, he overthrew the Directory, and in December 1799, he
issued the Constitution of the Year VII and gave himself the title First
Consul. The constitution was approved in a rigged election, and a
government called the Consulate brought the revolution to an end.

Consulate

French government dominated by Napoleon from 1799 to 1804.

Read the Document

Madame de Remusat on the Rise of Napoleon at myhistorylab.com

Bonaparte quickly won peace for France. Russia had already left the
Second Coalition, and in 1800, a French victory at Marengo in Italy took
Austria out of the war. In 1802, Britain concluded the Treaty of Amiens,
and all of Europe was at peace—at least temporarily.
 Bonaparte also restored peace and order at home. He used generosity,
flattery, and bribery to win over some of his enemies, issued a general
amnesty, and employed persons from all political factions. Bonaparte was
also ruthless and efficient in suppressing political opposition. He
established a highly centralized administration, employed secret police, and
stamped out royalist rebellion.
Napoleon placated French Catholics who had been angered by
revolutionary attacks on religion. In 1801, he concluded a concordat with
Pope Pius VII (r. 1800–1823). All clergy were forced to resign. Their
replacements received spiritual investiture from the pope, but the state
named the bishops and paid their salaries and the salary of one priest in
each parish. In return, the church gave up claims to its confiscated property,
the clergy swore oaths of loyalty to the state, and the Organic Articles of
1802 established the supremacy of the state over the church. Similar laws
applied to Protestant and Jewish religious organizations, reducing still
further the privileged position of the Catholic Church.
An 1802 plebiscite ratified Bonaparte’s appointment as consul for life.
He set about transforming the basic laws and institutions of France on the
basis of both liberal principles derived from the Enlightenment and the
revolution, and conservative principles going back to the Old Regime and
the spirit that had triumphed at Thermidor. This was especially true of the
Civil Code of 1804, usually called the Napoleonic Code. It stopped far short
of the full equality advocated by liberal rationalists. Fathers were granted
extensive control over their children and men over their wives. Labor
unions were forbidden, and the rights of workers were subordinated to those
of employers.
In 1804, Bonaparte used the fear created by a failed assassination attempt
to strengthen his hold on power. A plebiscite ratified another new
constitution, which designated Napoleon Emperor of the French. Napoleon
summoned the pope to Notre Dame to take part in the coronation, though
Napoleon crowned himself; the emperor did not want anyone to think that
his authority depended on the approval of the church. Henceforth he was
called Napoleon I.
Between his coronation as emperor and his final defeat at Waterloo
(1815), Napoleon conquered most of Europe in military campaigns that
astonished the world (see Map 22-1 on page 571). France’s victories
changed the map of Europe, ended the Old Regime and its feudal trappings
in western Europe, and forced the eastern European states to reorganize.
Everywhere, Napoleon’s advance unleashed the passions of nationalism.

Napoleon. In December 1799 Napoleon seized power and established

himself as First Consul. The title of “Consul” came from the ancient Roman
Republic; by 1894 Napoleon would assume the title of “Emperor” as the
French Republic gave way to the Napoleonic Empire. The simplicity of this
modest military dress as First Consul also gave way to flowing imperial
robes.

What was the significance of a title derived from ancient Rome?

See the Map

Napoleon’s Empire in 1812 at myhistorylab.com

Napoleon’s military interventions led Britain to issue an ultimatum to

him and finally, in May 1803, to declare war. Britain persuaded Russia and
Austria once again to try to block France’s expansion. On October 21, 1805,
Britain scored a major victory. Lord Nelson destroyed the French and
Spanish fleets at the battle of Trafalgar just off the Spanish coast. Nelson
was killed, but his victory guaranteed Britain control of the sea.
On land, between October 1805 and July 1807, Napoleon defeated the
armies of Austria, Prussia, and Russia. He forced Austria to withdraw from
northern Italy. He replaced the Holy Roman Empire with the Confederation
of the Rhine. Prussia and Russia were compelled to become his allies.

William Pitt and Napoleon. In this early nineteenth-century cartoon,

England, personified by a caricature of Prime Minister William Pitt, and
France, personified by a caricature of Napoleon, are carving out their areas
of interest around the globe.

How did Napoleon achieve such great military success in Europe?

Napoleon could not be secure, however, until he had defeated Britain. He

tried to cut off British trade with Europe, hoping to cripple British
commercial and financial power and drive the British from the war. This
strategy, called the Continental System, harmed the European economies
and roused opposition to Napoleon. The British economy survived because
of its access to the Americas and the eastern Mediterranean.
 In 1807, a French army invaded the Iberian Peninsula to force Portugal to
abandon its alliance with Britain. When a revolt broke out in Madrid in
1808, Napoleon deposed the Spanish Bourbons and placed his brother
Joseph (1768–1844) on the Spanish throne. Attacks on the privileges of the
church increased public outrage. Napoleon’s Spanish opponents launched a
guerrilla war, and the British supported them by sending an army under Sir
Arthur Wellesley (1769–1852), later the Duke of Wellington. This began a
long campaign that played a critical role in Napoleon’s ultimate defeat.
Encouraged by the French troubles in Spain, the Austrians renewed the
war in 1809. They were swiftly defeated, and Austria lost much territory
and 3.5 million subjects. Napoleon married the Archduchess Marie Louise
(1791–1847), Francis I’s 18-year-old daughter, after divorcing his wife
Josephine de Beauharnais (1763–1814), with whom he had not produced
children.
The Franco-Russian alliance began to falter. The Continental System had
harmed the Russian economy, and Napoleon’s establishment of a Polish
state, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, on Russia’s doorstep angered Tsar
Alexander I (r. 1800–1825). Napoleon’s annexation of Holland and his
marriage to an Austrian princess further disturbed the tsar. In 1810 Russia
withdrew from the Continental System and began to prepare for war.
To stifle the Russian military threat, Napoleon amassed a so-called Grand
Army of more than 600,000 men and invaded the country. Russia’s generals
decided to oppose him by retreating before his advance and stripping the
countryside of supplies. Russia was too vast for Napoleon to maintain
supply lines, and his men could not live off the devastated land. Terrible
rains, fierce heat, shortages of food and water, and the courage of the
Russian rear guard eroded the morale of Napoleon’s army.
Francisco de Goya, The Third of May, 1808, 1814–1815. Napoleon sent
troops into Spain in 1807 after the king of Spain had agreed to aid France
against Portugal, which was assisting Britain. By early 1808 Spain had
essentially become an occupied nation. On May 2 riots took place in
Madrid between French troops and Spanish civilians. In response to the
riots, the French marshall Joachim Murat ordered numerous executions,
especially of artisans and clergy, during the night of May 2 and 3.

Francisco de Goya, “Los fusilamientos del 3 de Mayo, 1808,” 1814. Oil on

canvas, 8’6 “× 11’4”. © Museo Nacional Del Prado, Madrid.
What is the mood of this painting, and with whom does Goya seem to
sympathize?
MAP 22–1. Napoleonic Europe in late 1812. By mid-1812 the areas
shown in peach were incorporated into France, and most of the rest of
Europe was directly controlled by or allied with Napoleon. But Russia had
withdrawn from the failing Continental System, and the decline of
Napoleon was about to begin.

Why did certain regions mount more concentrated resistance to Napoleon’s

troops?

In September 1812 at Borodino, west of Moscow, the bloodiest battle of

the Napoleonic era cost the French 30,000 casualties and the Russians
almost twice as many. Yet the Russian army was not destroyed, and
Napoleon had won nothing substantial. By October, after occupying
Moscow, the Grand Army was forced to retreat. By December Napoleon
realized that the Russian fiasco would encourage plots against him at home,
so he returned to Paris, leaving the remnants of his army to struggle
westward. Perhaps only 100,000 lived to tell the tale. Even as the news of
the disaster reached the West, the total defeat of Napoleon was far from
certain. He was able to suppress his opponents in Paris and raise another
350,000 men.
In 1813, patriotic pressure and national ambition brought together the last
and most powerful coalition against Napoleon. With British financing, the
Russians drove westward to be joined by Prussia and Austria. From the
west, Wellington marched his peninsular army into France. Napoleon
waged a skillful campaign but met decisive defeat in October at Leipzig. At
the end of March 1814, the allied army marched into Paris. Napoleon
abdicated and went into exile on the island of Elba off the coast of Italy.

THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA AND THE EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

Once Napoleon was gone, the allies began to pursue their separate
ambitions. Even before the victorious allied armies entered Paris, Britain
had negotiated the Treaty of Chau-mont (March 9, 1814). It restored the
Bourbons to the French throne and returned France to its 1792 frontiers.
Remaining problems were left for a conference at Vienna.
The Congress of Vienna met from September 1814 until November 1815.
The victors agreed that no single state should be allowed to dominate
Europe. They constructed a series of states to prevent French expansion
(see Map 22–2). They established the kingdom of the Netherlands in the
north and added Genoa to Piedmont in the south. Prussia was given new
territories in the west; Austria obtained control of northern Italy. Most of
Napoleon’s arrangements in the rest of Germany were left untouched, and
the Holy Roman Empire was not revived. The Congress established the rule
of legitimate monarchs and rejected any compromise with the republican
and democratic politics that had flowed from the French Revolution.

Read the Document

Napoleon’s Exile to Saint Helena (1815) at myhistorylab.com

MAP EXPLORATION
To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

MAP 22–2. Europe 1815, after the Congress of Vienna. The Congress of
Vienna achieved the post-Napoleonic territorial adjustments shown on the
map. The most notable arrangements dealt with areas along France’s
borders (the Netherlands, Prussia, Switzerland, and Piedmont) and in
Poland and northern Italy.

Why did the Congress of Vienna seek to place strong states on the borders
of France?

CHRONOLOGY

NAPOLEONIC EUROPE
 However, the settlement of eastern Europe sharply divided the victors.
Alexander I wanted Russia to govern all of Poland. Prussia wanted all of
Saxony. Austria, however, refused to allow Prussia’s power to grow or
Russia to expand. The Polish-Saxon question gave France a chance to
regain influence in international affairs. French Foreign Minister Talleyrand
(1754–1838) negotiated a secret treaty with Britain and Austria. When the
news leaked out, the tsar agreed to accept jurisdiction over a smaller
Poland, and Frederick William III of Prussia (r. 1797–1840) agreed to settle
for part of Saxony. Thereafter, France was included as a fifth great power in
the deliberations.
Napoleon’s escape from Elba on March 1, 1815, unified the victors.
Although Napoleon promised a liberal constitution and a peaceful foreign
policy, the allies declared him an outlaw (a new device under international
law). Wellington and the Prussians defeated Napoleon at Waterloo in
Belgium on June 18, 1815. Napoleon was exiled to Saint Helena, a tiny
island off the coast of Africa, where he died in 1821.
The Hundred Days, as the period of Napoleon’s return is called, made the
peace settlement somewhat harsher for France, but the main outlines of the
Vienna Settlement remained in place. The Quadruple Alliance between
England, Austria, Prussia, and Russia was renewed on November 20, 1815.
Its operation represented an important departure in European affairs. The
statesmen at Vienna had seen the armies of the French Revolution change
borders and overturn the political and social order of the continent. They
were determined to prevent a recurrence of those upheavals. Their purpose
was not to punish France but to establish a framework for future stability.
The great powers, through the Vienna settlement, agreed to work together to
defend the status quo.

See the Map

Europe after the Congress of Vienna, 1815 at myhistorylab.com

The Congress of Vienna produced a long-lasting peace. Its work has been
criticized for failing to recognize and provide for the great movements that
would stir the nineteenth century—nationalism and democracy—but such
criticism is unrealistic. The settlement, like all such agreements, was aimed
at solving past ills, and in that it succeeded. It spared Europe a general war
until 1914.

WARS OF INDEPENDENCE IN LATIN

AMERICA

WHY WAS the Haitian Revolution significant to world history?

The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars inspired movements for
independence throughout Latin America. France was driven from Haiti,
Portugal from Brazil, and Spain from all its American empire except Cuba
and Puerto Rico.

REVOLUTION IN HAITI
Between 1791 and 1804, the French colony of Haiti (Saint Domingue)
achieved independence. This event was of key importance for two reasons.
First, it was sparked by policies of the French Revolution overflowing into
its New World Empire. Second, the Haitian Revolution demonstrated that
slaves of African origins could lead a successful revolt against white
masters and mulatto freemen. For years thereafter, the example of the
Haitian Revolution terrified slaveholders throughout the Americas.
The slave–master relationship had been particularly violent in eighteenth-
century Haiti. French colonists had exploited racial divisions between black
slaves and mulatto freemen to their own political advantage. Once the
French Revolution had broken out in France, the French National Assembly
decreed in the spring of 1791 that free property owners of all races were
entitled to the same rights as white plantation owners. Haiti’s Colonial
Assembly resisted. (See Document: “A Free Person of Color from Saint
Domingue Demands Recognition of His Status,” on page 565.)
In August 1791, a slave conspiracy erupted into a full-fledged slave
rebellion. François-Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743?–1803),
himself a former slave, quickly emerged as its leader. The rebellion
involved enormous violence and loss of life on both sides. When this
rebellion collapsed, mulattos and free blacks took up arms against the white
colonial masters to gain the rights the French National Assembly had
promised. The revolutionary government in Paris sent officials to support
the rebels, and slaves soon came to the aid of an invading French force. In
early 1793, the French abolished slavery in Haiti.
Toussaint L’Ouverture. L’Ouverture (1744–1803) began the revolt that led
to Haitian independence in 1804.

Why did the Haitian Revolution have such repercussions throughout

the Atlantic world?
MAP 22–3. The Haitian Revolution.

What does the expansion of Haitian territory during and after the
revolution suggest about the revolutionaries’ power?

Spain and Great Britain each separately attempted to intervene in Haiti.

Both were opposed to the end of slavery, and both coveted Haiti’s rich
sugar-producing lands. Toussaint L’Ouverture and his force of ex-slaves
again supported the French against the Spanish and the British. By 1800,
his army had achieved dominance throughout the island of Hispaniola. He
imposed an authoritarian constitution on Haiti and made himself governor-
general for life, but he preserved formal ties with France.
The French government under Napoleon distrusted L’Ouverture and
feared his example would undermine French authority elsewhere. In 1802,
Napoleon sent an army to Haiti to capture L’Ouverture, who spent the
remainder of his life imprisoned in France. Other Haitian military leaders of
slave origin, the most important of whom was Jean-Jacques Dessalines
(1758–1806), continued to resist. When Napoleon found himself again at
war with Britain in 1803, he abandoned his American empire, selling
Louisiana to the United States and withdrawing his forces from Haiti. Haiti
declared independence in 1804.
Thus, the Haitian slave-led rebellion became the first successful assault
on colonial government in Latin America. Haiti’s experience also
foreshadowed a less fortunate trend in decolonization: The break with the
colonial power was not clean. In Haiti’s case, France required exorbitant
reparations payments before formally recognizing Haitian independence in
1825. The reparations were later reduced, but they crippled Haiti’s economy
for decades and are cited as factors in laying the groundwork for the once-
wealthy nation’s current poverty.

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Slave Revolt in Saint Domingue, 1791 at myhistorylab.com

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE SPANISH EMPIRE

After Spain’s defeat in the Seven Years’ War in 1763, its king, Charles III
(r. 1759–1788), decided that the American colonial system had to be
changed. He abolished the monopolies of Seville and Cádiz, opened more
South American and Caribbean ports to trade, and authorized direct trade
between American ports. In 1776, he organized a fourth viceroyalty that
encompassed much of present-day Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and
Bolivia. Charles III also tried to make tax collection more efficient and to
eliminate bureaucratic corruption by appointing intendents, bureaucrats
loyal only to the crown.
These reforms returned the empire to direct Spanish control. Many
peninsulares (whites born in Spain) went to the New World to fill newly
created posts, depriving Creoles (whites born in America) of opportunity.
Expanding trade brought more Spanish merchants to Latin America, where
economic activity continued to be organized for the benefit of Spain.

peninsulares
Native-born Spaniards who emigrated from Spain to settle in the Spanish
colonies.

Creoles

Persons of European descent who were born in the Spanish colonies.

FIRST MOVEMENTS TOWARD INDEPENDENCE ON THE SOUTH

AMERICAN CONTINENT
Generally speaking, on the South American continent it was the Creole elite
—merchants, landowners, and professional people—who led the
movements against Spain and Portugal. Few Indians, blacks, mestizos,
mulattos, or slaves were involved or benefited from the end of Iberian rule.
Indeed, the Haitian slave revolt haunted the Creoles, as did an Indian revolt
in the Andes in 1780–1781. The Creoles were determined that political
independence from Spain and Portugal should not result in the loss of their
social and economic privileges. Creole complaints resembled those of the
American colonists against Great Britain: Latin American merchants
wanted to trade more freely, and they wanted commercial regulations that
would benefit them rather than Spain. They deeply resented Spanish
policies favoring peninsulares, and believed the royal patronage system was
another device by which Spain extracted wealth and income from America
for its own people rather than its colonial subjects.
From the 1790s onward, Spain suffered military reverses in the wars
associated with the French Revolution and Napoleon, and the commercial
situation turned sharply against the inhabitants of the Spanish Empire. The
military pressures led the Spanish monarchy into a desperate search for new
revenues, including increased taxation and the confiscation of property in
the American empire. The policies harmed the economic life of the Creole
elite.
Creole leaders had read the Enlightenment philosophes and believed that
the political reforms the philosophes championed would benefit their
region. They were also well aware of the political arguments that had
justified the American Revolution. The event that crystallized Creole
discontent into revolt against Spain was Napoleon’s overthow of the
Portuguese monarchy in 1807 and the Spanish government in 1808. The
Portuguese royal family fled to Brazil, but the Bourbon monarchy of Spain
seemed vanquished. The Creole elite feared that a monarchy headed by
Napoleon’s brother in Spain would harm their economic and social interests
and would drain the region of resources for Napoleon’s wars. Creole juntas,
or political committees, formed between 1808 and 1810 and claimed the
right to govern regions of Latin America. Ten years of warfare ensued
before Spain conceded Latin American independence.

View the Image

The Great Liberator, Independence Leader, Caudillo, and Future President

Simón Bolívar at myhistorylab.com

SAN MARTíN IN RíO DE LA PLATA

The first region to assert its independence was the Río de la Plata (modern
Argentina). In 1810, the junta in Buenos Aires thrust off Spanish authority
and sent soldiers to liberate Paraguay and Uruguay. They were defeated, but
Paraguay asserted its own independence, and Brazil absorbed Uruguay.
The Buenos Aires government then attempted to liberate Peru, the
greatest remaining stronghold of royalist power on the continent (see Map
22–4). In 1814, José de San Martin (1778–1850) led an army over the
Andes Mountains. By early 1817, he had occupied Santiago in Chile and
established Bernardo O’Higgins (1778–1842) as supreme dictator. In 1821,
he drove royalist forces from Lima and assumed the title of Protector of
Peru.

SIMóN BOLíVAR’S LIBERATION OF VENEZUELA

While San Martín liberated the southern portion of the continent, Simón
Bolívar (1783–1830) pursued a similar task in the north. A firm advocate of
independence and republicanism, Bolívar had helped organize a liberating
junta in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1810. Between 1811 and 1814, civil war
broke out as royalists, slaves, and cowboys challenged his republican
government and drove him into exile. In 1819, with help from Haiti, he
captured Bogotá, capital of New Granada (modern Colombia, Bolivia, and
Ecuador) and established a base for attacking Venezuela. In 1821, his forces
captured Caracas, and he was named president.

Simón Bolívar. Bolívar was the liberator of much of Latin America. He

inclined toward a policy of political liberalism.

What were the policy differences between Bolívar and San Martin?
MAP 22–4. The Independence Campaigns of San Martín and Bolívar.
José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar fought for independence in different
parts of South America in the early 1800s. In 1822 they collaborated to
liberate Quito, but they disagreed over post-independence political
structures: San Martín was a monarchist, while Bolívar was a republican.

How do the wars for independence in Latin America compare with the
colonists’ revolt against British rule in North America?
 In July 1822, the armies of Bolívar and San Martín liberated the city of
Quito, but the two leaders disagreed about the future political structure of
Latin America. San Martín believed in monarchies; Bolívar favored
republics. Shortly thereafter, San Martín retired from public life and moved
to Europe. In 1823, Bolívar sent troops into Peru and on December 9, 1824,
at the battle of Ayacucho, defeated the Spanish royalist forces. The battle
marked the conclusion of Spain’s effort to retain its American empire.

Read the Document

Simon de Bolívar, “Address to Second National Congress” (Venezuela),

1819 at myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

Jose Morelos, Sentiments of the Nation (Mexico), 1813, at

myhistorylab.com

INDEPENDENCE IN NEW SPAIN

The drive for independence in New Spain (modern Mexico, Texas,
California, and the rest of the southwestern United States) illustrates how
socially conservative the Latin American colonial revolutions were. As
elsewhere, a local governing junta was organized. But before it had time to
act, a Creole priest, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753–1811), incited the
Indians of his parish to rebel. They and other repressed groups responded to
Father Hidalgo’s call for social reform, and he soon had 80,000 followers.
But in July 1811, he was captured and executed. Leadership of his
movement then passed to José María Morelos y Pavón (1765–1815), a more
radical mestizo priest. In 1815, he too was captured and executed.
In 1820, a revolution in Spain forced Ferdinand VII (r. 1813–1833) to
accept a liberal constitution, and conservative Mexicans feared that a liberal
Spanish monarchy would try to impose liberal reforms on Mexico.
Therefore, for the most conservative of reasons, they declared Mexico
independent under a government determined to resist social reform.
 Great Britain was highly sympathetic to the Latin American
independence movements, since they opened the markets of the continent to
British trade and investment. In 1823, Great Britain supported the American
Monroe Doctrine that prohibited further colonization and intervention by
European powers in America, and Britain quickly recognized the Spanish
colonies as independent states. Through the rest of the century, British
commercial interests dominated Latin America.

BRAZILIAN INDEPENDENCE
Brazilian independence came relatively peacefully. The arrival of the
Portuguese royal family and several thousand officials in 1807 (as noted
previously) transformed Rio de Janeiro into a court city. The prince regent
Joao (r. 1816–1826) in 1815 declared Brazil a kingdom and no longer
merely a colony of Portugal. In 1820, a revolution took place in Portugal,
and its leaders offered the throne to Joao and demanded the return of Brazil
to colonial status. Joao, who had become Joao VI in 1816, returned to
Portugal and left his son Pedro (r. 1822–1831) as regent in Brazil. In 1822,
Pedro asserted Brazil’s independence and became emperor of Brazil. The
country remained a monarchy until 1889.

CHRONOLOGY

THE WARS OF LATIN AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

 The determination of Brazil’s political and social elite to preserve slavery
aided the peaceful transition. The wars of independence elsewhere had led
to the abolition of slavery or moved the independent states closer to
abolition. Any attempt to gain independence from Portugal through warfare
might have caused social as well as political turmoil that would open the
slavery question.

TOWARD THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN

THE TRANSATLANTIC ECONOMY
 WHY DID slavery become unacceptable in Western society?

In 1750, few questioned the institution of slavery; by 1888 slavery no

longer existed in the transatlantic economy. This vast transformation of
economic and social life occurred as the result of an international effort,
first to abolish the slave trade and then to abolish slavery itself. No previous
society in world history had attempted to abolish slavery. Its elimination in
the transatlantic world is one of the most significant achievements of the
eighteenth-century Enlightenment and revolutions.
The eighteenth-century crusade against slavery originated among writers
of the Enlightenment and religious critics. Although some philosophes,
including John Locke, were reluctant to question slavery and even defended
it, the general Enlightenment rhetoric of equality stood in sharp contrast to
the radical inequality of slavery. Montesquieu satirized slavery in The Spirit
of the Laws. Adam Smith’s emphasis in The Wealth of Nations on free labor
and the efficiency of free markets undermined economic defenses of
slavery. Much eighteenth-century literature idealized primitive peoples as
embodying a lost human virtue. Slavery, once considered the natural and
deserved result of some deficiency in slaves themselves, grew to be
regarded as an unmitigated evil. Other Enlightenment ethical thinking led
reformers to believe that by working against slavery, they would realize
their own highest moral character.
Religious protest against slavery originated among English Quakers, a
radical Protestant group founded by George Fox in the seventeenth century.
Some early Quakers owned slaves in the West Indies and participated in the
transatlantic slave trade. During the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763),
however, many Quakers experienced economic hardship and other
difficulties. Certain Quakers decided that the presence of the evil of slavery
explained these troubles. They took action against the whole system of
slavery that characterized the transatlantic economy.
Just as the slave system was a transatlantic affair, so was the crusade
against it. During the American Revolution small groups of reformers,
usually spearheaded by Quakers in Philadelphia and elsewhere, had
established an antislavery network. Emancipation gradually spread among
the northern states. In 1787 the Continental Congress forbade slavery in the
newly organized Northwest Territory north of the Ohio River.
Despite these American developments, Great Britain was the center for
the antislavery movement. During the early 1780s, reformers there decided
to work toward ending the slave trade rather than the institution of slavery
itself. The horrors of the slave trade caught the public’s attention in 1783
when the captain of the slave ship Zong threw more than 130 slaves
overboard in order to collect insurance. Soon after, groups from the Church
of England and the English Quakers formed the Society for the Abolition of
the Slave Trade. The most famous of the new leaders was William
Wilberforce, who, each year for the rest of his life, introduced a bill to end
the slave trade. For many, the slave trade seemed worse than the holding of
slaves, and attacking slavery raised complicating issues of property rights.
If the trade were ended, it seemed likely that planters would treat their
remaining slaves more humanely.
Spanish Slave Ship. After 1807 the British Royal Navy patrolled the West
African coast attempting to intercept slave-trading ships. In 1846 the British
ship HMS Albatross captured a Spanish slave ship, the Albanoz, and freed
the slaves. A British officer depicted the appalling conditions in the
slavehold in this watercolor.

Why did British reformers focus first on abolishing the slave trade, not
slavery itself?

While the British reformers worked for the abolition of the slave trade,
slaves in some areas took matters into their own hands. Indeed, the largest
emancipation of slaves to occur in the eighteenth century came in the
course of the Haitian Revolution (discussed earlier in this chapter). The
slave revolt that launched Haiti’s revolution stood as a warning to slave
owners throughout the West Indies. Other slave revolts occurred, including
those in Virginia led by Gabriel Prosser in 1800 and by Nat Turner in 1831,
in South Carolina led by Denmark Vesey in 1822, in British-controlled
Demarra in 1823 and 1824, and in Jamaica in 1831. Each of these was
brutally suppressed.
For reasons that had nothing to do with religion or enlightened
humanitarianism, some British West Indies planters decided that abolition
of the slave trade might be in their best interest. They were experiencing
soil exhaustion and increased competition from French planters. There was
a glut of sugar on the market, and the price was falling. Without new slaves,
the French would lack the labor they needed to exploit their islands. During
the Napoleonic Wars, the British captured a number of the French islands.
To protect the planters of the older British West Indies islands from
economic competition, the British Cabinet in 1805 forbade the importation
of slaves into the newly acquired islands, and in 1807 Parliament finally
passed Wilberforce’s prohibition on slave trading from any British port.
Thereafter, suppression of the slave trade became a major goal of
nineteenth-century British foreign policy. The British navy maintained a
squadron off West Africa to halt slave traders. The French and Americans
also patrolled the West African coast, although neither was deeply
committed to ending the slave trade.
Leaders of the Latin American wars of independence were disposed by
Enlightenment ideas to disapprove of slavery, and they sought the support
of slaves by promises of emancipation. The newly independent nations
slowly freed their slaves to maintain good relations with Britain, from
which they needed economic support. Slavery had disappeared from Latin
America by the middle of the century, with the important exception of
Brazil.
Having slowly recognized that the abolition of the slave trade had not
actually improved the lot of slaves, British reformers in 1823 adopted as a
new goal the gradual emancipation of slaves and founded the Abolition
Society. The savagery with which West Indian planters put down slave
revolts in 1823 and 1824 and again in 1831 strengthened the resolve of the
antislavery reformers. By 1830 the reformers demanded immediate and
complete abolition of slavery. In 1833, following the passage of the Reform
Bill in Great Britain, they achieved that goal when Parliament abolished the
right of British subjects to hold slaves. In the British West Indies, 750,000
slaves were freed within a few years.
The other old colonial powers in the New World were slower to abolish
slavery. Portugal ended slavery elsewhere in its American possessions in
1836, but Brazil’s independent government continued slavery. The Swedes
abolished slavery in their possessions in 1847; the Danes in 1848; but the
Dutch not until 1863. France, despite a significant antislavery movement,
did not abolish slavery in the West Indies until the revolutions of 1848.
Despite opposition, slavery actually expanded in some parts of the
transatlantic world in the early nineteenth century: the lower south of the
United States, Brazil, and Cuba. World demand for the products of these
regions—cotton, coffee, and sugar, respectively—made the slave system
economically viable. Slavery ended in the United States only after the Civil
War. In Cuba it persisted until 1886, and full emancipation did not occur in
Brazil until 1888 (see Chapters 24, 25, and 26).
The emancipation crusade, like slave trading, drew Europeans into
African affairs, including efforts to move former slaves back to Africa,
Christian missionary endeavors, and commercial ventures. When the
American Civil War finally halted large-scale demand for transatlantic
slaves, reformers concentrated on ending the slave trade in East Africa and
the Indian Ocean, contributing to the establishment of the late-nineteenth-
century European colonial empires (see Chapters 17 and 26).

QUICK REVIEW
Impact on Africa of Opposition to Slavery
British navy blockades West Africa
Sierra Leone, Libreville, and Liberia established in West Africa
Reformers spread Christianity and free trade in Africa
Antislavery campaign within Africa facilitates colonization

SUMMARY

WHAT WAS radical about the American Revolution?

Revolution in the British Colonies in North America. North Americans

rejected British attempts to raise revenue through colonial taxes. The ideas
of John Locke, the Commonwealthmen, and others pushed the colonists to
the American Revolution. As the crisis continued, Americans became
increasingly radicalized, rejecting monarchy and aristocratic social
structures in favor of democracy and republicanism. The colonies gained
independence in 1783 and adopted a constitution in 1788. Though women,
slaves, Native Americans and others still lacked rights, American society
was the freest yet in the world and helped inspire political movements
throughout the Americas and in Europe. page 557

HOW DID the French Revolution and Napoleon transform France’s

government and society?

Revolution in France. The French monarchy, too, was troubled by

finances. The need to appease taxpayers led to the 1789 calling of the
Estates General. In conjunction with mass action by Parisian women, sans-
culottes, and others, politics and protest turned, within four years, to two
revolutions followed by the Reign of Terror. Some stability returned with
Napoleon, whose rule began in 1799 and whose wars remade the map of
Europe. In the post-Napoleonic settlement at the Congress of Vienna
(1814–1815), European leaders tried to institutionalize peaceful relations
throughout the continent. French society had experienced multiple
disruptions, perhaps most notably the changes in the role of the church.
page 560

WHY WAS the Haitian Revolution significant to world history?

Wars of Independence in Latin America. The American, French, and

Haitian (1794–1804) revolutions, as well as the resentment Creole elites felt
toward Iberian exploitation, helped spur independence movements in Latin
America. These revolutions were socially conservative, particularly in
Mexico. Brazil achieved independence peacefully, in part because
slaveholders there wanted to minimize the risk of social disruption that
might lead to calls for abolition. page 574

WHY DID slavery become unacceptable in Western society?

Toward the Abolition of Slavery in the Transatlantic Economy. English

Quakers were in the forefront of the fight against first slave trading and then
slavery itself. Enlightenment ideas and slave revolts throughout the
Americas were also significant factors. Abolition proceeded slowly,
however, and early in the nineteenth century it coexisted with an expansion
of slaveholding in regions where plantation-grown cash crops were highly
profitable (cotton in the southern United States, sugar in the Caribbean, and
coffee in Brazil). page 579

KEY TERMS

assignats (ASS-ihn-YAHTS)
Consulate
Convention
Creoles
Jacobins
levée en masse (le-VAY ahn MAHS)
peninsulares (pen-IN-soo-LAHR-ayes)
 Reign of Terror
sans-culottes (SANZ-koo-LAHTZ)
Thermidorian Reaction
Third Estate

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Discuss the American Revolution in the context of transatlantic

history. To what extent were the colonists influenced by their
position in the transatlantic economy? To what extent were they
influenced by European ideas and political developments? How did
their demands for liberty compare and contrast with the ideas of
liberty championed during the French Revolution?
2. How was the Estates General transformed into the National
Assembly? How does the Declaration of the Rights of Man and
Citizen reflect the social and political values of the eighteenth-
century Enlightenment? What were the chief ways in which France
and its government were reorganized in the early years of the
revolution?
3. What was the revolution of 1792, and why did it occur? What were
the causes of the Reign of Terror, and what political coalitions made
it possible?
4. How did Napoleon rise to power? What were his major domestic
achievements? Did his rule more nearly fulfill or betray the ideals of
the French Revolution?
5. What were the results of the Napoleonic Wars? Why did Napoleon
decide to invade Russia? Why did he fail? What were the major
outlines of the peace settlement achieved by the Congress of
Vienna?
6. How was the Haitian Revolution influenced by the French
Revolution? How did the Haitian Revolution influence other
revolutionary movements in the Americas? How did it influence
conservative movements in the Americas?
 7. What political changes took place in Latin America in the twenty
years between 1804 and 1824? What were the main reasons for
Creole discontent with Spanish rule?
8. A motto of the French Revolution was “liberty, equality, and
fraternity.” How might one compare the American Revolution, the
French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, and the Latin American
wars of independence in regard to the achievement of these goals?
9. What intellectual and religious factors contributed to the rise of the
antislavery movement? What was the impact of slave revolts? To
what extent did nonhumanitarian forces contribute to it? What
opposition did it meet? Why did slavery receive a new lease on life
during the same years that the antislavery movement emerged?
10. What, if any, advances did women make as a result of these
revolutions in the transatlantic world? Which groups tended to
benefit most, and which least, from the events discussed in this
chapter?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 22

Read the Document Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen,

1789, p. 563

Maximilien Robespierre, “Speech to National Convention: The Terror

Justified,” p. 567
 Madame de Remusat on the Rise of Napoleon, p. 569
Napoleon’s Exile to Saint Helena (1815), p. 572
Simon de Bolívar, “Address to Second National Congress”
(Venezuela), 1819, p. 577
Jose Morelos, Sentiments of the Nation (Mexico), 1813, p. 577

See the Map Revolutionary France, p. 566

Napoleon’s Empire in 1812, p. 569

View the Image Oath of the Tennis Court, p. 561

Slave Revolt in Saint Domingue, 1791, p. 575

The Great Liberator, Independence Leader, Caudillo, and Future
President Simón Bolívar, p. 576

Hear the Audio Napoleon 1, p. 568

Research and Explore

Watch the Video Revolution in the Atlantic World

See the Map Europe after the Congress of Vienna, 1815, p. 573
 Hear the Audio
Hear the audio file for Chapter 22 at www.myhistorylab.com
23
Political Consolidation in Nineteenth-
Century Europe and North America

ImageHear the Audio for Chapter 23 at

www.myhistorylab.com

Image

Garibaldi at Naples, by Antonio Licata. One of the extraordinary figures

of the nineteenth century, Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882) was the forceful
and spiritual leader of the movement for Italian unification, which was
achieved, after many conflicts, in 1861.
Why is it significant that Garibaldi is portrayed in southern Italy?

THE EMERGENCE OF NATIONALISM IN EUROPE

WHAT IS nationalism?

EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY POLITICAL LIBERALISM

WHAT WERE the basic goals of European liberals?

EFFORTS TO LIBERALIZE EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY

EUROPEAN POLITICAL STRUCTURES

WHY WERE efforts to achieve political liberalism more successful in

France and Britain than in Russia?

TESTING THE NEW AMERICAN REPUBLIC

WHAT WERE the causes of the American Civil War?

THE CANADIAN EXPERIENCE

HOW DID Canada achieve united self-government?

MIDCENTURY POLITICAL CONSOLIDATION IN EUROPE

WHAT WERE the steps that led to Italian and German unification?

UNREST OF NATIONALITIES IN EASTERN EUROPE

HOW DID nationalism affect the Habsburg Empire?

RACIAL THEORY AND ANTI-SEMITISM

HOW DID racial theory influence anti-Semitism?

During the nineteenth century two fundamental long-term developments

occurred in the northern transatlantic world. First, a process of political
consolidation took place in both Europe and North America that made
these regions’ nation-states the strongest of the period. Second, and directly
contributing to that political strength, powerful new industrial economies
emerged in Europe and North America, accompanied by a new kind of
society, no longer based primarily on the land. As a direct result of this
political consolidation and industrialization, the nations of the northern
transatlantic became the world’s major military powers. By the close of the
nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, this political and military
power allowed the nations of Europe and the United States to exert
unprecedented political, military, and economic influence around the globe.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
EUROPEAN AND NORTH AMERICAN POLITICAL CONSOLIDATION
During the first three quarters of the nineteenth century the nations of
Europe and North America underwent major political consolidation. Great
Britain emerged from the Napoleonic Wars as the strongest power on the
globe and maintained that position for more than a century. France
experienced decades of changing political regimes but remained a major
political and military force. The third quarter of the century saw Germany
and Italy transformed from relatively soft regions of small principalities
into major unified nation-states. Similarly the Austrian Empire reorganized
itself. As will be seen in Chapter 24, Russia also undertook major political
and social reforms to consolidate the strength of the tsarist government. On
the other side of the Atlantic the United States became a major nation
aspiring to stretch across the North American continent, as did Canada.
These developments laid the foundation for the major transatlantic state
system of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The movement toward strong, centralized national states in Europe and
North America during the nineteenth century had counterparts elsewhere in
the world. In Asia during this same period, Japan sought to imitate the
military and economic power of the European states. Late nineteenth-
century Latin America enjoyed one of its most successful and stable
periods. The governments of that region established centralized regimes on
the basis of relatively prosperous economies. In the United States the Civil
War established the power of the central federal government over that of the
individual states. The role of the war in forging a single American nation
was similar to the role that military force played in the unifications of Italy
and Germany and the suppression of the Paris Commune.
In the cases of Italy and Germany many people regarded the triumph of
nationalism as a positive achievement. However, the last half of the century
also saw various national and ethnic groups use the power of the national
state to repress or dominate other minority groups. Examples include the
Hungarian treatment of smaller subject nationalities and the British
treatment of the Irish. To some extent, this phenomenon can be explained
by the geographical borders of the new nations that were carved out of
former European monarchies and empires, such as the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. In many cases, the new national boundaries ignored the reality that
many, perhaps most, regions were home to more than one ethnic group,
with religions, languages, and ethnicities different from those of their rulers
and the governing class. In the premodern world, loyalty to a ruling
dynasty, rather than shared history, language, or ethnicity, was the primary
determinant of group identity or membership in a polity above the local
level. People saw themselves first as members of a tribe, clan, village, or
town, and second as the subjects of a ruler who might not even speak their
language and whose authority often impinged very little on their daily lives.
Thus ethnic or linguistic minorities posed less of an obstacle to monarchical
rulers than to governments of nation-states, where national identity is often
based on shared language and ethnicity. This problem has continued to
bedevil national states in Europe and elsewhere in the world into the
modern era and is an important cause for many recent conflicts in regions as
diverse as eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Elsewhere around the globe during the nineteenth century strong central
governments often simply repressed minority populations, especially
indigenous peoples, or allowed them fewer rights of civic participation and
protection. In almost all cases the repression of minority groups generated
social and political problems that haunted the twentieth century. Native
Americans failed to gain rights in Latin America. In the United States the
westward movement brought warfare against Native Americans, and
legislation facilitated the segregation of American black citizens. In
Canada, English speakers fared better than French speakers. In Australia,
Aborigines were killed or forcibly relocated in many regions before and
after that country’s government gained sovereignty from England.
Finally, the emergence of strong European nation-states set the stage for
the extension of their rivalries from Europe to other areas of the globe. The
militarily and economically strong states of Europe soon turned to foreign
adventures that subjugated vast areas of Africa and Asia. This imperialism
led many colonized peoples to become aware that only strong nationalistic
movements of their own could eventually end subjugation by the militarily
stronger Europeans. Consequently, during the first quarter of the twentieth
century, the nationalistic principle that less than fifty years earlier had
dominated European politics began to influence the politics of the peoples
on whom Europeans had imposed their government and administration. As
these former colonies achieved independence and established their own
nation-states, however, their governments experienced problems similar to
those of the European nations in balancing the demands for unity of the
majority with the rights of the diverse ethnic and religious minorities
inhabiting their territory.

Focus Questions
 Image What role has military and economic power played in
strengthening nation-states?
Image Why do most nation-states have ethnic minorities? Why have
these minorities tended to be oppressed?
Image How did the rivalry among the European nation-states affect
other regions of the world? What impact did it have on the
development of nationalism outside of Europe?

The present chapter will examine the process of political consolidation in

the northern transatlantic world, while Chapter 24 will explore the social
changes that occurred there in the nineteenth century. Although we will
consider the two processes separately, each contributed to the other.
Image

THE EMERGENCE OF NATIONALISM IN

EUROPE

ImageWHAT IS nationalism?

Nationalism proved to be the single most powerful European political

ideology of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Politically,
nationalism is based on the relatively modern concept that a nation is
composed of people who are joined together by the bonds of common
language, customs, culture, and history, and who, because of those bonds,
should share the same government. The idea that political and ethnic
boundaries should coincide came into its own in Europe during the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Nationalists opposed the principle
upheld at the Congress of Vienna that legitimate monarchies or dynasties
should provide the basis for political unity. Nationalists rejected the concept
of multinational states such as the Austrian or Russian Empires. They also
objected to peoples of the same ethnic group, such as Germans and Italians,
dwelling in political units smaller than the ethnic nation. Consequently,
nationalists challenged both the domestic and the international order of the
Vienna settlement.
nationalism
The belief that one is part of a nation, defined as a community with its own
language, traditions, customs, and history that distinguish it from other
nations and make it the primary focus of a person’s loyalty and sense of
identity.

CREATING NATIONS
Nationalists actually created nations in the nineteenth century. Early
nineteenth-century writers spread nationalistic concepts. Many of these
writers were historians who chronicled a people’s past, or literary scholars
who established a national literature by collecting and publishing earlier
writings in the people’s language. In effect, they gave a people a sense of
their past and a literature of their own, which schoolteachers then spread.
The language to be used in schools and government was a point of
contention for nationalists. A uniform language helped to persuade people
who had not thought of themselves as constituting a nation to believe that
they were a nation. Yet even in 1850, less than half of the inhabitants of
France, for example, spoke official French (see Map 23–1 on page 588).

MEANING OF NATIONHOOD
Nationalists used a variety of arguments and metaphors to express what
they meant by nationhood. Some claimed that gathering Italians, for
example, into a unified Italy would promote economic and administrative
efficiency. Others insisted that nations, like biological species, were distinct
creations of God. Throughout the nineteenth century, for example, Polish
nationalists portrayed Poland as the suffering Christ among nations,
implicitly suggesting that Poland, like Christ, would experience resurrection
and a new life.

Image
MAP 23–1. Languages of Europe. Although this map provides a good
overview of the main languages of nineteenth-century Europe, it does not
show the vast number of dialects that were the primary tongue of most
speakers. A speaker of the Piedmont dialect from northwestern Italy, for
example, would not understand a speaker from Sicily.

Why was language significant for nationalists?

A significant difficulty for nationalism has been determining which

ethnic groups could be considered nations, with claims to territory and
political autonomy. In theory, any of them could, but in reality nationhood
came to be associated with groups that were large enough to support a
viable economy, that had a history of significant cultural association, that
possessed a cultural elite that could nourish and spread the national
language, and that could conquer other peoples to establish and protect their
own independence. Many smaller ethnic groups claimed to fulfill these
criteria but could not effectively achieve independence or recognition. They
could and did, however, create domestic unrest within the political units
they inhabited.

REGIONS OF NATIONALISTIC PRESSURE IN EUROPE

During the nineteenth century nationalists challenged the political status
quo in six major areas of Europe. Irish nationalists wanted independence
from Britain, or at least self-government. German nationalists sought
political unity for all German-speaking peoples, challenging the
multinational Austrian Empire and pitting Prussia and Austria against each
other. Italian nationalists sought to unify the peninsula and drive out the
Austrians. Polish nationalists struggled to restore Poland as an independent
nation. In eastern Europe, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovenes, and others sought
either autonomy or formal recognition within the Austrian Empire. Finally,
in the Balkans national groups sought independence from Ottoman and
Russian control. In each area, nationalist activity ebbed and flowed. During
the century, however, nationalists changed the political map and political
culture of Europe.
EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY POLITICAL
LIBERALISM

ImageWHAT WERE the basic goals of European liberals?

The term liberal as used in present-day American political rhetoric has

virtually no relationship to the kinds of ideologies that were described as
liberal in the nineteenth century.

POLITICS
European liberalism derived from the Enlightenment, the example of
English liberties, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and
Citizen. Liberals favored legal equality, religious toleration, and freedom of
the press. They believed that the legitimacy of government emanated from
the freely given consent of the governed expressed through elected
parliaments. Most important, free government required that state or crown
ministers be responsible to the representatives of the nation rather than to
the monarch.

liberalism
In the nineteenth century, support for representative government dominated
by the propertied classes and minimal government interference in the
economy.

However limited these goals seem, none of the major European countries
in 1815 met them all. The people who espoused these changes in
government tended to be those who were excluded from the existing
political processes, but whose wealth and education made them believe
such exclusion was unjustified. Liberals were often products of career fields
that admitted and rewarded people on the basis of talent (academics,
members of the learned professions, and people involved in commerce and
manufacturing).
 European liberals were not democrats. They despised the lower classes.
Liberals transformed the eighteenth-century concept of aristocratic liberty
into a new concept of privilege based on wealth and property. By
midcentury, throughout Europe, liberals had separated themselves from the
working class. In the first half of the nineteenth century, political liberals
generally did not support political rights for women, but liberal political
principles provided women with strong arguments, as seen for example in
the Declaration of Female Independence issued by the Seneca Falls
convention in the United States in 1848.

ImageRead the Document

The Seneca Falls Convention (1848) at myhistorylab.com

ECONOMICS
The economic goals of the liberals furthered their separation from the
working class. European economic liberals opposed the old paternalistic
legislation that established wages and labor practices by government
regulation or by guild privileges. Labor was simply one more commodity to
be bought and sold freely. Liberals sought what they regarded as structures
of economic liberty in which people were free to use their talents and
property to enrich themselves. The liberals contended that this would lead
to more goods and services for everyone at lower prices, providing the basis
for material progress.
The manufacturers of Great Britain, the landed and manufacturing
middle class of France, and the commercial interests of Germany and Italy
favored the removal of international tariffs as well as internal barriers to
trade. To that end, liberals favored the rapid construction of railways from
the 1830s onward.
The economic goals of European liberals found many followers outside
Europe among groups that favored the expansion of free trade, new
transport systems, and a free market in labor. In the United States people of
this outlook often attacked slavery as an inefficient, paternalistic institution.
In Latin America political liberals sought to remove paternalistic legislation
that had protected Native Americans under the Spanish Empire.
QUICK REVIEW
Liberal Economics
Image Embraced the theories of Adam Smith
Image Wanted free markets with limited governmental interference
Image Perceived labor as a commodity to be bought and sold

RELATIONSHIP OF NATIONALISM AND LIBERALISM

Nationalism was not necessarily or logically linked to liberalism, but the
two were often complementary. Behind the concept of a people joined
naturally by the bonds of common language, customs, culture, and history
lurked the idea of popular sovereignty. The idea of the career open to talent
could be applied to suppressed national groups that were not permitted to
realize their cultural or political potential. The efficient government and
administration required by commerce and industry would mean joining
small German and Italian states into larger political units. Nationalist
groups in one country could gain the sympathy of liberals in other nations
by espousing representative government and political liberty.

LIBERALISM AND NATIONALISM IN MODERN WORLD HISTORY

The French Revolution had demonstrated that the ideals of political
liberalism could easily cross dynastic borders. In time those liberal ideals as
well as those of nationalism would spread around the globe. Thus, what
began as a European development is also important for global history. The
concept of the “rights of man and citizen” was used during the wars of
independence in Latin America to challenge Spanish government; by the
close of the twentieth century, those same ideals had been turned against
European colonial governments in Africa and Asia (see Chapters 25 and
26). The belief that people should have the right to govern themselves
inspired the settlers who spread across both the United States and Canada as
well as those who settled in Australia and New Zealand. Similarly, the
belief that individual ethnic groups should constitute independent nations
became a major political conviction that led peoples living under European
colonial government during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries to
challenge the right of Europeans and later Americans to govern them or
dominate their lives through economic power. Thus, political developments
in Europe during the early nineteenth century profoundly affected global
politics during the twentieth century.

Image

Female Liberal Political Activism. The ideas of political liberalism spoke

deeply to the situation of women throughout the transatlantic world.
Women demanded entrance into the political forum as demonstrated by the
first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, and this
meeting of women strikers in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1860.

How successful were women in gaining rights during this period?

EFFORTS TO LIBERALIZE EARLY

NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPEAN
POLITICAL STRUCTURES

ImageWHY WERE efforts to achieve political liberalism more

successful in France and Britain than in Russia?

European nations moved toward liberal political structures haltingly and in

the face of conflict. Most conservatives hoped the Congress of Vienna had
established walls against liberal advances. Three examples indicate the
different experiences that European liberals confronted early in the
nineteenth century.

RUSSIA: THE DECEMBRIST REVOLT OF 1825 AND THE AUTOCRACY

OF NICHOLAS I
In the process of driving Napoleon’s army across Europe and then
occupying defeated France, many officers in the Russian army were
introduced to the ideas of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment.
They realized how economically backward and politically stifled Russia
was, and groups within the officer corps began to form secret societies. In
1825, they decided to stage a coup d’état the following year.
Events intervened. In November 1825, Tsar Alexander I died
unexpectedly, creating two crises. The first was a dynastic one: Alexander
had no direct heir. His brother Constantine, who commanded Russian forces
in Poland, had renounced any claim to the throne. Secret instructions left by
Alexander and made public only after his death named the tsar’s younger
brother, Nicholas (r. 1825–1855), his successor, but the legality of
Alexander’s orders was uncertain. Constantine acknowledged Nicholas as
tsar, and Nicholas acknowledged Constantine. For about three weeks,
Russia had no ruler. Then, in early December, the army command reported
to Nicholas the existence of a conspiracy among officers, and Nicholas had
himself declared tsar.
The second crisis now unfolded—a plot by junior officers to rally their
troops to compel reform. On December 26, 1825, the army was to take the
oath of allegiance to Nicholas, who was less popular than Constantine and
regarded as more conservative. Nearly all of the regiments did so, but the
Moscow regiment refused. Its chief officers, surprisingly, were not secret
society members, but they marched into the Senate Square in Saint
Petersburg calling for Constantine and a constitution. Nicholas ordered
cavalry and artillery to attack the insurgents. Five of the plotters were
executed, and more than one hundred other officers were exiled to Siberia.
Liberalism was crushed in Russia. Nicholas I manifested extreme
conservatism in foreign affairs, too, providing troops to suppress liberal and
nationalist movements throughout Europe. Except for a modest experiment
early in the twentieth century, tsarist Russia never experienced liberal
political structures.

Image

Decembrist Revolt. When the Moscow regiment refused to swear

allegiance to Nicholas, he ordered the cavalry and artillery to attack them.
Though a total failure, the Decembrist Revolt came to symbolize the
yearnings of all Russian liberals in the nineteenth century for a
constitutional government.

The Insurrection of the Decembrists at Senate Square, Saint Petersburg on

14th December, 1825 (w/c on paper) by Russian School (19th century).
Private Collection/Bridgeman Art Library.

Why did liberalism fail in Russia?

REVOLUTION IN FRANCE (1830)

In 1824 Louis XVIII (r. 1814–1824), the Bourbon king restored to the
French throne by the Congress of Vienna, died and was succeeded by his
brother, Charles X (r. 1824–1830). The new king considered himself a
monarch by divine right. He wanted to restore lands that the French
aristocrats had lost during the revolution and pressed other conservative
measures through the Chamber of Deputies. Opposition soon developed.
After elections in 1827, Charles moderated his conservatism, but French
liberals pressed for a constitutional regime. In 1829, Charles appointed an
ultraroyalist ministry. This move backfired.
In 1830 Charles X called for new elections, and the liberals scored a
stunning victory. The king and his ministers decided to undertake a royalist
seizure of power. In June and July 1830 the ministry had sent a naval
expedition against Algeria. On July 9 reports of its victory, and the
consequent foundation of a French empire in North Africa, reached Paris.
On July 25, 1830, acting under the euphoria of this foreign diversion,
Charles X issued the Four Ordinances, which restricted freedom of the
press, dissolved the recently elected Chamber of Deputies, and called for
new elections under a franchise restricted to the wealthiest people in the
country.
Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix is a famous evocation of
the Revolution of 1830.

Giraudon/Art Resource, New York.

How does Delacroix mythologize the events of 1830?

Liberal newspapers immediately called on the nation to reject the

monarch’s actions. Parisian laborers, burdened by an economic downturn,
took to the streets and erected barricades. The king called out troops, and
more than 1,800 people died during the ensuing battles. On August 2
Charles X abdicated and left for exile in England. The liberals in the
Chamber of Deputies named a new ministry composed of constitutional
monarchists. They proclaimed Louis Philippe (r. 1830–1848), head of the
liberal branch of the royal family, the new monarch. Under the July
Monarchy, Louis Philippe was called the king of the French rather than of
France. The king had to cooperate with the Chamber of Deputies; he could
not dispense with laws on his own authority. The revolutionary tricolor
replaced the white flag of the Bourbons. The Charter, or constitution, was
regarded as embodying the rights of the people rather than as a concession
granted by the monarch. Catholicism was recognized only as the religion of
the majority of the people, not as the official religion. Censorship was
abolished. The franchise, though still restricted, was extended.

July Monarchy
The French regime set up after the overthrow of the Bourbons in July 1830.

Socially, however, the Revolution of 1830 proved quite conservative. The

landed oligarchy retained its economic, political, and social influence.
Money became the path to power and influence in the government. There
was much corruption. Most important, the liberal monarchy displayed scant
sympathy for the lower and working classes.

THE GREAT REFORM BILL IN BRITAIN (1832)

The passage of Britain’s Great Reform Bill, which became law in 1832,
was the result of events different from those that occurred on the Continent.
In Britain the forces of conservatism and reform compromised with each
other. Great Britain came to be regarded as the exemplary liberal state not
only of Europe but of the world.

Great Reform Bill (1832)

A limited reform of the British House of Commons and an expansion of the
electorate to include a wider variety of the propertied classes. It laid the
groundwork for further orderly reforms within the British constitutional
system.

English determination to maintain union with Ireland began the reform

process. The Act of Union in 1800 between England and Ireland had
suppressed the separate Irish Parliament and seated Irish representatives in
the British Parliament at Westminster. Only Protestant Irishmen, however,
could be elected to represent what was an overwhelmingly Catholic
country. Irish nationalists agitated for Catholic emancipation, as the
movement for legal rights for Roman Catholics was known. In 1828 Daniel
O’Connell (1775–1847) was elected to Parliament but could not legally
take his seat until the Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) steered the Catholic
Emancipation Act through Parliament. This, together with the repeal in
1828 of restrictions against Protestant nonconformists, ended the monopoly
held by members of the Church of England on British political life.

Catholic emancipation
The grant of full political rights to Roman Catholics in Britain in 1829.

Catholic emancipation alienated many of Wellington’s Tory supporters,

who believed that Catholic emancipation had passed only because of
corruption in the House of Commons. After the 1830 elections, King
William IV (r. 1830–1837) turned to the Whigs to form a government. The
Whigs soon presented a major reform bill that had two broad goals. The
first was to replace “rotten” boroughs, which had few voters, with
representatives for the previously unrepresented manufacturing districts and
cities. The second was to increase the number of voters in England and
Wales. Parliament rejected the bill twice, leading to mass meetings
throughout the country and riots in several cities. Finally, William IV
agreed to create enough new peers to give a third reform bill a majority in
the House of Lords. The measure became law in 1832.

View the Image

Reform Bill of 1832–Cartoon at myhistorylab.com

The Great Reform Act expanded the size of the English electorate, but it
was not a democratic measure. The electorate was increased by more than
200,000 persons (almost 50 percent), but the basis of voting remained a
property qualification. New urban boroughs gave the growing cities a voice
in the House of Commons, but each new urban electoral district was
balanced by a new rural district. Nonetheless, the Great Reform Act
established the foundations for long-term political stability in Britain. New
groups and interests were absorbed into existing political processes. A large
body of ideas emphasizing competition and individualism was accepted by
members of all classes. Even the leaders of trade unions asked only to
receive some of the fruits of prosperity and to prove their own social
respectability. During the 1840s a major working-class political movement
known as Chartism brought the demands of industrial workers into the
political process. Great Britain continued to symbolize the confident liberal
state.
Chartism
The first large-scale European working-class political movement. It sought
political reforms that would favor the interests of skilled British workers in
the 1830s and 1840s.

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), leader of the Conservatives in the House

of Commons, hoped to appeal to portions of the working class and the
growing suburban middle class by passing social reform legislation.
Disraeli supported the Second Reform Act (1867), which increased the
number of voters from approximately 1,430,000 to 2,470,000. The election
of 1868 dashed Disraeli’s hopes: the Liberal Party’s William Gladstone
(1809–1898) became the new prime minister. Gladstone’s ministry from
1868 to 1874 witnessed the culmination of classical British liberalism.
Gladstone introduced the secret ballot, brought competitive examinations
into the civil service, and abolished the purchase of officers’ commissions.
The British government took responsibility for all primary education.

A House of Commons Debate. William Ewart Gladstone, standing on the

right, is attacking Benjamin Disraeli, who sits with legs crossed and arms
folded. Gladstone served in the British Parliament from the 1830s through
the 1890s. Four times the Liberal Party prime minister, he was responsible
for guiding major reforms through Parliament. Disraeli, regarded as the
founder of modern British conservatism, served as prime minister from
1874 to 1880.

What were the significant differences between the policies of Gladstone

and Disraeli?

The liberal policy of creating popular support by extending political

liberty and reforming abuses had its conservative counterpart in concern
about social reform. Disraeli succeeded Gladstone as prime minister in
1874. Whereas Gladstone looked to individualism, free trade, and
competition to solve social problems, Disraeli believed the state should
protect weaker citizens. In his view, paternalistic legislation would alleviate
class antagonism. His most important measures were the Public Health Act
of 1875 and the Artisans Dwelling Act of 1875, through which the
government became involved in providing housing for the working class.

QUICK REVIEW
William Gladstone (1809–1898)
Image Became prime minister in election of 1868
Image Witnessed the culmination of classical British liberalism
Image Carried out reforms of governmental abuses and extended
political liberty

Ireland proved a profoundly disruptive force in British politics. From the

late 1860s onward, Irish nationalists had sought home rule, or more Irish
control of local government. In the election of 1885 the Irish Party, led by
Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891), emerged holding the balance of
power between the English Liberals and Conservatives. (See Document,
“Parnell Calls for Home Rule for Ireland.”) Gladstone supported home rule
for Ireland, so Parnell supported him. This split the Liberal Party, however,
and a group known as the Liberal Unionists joined with the Conservatives
to defeat Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill in 1886. Conservatives formed a
ministry under Lord Salisbury (1830–1903) and attempted to placate the
Irish through public works and administrative reform, with only marginal
success. In 1892 Gladstone returned to power and sponsored a second
Home Rule Bill that was defeated in the House of Lords. Finally, a Liberal
ministry passed the third Home Rule Bill in the summer of 1914. However,
implementation of home rule was suspended for the duration of World War
I.

home rule
The advocacy of a large measure of administrative autonomy for Ireland
within the British Empire between the 1880s and 1914.

View the Image

Gladstone and Disraeli–Punch Cartoon at myhistorylab.com

1848: YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS IN EUROPE

In 1848 a series of liberal and nationalistic revolutions and revolts spread
across Europe (see Map 23–2 on page 596). No single factor caused this
revolutionary groundswell, but similar conditions existed in several
countries. Severe food shortages had prevailed since 1846 due to poor
harvests. The commercial and industrial economy was in recession, causing
widespread unemployment. However, the dynamic for change in 1848
originated not with the working classes but with middle-class political
liberals, who pushed for more representative governments, civil liberty, and
unregulated economic life.

QUICK REVIEW
Factors Leading to the Revolutions of 1848
Image Food shortages due to bad harvests
Image Recession and widespread unemployment
Image Pressure from continental liberals for change

To put additional pressure on their governments, the liberals began to

appeal for the support of the urban working classes, even though their goals
were different. The working classes sought improved employment and
better working conditions. The liberals refused to follow political revolution
with social reform and thus isolated themselves from their temporary
working-class allies. Once separated from potential mass support, the
liberal revolutions were easily suppressed by the armies of reactionary
governments. As a result, the revolutions of 1848 failed to establish
genuinely liberal or national states.

Revolutionary. In 1848, Ana Ipatescu helped to lead Transylvanian

revolutionaries against Russian rule. (Transylvania is part of present-day
Romania.) The revolutions of 1848 in eastern Europe were primarily the
risings of nationalist groups. Although generally repressed in the
revolutions of that year, subject nationalities would prove a source of
political upheaval and unrest in the region throughout the rest of the
century, ultimately providing the spark for the outbreak of World War I.

Where was nationalist unrest most prevalent?

The results of the continental revolutions of 1848 were important for the
individual nation-states. In France the monarchy of Louis Philippe was
overthrown and briefly replaced by a republic, overthrown in turn by a
nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. Thereafter Louis Napoleon created the
Second Empire and took the title of Napoleon III. In Prussia and the
Austrian Empire short-lived revolutions brought political liberals and
nationalists to the fore, but in each case those revolutions were put down by
the military. The same was true of efforts by Italian nationalists to thrust off
Austrian rule of Italy.

DOCUMENT
Parnell Calls for Home Rule for Ireland
Since 1800, Ireland had been governed as part of Great Britain, sending
representatives to the British Parliament in Westminster. Throughout the
century, there had been tension and violent conflict between the Irish and
their English governors. Agitation for home rule, whereby the Irish would
directly control many of their own affairs, reached a peak in the 1880s.
Charles Stewart Parnell was the chief leader for the cause of Irish
nationalism during that decade. His program at the time was home rule for
Ireland, by which he meant Irish administration of Irish domestic affairs
while preserving an ill-defined union with England. In 1885, he made a
speech outlining the resentments the Irish had felt toward the English since
the Act of Union of 1800. He also drew direct parallels between the
relationship of Ireland to England and that of Hungary to Austria. The
efforts to achieve home rule failed during the nineteenth century.

• HOW does Parnell say the Act of Union affected Irish sentiment
toward England? What parallel does he draw with Hungary and
Austria? Why might Parnell be regarded as a moderate nationalist?

It is not possible for human intelligence to forecast the future in the matter;
but we can point to this—we can point to the fact that under 85 years of
parliamentary connection with England, Ireland has become intensely
disloyal and intensely disaffected; that notwithstanding the Whig policy of
so-called conciliation, alternative conciliation and coercion… that
disaffection has broadened, deepened, and intensified from day to day. Am I
not, then, entitled to assume that one of the roots of this disaffection and
feeling of disloyalty is the assumption by England of the management of
our affairs. It is admitted that the present system can’t go on, and what are
you going to put in its place? My advice to English statesmen considering
this question would be this—trust the Irish people altogether or trust them
not at all.… Whatever chance the English rulers may have of drawing to
themselves the affection of the Irish people lies in destroying the
abominable system of legislative union between the two countries by
conceding fully and freely to Ireland their right to manage her own affairs.
It is impossible for us to give guarantees, but we can point to the past; we
can show that the record of English rule is a constant series of steps from
bad to worse, that the condition of English power is more insecure and
more unstable at the present moment than it has ever been. We can point to
the example of other countries; of Austria and of Hungary—to the fact that
Hungary having been conceded self-government became one of the
strongest factors in the Austrian empire. We can show the powers that have
been freely conceded in the colonies [such as Canada and Australia have
led to loyalty]… I am confident that the English statesman who is great
enough… to carry out these teachings… to give Ireland full legislative
liberty, full power to manage her own domestic concerns will be regarded in
the future by his countrymen as one who has removed the greatest peril to
the English empire—a peril, I firmly believe, which if not removed will
find some day… an opportunity of revenging itself to the destruction of the
British empire for the misfortunes, the oppressions, and the misgovernment
of our country.

Source: From Charles Stewart Parnell, “Speech at Wicklow,” October 5, 1885, as quoted in Raymond
Phineas Stearns, Pageant of Europe: Sources and Selections from the Renaissance to the Present Day
(New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1948), pp. 634–635.

From the standpoint of world history, the chief importance of the failed
revolutions of 1848 was the emergence of strongly conservative
governments that would dominate Europe for the next quarter century. The
turmoil of 1848 through 1850 ended the era of liberal revolution that had
begun in 1789; political initiative passed for a time to the conservatives.
Liberals and nationalists had discovered that rational argument and local
insurrections would not help them to achieve their goals. The working class
also adopted new tactics and organization. In the future, workers would turn
to trade unions and political parties, rather than riot and urban insurrection,
to achieve their political and social goals.

See the Map

European Centers of Rebellion and Revolution, 1820–1848 at
myhistorylab.com
MAP 23–2. Centers of Revolution in 1848–1849. The revolution that
toppled the July Monarchy in Paris in 1848 soon spread to Austria and
many of the German and Italian states. Yet by the end of 1849, most of
these uprisings had been suppressed.

Which regions were most affected by the uprisings of 1848 and 1849?
 ImageRead the Document
Metternich on the Revolutions of 1848 at myhistorylab.com

The defeat of liberal political forces in 1848 also influenced the

modernization of Japan. Within a few years Japan would emerge from its
long self-imposed isolation and look to European examples of successful
modern nations. The nation Japan would most clearly copy was the
conservative, militaristic Germany that emerged after the defeat of the
liberals of 1848.

TESTING THE NEW AMERICAN REPUBLIC

ImageWHAT WERE the causes of the American Civil War?

TOWARD SECTIONAL CONFLICT

While the nations of western Europe very slowly embraced political
liberalism, the United States of America was continuing its bold republican
political experiment. By the first quarter of the century, however, serious
sectional tensions had arisen, the most important of which related to the
presence of black slavery in the southern states.
The Constitutional Convention of 1788 had debated several aspects of
slavery. A compromise allowed the slaveholding states to count three-fifths
of their slaves when calculating their population for representation in
Congress. The Constitution also forbade any federal attempt to prevent the
importation of slaves before 1808.
Westward expansion raised new questions about slavery. The Ordinance
of 1787, passed by Congress under the Articles of Confederation, had
prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory. Territory south of the Ohio
River and beyond the Mississippi River was, however, open to slavery. By
1820, when Missouri was admitted as a slave state and Maine as a free one,
the number of slave and free states was evenly divided. Congress decided
that in the future no slave states would be carved out of land north of the
southern border of Missouri. For the time being, this Missouri Compromise
ended congressional debate over slavery (see Map 23-3 on page 598).

ImageRead the Document

“A Defense of the Slave Trade,” July 1740 at myhistorylab.com

Hear the Audio

Slavery 1 at myhistorylab.com

Meanwhile, the economies of the North and the South were rapidly
diverging. In the North, family farms, free labor, commerce, and early
industrialization in textiles characterized the economy. Northern farms were
relatively small and worked by families, producing mostly foodstuffs for
the local community. Slavery was abolished in the North by the early
nineteenth century. The political spokesmen for the North tended to favor
tariffs to protect their young industries from cheaper foreign competition.
(In this, American liberals differed from their European counterparts.)
Northern textile factories used cotton that was produced in the South,
though most southern cotton was sold overseas.

Image

The Excelsior Iron Works, located in New York City. This print from the
1840s shows the works as a beehive of activity. Iron mills produced the
material for railroads, ships, and machinery.

How did the economy of the North differ from that of the South?

Nineteenth-century innovations in transportation led to the fuller

integration of different parts of the northern economy. Canals were built to
link the major rivers with manufacturing and agricultural markets. The
Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri rivers were made navigable for steamboats.
By the late 1840s, in America as in Europe, the major transportation
innovation was the railroad. Most railways linked the Northeast and the
West and fostered the commercial agriculture of the Midwest, making much
of the northern economy just as rural and agricultural as the southern.
Railway construction aided the development of the northern coal and iron
industries. The midcentury expansion of railways caused new sectional
tensions, as it became clear the railways could open vast territories for
settlement and could thus also open a national debate over slavery.

MAP EXPLORATION

To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

Image

MAP 23–3. The United States, 1776–1850. During the nineteenth century
the United States expanded across the entire North American continent. The
revolutionary settlement had provided most of the land east of the
Mississippi. The single largest addition thereafter was the Louisiana
Purchase of 1803. The annexation of Texas, and later the Mexican Cession
following the Mexican War, added the major Southwestern territories. The
borders of the Oregon Territory were settled through long, difficult
negotiations with Great Britain.

What is the connection between the westward expansion of the United

States and the Civil War?

What most distinguished North from South was free versus slave labor.
In the South, cotton was king, and cotton cultivation was organized around
slavery. The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney (1765–1825) in
1793 made cotton cultivation much more profitable. The industrial
revolution in textiles kept cotton prices high, and the expansion in world
population kept the demand for cotton cloth steady. The expansion of the
cotton empire in the Mississippi Delta in the early nineteenth century gave
slavery a new lease on life.

ImageRead the Document

The History of Mary Prince (1830s) at myhistorylab.com

SLAVERY
Although most Southern families never owned slaves, and most slave
owners possessed only a few slaves, the institution of slavery survived for
many reasons. For one, it was economically viable, and no one could devise
a way to abolish it that was politically or socially acceptable to white
Southerners. Throughout American society, North and South, there was a
strong commitment to the protection of private property, including slaves.
Perhaps most basic, however, was the racist thinking—in the North and in
the South—that saw blacks as fundamentally inferior to whites.
All American slaves were nonwhite, the descendants of Africans who
had been forcibly captured and shipped in wretched conditions to the
United States (see Chapter 17). Despite racial mixing among Africans and
their white slave owners and Native Americans, slave codes defined as
black virtually anyone who had any African ancestors. Slaves were
regarded as chattel property: They could be sold, given away, or even
gambled away like any other piece of property. They had no recourse to law
or constitutional protections, and they could be whipped or beaten. Slaves
suffered from overwork and from diseases associated with poor nutrition,
substandard sanitation, and inferior housing.
Slaves worked primarily in the fields, where they plowed, hoed, and
harvested cotton, rice, sugar, tobacco, or corn. They were usually organized
into work gangs supervised by white overseers. This work, like all farming,
was seasonal, but during planting or harvest seasons, labor lasted from
sunrise to sunset. Children would help in the fields. Older or more
privileged slaves might work in the house.
Slave communities helped preserve the family life and inner personalities
of slaves. Some elements of African culture persisted: African legends were
passed on orally. Religion proved extraordinarily important. Slaves adopted
for their own cultural needs the Old Testament stories of the Jews’
liberation from Egypt. They also often combined elements of African
religion with evangelical Protestantism. Yet the marriages and family lives
of slaves had no legal recognition, and the integrity of the slave family
could be violated at any time. White masters and their sons often sexually
exploited black slave women. In a world of white dominance, the
institutions, customs, and religions of the slave community were the only
refuge available to black slaves.

Scars of Slavery. This Louisiana slave named Gordon was photographed in

1863 after he had escaped to Union lines during the Civil War. He bears the
permanent scars of the violence that lay at the heart of the slave system.
Few slaves were so brutally marked, but all lived with the threat of beatings
if they failed to obey.

Do you believe evidence of the cruelty of slavery, such as this

photograph, influenced Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation
Proclamation?

THE ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT

During the 1830s a militant antislavery movement emerged in the North. Its
members refused to accept what they regarded as the moral compromise of
living in a nation that tolerated slavery. Abolitionists such as William Lloyd
Garrison, editor of the Liberator, condemned the Union and the
Constitution as structures that perpetuated slavery. Former slaves who had
escaped slavery, such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, and
freeborn black Americans, such as Daniel A. Payne, were prominent in the
cause.
The antislavery movement gained new adherents during the 1840s as the
question of extending slavery into new territories came to the fore. Texas
was annexed in 1845, the vast Oregon Territory was acquired in 1846, and
victory in the Mexican War (1846–1848) added significant new territory in
the Southwest and California (see Map 23–3).

See the Map

The Americas, 1800–1836 at myhistorylab.com

Southerners feared that changing attitudes and the opening of territories

where slavery was prohibited would give the South a minority status.
Northerners believed that a slave-power conspiracy controlled the federal
government. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill, introduced by Stephen A. Douglas
(1813–1861) in 1845, proposed that the people of each new territory decide
whether to permit slavery. The Compromise of 1850, a group of laws that
balanced slave and free interests, briefly restored political calm. But then
the Republican Party was organized in 1854 largely in opposition to the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Kansas, where abolitionist John Brown and his sons
mounted guerilla attacks against slaveholding settlers, earned the nickname
“Bleeding Kansas.” In the 1857 Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court
effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise by declaring that Congress
could not prohibit slavery in the territories, that slaves did not become free
by living in free states, and that slaves did not have basic rights. Thereafter,
slavery dominated national political debate.
In 1859 Brown seized the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, as
part of an effort to foment a slave rebellion. He was captured, tried, and
hanged, further increasing sectional polarization.
The Republican Party opposed slavery, although most Republicans did
not favor outright abolition. In 1860, the Republican candidate Abraham
Lincoln (1809–1865) was elected president, which Southerners perceived as
a threat. In December 1860 southern states began to secede, forming the
Confederate States of America. When Confederate forces fired on Fort
Sumter in Charleston harbor in April 1861, the most destructive war in U.S.
history began.
THE CIVIL WAR
The Civil War lasted almost exactly four years, and a different nation
emerged from the violence. In 1863 Lincoln emancipated the slaves in the
rebelling states. The Emancipation Proclamation transformed the northern
cause from that of suppressing a southern rebellion into that of extending
liberty. By the time the Confederacy was defeated in 1865, the South was
occupied by northern armies, its farms often fallow, its transportation
network disrupted, and many of its cities in ruins. Southern political leaders
had virtually no impact on immediate postwar policy. The Thirteenth,
Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution recast the
character of the Union. The Thirteenth abolished slavery, the Fourteenth
granted citizenship to the former slaves, and the Fifteenth allowed them to
vote. The Fourteenth Amendment also prohibited much political activity by
people who had taken up arms against the Union. These amendments
resolved the issues of slavery and the relative roles of the state and federal
governments.
The Civil War and the Reconstruction era that followed it overturned the
social and political order of the South. For a time, freed slaves participated
broadly and actively in politics. For more than ten years federal troops
occupied parts of the South. Many of the antebellum southern leaders left
political life. Economically, the South remained generally rural and still
dependent on cotton. For the first time since the earliest colonial days, it
became an area of free labor. Many of the freed slaves and poor whites who
tilled the land remained hopelessly in debt to wealthier landowners.
Attempts to bring manufacturing into the South met with limited success.
Rampant racism blocked free economic development. For the rest of the
century the South remained in a semicolonial relationship to the North, and
rural poverty was the norm.
Within the context of world history, the American Civil War is important
for several reasons. It was the second-largest war (after the Taiping
Rebellion in China from 1851 to 1864) between the defeat of Napoleon in
1815 and the onset of World War I in 1914. It resulted in the establishment
of a continentwide free labor market, even though freed blacks lived in
great poverty and an economic dependence not unlike that of the rural
classes of Latin America. This free labor market helped open the entire
North American continent to economic development. The war also allowed
American political and economic interests to develop without the
distraction of the debates over states’ rights and the morality of slavery.

THE CANADIAN EXPERIENCE

HOW DID Canada achieve united self-government?

Under the Treaty of Paris of 1763, all of Canada came under the control of
Great Britain. Canada then, as now, included both an English-speaking and
a French-speaking population, the latter concentrated in Quebec. The
Quebec Act of 1774 made the Roman Catholic Church the established
church in Quebec. During the American Revolution approximately 30,000
English loyalists fled the colonies and settled in Canada, strengthening
English influences.
Tension between the French and English populations contributed to the
Constitutional Act of 1791, which divided the colony into Upper Canada
(primarily English in ethnic composition) and Lower Canada (primarily
French). Each section had its own legislature, and a governor-general
presided over the two provinces on behalf of the British Crown.
Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Cape Breton Island, and
Prince Edward Island remained separate colonies.
In the early nineteenth century relations with the United States were often
tense. There were local disputes over the fur trade and fear that the United
States would dominate Canada. That apprehension and the Anglo-French
ethnic divisions became two of the major themes of Canadian history.
By the late 1830s, tension arose between long-established families with
powerful economic interests in both Upper and Lower Canada and new
settlers seeking their own prosperity. There were quarrels over the influence
of the British Crown in local affairs. In 1837 rebellions occurred in both
Upper and Lower Canada. There were relatively few casualties, but the
British took action.
Canadian rail passengers board a train of the Great Western Railway at
Clifton Depot in southern Ontario, sometime in the late 1850s. As in the
United States, the growth of railroads transformed Canada in the nineteenth
century.

Were there significant regional differences within Canada?

ROAD TO SELF-GOVERNMENT
The British government was determined to avoid another North American
revolution. Consequently, it sent the Earl of Durham (1792–1840) to
Canada with extensive powers to make reforms. His 1839 Report on the
Affairs of British North America advocated uniting both Canadian provinces
into one political unit. He believed that only foreign policy and defense
should remain under British control. In effect, Durham wanted Canadians to
govern themselves, so that English culture would dominate. His policy was
carried out in the Canada Act of 1840, which gave the nation a single
legislature composed of two houses.
The Durham Report established the broad political pattern that the British
government followed with its other English-speaking colonies during the
nineteenth century. Britain sought to foster responsible self-government in
Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. But until well into the twentieth
century, the British and other Western imperial powers generally believed
that nonwhite peoples, such as those of India, required direct colonial
administration.
KEEPING A DISTINCTIVE CULTURE
Canadians exercised self-government, but distinct English and French
cultures continued to exist. Within the legislature there were frequent trade-
offs between the eastern and western sections of the nation. During the
American Civil War, fears that the American republic might seek to invade
or dominate Canada led to an attempt to unite the Maritime Provinces in
1862 and to consideration of a stronger federation among all the parts of
Canada.
The British North America Act of 1867 created a Canadian federation.
Canadians hoped to avoid what they regarded as flaws in the Constitution
of the United States. The Canadian system of government was federal but
placed much less emphasis on states’ rights than did the United States.
Canadians established a parliamentary mode of government but also chose
to retain the presence of the British monarchy in the person of the governor-
general as head of state. John A. MacDonald (1815–1891) was the person
most responsible for establishing this new government, and he led it for
most of the period between 1867 and 1891.

MIDCENTURY POLITICAL
CONSOLIDATION IN EUROPE

WHAT WERE the steps that led to Italian and German unification?

While the United States and Canada were establishing themselves as strong,
unified political entities in North America, major political consolidation
occurred in Europe as well. War made change possible, by disrupting the
international balance that had prevailed since 1815 and unleashing forces
that upset the internal political situation in several states.

THE CRIMEAN WAR

The Crimean War (1854–1856), named after the Black Sea peninsula on
which it was largely fought, originated from a long-standing rivalry
between Russia and the Ottoman Empire over Ottoman provinces in the
Balkans. In 1853 Russia went to war against the Ottomans on a pretext. The
next year France and Great Britain supported the Ottoman Empire to protect
their interests in the eastern Mediterranean, but the war bogged down after
the French and the British invaded the Crimea. In March 1856 a peace
conference in Paris concluded a treaty highly unfavorable to Russia.
The Crimean War shattered the image of Russian invincibility that had
prevailed since the close of the Napoleonic Wars. It also shattered the
power of the Concert of Europe to settle international disputes on the
Continent. The major European powers were no longer willing to cooperate
to maintain the existing borders between themselves and their neighbors.
For the next twenty-five years instability prevailed, allowing adventurism in
foreign policy.

ITALIAN UNIFICATION
Italian nationalists had long wanted to unite the small absolutist
principalities of the peninsula into a single state but could not agree on how
to do it. Romantic republicans such as Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) and
Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882) sought to drive out the Austrians by
popular military force and then to establish a republic. They not only failed
but also frightened more moderate Italians. The person who eventually
achieved unification was Count Camillo Cavour (1810–1861), the prime
minister of Piedmont.

See the Map

The Unification of Italy, 1859–1870 at myhistorylab.com

View the Image

Garibaldi Surrendering Power—British Cartoon, 1860 at
myhistorylab.com
A Closer Look
The Crimean War Recalled
Although the nineteenth century is often regarded as a relatively
peaceful century because of its contrast with the twentieth, the third
quarter of the century saw major armed conflicts in both Europe and
North America. The wars of the third quarter of the nineteenth century
brought European armies once again to the foreground in European
culture and art. Beginning with the Crimean War (1853–1856) and
ending the wars of German unification (1870), the armed forces of the
various nation-states re-forged European political life. In the United
States, the Civil War resulted in unprecedented American casualties as
the North firmly unified the nation under the federal government and
ended slavery.
Over time these conflicts became the subject of historical paintings.
Artists might record even the most difficult moments of warfare. Here,
the English artist Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler, portrayed Roll
Call after an Engagement, Crimea. A pioneering woman artist, she
completed the work in 1874 two decades after the war, and Queen
Victoria purchased it.
Royal Collection Enterprises Ltd./Lady Elizabeth Thompson Butler (1846–
1933), “The Roll Call: Calling the Roll after an Engagement, Crimea
(unframed).” The Royal Collection (c) 2005, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth
II. Photo by SC.

Questions

1. Lady Butler had herself never witnessed war. How do you think she
was able to portray this and other war scenes?
2. Do you view this painting as a realistic image of the experience of
soldiers, or do you think it represents Lady Butler’s interpretation?
3. How might one conclude that this painting represents warfare during
an era of growing democratization?
4. Why do you think that paintings such as Roll Call after an
Engagement, Crimea, fell from favor by the early twentieth century?

To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to

www.myhistorylab.com

Piedmont (officially the “Kingdom of Sardinia”), in northwestern Italy,

was the most independent state on the peninsula. It had fought
unsuccessfully against Austria in 1848 and 1849. In 1852 the new monarch
Victor Emmanuel II (r. 1849–1878) chose Cavour—an economic liberal and
a strong monarchist who rejected republicanism—as his prime minister.
Cavour believed that if Italians proved themselves to be efficient and
economically progressive, the great powers might let Italy govern itself. He
worked for free trade, railway construction, credit expansion, and
agricultural improvement. He also fostered the Nationalist Society, which
established chapters in other Italian states to press for unification under
Piedmontese leadership. Cavour joined the French and British in the
Crimean War because he wanted French help with unification. France’s
Napoleon III (r. 1852–1870) was sympathetic, and in 1858 Cavour and the
French emperor plotted to start a war with Austria.
In April 1859 war erupted between Piedmont and Austria. France came
to Piedmont’s aid, but soon concluded a separate peace with Austria.
Cavour felt betrayed by France, but nonetheless the war had driven Austria
from most of northern Italy. Within months other Italian states voted to
unite with Piedmont.
Soon thereafter, Garibaldi began a successful unification campaign in
Sicily. To forestall a republican victory Cavour rushed troops south to
confront Garibaldi. On the way Cavour’s troops conquered most of the
Papal States. Garibaldi’s nationalism won out over his republicanism, and
he unhappily accepted the Piedmontese domination. In late 1860 Naples
and Sicily voted to join the northern union. In March 1861 Victor
Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of Italy. Three months later Cavour died.
The new state was governed by Piedmont’s conservative constitution. Italy
gained Veneto (the region surrounding Venice) in 1866 as a result of the war
between Austria and Prussia, and Rome in 1870 as a result of the Franco-
Prussian War.

GERMAN UNIFICATION
The unification of Germany was the single most important political
development in Europe between 1848 and 1914. It was spearheaded by
Prussia’s conservative army, monarch, and prime minister, who outflanked
the kingdom’s liberals.
William I’s (r. 1861–1888) primary concern was the Prussian army. In
1860, his war minister and chief of staff proposed enlarging the army and
increasing the service of conscripts from two to three years, but the liberal-
dominated parliament refused to approve the necessary taxes. A two-year
deadlock ensued.
Creating Nations. The proclamation of the German Empire in the Hall of
Mirrors at Versailles, January 18, 1871, after the defeat of France in the
Franco-Prussian War. Kaiser Wilhelm I is standing at the top of the steps
under the flags; Otto von Bismarck is in the center in a white uniform. The
new nation possessed enormous economic resources and nationalistic
ambitions.

What was the significance of German unification?

In 1862 William I turned for help to Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898), the
person who did more than anyone else to shape the next thirty years of
European history. Bismarck held traditional Prussian values: admiration for
the monarchy, the nobility, and the army. After being appointed prime
minister and foreign minister, Bismarck sought a cause that would draw
popular support away from the liberals, who formed the majority in
Parliament, and toward the monarchy and the army. He used foreign affairs
to divert public attention from domestic matters by having Prussia assume
leadership of the effort to unify Germany.
Bismarck favored what was known as the kleindeutsch (“small
German”) solution to unification. It excluded Austria. To promote his plan,
he fought two brief wars. In 1864, he went to war with Denmark over the
status of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, German-speaking areas
that had long been administered by the Danish monarchy. The Austrians
helped defeat Denmark and joined Prussia in jointly administering the two
duchies. Bismarck then made alliances with France and Italy against
Austria, and in the summer of 1866, decisively defeated Austria in the
Seven Weeks’ War. The consequent Treaty of Prague excluded the
Habsburgs from German affairs and left Prussia the only major power
among the German states.

kleindeutsch
Meaning “small German.” The argument that the German-speaking portions
of the Habsburg Empire should be excluded from a united Germany.

CHRONOLOGY

GERMAN AND ITALIAN UNIFICATION

 In 1867 Hanover, Hesse, Nassau, and the city of Frankfurt, all of which
had supported Austria during the war, were annexed by Prussia and their
rulers deposed. Prussia and these newly incorporated territories, plus
Schleswig and Holstein and the rest of the German states north of the Main
River, constituted the North German Confederation. Prussia was its
undisputed leader.

Read the Document

A Letter from Bismarck (1866) at myhistorylab.com

THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE

Bismarck looked for an opportunity to bring the states of southern Germany
into the confederation. It appeared as a result of complex diplomacy
surrounding the possibility of a cousin of William I of Prussia becoming
king of Spain. France opposed this. Bismarck goaded the French into war
by tricking them into believing that William I had insulted the French
ambassador. Once the war began, the states of southern Germany supported
Prussia. On September 1, 1870, the Germans defeated the French army and
captured Napoleon III. Paris capitulated on January 28, 1871. Ten days
earlier, in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, the German Empire
had been proclaimed. The rulers of the states of southern Germany had
requested that William I accept the imperial title—allowing them to retain
their kingly titles and thrones.
The unification of Germany established a strong, coherent state in the
middle of Europe. It had been forged by the Prussian army and monarchy
and would be dominated by Prussian institutions. It possessed enormous
economic resources and nationalistic ambitions. For some, the unification
of Italy and Germany showed that nationalistic aspirations could only be
fulfilled by armed force. France, in the wake of its defeat by Prussia, again
became a republic—the Third Republic—governed by a chamber of
deputies, a senate, and a president.

See the Map

The Unification of Germany, 1866–1871 at myhistorylab.com
UNREST OF NATIONALITIES IN EASTERN
EUROPE

HOW DID nationalism affect the Habsburg Empire?

In an age increasingly characterized by national states, liberal institutions,

and industrialism, the Habsburg domains remained dynastic, absolutist, and
agrarian. Following the revolutions of 1848, Emperor Francis Joseph (r.
1848–1916) and his ministers attempted to impose a centralized
administration on the multinational empire. The system amounted to a
military and bureaucratic government dominated by German-speaking
Austrians. This particularly annoyed the Hungarians. Austria’s shrinking
power compelled Francis Joseph to come to terms with the Hungarian
nobility. The Ausgleich (Compromise) of 1867 transformed the Habsburg
Empire into a dual monarchy. Francis Joseph was crowned king of Hungary
in Budapest. Except for the common monarch, foreign policy, and army,
Austria and Hungary functioned largely as separate states (see Map 23–4).

Ausgleich
Meaning “compromise.” The agreement between the Habsburg emperor
and the Hungarians to give Hungary considerable administrative autonomy
in 1867. It created the Dual Monarchy, or Austria-Hungary.

Other national groups within the empire opposed the compromise

because it permitted the German-speaking Austrians and the Hungarian
Magyars to dominate all other nationalities. The Czechs of Bohemia were
the most vocal group. By the turn of the century, they and German-speaking
groups in the Austrian Reichsrat disrupted the Parliament rather than permit
a compromise on language issues. The emperor ruled thereafter by imperial
decree. Constitutionalism survived in Hungary only because the Magyars
used it to dominate competing national groups.
Nationalist unrest within the Habsburg Empire constituted one of the
major sources of political instability for all of central and eastern Europe.
Virtually all the nationality problems had a foreign policy as well as a
domestic political dimension. Both the Serbo-Croatians and the Poles
believed they deserved a wholly independent state in union with their
fellow nationals who lived outside the empire. Ukrainians, Romanians, and
Bosnians saw themselves as potentially linked to Russia, Romania, Serbia,
or some larger Slavic state. Many nationalities looked to Russia for
protection, contributing to the tensions that would spark World War I. The
dominant German population of Austria proper was generally loyal to the
emperor. However, a significant segment was strongly nationalistic and
yearned to be part of Bismarck’s German state. These nationalistic Germans
in the Austrian Empire often hated the non-German national groups,
particularly the Jews. These attitudes influenced Adolf Hitler (1889–1945)
in his youth, shaping his political opinions.

QUICK REVIEW
Nationalist Unrest
Significant impact on German, Russian, and Austrian empires
Hungarian Magyars won significant rights
Many Slavic groups oriented toward Russia
Destabilizing influence; led to World War I

See the Map

The Nationalities of Austria-Hungary, 1867 at myhistorylab.com
MAP 23–4. Nationalities within the Habsburg Empire. The patchwork
appearance reflects the unusual problem of the numerous ethnic groups that
the Habsburgs could not, of course, meld into a modern national state. Only
the Magyars were recognized in 1867, leaving nationalist Czechs, Slovaks,
and the others chronically dissatisfied.

How did the Compromise of 1867 affect the Habsburg Empire?

Each of the three great central and eastern European empires—German,

Russian, and Austrian—was touched by nationality problems from the
1860s through the outbreak of World War I. All had Polish populations.
Each shared at least two other major national groups. Each nationality
regarded its own aspirations and discontents as being more important than
the larger good. The government of each empire would be overturned
during the war, and the Austrian Empire would disappear. The same
unresolved problems of central and eastern European nationalism would
then lead directly to World War II. More recently, they led to civil war in
what was Yugoslavia and to the breakup of Czechoslovakia.

RACIAL THEORY AND ANTI-SEMITISM

HOW DID racial theory influence anti-Semitism?

Racial thinking, or racism, had long existed in Europe, but articulated

racial theory constituted a new component of late-century nationalistic
unrest. Late eighteenth-century linguistic scholars had observed similarities
between many European languages and Sanskrit, and postulated the
existence of an ancient race called the Aryans, who spoke the original
language from which the rest derived. During the Romantic period, writers
had called the different cultures of Europe races. The debates over slavery
in the European colonies and the United States had spurred the development
of racial theory. In the late nineteenth century the concept of race emerged
as the dominant explanation of the history and the character of large groups
of people.

racism
The pseudoscientific theory that biological features of race determine
human character and worth.

Arthur de Gobineau (1816–1882), a reactionary French diplomat,

theorized that race was the major determinant of human history. In his four-
volume Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853–1854),
Gobineau portrayed the troubles of Western civilization as being the result
of degeneration of the original white Aryan race through intermarriage with
inferior races. Gobineau saw no way to reverse this degeneration.
Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927), an Englishman who settled
in Germany, put racial theory on an alleged scientific basis in his widely
read two-volume work, Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (1899).
Chamberlain argued in opposition to Gobineau that the human race could
be improved and that a superior race could be developed. He pointed to the
Jews as the major obstacle to European racial regeneration. Chamberlain’s
book and others claiming that Jews threatened traditional German national
life aided the spread of anti-Semitism.

anti-Semitism
Prejudice, hostility, or legal discrimination against Jews.

ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE BIRTH OF ZIONISM

Political and racial anti-Semitism, which cast such dark shadows across the
twentieth century, emerged in part from this atmosphere of racial thought.
Religious anti-Semitism dated from at least the Middle Ages, but following
the French Revolution, western European Jews had gradually gained entry
into civil society in Austria, Britain, France, and Germany. Popular anti-
Semitism, which identified the Jewish community with money and banking
interests, persisted. Racial thought added a new strand to anti-Semitism, the
belief that no matter how well Jews assimilated, the problem of race was in
their blood. In Austria, France, and Germany various political leaders and
parties used their anti-Semitism to considerable political advantage.
An important Jewish response to this new, rabid anti-Semitism was the
launching in 1896 of the Zionist movement to found a separate Jewish state.
Its founder was the Austro-Hungarian Theodor Herzl (1860–1904), whose
experiences and observations of discrimination convinced him that the
institutions of the liberal state could not protect the Jews in Europe. In 1896
Herzl published The Jewish State, calling for a separate state in which the
Jews of the world might be assured of their rights and liberties. Herzl
followed the tactics of late-century mass democratic politics by directing
his appeal to the economically poor Jews who lived in the ghettos of eastern
Europe and the slums of western Europe. The original call to Zionism
combined a rejection of the anti-Semitism of Europe with a desire to
establish some of the ideals of both liberalism and socialism in a state
outside Europe.
Zionism
The movement to create a Jewish state in Palestine (the biblical Zion).

Racial thinking and revived anti-Semitism were part of a wider late-

century nationalism. Previously, nationalism had been a literary and liberal
movement. From the 1870s onward, however, nationalism became a
movement with mass support, well-financed organizations, and political
parties. Nationality was redefined in terms of race and blood. The new
nationalism opposed the internationalism of both liberalism and socialism;
it was used to overcome the pluralism of class, religion, and geography. The
nation and its duties could become a secular religion, for example, in the
hands of state schoolteachers who were replacing the clergy as the
instructors of youth. This aggressive, racist nationalism would prove to be
the most powerful ideology of the early twentieth century.

Theodor Herzl. Herzl’s visions of a Jewish state would eventually lead to

the creation of Israel in 1948.

Why did anti-Semitism become more virulent in the nineteenth

century?

SUMMARY
 WHAT IS nationalism?

The Emergence of Nationalism in Europe. Nationalism is the modern

concept that people who share the same customs, culture, language, and
history should also share the same government. It became the most
powerful European political ideology of the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. Nationalists challenged both the domestic and the international
order of the Vienna settlement in the decades after 1815. page 586

WHAT WERE the basic goals of European liberals?

Early Nineteenth-Century Political Liberalism. Politically, nineteenth-

century liberals sought to establish constitutional governments that
recognized civil liberties and made the executive responsible to a legislature
elected by property-owning men. Economically, liberals wanted a laissez-
faire economy with minimal government involvement. Liberals often
supported nationalists’ efforts to create a single national state that could
function as a more efficient economic unit. page 589

WHY WERE efforts to achieve political liberalism more successful in

France and Britain than in Russia?

Efforts to Liberalize Early Nineteenth-Century European Political

Structures. Efforts to liberalize tsarist Russia failed, particularly after the
ultraconservative Tsar Nicholas fired on his own officers during the 1825
Decembrist Revolt. Liberalism largely triumphed in France after the
Revolution of 1830 and in Britain after the passage of the Great Reform
Bill. The British were, however, unable to resolve the problem of Irish
nationalism in the nineteenth century. page 591

WHAT WERE the causes of the American Civil War?

Testing the New American Republic. In the United States, westward
expansion and war against Mexico brought vast new territories into the
republic from the Mississippi River to the Pacific, but sectional conflict
between North and South over economic issues and slavery led to the
outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. Northern victory led to the abolition of
slavery, the creation of a continent-wide free labor market, and enormous
economic development. page 597

HOW DID Canada achieve united self-government?

The Canadian Experience. Canada achieved self-government with the

Canada Act of 1840 and created a united Canadian federation in 1867.
However, Canada remained part of the British Empire and retained its
connection with the British monarchy. Anglo-French tension is a recurring
theme in Canadian history, but legislative trade-offs and the federation’s de-
emphasis on states’ rights have maintained Canadian unity. page 601

WHAT WERE the steps that led to Italian and German unification?

Midcentury Political Consolidation in Europe. With French assistance,

Piedmont under Count Camillo Cavour managed to unite most of the
peninsula in the kingdom of Italy by 1860. German unification was
achieved by Prussia under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck between
1864 and 1871. In three victorious wars against Denmark, Austria, and
France, Bismarck forged the German states into a German Empire
dominated by Prussia. page 602

HOW DID nationalism affect the Habsburg Empire?

Unrest of Nationalities in Eastern Europe. Nationalism created problems

for the three eastern European empires—Germany, Russia, and Austria—
but Habsburg Austria faced the greatest challenge from nationalism because
it was a dynastic, not a national, state. In 1867 Hungary became an
autonomous kingdom under the Habsburg emperor. Czechs, Croats, and
other nationalities in the empire became increasingly dissatisfied. page 606
 HOW DID racial theory influence anti-Semitism?

Racial Theory and Anti-Semitism. In the late nineteenth century,

biological determinism, the concept that some peoples or races were
inherently superior to others, took root in Western thought. In Germany,
Austria, and France, some nationalists used the concept of race to blame the
Jews for their countries’ economic and political problems. Part of the
Jewish response was the launching of the Zionist movement to found a
separate Jewish state. page 607

KEY TERMS

anti-Semitism
Ausgleich (OWS-gleyek)
Catholic emancipation
Chartism
Great Reform Bill
home rule
July Monarchy
kleindeutsch (KLEYEN-doytch)
liberalism
nationalism
racism
Zionism (ZEYE-ahn-izm)

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Define nationalism. What were the goals of nationalists? What were

the difficulties they confronted in realizing those goals? Why was
nationalism a special threat to the Austrian Empire? What areas saw
significant nationalist movements between 1815 and 1830? Which
were successful and which were unsuccessful?
 2. What were the tenets of liberalism? Who were the liberals, and how
did liberalism affect the political developments of the early
nineteenth century? What relationship does liberalism have to
nationalism?
3. Compare and contrast the movement toward political liberalism
between 1815 and 1830 in Russia, France, and Great Britain.
4. What economic differences between the American North and South
gave rise to sectional conflict? Why was slavery the core issue in
that conflict? How did westward expansion contribute to making
slavery such an important issue?
5. How did Canada unify and become self-governing?
6. What is the significance of the Crimean War? How did it impact
Russia? Why did the Crimean War have a destabilizing effect on
Europe?
7. Why was it so difficult to unify Italy? What were the contributions
of Cavour and Garibaldi to Italian unification?
8. Who was Otto von Bismarck, and why did he try to unify Germany?
What was Bismarck’s method of unification, and why did he
succeed? What effect did the unification of Germany have on the
rest of Europe?
9. How did British politicians handle the Irish Question? What were
the parallels between England’s relationship with Ireland and the
nationality problem of the Austrian Empire?
10. What were the origins of the modern idea of racial theory? Who
were its major proponents? How did the rise of such a theory change
European anti-Semitism?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com
Read and Review
 Study and Review Chapter 23

Read the Document The Seneca Falls Convention (1848), p. 589

Metternich on the Revolutions of 1848, p. 596

“A Defense of the Slave Trade,” July 1740, p. 597
The History of Mary Prince (1830s), p. 598
A Letter from Bismarck (1866), p. 605

See the Map The Americas, 1800–1836, p. 599

The Unification of Germany, 1866–1871, p. 606

The Nationalities of Austria-Hungary, 1867, p. 606

View the Image Reform Bill of 1832–Cartoon, p. 593

Gladstone and Disraeli—Punch Cartoon, p. 594

Garibaldi Surrendering Power—British Cartoon, 1860, p. 602

Hear the Audio Slavery 1, p. 597

Research and Explore

See the Map European Centers of Rebellion and Revolution, 1820–

1848, p. 595
See the Map The Unification of Italy, 1859–1870, p. 602

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 23
at www.myhistorylab.com
24
Northern Transatlantic Economy and Society,
1815–1914

ImageHear the Audio for Chapter 24 at www.myhistorylab.com

Image

Russian society. A detail from the “Parade on Tsarina’s Meadow” by G. G.

Chernetson, 1831. Tsarina’s Meadow was a vast space outside Saint
Petersburg that often held military parades and reviews in nineteenth-
century Russia. The different classes and ethnic groups of the Russian
Empire can be seen mingling about.

How do the different clothing styles worn by the people in this painting
comment on Russian society during this time?

EUROPEAN FACTORY WORKERS AND URBAN ARTISANS

WHAT IS proletarianization?

NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPEAN WOMEN

WHAT SOCIAL and legal disabilities did European women confront in

the nineteenth century?
JEWISH EMANCIPATION

HOW DID emancipation affect Jewish life in Europe outside of Russia?

EUROPEAN LABOR, SOCIALISM, AND POLITICS TO WORLD WAR

I

WHY DID Marxism become so influential among European Socialists?

NORTH AMERICA AND THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY

HOW DID industrialization in the United States differ from

industrialization in Europe?

THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN EUROPEAN THOUGHT

WHO WERE some of the intellectuals at the forefront of modern

European thought?

ISLAM AND LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPEAN

THOUGHT

WHAT WERE some influential views on the relationship between Islam

and the West?

During the eighteenth century, northwestern Europe and the United States
developed major industrial economies, which produced unprecedented
levels of goods and services. This economic achievement undergirded the
enormous international political power exerted by the industrial nations of
the West from that time to the present.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, a new kind of industrial labor
force emerged, especially in Europe. These laborers worked in factories
and generally lived in cities. The presence and growth of this new labor
force were the most important social developments of the century. It was
out of the experiences of this workforce that the political movement known
as socialism arose.

In the second half of the nineteenth century European and American

political, economic, and social life assumed many characteristics of our
present-day world. In Europe nation-states with large electorates, political
parties, centralized bureaucracies, and universal military service emerged.
In the United States the politics associated with the Progressive movement
brought the presidency to the center of American political life. On both
sides of the North Atlantic, business adopted large-scale corporate
structures, and the labor force organized itself into trade unions. The
number of white-collar laborers grew, and urban life became predominant
throughout western Europe. But even as new vast cities arose in the United
States, farming continued to spread across the central Midwest and upper
Southwest. During this period, too, women began to assert new political
awareness and to become politically active in both Europe and America.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
THE BUILDING OF NORTHERN TRANSATLANTIC SUPREMACY

Between 1850 and 1914 Europe had more influence throughout the world
than it had before or has had since. Although Europe and North America
together were the most industrially advanced regions of the world, the
preponderance of economic power lay with Europe. Its industrial base was
more advanced than that of any other region, including the still-developing
United States. European banks exercised vast influence across the globe.
Europeans financed the building of railways in Africa, Asia, and the
Americas. Financial power brought political influence. The armaments
industry gave European armies and navies predominant power over the
peoples of Africa and Asia, whereas the United States began to exercise
such power only as a result of the Spanish-American War. These economic
developments established a pattern that still persists. First European, and
later American, banks, companies, and corporations penetrated the
economies and societies of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These
nonpolitical groups often expected their own governments to protect their
interests. Thus, what started as commercial contact often evolved into the
exercise of direct political influence, even over nations that had never been
European colonies.

During these years European culture was probably also enjoying its greatest
influence. Capital cities in Latin America, especially Buenos Aires and
Montevideo, adopted European-style architecture. Paris became
synonymous with high fashion. Paris, London, and Vienna were world
intellectual centers. The rest of the world regarded the advanced industrial
and urban civilization of Europe as a model, in part because more non-
Europeans were visiting and studying in Europe than ever before. During
this period many American artists and writers flocked to Europe to absorb
its culture. Another cultural feature of western Europe and the United
States that affected the rest of the world during the era was the emerging
role of women. In particular, the demand for the entrance of women into
the political process and the professions became a hallmark of the twentieth
century. On both sides of the Atlantic, women assumed leadership roles in
social reform movements.

Industrial Revolution at myhistorylab.com The nation that most clearly

understood the nature of European power and sought to imitate it was
Japan. After the Meiji Restoration (1868), Japanese administrators came to
Europe to study the new technology, political structures, and military
organizations. The Japanese political and military reorganization that
resulted proved sufficiently successful to allow them to defeat Russia in
1905, providing the first example of a non-European nation using Western
weapons, organizations, and economic power to defeat a European nation.
In the twentieth century other non-European nations found ways to import
or manufacture technology that permitted them to challenge European and
later American hegemony. Indeed, today the proliferation of weaponry
usually developed in the United States or Europe has allowed regional
powers to challenge Western dominance. This destabilizing arms trade
began in the second half of the nineteenth century.

In contrast to Japan, China, India, the countries of the Middle East, and
Africa were overwhelmed by the economic and military power of Europe.
In time, however, the peoples of those lands under European domination
embraced the ideologies of revolutionary protest, most particularly those of
nationalism and socialism. As people from the colonial world came to work
or study in Europe, they encountered ideas and criticisms that were most
effective against European and Western culture. They adapted those ideas
to their own cultural contexts and then turned them against their colonial
governors.

Focus Questions

Image What was the relationship between nineteenth-century

Europe’s economic power and its political hegemony around the
globe?

Image How did European colonies use ideologies fostered in

Europe against their colonial rulers?

Europe grew dependent on the resources and markets of the rest of the
world. Farms in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Australia, and
New Zealand supplied food to much of the world. Before World War I this
dependence was concealed by Europe’s industrial, military, and financial
supremacy. Europeans assumed their supremacy to be natural, but the
twentieth century would reveal it to have been temporary. While it
prevailed, Europeans dominated most of the other peoples of the earth and
displayed extreme self-confidence. The United States, having achieved the
status of a major industrial power as well as an agricultural supplier,
entered the world stage as a military power, defeating Spain in the Spanish-
American War in 1898. With that victory, the United States also acquired its
first colonial territories.
At the same time, major new sets of ideas arose. Theories of evolution in
biology, relativity in physics, the irrational in philosophy, and
psychoanalysis in psychology shaped much of the intellectual outlook for
the next century. Image

EUROPEAN FACTORY WORKERS AND URBAN

ARTISANS

ImageWHAT IS proletarianization?

Industrial production had begun in the eighteenth century, and in the

nineteenth century much of Europe headed toward a more fully industrial
society. By 1830 only Great Britain had attained that status, but new
factories and railways were being constructed elsewhere. What
characterized the second quarter of the century, though, was less the
triumph of industrialism than the final gasps of those economic groups that
opposed it and were displaced by it. Intellectually, the period saw the
formulation of the major creeds supporting and criticizing the new society.

ImageHear the Audio Industrial Revolution at myhistorylab.com

The specter of poor harvests still haunted Europe. The worst was the failure
of potato crops that produced the Irish famine from 1845 to 1847. Half a
million Irish peasants starved to death; hundreds of thousands emigrated.
All over Europe there was a vast uprooting of people from the countryside
as the revolution in landholding led to greater agricultural production.

In northern Europe both artisans and factory workers underwent a process

of proletarianization, meaning they entered into a wage economy and lost
significant ownership of the means of production, such as tools and
equipment, and control over the conduct of their own trades. The process
occurred rapidly wherever the factory system arose. The factory owner
provided the financial capital to construct the factory, purchase the
machinery, and secure the raw materials. The factory workers contributed
their labor for a wage. Those workers submitted to factory discipline,
which meant that work conditions became largely determined by the
demands for smooth operation of the machines. Factory workers had no
direct say over the quality of the product or its price. (It should be noted
that factory conditions were often better than those of textile workers who
resisted the factory mode of production.)

proletarianization

The process whereby independent artisans and factory workers lose control
of the means of production and of the conduct of their own trades to the
owners of capital.

Image

Il Quarto Stato (The Fourth Estate), 1901. Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo

(1868–1907) was a powerfully committed Italian socialist artist. The title of
his painting is taken from the French socialist Jean Jaurès, who believed
that workers would soon displace the traditional three estates of the clergy,
aristocracy, and commoners. Pellizza and other artists embracing social
realism moved painting away from nostalgic, sentimental depictions of
peasants to images of industrial or farm laborers experiencing hunger,
poverty, and awakening political consciousness.

Oil on canvas, 283 cm × 550 cm. Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna-Milano.

Photo by Marcello Saporetti.

What is the significance of the woman carrying the baby?

Urban artisans in the nineteenth century experienced proletarianization

more slowly than factory workers, and machinery had little to do with the
process. The emergence of factories in itself did not harm urban artisans.
Many even prospered. Metal workers and craftsmen in the building trades,
for example, saw increased demand for their work. The lower prices for
machine-made textiles aided artisans involved in the making of clothing by
reducing the costs of their raw materials. Where the urban artisans
encountered difficulty and found their skills and livelihood threatened was
in the organization of production.

OVERVIEW Major European Cities, 1850–1914

Image

In the eighteenth century a European town or city workplace had usually

consisted of a few artisans laboring for a master, first as apprentices and
then as journeymen, according to established guild practices. The master
owned the workshop and the larger equipment, and the others owned their
tools. The journeyman could expect to become a master. This guild system
had allowed considerable worker control over labor recruitment and
training, production pace, product quality, and price. In the nineteenth
century, political and economic liberals disapproved of labor and guild
organizations and attempted to make them illegal.

QUICK REVIEW

Factory Work

Image Proletarianization: loss of ownership of the means of

production

Image Factory work demanded submission to a new kind of

work discipline

Image Factory workers were better off than the hand-loom

workers who competed with them
There were other changes in the organization of artisan production. Masters
often found themselves under increased competitive pressure from larger
establishments. Many masters began to follow a practice, known in France
as confection, whereby goods such as shoes, clothing, and furniture were
produced in standard sizes and styles rather than by individual order. This
practice increased the division of labor in the workshop, so less skill was
required of each artisan and the particular skills possessed by a worker
became less valuable. Migrants from the countryside sometimes created a
surplus of relatively unskilled workers. The dilution of skills and lower
wages made it more difficult for urban journeymen to become masters with
their own workshops. Increasingly, artisans became lifetime wage laborers.

ImageStudy and Review Industrial Side Effects at myhistorylab.com

NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPEAN WOMEN

ImageWHAT SOCIAL and legal disabilities did European women

confront in the nineteenth century?

WOMEN IN THE EARLY INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

The industrial economy had an immense impact on the home and the
family life of women. First, it took virtually all productive work out of the
home and allowed many families to live on the wages of the male spouse
alone. This allowed a new concept of gender-determined roles. Women
came to be associated with domestic duties and men almost exclusively
with breadwinning. Children were reared to match these gender patterns.
Previously, this domestic division of labor had prevailed only among the
relatively small middle and gentry classes. Second, industrialization created
new modes of employment that allowed many young women to earn
enough money to marry or support themselves independently. Third,
industrialism, though fostering more employment for women, lowered the
skills required of them.

The early Industrial Revolution began in textile production, so women and

their labor were deeply involved from the start. When spinning and
weaving had been domestic industries, women worked in all stages of
production. When these activities moved into factories and involved large
machines, however, men displaced women. With the next generation of
machines in the 1820s, unmarried women rapidly became employed in the
factories, in jobs that tended to require few skills. There was thus a certain
paradox in the impact of the factory on women: New jobs opened to them,
but those jobs were less skilled than those that had been available to them
before. Women in the factories were almost always young and single or
widows. Factory owners disliked employing married women because of the
likelihood of pregnancy, the influence of husbands, and the duties of child
rearing.

At midcentury, industrial factory work accounted for less than half of all
employment for women. The largest group of employed women in France
continued to work on the land. In England they were domestic servants.
Domestic industries, such as garment making, employed many women. The
charwoman was a common sight across the Continent. Women’s conditions
of labor were almost always harsh, wherever they worked, and they were
vulnerable to exploitation.

Image

Women in Textile Factories. As textile production became increasingly

automated in the nineteenth century, textile factories required fewer skilled
workers and more unskilled attendants. To fill these unskilled positions,
factory owners turned increasingly to unmarried women and widows, who
worked for lower wages than men and were less likely to form labor
organizations. The two women shown here, holding “shuttles” used in
textile factories, worked in the Lowell Mills, in Massachusetts, around
1860.
What do you notice about these women’s clothes, hair, shoes, and
bodies?

SOCIAL DISABILITIES CONFRONTED BY ALL WOMEN

During the early nineteenth century, virtually all European women faced
social and legal disabilities in property rights, family law, and education.
By the close of the century each area had shown improvement. All
Europeans led lives that reflected their social rank, yet within each rank,
women remained economically dependent and legally inferior to men.

Until late in the nineteenth century in most European countries, married

women could not own property in their own names. Women’s legal
identities were subsumed into their husbands’, and they had no independent
standing before the law. Reform of women’s property rights came slowly.
By 1882 Great Britain allowed married women to own property. In France,
however, a married woman could not even open a savings account in her
own name until 1895, and not until 1907 were married women granted
possession of their own wages. In 1900 Germany allowed women to take
jobs without their husbands’ permission, but a German husband retained
control of most of his wife’s other property. Similar laws prevailed
elsewhere in Europe.

European family law also worked to the disadvantage of women. Legal

codes required wives to obey their husbands. The Napoleonic Code and the
remnants of Roman law made women legal minors throughout Europe.
Divorce was difficult. Extramarital sexual relations of husbands were more
tolerated than those of wives. The authority of husbands also extended to
children. A husband could take children away from their mother and give
them to someone else to rear. Contraception and abortion were illegal. The
law on rape normally worked against women. Wherever they turned—
whether to physicians or lawyers—women confronted an official world
populated and controlled by men.

Throughout the nineteenth century women had less access to education

than did men, and what was available to them was inferior. Most women
were educated only enough for the domestic careers they were expected to
follow. The percentage of illiterate women exceeded that of men.

ImageRead the Document

Industrial Society and Factory Conditions (early 1800s) at

myhistorylab.com

QUICK REVIEW

Women’s Work

Image Women involved in preindustrial textile production

Image In the 1820s, unmarried women found employment in

textile factories

Image In mid-nineteenth-century England the largest group of

employed women was domestic servants

ImageRead the Document

Ellen Key, from The Century of the Child at myhistorylab.com

University and professional education remained reserved for men until at

least the third quarter of the century. Italian universities were more open to
both women students and women instructors than similar institutions
elsewhere in Europe. Restricting women’s access to secondary and
university education helped bar women from social and economic
advancement. Women benefited only marginally from the expansion of
professional employment during the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries.
Schoolteaching at the elementary level became a professional haven for
women. The few women who pioneered in the professions were seen as
challenging the clear separation of male and female spheres that had
emerged during the nineteenth century. Women themselves often hesitated
to support feminist causes because they had been so thoroughly
acculturated into the recently stereotyped roles. Many women saw a real
conflict between family responsibilities and feminism.

Image

Middle-Class Family. Family was central to the middle-class conception

of a stable and respectable social life. This portrait of the Bellelli family is
by Edgar Degas. Notice that the husband and father sits at his desk,
suggesting his association with business and the world outside the home,
whereas the wife and mother stands with their children, suggesting her
domestic role.

Edgar Degas (1834–1917), The Bellelli Family, c. 1858–60. Musée

d’Orsay, Paris, France. Photograph Copyright Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art
Resource, New York.

How were gender roles established in the nineteenth century?

NEW EMPLOYMENT PATTERNS FOR WOMEN

During the late nineteenth century, two major developments affected the
economic lives of women. The first was an expansion in the variety of jobs
available outside the better-paying learned professions. The second was a
withdrawal of married women from the workforce. These two seemingly
contradictory developments require explanation.

The expansion of governmental bureaucracies, the emergence of large-scale

businesses, and the expansion of retail stores opened many new
employment opportunities for women. The need for elementary
schoolteachers grew with compulsory education laws. Innovations such as
the typewriter and eventually the telephone exchange fostered female
employment. Women by the thousands became secretaries and clerks for
governments and private businesses, while others became shop assistants.

Although these jobs did open new and often better employment
opportunities for women, they nonetheless required low-level skills and
involved minimal training. They were occupied primarily by unmarried
women or widows. Employers continued to pay women low wages because
they assumed that a woman did not need to support herself independently.

CHRONOLOGY

MAJOR DATES IN LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY AND EARLY

TWENTIETH-CENTURY EUROPEAN WOMEN’S HISTORY

Image

The industrial occupations that women had filled in the mid-nineteenth

century, especially textile and garment making, were shrinking. The decline
in the number of births also meant that fewer married women were needed
to look after other women’s children. The real wages paid to male workers
increased during this period, reducing families’ need for a second income.
Thanks to improving health, men lived longer, so wives were less likely to
be thrust into the workforce by an emergency. Smaller families also
reduced the need for supplementary wages. Working children stayed at
home longer and continued to contribute to the family’s wage pool.

Image

Women Working at a Telephone Exchange. The invention of the

telephone opened new employment opportunities for women.

What made telephone exchanges suitable workplaces for women?

Finally, the cultural dominance of the middle class established a pattern of
social expectations. The more prosperous a working-class family became,
the less involved in employment its women were supposed to be.

Yet behind these generalities stands the enormous variety of social and
economic experience late nineteenth-century women actually encountered.
Social class largely determined individual experiences.

LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY WORKING-CLASS WOMEN

Though less dominant than earlier in the century, the textile industry and
garment making continued to employ many women. The German clothing-
making trades illustrate women’s vulnerable economic situations. The
manufacture of mass-made clothes in Germany was designed to require
minimal capital investment. A major manufacturer would arrange to
produce clothing through a putting-out system: He would purchase the
material and then put it out for tailoring. The clothing was made in
independently owned, small sweatshops or by workers in their homes.

In Berlin in 1896 there were more than 80,000 garment workers, mostly
women. When business was good, employment for these women was high.
If business became poor, however, women were idled. In effect, the
workers carried much of the risk of the enterprise. Even women in factories
were subject to layoffs. Women were nearly always treated as casual
workers.
Women Laundry Workers. Although new opportunities opened to them
in the late nineteenth century, many working-class women, like these
women ironing in a laundry, remained in traditional occupations. As the
wine bottle suggests, alcoholism was a problem for women as well as men
engaged in tedious work. The painting is by Edgar Degas (1834–1917).

Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, New York.

Compare this painting with the photograph on page 617. What is

similar? What is different?

THE RISE OF POLITICAL FEMINISM

Liberal society and its values did not automatically improve the lot of
women. In particular, it did not give them the vote or access to political
activity. Male liberals feared that granting the vote to women would benefit
political conservatives because women were thought to be unduly
controlled by the clergy. Consequently, anticlerical liberals often had
difficulty working with feminists.
Women were often reluctant to support feminist causes. Some women
considered their class and economic interests higher political priorities.
Others subordinated feminist political issues to national unity and
nationalistic patriotism. Still others would not support particular feminist
organizations because of differences over tactics or religious beliefs. Except
in England, it was often difficult for working-class and middle-class
women to cooperate.

Liberal society and law presented women with many obstacles but also
provided feminists with many intellectual and political tools. As early as
1792 in Britain, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) had applied the
revolutionary doctrines of the rights of man to the predicament of women
in The Vindication of the Rights of Women. John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
and his wife Harriet Taylor (1804–1858) had applied the logic of liberal
freedom to the position of women in The Subjection of Women (1869). The
arguments for utility and efficiency so dear to middle-class liberals could
be used to expose the human and social waste implicit in the inferior role
assigned to women. Furthermore, the socialist criticism of capitalist society
often included a harsh indictment of women’s social and economic
positions.

The earliest statements of feminism arose from critics of the existing order
and were often associated with people who had unorthodox opinions about
sexuality, family life, and property. This hardened resistance to the feminist
message. These difficulties prevented Continental feminists from raising
the kind of massive public support or mounting the large demonstrations
that feminists in Great Britain and the United States could.

Europe’s most advanced women’s movement was in Great Britain.

Millicent Fawcett (1847–1929) led the moderate National Union of
Women’s Suffrage Societies. She believed Parliament would grant women
the vote only when convinced that women would be responsible in their
political activity. In 1908 this organization could rally almost half a million
women in London, using liberal tactics. Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928)
led a radical branch of British feminists. She was familiar with the
disruptive political tactics used in both labor and Irish nationalist politics.
In 1903 Pankhurst and her daughters founded the Women’s Social and
Political Union. For several years they and their followers, known
derisively as suffragettes, lobbied for women’s suffrage. By 1910 they
turned to the violent tactics of arson, window breaking, and sabotage of
postal boxes. They marched en masse on Parliament. The Liberal
government of Herbert Asquith (1852–1928) imprisoned many of the
demonstrators and force-fed those who went on hunger strikes in jail. Only
in 1918, and then as a result of their contribution to the war effort, did some
British women receive the vote.

suffragettes

British women who lobbied and agitated for the right to vote in the early
twentieth century.

Women’s Suffrage. The creator of this poster cleverly reveals the

hypocrisy and foolishness of denying the vote to women.

How does this poster show the obstacles that stood in the path of
women’s suffrage?
The cases of France and Germany show how advanced the British women’s
movement was. In France, when Hubertine Auclert (1848–1914) began
campaigning for the vote in the 1880s, she stood virtually alone. Most
leaders of French feminism believed that the vote could be achieved
through careful legalism. French women did not receive the right to vote
until 1944 at the end of World War II. German law actually forbade
German women from political activity. By 1902 the Union of German
Women’s Organizations (BDFK) was calling for the right to vote. The
German Social Democratic Party also supported women’s suffrage, but the
party was so disdained by the German authorities and German Roman
Catholics that this support only made suffrage more suspect in their eyes.
Women received the vote in Germany only in 1918 under the constitution
of the Weimar Republic. Before World War I, only in Norway (1907) could
women vote on national issues.

ImageRead the Document

John Stuart Mill on Enfranchisement of Women (1869) at

myhistorylab.com

JEWISH EMANCIPATION

ImageHOW DID emancipation affect Jewish life in Europe outside of

Russia?

One of the most important social changes to occur throughout Europe

during the nineteenth century was the emancipation of European Jews from
the narrow life of the ghetto into a world of nearly equal citizenship and
social status.

EARLY STEPS TO EQUAL CITIZENSHIP

Emancipation began in the late eighteenth century and continued
throughout the nineteenth. It moved at different paces in different countries.
In 1782 Joseph II (r. 1765–1790), the Habsburg emperor, issued a decree
that placed the Jews of his empire under more or less the same laws as
Christians. In France the National Assembly recognized Jews as French
citizens in 1789. During the Napoleonic Wars, Jewish communities in Italy
and Germany were allowed to mix on a generally equal footing with the
Christian population.

These various steps toward political emancipation were vulnerable to

changes in rulers or governments. Even in countries that granted them
political rights, Jews could not own land and could be subject to
discriminatory taxes. Nonetheless, by the first half of the nineteenth century
Jews in western Europe and to a much lesser extent in central and eastern
Europe had begun to acquire equal or nearly equal citizenship.

In Russia, however, the traditional modes of prejudice and discrimination

continued unabated until World War I. Jews were treated as aliens under
Russian rule. The government undermined Jewish community life, limited
publication of Jewish books, restricted areas where Jews might live,
required internal passports from Jews, and banned them from many forms
of state service and from many institutions of higher education. The police
and others were allowed to conduct pogroms—organized riots—against
Jewish neighborhoods and villages.

pogroms

Organized riots against Jews in the Russian Empire.

Dedication of a New Synagogue. The social life of Europe became
transformed in numerous ways during the nineteenth century. Beyond the
expansion of cities and the rise of industrial society, there also occurred
numerous changes in religious life. One of the most important of these
changes was the gradual emancipation of European Jews from sharply
restricted lives in urban ghettos to fuller political participation and social
assimilation. This painting by G. E. Opitz portrays the dedication of a new
synagogue in Alsace in 1820.

How does this painting show the assimilation of Jews into nineteenth-
century European society?

BROADENED OPPORTUNITIES

After the revolutions of 1848, especially in western Europe, the situation of

European Jews improved for several decades. Throughout Germany, Italy,
the Low Countries, and Scandinavia, Jews were allowed full rights of
citizenship. After 1858 Jews in Great Britain could sit in Parliament. In
Austria-Hungary full legal rights were extended to Jews in 1867. From
approximately 1850 to 1880 there was relatively little organized or overt
prejudice toward Jews. Legal prohibitions against marriages between Jews
and non-Jews were repealed.
Outside of Russia, Jewish political figures served in the highest offices of
the state. Politically they tended to be aligned with liberal parties because
such groups had championed equal rights. Especially in eastern Europe,
many Jews became associated with the Socialist parties.

Jews still encountered personal prejudice throughout Europe, but in western

Europe the Jewish populations seem to have felt relatively secure.
Religious prejudice persisted in rural Russia and eastern Europe, and
hundreds of thousands of European Jews immigrated to the United States
from these regions.

Attitudes changed again during the last two decades of the nineteenth
century. In the 1870s, some attributed the economic stagnation of that
decade to Jewish bankers and financial interests. In the 1880s organized
anti-Semitism erupted in Germany, as it did in France in the 1890s. As we
saw in the previous chapter, those developments gave birth to Zionism, the
movement to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Most Jewish leaders,
however, believed their communities would remain safe under the
nineteenth century’s legal protections, an analysis that would be proved
disastrously wrong during the 1930s and 1940s.

EUROPEAN LABOR, SOCIALISM, AND POLITICS TO

WORLD WAR I

ImageWHY DID Marxism become so influential among European

Socialists?

THE WORKING CLASSES IN THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY

After 1848 European workers ceased to riot over their grievances and
stopped trying to revive the guilds. After midcentury the labor force
accepted the fact of modern industrial production and attempted to receive
more benefits from that system. Workers turned to new institutions and
ideologies to defend their interests: trade unions, democratic political
parties, and socialism.

Legal protections were extended to unions throughout the second half of

the century. Unions became fully legal in Great Britain in 1871 and were
allowed to picket in 1875. In France the Third Republic fully legalized
unions in 1884. After 1890 they could function in Germany. Most trade
unions were slow to enter the political process directly, as long as the
traditional governing classes looked after labor interests.

Midcentury union efforts aimed to improve the wages and working

conditions of skilled workers. By the close of the century large industrial
unions for unskilled workers were also being organized. They confronted
extensive opposition from employers. In the decade before 1914 strikes
were common throughout Europe as the unions attempted to raise wages to
keep up with inflation. Unions represented a new collective way for
workers to confront the economic difficulties of their lives. Union
membership grew in 1910 to approximately 3 million in Britain, 2 million
in Germany, and 977,000 in France, but they never included a majority of
the industrial labor force.

The democratic franchise gave workers direct political influence. Except

for Russia, all the major European states adopted broad-based, if not
perfectly democratic, electoral systems. The expansion of the electorate
brought into the political processes many people who had to be organized
and taught the nature of power and influence in the liberal democratic state.
The mass political party—with its workers, newspapers, offices, social life,
and discipline—was the vehicle that mobilized the new voters. The largest
single group in these expanded electorates was the working class. The
democratization of politics presented the Socialists with opportunities and
required the traditional ruling class to vie with them for the support of the
new voters.

MARXIST CRITIQUE OF THE INDUSTRIAL ORDER

During the 1840s, Karl Marx (1818–1883) produced a powerful critique of

the industrial order. Later in the century his analysis was adopted by the
leading Socialist political party in Germany, which in turn influenced most
other European Socialist parties. Marx’s Jewish middle-class parents sent
him to the University of Berlin, where he became deeply involved in
radical politics. German authorities drove him into exile, first in Paris, then
in Brussels, and finally in London.

ImageHear the Audio

Industrial Side Effects at myhistorylab.com

In 1844 Marx met another young German, Friedrich Engels (1820–1895),

whose father owned a textile factory in Manchester, England. The next
year, Engels published The Condition of the Working Class in England,
which presented a devastating picture of industrial life. The two men
became fast friends. Late in 1847 they were asked to write a pamphlet for a
short-lived secret Communist league. The Communist Manifesto, published
in German, appeared early in 1848. Marx, Engels, and the league had
adopted the name Communist because it implied the outright abolition of
private property, making it more radical than Socialist. The Manifesto was a
work of fewer than fifty pages. It would become the most influential
political document of modern European history, though its initial impact
was minimal, and it did not have any effect on the revolutionary events of
1848.

In The Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels contended that human

history must be understood rationally. History is the record of humankind’s
coming to grips with physical nature to produce the goods necessary for
survival. That basic productive process determines the structures, values,
and ideas of a society. The organization of the means of production has
always involved conflict between the classes who owned and controlled the
means of production and the classes who worked for them. (See Document:
“Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Describe the Class Struggle” on page
624.) That necessary conflict has provided the engine for historical
development; it is not an accidental byproduct of mismanagement or bad
intentions. Consequently, only a radical social transformation, not
piecemeal reforms, can eliminate the social and economic evils inherent in
the very structures of production. Such a revolution will occur as the
inevitable outcome of the development of capitalism.

Trade Union Membership Certificate. Trade unions continued to grow in

late nineteenth-century Great Britain. The effort to curb the unions
eventually led to the formation of the Labour Party. The British unions
often had quite elaborate membership certificates, such as this one for the
National Union of Gas Workers and General Labourers of Great Britain and
Ireland.

How are labor and work depicted here?

In Marx’s and Engels’s eyes, during the nineteenth century the class
conflict that had characterized previous Western history had become a
struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat or between the middle
class and the workers. The character of capitalism ensured the sharpening
of the struggle. Capitalist production and competition would steadily
increase the size of the unpropertied proletariat. As business structures
grew larger, smaller middle-class units would be squeezed out. Competition
would intensify the suffering of the proletariat, and as workers’ suffering
increased, they would foment revolution and finally overthrow the few
remaining owners of the means of production. For a time the workers
would organize the means of production through a dictatorship of the
proletariat, which would eventually give way to a propertyless and classless
communist society.

ImageRead the Document

The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx (1848) at myhistorylab.com

This proletarian revolution was inevitable, according to Marx and Engels.

Although the class conflict involved in the contemporary process
resembled that of the past, it differed in that the struggle between the
capitalistic bourgeoisie and the industrial proletariat would culminate in a
wholly new society, free of class conflict. The victorious proletariat, by its
very nature, could not be a new oppressor class. The victory of the
proletariat over the bourgeoisie represented the culmination of human
history and would result in “an association, in which the free development
of each is the condition for the free development of all.” 1 Marx’s analysis
was conditioned by the unemployment and deprivation of the 1840s.
Capitalism, however, did not collapse as he predicted, nor did the middle
class become proletarianized.

DOCUMENT
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Describe the Class Struggle

The Communist Manifesto (1848) is arguably the most influential political

pamphlet of modern European history. In that relatively brief document,
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels portrayed human history as developing
from ancient times to the present through a series of economic class
struggles. In the contemporary world, they saw the complex struggles of the
past reduced to a head-on economic, political, and social clash between the
bourgeoisie, or capital-owning class, and the proletariat, or workers. Both
groups had emerged in the course of history. The bourgeoisie had arisen
from medieval townsmen asserting their liberty against feudal landowners
and then against other groups of aristocrats. In turn, as the bourgeoisie
came to dominate the economy and invest their capital in modern industry,
they produced the contemporary wage-labor force. Over time this labor
force came to see that its interests opposed that of its economic masters.
The result was to be the final class conflict of history because, as Marx and
Engels argued, the proletariat, unlike any previous group seeking to
establish its liberty, was so large that its victory was also the victory of
humanity itself.

• Whom do Marx and Engels portray as the previous enemies of

the bourgeoisie? How did bourgeois economic development and
dominance lead to a society based on the “cash nexus”? Why is
the bourgeoisie responsible for the emergence of the proletariat?
Why is the victory of the proletariat inevitable?

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class

struggles….

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this

distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a
whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two
great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat….

Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a

corresponding political advance of that class….

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has gotten the upper hand, has put an end to
all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the
motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors,” and has left
remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest,
than callous “cash payment.”…

The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth
begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie….

But with the development of industry the proletariat not only increases in
number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and
it feels that strength more. The various interests and conditions of life
within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalized, in
proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearly
everywhere reduces wages to the same low level….

The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle….

Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the
proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class….

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the

interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious,
independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the
immense majority….

The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie,

replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their
revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern
Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which
the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie,
therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the
victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable….

The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to
win.

Source: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, in

Lawrence H. Simon, ed., Karl Marx, Selected Writings (Indianapolis, IN:
Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1994), pp. 158, 159, 160, 161, 165,
166–167, 168, 169, 186. © 1994 International Publishers Co. Reprinted by
permission of International Publishers Co., Inc./New York.

In reality, more people came to benefit from the industrial system.

Nonetheless, within a generation Marxism had captured the imagination of
many Socialists and large segments of the working class. Its doctrines were
allegedly based on the empirical evidence of hard economic fact, which
helped legitimize Marxism as science became more influential. Marx had
made the ultimate victory of socialism seem certain. His works also
proclaimed that the path to socialism lay with revolution rather than reform.
As Marxist thought permeated the international socialist movement during
the next seventy-five years, it would provide the ideological basis for some
of the most momentous and ultimately repressive political movements in
the modern world.

Marxism

The theory of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820–1895)

that history is the result of class conflict, which will end in the inevitable
triumph of the industrial proletariat over the bourgeoisie and the abolition
of private property and social class.

GERMANY: SOCIAL DEMOCRATS AND REVISIONISM

Marxism was adopted by the German Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Founded in 1875, the SPD was vehemently opposed by Otto von Bismarck
(1815–1898). Following an 1878 attempt to assassinate Emperor William I
(r. 1861–1888), Bismarck unfairly blamed the Socialists. He steered
antisocialist laws through the Reichstag, the German Parliament, to little
avail. When repression failed, Bismarck enacted social welfare legislation
to wean German workers from Socialist loyalties. These measures provided
health insurance, accident insurance, and old age and disability pensions.
The German state thus organized a system of social security that did not
change the system of property holding or politics.

In 1891, after forcing Bismarck’s resignation, Emperor William II (r. 1888–

1918) legalized the SPD. Party leaders declared the imminent doom of
capitalism and the necessity of socialist ownership of the means of
production; these goals were to be achieved by legal political participation
rather than by revolutionary activity. Since the revolution was inevitable,
they argued, the immediate task of Socialists was to improve workers’
lives. The SPD was prepared to function within the institutions of the
German Empire.

This situation generated an important internal challenge to the orthodox

Marxist analysis of capitalism and the socialist revolution. Eduard
Bernstein (1850–1932) wrote what was regarded as socialist heresy.
Bernstein, who was familiar with the British Fabians, questioned whether
Marx and his later orthodox followers had been correct in their pessimistic
appraisal of capitalism and the necessity of revolution. In Evolutionary
Socialism (1899), Bernstein pointed to the rising standard of living in
Europe, the power of the middle class, and the opening of the franchise to
the working class. He argued that a humane socialist society required not
revolution, but more democracy and social reform. Bernstein’s doctrines,
known as revisionism, were widely debated among German Socialists.
Bernstein’s critics argued that evolution toward social democracy might be
possible in liberal, parliamentary Britain but not in authoritarian,
militaristic Germany. While in practice the German SPD continued to
pursue a peaceful, reformist program, the party condemned Bernstein’s
theory and officially advocated revolution.

Fabians

British Socialists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who
sought to achieve socialism through gradual, peaceful, and democratic
means.
revisionism

The advocacy among nineteenth-century German Socialists of achieving a

humane socialist society through the evolution of democratic institutions,
not revolution.

The German debate over revisionism became important for the later history
of Marxist socialism. All Socialists noted the rejection of reform, in favor
of revolution, by the most successful prewar Socialist Party. Most
significant, Lenin adopted this position, as did the other leaders of the
Russian Revolution. Thereafter, wherever Soviet Marxism was influential,
the goal of its efforts would be revolution rather than reform.

Image

Beatrice and Sidney Webb. These most influential British Fabian

Socialists, shown in a photograph from the late 1920s, wrote many books
on governmental and economic matters, served on special parliamentary
commissions, and agitated for the enactment of socialist policies.

What were the beliefs of the Fabians?

GREAT BRITAIN: THE LABOUR PARTY AND FABIANISM

No form of socialism made significant progress in Great Britain, the most

advanced industrial society of the day. The members of the growing trade
unions normally supported Liberal Party candidates. The “new unionism”
of the late 1880s and the 1890s organized dock workers, gas workers, and
similar unskilled groups. Employer resistance to unions heightened class
antagonism. In 1893 the Socialist Independent Labour Party was founded,
but it remained ineffective.

In 1901, however, a court decision removed the legal protection previously

accorded union funds. The Trades Union Congress responded by launching
the Labour Party, which sent twenty-nine members to Parliament in the
election of 1906. Their goals did not yet encompass socialism. The British
labor movement also became more militant, staging scores of strikes for
wages to meet the rising cost of living. The government intervened to
mediate.

British socialism itself remained primarily the preserve of intellectuals. The

Socialists who exerted the most influence were from the Fabian Society,
founded in 1884. The society took its name from a Roman general who
defeated Hannibal by waiting before attacking, indicating the society’s
gradualist approach to social reform. Its leading members were Sydney
Webb (1859–1947) and Beatrice Webb (1858–1943), H. G. Wells (1866–
1946), and George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950). Many Fabians were civil
servants who believed that the problems of industry, the expansion of
ownership, and the state direction of production could be handled
gradually, peacefully, and democratically. They sought to educate the
country to the rational wisdom of socialism. They were particularly
interested in collective ownership on the municipal level, or so-called gas-
and-water socialism.

RUSSIA: INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE BIRTH OF BOLSHEVISM

Following its defeat in the Crimean War, Russia’s tsarist government had
undertaken major reforms. The most important reform was the
emancipation of the serfs in 1861, through a complicated process that in
effect required serfs to pay for their land. The poverty of the emancipated
serfs became a political cause for groups of urban revolutionaries. One such
group, the People’s Will, assassinated Tsar Alexander II (r. 1855–1881) in
1881. Thereafter, the government pursued a policy of political repression.

The late nineteenth-century tsarist government was determined to make

Russia an industrial power. It favored the growth of heavy industries, such
as railways, iron, and steel. A small but significant industrial proletariat
arose. By 1900 Russia had approximately 3 million factory workers, whose
working and living conditions were bad by any standard.

New political organizations emerged. The Social Revolutionary Party,

founded in 1901, opposed industrialism and looked to the communal life of
rural Russia as a model for the economic future. In 1903 the Constitutional
Democratic Party, or Cadets, was formed. The Cadets were drawn from
people who participated in the zemstvos (local governments), and they
modeled themselves on the Liberal parties of western Europe. They wanted
a parliamentary regime with responsible ministries, civil liberties, and
economic progress.

The situation for Russian Socialists differed radically from that in other
major European countries. Russia had no representative political
institutions and only a small working class. The Russian Social Democratic
Party had been established in 1898. It was Marxist and its members greatly
admired the German SPD, but tsarist repression meant that it had to
function in exile. The leading late nineteenth-century Russian Marxist was
Georgii Plekhanov (1857–1918), based in Switzerland. His chief disciple
was Vladimir Illich Ulyanov (1870–1924), who took the name of Lenin.
After briefly practicing law in Saint Petersburg, Lenin was exiled to Siberia
from 1895 to 1900 and spent most of the following seventeen years in
Switzerland.

CHRONOLOGY

MAJOR DATES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIALISM

Image

Russian Social Democrats quarreled about the proper nature of a Marxist

revolution in primarily rural Russia. They were modernizers who favored
further industrial development. Most believed that Russia must develop a
large proletariat before the revolution could come, and they hoped to mold
a mass political party like the German SPD.

Lenin dissented from both positions. In What Is to Be Done? (1902), he

condemned trade unionism that settled for short-term gains rather than true
revolutionary change for the working class. Lenin rejected the concept of a
mass party composed of workers, claiming that an elite party of
professional revolutionaries had to bring revolutionary consciousness to the
working class.

In 1903, at the London Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party,

Lenin’s faction assumed the name Bolsheviks, meaning “majority” (despite
having lost most votes at the Congress), and the more moderate, democratic
revolutionary faction became known as the Mensheviks, or “minority.” In
1905 Lenin published a program for revolution in Russia, urging that the
socialist revolution unite the proletariat and the peasants. He grasped the
profound discontent in the Russian countryside and knew that an alliance of
workers and peasants in rebellion could not be suppressed. Lenin’s two
principles—an elite party and a dual social revolution—allowed the
Bolsheviks to capture the leadership of the Russian Revolution in late 1917.

ImageRead the Document

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Bolsheviks

Meaning the “majority.” Term Lenin applied to his faction of the Russian
Social Democratic Party. It became the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union after the Russian Revolution.

Mensheviks

Meaning the “minority.” Term Lenin applied to the majority moderate

faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party opposed to him and the
Bolsheviks.

The Russian Socialists had no immediate influence within Russia. In 1904

Russia went to war with Japan and lost. On January 22, 1905, a priest led
thousands of workers to petition the tsar for improvements in industrial
conditions. As the petitioners approached the Winter Palace in Saint
Petersburg, troops opened fire, killing about a hundred people.

Revolutionary disturbances spread throughout Russia. In early October

1905 strikes broke out in Saint Petersburg, and worker groups, called
soviets, virtually controlled the city. Tsar Nicholas II (r. 1894–1917)
promised constitutional government. Early in 1906 the tsar announced the
election of a bicameral parliament, the Duma, but he reserved important
appointments for himself and named as his chief minister P. A. Stolypin
(1862–1911). The government’s sole conciliatory gesture was to forgive
any payments still owed by peasants from the emancipation of the serfs in
1861. Thereafter Stolypin repressed rural discontent.

soviets

Workers’ and soldiers’ councils formed in Russia during the Revolution.

Duma

The Russian Parliament, after the Revolution of 1905.

Stolypin was assassinated in 1911. At this time the imperial family was
surrounded by scandal over the influence of Grigori Rasputin (1871?–
1916), who seemed able to heal the tsar’s hemophilic son. Ongoing social
discontent and the conservative resistance to liberal reforms rendered the
position of the tsar uncertain after 1911.

ImageSee the Map

The Growth of Russia to 1914 at myhistorylab.com

A Closer Look
Bloody Sunday, Saint Petersburg, 1905
On Bloody Sunday, January 22, 1905, troops of Tsar Nicholas II fired
on a peaceful procession of workers at the Winter Palace who sought to
present a petition for better working and living conditions. The scene
in a Saint Petersburg square portrayed here, that can still be visited
today, depicts one of the enduring images of events leading to the
subsequent Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917. It figured in at least
two movies: the 1925 anti-tsarist Soviet silent film called The Ninth of
January and Nicholas and Alexandra, the lavish 1971 movie that was
sympathetic to the tsar and blamed Bloody Sunday on frightened and
incompetent officials. While Nicholas had not ordered the troops to fire
and was not even in Saint Petersburg on Bloody Sunday, the event all
but destroyed any chance of reconciliation between the tsarist
government and the Russian working class.

Image

Questions

1. How did the invention of photography and the making of

movies transform the recording and interpretation of the past?

2. Do you think the firing on the crowd in 1905 was as orderly an

affair as this picture from a later Bolshevik film made it appear?

3. How did the ongoing recollection and reenactment of this

dramatic, violent moment in the Revolution of 1905 serve to
continue to discredit the tsarist government and to champion the
later Bolshevik Revolution?

Image To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to

www.myhistorylab.com
CHRONOLOGY

MAJOR DATES IN TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY RUSSIAN

HISTORY

Image

EUROPEAN SOCIALISM IN WORLD HISTORY

The debates among late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European

Socialists were significant to world history for two reasons. First,
Europeans who immigrated to North and South America carried many of
these socialist ideas and quarrels with them. Second, by the end of the
nineteenth century numerous students from the European empires in Africa
and Asia traveled to Europe for education, where they, too, were immersed
in these debates. Many of those students later became leaders of their own
political movements.

NORTH AMERICA AND THE NEW INDUSTRIAL

ECONOMY

HOW DID industrialization in the United States differ from

industrialization in Europe?

Industrialization in the United States largely followed the European pattern:

The first industry to become thoroughly mechanized was textile
manufacture, followed by growth in the iron and steel industries. There
were significant differences, however. The United States industrialized
considerably later than Great Britain. Its major expansion in iron and steel
took place after the Civil War, approximately contemporary to the
economic rise of the newly united Germany. American manufacturers and
commercial developers encountered little of the prejudice against trade and
commerce that existed among the European aristocracy. Wealthy American
businessmen had considerable political influence. The United States
possessed an immense internal market free of trade restraints. British
bankers saw the United States as an area of secure investment, so they
provided much of the necessary capital. Finally, the United States had a
relative shortage of labor and consequently relatively high wages, factors
that attracted many immigrants to the industrial sector during the second
half of the nineteenth century.

In America as in Europe, railways spurred the most intense industrial

growth. The number of railway miles increased from approximately 50,000
in the mid-1860s to almost 200,000 by 1900. The railways created
enormous demand for iron, steel, coal, and lumber. They also stimulated
settlement, vastly expanded markets, and helped to knit the country
together.

EUROPEAN IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES

The same conditions that made life difficult for black people and Native
Americans (see Chapter 22) turned the United States into a land of vast
opportunity for white European immigrants. These immigrants faced
religious and ethnic discrimination as well as frequent poverty in the
United States, but the social and economic structures of the United States
allowed for assimilation and remarkable upward social mobility. This was
especially true of those immigrants who arrived between approximately
1840 and 1890—the great period of German, English, Welsh, Scottish, and
Irish immigration (see Map 24–1). Among this group, the Irish encountered
the most difficulties and resistance.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth—in
what is sometimes known as the New Immigration—millions of people
arrived from economically depressed areas of the Mediterranean, eastern
Europe, and the Balkans. These new immigrants, who generally came to
work in the growing industrial cities, were perceived as fundamentally
different from those who had come before them. Racial theory held that
they were from less desirable stocks. Predominately Roman Catholic,
Orthodox, and Jewish, they encountered much intolerance. They often
settled into communities of people from their own ethnic background, held
together by various private organizations including churches and
synagogues.

Although none of these immigrants faced the same legal discrimination as

did American blacks, Jews encountered restricted covenants on real estate
and other obstacles. Asian immigrants to the West Coast of the United
States faced harsher prejudice.

Image

Immigrant Labor. Chinese laborers, known as “coolies,” performed most

of the backbreaking work on the construction of the railroads in the
American West. The workers depicted here are laying down track near
Promontory, Utah.

What role did railroads play in the industrialization of the United

States?

UNIONS: ORGANIZATION OF LABOR

As in Europe, American workers attempting to organize labor unions faced

resistance from employers and those who feared that unions would lead to
socialism. Other difficulties were peculiar to the United States: White
laborers would not organize alongside black workers, and different ethnic
minorities would not cooperate. The ongoing flood of immigration ensured
a supply of workers willing to work for low wages. The owners of
businesses could divide and conquer the sprawling, ethnically mixed labor
force.

MAP EXPLORATION

To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

Image
MAP 24–1. Patterns of Global Migration, 1840–1900. Emigration was a
global process by the late nineteenth century. But more immigrants went to
the United States than to every other nation combined.

HOW DID global migration alter societies of the late nineteenth century?

The National Labor Union attempted to organize railroad unions in the

1870s. In 1881 the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was founded,
focusing on higher wages and better working conditions for skilled
workers. Among its most effective leaders was Samuel Gompers (1850–
1924). Other unions, such as the United Mine Workers and the Railway
Brotherhoods, organized workers by industry.

Serious depressions occurred in both the 1870s and the 1890s. What little
relief there was came from local authorities and private charities, a pattern
that would continue until the Great Depression of the 1930s. Economic
turmoil during the 1880s and 1890s spawned violent strikes and the
notorious breaking of the Pullman strike in Chicago in 1894 by federal
troops. The major goal of labor thereafter was to achieve the full legal right
to organize, achieved only through the legislation of Franklin Roosevelt’s
(1882–1945) New Deal in the 1930s.

Socialism was a path closed to American labor. The leaders of conservative

unions worked against the Socialists, and businesses blocked socialist
influence. The federal and state governments repressed socialist activities.
Virtually all American Socialists were persecuted as Bolshevists during the
1920s and beyond. Thus, in the United States, many social issues were
addressed by trade unions rather than by Socialist parties. Although many
conservative American political and business leaders disliked them, unions
were not legally attacked in the United States.
In many European countries, Socialist parties (or leaders attempting to
outflank the Socialists) passed legislation providing social security and
other social services. No significant legislation of this kind was passed in
the United States, at any level, until the New Deal.

Image

Ellis Island. In 1892 the federal government opened the immigration

station on Ellis Island, located in New York City’s harbor, where about 80
percent of the immigrants to the United States landed. As many as 5,000
passengers per day reported to federal immigration officers for questions
about their background and for physical examinations, such as this eye
exam. Only about 1 percent were quarantined or turned away for health
problems.

How did immigration patterns change over time?

THE PROGRESSIVES

Political bosses held much of the power in American politics in the decades
after the Civil War. This system depended on patronage: In return for jobs,
contracts, licenses, favors, and sometimes actual services, the boss received
political support. Government was a vehicle for distributing spoils. Boss
politics was a crude way of organizing the disorderly social and economic
forces of growing cities with diverse populations.

Deeply disturbed by corruption, reform-minded political figures ushered in

what has been called the Progressive era, which lasted from approximately
1890 through 1914. Usually upper-middle-class whites who feared a loss of
political and social influence, these reformers saw unacceptable disorder in
urban slums. They wanted more efficient government to act as a direct
agent of reform.

The Progressives began in the cities, where in place of patronage they

demanded social and municipal services. Progressive mayors called for
lower utility rates and streetcar fares and also attacked police corruption.
Progressives then launched into national politics.

QUICK REVIEW

American Progressives

Image Reformers, particularly opposed to boss politics

Image Mostly upper-middle-class whites

Image In the South, often disenfranchised blacks and poor

Image Linked to “Social Gospel”

SOCIAL REFORM

Churches joined the Progressive crusade. The “Social Gospel” preached

that Christianity involved civic action. Young men and women began to
work in settlement houses in the slums. The most famous was Chicago’s
Hull House, led by Jane Addams (1860–1935). Others became active in
housing and health reform, education, and charities. They believed that
social order, as envisioned by the white middle class, could be made to
prevail.

On the state government level, Progressives attempted to protect groups of

people perceived as unable to protect themselves against exploitation.
Virtually all of these reformers partook of the cult of science that was so
influential in the late nineteenth century. They believed that the problems of
society were susceptible to scientific, rational management. The general
public interest should replace special interests.

One area of concern for the Progressive movement was child labor. In the
United States and Europe children had labored in both rural and industrial
settings throughout the nineteenth century. Various reform efforts had
attempted to limit the employment of children. Factory laws had been
passed in England as early as the 1830s. In the United States at the close of
the nineteenth century children worked in textile mills, especially in the
South as that region attempted to move toward a less agriculturally based
economy. Child labor was relatively cheap, and children often worked in
mills along with their parents. In addition to working long hours around
dangerous equipment in unhealthy conditions, these children rarely
received significant education.

In the late nineteenth century labor organizations criticized the employment

of children in the textile mills but to little effect. In 1894 the National Child
Labor Committee was organized to work for reform. It published pamphlets
and photographs of the harsh conditions endured by children. Federal
legislation was passed during Woodrow Wilson’s administration but was
declared unconstitutional. During the 1920s the use of child labor in textile
mills declined through changes in factory technology. In the next decade
state legislation effectively brought an end to textile mill child labor. The
federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 established new standards for the
employment of children.

The problem of child labor, especially in migrant agricultural work, has

continued, however. Child labor exploitation remains an issue in many
parts of the world today. American firms subcontracting to factories in
South America and Asia have been accused of exploiting the labor of
children in order to bring American consumers cheap clothing and other
products.

Image

Child Labor in the United States. A young girl works at a loom in a

cotton mill in the Carolinas. At the dawn of the twentieth century, children
worked in textile mills, particularly in the South, which was in the process
of moving toward a less agriculturally-based economy. It wasn’t until the
1930s that state legislation effectively brought an end to child labor in
textile mills.

In what regions or industries is child labor still a problem today?

 ImageRead the Document

The Sadler Report: Child Labor in the United Kingdom, 1832 at

myhistorylab.com

THE PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENCY

Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901 after the assassination of

William McKinley (1843–1901). By force of personality and intelligence,
Roosevelt created the modern American presidency, making it the most
important and powerful branch of government. He set the agenda for
national affairs, surrounded himself with strong advisers, and used his own
knowledge of party patronage to beat the bosses at their game.

In domestic policy, Roosevelt believed no economic power should be

stronger than the federal government. He successfully moved against some
of the country’s most powerful business trusts and financiers, including J. P.
Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. Through “Square Deal” legislation,
Roosevelt attempted to assert the public interest. He was not opposed to big
business in itself, but he wanted it to operate according to rules established
by the government for the public good.

Roosevelt sought to make the presidency and the federal government the
guarantor of fairness in economic relations. In 1902 Roosevelt brought the
moral power of the presidency to the aid of striking mine workers,
appointing a commission to arbitrate the dispute. He fostered the passage of
the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Packing Act in 1906, to protect
the public against adulterated foodstuffs. His conservation policies ensured
that millions of acres of national forests came under the care of the federal
government.

Roosevelt’s foreign policy was vigorous and imperialistic. In 1898

McKinley had led the nation into the Spanish-American War, and the
United States had emerged as an imperial power with control of Cuba,
Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Roosevelt believed that the United
States should be a major world power, and he sent a war fleet around the
world. In Latin America naval intervention assured a new government in
Panama, and a treaty allowed the United States to construct and control a
canal across the Isthmus of Panama. In these actions, the United States was
following the model of the European great powers, which had been
intervening in Africa and Asia. In both Europe and the United States, a
conviction of racial superiority helped drive these imperialist policies (see
Chapter 28).

Roosevelt was succeeded in 1909 by William Howard Taft (1857–1930),

and the 1912 election was a three-way contest among Taft, Roosevelt
(running as a third-party candidate), and Woodrow Wilson. The Democrat
Wilson won and brought a different concept of progressivism to the White
House.

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) was a former president of Princeton

University and a reforming governor of New Jersey. Like Roosevelt,
Wilson accepted a modern industrialized nation. Wilson intrinsically
disliked big business, however, and believed the government should protect
the weak. Wilson termed his policy the New Freedom, although in office he
followed a policy of moderate regulation of business. Wilson saw the
presidency as responsible for leading Congress to legislative decisions. He
presented Congress with a vast agenda of legislation and then worked
carefully with the Democratic leadership to see that it was passed.

Read the Document

Speech before Congress at myhistorylab.com

Wilson retained many beliefs that have disappointed later admirers. For
example, he reinstated racial segregation in the federal civil service and
opposed female suffrage.

War broke out in Europe in August 1914. Although Wilson was reelected in
1916 on the slogan “He Kept Us Out of War!” in April 1917 he led the
nation into the European conflict. The expertise Progressives had brought
to efficient domestic government was turned to making the nation an
effective military force. These two impulses—the first toward domestic
reform, the second toward a strong international role—had long marked the
Progressive movement and would shape American history in the years after
the war.

The American Progressives resembled political leaders of their generation

in Great Britain, France, and Germany, who had supported various social
reforms to forestall the advance of socialism and to address the problems of
industrialization and urbanization. All had favored unprecedented use of
central government authority.

THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN EUROPEAN

THOUGHT

WHO WERE some of the intellectuals at the forefront of modern

European thought?

The last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the
twentieth century were the crucible of modern Western thought.
Philosophers, scientists, psychologists, and artists began to portray physical
reality, human nature, and society in ways different from their counterparts
of the past. The vast change in thinking commenced in the realm of
biology.

Read the Document

On Darwin’s 1860s at myhistorylab.com

DARWIN’S THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION

Charles Darwin’s (1809–1882) On the Origin of Species, published in
1859, carried the mechanical interpretation of physical nature into the
world of living things. The concept of evolution had already been widely
discussed, but Darwin and, working independently, Alfred Russel Wallace
(1823–1913) formulated the principle of natural selection, which explains
how species evolve over time.

Darwin and Wallace contended that more living organisms come into
existence than can survive in their environment. Organisms with any
advantage in the struggle for existence produce more surviving offspring
and repopulate their species. Darwin called this principle of survival of the
fittest, natural selection. What could not be explained in the nineteenth
century was the origin of the variations that gave some living things new
traits. Only after 1900, when Gregor Mendel’s (1822–1884) work on
heredity received public attention, did the mystery of those variations begin
to be unraveled.

natural selection

According to Darwin, the process in nature by which only the organisms

best adapted to their environment tend to survive and transmit their genes,
while those less adapted tend to be eliminated.

Darwin’s and Wallace’s mechanistic theory removed the idea of

preconceived divine purpose from organic nature. It contradicted the
biblical narrative of the Creation. It also undermined both the deistic
argument for the existence of God from the design of the universe, and the
belief that the universe was a fixed, stable system. If the world of nature
was in flux, it implied that society, values, customs, and beliefs might also
be changeable.

In 1871, in The Descent of Man, Darwin applied the principle of evolution

by natural selection to human beings. Darwin contended that humankind’s
moral nature and religious sentiments, as well as its physical frame, had
evolved in response to the requirements of survival. Neither the origin nor
the character of humankind required postulating a deity to explain their
existence. The blow to human pride was comparable to Copernicus
removing the earth from the center of the universe.

The theory of evolution by natural selection was criticized by both the

religious and the scientific communities. The broad scientific community
accepted Darwin’s mechanism of natural selection only after it was
combined with modern genetics in the 1920s and 1930s.

THE REVOLUTION IN PHYSICS

By the late 1870s, many physical scientists were questioning whether

mechanistic models, solid atoms, and absolute time and space truly
described the universe. In 1883, Ernst Mach (1838–1916) published The
Science of Mechanics, in which he urged that scientists consider their
concepts descriptive not of the physical world but of the sensations of the
scientific observer. Similarly, the French scientist Henri Poincaré (1854–
1912) urged that the theories of scientists be regarded as hypothetical
constructs of the human mind rather than as true descriptions of nature. By
World War I, few scientists believed they could portray the “truth” about
physical reality.
Darwin’s theories about the evolution of humankind from the higher
primates aroused enormous controversy. This caricature shows him with a
monkey’s body holding a mirror to an apelike creature.

Why are Darwin’s theories still controversial?

Marie Curie (1869–1934) and Pierre Curie (1859–1906) were two of the
most important figures in the advance of physics and chemistry. Marie was
born in Poland but worked in France for most of her life. She is credited
with the discovery of radium, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize
in Chemistry in 1911.

How did the discovery of radiation contribute to a revolution in

physics?

Discoveries in the laboratory supported the view that nature was more
complex than Newton had imagined. In December 1895, Wilhelm
Roentgen (1845–1923) published a paper on his discovery of X rays, a
form of energy that penetrated opaque materials. Major steps in the
exploration of radioactivity followed within months. In 1896, Henri
Becquerel (1852–1908) discovered that uranium emitted a similar form of
energy. The next year, J. J. Thomson (1856–1940), at Cambridge
University, formulated the theory of the electron, and the interior world of
the atom became a realm for human exploration. In 1902, Ernest
Rutherford (1871–1937) explained radiation as the disintegration of atoms
of radioactive materials. He also speculated on the immense store of energy
in the atom.

Hear the Audio

Reform of Thought at myhistorylab.com

The discovery of radioactivity contributed to revolutionary theories in

physics. In 1900, Max Planck (1858–1947) pioneered the quantum theory
of energy, according to which energy is a series of discrete quantities, or
packets, rather than a continuous stream. In 1905, Albert Einstein (1879–
1955) published his first papers on relativity in which he contended that
time and space form a continuum, and that measurement of time and space
depends on the observer as well as on the entities being observed. In 1927,
Werner Heisenberg’s (1901–1976) uncertainty principle stated that the
behavior of subatomic particles could only be inferred by statistical
probability. The physical universe had become ambiguous.

relativity

Theory of physics, first expounded by Albert Einstein in 1905, in which

time and space exist not separately, but rather as a combined continuum.

Read the Document

Werner Heisenberg, “Uncertainty” (Germany) at myhistorylab.com

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE AND THE REVOLT AGAINST REASON

During the second half of the century, philosophers such as the German
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) began to question the adequacy of
rational thinking. Nietzsche attacked Christianity, democracy, nationalism,
rationality, science, and progress. He sought less to change values than to
probe their sources in the human character. He wanted to tear away the
masks of respectable life and explore how human beings made such masks.

His first important work was The Birth of Tragedy (1872) in which he
urged that the nonrational aspects of human nature are as important and
noble as reason itself. He insisted that instinct and ecstasy had important
functions and that the strength to live heroically derived from sources
beyond rationality.

In later works including Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883) Nietzsche

criticized democracy and Christianity, claiming that they promoted
mediocrity. He announced the death of God and proclaimed the coming of
the Overman (Übermensch). The term was frequently interpreted as
referring to a superman or super race, but Nietzsche had in mind the kind of
heroism that had motivated the ancient Greeks. He thought humans were
hobbled by the values of Christianity and bourgeois morality.

In two of Nietzsche’s most profound (and difficult) works, Beyond Good

and Evil (1886) and The Genealogy of Morals (1887), he sought to uncover
the social and psychological sources of judgments of good and evil. He
claimed that morality was only a human convention and that people could
create new life-affirming values, glorifying pride, assertiveness, and
strength.

Read the Document Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil at

myhistorylab.com

THE BIRTH OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

The major figures of late nineteenth-century science, art, and philosophy

shared a determination to probe beneath surface appearances. They sought
to discern the undercurrents, tensions, and complexities within atoms,
families, rationality, and social relationships. This was particularly true of
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939).
In 1886, Freud, an Austrian Jew, opened a medical practice in Vienna,
where he lived until driven out by the Nazis in 1938. His earliest medical
interests were psychic disorders; he had studied the use of hypnosis to treat
cases of hysteria.

In the mid-1890s, Freud abandoned hypnosis and began urging patients to

talk spontaneously about themselves. He found that they associated their
particular neurotic symptoms with a chain of experiences going back to
childhood and that sex was significant in his patients’ problems. By 1897,
he had developed a theory of infantile sexuality, suggesting that human
beings are sexual creatures from birth. He thus questioned the concept of
childhood innocence and made sexuality one of the bases of mental order
and disorder.

QUICK REVIEW

Sigmund Freud

Founder of psychoanalysis

Worked in Vienna until he was driven out by the Nazis in 1938

Focused attention on infantile sexuality

Emphasized the importance of what happens in the mind below

the level of consciousness

Freud also examined dreams, believing there must be a reasonable,

scientific explanation for their seemingly irrational content. He concluded
that dreams give free play to unconscious wishes and drives that have been
excluded from everyday conscious life. During waking hours, the mind
represses or censors certain wishes, which are as important to the
individual’s psychological makeup as conscious thought is. In fact, Freud
argued, unconscious drives and desires contribute to conscious behavior.
Freud developed these ideas in his most important book, The Interpretation
of Dreams, published in 1900.
In later books and essays, Freud developed a new model of the mind as an
arena in which three entities struggle: the id, the superego, and the ego. The
id consists of amoral, irrational instincts for sexual gratification,
aggression, and general physical and sensual pleasure. The superego
embodies the external moral imperatives and expectations imposed on the
personality by society and culture. The ego, by mediating between the
impulses of the id and the standards of the superego, helps the personality
cope with the inner and outer demands of its existence.

id

According to Freudian theory, the part of the mind that consists of amoral,
irrational, driving instincts for sexual gratification, aggression, and physical
and sensual pleasure.

superego

According to Freudian theory, the part of the mind that embodies the
external moral imperatives and expectations imposed on the personality by
society and culture.

ego

According to Freudian theory, the part of the mind that mediates between
the impulses of the id and the asceticism of the superego and allows the
personality to cope with the inner and outer demands of its existence.

Freud was a realist who wanted human beings to live free of fear and
illusion by rationally understanding themselves and their world. He
understood the immense sacrifice of instinctual drives required for rational
civilized behavior. He believed that excessive repression could lead to
mental disorder, but he also believed that civilization and the survival of
humankind required some repression of sexuality and aggression. Freud
thought the sacrifice and struggle were worthwhile, but he was pessimistic
about the future of civilization in the West.

Read the Document

Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualia (Germany),

1886 at myhistorylab.com

ISLAM AND LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY

EUROPEAN THOUGHT

WHAT WERE some influential views on the relationship between

Islam and the West?

The few late nineteenth-century European thinkers who wrote about Islam
interpreted it as a historical phenomenon that, like the other great world
religions, was merely a product of a particular culture. The influential
French writer Ernest Renan (1823–1892) and sociologists such as the
German Max Weber saw Muslim religion and cultures as incapable of
developing science and as closed to new ideas. Their views were opposed
by one of the rare Islamic writers who directly contested a European
thinker, Jamal al-din Al-Afghani (1839–1897). Al-Afghani, an Egyptian
intellectual, argued that given time (since Islam was 600 years younger
than Christianity), Islam would produce cultures as modern as those in
Europe.

European racial and cultural outlooks framed concepts of the Arab world.
Christian missionaries reinforced this by blaming Islam for Arab economic
backwardness, for mistreating women, and for condoning slavery. Because
the penalty for abjuring Islam is death, missionaries made few converts
among Muslims. So they turned their efforts to establishing schools and
hospitals. These institutions taught young Arabs Western science and
medicine, and many of their students became leaders in the Middle East. As
missionary families lived for long periods among Arabs, they became more
sympathetic to Arab political aspirations.

Al-Afghani. One of the most influential thinkers in the Muslim world in

the nineteenth century, al-Afghani tried to reconcile modern science with
Islam.

What kind of future did al-Afghani foresee for Islam?

Within the Islamic world, political leaders who championed Western

scientific education and technology confronted a variety of responses from
religious thinkers. Some of these thinkers (the Salafi or the salafiyya
movement, for example) believed there was no inherent contradiction
between science and Islam. They believed that Muhammad had addressed
the issues of his day and that a reformed Islamic faith could modernize
itself without imitating the West. The Arab world should cease direct
imitation of the West and modernize itself on the basis of a pure, restored
Islamic faith. The Salafi emphasized a rational reading of the Qur’an and
saw Ottoman decline as the result of Muslim religious error. This outlook,
which had originally sought to reconcile Islam with the modern world, in
the twentieth century led many Muslims to oppose Western influence.

Other Islamic religious leaders simply rejected the West and modern
thought. They included the Mahdist movement in Sudan, the Sanussiya
movement in Libya, and the Wahhabi movement in the Arabian Peninsula
(see Chapter 26). Such religious-based opposition was strongest in portions
of the Middle East where the European presence was least direct. It had
little influence in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, and Tunisia, which were
effectively under the control of Western powers by 1900, and Turkey,
where Ottoman leaders had long been deeply involved with the West.

QUICK REVIEW

Islam and the West

European thinkers applied the same scientific critique to Islam

as they did to Christianity

European racism shaped attitudes toward Arabs

Response to Western ideas and technology varied in the Islamic

world

SUMMARY

WHAT IS proletarianization?

European Factory Workers and Urban Artisans. During the course of

the nineteenth century, European workers underwent a process of
proletarianization as the process of industrialization spread across the
Continent. Workers labored for wages; they lost ownership of their tools
and equipment, and they lost control over the conduct of their trades. page
614

WHAT SOCIAL and legal disabilities did European women confront

in the nineteenth century?

Nineteenth-Century European Women. Nineteenth-century women were

divided along class lines. Unlike working-class women, most women of the
upper and middle classes did not work outside the home. Most jobs
available to women were low paying and insecure. Women of all classes
faced social, political, and legal disabilities that were only gradually
improved in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Before World
War I, only Norway allowed women to vote, and few women could earn
university degrees or enter the professions. page 616

HOW DID emancipation affect Jewish life in Europe outside of

Russia?

Jewish Emancipation. With the exception of Russia, European countries

had abolished their legal restrictions on Jews by the mid-nineteenth century.
Jews became more fully integrated into European political and economic
life. After 1880, however, anti-Semitism increased as Jews were blamed for
economic and social problems. page 621

WHY DID Marxism become so influential among European

Socialists?

European Labor, Socialism, and Politics to World War I. To protect

their interests, European workers joined trade unions and Socialist parties,
such as the Labour Party in Britain. The Marxist critique of modern
capitalism strongly influenced European socialism when the German Social
Democratic Party adopted the thought of Karl Marx. Lenin founded the
Bolsheviks as an elite Marxist party that advocated the overthrow of
Russia’s tsarist regime through a revolution of workers and peasants. page
622

HOW DID industrialization in the United States differ from

industrialization in Europe?

North America and the New Industrial Economy. Despite the creation of
a mass industrial workforce, socialism did not take root in the United
States. Under presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, the
Progressive movement enacted social and political reforms. The United
States also embarked on a more aggressive foreign policy with the
acquisition of a colonial empire and, under Wilson, participation in World
War I. page 629

WHO WERE some of the intellectuals at the forefront of modern

European thought?

Modern European Thought. In 1850, learned Europeans regarded the

physical world as rational, mechanical, and dependable. By the early
twentieth century intellectuals began to portray physical reality, human
nature, and society in ways that seem familiar to us today. Leaders in this
intellectual transformation included the biologist Charles Darwin, Albert
Einstein and other physicists, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and
pioneering psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. page 635

WHAT WERE some influential views on the relationship between

Islam and the West?
Islam and Late Nineteenth-Century European Thought. Within the
Islamic world, modern European thought produced a variety of often
conflicting responses. Egyptian intellectual Jamal al-din Al-Afghani wrote
that Islamic culture was simply younger than Christian Europe’s, but would
in time become modern. Leaders of the Salafi movement held that Islam
could modernize without imitating the West. The Sudanese Mahdist
movement and others rejected Western modernism. page 638

KEY TERMS

Bolsheviks (BOHL-shuhvihks)

Duma (DOO-muh)

ego

Fabians (FAY-bee-uhns)

id

Marxism

Mensheviks (MEN-shuhvihks)

natural selection

pogroms (poh-GRAHMZ)

proletarianization

relativity

revisionism

soviets
 suffragettes

superego

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What were the chief factors accounting for the

proletarianization of the European labor force? How much of the
change in the situation of workers was a result of technology, and
how much was the result of alterations in how workers were
organized?

2. How did the class position of a European woman determine

much of her experience? How did industrialization change
women’s experiences? What factors limited all women’s
opportunities? How had women’s positions improved by 1914?

3. What were the major characteristics of Jewish emancipation in

the nineteenth century? How did late-century economic
developments contribute to increasing prejudice against Jews?

4. What were the essential ideas of Karl Marx? How did his ideas
come to dominate late nineteenth-century European socialism?

5. What was the status of working-class groups in the United

States and Europe in 1860? What improvements if any had been
achieved by 1914?

6. What caused the emergence of trade unions and organized

mass political parties in Europe?

7. How did the American Progressives, as reformers, differ from

the various European Socialists?

8. How did Lenin’s view of socialism differ from that of

Socialists in western Europe? Why did socialism not emerge as a
 major political force in the United States?

9. What were the major changes in science in the late nineteenth

century? How did both Darwin and turn-of-the-century physicists
challenge assumptions of earlier science? How did Nietzsche and
Freud undermine confidence in human rationality?

10. What were the chief characteristics of Western attitudes

toward Islam in the nineteenth century? How did Islamic thinkers
respond to modern Western thought?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related
to this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections

Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many

documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 24

Read the Document Industrial Society and Factory

Conditions (early 1800s), p. 617

Ellen Key, from the Century of the Child, p. 617

John Stuart Mill on Enfranchisement of Women (1869), p. 621

The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx (1848), p. 623

 Socialism, p. 627

The Sadler Report: Child Labor in the United Kingdom, 1832, p.

633

Speech before Congress, p. 634

On Darwin’s 1860s, p. 635

Werner Heisenberg, “Uncertainty” (Germany), p. 636

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, p. 637

Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualia

(Germany), 1886, p. 638

Hear the Audio Industrial Revolution, p. 614

Industrial Side Effects, p. 622

Reform of Thought, p. 636

Study and Review Industrial Side Effects, p. 616

Research and Explore

See the Map The Growth of Russia to 1914, p. 627

 Hear the Audio
Hear the audio file for Chapter 24
at www.myhistorylab.com
25
Latin America from Independence to the
1940s

Hear the Audio for Chapter 25 at www.myhistorylab.com

Image

Mexico City. Juan O’Gorman (1905–1982) was best known as an architect

whose most famous work is the library at the Universidad Nacional
Autónima de Mexico. In 1932, he took the helm of Mexico City’s
department of building and construction. His interests in architecture, art
(he became a renowned muralist), and the development of Mexico City are
all on display in his 1949 painting, “El Ciudad de Mexico.” The painting,
complete with angels heralding “Viva Mexico,” shows the city and the
country as a work in progress.
What elements make this painting of Mexico City distinctly Latin
American?

INDEPENDENCE WITHOUT REVOLUTION

HOW DID the absence of a social revolution affect Latin America after
independence?

ECONOMY OF DEPENDENCE

WHAT WAS the economy of dependence?

SEARCH FOR POLITICAL STABILITY

WHO WERE the caudillos?

THREE NATIONAL HISTORIES

WHY ARE the histories of Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil so different in

spite of these nations’ commonalities?

By the mid-1820s, Latin Americans had driven out their colonial rulers and
broken the colonial trade monopolies. Though rich in natural resources, the
region did not achieve widespread prosperity and long-lasting political
stability after independence. The wars of independence had not been
popular grass-roots movements. They had originated with the creole elite,
who were seeking to resist the imposition of European liberalism by
Napoleon or, later, the Spanish liberals. In effect, the wars had been fought
to break the colonial trade monopolies and to preserve the existing social
structure. The military leaders of the wars held much of the political power
in the new nations the wars had created.
The wars had destroyed much of the economic infrastructure of the
region. Mines had been flooded, livestock depleted, and the workforce
disrupted. Whereas previously colonial Latin America had been dependent
on Spain for its exports and financial credits, it now became dependent on
Great Britain and later on the United States.
Postindependence Latin America had much in common with Africa and
Asia during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In all three
regions, nations or areas would specialize in a particular niche, providing,
for example, sugar or coffee to the world economy. Huge mining industries,
meanwhile, extracted resources such as copper, phosphates, gold, and
diamonds. Virtually all such enterprises were dominated by Europeans or
North Americans. Supplying raw products might bring initial prosperity, but
it provided too narrow an economic base for sustained economic well-
being. In contrast, the economic advance of the United States and Europe
was largely due to their ability to exploit niche economies around the globe.
Image

INDEPENDENCE WITHOUT REVOLUTION

 ImageHOW DID the absence of a social revolution affect Latin America
after independence?

IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCES OF LATIN AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

The wars of independence liberated Latin America from direct European
control but left it economically exhausted and politically unstable (see Map
25–1 on page 646). Only Brazil prospered. The new republics of the former
Spanish Empire felt themselves vulnerable. Since the wars of independence
had been civil wars, much of the population did not support the new
governments. Economic life contracted: In 1830, overall production was
lower than in 1800. Rugged terrain over vast distances made interregional
trade difficult, and few institutions fostered it. The old patterns of overseas
trade had been disrupted. There was an absence of domestic funds for
investment. Many wealthy peninsulares departed. Consequently, Latin
American governments and businesses looked to Britain for protection,
markets, and investment.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY
Since the early nineteenth century, Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking
America stretching from the Rio Grande to Cape Horn has posed a paradox.
Languages, religion, economic ties, and many political institutions render
the area part of the Western world. Yet the economics, politics, and social
life of Latin America have developed differently from other parts of the
West. Exceedingly rich in natural resources, possessing gold, silver,
nitrates, and oil, the region has been plagued with extreme poverty. As other
Western nations have moved toward liberal democracy and social equality,
the states of Latin America have had millions of citizens living in situations
of marked inequality and social dependence. For almost two centuries,
authoritarian regimes, uncertain democracy, and a general tendency toward
instability have characterized Latin American political life.
 Latin America shares many cultural features with Europe and North
America. Its languages are primarily European, although much of its
population speaks Native American languages. Its primary religion is
Roman Catholicism. Its nations have often adopted the constitutional
traditions of Europe and the United States. Many of its elite have studied
abroad. Despite these important similarities, the economic and political
development of Latin America has been different from that of much of
Europe or the United States.
Three major explanations have been set forth to account for these
difficulties that have led to so much tragedy and human suffering.
The first and most widely accepted view contends that after the wars of
independence the new states of Latin America remained economically and
culturally dependent on Europe and, later, the United States. In effect,
proponents of this view—called dependency theory—argue that the
colonial framework was never abolished. Under Spanish and Portuguese
rule, Latin America’s wealth was extracted and exported for the benefit of
those powers. After independence, the creole elite turned toward foreign
investors, first British and then American, to finance economic
development and to provide the technology for mining, transport, and
industry. As a result, Latin America again became dependent on wealthy
foreign powers for investment and for markets. These foreign powers,
interested in strong governments that would protect their interests, threw
their support behind dictators whose policies impoverished their people and
suppressed democratic dissent.

dependency theory
Theory that contends that after the states of Latin America achieved
independence in the early to mid-nineteenth century, they remained
economically and culturally dependent on Europe and later the United
States.

creoles
Persons of European descent who were born in the Spanish colonies.

A second explanation emphasizes the Iberian heritage. Its advocates

contend that Latin America should be viewed as a region on the periphery
of the Western world in the same manner that Spain, Portugal, and Italy lie
on the Mediterranean periphery of Europe. All of these Latin nations,
dominated by Roman Catholicism, have had similar unstable and often
authoritarian governments. They have frequently tended toward some
version of dictatorship, uneven development, anticlericalism, and social
cleavage between urban and rural areas and between wealthy middle-class
or landed elites and poor peasant populations. Viewed in this Iberian-
Mediterranean context, Latin America seems less puzzling than when it is
viewed in the context of northern Europe.
A third explanation emphasizes conscious political, economic, and
cultural decisions the Latin American creole elite took after independence.
This explanation contends that the elite, including the army officers who
won the wars, sought to enrich themselves and to maintain their positions at
the cost of all other segments of the population, who in many of these
countries differed ethnically and racially from the elite. These officers,
landowners, and urban middle-class leaders aligned their national
economies with the industrializing regions of Europe and North America,
and aligned themselves culturally as well, thus differentiating themselves
from the lower classes and indigenous peoples and culture. They also
adopted European liberal political and economic ideologies to justify
unlimited exploitation of economic resources on the basis of individualist
enterprise. They then used the wealth generated by this exploitation to
maintain their power. They embraced European concepts of progress to
dismiss the legitimacy of the culture and communal values of the Indians or
the peasants.
In addition to these views, it helps to consider Latin America within a
global perspective. Beginning in the nineteenth century much of the region,
like much of Asia and Africa, was drawn into an integrated worldwide
economic system dominated by Europe and North America. Many nations
in Latin America and elsewhere, having developed narrow economies based
on the export of one or a few raw materials or semifinished products,
became vulnerable to fluctuations in worldwide demand for these products
and to political and economic interference from Europe and North America.

Focus Questions
 Image What is dependency theory? How can it help to understand the
history of Latin America since independence?
Image Is Latin America’s Iberian heritage a likely explanation of why
Latin America has developed along such different lines from North
America?
Image What role did the creole elite play in the economic and political
instability that has characterized Latin America in the modern era?

Independence also created new sources of discontent. There was much

disagreement about the character of the future government. Institutions such
as the Roman Catholic Church sought to maintain their privileges. Indian
communities found themselves subject to new exploitation. Quarrels arose
between the creole elites of different regions of the new nations. The
agricultural hinterlands resented the predominance of the port cities.
Investors or merchants from one Latin American nation found themselves
in conflict with those of others over tariffs or mining regulations. Civilians
became rivals of the military for political authority.

ImageHear the Audio

Latin America at myhistorylab.com

ABSENCE OF SOCIAL CHANGE

All the elites opposed substantial social reform. The creole victors in the
wars of independence granted equal rights to all persons and, except in
Brazil, had abolished slavery by 1855. However, the right to vote depended
on property qualification, and peasants remained subservient to their
landlords. Colonial racial codes disappeared, but not racial prejudice.
Although mestizos, mulattos, and even Indians who achieved economic
success were assimilated into the higher ranks of the social structure, whites
or light-complexioned people tended to constitute the elite of Latin
America. Most important, there were no major changes in landholding; the
ruling classes protected the interests of landholders.

mestizos
Persons of mixed Native American and European descent.
mulattos
Persons of mixed African and European descent.

Except for Mexico in 1910, no Latin American nation until the 1950s
experienced a revolution that overthrew the social and economic structures
dating from the colonial period. The absence of such social revolution is
perhaps the most important factor in Latin American history during the first
century of independence. The rise and fall of political regimes represented
quarrels among the elites. Everyday life for most of the population did not
change. Throughout the social structure, there was no mutual trust or
allegiance to the political system.

CONTROL OF THE LAND

Most Latin Americans during the nineteenth century lived in the
countryside. Agriculture was dominated by large haciendas, or plantations.
The landowners ruled these estates as small domains. The latifundia (large
rural estates) grew larger during the nineteenth century from confiscated
church lands and conquered Indian territories. Work was labor intensive
because little machinery was available. For some products—salted meats,
for example—there was a limited manufacturing stage in Latin America.
Most crops, including grains, tobacco, sugar, coffee, and cacao, were
exported.

QUICK REVIEW
Landowners
ImageHaciendas: large plantations that dominated Latin American
agriculture
Image Landowners controlled the institutions of the government
Image Rural workforce was dependent on the landowners

MAP EXPLORATION
To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

Image
MAP 25–1. Latin America in 1830. By 1830 most of Latin America had
been liberated from Europe. This map shows the initial borders of the states
of the region with the dates of their independence. The United Provinces of
La Plata formed the nucleus of what later become Argentina.

Which countries’ borders differ significantly from what they are today?

Landowners constituted a society of their own. They sometimes formed

family alliances with the wealthy urban classes who were involved in
export commerce or the law. Younger sons might enter the army or the
church. Landowners served in the national parliaments. Their wealth,
literacy, and social connections made them the rulers of the countryside,
and the army would protect them from any social uprising. The landowners
lived well and comfortably, though often on isolated estates.
The rural workforce was socially and economically dependent on the
landowners. In Brazil, slavery persisted until 1888. In other rural areas,
many people lived as virtual slaves. Debt peonage was widespread and
often tied a peasant to the land like a serf. Later in the nineteenth century,
the new lands that were opened were generally organized as large holdings
with tenants rather than as small land-holdings with independent farmers.
This was different from both the United States and Canada. Poor
transportation made internal travel difficult and kept many people on the
land. Little effort was made to provide education, leaving Latin American
peasants ignorant, lacking technological skills, and incapable of improving
their condition.

debt peonage
A system that forces agricultural laborers (peons) to work and live on large
estates (haciendas) until they have repaid their debts to the estate’s owner.

The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed a remarkable growth

in Latin American urban life (see Figure 25–1). There was some movement
from the countryside to the city, and an influx of European immigrants as
well as some from Asia took place. The creole elite favored European
immigration, which increased the size of the white population; Asian
immigration was a source of inexpensive labor. Throughout this period
there arose a political and social trade-off between the urban and rural
elites. Each permitted the other to pursue its economic self-interest and
repress discontent. Nonetheless, the growth of the urban centers shifted
political influence to the cities and gave rise to an urban working class.
Urban growth in Latin America created difficulties not unlike those that
arose in Europe and the United States at about the same time.

Image

FIGURE 25-1. Population of Latin American Cities, 1870–1914 Source:

United Nations.

SUBMISSIVE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES

Economic liberalism and the need for British investment led to free trade.
After independence, Latin America exported less than it had under colonial
rule and achieved a trade balance only by exporting precious metals.
Because these metals often came from stocks mined years earlier, this
amounted to a flight of capital. The general economic view was that Latin
America would produce raw materials for export in exchange for
manufactured goods imported from Europe, especially from Britain.
For most of the nineteenth century, the landed sector of the economy
dominated because cheap imports and a shortage of local capital
discouraged indigenous industrialism. Latin American liberals championed
the extension of great landed estates and the social dependence associated
with them. The produce of the new land could contribute export goods to
pay for the import of finished goods. Liberals favored confiscating land
owned by the church and the Indians because they did not exploit their
lands in what liberals considered a progressive manner.
During the second half of the century, positivism—the political ideas
stemming from the French positivist philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–
1857)—swept across Latin America. Comte and his followers had
advocated the cult of science and technological progress. This highly
undemocratic outlook suggested that either technocrats or dictatorial
governments could best achieve modernization. It was especially popular
among military officers and influenced the ongoing Latin American
struggle between civilian and military elites. The great slogan of Latin
American positivism, emblazoned on the flag of the Brazilian republic, was
“Order and Progress.” Social or political groups that created disorder or
challenged the existing social order were by definition unprogressive.

positivism
The philosophy of Auguste Comte that science is the final, or positive,
stage of human intellectual development because it involves exact
descriptions of phenomena, without recourse to unobservable operative
principles, such as gods or spirits.

Image

Peonage. This 1845 lithograph by Carlos Morel (1813–1894) shows a night

watch by a group of peons or laborers in the Pampas, Argentina. The great
landowners of Latin America ruled their huge estates as small domains.

Picture Desk, Inc./Kobal Collection.

What impact did landowners have on Latin American society?

Toward the close of the century the military forces in various countries—
following Germany’s model—became more professionalized. Their training
often made the officer corps the most important educated elite in a country.
Their education and loyalty gave them considerable influence, generally of
a conservative character.
Finally, the late nineteenth-century European theories of “scientific”
racism were used to preserve the social status quo. Racial theory could
attribute the economic backwardness of the region to its vast nonwhite or
mixed-blood population. This explanation shifted responsibility for the
economic difficulties of Latin America away from the mostly white
governing elites toward Indians, blacks, mestizos, and mulattos, who had
long been exploited or repressed. (See Document, “A Peruvian
Commentator Decries Racial Thinking.”)
This conservative intellectual heritage affected twentieth-century political
thought. It can be seen in the ongoing tendency of military groups in Latin
America to view themselves as the guarantors of order, ready to protect the
status quo or thwart social change. It is also reflected in the way the
political elites of Latin America opposed communism after the Russian
Revolution. Although many Latin American nations had small organized
communist parties, governments used the fear of communism to resist
virtually all political movements that advocated social reform or questioned
property arrangements. From the 1920s onward, the fear of communism
brought support to conservative governments, whether civilian or military.
Communism would become an even more powerful regional issue after the
successful Cuban Revolution of 1957 installed a communist state in Latin
America.

DOCUMENT
A Peruvian Commentator Decries Racial Thinking

Manuel Gonzalez Prada (1848–1918) was a Peruvian social and political

critic. He had spent much time in France, where he became acquainted with
European scientific thought and contemporary theories of race. (See
Chapters 23 and 24.) He personally embraced much European idealism
and strongly opposed social Darwinism and racism. In an essay of 1904,
entitled “Our Indians,” Prada decried the treatment of the Native
Americans in Peru by the republican government and the racial ideas that
supported such treatment. He saw the case of Peruvian Indians as only one
among many contemporary examples of peoples suffering serious
discrimination and maltreatment on the basis of race. He contended that the
republic of Peru, because of racial theory and cultural assumptions of white
superiority, put modern Peruvian Indians in a situation worse than their
Inca forebears had experienced with the various forced labor practices of
the Spanish Empire. The racial outlooks that Prada condemns were
widespread across Latin America and were one of several factors that held
back social and political progress.
 • HOW does Prada present the situation of Peruvian Indians as one of
numerous cases of the impact of racial thinking globally? How does
he connect the degradation of Peruvian Indians with greed? Why
does he see the treatment of Peruvian Indians as contradicting
republican political ideals?

How convenient an invention ethnology is in the hands of some men! If one

grants the division of humanity into superior and inferior races and
recognizes the superiority of the whites and their consequent right to govern
the planet, nothing is more natural than the suppression of the Negro in
Africa, the redskin in the United States, the Tagalog in the Philippines, or
the Indian in Peru.…

[A]s a general rule, the dominant [group in Peru] approach the Indian
only to deceive him, oppress him or corrupt him. And we should remember
that not only the national half-caste acts with inhumanity and bad faith.
When Europeans become wool traders, mine owners, or hacienda
proprietors, they show themselves fine exactors, extortionists, rivaling the
old encomenderos and the present day hacendados. The white skinned
animal, wherever he is born, is afflicted with the disease of gold. In the final
analysis he yields to the instinct of rapacity.…
Does the Indian suffer less under the republic than under Spanish rule?
While neither corregimientos nor encomiendas exist, forced labor and its
recruitment remain. What we make him suffer is enough to call down upon
us the execration of humanity. We hold him in ignorance and servitude, we
debate him in the garrisons, we brutalize him with alcohol, we set him to
destroying himself in civil war, and from time to time we organize hunting
parties and massacres.…
It is an unwritten axiom that the Indian has no rights, only obligations. In
his case a personal complaint is considered insubordination, a collective
claim a plot of rebellion. The Spanish royalists killed the Indian when he
tried to escape the yoke of his conquerors; we republicans exterminate him
when he protests against onerous taxes or tires of enduring in silence the
inequities of some satrap.
Our form of government is in essence a great lie, because a state in which
two or three million individuals live outside the law does not deserve to be
called a democratic republic.…
The political and social organization of the ancient Inca empire
astonishes revolutionary reformers today.… Morally speaking, the native of
the republic is inferior to the native encountered by the conquerors; but
moral depression because of political servitude is not the same as an
absolute incapacity by organic constitution to achieve civilization.
Source: Manuel Gonzalez Prada, from Horas de lucha (first published 1908) as quoted in Harold
Eugene Davis, Latin American Social Thought: The History of Its Development Since Independence,
with Selected Readings (Washington, DC: University Press of Washington, DC, 1961) pp. 202, 203,
205.

ECONOMY OF DEPENDENCE

ImageWHAT WAS the economy of dependence?

The wars of independence destroyed the Spanish and Portuguese colonial

trade monopolies. Where previously only a few dozen ships called annually
at any port, hundreds laden with goods from all over the world could now
drop anchor. Consequently, Latin America had many new trading partners.
Trade was free and the nations were politically independent, but economic
life was still fundamentally shaped by the demand of other nations for Latin
American commodities.
One of the chief reasons for this dependence was the absence of large
internal markets. Trade after independence flowed in the same direction that
it had flowed before independence because Europe remained the source of
finished goods. Geographical barriers hindered internal trade. The jungles
of the Amazon and the Andes Mountains made east–west trade difficult. A
lack of road systems prevented goods from moving between countries or
even easily within them, and there was little domestic investment in
transport. European and American investments in railways during the
nineteenth century generally facilitated exports rather than internal trade.

NEW EXPLOITATION OF RESOURCES

The wars of independence disrupted the Latin American economy. To
restore old industries such as mining and gain access to steamships and
railroads, Latin Americans had to turn to European and North American
investors. For decades, Britain dominated Latin America economically. The
desire to pour manufactured goods into Latin America led Britain and other
nations to discourage the development of manufacturing industries there.
Foreign investment did help revive the mining industry in Mexico, Peru,
and Chile, but mining produces raw materials, not manufactured goods.
To pay for imports and foreign services, Latin American nations turned to
the production of agricultural commodities for which there was great
European demand. Rural areas and the commercial centers serving
agriculture became politically and economically more important than many
of the old colonial urban centers. The production of wheat, beef, hides,
hemp, coffee, cocoa, and other foodstuffs for the export market also raised
the value of land. Because so much land was available, agricultural
production was increased by extending areas of cultivation rather than by
finding more efficient ways to farm. So much wealth could be accumulated
through land speculation and land development that little incentive existed
for alternative investments in manufacturing. It would also have been
difficult for new Latin American industries to compete with the cheap
goods imported from more established industrial economies.
After 1850, the Latin American republics became relatively more
prosperous. Chile exported copper and nitrates as well as wheat. Peru
exported guano for fertilizer. Coffee was becoming king in Venezuela,
Brazil, Colombia, and Central America. Sugar continued to be produced in
the West Indies and Cuba, which remained under Spanish control.
Argentina supplied hides and tallow. But this limited prosperity was based
on the export of agricultural commodities or raw materials and the
importation of finished goods.
Nevertheless, the period from approximately 1870 through 1930 came to
be seen as a kind of golden age for the Latin American economy. There was
more prosperity than ever before, especially in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and
Mexico. The economies of the Latin American nations grew because
industrial production in Europe and the United States created a demand for
three broad varieties of exports. First were foodstuffs raised in Latin
America that were more or less like those that could be raised in Europe,
chiefly wheat and beef products, for which Argentina became the great
exporter. Second were distinctly tropical products, such as bananas, sugar,
and coffee. Third were natural resources, including metals, of which copper
was the most important; minerals, such as nitrates; and later, oil.
Both the trading patterns for these goods and the internal improvements
in Latin American production deeply and inextricably linked the economy
of the region to Europe and, after 1900, to the United States. The region
could not control its own economic destiny. Europeans and North
Americans provided capital and the technological and managerial skills to
build bridges, roads, railroads, steam lines, and new mines. Whenever the
economy of Europe or the United States floundered, Latin America was
hurt.

INCREASED FOREIGN OWNERSHIP AND INFLUENCE

During the late nineteenth century, the growing European demand gave
Latin Americans a false sense of security. The vast profits to be made
through mining and agricultural exports discouraged investment in local
industry. Foreigners saw no reason to capitalize local industry that might
replace imported goods. By late in the century, the wealthy in Latin
America had, in effect, lost control of valuable sectors of their economy.
For example, in 1901 British and other foreign investors owned
approximately 80 percent of the Chilean nitrate industry. Foreigners also
owned and operated most of the steamship lines and railroads.

Image

Brazilian Coffee being loaded onto a British ship. Most Latin American
countries developed an export economy based on the exchange of
agricultural products, raw materials, and semifinished goods for finished
goods and services from abroad. Until recently, the coffee industry
dominated both the political and economic life of Brazil.

Compare this photograph with the one on page 652. Both photos are
from the same time period. How are they similar?
 The European and U.S. economic penetration of Latin America was more
subtle than that experienced by India or China, but it was no less real.
Foreign powers also used their political and military influence to protect
their economic interests. Britain, as the dominant power until the turn of the
century, was frequently involved in the political affairs of the Latin
American nations. From the Spanish-American War of 1898 onward, the
United States began to exercise more direct influence in the region. In 1903,
to facilitate its plans to build a canal across Panama, the United States
participated in the rebellion that allowed Panama to separate from
Colombia. The U.S. military intervened in the Caribbean and Central
America. By the 1920s, the United States had replaced Britain as Latin
America’s dominant trading partner.
U.S. interventions were one cost of Latin America’s dependent economy.
More significant costs, however, arose from fundamental shifts in world
trade that were brought on by World War I and continued through the
1920s. First, the amount of trade carried on by European countries
decreased. Second, during the 1920s, world prices of agricultural
commodities dropped. Latin American nations had to produce more goods
to pay for their imports. Third, synthetic products manufactured in Europe
or North America replaced the natural products supplied by Latin America.
Finally, petroleum began to replace other natural products as an absolute
percentage of world trade. Petroleum-exporting countries, such as Mexico,
gained a greater share of export income.

ECONOMIC CRISES AND NEW DIRECTIONS

The Great Depression produced a crisis in this neocolonial economy.
Commodity prices collapsed. The republics of Latin America could not
repay their debts to foreign banks. A new economic era began in Latin
America after the conclusion of World War II. It was marked by economic
nationalism and a determination to create national economies that were not
wholly dependent on foreign events and wealth.

neocolonial economy
An economic relationship between a former colonial state and countries
with more developed economies in which the former colony exports raw
materials to and imports manufactured goods from the more developed
nations.

Image

Banana Republic. For most of the twentieth century the United Fruit
Company, an American conglomerate, exerted tremendous economic
influence throughout Central America, with extensive coffee and banana
plantations throughout the region. The company also wielded significant
political power, especially in Guatemala, where workers in this photograph
are harvesting bananas.

Why were foreign entities able to exert so much power in Latin

America?

With the Depression, it became necessary to substitute domestic

manufactured goods for those imported from abroad. Various nations
pursued import substitution policies, and by the mid-1940s there were
three varieties of manufacturing in Latin America. First, there were
industries that, as in the past, transformed raw materials for export, such as
food processing, mining, and petroleum refining. Second, there were
industries addressing local demands, such as power plants and machine
shops.
Third, there were industries, basically assembly plants, that transformed
imported materials to take advantage of cheap labor. None of this
manufacturing was particularly sophisticated, and none of it involved heavy
industry. Not until the 1950s would significant steel production, for
example, occur in the region.

import substitution
The replacement of imported goods with goods manufactured domestically.

SEARCH FOR POLITICAL STABILITY

 ImageWHO WERE the caudillos?

The new states of independent Latin America had little or no experience in

self-government. The Spanish Empire had been ruled directly by the
monarchy and by Spanish-born royal bureaucrats. This monarchical or
paternalistic heritage survived in two forms. First, many traditionalists and
conservatives favored the establishment of monarchies in Latin America,
including José de San Martín (1778–1850). Monarchy was briefly
established in Mexico. In Brazil, an emperor from the Portuguese royal
family governed until 1889.
The second heritage of the colonial monarchy was the proclivity of the
Latin American political elites to tolerate or support strong executives. The
constitutions of the early republics were frequently suspended or rewritten,
so that a strong leader could consolidate his power. Such figures were called
caudillos. They usually came from the officer corps or enjoyed strong ties
to the army. The real basis of their rule was force. Caudillos might support
conservative causes, such as protection of the church or strong central
government, or they might pursue liberal policies, such as the confiscation
of church land, the extension of landed estates, and the development of
education.

caudillos
Latin American strongmen, or dictators, usually with strong ties to the
military.

These strongmen encountered little opposition because of their repressive

policies. Later in the century the new relative prosperity of expanding
economies quieted potential discontent. The dictators became more skilled
at both repression and patronage. The political and social elites also rallied
to their support when, around the turn of the century, the young labor
movement called strikes.
Even when caudillos were forced from office and parliamentary
government was more or less restored, the regimes that replaced them were
neither genuinely liberal nor democratic. Parliamentary governments
usually ruled by courtesy of the military and in the economic interest of the
existing elites. No matter who ruled, the life of the overwhelming mass of
the population changed little. Except for the Mexican Revolution of 1910,
Latin American politics was run by and for the elite.

THREE NATIONAL HISTORIES

ImageWHY ARE the histories of Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil so

different in spite of these nations’ commonalities?

Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil encompass more than 50 percent of the land,
people, and wealth of the region. Their histories illustrate the general
themes of Latin American history.

ARGENTINA
Argentine history from independence to World War II can be divided into
three eras. From the rebellion against Spain in 1810 until the mid-
nineteenth century, the question of which region of the nation would be
dominant was foremost. From 1853 until 1916, Argentina experienced
economic expansion and large-scale immigration from Europe, which
transformed its society and its world position. From 1916 to 1943,
Argentines failed to establish a democratic state and struggled with an
economy they did not control.
In 1810, the junta in Buenos Aires overturned Spanish rule. However, the
other regions of the viceroyalty of Río de la Plata refused to accept its
leadership. Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia went their separate ways.
Conflicts between Buenos Aires and the remaining provinces dominated the
first seventy years of Argentine history. Eventually, Buenos Aires
established its primacy because it dominated trade on the Río de la Plata
and controlled the international customhouse, which assured revenue.
Between 1821 and 1827 Bernardino Rivadavia (1780–1845) worked to
create a liberal political state, but he could not overcome the forces of
regionalism. His major accomplishment was a commercial treaty in 1823
that established Great Britain as a dominant trading partner. Thus began a
deep intermeshing of trade and finance between the two nations that would
continue for over a century. After Rivadavia’s resignation in 1827 came the
classical period of caudillo rule in Argentina. The strongman of the
province of Buenos Aires, Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877), controlled
foreign relations, trade, and the customhouse, while the other provinces
were left to run their own internal affairs. His major policies were
expansion of trade and agriculture, suppression of the Indians, and
nationalism.

Image

Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877), a caudillo of Buenos Aires from

1827 to 1852. Rosas was the archetypal caudillo, waging relentless war on
the natives of Patagonia.

How do the caudillos compare with modern dictators?

Rosas was overthrown in 1852, and the next year a federal constitution
was promulgated for the Argentine republic. Buenos Aires remained aloof
until the republic conquered the province in 1859. The economic prosperity
of the late nineteenth century gave the capital new prominence.
The Argentine economy was overwhelmingly agricultural, the chief
exports at midcentury being animal products. Internal transportation was
poor and the country was sparsely populated. Technological advances
changed this situation. In 1876 the first refrigerator ship, La Frigiorique,
steamed into Buenos Aires. Henceforth, it would be possible to transport
large quantities of Argentine beef to Europe. At about the same time it
became clear that wheat could be farmed throughout the pampas. The
Argentine government carried out a major campaign against the Indian
population known as the Conquest of the Desert. The British built railways
to carry wheat from the interior to the coast, where it was loaded on British
and other foreign steamships. Government policy made the purchase of land
by wealthy Argentines simple and cheap.

ImageRead the Document

Domingo F. Sarmiento, “Civilization and Barbarism,” 1845 at
myhistorylab.com

Immigrant Hotel, Buenos Aires, ca. 1900. More than 8 million people
from Europe and Asia immigrated to South America and the Caribbean
between 1860 and 1920. In this photograph, European immigrants dine in a
communal hall at a hotel set aside specifically for them.

Look closely at this photo. Why are there no women present?

The development of the pampas and the vastly increased production of

beef and wheat made Argentina one of the wealthiest nations of Latin
America and a major agricultural rival of the United States. The opening of
land, even if only for tenant farming and not ownership, encouraged
hundreds of thousands of Europeans, particularly from Spain and Italy, to
immigrate to Argentina. The immigrants also provided workers for the
food-processing, service, and transportation industries in Buenos Aires. By
1900 Argentina was much more urbanized and industrialized. The
predominance of both large landowners and foreign business interests
continued, however.

pampas
The fertile South American lowlands that include the Argentine provinces
of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Santa Fe, and Córdoba, most of Uruguay, and
the southernmost end of Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul, covering more than
750,000 km2(289,577 sq mi).

Prosperity quieted political opposition for a time. The conservative

landed oligarchy governed under presidents who perpetuated a strong
export economy. Like similar groups elsewhere, they ignored the social
questions raised by urbanization and industrialization.
In 1890 members of the urban middle and professional classes founded
the Radical Party. It achieved little until 1912, when the conservative
government expanded the franchise and provided for the secret ballot. Four
years later, Radical Party leader Hipólito Irigoyen (1850–1933) was elected
president (first term 1916–1922). Argentina remained neutral in World War
I, in order to trade with both sides. The war put great pressure on the
economy, resulting in labor agitation. Though previously sympathetic
toward labor, Irigoyen as president used troops against strikers.

CHRONOLOGY

ARGENTINA

By the end of the 1920s, the Radical Party had become corrupt and
directionless. The worldwide commodity depression hurt exports. In 1930,
the military staged a coup. The officers returned power to conservative
civilians, and Argentina remained dependent on the British export market.
U.S. interests also began to establish plants in Argentina, removing still
more economic activity from Argentine control.
In the 1930s, a right-wing nationalistic movement, nacionalismo, arose
among writers, journalists, and a few politicians. It resembled the fascist
political movements then active in Europe. Its supporters equated British
and American domination of the economy with imperialism. In effect, they
were anti-imperialistic, socially concerned, authoritarian, and sympathetic
to the rule of a modern caudillo. World War II gave these attitudes new
influence.

nacionalismo
A right-wing Argentine nationalist movement that arose in the 1930s and
resembled European fascism.

World War II closed almost all of Europe to Argentine exports, creating a

sudden economic crisis. The country’s leadership seemed incapable of
responding, and in 1943 the military again seized control. Many military
officers were children of immigrants and were fiercely nationalistic; some
had become deeply impressed by the Fascist and Nazi movements and their
rejection of European liberal politics. The officers also shared the Fascist
and Nazi hostility to Britain. They contended that the government must
address social questions, industrialize the country, and liberate it from
foreign economic control. In all these respects, they echoed the
nacionalistas.
Between 1943 and 1946 Juan Perón (1895–1974), one of the colonels
involved in the 1943 coup, forged social discontent and authoritarian
political attitudes into a remarkable political movement known as
Peronism. It was initially militaristic, anticommunist, and socially
progressive. In 1946 he made himself the voice of working-class
democracy, even though after his election to the presidency he created an
authoritarian regime that only marginally addressed industrial problems. He
was greatly aided by his wife, the former actress Eva Duarte (1919–1952).
A charismatic figure, she enjoyed fervent support among trade-union
members and the working class.

Peronism
An authoritarian, nationalist movement founded in Argentina in the 1940s
by the dictator Juan Perón.

Perón became the most famous of the postwar Latin American dictators,
but his power and appeal were rooted in the antiliberal attitudes that had
been fostered by the corruption and aimlessness of Argentine politics during
the Depression. He was the supreme twentieth-century embodiment of the
caudillo. He was ousted in 1956, but long-term stability would elude
Argentine politics after his departure.

Argentine president Juan Domingo Perón and his wife Eva address a
throng of supporters from a balcony in Buenos Aires.

What were the bases of Perón’s support?

MEXICO
The heritage of Mexican independence was a combination of the thwarted
social revolution led by Father Hidalgo and José María Morelos between
1811 and 1815, and the conservative political coup carried out in 1820 by
the creole elite against a potentially liberal Spanish crown. For the first
century of independence conservative forces held sway, but in 1910 the
Mexican people launched the most far-reaching revolution in Latin
American history.

A Closer Look
Benito Juarez
Benito Juarez (1806–1872) was one of the most remarkable figures to
lead Mexico or any other Latin American nation during the nineteenth
century. In 1861 he became the first and only Amerindian to hold the
office of president in Mexico. Dedicated to bringing liberal reforms and
economic advancement to Mexico, Juarez’s political movement was
known as La Reforma to indicate that it stood in favor of constitutional
government in opposition to the autocracy of Santa Anna and
conservative political groups in Mexico. He worked to defend and
protect the rights of Native Americans in Mexico and opposed the
political authority still often exercised by the Roman Catholic Church
in Mexico. He also favored economic development in his nation. In all
these respects he stood in agreement with most political liberals
throughout the nineteenth-century transatlantic world. His most heroic
moment came in his firm resistance during the 1860s to any kind of
compromise with the effort of the Austrian Prince Maximilian to
establish a conservative European empire over Mexico. The Mexican
victory over Maximilian was the single most important example of an
American nation rejecting and overcoming European efforts to impose
direct political control.
This portrait was painted in 1948 by the famous Mexican painter
Diego Rivera (1886–1957). Rivera was himself a communist and a
radical anticlerical. Note his emphasis in the portrait on Juarez as a
civilian.
Questions

1. How does Rivera’s portrayal of Juarez present Juarez as a particular

kind of Mexican patriot?
2. Looking at the portrait, could one discern that it had been painted
after the violence of the Mexican Revolution and that it might be
idealizing a Mexican leader of the third quarter of the nineteenth
century?
3. Why might Rivera have wanted to trace the ideal of national and
economic independence of Mexico to the middle of the previous
century?
To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com

The years from 1820 to 1876 were a time of turmoil, economic

floundering, and humiliation. Independent Mexico attempted no liberal
political experiments. Its first ruler was Agustín de Iturbide (1783–1824),
who ruled until 1823 as an emperor. Thereafter, Mexico was governed by a
succession of caudillo presidents, who depended on the army for support.
The strongest of these figures was Antonio López de Santa Anna (1795–
1863), a general and a political opportunist who usually supported
conservative political and social interests. He ruled in a thoroughly
dictatorial manner. More than once he was driven from office, but he
inevitably returned until finally exiled in 1855.
 The midcentury movement against Santa Anna’s autocracy was called La
Reforma. In theory, its supporters were liberal, but Mexican liberalism was
associated primarily with anticlericalism, confiscation of church lands, and
opposition to military influence on politics. La Reforma aimed to produce
political stability, civilian rule, and an economic policy that would attract
foreign capital and immigrants. Having deposed Santa Anna, the leaders of
the reform movement passed legislation to break up large landed estates,
particularly those owned by the church, and to promote the establishment of
small farms. However, the actual content of the laws permitted existing
landowners to purchase additional land cheaply. The legislative attack on
the privileges of the church led to further civil war between 1857 and 1860.
In January 1861 Benito Juárez (1806–1872) entered Mexico City as the
temporary victor.

La Reforma
The nineteenth-century Mexican liberal reform movement that opposed
Santa Anna’s dictatorship and sought to foster economic progress, civilian
rule, and political stability. It was strongly anticlerical.

Political instability was matched by economic stagnation. After 1820

many Spanish officials and merchants fled, taking with them large
quantities of gold and silver. The mines that had produced Mexico’s
colonial wealth were in poor condition, and the country could not repair
them. The hacienda system left farming in a backward condition. Cheap
imports of manufactured goods stifled domestic industries. Transportation
was primitive. The government’s remedy was massive foreign borrowing,
and soon interest payments consumed the national budget.
Political weakness and economic disarray invited foreign intervention. In
1823 the Mexican government allowed Stephen F. Austin (1793–1836) to
begin the colonization of Texas. During the next decade, the policies of
Santa Anna stirred resentment among the Texas settlers, and in 1835 they
rebelled. The next year Santa Anna destroyed the defenders of the Alamo
but was decisively defeated at the battle of San Jacinto. Texas became an
independent republic that was annexed by the United States in 1845. Border
clashes between Mexican and U.S. forces enabled President James Polk to
launch a war against Mexico in 1846 that saw the United States army
occupy Mexico City. Through the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), the
United States gained a vast portion of Mexican territory, including what is
now New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
As a result of Juárez’s liberal victory in 1861, Mexican conservatives and
clerics invited the Austrian Archduke Maximilian (1832–1867) to become
the emperor of Mexico. Napoleon III (r. 1852–1870) of France supported
this venture. Maximilian became emperor but was unable to build political
support. In 1867, Juarez captured the unhappy emperor and executed him.
Once restored to office, the liberal leaders continued their measures
against the church but failed to rally significant popular support. In 1876
Porfirio Díaz (1830–1915) seized power and retained it until 1911. He
maintained one of the most successful dictatorships in Latin American
history by giving almost every political sector something it wanted. He
allowed landowners to purchase public land cheaply; he cultivated the
army; and he made peace with the church. He used repression against
opponents and bribery to cement the loyalty of his supporters. Foreign
companies, especially from the United States, invested heavily in what, by
1900, appeared to be a thoroughly stable country.

The Execution of Maximilian of Mexico, June 19, 1867, by the French

Impressionist painter Edouard Manet. Between 1867 and 1869 Manet
completed a series of compositions depicting the execution of the Mexican
emperor. This is the final and largest work.
Edouard Manet (1832-1883), “The Execution of Emperor Maximilian of
Mexico, June 19, 1867,” Oil on canvas. Location: Staedtische Kunsthalle,
Mannheim, Germany. Art Resource, New York.

Does this painting glorify or belittle the execution of the emperor?

Yet problems remained. The peasants wanted land and resented the
power of the landlords. Food production declined during the Díaz regime,
so many Mexicans were malnourished. Labor unrest and strikes afflicted
the textile and mining industries. The Panic of 1907 in the United States
disrupted the Mexican economy. By 1910 the so-called Pax Porfiriana was
unraveling.
In 1911, Francisco Madero (d. 1913), a wealthy landowner and moderate
liberal, led an insurrection that drove Díaz into exile. Shortly thereafter,
Madero was elected president. He recognized the rights of trade unions to
organize and to strike, but he was unwilling to change the pattern of
landholding. Radical leaders emerged, calling for social change. Pancho
Villa (1874–1923) in the north and Emiliano Zapata (1879–1919) in the
south rallied mass followings of peasants who demanded fundamental
structural changes in rural landholding. In late 1911 Zapata proclaimed his
Plan of Ayala, which in effect set forth a program of large-scale peasant
confiscation of land.
Madero found himself squeezed between the conservative supporters of
the deposed Díaz and the radical peasant revolutionaries. No one trusted
him, and in early 1913 he was overthrown by General Victoriano Huerta
(1854–1916), who had the help of the United States. Huerta, who was
basically a dictator, failed to quash the peasant rebellion. Meanwhile,
Venustiano Carranza (1859–1920), a wealthy landowner, put himself at the
head of a large Constitutionalist Army—so called because it advocated the
restoration of constitutional government in opposition to the political
dictatorship of Huerta—that initially received the support of both Zapata
and Villa. Huerta’s government collapsed on August 15, 1914, when
Constitutionalist forces entered Mexico City. Thereafter disputes erupted
between Carranza and Villa and then between Carranza and Zapata. These
conflicts arose both from simple political rivalry and from Carranza’s
refusal to embrace the kind of radical agrarian reform the two peasant
leaders sought. Carranza eventually won out, thanks to his political skills
and the effectiveness of his army.

CHRONOLOGY

MEXICO

Carranza’s political skills helped him build a broad base. He addressed

himself to the concerns of urban industrial workers as well as the land
hunger of rural peasants, successfully separating the two groups. This
division ultimately doomed the effort to implement an agrarian revolution.
Carranza made many promises, especially about agrarian reform, that he
had little or no intention of carrying out. Beginning in early 1915
Carranza’s military forces began an ultimately successful campaign against
Villa and Zapata. The peasant leaders still commanded regional support but
could not win control of the nation. During 1916 Carranza confronted U.S.
military intervention along the border that continued until early 1917, when
the United States became involved in World War I in Europe. After years of
deadly and destructive civil war, Carranza’s forces wrote the constitution of
1917, setting forth a program for ongoing social revolution—never pursued
with any vigor—and political reform.
Carranza and his immediate subordinates recognized the agrarian
problem but were cautious about changing existing property arrangements.
They were determined to modernize Mexican political life and attract
capital investment; Mexican leaders would share these goals from that time
onward. Thus, despite radical rhetoric and the peasant upheaval, the
Mexican Revolution saw the victory of a middle-class elite who would
attempt to govern through enlightened paternalism. With Carranza’s victory
the general direction of Mexican political life had been established.
In 1929 Plutarco Elías Calles (1877–1945) organized the PRI, the
Institutional Revolutionary Party, which quickly became the most important
political force in the nation. The Mexican political system became
dominated by a single party within which most political debate occurred,
rather than a system dominated by a single strong leader. Despite external
criticism and internal tensions, the PRI would oversee the longest period of
political stability experienced by any Latin American nation in the
twentieth century.

PRI
The Institutional Revolutionary Party, which emerged from the Mexican
Revolution of 1911 and governed Mexico until the end of the twentieth
century.

QUICK REVIEW
Venustiano Carranza (1859–1920)
Image Wealthy landowner who initially joined Villa and Zapata in
opposition to Huerta’s dictatorship
Image Led Constitutionalist Army
Image Broke with Villa and Zapata over agrarian reforms; defeated
them in civil war
Image Constitution of 1917 promised reform; Carranza instead led
middle-class elite in imposing enlightened paternalism

In 1934 Lázaro Cárdenas (1895–1970) was elected president and moved

directly to fulfill the promises and programs of 1917. He turned tens of
millions of acres of land over to peasant villages. In 1938, when Mexico
was the third largest producer of petroleum, he expropriated the oil industry.
His nationalization policy established PeMex, the Mexican national oil
company. Cárdenas left other mineral industries in private and generally
foreign hands. His extensive reforms went through smoothly because he
worked through bureaucratic and administrative means.
With the election of Manuel Ávila Camacho (1897–1955) in 1940, the
era of revolutionary politics ended. Thereafter, the major issues in Mexico
were those generally associated with postwar economic development. But
unlike other Latin American nations, Mexico, because of its revolution,
could confront those issues with a democratic perspective and a sense of
collective social responsibility, no matter how imperfectly those goals
might be realized.

The Mexican Revolution. The forces of Emiliano Zapata march on

Xochimilco in 1914. Women fought alongside men and played other
prominent roles during the Mexican Revolution.

What impressions of the fighters do you get from this photograph?

BRAZIL
Postcolonial Brazil, the largest Latin American country, differed in several
important respects from other newly independent nations in the region. Its
language and colonial heritage were Portuguese rather than Spanish. For the
first sixty-seven years of its independence it had a relatively stable
monarchical government. And it retained slavery until 1888.
Brazil had moved directly from being part of the Portuguese monarchy to
becoming an independent empire in 1822. The first emperor, Pedro I (r.
1822–1831), while serving as regent for his father, the king of Portugal, had
put himself at the head of the independence movement. Although he
granted Brazil a constitution in 1823, Pedro’s high-handed rule led to his
abdication in 1831. Brazilians then took hold of their own destinies.
After a decade of political uncertainty under a regency, Pedro II (r. 1831–
1889), the 15-year-old son of Pedro I, assumed direct power in 1840 and
governed Brazil until 1889. Pedro II made wise and shrewd use of
patronage. He asked leaders of both the conservative and the liberal
political parties to form ministries. Consequently, Brazil enjoyed
remarkable political stability. However, the government took few initiatives
to develop the economy.
The great divisive issue in Brazil was slavery. Sugar production remained
the mainstay of the economy until the 1850s. Soil exhaustion and inefficient
farming methods made profits impossible without the cheap labor of slaves.
From about 1850 coffee cultivation began to spread in the southern
provinces, and soon coffee cultivation dominated Brazilian agriculture.
Coffee producers also used slave labor, but their profits were much larger
than those of the sugar producers. Coffee planters tended to see themselves
as economic progressives, so they were more open to emancipation.

ImageRead the Document

Friederich Hassaurek, How to Conduct a Latin American Revolution, 1865
at myhistorylab.com

The Brazilian government had made a treaty with Great Britain in 1826,
agreeing to suppress the slave trade. By 1850 Brazil had virtually ceased
importing slaves, freeing the capital once spent on slaves for investments in
coffee. The end of slave imports effectively doomed the institution of
slavery because the birthrate among slaves was too low for the slave
population to reproduce itself, but abolition was still a difficult step. The
emperor favored gradual emancipation. A law in 1871 freed slaves owned
by the crown and decreed legal freedom for future children of slaves, but it
required them to work on plantations until the age of 21. The abolition
movement grew in Brazil throughout the 1870s and 1880s. In 1888 Pedro II
was in Europe for medical treatment, and his daughter was regent. She
favored abolition rather than gradual emancipation. When Parliament
passed a law abolishing slavery without any compensation to the slave
owners, she signed it.
The abolition of slavery brought other issues to a head. Planters who
received no financial compensation for their slaves were resentful. Roman
Catholic clerics were disaffected by disputes with the emperor over
education. Pedro II was unwell; his daughter was unpopular and distrusted.
The officer corps of the army wanted more political influence. In November
1889 the army exiled Pedro II, and the monarchy collapsed.

Antislavery Print. Slavery lasted longer in Brazil than in any other nation
in North or South America. Antislavery groups circulated prints such as this
one published in France to illustrate the brutality of slave life in Brazil.

Why did slavery last so long in Brazil?

The Brazilian republic lasted from 1891 to 1930. Like the monarchy, it
was dominated by a small group of the wealthy, mostly coffee planters.
Fixed elections and patronage kept the system in operation. Literacy
replaced property as the qualification for voting, leaving few people
qualified to vote. There was consequently little organized opposition and,
for that matter, little political life at all.

QUICK REVIEW
The Brazilian Republic
Image 1889: Pedro II sent into exile
Image Brazilian republic (1891–1930) controlled by small group of
wealthy persons
Image Coffee production dominated the Brazilian economy

Around 1900 Brazil was producing over three-fourths of the world’s

coffee. The crop’s success led to overproduction. To meet this problem, the
government subsidized prices with loans from foreign banks and taxes on
the rest of the economy, which felt exploited by the coffee interests. High
world coffee prices encouraged competition from other Latin American
producers, which in turn required more price supports in Brazil. Throughout
the life of the republic, Brazil remained essentially a country producing a
single product for export and few goods for internal consumption.
The end of slavery, the expansion of coffee production, and the beginning
of a slow growth of urban industry attracted foreign immigrants to Brazil.
They tended to settle in the cities and constituted the core of the early
industrial labor force. World War I caused major economic disruption
accompanied by urban labor discontent and a general strike in São Paulo in
1917. The failure to address urban and industrial social problems and the
political corruption of the republic led to attempted military coups in 1922
and 1924. Both revolts failed, but they indicated profound discontent.
In 1929 coffee prices hit record lows; currency exchange rates fell; and
foreign loans were unavailable. Millions of bags of coffee lay in
warehouses. Government reserves were depleted in an unsuccessful attempt
to hold up the price of coffee and to pay for imports no longer being funded
by coffee exports. The collapse of the coffee market brought the republic
down with it. In October 1930 a military coup installed Getulio Vargas
(1883–1954) in the presidency. Vargas governed Brazil until 1945.

QUICK REVIEW
Getulio Vargas (1883–1954)
Image October 1930: Vargas comes to power in military coup
 Image Vargas sought to represent a wider spectrum of Brazilian society
without giving up personal power
Image Vargas assumed dictatorial power in 1937

The Vargas years were a major turning point. Vargas was initially
supported by the reform elements in the military, by professional middle-
class groups, and by urban workers. He recognized the new social and
economic groups shaping Brazilian political life. First with
constitutionalism and then with dictatorship, he attempted to allow the
government to act on behalf of those groups without allowing them to
influence or direct the government in a genuinely democratic manner.
Vargas was an experimentalist and pragmatist who primarily wanted to hold
on to power and to make Brazil a modern nation. He did not form his own
political party or movement as Perón would later do in Argentina or as the
Mexican revolutionaries had done. Rather, Vargas attempted to function as
a ringmaster directing the various forces in Brazilian life. His failure to
establish a stable institutional framework for including multiple political
interest groups has influenced Brazil to the present day.

OVERVIEW Latin American Products for Export 1820–1930

Argentina animal products (meat, leather, wool), grain
Bolivia tin, silver, wool
Brazil coffee, sugar, rubber
Chile copper
Colombia coffee, cattle
Ecuador bananas
Mexico silver, cattle, oil
Peru nitrates, silver
Uruguay animal products (meat, leather)
Venezuela coffee, cattle

Image
Vargas and the Military. Getulio Vargas became ruler of Brazil in 1930
through a military coup. Here he stands with his military supporters. One of
the purposes of such pictures was to remind the public that any serious
opposition might be put down by the military.

Who seems to hold more power here, Vargas or the military officers?

Vargas and his supporters sought to lessen dependence on coffee by

fostering industries to produce goods that had been imported from abroad.
The policy succeeded, and by the mid-1930s domestic manufacturing was
increasing. In the constitution of 1934 Vargas established a legal framework
for labor relations. The structures were paternalistic but included an eight-
hour day and a minimum wage.
In the late 1930s, however, Vargas confronted opposition from both the
Brazilian Communist Party (founded in 1922) and a new right-wing
movement called Integralism, and in 1937 he assumed personal dictatorial
power. His regime thereafter was repressive. Like the European dictators of
the same era, Vargas used censorship, secret police, and torture against his
political opponents. He claimed to have established an Estado Novo (“new
state”). He used his newly assumed power to diversify and modernize the
economy. Siding with the Allies in World War II, Brazil built up large
reserves of foreign currency through the export of foodstuffs. By the end of
the war Brazil was becoming the major Latin American industrial power.

Estado Novo
The “new state” based on political stability and economic and social
progress supposedly established by the dictator Getulio Vargas after 1937.

Participation in World War II had led many in Brazil to believe that they
should not remain subject to a dictatorship. This attitude was widespread in
the military, which had fought in Europe and established close contact with
the United States. In 1945 the military carried out a coup, and Vargas retired
temporarily from political life.

CHRONOLOGY

BRAZIL
 Image

The new regime, which was democratic, continued the general policy of
economic development through foreign-financed industrialization. The
state, however, assumed a much smaller role. Vargas was elected president
in 1950; his actions and appointments soon became controversial. The
military demanded that Vargas resign. Instead he took his own life in 1954,
leaving a public testament in which he presented himself as the protector of
the poor and of the broad national interest.
In the decade after Vargas’s death, Brazil remained a democracy, though
a highly unstable one. The government itself began to undertake vast
projects, including the enormously costly construction of the new capital of
Brasília, begun in 1957. The rapid growth of cities and the expansion of a
working class radicalized political life. Widespread poverty and illiteracy
continued to plague both the cities and the countryside. In a structural
problem created by the constitution of 1946, the presidency was controlled
by urban voters, whereas the congress was controlled by rural voters.
By the early 1960s, when President João Goulert (1918–1977) took
office, Brazilian political life was in turmoil. Goulert’s predecessors had
attempted to balance interests or to move among various political forces
without firmly favoring a single sector. Goulert committed himself to a
policy favored by the left and announced his support for land reform.
Goulert also questioned the authority of the military hierarchy. Moreover,
Brazil faced economic problems: Both industrial and farm production had
fallen from the levels achieved in 1960, fostering discontent. In March 1964
the military, claiming to protect Brazil from communism, seized control of
the government, ending its post–World War II experiment with democracy.

SUMMARY

ImageHOW DID the absence of a social revolution affect Latin America

after independence?
Independence without Revolution. In the 1820s, Latin America threw off
Spanish and Portuguese rule, but the traditional elites—landowners,
military officers, and the church—remained in control. The creole elite
discriminated against nonwhites. The predominant philosophies were
conservative. page 643

ImageRead the Document

Francisco Bilbao, America in Danger, 1862 at myhistorylab.com

ImageWHAT WAS the economy of dependence?

Economy of Dependence. Because Latin American economies remained

dependent on producing agricultural commodities for export, foreign
nations, particularly Britain, dominated Latin American economic life.
When commodity prices collapsed during the Great Depression, Latin
American economies were devastated. The crisis led to the beginnings of
manufacturing in many Latin American countries in an effort to avoid
dependence on imports. page 650

ImageWHO WERE the caudillos?

Search for Political Stability. A series of strongmen called caudillos

dominated most Latin American republics. They were generally repressive
and conservative. page 652

ImageWHY ARE the histories of Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil so

different in spite of these nations’ commonalities?

Three National Histories. Argentina was dominated by Buenos Aires.

Agricultural exports contributed to a strong economy. However, urban
social discontent and the growth of nationalism in the 1930s led to military
intervention in politics and the corporatist dictatorship of Juan Perón from
1946 to 1956. Mexico was unstable after independence. It lost half its
territory to the United States and was invaded by France in the 1860s. The
long-lasting dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz brought political stability but
increasing discontent. The Mexican Revolution that began in 1911
produced cautious reform under the one-party rule of the PRI, the
Institutional Revolutionary Party, which remained in power until the end of
the century. Brazil was a stable constitutional monarchy after independence
until 1889. It retained slavery until 1888. The establishment of a republic
did not change Brazil’s dependence on coffee exports, and the collapse of
coffee prices in 1929 led to dictatorship. Though politically repressive,
Getulio Vargas instituted social reforms and promoted industrial
development, which continued to expand in the decade after his death in
1954. page 653

KEY TERMS

caudillos (kauw-DEE-lyohs)
creole
debt peonage
dependency theory
Estado Novo
import substitution
La Reforma
mestizos (mess-TEE-zohs)
mulattos (muh-LAHT-ohs)
nacionalismo
neocolonial economy
pampas (PAHM-puhs)
Peronism
positivism
PRI

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What was the condition of the Latin American economies after

independence? What was their relation to Britain? Why were most
Latin American states slow to develop an industrial base? What role
 did their economies play in the worldwide economy that developed
in the nineteenth century?
2. Did the structure of Latin American societies change after
independence? What role did the traditional elites play in the
economic and political life of their nations? What was the condition
of the mass of the population?
3. How did European and U.S. investment in Latin America affect the
region economically? Politically?
4. Why did so many Latin American nations find it difficult to develop
stable political regimes? What role did the military play?
5. What was the effect of increased European immigration on
Argentina? How did the Argentine elite cope with growing
urbanization and industrialization?
6. Why was Juan Perón able to seize and hold power? What was the
role of “Evita”?
7. Did Mexico experience a real revolution in the early twentieth
century? How does this experience distinguish Mexico from other
Latin American countries? What caused the turmoil?
8. During the period covered in this chapter, what influence did the
shared border with the United States have on Mexican history?
9. Why was the Brazilian experience of independence and early
nationhood different from that of Spanish-speaking Latin America?
What was the role of slavery in Brazil’s history? How are abolition
and coffee connected?
10. How did the Vargas regime change the Brazilian economy? Why
did Brazilian democracy end in a military coup in 1964?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related to
this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com
Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 25

Read the Document Domingo F. Sarmiento, “Civilization and

Barbarism,” 1845, p. 653

Friederich Hassaurek, “How to Conduct a Latin American

Revolution,” 1865, p. 660
Francisco Bilbao, “America in Danger,” 1862, p. 663

Hear the Audio Latin America, p. 644

Research and Explore

See the Map The Americas, ca. 1900

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 25
at www.myhistorylab.com
26
India, the Islamic Heartlands, and Africa,
1800–1945

ImageHear the Audio for Chapter 26 at www.myhistorylab.com

Image

The Indian Mutiny of 1857. The mutinous Sepoy cavalry attacking British
infantry at the battle of Cawnpore. Although the uprising was suppressed, it
was not easily forgotten. In its aftermath the British reorganized the
government of India.

What impression does this image give you of the Sepoys’ chances of
success against the British?

THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE

BRITISH DOMINANCE AND COLONIAL RULE

HOW DID British rule affect India?

FROM BRITISH CROWN RAJ TO INDEPENDENCE

WHAT ROLE did Gandhi play in ending British rule in India?

THE ISLAMIC EXPERIENCE

DECLINING ISLAMIC POWER AND INDEPENDENCE

WHY IS the invasion of Egypt by Napoleon’s army in 1798 symbolically

important?

ISLAMIC RESPONSES TO FOREIGN ENCROACHMENT

WHAT WERE three typical Islamic reactions to Western encroachment?

THE AFRICAN EXPERIENCE

NEW POWER CENTERS AND ISLAMIC REFORM MOVEMENTS

WHAT WAS the mfecane?

PATTERNS IN EUROPEAN COLONIZATION AND AFRICAN

RESISTANCE

HOW DID Africans resist European colonialism?

THE RISE OF AFRICAN NATIONALISM

WHAT WERE the goals of African nationalists?

The European encroachment on the rest of the world from the late fifteenth
century onward brought radical, often devastating changes. In the West
itself, spiritual and material disruption accompanied the Renaissance,
Reformation, Enlightenment, and industrial and scientific revolutions.
When Western expansion brought the ideas and innovations of these
watershed European developments to Asia and Africa, the challenges and
changes that ensued were accelerated. Furthermore, they were
accompanied by the intrusion of European military and economic power.
Consequently, they were received typically with virulent resistance or
cautious adaptation.

To speak of these complex processes under the rubric of “modernization”

does not reflect the acute differences between events in western Europe and
the more disruptive changes that European imperialism and colonialism
brought to other parts of the world. Nor does it do justice to the degree to
which the West appropriated the very concept of “modernity.” Modernity is
now identified with a novel set of ideas and institutions that evolved in
Europe between the Renaissance and the early twentieth century and was
then gradually exported to, or imposed upon, other societies around the
globe. The expression “the impact of modernity” refers to how “modern”
Western civilization affected traditional cultures.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
THE CHALLENGE OF MODERNITY: INDIA, ISLAM, AND AFRICA

The period from 1800 to World War II was hard on the fortunes of South
Asia, Africa, and the Islamic heartlands. For centuries there had been a
rough, long-term balance in advances and setbacks in material and
intellectual culture, commercial development, and political stability among
the major cultural regions of the world. Suddenly, over a period of 150
years, Europe, long a relative backwater in world history, came to
dominate.

The Middle East, Africa, Iran, Central Asia, India, and Southeast Asia,
along with Central and Latin America—later the so-called Third World of
“developing nations”—were most drastically affected by European
imperialism and colonialism. Notwithstanding indigenous developments in
these regions, this era’s decisive development was new and unprecedented
domination of the world’s economy, intellectual life, and political and
military history by a single segment of the global community. Certainly the
histories of the less “developed” (in the sense of evolving toward
European-style “modernity”) nations of the world in this age had their own
internal dynamics; in fact, many smaller African or Latin American
societies were not even directly affected by Western dominance until
recently. Still, the effects of Western military, economic, and cultural power
were considerable. While not synonymous with “progress” as Westerners
and modernization theorists often think, these effects have been a hallmark
of “modernity” in most of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Whether by
rejection, adaptation, or imitation, peoples worldwide have had to contend
with the immense power of the West.

The vitality of many of the cultures and traditions that bore the brunt of the
Western onslaught has been striking. Arab, Iranian, Indian, African, and
other encounters with Western material and intellectual domination
produced differing, often very creative responses. These have produced
significant instances of political, economic, and intellectual independence
only since 1945. However, they began much earlier. Modern Islamic reform
began in the eighteenth century, although it has only recently become a
major global factor. Indian national, as opposed to regional, consciousness
developed from the late 1800s in response to British imperial domination,
even though it brought union and independence only after World War II.
Ironically, exposure of indigenous elites to European political and social
philosophies gave future colonial-independence leaders intellectual
resources for ideologies of self-rule framed in “modern” terms. Creative
thinkers like M. K. Gandhi (1869–1948) merged European thought with
ideas from their own cultures to create new ideologies that could inspire
Western sympathizers as well as their indigenous followers to oppose
European oppression. African nationalist leaders such as Julius Nyerere
(1922–1999) and Jomo Kenyatta (1889–1978) similarly found creative
ways to merge European nationalist and indigenous cultural models.

Certainly one widespread result of the imperial-colonial experience has

been to sharpen the cultural self-consciousness and self-confidence of those
peoples most adversely affected by Western dominance. The experiences of
Third World nations with outside domination may well prove to have been
sources of not only misery and reversal, but also necessary preparation for
positive development and resurgence, despite the problems plaguing many
of these nations.

ImageView the Image Mahatma Gandhi at myhistorylab.com

Focus Questions

Image How did Western domination affect South Asia, the

Islamic heartlands, and Africa in the nineteenth century?

Image How did these societies develop ideologies of resistance

that helped them achieve independence?

The spread of Western culture has had such massive consequences that
today non-Western peoples are often seen as merely its passive recipients. A
simplistic dualism tends to contrast the “modern” West with the
“backward” “Orient,” as though all of the world outside Europe, North
America, and their most Westernized offshoots were a monolithic, archaic
“Other.”

As parochial as such chauvinistic generalizations are, the impingement of

the West has been a major element in the recent history of African, Asian,
Indian, and other civilizations. Here, Western modernity encountered
cultures that had flourishing social, religious, and political traditions of
their own. Through processes of profound transformation, peoples have
sought to delicately balance the unforeseen challenges of modernity with
the familiarity of tradition. That transformation took place throughout Asia
and Africa as these continents became sites in a fierce European
competition for raw materials and influence. The “great game” and the
“scramble for colonies” would permanently alter the cultural, economic,
and political landscapes in Asia and Africa as well as in Europe. Image

THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE

BRITISH DOMINANCE AND COLONIAL RULE

ImageHOW DID British rule affect India?

In the eighteenth century Britain became the dominant power in the

southern seas (see Chapter 20). In India by the early nineteenth century the
British had built the largest European colonial empire in the Afro-Asian
world. India, the greatest traditional civilization to come under direct
European colonial rule, was the “jewel in the crown” of that empire.

BUILDING THE EMPIRE: THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH

CENTURY

It was no simple undertaking for Britain to penetrate multiethnic,

multilingual, multi-confessional India. The British used a multipronged
approach to convince various strata of Indian society and various ethnic
groups that cooperation with Britain’s imperial enterprise was in their best
interests.

A half century before the British Crown asserted direct rule over India in
1858, the British wielded effective imperial control through the East India
Company. As the company’s pressure on smaller states to pay “subsidies”
for military “protection” brought them to either collapse or rebellion, the
British annexed more territory. Areas not annexed were recognized as
independent princely states. These independent states retained their status
only as long as they remained faithfully allied to Britain and contributed
money to their common “defense.” Members of Indian elites often colluded
with the British against local rulers. The India that resulted was a mixture
of small and large tributary states and provinces that the British
administered directly.
The economic impact of company rule was extensive. To pay the debts
incurred by their military actions, the company’s administrators organized
and exploited Indian land revenues. Squeezed by these demands, many
peasants deserted their land; by the 1830s land revenues were in sharp
decline. In addition, demand for Indian indigo, cotton, and opium declined,
and famines brought widespread suffering despite economic and social
reforms.

ImageHear the Audio

India’s Imperialism at myhistorylab.com

Company rule affected the physical face of India. Company policies

encouraged settled agriculture and small commodity production at the
expense of nomadic and pastoralist cultures. British “pacification” involved
land clearing to deny cover to military enemies and forced settlement of
peasants in new regions. Early in the nineteenth century European
entrepreneurs undertook massive commercial logging operations, causing
extensive deforestation. Ecological destruction was a major by-product of
the transformation of India into a more homogeneous peasant farming
society that provided a better base for colonial administration. Indians
resisted this exploitation. The first half of the nineteenth century saw
almost constant revolt in one place or another, culminating in the watershed
Indian Uprising of 1857 (the so-called Sepoy Mutiny or Rebellion).

ImageRead the Document

Dadabhai Naoroji, The Benefits of British Rule in India, 1871 at

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The immediate cause of this revolt was concern among Bengal troops that
animal grease on newly issued rifles exposed them to ritual pollution, a
violation of the rules of their religion. Behind this issue lay a variety of
grievances, together with a desire to recover and rebuild a pre-British
political order in North India. The revolt was not an all-India affair. It
centered on Delhi, where the last Mughal emperor joined in the rebel cause,
and involved other cities, towns, and in some cases the rural peasantry.

ImageRead the Document

The Indian Revolt (1857) at myhistorylab.com

QUICK REVIEW

Causes of the Indian Uprising of 1857

Image Addition of Sikhs, Gurkhas, and lower-caste soldiers to

army

Image Deteriorating economic conditions

Image Excessive tax rates

Image British annexation of Awadh

The British eventually won the day. With their forces augmented by Sikhs
from the Panjab and Gurkhas from Bengal, they overcame the divided
Indian opposition. By the end of 1857, the revolt was broken, often with
great brutality. In 1858, the East India Company was dissolved, and India
came under direct rule of the British Crown. The “Mutiny” of 1857 had
highlighted resentment of the burdens of foreign domination that were to
grow increasingly oppressive for Indians of all regions and religions during
the ensuing ninety years of crown rule, known as the raj.

raj

The years from 1858 to 1947 during which India was governed directly by
the British Crown.
BRITISH-INDIAN RELATIONS

The overall impact of the British presence on the Indian masses was brutal
but impersonal and largely economic. India was effectively integrated into
Britain’s economy, becoming a market for British goods and providing
Britain with raw materials and other products. Britain’s involvement in
India’s internal affairs included politics, education, the civil service
infrastructure, communications, and transportation, but the consequences of
its domination and exploitation of India’s labor and resources were
especially far-reaching.

ImageRead the Document

Lord William Bentinck, on the Suppression of Sati, 1829 at

myhistorylab.com

British cultural imperialism was never a policy of the East India Company.
Many Britons expressed interest in and some openness to Indians and their
culture. The company itself required many of its officers to learn Persian
and Sanskrit. It opposed Christian missionary activity in India until the
1830s and 1840s, partly because the caste system facilitated imperial
policy. Nonetheless the British–Indian relationship had a paternalistic and
patronizing dimension, both before and after the events of 1857. The ethos
of the British rulers included the understanding that they had the task of
governing an inferior “race” that could not handle the job by itself. Even
Indians whose university degrees or army training gave them impeccable
British qualifications were never accepted as true equals. From army to
civil service ranks, the upper echelon of command was British; the middle
and lower echelons of administration were Indian.

Despite this unequal relationship, British ideas and ways of doing things
influenced a small but powerful Indian elite. Ram Mohan Roy (1772–
1833), for example, a Bengali Hindu, rose to the top of the native ranks of
East India Company service and became a strong voice for reform, both of
Hindu life and practice and of British colonial policy where it deviated
from European and Christian ideals. Roy was an avowed modernist who
wanted to meld the best of European-Christian morality and thought with
the best of Hindu piety and thought. His wide-ranging writings and public
campaigns for education, political involvement, and social progress and
against the “backward” practices and ideas of many of his Hindu
compatriots alienated most of the leading Hindu thinkers and activists of
his age, but twentieth-century Indians have often seen him as a visionary.

Britons at home became increasingly aware of India and Indians after 1858.
The information that reached them, however, was filtered by interpreters
who were often neither sympathetic nor objective. After the
implementation of direct crown rule, a stricter social segregation of white
rulers from Indian subjects set in. Overall the British, much more than their
Central Asian Mughal predecessors, treated Indians as backward heathens
in need of the “civilizing” influences of their own “enlightened” culture,
law, political system, education, and religion.

Image

Portrait of Ram Mohan Roy, the most influential Indian thinker in the
early nineteenth century.

What does Roy’s clothing suggest about his views toward the West?

Most Indians resented their subordinate status. The nationalist movement at

the end of the nineteenth century extended to the grassroots level among
tribal groups, peasant farmers, and home or small-industry workers.
Whatever their status, the distrust and animosity most Indians felt toward
their foreign rulers continued to grow.

FROM BRITISH CROWN RAJ TO INDEPENDENCE

 ImageWHAT ROLE did Gandhi play in ending British rule in India?

THE BURDEN OF CROWN RULE

The Revolt of 1857 had numerous consequences beyond the transfer of

administration to the British Crown. Before the revolt, the British had
maintained a largely native army under British officers. After the revolt,
they tried to maintain a ratio of at least one British to three Indian soldiers.
The army was financed by Indian, not British, revenues. This imposed a
huge economic burden on India, diverting one-third of its annual revenues
to pay for its own occupation.

British economic policies and accelerating population growth put great

strains on India’s poor. Cheap British machine-produced goods were
exchanged for Indian raw materials and the products of its home industries,
harming or destroying Indian craft industries. Industrialization, which
might have provided work for India’s unemployed masses, was avoided.
The Civil War in the United States (1861–1865) interrupted Britain’s
source of cotton from the American South, causing a shift from food to
cotton farming in India. This shift, combined with a drought in the 1870s,
led to widespread famine. Many peasants were forced to immigrate to
Britain’s dominions in South Africa, where they worked as indentured
servants.

ImageRead the Document

Karl Marx, “The British Rule in India,” 1853 at myhistorylab.com

The Revolt of 1857 also created a poisonous distrust of Indians within the
British colonial administration. Cantonments segregated white masters
from natives in Indian towns and cities. One exception to this trend was the
tenure of the Marquess of Ripon (1827–1909) as viceroy of India from
1880 to 1884. Ripon fought to erase legal racial discrimination, earning
him the hatred of most of his British compatriots in India. Although his
foes agitated successfully to dilute his measures, they unwittingly gave
Indians a model for political agitation of their own.

cantonments

The segregation of areas in which Europeans lived in British-ruled India

from those areas inhabited by native Indians.

INDIAN RESISTANCE

Indians soon took up political activism. Late in the nineteenth century they
founded the institutions that would help overcome traditional regionalism,
build national feeling, and ultimately end colonial rule. In 1885 Indian
modernists formed the Indian National Congress to reform traditional
Hindu and Muslim practices that were out of line with their liberal ideals
and to change British Indian policies that were equally out of line with
British democratic ideals. Other Indians agitated for the rejection of British
rule altogether. The Muslim League developed as a counterbalance to the
Hindu-dominated Congress and ultimately gained a separate independent
Muslim state, Pakistan. Heavy-handed British policies in legal
administration, political representation, and taxation strengthened the
growing desire for independence.

Internal divisions were a major obstacle to Indian independence. These

divisions included the many language groups and princely states of the
subcontinent. Furthermore, the Indian elite had little in common with the
masses. Conflict among Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Jains also impeded
concerted political action. Nonetheless, a nationalist movement took root.
Three principal elements within the independence movement led to the
creation of India and Pakistan in 1947.

Image
British Officer Reclining. This photograph of a British officer reclining
while being fanned and served by two Indian attendants provides a glimpse
into the colonial lifestyle in British India. It also gives insight into race,
class, and labor divides.

What factors discouraged peer-to-peer interactions between Indians

and Britons?

ImageRead the Document

Amrita Lal Roy, English Rule in India, 1886 at myhistorylab.com

The first element consisted of those in the National Congress organization

who sought gradual reform and progress toward Indian self-governance, or
svarāj. This position did not preclude outright opposition to the British, but
it did mean trying to change the system from within. Among the
proponents of this approach were G. K. Gokhale (1866–1915), the
champion of moderate, deliberate, peaceful work toward self-
determination; the spiritual and political genius Mohandas K. Gandhi
(1869–1948); and his follower Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), who would
become the first prime minister of India. Gandhi directed the all-India drive
that finally forced the British out. An English-trained lawyer, Gandhi drew
on not only his own native Hindu (and Jain and Buddhist) heritage but also
on the ideas of Western liberal and Christian thinkers like Henry David
Thoreau (1817–1862) and Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). In the end, Gandhi
became a world figure as well as an Indian leader.

ImageWatch the Video

Gandhi in India at myhistorylab.com

The second element consisted of the militant Hindu nationalists, whose

leader, the extremist B. G. Tilak (1856–1920), stressed the use of Indian
languages and a revival of Hindu culture and learning. Tilak subscribed to
an anti-Muslim, Hindu communalist vision of Indian self-governance. The
Hindu extremists looked to a return to traditional Indian values and self-
sufficiency. Their ideas still influence Indian political life, as witnessed by
the resurgence of Hindu extremist groups and communal strife.

Muslims made up the third element, but there were many divergent Muslim
constituencies. Generally their leaders made common cause only because
they feared they would lose power in a Hindu-majority state. Muslims had
been slower than the Hindus to take up British ideas and education and thus
lagged behind the Hindu intelligentsia in numbers and influence. Because
of their prominence in the 1857 revolt, the British were at first less inclined
to foster Muslim advancement than that of Hindus. Nonetheless, Muslims
sought rapprochement with the British, rather than risk being submerged in
Hindu-led movements of opposition. Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898)
was a longtime supporter of modernist ideas and of cooperation with the
British, though he could also be sharply critical of British mistakes. His
opposition to Muslim participation in the National Congress foreshadowed
later Hindu–Muslim tensions and conflict.

QUICK REVIEW

India’s Independence Movement

Image Gradualist reformers worked within the system for

progress toward self-governance

Image Militant Hindu nationalists wanted to revive tradition

and exclude Muslims

Image Muslims had varying agendas, but all feared being

subsumed in Hindu culture

HINDU-MUSLIM FRICTION ON THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE

In the twentieth century the rift between Indian Muslims and Hindus grew
wider, despite periods of cooperation against the British. Muslim arguments
for coexistence with Hindus floundered while fears of loss of communal
identity and rights grew. In the end the great Indo-Muslim poet and
“spiritual father of Pakistan,” Muhammad Iqbal (1873–1938), and the
“founder of Pakistan,” Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1949), helped move
Muslims to separatism.

India and Pakistan achieved independence only with violence and

suffering. Much blood was spilled in the long battle with the British and in
the communal violence among Indians themselves—especially between
Hindus and Muslims during partition in 1947, and the still festering dispute
over Kashmir. Still, the victory of 1947 gave all peoples of the subcontinent
a sense of agency and of political participation on their own terms. The
British legacy was not all bad, as it also consisted of administrative and
political unity and egalitarian and democratic ideals that Indian nationalists
turned to their own uses.

CHRONOLOGY

INDIA

Image

ImageRead the Document

Gandhi Speaks against the Partition of India (pre-1947) at

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A Closer Look
Gandhi and His Spinning Wheel
Gandhi premised his civil disobedience and resistance movement
against the British colonial hegemony over India on a return to basics
of Indian life: attaining swadeshi, self-sufficiency (e.g., rejecting
machine-made European clothing for home-industry spinning of
simple khadi cloth), moral independence and superiority (nonviolent
civil disobedience in the face of British armed control), and swaraj, self-
governance or home rule (replacing the British Raj). The spinning
wheel (Hindi charkha, etymologically related to Sanskrit chakra)
became the tangible symbol of these fundamentals in Gandhi’s message
and his practice, and was later taken onto the national flag of India in
identity with the wheel, or chakra, from early Buddhist teaching, as
noted in Chapter 4.

Image

Questions

1. Why do you think the emphasis, by the educated Gandhi and

other members of the independence-movement elite, on the
importance of simple work, such as spinning for one’s own
clothing, had such resonance for millions of Indians under British
rule in the Subcontinent?

2. What elements might have made the identification of the

charkha with the Ashokan and Buddhist chakra so compelling as
a conjoined symbol for India as a nation?

3. How might spinning one’s own cloth relate to nonviolence

(ahimsa) as well as to economic resistance to the British?

Image To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to

www.myhistorylab.com
THE ISLAMIC EXPERIENCE

DECLINING ISLAMIC POWER AND INDEPENDENCE

ImageWHY IS the invasion of Egypt by Napoleon’s army in 1798

symbolically important?

The eighteenth century saw the great Muslim empires weaken as the West
became ascendant in international trade, military-political power,
imperialist expansion, industrial productivity, and technological progress.
Diverse Islamic peoples and states plunged from positions of global power
into a struggle for survival. As with India, the decline of Islamic
preeminence was due both to the rise of the modern West and to internal
problems.

By the nineteenth century all of the largest Muslim empires—Mughal,

Ottoman, Safavid/Qajar, Moroccan, and Central Asian—had declined
politically, militarily, and economically in relation to western European
empires (see Map 26–1). They had grown decentralized and destabilized,
and they were increasingly dominated by entrenched hereditary elites.
Furthermore, new sea routes meant that it was no longer necessary to cross
through the Middle East to get from Europe to Asia and back. Middle
Eastern and Mediterranean economies became peripheral to the world
economy. The Middle East, especially, became enmeshed in the European
imperial competition for industrial resources, and most of the area came
under Western political and economic domination.

Image
MAP 26–1. West Asia, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean, ca. 1850.
Compare this map with Map 20–2 on p. 513. Though the Ottoman Empire
still technically ruled a large area, in actuality it had lost much control over
regions on the periphery.

Why did the Ottoman Empire lose control of so much territory?

Western powers—including Britain, Russia, Germany, and France—

extracted capitulations favorable to their own interests from Islamic
governments. These capitulations took the form of treaty clauses granting
commercial concessions, special protection, and “extraterritorial” legal
status to European merchant enclaves. Such concessions had originally
been reciprocal and had also served the commercial purposes of Muslim
rulers and some merchants. However, they eventually provided Western
powers with pretexts for direct intervention in Ottoman, Iranian, Indian,
and African affairs. The Ottoman Empire suffered from internal disunity;
its provincial rulers, or pashas, were virtually independent. This disunity,
combined with the economic problems facing all the agrarian societies of
Asia and Africa, made it easy for the Western powers to take control.
Repeated Ottoman defeats made that once great imperial power “the sick
man of Europe” after 1800; similar weaknesses allowed Westerners to
control Indian and Iranian states.

The beginning of European domination of the Islamic heartlands was

marked symbolically by Napoleon Bonaparte’s (1769–1821) invasion of
Egypt in 1798 (see Chapter 22). The invasion highlighted Muslim military
weakness and heralded a new era of European imperialism in the Middle
East. The French continued to contest British ascendancy in the Middle
Eastern area, but Russia presented the most serious nineteenth-century
challenge to Britain’s colonial empire. Russia, having won control of the
Black Sea from the Ottomans, sought to gain territory and influence in Iran,
the Caucasus, and Central Asian regions. Afghanistan, an independent
kingdom established by Ahmad Shah Durrani (r. 1737–1773), prevented
Russia from penetrating into British India. In the Iranian and Ottoman
regions, however, Russia and Britain struggled for supremacy. The Crimean
War of 1854 to 1856 (see Chapter 23) was one result.

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Religious Minorities in the Middle East (late 19th–early 20th century) at

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THE CASE OF IRAN

Beyond the overt political and commercial impact of the West, Western
political ideology, culture, and technology contributed to change in Islamic
societies. Outside of India, this effect was felt most strongly in Egypt,
Lebanon, North Africa, and Anatolia (modern Turkey). The Islamic states
least and last affected by Western “modernity” were Iran, Afghanistan, and
the Central Asian khanates. The Iranian case deserves brief attention.

The rulers of Iran from 1794 to 1925 were the absolutist Qajar shahs. This
period saw the emergence of a traditionalist doctrine that encouraged all
Shi’ites to choose a mujtahid—a qualified scholarly guide—from among
the ulama and follow his religious and legal interpretations. As a result, the
ulama were often the chief critics of the government (especially
governmental attempts to admit Western influences) and exponents of the
people’s grievances.

mujtahid

A Shi’ite religious-legal scholar.

A prime demonstration of ulama power occurred when the Qajar shah

granted a fifty-year monopoly on tobacco sales to a British corporation in
1890. In 1891 the leading authority in the ulama spearheaded a tobacco
boycott in protest. This popular action was also supported by modernist-
nationalist opponents of the Qajar regime who had strong connections to
Iran’s commercial, or bazaari, middle classes. The shah had to rescind the
concession in a symbolic triumph over Western commercial interests. Yet
ironically this action made Iran more dependent on Western capital. The
Iranian government was forced to compensate the British corporation,
necessitating a foreign loan from a British bank and making Iran more
reliant on Western institutions thereafter.

bazaari

The Iranian commercial middle class.

QUICK REVIEW

The Qajar Shahs

Image Rulers of Iran from 1794 to 1925

Image Under Qajar rule, the ulama of the Shi’ite community

was less strongly connected to the state

Image The ulama were often chief critics of Qajar rule

Younger Iranian intellectuals began to warm to Western liberalism,

especially in the latter half of the century. As in other Islamic countries, the
seeds of a new, secular nationalism were sown, coinciding with a growing
desire for a voice in government. An uneasy alliance of Iranian radical
nationalists, liberal bazaaris, and conservative ulama proved a sometimes
effective counterforce to Qajar absolutism, as in the tobacco boycott and in
the early stages of the effort to force the Qajars to accept a constitution in
1906 to 1911. Yet such alliances did not last.

ISLAMIC RESPONSES TO FOREIGN

ENCROACHMENT
 ImageWHAT WERE three typical Islamic reactions to Western
encroachment?

Each Islamic people or state had a different experience with Western

impingement. The shared objective of Muslim reformers, politicians, and
intellectuals was to ascertain the basis of European ascendancy. Could
European secular learning and technological superiority be transferred to
the Middle East or other regions? Could the once dominant Islamic word
regain vitality by importing European values, education, and technology?
Could Islamic values be adapted or reformed to foster the kind of societal
progress Europe seemed to have managed, without succumbing entirely to
secularization?

There were at least three typical styles of reaction to the West: (1) a
traditionalist rejection of things Western; (2) an attempt to join Western
innovations with traditional Islamic institutions; and (3) a tendency to
emulate Western ideas and institutions. Of course, none of these styles was
uniform within a country or across political, ethnic, and cultural
boundaries.

ImageRead the Document

Ottoman at myhistorylab.com

PURIFICATION AND REVIVAL OF ISLAM

One kind of Muslim reaction to Western dominance has emphasized

Islamic values and ideals to the exclusion of “outside” forces. This
approach has involved either the kind of purist or reformist revivalism seen
in Wahhabism or the kind of conservatism often associated with Sunni or
Shi’ite “establishment” ulama, as in Iran since 1979. Both conservative and
revivalist Muslim thinkers share the conviction that answers to the
questions facing Muslims in the modern world are to be found within the
Islamic tradition.

In the eighteenth century in rural areas, where neither urban Muslim ideas
nor European power had penetrated significantly, reformers emphasized a
strict construction of what “true” Islam entails. For example, Wahhabis,
the followers of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792) in Arabia, sought to
combat excesses of piety and conformity, favoring instead the exercise of
independent judgment. The only authorities were to be the Qur’an and the
traditions of the Prophet. Allied with a local Arab prince, Sa’ud, the
Wahhabi movement swept much of the Arabian Peninsula. It was crushed
in the early nineteenth century by the Ottoman regime but was resuscitated
at the onset of the twentieth century and is the guiding ideology of present-
day Saudi Arabia.

Wahhabis

Followers of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792), who sought to combat the

excesses of popular and sufi piety in Islam and looked to the Qur’an and
the traditions of the Prophet as the sole authoritative guidance in religion.

Image

Linking Asia and Europe. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 was a
major engineering achievement. It also became a major international
waterway, reducing the distance from London to Bombay by half.

What roles did trade and technology play in Western dominance over
Islamic lands?

Other Muslim reform movements reflected similar revivalist, even

militantly pietist responses to Islamic decadence and decline. Examples
include those of Usman Dan Fodio in Africa in the late eighteenth century
and the Muslim Brotherhood in modern Egypt (see Chapter 33). Such
groups called for a pristine Islam divested of the authoritarianism of the
medieval legal schools, ulama theological conformity, and degenerate sufi
orders. These movements inspired an uncritical nostalgia for a time when
Islamic societies were ascendant, even dominant. This vision still rallies
movements from Africa to Indonesia and has provided a response to the
challenge of Western-style “modernity.”

Traditionalist conservatism is much harder to pin down as the ethos of

particular movement. Whereas reformist revivalism (today commonly
called Islamism) usually focuses on the Qur’an and the Prophetic example
as the sole authorities for Islamic life, Muslim conservatism commonly
champions those forms of Islamic life and thought embodied in traditional
law, theology, and even Sufism. It is seen in the legalistic tendencies that
have often resurfaced when Islamic norms have been threatened by the
breakdown of traditional society and the rise of secularism. Although such
conservatism has been associated with the most reactionary forces in
Islamic society, it has also served to preserve basic Muslim values while
allowing for gradual change in a way that reformist revivalism could not
accept. Where conservatives have formed alliances with governments or
simply been co-opted by them, the credibility of the establishment ulama
has often been destroyed. This is because the masses of Muslims have been
increasingly attracted to Islamist agendas for rapid change.

Image

Frontispiece from the Arab Literary-Scientific Journal al-Muqtataf,

founded by Yaqub Sarruf in the 1860s. A group of such periodicals
provided a public arena for political debate despite Ottoman, Egyptian, and
British censors. They were a way for the burgeoning educated middle class
of the Arab world (especially in Egypt) to develop national identities and
debate social, economic, and political issues and policies. The crossed pen
and hammer suggest a call to action, while the floral border is reminiscent
of traditional Islamic manuscripts.

What other institutions or movements helped create national identities

in the Middle East?
INTEGRATION OF WESTERN AND ISLAMIC IDEAS

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in major urban areas,

influential reformers proposed adaptionist reform that sought to reengineer
the armies, institutions, and societies of the Middle East to conform to the
political reality of European domination. The attempt to join modernization
with traditional Islamic institutions and ideas is exemplified in the thought
of famous Muslim intellectuals such as Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1839–
1897), Muhammad Abduh (1845–1905), and Muhammad Iqbal (1873–
1938). These thinkers argued for a progressive Islam rather than a
materialist Western secularism as the best answer to life in the modern
world. Other intellectuals sought to redefine what it meant to be Muslim in
a modern age by emphasizing the malleability of the religion.

Al-Afghani is best known for his emphasis on the unity of the Islamic
world, or pan-Islamism, and on a populist, constitutionalist approach to
political order. His ideas and his charismatic personality influenced
political activist movements in Egypt, Iran, Ottoman Turkey, and
elsewhere. His Egyptian disciple, Muhammad Abduh, sought to modernize
Muslim education. He argued that a Qur’anic base could be combined
harmoniously with modern science and its open questioning of reality. His
modernist reforms affected even the curriculum of the most venerable
traditionalist institution of higher learning in the Islamic world, the great al-
Azhar in Cairo.

pan-Islamism

The movement that advocates that the entire Muslim world should form a
unified political and cultural entity.

Poet and essayist Muhammad Iqbal, the most celebrated Indian Muslim
thinker of the twentieth century, argued for a modernist revival of the
Muslim faith focused on purifying and uplifting the individual self above
enslavement either to reason or to traditionalist conformity. Often credited
with the original idea of a separate Muslim state in the Indian subcontinent
(today’s Pakistan), Iqbal still felt that Islam was essentially nonexclusivist
and supranationalist.

EMULATION OF THE WEST

The career of Ottoman viceroy Muhammad Ali (ca. 1769–1849), the

virtually independent pasha of Egypt from 1805 to 1849, exemplifies a
strategy of emulation. Ali set out to rejuvenate Egypt’s failing agriculture,
introduce modern mechanized industry, modernize the army, and introduce
European education. He set his country on the path to becoming a nation-
state. A later Egyptian statesman and patriot, Sa’d Zaghlul Pasha (1857–
1927), led a Wafd or delegation to Paris in 1919 to protest the 1914 British
protectorate imposed on Egypt. Zaghlul Pasha and his companions did not
defeat the British occupation, but the Wafd Party survived well beyond the
last occupying British troop.

protectorate

Form of rule in which a local ruler keeps his title but cedes real power,
especially over foreign affairs, defense, and finances, to colonial advisers or
officials. The arrangement is purported to be temporary.

Image

Muhammad Ali (1769–1849), the famous viceroy of Egypt.

What were some of Muhammad Ali’s attempted reforms?

Efforts to appropriate Western experience and success were made by

several Ottoman sultans and viziers after the defeat of the Turks by Russia
in 1774. Most notable were the reforms of Selim III (r. 1762–1808),
Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839), and the so-called Tanzimat, or beneficial
“legislation” era, from about 1839 to 1880. Selim attempted economic,
administrative, and military reform, whereas Mahmud dismantled the
Janissary corps and encouraged Western military and educational methods
among the Ottoman elites. Like Selim and Muhammad Ali, Mahmud was
less interested in promoting European Enlightenment ideas about citizen
rights and equity than in building a stronger, more modern centralized
government, which often resulted in the consolidation of political power
among a select few. The Tanzimat reforms were intended to bring the
Ottoman state in line with ideals espoused by the European states, to give
European powers less cause to intervene in Ottoman affairs, and to
regenerate confidence in the state. Although they failed to save the empire,
they paved the way for the rise of Turkish nationalism, the “Young Turk”
revolution of 1908, and the nationalist revolution of the 1920s that
produced modern Turkey. (This development simultaneously frustrated
similar nationalist aspirations among old Ottoman minorities including
Greeks, Armenians, and Kurds.)

Tanzimat

Reform movement that started in 1839 in an attempt to bring the Ottoman

Empire into the modern era and to help integrate non-Muslims and non-
Ottomans into the Empire.

ImageWatch the Video

The Ottoman Tanzimat Period (1839–1876): The Middle East Confronts

Modernity at myhistorylab.com

The creation of the Turkish republic out of the ashes of the Ottoman state
after World War I is probably the most extreme example of an effort to
modernize and nationalize an Islamic state on a Western model. (It could
alternatively be the most successful case of integration.) This state was
largely the child of Mustafa Kemal (1881–1938), known as “Atatürk”
(“father of the Turks”), its founder and first president (1922–1938).
Atatürk’s major reforms ranged from the introduction of a European-style
code of civil law to the abolition of the caliphate, sufi orders, Arabic script,
and the Arabic call to prayer. These changes constituted a radical attempt to
secularize an Islamic state and to separate religious from political and
social institutions. Nothing quite like it has ever been repeated. Despite
some adjustments and even reversals of Atatürk’s measures, Turkey has
maintained its independence, reaffirmed its commitment to democratic
government, and emerged with a unique but still distinctly Islamic identity.

Image

Tanzimat. A sitting of the new (1909) Turkish Parliament following the

abolition of the 1876 Constitution in 1878 by the Sultan Abdul Hamid II.
Sessions were held in a lavish chamber with the delegates from the
Balkans, Anatolia, and Fertile Crescent (Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, and
Palestine) seated facing a high podium at the front of the chamber.

Why type of reform did the Tanzimat exemplify?

ImageRead the Document

The Young Turk Revolution, 1908 at myhistorylab.com

WOMEN AND REFORM IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Some Middle Eastern women raised the issue of women’s roles in modern
society. Most notably, women demanded political rights: Iranian women,
who confronted the Iranian Parliament to oppose capitulation to Russian-
British demands in December 1911; Egyptian women, who threw off their
veils and declared themselves the new Egyptian women after having
accompanied their husbands to Paris where the men had been humiliated by
the Versailles powers in 1919; Palestinian women, who convened a
Women’s Congress of Palestine to address the political issues that followed
the Wailing Wall riots in 1929. It is also noteworthy that a number of
journals and magazines devoted to women’s concerns emerged in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most of them focused on
traditional women’s topics such as cooking, parenting, and fashion, but
some stressed that women were an essential part of society and should not
be excluded from commerce and politics. The Egyptian Feminist Union
was founded in 1923 by Huda Sha’rawi (1879–1947) to fight for women’s
suffrage, reform of marriage laws, and equal access to education. In a well-
publicized gesture, Sha’rawi and her colleague Saize Nabrawi removed
their veils in the midst of the crowd at Cairo’s train station. For them the
veil symbolized the inadequate public status of women in Middle Eastern
countries. Many Middle Eastern feminists today, however, stress that
women’s inequality is rooted in wide-ranging cultural, political, and
economic structures that are more important than the veil issue.

CHRONOLOGY

ISLAMIC HEARTLANDS, 1700–1938

Image

NATIONALISM

Nationalism is a product of modern European history (see Chapter 23).

Although not merely a response to Western encroachment, nationalist
movements in the Islamic world have been either stimulated by Western
models or produced in reaction to Western imperialist exploitation and
colonial occupation. During the late nineteenth century, many intellectuals
in Asia and Africa grappled with questions of identity, debating whether
their ethnic or linguistic group constituted a distinct nation or whether they
were part of a larger whole. The answer was not always self-evident, given
the mosaics of ethnicities, religions, and language groups across Africa and
Asia. Yet the division of the colonial world by European administrators
demanded an answer. In the European capitals new “nations” were created
that reflected the interests of imperialism rather than actual facts on the
ground. In due time, these borders have taken on an aura of legitimacy.
However, forging nations within artificial parameters has proven to be a
difficult process. As in India, nationalism has been an important aspect of
the response to Western domination in the Islamic heartlands. In Turkey in
the 1920s it took a secularist form; in Libya, Iran, and elsewhere since the
1970s it has taken an Islamic-revivalist form. As an Afro-Asian
phenomenon, it is discussed in the next section and in Chapter 33.

THE AFRICAN EXPERIENCE

ImageWHAT WAS the mfecane?

The period between 1800 and 1945 saw striking change throughout Africa,
especially in sub-Saharan Africa. North Africa and Egypt were more
closely implicated in the politics of the Ottoman Empire and Europe
throughout this period. Except for South Africa below the Transvaal,
tropical and southern Africa did not come under colonial control until after
1880. Before then, internal developments—first, demographic and power
shifts, and then the rise of Islamic reform movements—overshadowed the
increasing European presence in the continent.

NEW POWER CENTERS AND ISLAMIC REFORM

MOVEMENTS

SOUTHERN AFRICA

In Africa south of the Limpopo River, the first quarter of the nineteenth
century saw devastating internal warfare, depopulation, and forced
migrations of many Bantu peoples in what is known as the mfecane, or
“crushing” era. Likely brought on by exploding population and fueled by
increasing economic competition, the mfecane was marked by the rapid rise
of sizable military states among the northern Nguni-speaking Bantu. Its
result was warfare and chaos; widespread depopulation by death and
emigration; and the creation of new, multiethnic states in the territory of
modern Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, and Tanzania.

mfecane

A period of widespread warfare and chaos among Bantu peoples in east-

central Africa during the early nineteenth century.

Image

Moshoeshwe, king and founder of Lesotho. Not all of the Bantu peoples
followed the militaristic example of Shaka. Moshoeshwe, a Sotho prince,
fought off Zulu attacks and led his people to a mountain stronghold in
southern Africa, where through diplomacy and determination he founded a
small nation that has endured to the present. The kingdom became the
British protectorate of Basutoland in 1868. In 1966 it achieved
independence as the kingdom of Lesotho under Moshoeshwe’s great-
grandson, King Moshoeshwe II.

Why were most African states formed during this period short-lived?

CHRONOLOGY

SOUTHERN AFRICA

Image
The Nguni warrior-king Dingiswayo formed the first of the new military
states between about 1800 and 1818. The most important state was formed
by his successor, Shaka, leader of the Nguni-speaking Zulu nation and
kingdom (ca. 1818–1828). Shaka’s brutal military tactics led to Zulu
conquest of a vast dominion in southeastern Africa and the virtual
depopulation of some 15,000 square miles. Refugees from Shaka’s “total
war” zone fled north into Sotho-speaking Bantu territory, or south where
they put pressure on the southern Nguni peoples.

The net result, beyond widespread suffering and death, was the creation of
diverse new states. Some groups tried to imitate the unique military state of
Shaka; others fled to mountainous areas and built new defensive states; still
others went west into the Kalahari. The most famous new state was
Lesotho, the Sotho kingdom of King Moshoeshwe, which survived as long
as he lived (from the 1820s until 1870). Moshoeshwe defended his people
from the Zulu and held off Afrikaners, missionaries, and the British until
his death.

The new state-building spawned by the mfecane was nullified by Boer

expansion and British annexation of Natal province (1843). These
developments stemmed from the Great Trek of Boer voortrekers between
1835 and 1841. This migration brought about 6,000 Afrikaners from the
Cape Colony northeastward into more fertile regions. It resulted in the
creation after 1850 of the Afrikaner republics of the Orange Free State
between the Orange and Vaal rivers, and the South African Republic north
of the Vaal.

Great Trek

The migration between 1835 and 1841 of Boer pioneers (called

voortrekkers) north from British-ruled Cape Colony to establish their own
independent republics.

EAST AND CENTRAL AFRICA

In East and east-central Africa, increasing external trade led to the
formation of several strong regional states. In the Lakes region, peoples
such as the Nyamwezi to the east of Lake Tanganyika and the Baganda
west of Lake Victoria gained regional power starting in the late 1700s
through trade with the Arab-Swahili eastern coast and the eastern Congo
states to the west. The chief traffic in this east–west commerce involved
slaves, ivory, copper, and, from the outside, Indian cloth, firearms, and
other manufactured goods.

Image

Elephant Tusks, Congo. Ivory was a prized possession used for decorative
purposes and jewelry.

How did the ivory and slave trades interact with European
colonization in Africa?

WEST AFRICA

In West Africa the slave trade was only slowly curtailed. European demand
for other products—notably palm oil and gum arabic—gained importance
by the 1820s. In the first half of the century jihad movements of the Fulbe
(or Fulani) and others shattered the stability of the western savannah and
forest-lands from modern Senegal and Ghana through southern Nigeria.
Protracted wars and dislocation gave rise to regional kingdoms, such as
those of Asante and Dahomey (modern Benin), which flourished before
succumbing to internal dissension and British and French colonial
ambitions.

ISLAMIC REFORM MOVEMENTS

The expansive vitality of Islam has been a significant agent of change

throughout Africa. In 1800 Islam was long-established from West Africa
across the Sudan to the Red Sea and along the East African coast, as well as
over all of Arabic-speaking North Africa. It had long been widespread in
the southern Sahara and northern Sahel and was common among merchant
classes in parts of West Africa. Islam was the law of the land in states such
as the sultanate of Zanzibar on the eastern coast and the waning Funj
sultanate in the eastern Sudan. Even so, the rural populace was often pagan,
and even the ruling and urban elites were frequently only nominally
Muslim.

A series of strong militant Islamic revivalist and reform movements of

jihad in the nineteenth century aimed at a wider allegiance to Muslim
values. The West African movements originated in the seventeenth century
with reformist sufi brotherhoods from the north. These movements
eventually spread to other regions and flourished, especially in the
eighteenth century.

The most important jihad movement came at the beginning of the

nineteenth century and was led by a Fulbe Muslim scholar from Hausa
territory in the central Sahel. Usman Dan Fodio (1754–1817) was
influenced by the reformist ideas that spread throughout the Muslim world
in the eighteenth century. Shortly after 1804 he gathered an immense army
of fervent supporters and conquered most of the Hausa lands of modern
Nigeria, bringing an explicitly Islamic order to the area. Dan Fodio left
behind an impressive sultanate centered on the new capital of Sokoto and
governed by one of his sons, Muhammad Bello, until 1837. The Fulbe
became the ruling class in the Hausa regions, and Islam spread into the
countryside, where it still predominates.

Other nineteenth-century reform movements gained political power and

spread a reformist Islamic message. Most notable outside West Africa were
the Sanusi movement of Libya and the eastern Sahara (after about 1840)
and the Mahdist uprising of the eastern Sudan (1880s and 1890s). The
Libyan movement provided the focus for resistance to the Italian invasion
of 1911. The Sudanese Muhammad Ahmad (1848–1885) condemned the
widespread corruption of Islamic ideals and declared himself the awaited
deliverer, or Mahdi, in 1881. He led the northern Sudan in rebellion against
Ottoman-Egyptian control, defeating the British forces under Gordon at
Khartoum. His successor governed the Sudan until the British finally
destroyed the young Islamic state in 1899 (see Map 26–2).
Mahdi

A redeemer who will appear on earth and establish a just society prior to
the final judgment. The Mahdi is central to Shi’ite belief, but controversial
in other branches of Islam.

PATTERNS IN EUROPEAN COLONIZATION AND

AFRICAN RESISTANCE

ImageHOW DID Africans resist European colonialism?

EUROPEAN EXPLORERS AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES

During the nineteenth century, Europe came to dominate Africa’s politics

and economy. Before the mid-1800s, Europeans had rarely ventured
beyond coastal areas, although the transatlantic slave trade had affected
inland areas. This changed drastically as, first, trading companies and
explorers, then missionaries and, finally, colonial troops and governments
moved into Africa. Ironically, the gradual elimination of the slave trade (see
Chapter 22) was accompanied by increased European exploration and
increased Western Christian missionary activity in Africa, which ushered in
imperial and colonial ventures that had devastating consequences.

Nineteenth-century European explorers—mostly English, French, and

German—gradually uncovered for Westerners the great “secrets” of Africa:
the sources of the Niger, Nile, Zambezi, and Congo rivers; natural wonders,
such as Mount Kilimanjaro and Lake Tanganyika; and fabled places like
Timbuktu. The history of European exploration is one of fortune hunting,
self-promotion, and violence as well as perseverance, bravery, and
dedication. Many of the explorers were accomplished authors and lecturers;
tales of their adventures stimulated European interest in Africa and opened
the way for traders, missionaries, and finally soldiers and governors from
the Christian West. One of the greatest explorers was Dr. David
Livingstone (1813–1873), a Scottish Presbyterian missionary, physician,
and abolitionist.

Image

MAP 26–2. Islamic Reform Movements in Africa and Arabia in the

Nineteenth Century.

How did reform movements influence African culture and history?

Image

Henry Morton Stanley and His Servant Kalula. Stanley was a journalist-
turned-explorer who generated a great deal of publicity for his efforts to
“find” abolitionist-turned-explorer David Livingstone. Livingstone (who
had not, in fact, been lost) was joined by Stanley near Lake Tanganyika in
1871. Stanley claimed to have greeted him with, “Dr. Livingstone, I
presume.”

What influence did explorers have on European colonization efforts in

Africa?

The latter nineteenth century saw a mounting influx of Christian

missionaries, both Protestant and Catholic—some 10,000 by 1900. Part of
their motivation for coming to Africa was to eradicate the remaining slave
trade. Their accounts of Africa contained chauvinistic and misleading
descriptions, but they also brought real knowledge of Africa to Europe.
Their translation work and mission schools brought alphabetic culture and
literacy to Africans. Although their settlements, often in remote areas,
provided European governments with convenient pretexts for intervention
in African affairs, the missionaries themselves frequently worked in
opposition to the colonial officers. Half of those who went into the tropical
regions succumbed to indigenous diseases, such as malaria, yellow fever,
and sleeping sickness. Through the ideals of their faith, they modeled—
intentionally or not—a weapon of principle for Africans to use against
European exploiters. African Christian churches, for example, later played
a leading role in the resistance to apartheid in South Africa, despite white
Christian collusion with racism in that country and elsewhere in Africa (see
Chapter 33). Thus missionaries’ roles in the European domination of Africa
cannot be monolithically characterized.

Image

A Missionary Visit to a Zulu Kraal. The nineteenth-century European

and American enthusiasm for working toward “the evangelization of the
world in our time” found one of its major outlets in missionary efforts in
Africa.

Were missionaries “agents of colonization”?

THE COLONIAL “SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA”

Before 1850 the only significant European-African armed conflicts over

African territory were in South Africa and Algeria. In South Africa, as
noted above, Boers came into conflict with Bantu tribes after leaving the
British Cape Colony on their Great Trek to find new lands. The French
invaded Algeria in 1830, settled Europeans on choice farmlands, and
battled indigenous resistance fighters. Over most of Africa, the European
presence was felt with real force only from the 1880s. By World War I
virtually the whole continent was divided into a patchwork of territories
under European colonial administrations (see Map 26–3).

European popular and commercial interest in Africa fueled this takeover.

The European desire for industrial markets and natural resources, together
with intra-European competition for power and prestige, pushed one
European state after another to claim whatever segments of Africa they
could (see Chapter 28). The West’s superior economic, technological, and
military power made the takeover possible. Technical expertise gave
Europeans access to the interior of the continent in the late nineteenth
century. Except for the Nile and the Niger, the great African rivers have
impassable waterfalls only a short way inland from the sea, where the
coastal plains rise sharply. European-built steamboats above the falls and
railroads around them permitted new levels of commercial and colonial
exploitation.

QUICK REVIEW

Key Factors in the “Scramble for Africa”

Image Popular and commercial interests in

Africa spurred by exploration

Image Intra-European competition for power and prestige

Image Technological and material superiority of Europe

Great Britain and France were the vanguard of the European nations that
sought to include African lands in their imperial domains. Beginning in the
mid-1880s the major European powers sought mutual agreement to their
claims on particular segments of Africa. Leopold II of Belgium (r. 1865–
1909) and Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) in Germany established their
own claims to parts of Africa. France and England set about consolidating
their African interests. Italy took African colonial territory in Eritrea,
Somaliland, and Libya, but Ethiopia used its newly modernized army to
defeat an Italian invasion in 1896. Italy finally conquered Ethiopia in 1935.
The scramble for Africa was largely over by the outbreak of World War I.
After the war Germany lost its African possessions. Europe’s colonies in
Africa did not gain independence until the worldwide balance of power and
attitudes toward colonial rule changed following World War II (see Chapter
33).
scramble for Africa

The late-nineteenth-century takeover of most of Africa by European

powers.

EUROPEAN COLONIAL RULE

European colonial rule in Africa is one of the uglier chapters of modern

history. German, French, Belgian, Portuguese, and Boer rule was
notoriously brutal, but Britain too had its share of misrule. The regions with
large-scale white settlements produced the worst exploitation. Colonies
with relatively high settler populations tended to be places where the
environment could support plantation-style, export-oriented agriculture and
where the diseases to which Europeans were most susceptible were less
prevalent. Settler colonies included Algeria, Kenya, Mozambique,
Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and South Africa. Among the worst legacies of the
European presence was the apartheid government of South Africa, which
did not end until 1994.

MAP EXPLORATION

To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

Image

MAP 26–3. Partition of Africa, 1880–1914. By 1914 the only countries in

Africa that remained independent were Liberia and Ethiopia. The
occupying powers included most large European states

Why did Britain and France control so much territory in Africa?

British taxpayers were reluctant to fund colonial ventures. Since British

colonial officials could afford to pay the salaries of only a tiny contingent
of British administrators, they put British men at the top of existing African
political structures and ruled through local leaders. Often, in the early days
of colonial rule, the British would make a show of removing a few high-
profile, independent-minded indigenous leaders. The remaining leaders and
their British supervisors would then engage in a delicate balancing act: The
chiefs and the colonists came to depend on each other for power and
legitimacy, but neither could command perfect loyalty from their subjects.
Frederick Lugard, who was appointed high commissioner of northern
Nigeria in 1900, formalized this British style of colonial administration and
named it, appropriately enough, indirect rule.

indirect rule

The British practice of administering African colonies through indigenous

political structures and leaders.

Other European powers generally ruled their colonies directly: They were
willing to bankroll the placement of greater numbers of Europeans in the
colonies themselves, and they hired local Africans to work under them
within European-style political structures. The French were the most
explicit about their intentions, claiming that their goal was for Africans to
“evolve”—through education, imitation, assimilation, and the course of
many generations—into French citizens. In practice, however, French
colonial officials were loath to share the prestige of citizenship.

AFRICAN RESISTANCE

African states were not simply passive objects of European manipulation

and conquest. Many astute native rulers sought, by diplomacy, trade, and
warfare, to use the European presence to their own advantage. The
Baganda king Mutesa in the 1870s, in what is today Uganda, is an example
of an African ruler who benefited, at least for a while, from European
interest in his territory. Direct armed resistance was inevitably doomed
because of European technological superiority. Nevertheless, such
resistance was widespread and continued into the twentieth century. In the
end, colonial rule was the product of ongoing conflict and negotiation
between European desires, backed up by technological superiority, and the
enduring power of African individuals and institutions.

Image

Mutesa of Buganda and His Court. Noted for his cunning and diplomatic
skill and for his autocratic and often cruel conduct, Mutesa was one of the
few African rulers able to maintain a powerful, successful army and court,
which enabled him to deal effectively with Egyptian and British efforts to
encroach on his sphere of influence.

Why did direct armed resistance by Africans to European

encroachment generally fail?

DOCUMENT
Oginga Odinga on European Influences

Oginga Odinga (ca. 1911–1994) was an early Kenyan nationalist leader.

Born into a leading family of the Luo tribe, he grew up in western Kenya,
near Lake Victoria. After Kenyan independence in 1963, he opposed many
of President Jomo Kenyatta’s policies. He published his biography, Not Yet
Uhuru, in 1967; “Uhuru” in Swahili means “freedom” or “independence.”
In the book, Odinga argues that Kenya’s post-colonial leaders worked at
creating a new African elite (themselves) rather than serving the masses of
Africans who worked for independence.

These are Odinga’s recollections of his first experiences with Europeans.

• WHAT made the strongest impression on Odinga? What

overall attitude does he evidence toward Europeans? What can
you infer here about Luo culture?
We connected Whites and Government with five main things. There were
the inoculations against the plague from which the children ran in fear.
There were the tax collections. There was the order to the villagers to work
on the roads. There were clothes, kanzu, the long robes copied from Arab
garb at the coast, given free to the chiefs and elders to wear to encourage
others in the tribe to clothe themselves in modern dress. There were the
schools, which came later, and to which, in the beginning, only orphans,
foster children, poor nieces and nephews and never the favourite sons were
sent, for the villagers distrusted the pressure on them to send their children
out of the home and away from herding the animals; and the more alert
objected to the way the Christian missions taught ‘This custom (yours) is
bad, and this (ours) is good’, for they could see that the children at the
missions would grow up to despise Luo ways.…

Oginga Odinga, Not Yet Uhuru: An Autobiography (Nairobi, Kenya:

Heinemann, 1967), pp. 2-3.

Africans resisted European domination throughout the continent. Often the

most efficient way for Africans to resist was to disengage, attempting to
avoid payment of colonial taxes or participation in forced labor schemes.
Riots, marches, and rebellions were more frequent and forceful than
colonial administrators wanted to admit, and accounts of such events were
sometimes suppressed during the colonial era. Resistance tended to be
more overt and sustained in settler colonies, where Africans and Europeans
were most likely to come into direct contact. In places where Europeans
had seized large swaths of fertile land—the highlands of Kenya, for
example—resistance could become violent and chronic, as in the Mau
Mau uprising that began as a protest against land alienation among
Kenya’s Kikuyu people. Through the course of the 1950s, tens of thousands
of Kenyans were killed, and the British imprisoned many more suspected
insurgents and sympathizers in detention camps, while the Mau Mau revolt
became a nationalist insurgency.1

Mau Mau
An uprising that began among the Kikuyu of the Kenya highlands and
lasted through the 1950s. The British referred to it as the “Kenya
Emergency.”

Mau Mau freedom fighters in a Kenyan hideout, around 1950.

Why is the history of Mau Mau still contested?

THE RISE OF AFRICAN NATIONALISM

ImageWHAT WERE the goals of African nationalists?

The key factor in European colonialism’s demise was the rise of

nationalism across Africa, especially after World War I. However little the
colonial partition of Africa reflected native linguistic, racial, or cultural
divisions, it still influenced both nationalist movements and the eventual
shape of African states. The “national” consciousness of the diverse
peoples of a given colonial unit was fueled by common opposition to
foreign rule. It was also fed by the use of a common European tongue and
through the assimilation of European thought and culture. The ranks of
indigenous, educated elites gradually increased in the early twentieth
century. From them came the leaders of Africa’s nationalist movements
between the two world wars and of Africa’s new independent nations after
World War II (see Chapter 33).

Mass political parties emerged in the postwar period. These include the
Convention People’s Party in the Gold Coast (Ghana) under Kwame
Nkrumah (1909–1972) and the African Democratic Assembly, which drew
members from a number of French West African colonies under the
leadership of Félix Houphouët-Boigny (1905–1993), who became the first
president of the Ivory Coast.

Champion of Negritude, Leopold Senghor.

An important countervailing trend was the emergence of movements

seeking to transcend both colonial boundaries and ethnic or “tribal”
divisions and foster an inclusive African identity. One example is
Negritude, a literary and intellectual movement to celebrate all aspects of
African civilization that was exemplified by the writings of Leopold
Senghor (1906–2001). Senghor later became the first president of Senegal.

Negritude

A movement begun among African students in 1930s Paris to celebrate

African culture and thought.

The most severe indigenous critiques of the Western treatment of Africa

often drew on Western religious and political ideals. Twentieth-century
African leaders learned well from the West and used their learning to help
end Western domination. African independence movements were based on
modern nationalist models from Europe and America rather than ancient
ones derived from native tradition. The national independence movements
typically ejected the colonial intruders, without trying to return to an earlier
status quo. Their aim was to take over and to run the Western institutions
introduced by colonialism. This legacy from the West is still visible today.

SUMMARY

ImageHOW DID British rule affect India?

British Dominance and Colonial Rule. The East India Company brought
increasing areas of India under British control throughout the early
nineteenth century. After the Indian Uprising of 1857, Crown rule was
instituted. India became part of Britain’s economy. Indian labor and
resources were exploited. Indian elites were influenced by British culture.
Indians of all classes resented their subordination. page 668

ImageWHAT ROLE did Gandhi play in ending British rule in India?

From British Crown Raj to Independence. Relations between Indians
and Britons were increasingly distrustful. Many strands of Indian
nationalism developed, and Gandhi’s thought was exceptionally influential.
Gandhi’s philosophies of passive resistance and self-reliance laid the
groundwork for the political movement that brought Indian independence.
page 671

ImageWHY IS the invasion of Egypt by Napoleon’s army in 1798

symbolically important?

Declining Islamic Power and Independence. Muslim empires were in

decline, as Western economic, political, military, and technological power
was increasing. European imperialism in the Middle East and Central Asia
was encapsulated in Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798. Iran under the
Qajar shahs (1794–1925) saw the rise of Shi’ite ulama power to oppose
Qajar absolutism. page 674

ImageWHAT WERE three typical Islamic reactions to Western

encroachment?

Islamic Responses to Foreign Encroachment. Reform movements

proposed various relationships between Islam and the West. Islamic
revivalism, integration of Islamic and Western ideas, emulation of the West,
and nationalism were among the cultural responses to Western domination
in Islamic regions. Women proposed new roles for themselves. page 676

ImageWHAT WAS the mfecane?

New Power Centers and Islamic Reform Movements. In southern

Africa, Bantu migrations caused the disruptions of mfecane—literally,
“crushing”—as states and individuals were squeezed by population growth
and warfare. This was followed by large-scale displacements of Africans as
Boers moved inland in the Great Trek. Elsewhere, trade was generally a
precursor to more direct European involvement. A series of Islamic revival
and reform movements spread across northern Africa and Arabia in the
nineteenth century. Usman Dan Fodio Islamicized Hausa lands, while the
Sanusi movement opposed Italians in Libya, and the Mahdist uprising
defeated the British at Khartoum. page 680

ImageHOW DID Africans resist European colonialism?

Patterns in European Colonization and African Resistance. Different

European powers had different strategies and mechanisms for
administering African territories, and areas with heavy white settlement
generally experienced more exploitation than those with a thinner European
presence. A few African rulers were able to use the presence of Europeans
to their own advantage, but in general Africans opposed and resisted
Europeans. page 682

ImageWHAT WHERE the goals of African nationalists?

The Rise of African Nationalism. Although colonial boundaries were

artificial, they gained cultural meaning as Africans within particular
colonies forged nationalist independence movements. There were also pan-
African movements, such as Negritude. page 688

KEY TERMS

bazaari

cantonments
 Great Trek

indirect rule

Mau Mau (MOW MOW)

Mahdi (MAH-dee)

mfecane (mm-fuh-KAHN-ay)

mujtahid

Negritude

pan-Islamism

protectorate

raj

scramble for Africa

Tanzimat (TAHNZ-ee-MAT)

Wahhabis (wah-HAH-bees)

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What does the “impact of modernity” mean to traditional Afro-

Asian-Indian cultures? What patterns of reaction can you
discern? Why was the West able to impose itself on these
cultures?

2. Why was India called the “jewel in the crown” of the British
Empire? How did the British gain control of India? What policies
did they follow in government and economics?
 3. What kinds of political activism against British rule can you
cite from Indian history after 1800? What kinds of success or
failure did they have?

4. How was the Islamic world internally divided after 1800? How
did those divisions influence the coming of European powers?

5. What roles did women play in critiquing Muslim culture

during this period?

6. How did nationalism affect European control in South Asia,

Africa, and the Middle East? How and when did its various
manifestations arise? Were there any successful “national states”
from these regions before 1945?

7. Discuss the new African states and power centers of sub-

Saharan Africa before 1870. Why did no modern nation-state
develop in the area? How did Islam affect the development of
new entities? What role did trade play?

8. What were Europeans’ main interests in Africa? Why were

Africans unable to stop the “scramble for Africa”?

9. What factors influenced Africans’ experience of colonial rule

in different regions?

10. What was the role of African nationalism in resisting foreign

control?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources related
to this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections
Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 26

Read the Document Dadabhai Naoroji, The Benefits of

British Rule in India, 1871, p. 669

The Indian Revolt (1857), p. 670

Lord William Bentinck, on the Suppression of Sati, 1829, p. 670

Karl Marx, “The British Rule in India,” 1853, p. 671

Amrita Lal Roy, English Rule in India, 1886, p. 671

Gandhi Speaks against the Partition of India (pre-1947), p. 672

Religious Minorities in the Middle East (late 19th-early 20th

century), p. 675

Ottoman, p. 676

The Young Turk Revolution, 1908, p. 679

View the Image Mahatma Gandhi, p. 669

Hear the Audio India’s Imperialism, p. 669

 Watch the Video Gandhi in India, p. 672

The Ottoman Tanzimat Period (1839–1876): The Middle East

Confronts Modernity, p. 678

Research and Explore

Watch the Video Imperialism and Colonialism: Empires in Africa

Watch the Video

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 26
at www.myhistorylab.com
RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD
ISLAM

Islam is one of the youngest major world religions. Since its inception
during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad (632 B.C.E.), it has grown,
like the Christian and Buddhist traditions, into a worldwide community not
limited by national boundaries or defined in racial or ethnic terms. It began
among the Arabs but spread widely. Islam’s historical heartlands are those
Arabic-, Turkic-, and Persian-speaking lands of the Near East between
Egypt and Afghanistan. However, today more than half of its faithful live in
Asia east of Karachi, Pakistan; and more Muslims live in sub-Saharan
Africa than in all of the Arab lands. There are also growing Muslim
minorities in the United States and Europe.

The central vision of Islam is a just and peaceful society where people can
freely worship God. It focuses on a human community of worshipers who
recognize the absolute sovereignty and oneness of God and strive to do
God’s will. Muslims believe that the Divine will is found first in God’s
revealed word, the Qur’an; then as elaborated and specified in the actions
and words of his final prophet, Muhammad; and finally as interpreted and
extended in the scriptural exegesis and legal traditions of the Muslim
community over the past thirteen and a half centuries.

The Muslim vision thus centers on one God who has guided humankind
throughout history by means of prophets or apostles and repeated
revelations. God is the Creator of all, and in the end all will return to God.
God’s majesty would seem to make him a distant, threatening deity of
absolute justice; there is such an element in the Muslim understanding of
the wide chasm between the human and the Divine. Still, there is an
immanent as well as a transcendent side to the Divine in the Muslim view.
Indeed, Muslims have given us some of the greatest images of God’s
closeness to his faithful worshiper, images that have a special place in the
thought of the Muslim mystics, who are known as sufis (taken originally
from suf, “wool,” because of the early Muslim ascetics’ use of simple wool
dress).
Muhammad and Ali. This sixteenth-century Persian miniature shows the
prophet Muhammad and his kinsman Ali purifying the Ka’ba in Mecca of
pagan idols. The Ka’ba is the geographical point toward which all Muslims
face when performing ritual prayer.

Art Resource/Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz.

What might be the purpose of miniature illustrations such as this?

Muslims understand God’s word in the Qur’an and the elaboration of that
word by tradition to be a complete prescription for human life. Thus
Islamic law is not law in the Western sense of civil, criminal, or
international systems. Rather, it is a comprehensive set of standards for the
moral, ritual, social, political, economic, aesthetic, and even hygienic and
dietary dimensions of life. By being faithful to God’s law, the Muslim
hopes to gain salvation on the Last Day, when human history shall end and
all of God’s creatures who have ever lived will be resurrected and called to
account for their thoughts and actions during their lives on earth. Some will
be saved, but others will be eternally damned.
Thus Islam, which means “submission [to God],” has been given as a name
to the religiously defined system of life that Muslims have sought to
institute wherever they have lived. Muslims have striven to organize their
societies and political realities around the ideals represented in the
traditional picture of the Prophet’s community in Medina and Mecca. This
approach necessitated compromise in which power was given to temporal
rulers and accepted by Muslim religious leaders as long as those rulers
protected God’s Law, the Shari’a. The ideal of a single international
Muslim community, or Umma, has never fully been realized politically, but
it remains an ideal.

Many reform movements over the centuries have called for greater
adherence to rigorist interpretations of Islamic law and greater dominance
of piety and religious values in sociopolitical as well as individual life. The
most famous of these movements—the Wahhabis in eighteenth-century
Arabia—remains influential in much of the Muslim world, including Saudi
Arabia. The Wahhabis’ puritanical zeal in fighting what they consider
“innovations” in many regional Islamic contexts, such as Shi’ism, sufi
traditions, and more liberal forms of Islamic practice, continues to the
present day. Wahhabism has had considerable success in the past half
century and was apparently the spawning ground of the extremist views of
Osama bin Laden’s al-Qa’ida terrorist movement, which is largely Arab in
its ethnic makeup and which has turned from fighting Muslim states it
regards as un-Islamic to opposing what it considers the U.S. intrusion into
the Arab Islamic world and its unpopular foreign policy in the region.
While mainstream Muslims everywhere reject bin Laden’s extremism,
Wahhabi zealotry has adherents on the fringes of Islamic communities
around the world. In this respect, Islam is not unlike Christianity, Judaism,
Hinduism, or other major religions, each of which has over its history
spawned literalists, zealots, and extremists, who have urged violence in the
name of their version of their parent faith.
The Qur’an’s First Chapter. This nineteenth-century hand-copied Qur’an
in Arabic is open to the Fatiha, the opening chapter of Islam’s holy book.
In seven very short verses, the Fatiha sums up man’s relation to God in
prayer. Muslims repeat the invocation of verse one, “In the name of God,
the Merciful Compassionate One,” before eating, drinking, or performing
any other significant act.

Koran. Hand-copied in Arabic by Kohazadeh Ahmad Rashid Safi.

Decorated by Adham Gharbaldesh at Balawi, probably Persian, nineteenth
century. African and Middle Eastern Division, Library of Congress.

How is God portrayed in these opening lines of the Qur’an?

The major sectarian, or minority, groups among Muslims are those of the
Shi’ites, who have held out for an ideal of a temporal ruler who is also the
spiritual heir of Muhammad and God’s designated deputy on earth. Most
Shi’ites, notably those of Iran, hold that after eleven designated blood
descendants of the prophets had each failed to be recognized by the
majority of Muslims as the rightful leader, or Imam, the twelfth disappeared
and remains to this day physically absent from the world, although not
dead. He will come again at the end of time to vindicate his faithful
followers.
Muslim School Children in Malaysia, 1997. Although most non-Muslims
associate Islam with the Middle East, Islam has deep roots in Southeast
Asia. About 212 million Muslims live in Indonesia, making it the most
populous Muslim country in the world.

Does this photograph conflict with any commonly held perceptions

about Islam and the veil?

Muslim piety takes many forms. The common duties of Muslims are
central for Muslims everywhere: showing faith in God and trust in his
Prophet; regularly performing ritual worship (Salat); fasting during
daylight hours every day in Ramadan (the ninth month of the lunar year);
giving one’s wealth to the needy (zakat); and at least once in a lifetime, if
able, making the pilgrimage to Mecca and its environs (Hajj). Other
regional or popular practices are also important. Celebration of the
Prophet’s birthday indicates the exalted popular status of Muhammad, even
though any divine status for him is strongly rejected theologically.
Recitation of the Qur’an permeates all Muslim practice, from daily worship
to celebrations of all kinds. Visitation of saints’ tombs is a prominent form
of popular devotion. Sufi chanting or even ecstatic dancing are also
practiced by Muslims around the world.

Muslims vary enormously in their physical environment, language, ethnic

background, and cultural allegiances. What binds them now as in the past
are not political allegiances but religious affinities and a shared heritage of
religious faith and culture. How these allegiances and sensibilities will fare
in the face of global challenges will be an important factor in shaping the
world of the twenty-first century.

How has the ideal of a single, international Muslim community

influenced Islamic history? World history?

What impact have reform movements had on Islam since its

inception? What impact do they have today?
27
Modern East Asia

Hear the Audio for Chapter 27 at www.myhistorylab.com

 Woodblock, Munakata Shikō, 1945. In modern Japan, woodblock
prints are divided between modernists who, initially at least, took their
inspiration from the West, and those who went through a “Western
phase” and then built on the native folk art tradition. Among the latter,
the greatest was Munakata Shikō (1903–1975). Munakata was born in
Aomori Prefecture, a sparsely populated area in northernmost Honshu
known for its long bitter winters, rocky soil, and strong folk religion
tradition. At age 24 Munakata went to Tokyo, where for two years he
experimented with oils, but then he switched to print-making. In 1937,
at age 34, he took up the Buddhist subjects for which he is best known.
His most famous prints are sensuous Buddhist deities and Bodhisattvas
such as the one depicted here.

What is “modern” about this woodblock print? What elements

make it traditional?

MODERN JAPAN (1853–1945)

OVERTHROW OF THE TOKUGAWA BAKUFU (1853–1868)

WHAT ROLE did Chōshū and Satsu-ma play in the overthrow of

Tokugawa rule?

BUILDING THE MEIJI STATE (1868–1890)

WHAT POWERS did the Meiji Constitution give to the emperor?

GROWTH OF A MODERN ECONOMY

WHY DID Japan set out to build a modern economy?

THE POLITICS OF IMPERIAL JAPAN (1890–1945)

HOW DID political parties develop in Japan?

JAPANESE MILITARISM AND GERMAN NAZISM

HOW WAS Japan similar to and different from Germany during this
period?

MODERN CHINA (1839–1949)

CLOSE OF MANCHU RULE

WHAT WERE the most serious threats to Manchu rule in the nineteenth
century?

FROM DYNASTY TO WARLORDISM (1895–1926)

WHO WERE the key figures in the revolution of 1911?

CULTURAL AND IDEOLOGICAL FERMENT: THE MAY FOURTH

MOVEMENT

WHY WAS Marxism-Leninism so appealing to Chinese intellectuals?

NATIONALIST CHINA

WHO WAS Jiang Jieshi?

From the mid-nineteenth century, the West was expanding, aggressive, and
imperialistic. Its industrial goods and gunboats reached every part of the
globe. It believed in free trade and had the military might to impose it on
others. It was a trigger for change throughout the world. But the response
to the Western impact depended on the internal array of forces in each
country. In fact, the “response to the West” was only one small, though
vital, part of the history of each country in this period. Japan and China
were both relatively successful in their responses, for neither became a
colony.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
 MODERN EAST ASIA

From the late nineteenth century most countries wanted to become modern.
They coveted the wealth and power of the West. But what does it mean to
be modern?

Three stages may be noted in Japan’s development as the world’s first

and most advanced non-Western modernizer: preconditions, Westernization,
and assimilation.
Even before contact with the modern West, Japan had some of the
preconditions needed for industrialization: a fairly literate people, an ethic
of duty and hard work, a market economy, secular thought, some
bureaucracy, and a protonationalism. In sum, there was an adequate base for
an “external modernization.”
Building on these preconditions, Japan Westernized after 1868, adopting
a range of new institutions: post offices, banks, customhouses, hospitals,
police forces, joint stock companies, universities with faculties of science
and engineering, and so on. Japanese thinkers brought in modern ideas and
values: Spencer and Guizot, Turgenev and Tolstoy, Adam Smith and Marx.
Japanese writers began experimenting with new forms.
Little by little Japan assimilated what it had borrowed. The zaibatsu
combines were modern, with the most recent technologies, yet their
business organizations were unlike those of the West. The spare beauty of
traditional architecture was transferred to the glass, steel, concrete, and
stone of the modern. A new literature, completely Japanese yet also
completely modern, appeared.
Japan may serve as a useful model in that its modernization—as analyzed
in terms of the above three stages—has gone further than that in any other
non-Western country. We note the absence in India or the Islamic world of
comparable preconditions. After the end of colonialism, countries in these
areas had to create the necessary preconditions even as they borrowed the
new technologies. The difficulty explains their limited success. In Africa
the dearth of preconditions was even more pronounced.
China, like Japan but unlike countries of South Asia, the Middle East, or
Africa, had many of the necessary preconditions—they might be called East
Asian preconditions—in place. But when it came to Westernization, the
government by Confucian literati that had long been China’s outstanding
asset became its greatest liability. It took decades to topple the dynasty and
to advance beyond Confucian ideas.
Then, in the maelstrom of the May Fourth Movement, intellectual change
occurred at a furious pace, but new doctrines alone could not provide a
stable polity. Nationalism emerged as the common denominator of Chinese
thought. The Nationalists (Guomindang) drew on it at the Huangpu
Academy, during the march north, and in the Nanjing government. But
other groups could also appeal to it. The Chinese communists won out by
1949.
It is beguiling to view the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres as a
new class of literati operating the machinery of a monolithic, centralized
state, with the teachings of Marx and Lenin replacing those of Confucius,
and local party organization replacing the Confucian gentry. But this
interpretation is too simple. Communism stressed science, materialism, and
class conflict. It broke with the Chinese past.
Communism itself was also modified in China. Marx had predicted that
socialist revolutions would break out in advanced economies where the
contradictions of capitalism were sharpest. Lenin had shifted the emphasis
from spontaneous revolutions by workers to the small but disciplined
revolutionary party, the vanguard of the proletariat. He thereby changed
communism into what it has been ever since: a movement capable of
seizing power only in backward nations. At the level of doctrine, Mao
Zedong modified Lenin’s ideas only slightly—by theorizing that
“progressive” peasants were a part of the proletariat. But he went beyond
this theory in practice, virtually ignoring city workers while relying on
China’s villages for recruits for his armies, who were then indoctrinated
using Leninist techniques.
Yet, the organizational techniques that were so effective in creating a
party and army would prove less so for economic development. It soon
became clear that mass mobilization was no substitute for individual
incentives.

Focus Questions
 What are the preconditions for modernization along Western lines?
Why are they so important?
Compare and contrast the process of modernization in Japan and
China in the twentieth century. Which country was more successful?
Why?

The two countries’ governing elites were educated in Confucianism,

which receded when faced with the powerful secularism of nineteenth-
century science and the doctrines associated with it. In both Japan and
China, however, core values of the Confucian sociopolitical identity
endured, and some of those values transmuted into a strong new
nationalism.
In most other respects, modern Japan and China could hardly be more
different. Perhaps the difference was only to be expected, given the pattern
of recurrent dynasties in China’s premodern history and of feudal evolution
in Japan’s.

ImageView the Image Japanese Woodcut on Perry’s Arrival at

myhistorylab.com

The coming of Commodore Matthew Perry (1794–1858) in 1853–1854

precipitated rapid change in Japan. The old Tokugawa regime collapsed,
and the Japanese built a modern state. Economic growth followed. By 1900,
Japan had defeated China and was about to defeat Russia. After the Great
Depression, Japan, like Italy and Germany, became an aggressive and
militarized state and was defeated in World War II. But after the war, Japan
reemerged more stable and productive with a strong parliamentary
government.
The Chinese polity, in contrast, easily weathered the Opium War (1839–
1842), an event of considerably greater magnitude than Perry’s visit to
Japan. The hold of tradition in China was remarkable, as was the
effectiveness of traditional remedies in dealing with political ills. In one
sense the strength of tradition was China’s weakness, for only after the
overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty in 1911 were the Chinese able to begin
the modernization that Japan had started in 1868. Even then they were
unsuccessful. Along with warlordism and other typical end-of-dynasty
disruptions, new trauma resulted from the rending of the dynastic pattern
itself and the unprecedented experience of being confronted by more
powerful nations. That China in some sense “failed” during this modern
century is the view the Chinese themselves hold. Image

MODERN JAPAN (1853–1945)

OVERTHROW OF THE TOKUGAWA BAKUFU

(1853–1868)

ImageWHAT ROLE did Chōshū and Satsu-ma play in the overthrow of

Tokugawa rule?

From the seventeenth century into the nineteenth, the natural isolation of
the islands of Japan was augmented by its policy of seclusion. Then at
midcentury, the American ships of Commodore Perry came and forced
Japan to sign a treaty opening it to foreign intercourse. Fourteen years later,
the entire bakufu-domain system collapsed, and a group of talented leaders
seized power.
Little changed during the first four years after Perry. The break came in
1858 when the bakufu, ignoring the imperial court’s disapproval, was
persuaded to sign a commercial treaty with the United States. Some
daimyo, who wanted a voice in national policy, criticized the treaty as
contravening the hallowed policy of seclusion. Younger samurai, frustrated
by their exclusion from office, started a movement to “honor the emperor.”
The bakufu, in turn, responded with a purge. But in 1860, the head of the
bakufu council was assassinated by extremist samurai. His successors
lacked the nerve to continue his tough policies.

ImageRead the Document

President Millard Fillmore, Letter to the Emperor of Japan, 1852 at
myhistorylab.com
 In 1861, two domains, Chōshū and Satsu-ma, emerged to heal the breach
between the bakufu and the court. First, Chōshū officials proposed a policy
that favored the bakufu but made concessions to the court. Next, Satsu-ma
advocated a policy that made further concessions and ousted Chōshū as “the
friend of the court.” In response, the moderate reformist government of
Chōshū adopted the anti-bakufu policy of its extremist faction and, in turn,
ousted Satsu-ma. Satsu-ma then seized the court in 1863 in a military coup.

ImageRead the Document

The Views of Ii Naosuke, 1853 at myhistorylab.com

A Closer Look

East Meets the West

Commodore Perry presents a letter from President Fillmore to
Japanese representatives.

Image

Questions
1. What did Perry have in mind during this meeting? What did the
bakufu representatives want?
2. How did so innocuous a meeting lead 15 years later to the
overthrow of Tokugawa rule?

Image To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to

www.myhistorylab.com

Four points may be noted about the 1861–1863 diplomatic phase of

domain action: (1) Even after 250 years of bakufu rule, several domains
were still able to act autonomously when the opportunity arose; (2) the two
domains that acted first and most of those that followed were large domains
with many samurai and substantial financial resources; (3) both Satsu-ma
and Chōshū had fought against the Tokugawa in 1600 and remembered an
earlier independence; (4) by 1861 to 1863, new politics had opened
decision making to middle-ranking samurai officials in a way that would
have been impossible before 1853.
The 1863 Satsu-ma coup at the Kyoto court initiated a military phase of
politics. As long as Satsu-ma and Chōshū remained enemies, politics
stalemated and the bakufu continued as hegemon. But when the two
domains became allies in 1866, the bakufu was overthrown in less than two
years.
Factors contributing to this process included the movement for a “union
of court and camp”: Daimyo campaigned for a new counciliar rule in which
they would participate together with the emperor and withdrew support
from the bakufu. A second feature of this period was antiforeignism. A third
was the formation of new rifle units, commanded mostly by lower samurai.
These units transformed political power in Japan. A fourth development
was a cultural shift in Japanese self-perception. During the Tokugawa era,
the Japanese had seen themselves as civilized Confucians and much of the
rest of the world as barbarians. But in 1868 Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901)
proposed that the West, with its technology, science, and humane laws, was
“civilized and enlightened”; China, Japan, and countries like Turkey were
half civilized; and other areas were dismissed as barbarian. Technology
grew out of the Western legal, political, economic, and educational systems.
Fukuzawa argued that Western systems required political freedoms and a
citizenry with a spirit of independence. Fukuzawa’s writings became
immensely influential after the Restoration, eventually sparking the
“Civilization and Enlightenment Movement” of the 1870s.

BUILDING THE MEIJI STATE (1868–1890)

ImageWHAT POWERS did the Meiji Constitution give to the emperor?

The idea of a “developing nation” did not exist in the mid-nineteenth
century. Yet Japan after the 1868 Meiji Restoration was just such a nation.
(The years from 1868 to 1912 are referred to as the “Meiji period,” after the
era name that accompanied the accession of the new emperor.) It was
committed to wealth and power of the kind Western industrial nations
possessed. The government faced tough decisions as it advanced by trial
and error. It also demanded that the Japanese people make sacrifices for the
sake of the future.

Meiji Restoration
The overthrow of the Tokugawa bakufu in Japan in 1868 and the transfer, or
“restoration,” of power to the imperial government under the Emperor
Meiji.

The announcement of the restoration of rule by an emperor was made on

January 3, 1868. In the battles that followed, Chōshū and Satsu-ma troops
defeated those of the bakufu. Edo surrendered and was renamed Tokyo, the
“eastern capital.” Edo castle became the imperial palace. At the start the
Meiji government was made up of a small group of samurai leaders from
Chōshū, Satsu-ma, and a few other domains. They have been described,
only half humorously, as twelve bureaucrats in search of a bureaucracy. But
their vision defined the goals of the new government.

CENTRALIZATION OF POWER
Their immediate goal was to centralize political power. By 1871, the young
leaders had replaced the domains with prefectures controlled from Tokyo.
To ensure a break with the past, each new prefectural governor was chosen
from samurai of other regions.
Having centralized political authority, in 1871 about half of the most
important Meiji leaders went abroad for a year and a half to study the West.
(See Document, “On Wives and Concubines” on page 700.) They traveled
in the United States and Europe visiting parliaments, schools, and factories.

ImageRead the Document

Japanese Impressions of American Culture (1860) at myhistorylab.com
 DOCUMENT

On Wives and Concubines

During the 1870s and 1880s leading Japanese thinkers introduced a wide
range of Western ideas into their country. Among them were freedom and
equality as rights inherent in human nature. Debating the questions of
equality in marriage and the rights of wives, intellectuals voiced a radical
criticism of concubinage and prostitution. As a consequence of these
debates, laws were passed during the 1880s and 1890s that strengthened
the legal status of wives. Mori Arinori (1847–1889), who had studied in the
United States and England, wrote the following passage in 1874. He later
became a diplomat and, between 1885 and 1889, the minister of education.
• THINK of comparable instances in American or European history
where new ideas led to dramatic social change. How long did the
changes last, and how deeply rooted did they become?

The relation between man and wife is the fundamental of human morals.
The moral path will be achieved by establishing this fundamental, and the
country will only be firmly based if the moral path is realized. When people
marry, rights and obligations emerge between them so that neither can take
advantage of the other.
There have hitherto been a variety of marriage practices [in our country].
… Sometimes there may be one or even several concubines in addition to
the wife, and sometimes a concubine may become the wife. Sometimes the
wife and the concubines live in the same establishment. Sometimes they are
separated, and the concubine is the favored one while the wife is neglected.
…
Taking a concubine is by arbitrary decision of the man and with
acquiescence of the concubine’s family. The arrangement, known as
ukedashi, is made by paying money to the family of the concubine. This
means, in other words, that concubines are bought with money. Since
concubines are generally geisha and prostitutes patronized by rich men and
nobles, many descendants in the rich and noble houses are the children of
bought women. Even though the wife is superior to the concubine in
households where they live together, there is commonly jealousy and hatred
between them because the husband generally favors the concubine.
Therefore, there are numerous instances when, the wife and the concubines
being scattered in separate establishments, the husband repairs to the abode
of the one with whom he is infatuated and willfully resorts to scandalous
conduct.…
Thus, I have here explained that our country has not yet established the
fundamental of human morality, and I hope later to discuss how this
situation injures our customs and obstructs enlightenment.

Source: From Meiroku Zasshi, Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment,

trans. and with introduction by William Reynolds Braisted, assisted by
Adachi Yasushi and Kikuchi Yūji (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1976), pp. 104–105. © 1976 by the President and
Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission of Harvard
University Press.

The second task of the Meiji leaders was to stabilize government

revenues. The government converted the grain tax to a money tax. But a
third of the revenues still went to pay for samurai stipends, so in 1873 the
government raised a conscript army and abolished the samurai class. The
samurai were paid off in government bonds, but as the bonds fell during the
inflation of the 1870s, most former samurai became impoverished. What
had begun as a reform of government finance ended as a social revolution.
Some samurai rebelled. The last and greatest uprising was in 1877. When it
was suppressed in 1878, the Meiji government became militarily secure.

POLITICAL PARTIES
Other samurai opposed the government by forming political parties and
campaigning for popular rights, elections, and a constitution. They drew
heavily on liberal Western models and proposed that parties in a national
assembly would unite the emperor and the people, curbing the Satsu-ma-
Chōshū clique. Samurai were the mainstay of the early party movement,
despite its doctrines proclaiming all classes to be equal. With the
government’s formation of prefectural assemblies in 1878, more political
parties emerged. Many farmers joined, wanting their taxes cut; the poor
joined too, hoping to improve their condition. In 1881, the government
promised a constitution and a national assembly within ten years. As the
date for national elections approached, the parties gained strength, and the
ties between party notables and local men of influence grew closer.

THE CONSTITUTION
The government viewed the party movement with distaste but was not sure
how to counter it. Under Itō Hirobumi (1841–1909), the conservative
Prussian constitution of 1850 was adapted to Japanese uses. As
promulgated in 1889, the Meiji Constitution granted extensive powers to
the emperor and severely limited the powers of the lower house in the Diet
(the English term for Japan’s bicameral national assembly).

Diet
The bicameral Japanese Parliament.

Image

Japan’s first foreign mission, headed by Prince Iwakura, ambassador

extraordinary and plenipotentiary, leaving Yokohama for the United
States and Europe on December 23, 1871.

What was Japan’s attitude toward the West at this time?

The emperor was sovereign. According to the constitution, he was

“sacred and inviolable,” and in Itō’s commentaries this was defined in
Shinto terms. The emperor was given direct command of the armed forces.
The emperor had the right to name the prime minister and to appoint the
cabinet. He could dissolve the lower house of the Diet and issue imperial
ordinances when the Diet was not in session. The Imperial Household
Ministry, which was outside the cabinet, administered the great wealth
given to the imperial family during the 1880s. The constitution itself was
presented as a gift from the emperor to his subjects. The lower house of the
Diet was given the authority only to approve budgets and pass laws, and
even these powers were hedged. Itō’s intention was not to create a
parliamentary system but to devise a constitutional system that included a
parliament.

ImageRead the Document

Emperor Meiji, The Constitution of the Empire of Japan at
myhistorylab.com

The government also created institutions designed to limit the future

influence of the political parties. In 1884, it created a new nobility with
which to stock the future House of Peers. Itō, born a lowly foot soldier,
ended as a prince. In 1885, he established a cabinet system and became the
first prime minister. In 1887, Itō established a Privy Council, with himself
as its head, to approve the constitution he had written. Civil service
examinations were instituted in 1888. The bureaucracy became highly
systematized. In 1890 there were 24,000 officials; by 1908 there were
72,000.

ImageRead the Document

Japan: The Imperial Rescript on Education, 1890 at myhistorylab.com

Image

The Promulgation of the Meiji Constitution in 1889. The emperor,

standing under the canopy, was declared “sacred and inviolable.”
Seated on the throne, at the left, is the empress.

Shosai Ginko (Japanese, act. 1874–1897), View of the Issuance of the

State Constitution in the State Chamber of the New Imperial Palace,
 March 2, 1889 (Meiji 22), Ink and color on paper, 14 1/8 × 28 3/8 in.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Lincoln Kirstein, 1959
(JP3233-3235) Photograph © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Art
Resource, New York.

What was the basis of the Meiji Constitution?

GROWTH OF A MODERN ECONOMY

ImageWHY DID Japan set out to build a modern economy?

The late Tokugawa economy was similar to the economies of other East
Asian countries. Almost 80 percent of the population lived in the
countryside at close to a subsistence level. Taxes were high, and two thirds
of the land tax was paid in kind. Money had only partially penetrated the
rural economy. Japan had not developed factory production with machinery,
steam power, or large accumulations of capital.
Early Meiji reforms unshackled the economy. Occupations were freed,
which meant that farmers could trade and samurai could farm. The abolition
of domains threw open regional economies and a groundswell of new
commercial ventures and traditional, agriculturally based industries
followed. Silk was Japan’s wonder crop. The government introduced
mechanical reeling, enabling Japan to win markets previously held by
China’s hand-reeled silk. Silk production rose from 2.3 million pounds in
the post-Restoration era to 93 million pounds in 1929.
A parallel unshackling occurred on the land. The land tax reform of the
1870s created a powerful incentive for growth. Progressive landlords
bought fertilizer and farm equipment. Rice production rose from 149
million bushels a year during 1880 to 1884 to 316 million during 1935 to
1937. Population grew from about 30 million in 1868 to 45 million in 1900
to 73 million in 1940. Because the farm population remained constant, the
extra hands were available for factory and other urban jobs.
FIRST PHASE: MODEL INDUSTRIES
The modern sector of the economy was the government’s greatest concern.
It developed in four phases, beginning with the era of model industries,
which lasted until 1881. With military strength as a major goal, the Meiji
government expanded arsenals and shipyards, built telegraph lines, started
railroads, developed mines, and established factories. The quantitative
output of these early industries was insignificant; they were pilot-plant
operations that doubled as “schools” for technologists and labor.
Just as important to economic development were a variety of other new
institutions—banks, post offices, ports, roads, commercial laws, a system of
primary and secondary schools, and a government university. They were
patterned after European and American examples, although the pattern was
often altered to fit Japan’s needs. For example, Tokyo Imperial University
had a faculty of agriculture earlier than any university in Europe.

SECOND PHASE: 1880S–1890S

Substantial growth in the modern sector took place during the 1880s and
1890s. It was marked by the appearance of what would later become the
great industrial combines known as zaibatsu. Accumulating capital was the
greatest problem. Iwasaki Yatarō (1834–1885) used political connections.
After the Restoration he gained control of the ships that he had managed as
a samurai official for the Tosa domain. He next acquired government ships
that had been used to transport troops in 1874 and during the 1877 Satsu-ma
Rebellion. From these beginnings he built a shipping line to compete with
foreign companies, started a bank, and invested in the enterprises that later
became the Mitsubishi combine.

zaibatsu
Large industrial combines that came to dominate Japanese industry in the
late nineteenth century.

Image
 Silk-Weaving Mill in Japan, late nineteenth century. Note the
division of labor: the women do the manual labor, while the man,
dressed in formal attire, supervises.

How did the silk industry develop in Japan?

One of the first industries to benefit was cotton textiles. By 1896, the
production of yarn had reached 17 million pounds, and by 1913 it was more
than ten times that amount. Production of cotton cloth rose as well. Another
area of growth was railroads, which gave Japan an internal circulatory
system, opening up hitherto isolated regions. In 1872, Japan had 18 miles of
track; in 1894, 2,100 miles; and by 1934, 14,500 miles.
Cotton textiles and railroads were followed during the 1890s by cement,
bricks, matches, glass, beer, chemicals, and other private industries. The
government created a favorable climate for growth: The society and the
polity were stable, the yen was sound, capital was safe, and taxes on
industry were low. The conditions enjoyed by Japan’s budding
entrepreneurs differed in every respect from those of China.

Image

Japan’s First Railroad. Planning began in 1869, a favorable year for

growth, one year after the Meiji Restoration, and the first line from the
Shiodome station in Tokyo to the port of Yokohama was opened in
1872. In this woodblock print, onlookers (in the foreground) gape
outside the fence while passengers in Western dress await the arrival of
the train.

What role did railroads play in Japan’s economic development?

THIRD PHASE: 1905–1929

The economy continued to grow after the 1905 Russo-Japanese War (see
“The Politics of Imperial Japan” in this chapter) and spurted ahead during
World War I. The economy grew slowly during the 1920s because of factors
including renewed competition from Europe and the great earthquake that
destroyed Tokyo in 1923. Agricultural productivity leveled off during the
twenties: It became cheaper to import foodstuffs than to invest in new
agricultural technology at home.
By the 1920s, Japanese society, especially in the cities, was becoming
modern. The Japanese were healthier and lived longer. Personal savings
rose with the standard of living. Even factory workers drank beer, went to
movies, and read newspapers. By 1925, primary school education was
universal. Japan had done what no other non-Western nation had even
attempted: It had achieved universal literacy. Nevertheless, an immense
cultural and social gap remained between the majority who had only a
primary school education and the 3 percent who attended university. This
gap emerged as a basic weakness in the 1920s.
It should also be noted that despite overall improvements in the condition
of the Japanese, the human costs of growth were high. Well into the
twentieth century women made up more than half of the industrial labor
force. They went to the textile mills after leaving primary school and
returned to their villages before marrying. Their working hours were long,
their dormitories crowded, and their movements restricted. Some contracted
tuberculosis, the plague of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
Japan, and were sent back to their villages to die.

QUICK REVIEW
Development of the Japanese Economy
Image First Phase (up to 1881): Development of model industries
Image Second Phase (1880s–1890s): Emergence of the zaibatsu and
growth of the railroads
Image Third Phase (1905–1929): Slow economic growth and
modernization of Japanese society
Image Fourth Phase (1929–1937): Depression and recovery

FOURTH PHASE: DEPRESSION AND RECOVERY

A Japanese bank crisis in 1927, followed by the worldwide Great
Depression in 1929, plunged Japan into unemployment and suffering. The
political consequences were enormous. Yet most of Japan recovered by
1933, more rapidly than any other industrial nation.
The recovery was fueled by an export boom and military procurements.
During the 1930s, the production of pig iron, raw steel, and chemicals
doubled. By 1937, Japan had a merchant fleet of 4.5 million tons, the third
largest and the newest in the world. The quality of Japan’s manufacturers
rose. The outcry in the West against Japanese exports at this time was not
because of volume—a modest 3.6 percent of world exports in 1936—but
because Japanese products for the first time were competitive in terms of
quality.

THE POLITICS OF IMPERIAL JAPAN (1890–

1945)

ImageHOW DID political parties develop in Japan?

Parliaments began in the West and have functioned better there than in the
rest of the world. For Japan to establish a constitution during the nineteenth
century was a bold experiment. Even a constitution as cautious as that of
Meiji had no precedent outside the West. How are we to view the Japanese
political experience after 1890? One view is that the Japanese were not
ready for constitutional government, so the militarism of the 1930s was
inevitable. Japanese society certainly had weaknesses, but the Diet was
growing in importance, and power was being transferred from the
bureaucratic Meiji leaders to political party leaders. The transfer fell short
of full parliamentary government, but the advance toward parliamentary
government might well have continued if not for the Great Depression and
other events.

FROM CONFRONTATION TO THE FOUNDING OF THE SEIYŪKAI (1890–

1900)
In 1890 the Meiji leaders—sometimes called oligarchs, the few who rule—
were concerned with nation building, not politics. They saw the cabinet as
“transcendental,” serving the emperor and nation, not partisan interests.
They saw the lower house of the Diet as a place to let off steam without
interfering in the government’s serious work of building a new Japan. But
the oligarchs had miscalculated, and they were drawn into political
struggles.
The first act of the parties in the new 1890 Diet was to slash the
government’s budget. Prime Minister Yamagata had to make concessions to
get some funds restored. This pattern continued for ten years. The
government tried to intimidate and bribe the parties but failed. Political
parties had the support of the voters, mostly well-to-do landowners, who
opposed the government’s heavy land tax.
In 1900, Itō Hirobumi formed a new party, called the Rikken Seiyūkai, or
“Friends of Constitutional Government.” For most of the next twenty years,
it was the most important party in Japan, providing parliamentary support
for successive governments through its control of the lower house. This
arrangement was satisfactory to both sides: Prime ministers got the support
necessary for the government to function smoothly, and party politicians got
cabinet posts and pork barrel legislation with which to reward their
supporters. Itō had made the constitution work, but at the cost of
relinquishing transcendental cabinets.

Image

Russo-Japanese War. Japanese soldiers with flag and bayonets charge

across a smoky field to engage Russian troops in the 1904–1905
Russo-Japanese War. Victory over Russia gave Japan Korea and a new
international standing. The popularity of postcards, such as this one,
reflected the new nationalism of Japan.

What were some of the roots of Japanese nationalism?

THE GOLDEN YEARS OF MEIJI
The years around turn of the century represented the culmination of what
the government had striven for since 1868. Economic development was
under way, and the “unequal treaties” were revised. However, it was events
abroad that won Japan recognition as a world power.
The first event was a war with China in 1894 to 1895 over Korea. From
its victory, Japan secured Taiwan and other territory, an indemnity, and a
treaty giving it the same privileges in China as those enjoyed by the
Western powers (see Map 27–1). The second event was Japan’s
participation in the international force that relieved the Boxers’ siege in
Beijing in 1900. A third development was the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of
1902. For Britain, this alliance ensured Japanese support for its East Asian
interests. For Japan, the alliance meant it could fight Russia without fear of
intervention by a third party.

Image

MAP 27–1. Formation of the Japanese Empire. The Japanese Empire

grew in three stages: the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, the Russo-
Japanese War of 1904–1905, and Japanese conquests in Manchuria and
northern China after 1931.

Why did Japan want an empire on the Asian mainland?

ImageSee the Map

Japanese Colonial Expansion to 1914 at myhistorylab.com

The fourth event was the war with Russia that began in 1904. Japanese
armies drove the Russians from their railway zones in Manchuria and
seized Mukden in March 1905. The Russians sent their Baltic fleet to join
the battle, but it was annihilated by Admiral Tōgō (1847–1934). The peace
treaty gave Japan the Russian lease in the Liaotung Peninsula, the Russian
railway in south Manchuria, the southern half of Sakhalin, and a recognition
of Japan’s interest in Korea, which was annexed in 1910.
Japan joined the imperialist scramble for colonies because it wanted
equality with the great Western powers, and military power and colonies
were the best credentials. Enthusiasm for empire was shared by political
party leaders, most liberal thinkers, and conservative leaders.

RISE OF THE PARTIES TO POWER

The founding of the Seiyūkai by Itō in 1900 ended a decade of
confrontation between the Diet and government. The aging oligarch Itō
soon found intolerable the day-to-day experience of dealing with party
politicians. Hara Takashi (1856–1921) assumed the presidency of the party
in 1914. Born a generation after the founding fathers of the Meiji state, he
helped Itō to found the Seiyūkai and was the most able politician in Japan.
His goals, like those of Itō or Yamagata, centered on the expansion of
national wealth and power. But he felt that they should be achieved by party
government, not oligarchic rule, and he worked to expand the power of his
party. The years between 1905 and 1921 were marked by the struggle
between these two conceptions of government.
Party strength increased through a buildup of the Seiyūkai party machine
and through strengthening of the Diet vis-à-vis other elites within the
government in Tokyo. For the former, Hara obtained campaign funds from
moneyed interests. Constituencies that supported Seiyūkai candidates got
new schools, bridges, dams, roads, or even railroad lines.
In co-opting other governmental elites, the Seiyūkai had mixed success.
The party increased its representation in the cabinet and gained some
patronage appointments in the bureaucracy, although most bureaucrats
remained professionals and resisted the intrusion of political appointees.
The House of Peers and the Privy Council, which ratified treaties, remained
independent. The Seiyūkai had no success in penetrating the military
services.
The weakening of oligarchic control reflected the aging of the “men of
Meiji.” In 1900, Itō was the last oligarch to become prime minister. From
1901 to 1912, Katsura Tarō (1847–1913), a Chōshū general and Yamagata’s
protégé, and Saionji, Itō’s protégé, took turns in the post. Both had Seiyūkai
support. The oligarchs were also weakened by changes within the elites. A
younger generation of officers in the military services chafed at the
continuing domination by the old cliques. In the civil bureaucracy, younger
officials who saw the bureaucracy as an independent service were achieving
positions of responsibility. The oligarchs maintained their power to act for
the emperor in appointing prime ministers until the deaths of Itō in 1909
and Yamagata in 1922.
A wave of liberalism began during World War I and culminated in the
period of party governments from 1924 to 1932. Joining the Allies in World
War I, Japan had been influenced by democratic thought. Scholars
discussed revising the Meiji Constitution. Labor unions were organized. A
social movement was launched to improve conditions in Japan’s industrial
slums and to pass social and labor legislation. Japan’s second political party,
the Kenseikai, which had been out of power since 1916, grew more liberal
and adopted several of the new social causes as its own, such as universal
manhood suffrage. When Hara cut the tax qualification for voting from 10
to 3 yen—a considerable extension of the franchise—the Kenseikai
criticized the change as insufficient.
In 1924, the Kenseikai and the Seiyūkai formed a coalition government.
For the next eight years, the presidents of one or the other of the two major
parties were appointed as prime ministers.
The cabinets (1924–1926) of Katō Kōmei are considered the peak of
parliamentarianism in prewar Japan. Katō advocated a British model of
government. His ministry passed universal manhood suffrage, cut the
military budget, and enacted social and labor legislation. Katō’s cabinet
brought Japan close to a true parliamentary government.

MILITARISM AND WAR (1927–1945)

The future of Japan’s parliamentary government seemed assured during the
mid-1920s. The economy was growing, society was stable, and party
leaders were experienced. Japan’s international position was secure. But by
1945 Japan had been defeated in a devastating war and was occupied by
foreign troops for the first time in its history.
A small shift in the balance of power among the governmental elites
established by the Meiji constitution had produced a major change in
Japan’s foreign policy. The parties had forced the other elites to
compromise between 1890 and 1926. Beginning in 1932 military men
replaced party presidents as prime ministers. In 1937 Japan went to war
with China; by the end of 1941 Japan was allied with Germany and Italy,
had clashed with the Soviet Union, and had gone to war with the United
States.
From their inception, the military services in Japan had been constructed
on different principles from Japan’s civilian society. The armed services had
their own schools, which inculcated discipline, bravery, and loyalty.
Soldiers saw themselves as the true heirs of the founders of the modern
Japanese state and the guardians of Japanese tradition. They contrasted their
loyalty to the emperor and their concern for all Japanese with the special-
interest pandering by the political parties.
The military resented its diminished national stature during the 1920s,
when military budgets were cut and the prestige of a military career
declined. But there had been no change in the constitutional position of the
services. The general staffs remained directly responsible to the emperor.
With the passing of the Meiji oligarchs, this meant they were responsible to
no one but themselves.
New multilateral treaties (the 1921–1922 Washington Conference and the
1930 London Conference) recognized the existing colonies of the victors in
World War I but opposed new colonial ventures. Japan’s position in
Manchuria was ambiguous. Because Japan maintained its interests through
a tame Chinese warlord, Manchuria was not, strictly speaking, a colony. But
Japan saw its claim to Manchuria as similar to that of Western nations and
their colonies. The Guomindang unification of China and the blossoming of
Chinese nationalism threatened Japan’s special position. Japanese army
units murdered the Manchurian warlord when he showed signs of
independence. In 1931, while the party government in Tokyo equivocated,
the army provoked a crisis, took over Manchuria, and proclaimed it an
independent state in 1932. When the League of Nations condemned this
action, Japan withdrew from the league.

Image

Yearning for Military Heroes. Japanese patriotic society members

dressed as samurai around 1925.
 What had happened to the real samurai?

The Great Depression cast doubts on the international economic order

and on the zaibatsu, which were seen as rich capitalist profiteers in a
country full of suffering and want. While Japan’s government acted
effectively to counter the Great Depression, the recovery came too late to
help the political parties. By 1936, political trends that had begun during the
worst years of the Depression had become irreversible.
The Depression galvanized the political left and right. The political left
was composed mainly of socialist moderates. Supported by unionists and
white-collar workers, they would reemerge as a stronger force after World
War II. There was also a radical left, consisting of many little Marxist
parties and of the Japanese Communist Party, founded in 1922. Though
small, the radical parties became influential in intellectual circles during the
1920s and 1930s.
During the 1930s, an array of right-wing organizations went beyond the
emperor-centered nationalism in which all Japanese were steeped to
challenge the status quo. Civilian ultranationalists used Shinto myths and
Confucian values to attack Western liberalism. Some bureaucrats looked to
the example of Nazi Germany and argued for the exclusion of party
politicians from government. Military officers envisioned a “defense state”;
they urged military expansion and an autarchic colonial empire insulated
from the uncertainties of the world economy. Young officers of the
revolutionary right advocated “direct action” against the elites of the
parliamentary coalition and called for a second restoration of imperial
power.
The last group precipitated political change. On May 15, 1932, junior
army and navy officers attacked key civilian offices and murdered Prime
Minister Inukai. This attack occurred at the peak of right-wing agitation and
the pit of the Depression. Saionji decided it would be unwise to appoint
another party president as prime minister, choosing instead a moderate
admiral. For the next four years cabinets were led by moderate military men
but with continuing party participation. These cabinets satisfied neither the
parties nor the radical young officers. Japanese politics continued to drift to
the right. In 1936, young officers attempted a coup in Tokyo. They killed
cabinet ministers and occupied the Diet and other government buildings.
They wanted their army superiors to form a new government. Saionji and
other men around the emperor stood firm; the navy opposed the rebellion,
and within three days it was suppressed. The ringleaders were tried and
executed. It was the last “direct action” by the radical right in prewar Japan.
The military continued interfering in the formation of cabinets. From
1936 on, moderate prime ministers gave way to more outspokenly
militaristic figures. Opposition to militarism remained substantial
nonetheless. In the 1937 election, the two major centrist parties won 354
Diet seats. The Japanese people were more level-headed than their leaders.
But the Diet could not oppose a government in wartime, and by summer,
Japan was at war in China.
There were three critical junctures between the outbreak of war with
China and the World War II campaign in the Pacific. The first was the
decision in January 1938 to strike a knockout blow at the Nationalist Party
(GMD) government. The war had begun as an unplanned skirmish between
Chinese and Japanese troops in the Beijing area but had spread quickly. The
general staff argued that the only way to end the war was to convince the
Chinese nationalists that fighting was hopeless. The Japanese army
occupied most of the cities and railroads of eastern China, but Jiang Jieshi
refused to give in. A stalemate ensued that lasted until 1945. China was
never a major theater of the war in the Pacific.

CHRONOLOGY

Image

The second critical decision was the signing of the Tripartite Pact with
Germany and Italy in September 1940. In 1936, Japan had joined Germany
in the Anti-Comintern Pact directed against international communism. It
also wanted an alliance with Germany against the Soviet Union, but
Germany insisted that any alliance would also have to be directed against
the United States and Britain. The Japanese disagreed. When Japanese
troops skirmished with Russian troops on the Mongolian border in the
summer of 1939, sentiment rose in favor of an alliance with Germany, but
then Germany “betrayed” Japan by signing a nonaggression pact with the
Soviet Union. Japan tried to improve its relations with the United States,
but America insisted that Japan get out of China. By the late spring of 1940,
German victories in Europe again led military leaders in Japan to favor an
alliance with Germany.

Tripartite Pact
The alliance between Japan and Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy that was
signed in 1940.

Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with three objectives in mind: to isolate
the United States, to take over the Southeast Asian colonies of the countries
defeated by Germany in Europe, and to improve its relations with the Soviet
Union. The last objective was reached when Japan signed a neutrality pact
with the Soviet Union in April 1941. Two months later, Germany attacked
the Soviet Union without consulting Japan and then asked Japan to attack
the Soviet Union in the east. Japan waited and, when the German advance
was stopped short of Moscow, decided to honor its neutrality pact with the
Soviet Union and turn south. This effectively ended Japan’s participation in
the Axis. Yet instead of deflecting American criticism as intended, the pact,
by linking Japan to Germany, led to a hardening of America’s position on
China.
The third fateful decision was to go to war with the United States. In June
1940, following Germany’s defeat of France, Japanese troops had moved
into northern French Indochina. When Japanese troops took southern
Indochina in July 1941, the United States embargoed all exports to Japan;
this cut Japanese oil imports by 90 percent. Japan’s military argued that oil
reserves would last only two years and pressed for the capture of the oil-
rich Dutch East Indies. But it was too dangerous to move against Dutch and
British colonies in Southeast Asia with the United States in the Philippines.
The navy, therefore, planned a preemptive strike against the United States,
and on December 7, 1941, it bombed Pearl Harbor. The Japanese decision
for war wagered Japan’s land-based airpower, shorter supply lines, and
what it saw as greater willpower against American productivity. At the
Imperial Conference where the all-or-nothing decision was taken, the
navy’s chief of staff compared the war with the United States to a
dangerous operation that might save the life of a critically ill patient.
JAPANESE MILITARISM AND GERMAN
NAZISM

ImageHOW WAS Japan similar to and different from Germany during

this period?

Some features of Japanese militarism afford an interesting comparison with

Nazi Germany. Both countries were late developers with elitist, academic
bureaucracies and strong military traditions. Both had patriarchal family
systems and relatively new parliamentary systems. Both tried to solve the
economic problems created by the Great Depression with territorial
expansion. Both had modernized their military services, schools,
governments, and communications to support authoritarian regimes, but
their values were not sufficiently modern or democratic to resist
antiparliamentary forces.
The differences between the two countries are also striking. Japan was
more homogeneous than Germany. It had no Catholic–Protestant split, no
Junker class, and no significant socialist movement. Japan did not suffer
from inflation and the Depression did not decimate its middle class. In
Germany, parliament ruled, and the Nazis had to win an election to come to
power. Japan’s Diet was weaker. Control of the government was taken away
from the Seiyūkai and Minseitō even while they continued to win elections.
The process by which the two countries went to war was also different.
The Nazis created a mass party and a totalitarian state and then declared
war. In Japan, there was neither a mass party nor a single group of leaders
in continuous control of the government. It was not the totalitarian state that
made war as much as it was war that made the state totalitarian—creating a
nationalism so intense that university students became suicide (kamikaze)
pilots after the outbreak of hostilities.
The Allies compared General Tōjō Hideki (1884–1948), Japan’s prime
minister, with Hitler. However, although Nazi authority survived until Hitler
died in a Berlin bunker, General Tōjō was removed from office when
American planes began to bomb Japan in 1944. The military continued to
prosecute the war, but when the Imperial Conference on August 14, 1945,
divided three to three over the Allied ultimatum demanding unconditional
surrender, the emperor broke the deadlock, saying that the unendurable
must be endured. It was the only important decision that he had ever been
allowed to make.

Tōjō Hideki (1884–1948), prime minister at the time of the attack on

Pearl Harbor in 1941 and one of the chief figures in the rise of
Japanese militarism.

What happened to Tōjō Hideki after Pearl Harbor?

MODERN CHINA (1839–1949)

China’s modern century was not the century in which it became modern but
the one in which it encountered the modern West. Its first phase, from the
Opium War to the fall of the Qing or Manchu Dynasty (1911), was little
affected by Western impact. Only during the decade before 1911 did the
Confucian tradition begin to be discarded in favor of new ideas from the
West. The second phase, from 1911 to the establishment of a communist
state in 1949, was a time of turmoil: decades of warlord rule, war with
Japan, and then four years of civil war.

CLOSE OF MANCHU RULE

ImageWHAT WERE the most serious threats to Manchu rule in the

nineteenth century?

THE OPIUM WAR

The eighteenth-century three-country trade—British goods to India, Indian

cotton to China, and Chinese tea to Britain—was in China’s favor. The
silver flowing into China spurred the monetization of Chinese markets.
Then the British replaced cotton with Indian opium, and by the 1820s the
balance of trade was reversed.
To check the evil of opium and the outflow of silver, the Chinese
government banned opium in 1836. In 1839, the government sent Lin Zexu
(1785–1850) to Guangzhou (Canton) to superintend the ban. He destroyed a
six-month supply of opium belonging to foreign merchants, leading to a
confrontation with the British.

ImageRead the Document

William Hunter, “Description of European Factories in Guangzhou,” 1824
at myhistorylab.com

War broke out in November 1839. Chinese troops, with their antiquated
weapons, were ineffective. The war ended in August 1842 with the Treaty
of Nanjing, the first of the “unequal treaties.” The treaty gave Britain the
island of Hong Kong and a huge indemnity. It also opened five ports:
Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Ningpo, Shanghai, and Xiamen (Amoy). British
merchants and their families could reside in the ports and engage in trade;
Britain could appoint a consul for each city; and British residents within
China were subject to British, not Chinese, law. In 1844, similar treaties
followed with the United States and France.

ImageRead the Document

The Treaty of Nanjing, 1842 at myhistorylab.com

After the treaty, Chinese imports of opium increased, but other kinds of
trade did not grow rapidly. Western merchants blamed Chinese officials;
Chinese authorities were incensed by the export of coolies to work in Cuba
and Peru. A second war broke out in 1856, and the British captured Beijing
in 1860. New treaties provided for indemnities, the opening of eleven new
ports, the stationing of foreign diplomats in Beijing, the propagation of
Christianity anywhere in China, and the legalization of the opium trade.

The Opium War, 1840. Armed Chinese junks were no match for
British warships. The war ended in 1842 with the Treaty of Nanjing.
 How did the Opium War demonstrate Western military
superiority?

Meanwhile, the Russians were encroaching on China’s northern frontier.

In 1858, China ceded the north bank of the Amur to Russia, and in 1860,
China gave Russia the Maritime Province between the Ussuri River and the
Pacific.

REBELLIONS AGAINST THE MANCHU

A more immediate threat to Manchu rule than foreign gunboats were the
Taiping, Nian, and Muslim Rebellions that convulsed China between 1850
and 1873 (see Map 27–2 on page 712). The torment and suffering they
caused were unparalleled. Estimates of those killed during the twenty years
of the Taiping Rebellion range from 20 to 30 million. Adding in losses due
to other rebellions, droughts, and floods, China’s population dropped by 60
million and did not recover to pre-rebellion levels until almost the end of
the dynasty in 1912.

Taiping Rebellion
A nineteenth-century revolt against China’s Manchu Dynasty that was
inspired by quasi-Christian ideas and that led to enormous suffering and
destruction before its collapse in 1868.

The Taipings were begun by Hong Xiuquan (1814–1864). Influenced by

Protestant tracts, Hong announced that he was the younger brother of Jesus
and that God had told him to rid China of Manchus, Confucians, Daoists,
and Buddhists. Like earlier rebels, the Taipings combined moral reform,
religious fervor, and a vision of egalitarian society. The Taipings were soon
joined by peasants, miners, and workers. Fighting spread until the Taipings
controlled most of the Yangzi basin and had entered sixteen of the eighteen
Chinese provinces. Their army numbered close to a million.

Hear the Audio

China at myhistorylab.com
 The movement had several weaknesses, most notably poor education
among the leadership that prevented them from governing effectively. Many
Taiping ideals remained unfulfilled; for example, land was not redistributed.

QUICK REVIEW
Rebellions
Image Taiping: Led by Hong Xiuquan (1814–1864), the Taiping
assembled an army of close to a million men
Image Nian: Located along the Huai River, the Nian came to control a
100,000-square-mile area
Image Muslim rebellions: Occurred in the southwest and northwest,
areas where China had few officials and little military presence

Other rebellions were of lesser note but longer duration. The Nian, north
of the Taipings along the Huai River, were organized in secret societies and
raided the countryside. Eventually they built an army, collected taxes, and
ruled 100,000 square miles. Muslims revolted in the southwest and the
northwest; one rebel set up an Islamic kingdom with himself as sultan. All
these rebellions took advantage of the weakened state of the dynasty and
occurred in areas that had few officials and no Qing military units.
Against the rebellions, the imperial forces proved helpless, so in 1852 the
court sent Zeng Guofan (1811–1872) to south-central China to organize a
local army. Zeng saw the Manchu government, of which he was an elite
member, as the upholder of morality and the social order. He recruited
members of the gentry as officers. They were Confucian and, as landlords,
had the most to lose from rebel rule. They recruited soldiers from their local
areas and stopped the Taipings’ advance.

Image

MAP 27–2. The Taiping, Nian, and Muslim Rebellions. Between 1850
and 1873 China was wracked by rebellions that almost ended the Manchu
Dynasty. The dynasty was saved by Chinese “gentry armies.”
 How did these rebellions influence Chinese history?

In 1860, when the British and French occupied Beijing, a reform

government began internal changes, adopted a policy of cooperation with
Western powers, and put Zeng in charge of suppressing all the rebellions.
The Taipings collapsed when Nanjing was captured in 1864. The Nian were
suppressed by 1868 and the Muslim rebellion was put down five years later.
Scholar-officials, relying on local gentry, had saved the dynasty.

Image

Between 1850 and 1864, China was wracked by a great civil war
between the Taiping rebels and the gentry-led militia of the Qing
government. The victory of the latter delayed the collapse of the Qing
Dynasty until 1912. The scene above shows troops arrayed in battle
formation.

How did rebellions help the Manchus to survive?

SELF-STRENGTHENING AND DECLINE (1874–1895)

Chinese resiliency in the two decades after the suppression of the rebellions
was impressive. But if we compare China’s progress with that of Japan,
then China during the same decades looks almost moribund. China was
relatively weaker at the end of the period of self-strengthening than at the
start.

self-strengthening
A movement attempting to restore dynastic power by adopting Western
technological innovations while retaining traditional Confucian power
structures.

China’s inability to act effectively is explained partly by the situation at

the court. Prince Gong (1833–1898) and the empress dowager Cixi (1835–
1908) were coregents for the young emperor. Prince Gong was eager to
exchange ideas with foreigners, but he was outmaneuvered by the empress
dowager and was ousted in 1884. The empress dowager had produced the
only male child of the former emperor, and her single goal was power. She
forged a court just able to survive but too weak to govern effectively.
The most vital figures during these decades were a handful of able
governors-general. Each had an army and was in charge of two or three
provinces. They were loyal to the dynasty that they had restored and were
allowed great autonomy. The governors-general mobilized the gentry again,
this time for rebuilding. They set up refugee centers, reduced taxes in the
devastated Yangzi valley, reclaimed lands gone to waste, began water-
control projects, and built granaries. By the early 1890s, well-being had
been restored. Their second task was self-strengthening—the adoption of
Western arms and technology. The Chinese built arsenals and shipyards, a
telegraph company, railways, and cotton mills. The formula applied in
running these enterprises was “official supervision and merchant
operation.” Major decisions were made by scholar-officials, but day-to-day
operations were left to merchants.

Image

The Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) sits upon a throne. The

empress dowager manipulated the levers of power at the Manchu court
in Beijing. Historians have long criticized the empress dowager as
despotic, greedy, and power-hungry, though some believe this criticism
is unfair.

Do you think a male leader in an equivalent position would be

subject to the same criticisms as Cixi?
 The treaty ports, of which there were fourteen by the 1860s, were little
islands of privilege and security under the rule of foreign consuls, where
capital was safe from confiscation, trade was free, and “squeeze” (extortion
by officials) was minimal. Foreign companies naturally located in these
ports, as well as some Chinese merchants. Well into the twentieth century,
the foreign concessions (treaty-port lands leased in perpetuity by foreigners)
remained the vital sector of China’s modern economy.

treaty ports
Chinese ports ruled by foreign consuls where foreigners enjoyed
commercial privileges and immunity from Chinese laws.

Under the low tariffs mandated by the treaties, Chinese industries had
little protection from imports. Native cotton spinning was almost destroyed
by imports of yarn. Chinese tea lost ground to Indian tea and Chinese silk to
Japanese silk. China found few products to export. The level of foreign
trade stayed low, and China’s interior markets were affected only slightly.
By the 1870s, foreign powers had reached an accommodation with
China. They counted on the court to uphold the treaties; in return, they
became a prop for the dynasty. By 1900, for example, the court’s revenues
from customs fees were larger than those from any other source. The fees
were collected by the Maritime Customs Service, an efficient and honest
treaty-port institution.

Image

The Bund. After the Opium War, Shanghai became a treaty port in
1842 and foreign settlements arose along the Huangpu River, north of
the old walled city. British and other companies built offices along the
river’s muddy waterfront, which they called the “Bund”—an Anglo-
Indian term derived from “band,” the Urdu word for embankment.
Before World War II, oceangoing ships docked along the Bund in the
heart of commercial Shanghai. Today, this stretch of the river is
fronted by the Zhongshan Road. On one side are banks, insurance
companies, and hotels; on the other, a park. Ships no longer dock.
 What kinds of people and activities can you identify in this
photograph?

THE BORDERLANDS: THE NORTHWEST, VIETNAM, AND KOREA

China’s other foreign relations were with fringe lands that China claimed by
right of past conquest or as tributaries. During the late nineteenth century,
China’s self-image as a universal empire was strengthened in the northwest
but was dealt a fatal blow in Vietnam and Korea.
In the northwest, China confronted tsarist Russia. Conservatives at the
Manchu court ordered Zuo Zongtang, who had suppressed Muslim rebels
within China, to suppress a Muslim leader who had founded an independent
state in the Tarim basin. By 1878 Zuo’s army had regained the area, which
was subsequently renamed Xinjiang, or the “New Territories.” A treaty
signed with Russia in 1881 also restored most of the Ili region in western
Mongolia to Chinese control. These victories strengthened court
conservatives who wished to take a stronger stance toward the West.

Image

The French in Vietnam. Arrival in Saigon of Paul Beau (1857–1927),

governor general of Indochina, 1902–1907, from “Le Petit Journal,”
November 1902.

How are the Vietnamese depicted in this illustration? How do they

compare with the way the French are depicted?

To the south, Vietnam had retained its independence from China since
935 and saw itself as an independent state. China simply saw Vietnam as a
tributary. During the 1840s, the Vietnamese emperor moved to reduce
French influences and suppress Christianity. The French responded by
seizing Saigon and Cochin China in 1859, establishing a protectorate over
Cambodia in 1864, and taking Hanoi in 1882. China in 1883 sent troops to
aid its tributary, but after a two-year war with France, China was forced to
abandon its claims to Vietnam. By 1893, France had brought together
Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos to form the Federation of Indochina, which
remained a French colony until 1940.

ImageView the Image

American Cartoon on Western Powers Carving up China at
myhistorylab.com

Unlike Vietnam, Korea saw itself as a tributary of China on Chinese

terms. During the last decades of the Choson Dynasty (1392–1910), the
Korean state was weak. It hung on to power in part by enforcing a policy of
seclusion. Its only foreign ties were with China and Japan. In 1876, Japan
“opened” Korea to international relations, using much the same tactics that
Perry had used against Japan. Japan then contended with China for
influence in Korea.

QUICK REVIEW
Korea in the Late Nineteenth Century
Image Tributary of China
Image The Korean state was weak in the last decades of the nineteenth
century
Image After 1876, Japan contended with China for influence in Korea

In 1893 a popular religious sect unleashed a rebellion against the Seoul

government. China sent troops to help suppress the rebellion, but Japan sent
more, and in 1894 war broke out between China and Japan. Japan won
handily thanks to the discipline and the superior tactics of the Japanese
units. Defeat by Japan convinced many in China that basic changes were
inevitable.

FROM DYNASTY TO WARLORDISM (1895–

1926)
 ImageWHO WERE the key figures in the revolution of 1911?

Confucian officials ruled China. Their intellectual formation was highly

resistant to change. For most, the foreign crises of the nineteenth century
were “coastal phenomena” that, like bee stings, were painful for a time but
then forgotten. Few officials realized the magnitude of the foreign threat.
China’s defeat by Japan, a nation for which China had little regard, came
as a shock. China responded with a new wave of reform proposals. The
most influential thinker was Kang Youwei (1858–1927), who described
China as “enfeebled” and “soundly asleep atop a pile of kindling.” For this
state of affairs, Kang blamed the “conservatives.” They did not understand
that Confucius himself had been a reformer who had invented the idea of a
past golden age to persuade the rulers of his own age to adopt his ideas. All
of history, Kang continued, was evolutionary, an advance from absolute
monarchy to constitutional monarchy to democracy. Kang’s reinterpretation
of the essentials of Confucianism removed a major barrier to the entry of
Western ideas into China.
In 1898 the emperor himself became sympathetic to Kang’s ideas and
launched “one hundred days of reform.” He took as his models Peter the
Great (r. 1682–1725) and the Japanese Meiji emperor (r. 1867–1912).
Edicts were issued to reform China’s schools, railroads, police, laws,
military, bureaucracy, post offices, and examination system. But
conservative resistance was nationwide. At court, the empress dowager
regained control and ended the reforms. Kang and most of his associates
fled to Japan.
The response of the Western powers to China’s 1895 defeat has been
described as “carving up the melon.” Each nation defined a sphere of
interest—usually a leasehold with railway rights and special commercial
privileges. Russia took Port Arthur; Germany, Shandong; Britain, the New
Territories at Hong Kong. New ports and cities were opened to foreign
trade. The United States, busy acquiring the Philippines and Guam, was in a
weaker position in China, so it enunciated an “open-door” policy: equal
commercial opportunities for all nations and the preservation of China’s
territorial integrity.
 There was in China at this time a religious society called the Boxers. The
Chinese name translates more literally as “Righteous and Harmonious
Fists.” The Boxers had rituals, spells, and amulets that they believed made
them impervious to bullets. They rebelled first in Shandung in 1898, and,
gaining court support, entered Beijing in 1900. The court declared war on
the treaty powers, and there followed a two-month siege of the foreign
legation quarter. Pent-up resentments against decades of foreign
encroachments fueled support for the rebellion. Eventually an international
force captured Beijing, won a huge indemnity, and obtained the right to
maintain permanent military forces in the capital. The Russians occupied
Manchuria.

Boxers
A nationalistic Chinese religious society that attacked foreigners and their
encroachments on China in the late nineteenth century.

The defeat of the Boxers convinced even conservative Chinese leaders of

the futility of clinging to old ways. A more powerful reform movement
began with the empress dowager in its vanguard. But the dynasty could not
control the movement.
Educational reforms began in 1901. Women were admitted to newly
formed schools. In place of Confucianism, instructors taught science,
mathematics, geography, and an anti-imperialist version of Chinese history.
Western doctrines, such as classical economics, liberalism, socialism,
anarchism, and social Darwinism, were introduced. By 1906, there were
8,000 Chinese students in Japan, which became a hotbed of Chinese
reformist and revolutionary societies.
Military reforms were begun by Yuan Shikai (1859–1916), whose New
Army drew on Japanese and Western models. Young men from gentry
families, spurred by patriotism, joined the New Army as officers. Their
loyalty was to their commanders and their country, not to the dynasty.
Political reforms began with a modification of the examination system to
accommodate Western learning. Then in 1905 the examination system was
abolished altogether. Henceforth, officials would be directly recruited from
the graduates of Western-model schools and those who had studied abroad.
Provincial assemblies were formed in 1909, and a consultative assembly
with some elected members was established in Beijing in 1910. These
representative bodies became forums for the expression of interests at odds
with those of the dynasty.

QUICK REVIEW
Post-Boxer Rebellion Reforms
Image Education: women schooled, new subjects introduced, study in
Japan
Image Military: New Army modeled on Japan and West, young gentry
officers
Image Politics: provincial assemblies, consultative assembly

In sum, during the first decade of the twentieth century the three vital
components of the imperial system—Confucian education, the bureaucracy,
and the gentry—were changed in ways that a few decades earlier would
have been unimaginable. These changes sparked the 1911–1912 revolution,
which began with an uprising against a government plan to nationalize
railways. The players were:
1. Gentry who stood to lose their investments in the railways.
2. Qing military commanders, who broke with Beijing, declaring their
provinces independent.
3. Sun Zhongshan (or Sun Yat-sen) (1866–1925), a republican
revolutionary. Born a peasant, he had learned English and become a
Christian in Hawaii, studied medicine in Guangzhou and Hong
Kong, organized the Revolutionary Alliance in Tokyo in 1905, and
was also associated with the 1912 Nationalist Party.
4. Yuan Shikai, who was made a commander to preserve the dynasty.
Instead, he arranged for the last child emperor to abdicate, for Sun
to step aside, and declared himself president of the new Republic of
China.

ImageRead the Document

Long Yu, The Abdication Decree, 1912 at myhistorylab.com

The Nationalist Party won the election called in 1913. Yuan thereupon
had its leader assassinated, crushed military governors who supported them,
and forced Sun Zhongshan and other revolutionaries to flee again to Japan.
Yuan proclaimed a new dynasty with himself as emperor. The idea of
another dynasty, however, met opposition from all quarters. Yuan died in
June 1916. China then fell into the hands of warlord armies. The years until
the late 1920s were a time of agony for the Chinese people. Yet they were
also a time of intense intellectual ferment.

CULTURAL AND IDEOLOGICAL FERMENT:

THE MAY FOURTH MOVEMENT

ImageWHY WAS Marxism-Leninism so appealing to Chinese

intellectuals?

A period of freedom and vigorous experimentation with new doctrines

began in 1914 and extended into the 1920s. It is called the May Fourth
Movement because on that date in 1919, thousands of students in Beijing
protested the settlement at Versailles that awarded former German
possessions in Shandung to Japan. This kind of nationalist fervor also
caused leading thinkers to judge ideas in terms of their value in solving
China’s problems. This era of intellectual excitement corresponded almost
exactly with the period of warlord rule—which afforded a breathing space
between the ideological constraints of the old dynasty and those of the
Nationalist and Communist eras that would follow.
Beijing was the center of May Fourth era thought. Cai Yuanpei (1868–
1940), the chancellor of Beijing University, and Chen Duxiu (1879–1942),
dean of letters, made Beijing University a haven for scholars who had
returned from study in Japan or the West. In his magazine New Youth, Chen
Duxiu called for a generation of progressive, cosmopolitan, and scientific
youth who would uphold the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
China’s greatest modern writer, Lu Xun (1881–1936), published A
Madman’s Diary in New Youth in 1918. Lu Xun’s message was that only the
vision of a madman could truly comprehend an abnormal and inhumane
society.
May Fourth Movement ideas quickly spread to the rest of China,
especially its urban centers. Protest demonstrations against imperialist
privilege broke out. Nationalism and anti-imperialist sentiment were
stronger than liberalism, although most leaders spoke of democracy. Only
members of an older generation of reformers, appalled by the slaughter of
World War I and what they saw as Western materialism, advocated a return
to traditional philosophies.
At the onset of China’s intellectual revolution, Marx’s critique of
capitalist society did not fit Chinese conditions. More persuasive was the
anarchism of Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921), who taught that mutual aid was
as much a part of evolution as the struggle for survival. But after the
Russian Revolution of 1917, Marxism-Leninism entered China. The
Leninist definition of imperialism as the last crisis stage of capitalism put
the blame for China’s ills on the West and offered “feudal” China the
possibility of leapfrogging over capitalism to socialism. Marxist study
groups formed in Beijing and other cities. In 1919, a student from Hunan,
Mao Zedong, who had worked in the Beijing University library, returned to
Changsha to form a study group. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was
formed in Shanghai in 1921; Zhou Enlai (1898–1976) formed a similar
group in Paris the same year. The numbers involved were small but grew
steadily.

NATIONALIST CHINA

WHO WAS Jiang Jieshi?

GUOMINDANG UNIFICATION OF CHINA AND THE NANJING DECADE

(1927–1937)
Sun Zhongshan had fled to Japan during the 1913–1916 rule by Yuan
Shikai. He returned to Guangzhou in 1916, but he was a poor organizer, and
his Guomindang (GMD)—or Nationalist Party—made little headway. Sun
began to receive Soviet support in 1923. He reorganized his party on the
Leninist model with an executive committee on top of a national party
congress, provincial and county organizations, and local party cells.
Guomindang (GMD)
China’s Nationalist Party, founded by Sun Zhongshan.

Sun enunciated “three principles of the people”: nationality, livelihood,

and rights. Sun’s nationalism was directed against Western imperialism.
Livelihood was defined in terms of equalizing landholdings and
nationalizing major industries. By “people’s rights” Sun meant democracy,
although he argued that it must be preceded by a preparatory period of
single-party dictatorship. Sun sent his loyal lieutenant Jiang Jieshi (Chiang
Kai-shek) (1887–1975) to the Soviet Union for study. Jiang returned with a
cadre of Russian advisers and established a military academy at Huangpu
south of Guangzhou in 1924. Sun died in 1925. By 1926, the Huangpu
Academy had graduated several thousand officers, and the GMD army
numbered almost a hundred thousand. The GMD had become the major
political force in China; its leadership was divided between a left wing and
a right wing.
The growth of the party was spurred by changes within Chinese society.
Industries arose in the cities. Labor unions were organized. New ventures
were begun outside the treaty ports. A politically conscious middle class
developed. Another important sociopolitical element was China’s several
million students. In May 1925, students demonstrated in Shanghai. Police in
the international settlement fired on the demonstrators. The incident
inflamed national and anti-imperialist feelings. Strikes and boycotts of
foreign goods were called throughout China.
Under these conditions the CCP also grew and was influential in student
organizations, labor unions, and even within the GMD, which Sun had
permitted CCP members to join as individuals.
 Jiang Jieshi (or Chiang Kai-shek, 1887–1975), as a young
revolutionary officer, stands behind Sun Zhongshan (or Sun Yat-sen,
1866–1925), father of China’s 1911–1912 Republican Revolution,
taken around 1925.

What were Sun Zhongshan’s core beliefs?

By 1926, Jiang Jieshi felt ready to march against the warlords. He

worried about the growing communist strength, however, and before setting
off he ousted the Soviet advisers and CCP members from the GMD offices
in Guangzhou. The march north began in July. By the spring of 1927,
Jiang’s army had reached the Yangzi, defeating warlord armies as it
advanced (see Map 27–3). After entering Shanghai in April 1927, Jiang
carried out a sweeping purge of the CCP, killing many. Surviving CCP
members fled to the mountainous border region of Hunan and Jiangxi to the
southwest and established the “Jiangxi Soviet.” Jiang’s army took Beijing
and gained the nominal submission of most northern Chinese warlords
during 1928. Most foreign powers recognized the GMD regime in Nanjing
as the government of China.
 Jiang believed in military force. He was unimaginative, strict, and
incorruptible. Jiang venerated Sun Zhongshan and his three “people’s
principles.” But where Sun was a revolutionary, Jiang was conservative
and, though a Methodist, often appealed to Confucian values. The New Life
Movement begun by Jiang in 1934 was an attempt to revitalize these values.
Jiang’s power rested on the army, the party, and the bureaucracy. The army
was dominated by the Huangpu clique, which was loyal to Jiang, and by
officers trained in Japan. After 1927, German advisers reorganized Jiang’s
army along German lines with a general staff system. The larger part of
GMD revenues went to the military, which was expanded into a modernized
force of three hundred thousand. Huangpu graduates also controlled the
secret military police and used it against communists and any others who
opposed the government. The GMD was a dictatorship under a central
committee. Jiang became president of the party in 1938.

Image

MAP 27–3. The Northern Expeditions of the Guomindang. These

expeditions, from 1926 to 1928, unified most of China under the Nationalist
(Guomindang) government of Jiang Jieshi, inaugurating the Nanjing
decade. Warlord armies continued to hold power on the periphery.

What were the key weaknesses of the Guomindang?

The densely populated central and lower Yangzi provinces were the area
of GMD strength. The party, however, was unable to control outlying areas
occupied by warlords, communists, and the Japanese. Warlords ruled some
areas until 1949. In 1931, Jiang attacked the Jiangxi Soviet. In 1934, the
communists were forced to flee to the southwest and then to Shaanxi
province in northwestern China in the epic Long March. During this
march, Mao Zedong wrested control of the CCP from the Moscow-trained,
urban-oriented leaders and established his unorthodox view that a Leninist
party could base itself on the peasantry. (See Map 27–4.)
Long March
The flight of the Chinese communists from their Nationalist foes to
northwest China in 1934.

Image

MAP 27–4. The Long March, 1934–1935. Arrows trace the Chinese
communists’ “Long March,” from Jiangxi Soviet to Yan’an in northwestern
China.

How did the Communists gain power?

The Japanese had held special rights in Manchuria since the Russo-
Japanese War of 1905. When Jiang’s march north and the rise of Chinese
nationalism threatened the Japanese position, Japan’s forces in Manchuria
engineered a military coup and established a puppet state in 1932. In the
years that followed, Japanese army units moved south as far as the Great
Wall. Chinese national sentiment demanded that Jiang resist, but Jiang, well
aware of the disparity between his armies and those of Japan, felt that the
internal unification of China should take precedence. On a visit to Xian in
1936 Jiang was captured by a northern warlord and held until he agreed to
join with the CCP in a united front against Japan. In the following year,
however, a full-scale war with Japan broke out, and China’s situation again
changed.

WAR AND REVOLUTION (1937–1949)

In 1937 the GMD controlled most of China and was recognized as its
government, whereas the CCP survivors of the Long March had just begun
to rebuild their strength in arid Shaanxi, a remote area beyond the reach of
Jiang’s army. But by 1949 CCP forces had conquered China, including
border areas never under GMD rule, and Jiang and the GMD had fled to
Taiwan. What had happened?
The war with Japan began in July 1937 as an unplanned clash at Beijing
and then quickly spread. Beijing and Tianjin fell to Japan within a month,
Shanghai was attacked in August, and Nanjing fell in December. During the
following year, the Japanese took Guangzhou and set up puppet regimes in
Beijing and Nanjing. In 1940, the leader of the left wing of the GMD and
many of his associates joined the Japanese puppet government. Japan
proclaimed its “New Order in East Asia.” It expected Jiang to submit.
Instead, in 1938 he relocated his capital to Chongqing, far to the west, and
was joined by thousands of Chinese students and professors.
Jiang’s stubborn resistance won admiration from all sides. But the
withdrawal to Chongqing cut the GMD off from most of the Chinese
population, programs for modernization ended, and the GMD’s former tax
revenues were lost. Crippling inflation exacerbated corruption and
destroyed morale. The United States sent advisers and military equipment
to strengthen Jiang’s forces after the start of the Pacific War. Jiang,
however, did not want to fight the Japanese but wanted instead to husband
his forces for a postwar confrontation with the communists. The surge of
anti-Japanese patriotism was not converted to popular support for the GMD.
For the communists headquartered at Yan’an, the Japanese occupation
was an opportunity. While compromising with other political and social
groups, the party strengthened itself internally. Party membership expanded
from 40,000 in 1937 to 1.2 million in 1945. Schools were established in
Yan’an to train party cadres. Orthodoxy was maintained by a rectification
campaign. Those tainted by impure tendencies were made to repent at
public meetings. Mao’s thought was supreme. To the Chinese at large, Mao
represented himself as the successor to Sun Zhongshan, but within the
Communist Party he presented himself as a theoretician in the line of Marx
(1818–1883), Engels (1820–1895), Lenin (1870–1924), and Stalin (1879–
1953).

Image

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) at his cave headquarters in Shaanxi

province during World War II. He wears a padded winter jacket and
 writes with a Chinese brush. On his desk are the Collected Works of Lu
Hsun.

What innovation did Mao introduce to Marxist-Leninist thought?

Whereas the GMD ruled through officials and often in cooperation with
local landlords, the communists learned to operate at the grassroots level.
They infiltrated Japanese-controlled areas and also penetrated some GMD
organizations and military units. CCP armies were built up from 90,000 in
1937 to 900,000 in 1945. These armies were supplemented by a rural
people’s militia and by guerrilla forces. The Yan’an leadership and its party,
army, and mass organizations possessed a cohesion, determination, and high
morale that were lacking in Chongqing. But the strength of the Chinese
communists as of 1945 should not be overstated. When the war in the
Pacific ended in 1945, China’s future was unclear. Even the Soviet Union
recognized the GMD as the government of China and expected it to win the
postwar struggle. The Allies directed Japanese armies to surrender to the
GMD forces in 1945. The United States flew Jiang’s troops to key eastern
cities. His armies were by then three times the size of the communists’
forces and far better equipped.
A civil war broke out immediately. Efforts by U.S. General George
Marshall (1880–1959) to mediate were futile. Until the summer of 1947,
GMD armies were victorious, even capturing Yan’an. But the tide turned in
July as CCP armies went on the offensive in north China. In January 1949,
Beijing and Tianjin fell. A few months later all of China was in communist
hands. Many Chinese fled with Jiang to Taiwan or escaped to Hong Kong.
In China apprehension was mixed with anticipation. The disciplined, well-
behaved soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army were certainly a contrast
to those of the GMD. As villages were liberated, lands were taken from
landlords and given to the landless. In the cities crowds welcomed the CCP
troops as liberators. The feeling was widespread that the future of China
was once again in the hands of the Chinese.

CHRONOLOGY
 Image

SUMMARY

ImageWHAT ROLE did Chōshū and Satsu-ma play in the overthrow of

Tokugawa rule?
Overthrow of the Tokugawa Bakufu (1853–1868). The Tokugawa regime
collapsed only fifteen years after Perry’s arrival in 1853. Chōshū and Satsu-
ma led diplomatic efforts to unify the bakufu and the court between 1861
and 1863; the two domains fought against each other until 1866. Then they
united and led the overthrow of the bakufu. page 697

ImageWHAT POWERS did the Meiji Constitution give to the emperor?

Building the Meiji State (1868–1890). The new Meiji government began
sweeping Westernizing reforms in every field. Power was centralized, land
taxes were reformed, political parties were created, and the Meiji
Constitution was promulgated. page 699

ImageWHY DID Japan set out to build a modern economy?

Growth of a Modern Economy. The Japanese government hoped a
modern economy would help it build military strength. Reforms spurred
economic growth. page 702

ImageHOW DID political parties develop in Japan?

The Politics of Imperial Japan (1890–1945). The emperor became the
unifying symbol for traditional and conservative thinkers. The Diet (Japan’s
Parliament) became the focus for progressives and liberals. A shifting
balance between conservatives and liberals ensued, with parliamentary
democracy making gains into the 1920s. But then the Great Depression and
a crisis in Manchuria opened the way for the rise of militarism in the 1930s.
page 704

ImageHOW WAS Japan similar to and different from Germany during

this period?
Japanese Militarism and German Nazism. There were notable
similarities between Japan and Germany, particularly after the Great
Depression as each expanded its territory. But there were also differences,
beginning with Japan’s greater homogeneity. page 709

ImageWHAT WERE the most serious threats to Manchu rule in the

nineteenth century?
Close of Manchu Rule. The Opium War (1839–1842) posed little threat to
the Qing heartland. Far more serious were the Taiping and other rebellions.
Gentry armies succeeded in suppressing these rebellions. Not until the very
end of the century did the Chinese begin substantial Westernizing reforms
—and by then it was too late for the dynasty. page 710

ImageWHO WERE the key figures in the revolution of 1911?

From Dynasty to Warlordism (1895–1926). The Boxer Rebellion
convinced even conservatives that fundamental reforms were needed. The
gentry and military commanders were early leaders in rebellion. After the
Qing fell in 1912, China was ruled by regional warlords. page 714

ImageWHY WAS Marxism-Leninism so appealing to Chinese

intellectuals?
Cultural and Ideological Ferment: The May Fourth Movement. The
newly entering flood of Western ideas fed a growing nationalism. The
Marxist critique of capitalism did not apply to China, but Marxism-
Leninism gained adherents. page 716

ImageWHO WAS Jiang Jieshi?

Nationalist China. Nationalism permeated the Guomindang (or
Nationalist) army under Jiang Jieshi; it lent legitimacy to the army’s march
north and to the establishment of the Nanjing government. Then Japan
invaded and occupied areas on which the Guomindang had depended. The
communists built up their army, extended their influence, and won the civil
war that ended in 1949. page 717

KEY TERMS

Boxers
Diet
Guomindang (GMD) (GWO-MIHN-DONG)
Long March
Meiji Restoration (MAY-JEE)
self-strengthening
Taiping Rebellion (TEYE-PIHNG)
treaty ports
Tripartite Pact
zaibatsu (zeye-BAHT-soo)

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. How did the Chōshū and Satsu-ma domains become instrumental in

the development of Japan’s government?
2. How did political parties develop in Japan?
3. After the Meiji Restoration, what steps did Japan’s leaders take to
achieve their goal of “wealth and power”?
4. What were some social costs of economic development in Japan?
5. What were the strengths and weaknesses of Japan’s prewar
parliamentary institutions? What led to the sudden rise of militarism
during the 1930s?
6. Which had the greater impact on China, the Opium War or the
Taiping Rebellion?
 7. How did the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty recover from the Taiping
Rebellion? Why was the recovery inadequate to prevent the
overthrow of the dynasty in 1912?
8. Did the May Fourth Movement prepare the way for the Nationalist
revolution? The Communist revolution? Or was it incidental to
both?
9. How did Marxism gain adherents in China?
10. What were Jiang Jieshi’s strengths and weaknesses as a leader?
11. Compare and contrast the process of modernization in Japan and
China in the twentieth century. Which country was more successful?
Why?
Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the Suggested Readings at the end
of the book. For additional sources related to this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

ImageConnections

Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many

documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Research and Explore

ImageStudy and Review Chapter 27

ImageRead the Document President Millard Fillmore, Letter to the

Emperor of Japan, 1852, p. 697
The Views of Ii Naosuke, 1853, p. 697
Japanese Impressions of American Culture (1860), p. 699
Emperor Meiji, The Constitution of the Empire of Japan, p. 701
Japan: The Imperial Rescript on Education, 1890, p. 701
William Hunter, “Description of European Factories in Guangzhou,” 1824,
p. 710
The Treaty of Nanjing, 1842, p. 710
Long Yu, The Abdication Decree, 1912, p. 716
ImageView the Image Japanese Woodcut on Perry’s Arrival, p. 696
American Cartoon on Western Powers Carving up China, p. 714

Hear the Audio China, p. 711

Read and Review

ImageSee the Map Japanese Colonial Expansion to 1914, p. 705

Image

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 27 at www.myhistorylab.com

28
Imperialism and World War I

ImageHear the Audio for Chapter 28 at www.myhistorylab.com

Image

The global British Empire

dominated the nineteenth-century European imperial experience.
The empire was popularized in newspapers, books, and novels, as
well as in thousands of illustrations and photographs. This
illustration seeks to portray the worldwide reach of the British
Empire and the varied peoples whom it governed abroad and, at
the same time, as seen in the caption, sought to build domestic
pride in the imperial achievement. Similar illustrations could be
found portraying the empires of France, Germany, the
Netherlands, Belgium, and Russia.

Why did empires become attractive to European powers in

the late nineteenth century?

EXPANSION OF EUROPEAN POWER AND THE “NEW

IMPERIALISM”

WHAT WAS the New Imperialism?

EMERGENCE OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE

WHAT WERE Bismarck’s goals for Germany?

WORLD WAR I

WHAT CAUSED the outbreak of World War I in 1914?

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

WHY WERE the Bolsheviks able to seize power in Russia?

END OF WORLD WAR I

WHY DID the Versailles settlement leave Germany bitter?

During the second half of the nineteenth century, and especially after 1870,
Europe exercised unprecedented influence and control over the rest of the
world. The Americas, Australia, and New Zealand became in some ways
part of the European world as great streams of European immigrants
populated them. Almost all of Africa was divided among a number of
European nations (see Chapter 26). Europe also imposed its economic and
political power across Asia (see Map 28–1 on page 728 and Chapter 27).
By the next century, European dominance had brought every part of the
globe into a single world economy. Events in any corner of the world had
significant effects thousands of miles away.

These developments helped foster competition and hostility among the

great powers of Europe and to bring on a terrible war. The frenzy for
imperial expansion that seized Europeans in the late nineteenth century did
much to destroy Europe’s peace and prosperity and its dominant place in
the world. Image

EXPANSION OF EUROPEAN POWER AND THE “NEW

IMPERIALISM”

ImageWHAT WAS the New Imperialism?

Explosive developments in nineteenth-century science, technology,

industry, agriculture, transportation, communication, and weaponry enabled
a few Europeans (and Americans) to impose their will on other peoples
many times their number. Westerners had institutional as well as material
advantages—particularly the mobilizing power of national states and a
belief in the superiority of their civilization.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

IMPERIALISM AND THE GREAT WAR

European imperialism in the last part of the nineteenth century brought

Western countries into contact with almost all the inhabited areas of the
world and intensified their activity in places where they had already been
interested. By the time World War I broke out, European nations had
divided Africa among themselves for exploitation. The vast subcontinent of
India had long been a British colony, producing primary products such as
raw cotton that fed British industry. Much of China had fallen under
European control, and Indochina was under French rule. The islands of the
Pacific had been divided among Western powers. Much of the Middle East
was under the nominal control of the Ottoman Empire, which was in its
death throes and under European influence. The Monroe Doctrine made
Latin America a protectorate of the United States. Japan, pushed out of its
isolation, had itself become an imperial power at the expense of China and
Korea. What all of the Western imperial powers, as well as Japan, had in
common was a need to extract raw materials from their colonies to feed
their industries. Their colonies in turn were to serve as markets for Western
manufactured goods, even at the expense of indigenous manufactures, as in
the case of India’s ancient cloth weaving industry. This, as well as the
prestige that colonies afforded, helps explain why nations were so
determined to obtain and retain colonies.

The emergence of a new, powerful German state at the center of Europe

upset the old balance of power and threatened the peace established in
1815. Germany’s Chancellor Bismarck created a new system of alliances
that preserved the peace for as long as he remained in power, but the new
German emperor, William II, abandoned this policy of restraint and sought
greater power and influence for his country. The result was a new system of
alliances that divided Europe into two armed camps and greatly increased
the chances of a general war. What began as yet another Balkan War
involving the European powers became a world war. As the terrible war of
1914–1918 dragged on, the real motives that had driven the European
powers to fight gave way to public affirmations of the principles of
nationalism and self-determination. Peoples under colonial rule took
seriously the public statements, and sometimes the private promises, made
to secure their cooperation in supplying the war effort and sought to win
their independence and nationhood. For the most part they were
disappointed by the peace settlement. The establishment of the League of
Nations and the system of mandates in place of open colonial rule did not
change much. The British Empire inherited vast territories from the
defeated German and the defunct Ottoman empires and was larger than
ever. The French retained and expanded their holdings in Africa, the
Pacific, and the Middle East. The Americans added to the islands they
controlled in the Pacific. Japanese imperial ambitions were rewarded at the
expense of China.
A glance at the new map of the world might suggest that the old imperial
nations, especially Britain and France, were more powerful than ever.
However, that impression would be superficial and misleading. The great
western European powers paid an enormous price in lives and money for
their victory in the war. Colonial peoples pressed for the rights that Western
nations proclaimed as universal but denied to their colonies; influential
minorities in the countries that ruled them sympathized with colonial
aspirations for independence. Tension between colonies and their ruling
nations was one cause of the instability in the world created by the Paris
treaties of 1919.

Focus Questions

Image Why were Western powers eager to obtain colonies?

Image Why is World War I a turning point in history?

Image How did World War I alter the relationship between

imperial powers and colonized peoples?

ImageWatch the Video

The Origins of Modern Imperialism and Colonialism at myhistorylab.com

The expansion of European influence was not new. Spain, Portugal, France,
Holland, and Britain had controlled overseas territories for centuries. By
the mid-nineteenth century, only Great Britain retained extensive overseas
holdings, and there was general hostility to territorial expansion. The
dominant doctrine of free trade opposed political interference in other
lands. But after 1870, European states swiftly exerted control over about a
fifth of the world’s land area and a tenth of its population in a movement
called the New Imperialism.

New Imperialism
The extension in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries of
Western political and economic dominance to Asia, the Middle East, and
Africa.

THE NEW IMPERIALISM

Imperialism can be defined as extending a nation’s influence by some form

of power over foreign peoples. The usual pattern of the New Imperialism
was for the European nation to invest capital in a “less developed” country
and thereby to transform its economy and culture. To guarantee their
investments, European states would establish different degrees of political
control ranging from full annexation as a colony, to protectorate status
(whereby the local ruler was controlled by the dominant European state), to
“spheres-of-influence” status (whereby the European state received special
privileges without direct political involvement).

MOTIVES FOR THE NEW IMPERIALISM

A predominant interpretation of the motives for the New Imperialism has

been economic, in the form given by the English radical economist J. A.
Hobson (1858–1928) and later adapted by Lenin. Lenin saw imperialism as
the final stage in capitalism’s development—the pursuit of monopoly.
Competition inevitably eliminates inefficient capitalists and therefore leads
to monopoly. Powerful industrial and financial capitalists soon run out of
profitable areas of investment in their own countries and persuade their
governments to gain colonies in “less developed” countries. Here they can
find higher profits from their investments, new markets for their products,
and safe sources of raw materials.

QUICK REVIEW

Interpreting the New Imperialism

Image Economic: Capitalists profit more in less developed

countries
 Image Cultural: Bring civilization to backward peoples

Image Demographic: Provide land for surplus European

population

Image Prestige: Control more territory and resources than other

European nations

The facts, however, do not support this viewpoint. Only a small part of
European investments overseas went to the colonies acquired by the New
Imperialism. Most of it went to older, established areas like the United
States, Canada, and Australia. Colonies were not usually important markets
for the great imperial nations, and it is not even clear that control of the
new colonies was particularly profitable. A full understanding of the New
Imperialism requires a search for other motives.

At the time, advocates of imperialism gave various justifications for it.

Some argued that the advanced European nations had a duty to bring the
benefits of their higher culture and superior civilization to so-called
backward peoples. Religious groups demanded that Western governments
support Christian missionaries politically and even militarily. Some
politicians and diplomats supported imperialism as a tool of social policy.
In Germany, for instance, some people suggested that imperial expansion
would deflect public interest away from domestic politics and social
reform. Yet Germany acquired few colonies, and such considerations
played little, if any, role in its colonial policy. In Britain, Joseph
Chamberlain (1836–1914), the colonial secretary from 1895 to 1903,
argued for the empire as a source of profit and economic security that
would finance a great program of domestic reform and welfare, but these
arguments were made well after Britain had acquired most of its empire.
Another apparently plausible justification for imperialism was that colonies
would attract a European country’s surplus population. In fact, most
European emigrants went to areas their countries did not control, chiefly
the Americas and Australia.

Image
 Knitting the World. The New Imperialism was not restricted to
Europe. An advertisement for the Singer Sewing Machine
Company, based in New York, shows a seamstress sewing
together the two halves of the Western Hemisphere. By the late
nineteenth century, U.S. firms like Singer created a global
demand for their goods. Singer sewing machines came with
instruction booklets printed in 54 languages. Of the fifteen
factories making the machines, only seven were in the United
States.

What was the role of the United States in the New

Imperialism?

THE “SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA”

Multiple motives were on display in the late nineteenth century, when

European imperial powers expanded their economic and political control of
Africa. During this so-called scramble for Africa, which occurred between
the late 1870s and about 1900, the European powers sought to maximize
their control of African territory and raw materials. Motivated by intense
economic and political competition, they rationalized their expansionary
policies on both religious and cultural grounds. The imperial powers
eventually divided almost all the continent among themselves.

Image

MAP 28–1. Asia, 1880–1914. As in Africa (see Map 26–3 on page 685),
the late nineteenth century saw imperialism spread widely and rapidly in
Asia. Two new powers, Japan and the United States, joined the British,
French, and Dutch in extending control both to islands and to the mainland
and in exploiting an enfeebled China.

How did the new Japanese empire affect the balance of power in
Asia?

DOCUMENT

Social Darwinism and Imperialism

One of the intellectual foundations of the New Imperialism was the doctrine
of social Darwinism, a pseudoscientific application of Darwin’s ideas
about biology to nations and races. The impact of social Darwinism was
substantial. In the selection that follows, an Englishman, Karl Pearson
(1857–1936), attempts to connect concepts from evolutionary theory—the
struggle for survival and the survival of the fittest—to the development of
human societies.

• HOW does the author connect Darwin’s ideas to the concept of

human progress? Is it reasonable to equate biological species
with human societies, races, or nations? How do the author’s
ideas justify imperial expansion? What arguments can you make
against the author’s assertions?

History shows me one way, and one way only, in which a state of
civilisation has been produced, namely, the struggle of race with race, and
the survival of the physically and mentally fitter race. This dependence of
progress on the survival of the fitter race, terribly black as it may seem to
some of you, gives the struggle for existence its redeeming features; it is
the fiery crucible out of which comes the finer metal. You may hope for a
time when the sword shall be turned into the ploughshare, when American
and German and English traders shall no longer compete in the markets of
the world for raw materials, for their food supply, when the white man and
the dark shall share the soil between them, and each till it as he lists. But,
believe me, when that day comes mankind will no longer progress, there
will be nothing to check the fertility of inferior stock; the relentless law of
heredity will not be controlled and guided by natural selection. Man will
stagnate…. The path of progress is strewn with the wreck of nations; traces
are everywhere to be seen of the hecatombs of inferior races, and of victims
who found not the narrow way to the greater perfection. Yet these dead
peoples are, in very truth, the stepping stones on which mankind has arisen
to the higher intellectual and deeper emotional life of today.

Source: From Karl Pearson, National Life from the Standpoint of

Science, 2d ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1907), pp. 21, 26–27, 64.

ImageSee the Map

Africa before the Scramble at myhistorylab.com

For centuries, European slave-trading bases had dotted the African

coastline, but few Europeans had penetrated the interior. This changed in
the late 1870s. (See Chapter 26). The Congress of Vienna had prohibited
the Atlantic slave trade in 1815, a ban that Western—primarily British—
naval patrols enforced. Those patrols and the abolition of slavery in the
Americas during the nineteenth century meant that Africa was no longer a
source for slave labor except in central and East Africa, where Arab slave
traders continued to export slaves to the Muslim world until at least the
1890s. Instead, Africa became an important supplier of raw materials, such
as ivory, rubber, and, notably, diamonds and gold to the West. The British,
French, Belgians, Germans, Italians, and Portuguese sought to maximize
their access to these resources. The competition was so fierce and the
scramble for African territories so frantic and volatile that the imperial
powers were constantly negotiating with each other about how to parcel
Africa among them without the contest leading to war. To set the rules, the
German chancellor Otto von Bismarck called a conference in Berlin in
1884–1885 that mapped out a European-controlled Africa. African colonies
had become both trophies for European powers and possible bargaining
chips in their economic and political competition with each other.

In North Africa, the experience of European imperialism was slightly

different from that in sub-Saharan Africa. Because much of North Africa
was still technically part of the Ottoman Empire, the European powers
secured their interests primarily in two ways: through economic penetration
(investments and loans) and diplomatic pressure. Force, however, was
always an option. By 1914, European powers controlled all of North
Africa. France had begun the conquest of Algeria in 1830 (see Chapter 19).
The French also took control of Tunisia in the early 1880s and of Morocco
between 1901 and 1912. Italy seized Libya from Turkey in 1911–1912.
Egypt, the richest North African country, fell under the control of Britain.

Egypt was an unusual case. For most of the nineteenth century, it had been
a semi-independent province of the Ottoman Empire under the hereditary
rule of a Muslim dynasty. The Khedives, as these rulers were titled, had
tried to modernize the country by building new harbors, roads, and a
European-style army. To pay for these projects, the Egyptian government
borrowed money from European creditors. To earn the money to repay
these loans, it forced farmers to plant cash crops. Ultimately, the Egyptian
government became utterly dependent on European creditors. The
construction of the Suez Canal, which opened in 1869, was the final blow
to Egypt’s finances. Built by French engineers with European capital, the
canal connected the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, which meant that ships
from Europe no longer had to sail around Africa to reach Asia. Yet Egypt
did not benefit. By 1876, the Khedive was bankrupt; most of his shares in
the company that ran the canal were sold to Britain. Egypt’s European
creditors took more than 50 percent of Egyptian revenue each year to repay
their loans and forced the Egyptian government to increase taxes. This
provoked a rebellion, and in 1881 the Egyptian army took over the
government to defend Egypt from foreign exploitation. Then Britain easily
defeated the Egyptians.

ImageRead the Document

A British View of Egyptian Agriculture, 1840 at myhistorylab.com

Egypt never became an official part of the British Empire, but for seventy
years the British exercised control through a relatively small number of
British administrators and soldiers. Their primary goal was stability and
control of the Suez Canal, which the British regarded as their “lifeline” to
their empire in India and the Far East. They also prevented the Egyptians
from establishing a textile industry that would compete with Britain’s own
textile mills. While the Egyptian economy grew and tax revenues
increased, per capita income actually declined among Egyptians, most of
whom were peasant farmers. This led to the growth of Egyptian
nationalism and to increasing demands that the British leave Egypt.

ImageRead the Document

Edward D. Morel, The Black Man’s Burden at myhistorylab.com

Perhaps the most remarkable story in the European scramble for Africa was
the acquisition of the Belgian Congo. In the 1880s, the lands drained by the
vast Congo River became the personal property of King Leopold II of
Belgium (r. 1865–1909). As a young monarch, he had become determined
that Belgium, despite its small territory, must acquire colonies. No doubt he
was inspired by the great commercial wealth that the neighboring
Netherlands had accumulated from its long history of colonial trade. The
Belgian government, however, had no interest in acquiring colonies. So
despite being a constitutional monarch, Leopold used his own wealth and
political guile to realize his colonial ambitions under the guise of
humanitarian concern for Africans. He recruited the English-born journalist
and explorer Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) to undertake a major
expedition into the Congo. Between 1879 and 1884, Stanley made
“treaties” on Leopold’s behalf with local rulers who had no idea what they
were signing. Leopold became the personal ruler of an African domain that
was over seventy times the size of Belgium itself. Leopold’s administration
used slave labor, intimidation, torture, mutilation, and mass murder to
extract rubber and ivory from what became known as the Congo Free State.
Eventually Leopold’s crimes were exposed, and he formally turned the
Congo over to Belgium in 1908.

The cruelties in the Congo, which became the basis for Joseph Conrad’s
classic novel Heart of Darkness (1902), were recorded for posterity in
photographs, eyewitness accounts, and newspaper articles, and by an
official Belgian commission. The most responsible historical estimates
suggest that the exploitation Leopold’s administration carried out halved
the population of the Congo in about thirty years.

South Africa’s fertile pastures and farmland and its vast deposits of coal,
iron ore, gold, diamonds, and copper made it appealing to a host of people.
The Afrikaners or Boers, descendants of seventeenth- and eighteenth-
century Dutch settlers, had long inhabited the area around the Cape of
Good Hope, and the British started to settle there after Britain took over
from the Dutch during the Napoleonic Wars. Although the British met with
considerable native resistance from the Zulu, Shona, and Ndebele peoples,
they eventually established colonies in what is now South Africa,
Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In 1910, after a series of bloody wars
with the white Afrikaners, who consistently resented and opposed British
rule, the British formed a pact with them that guaranteed the rule of the
European minority over the majority black and nonwhite population.
Africans and people of mixed race whom the British referred to as
“colored” were forbidden to own land, denied the right to vote, and
excluded from positions of power. To preserve their political power and
economic privileges, the white elite of South Africa eventually enforced a
policy of racial apartheid—“separateness”—that turned the country into a
totally segregated land. The result was decades of oppression, racial
tensions, and economic exploitation.

Image
 Cruelty in the Belgian Congo. A naked slave, tied to the
ground, is whipped by an overseer.

Why were there so many atrocities in the Belgian Congo?

THE NEW IMPERIALISM IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

The emergence of Japan as a great power frightened the other powers that
were interested in China (see Chapter 27). The Russians were building a
railroad across Siberia to Vladivostok and were afraid of any threat to
Manchuria. Together with France and Germany, they applied diplomatic
pressure that forced Japan out of the Liaotung Peninsula in northern China
and its harbor, Port Arthur. All pressed feverishly for concessions in China.
Fearing that China, its markets, and its investment opportunities would
soon be closed to U.S. citizens, the United States proposed the open-door
policy in 1899. This policy opposed foreign annexations in China and
allowed entrepreneurs of all nations to trade there on equal terms. British
support helped win acceptance of the policy by all the powers except
Russia.

The United States had only recently emerged as a force in international

affairs. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 had, in effect, made the entire
Western Hemisphere an American protectorate. Cuba’s attempt to gain
independence from Spain was the spark for the new U.S. involvement in
international affairs. Sympathy for the Cuban cause, U.S. investments on
the island, the desire for Cuban sugar, and concern over the island’s
strategic importance in the Caribbean all helped persuade the United States
to fight Spain.

Victory in the Spanish-American War of 1898 brought the United States an

informal protectorate over Cuba and the annexation of Puerto Rico. The
United States forced Spain to sell the Philippine Islands and Guam, and
Germany bought the other Spanish islands in the Pacific. The United States
and Germany also divided Samoa between them. France and Britain took
Spain’s remaining Pacific islands. The United States had dominated Hawaii
for some time and annexed it in 1898, five years after an American-backed
coup had overthrown the native Hawaiian monarchy. This burst of activity
after the Spanish-American War made the United States an imperial and
Pacific power.

Thus, by the turn of the century, most of the world had come under the
control of the industrialized West. The one remaining area of great
vulnerability was the Ottoman Empire. Its fate, however, was closely tied
up with European developments.

EMERGENCE OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE

ImageWHAT WERE Bismarck’s goals for Germany?

FORMATION OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE (1873–1890)

Prussia’s victories over Austria and France and its creation of a large,
powerful German Empire in 1871 revolutionized European diplomacy. The
sudden appearance of a vast, wealthy, industrialized, and militarized state
that brought together most of the German people posed new problems.

The balance of power created at the Congress of Vienna was altered

radically. Britain and Russia retained their positions. Austria, however, had
lost ground and was threatened by nationalism within the Austro-
Hungarian Empire. French power and prestige were badly damaged by the
Franco-Prussian War and the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. The
French were both afraid of Germany and resentful of their loss of territory
and traditional dominance in western Europe.

BISMARCK’S LEADERSHIP (1873–1890)

Until 1890 Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) continued to guide German
policy. He insisted after 1871 that Germany wanted no further territorial
gains, and he meant it. He wanted to avoid a war that might lead to
Germany’s disintegration. He tried to assuage French resentment by
cultivating friendly relations and by supporting French colonial aspirations.
He also prepared for the worst. If France could not be conciliated, it must
be isolated. Bismarck sought to prevent an alliance between France and any
other European power—especially Austria or Russia—that would threaten
Germany with a war on two fronts.

QUICK REVIEW

Bismarck’s Goals

Image No additional territorial expansion

Image Tried to cultivate friendship with France

Image Sought to prevent alliance between France and any other

European power that would threaten Germany on two fronts

Bismarck’s first move was to establish the Three Emperors’ League in

1873. The league brought together the three great conservative empires of
Germany, Austria, and Russia. It collapsed when Russia went to war with
Turkey in 1877. The tottering Ottoman Empire was preserved chiefly by
the competing aims of those powers that awaited its demise. Ottoman
weakness encouraged its Slavic subjects in the Balkans to rebel.

When Russia entered the fray, it created an international crisis. The

Russians hoped to gain control of Constantinople. Russian intervention also
reflected the influence of the pan-Slavic movement, which sought to bring
all the Slavs, even those under Austrian or Ottoman rule, under the
protection of Holy Mother Russia.
pan-Slavic movement
The movement to create a nation or federation that would embrace all the
Slavic peoples of eastern Europe.

The Ottoman Empire was forced to sue for peace. The Treaty of San
Stefano of March 1878 was a Russian triumph. The Slavic states in the
Balkans were freed of Ottoman rule, and Russia obtained territory and an
indemnity. But the terms of the Russian victory alarmed the other great
powers. Austria feared that the new Slav states and the increase in Russian
influence would threaten its own Balkan provinces. The British were
alarmed by the possible Russian control of Constantinople. Disraeli (1804–
1881) was determined to resist, and British public opinion supported him.

Disraeli sent a fleet to Constantinople, and Britain and Austria forced

Russia to agree to an international conference at which the provisions of
San Stefano would be reviewed by the other great powers. The resulting
Congress of Berlin met in June and July of 1878 under Bismarck’s
leadership. The Congress’s decisions were a blow to Russian ambitions.
Bulgaria lost two-thirds of its territory. Austria-Hungary was given Bosnia
and Herzegovina to “occupy and administer” under formal Ottoman rule.
Britain received Cyprus, and France gained permission to occupy Tunisia.
These were compensations for the gains that Russia was permitted to keep.
Germany asked for nothing, but the Russians were angry. The Three
Emperors’ League was dead.

ImageRead the Document

Serbian Society of National Defense, Program for Nationalism at
myhistorylab.com

The major trouble spot now was in the south Slavic states of Serbia and
Montenegro. They deeply resented the Austrian occupation of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, as did many of the natives of those provinces. The south
Slavic question, as well as the estrangement between Russia and Germany,
was a threat to the peace of Europe.
 ImageSee the Map
Congress of Berlin at myhistorylab.com

Bismarck could ignore the Balkans but not the breach in his eastern alliance
system. With Russia alienated, he concluded a secret treaty with Austria in
1879. The resulting Dual Alliance provided that if either Germany or
Austria was attacked by Russia, the ally would help the attacked party. If
either was attacked by someone else, each promised at least to maintain
neutrality. The treaty was renewed every five years until 1918. As the
central point in German policy, it was criticized at the time; some have
judged it mistaken in retrospect. It appeared to tie the German fortunes to
those of the troubled Austro-Hungarian Empire and thus to borrow trouble.
It also isolated the Russians and pushed them to alliances in the West.

Bismarck was aware of these dangers but discounted them. He never

allowed the alliance to drag Germany into Austria’s Balkan quarrels. He
made it clear to the Austrians that Germany would never attack Russia.
Bismarck expected the Austro-German negotiations to frighten Russia into
seeking closer relations with Germany, and he was right. By 1881, he had
renewed the Three Emperors’ League on a firmer basis.

In 1882, Italy, annoyed by the French preemption of Tunisia, asked to join

the Dual Alliance. Bismarck was now allied with three of the great powers
and was friendly with Great Britain, which held aloof from all alliances.
France was isolated. Although the Three Emperors’ League was allowed to
lapse, the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria, and Italy) was renewed for
another five years in 1887. To restore German relations with Russia,
Bismarck negotiated the Reinsurance Treaty that same year, in which both
powers promised to remain neutral if either was attacked. However, a
change in the German monarchy overturned Bismarck’s system.

In 1888, William II (r. 1888–1918) came to the German throne. Like many
Germans of his generation, he was filled with a sense of Germany’s destiny
as the leading power of Europe. To achieve a “place in the sun,” he wanted
a navy and colonies like Britain’s. These aims, of course, ran counter to
Bismarck’s policy. In 1890, William dismissed Bismarck. During
Bismarck’s time, Germany was a force for European peace. This position
would not have been possible without its great military power. But it also
required a statesman who could exercise restraint and understand what his
country needed and what was possible.

Bismarck and the Kaiser. Bismarck and the young Kaiser

William II meet in 1888. The two disagreed over many issues,
and in 1890 William dismissed the aged chancellor.

Why did Kaiser William II disagree with Bismarck?

FORGING THE TRIPLE ENTENTE (1890–1907)

Almost immediately after Bismarck’s retirement, his system of alliances

collapsed. His successor, General Leo von Caprivi (1831–1899), refused
the Russian request to renew the Reinsurance Treaty, which he considered
incompatible with the Austrian alliance. Political isolation and the need for
foreign capital drove the Russians toward France. The French, who were
even more isolated, were glad to pour capital into Russia if it would help
produce security against Germany. In 1894 the Franco-Russian alliance was
signed.

Britain now became the key to the international situation. Colonial rivalries
pitted the British against the Russians in central Asia and against the
French in Africa. Traditionally, Britain had also opposed Russian control of
Constantinople and French control of the Low Countries. There was no
reason to think that Britain would soon become friendly to its traditional
rivals or abandon its friendliness toward the Germans. Yet within a decade
of William II’s accession, Germany had become the enemy in the minds of
the British because of Germany’s foreign and naval policies.

At first Germany tried to win over the British to the Triple Alliance, but
when Britain clung to “splendid isolation,” Germany sought to demonstrate
its worth as an ally by making trouble for Britain. The Germans began to
exert pressure against Britain in Africa by barring British attempts to build
a railroad from Cape Town to Cairo. They also openly sympathized with
the Boers of South Africa in their resistance to British expansion.

In 1898, William’s dream of a German navy began to achieve reality with

the passage of a naval law providing for nineteen battleships. In 1900, a
second law doubled that figure. The architect of the new navy, Admiral
Alfred von Tirpitz (1849–1930), proclaimed that Germany’s naval policy
was aimed at Britain. As the German navy grew and German policies
seemed more threatening, the British abandoned their traditional policies
(see Figure 28–1).

The first breach in Britain’s isolation came in 1902 when an alliance was
concluded with Japan to help defend British interests in the Far East against
Russia. In 1904, Britain concluded a series of agreements with the French,
collectively called the Entente Cordiale. It was not a formal treaty and had
no military provisions, but it settled all outstanding colonial differences
between the two nations. The Entente Cordiale was a big step toward
aligning the British with Germany’s great potential enemy.
FIGURE 28–1. Warship Tonnage of the World’s Navies, 1880–1910.
Naval strength was the primary index of power before World War I.

Paul Kennedy, Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York:
Random House, 1987), p. 203.

Which countries experienced dramatic change in warship

tonnage?

In March 1905, William II landed at Tangier and challenged the French

predominance there in a speech in favor of Moroccan independence.
Germany’s chancellor, Prince Bernhard von Bülow (1849–1929), intended
to show France how weak it was and how little it could expect from
Britain; he also hoped to gain colonial concessions. The Germans might
have achieved their aims, but they demanded an international conference to
exhibit their power. The conference met in 1906 at Algeciras in Spain.
Austria sided with its German ally, but Spain, Italy, and the United States
voted with Britain and France. The French were confirmed in their position
in Morocco, and German bullying had driven Britain and France closer
together. Sir Edward Grey (1862–1933), the British foreign secretary,
authorized conversations between the British and French general staffs. By
1914, French and British military and naval plans were so mutually
dependent that the two countries were effectively allies.

QUICK REVIEW

First Moroccan Crisis

Image March 1905: William II implies Germany has a role in

furthering Moroccan independence

Image Germany had hoped to weaken the relationship between

France and Great Britain

Image 1906: Conference in Algeciras confirms France’s claims

in Morocco

Britain’s new relationship with France was surprising enough. Hardly

anyone believed that Britain and Russia could ever be allies. The 1904–
1905 Russo-Japanese War made such a development seem even less likely
because Britain was allied with Russia’s enemy. But defeat and the Russian
Revolution of 1905 left Russia weak and reduced British apprehensions.
The British were also concerned that Russia might drift into the German
orbit. With French support, in 1907 an agreement settled Russo-British
quarrels in central Asia and Persia and opened the door for wider
cooperation. The Triple Entente, an informal but powerful association of
Britain, France, and Russia, was now ranged against the Triple Alliance.
Because Italy was unreliable, Germany and Austria-Hungary stood
surrounded by two great land powers and Great Britain.

William II and his ministers had turned Bismarck’s nightmare of the

prospect of a two-front war with France and Russia into a reality and had
added Britain to the hostile coalition. Bismarck’s alliance system had been
intended to maintain peace, but the new one increased the risk of war and
made the Balkans, where Austrian and Russian ambitions clashed, a likely
spot for it. Bismarck’s diplomacy had left France isolated and impotent; the
new arrangement found France associated with the two greatest powers in
Europe, apart from Germany. The Germans could rely only on Austria,
whose troubles made it more likely to need aid than to provide it.

WORLD WAR I

ImageWHAT CAUSED the outbreak of World War I in 1914?

THE ROAD TO WAR (1908–1914)

The situation in the Balkans was exceedingly complicated. The weak

Ottoman Empire controlled the central strip running west from
Constantinople to the Adriatic. North and south of it were the independent
states of Romania, Montenegro, Serbia, and Greece; Bulgaria, while
technically still part of the empire, was legally autonomous and practically
independent. The Austro-Hungarian Empire included Croatia and Slovenia
and since 1878 had “occupied and administered” Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Except for the Greeks and the Romanians, most of the inhabitants of the
Balkans were Slavs and felt a kinship with one another and with Russia.
For centuries they had been ruled by Austrians, Hungarians, or Turks, and
the nationalism that characterized late nineteenth-century Europe made
many Slavs eager for liberty or at least autonomy. The more radical among
them longed for a union of the south Slavic, or Yugoslav, peoples in a
single nation led by independent Serbia. They hoped to detach all the
Slavic provinces (especially Bosnia, which bordered on Serbia) from
Austria. Serbia was to unite the Slavs at the expense of Austria, as
Piedmont had united the Italians and Prussia the Germans.
In 1908, modernizing reformers called the Young Turks overthrew the
Ottoman government. This threatened to revive the empire and precipitated
a series of Balkan crises that would lead to world war. Austria and Russia
decided to act before Turkey became stronger. They agreed to call an
international conference in which each of them would support the other’s
demands. Russia would agree to the Austrian annexation of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and Austria would support Russia’s request to open the
Dardanelles to Russian warships.

ImageSee the Map

Diplomatic Crises, 1905–1914 at myhistorylab.com

Austria, however, declared the annexation unilaterally before any

conference was called. The British, concerned about their own position in
the Mediterranean, rejected the Russian demand. The Russians were
furious. The Serbs were enraged by the annexation of Bosnia. The Russians
were too weak to do anything but accept the new situation. The Germans
were unhappy because Austria’s action threatened their relations with
Russia. But Germany felt so dependent on the Dual Alliance that it assured
Austria of its support. To an extent, German policy was being made in
Vienna. It was a dangerous precedent. At the same time, the failure of
Britain and France to support Russia strained the Triple Entente and made it
harder for them to oppose Russian interests again if they wanted to retain
Russian friendship.

QUICK REVIEW

Second Moroccan Crisis

Image 1911: France sends an army to Morocco and Germany

sends gunboat to Moroccan port of Agadir

Image British overreaction leads to naval arms race between

Germany and Britain
 Image Chief effects of the crisis were to increase suspicion
between Germany and Britain and to draw France and Britain
closer together

The second Moroccan crisis, in 1911, emphasized the French and British
need for mutual support. When France sent an army to Morocco to put
down a rebellion, Germany took the opportunity to extort colonial
concessions in the French Congo by sending the gunboat Panther to the
port of Agadir in Morocco, allegedly to protect German citizens there. As
in 1905, the Germans went too far.

Anglo-German relations had already been deteriorating, chiefly because of

the naval race. The British now mistakenly believed that the Germans
meant to turn Agadir into a naval base on the Atlantic. The crisis passed
when France yielded bits of the Congo and Germany withdrew from
Morocco. The main result was to draw Britain closer to France. Plans were
formulated for a British expeditionary force to help defend France against
German attack, and the British and French navies agreed to cooperate.

After the second Moroccan crisis, Italy feared that France would move into
Ottoman Libya. Consequently, in 1911 Italy attacked the Ottoman Empire
to forestall the French and obtained Libya and the Dodecanese Islands in
the Aegean. The Italian victory encouraged the Balkan states to try their
luck. In 1912, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia attacked the
Ottoman Empire and won easily. The Serbs and the Bulgarians then
quarreled about the division of Macedonia, and in 1913, Turkey and
Romania joined Greece and Serbia against Bulgaria, which lost much of
what it had gained since 1878.

The Austrians were determined to limit Serbian gains and prevent the Serbs
from obtaining a port in Albania on the Adriatic. An international
conference sponsored by Britain in early 1913 resolved the matter in
Austria’s favor and called for an independent kingdom of Albania. But
Austria felt humiliated by the public airing of Serbian demands and in
October unilaterally forced Serbia to withdraw from Albania. Russia again
let Austria have its way.
The lessons learned from this affair influenced behavior in the final crisis
of 1914. The Russians had, as in 1908, been embarrassed by their passivity,
and their allies were now more reluctant to restrain them. The Austrians
were determined not to accept an international conference again. They and
their German allies had seen that better results might be obtained from a
threat of force.

SARAJEVO AND THE OUTBREAK OF WAR (JUNE–AUGUST 1914)

On June 28, 1914, a Bosnian nationalist killed the Austrian Archduke

Francis Ferdinand (1863–1914), heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and
his wife in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. The assassin was a member of a
political terrorist society. It was generally (and correctly) believed that
Serbian officials were implicated. The assassination was condemned
throughout Europe. To those Austrians who had long favored an attack on
Serbia as a solution to the empire’s Slavic problem, the opportunity seemed
irresistible. But Count Stefan Tisza (1861–1918), speaking for Hungary,
resisted. Count Leopold Berchtold (1863–1942), the Austro-Hungarian
foreign minister, knew that German support would be required if Russia
should decide to protect Serbia and to persuade the Hungarians to go to
war. The question of peace or war, therefore, had to be answered in Berlin.

William II and Chancellor Theobald von BethmannHollweg (1856–1921)

readily promised German support for an attack on Serbia. It has often been
said that they gave the Austrians a “blank check,” but their message was
firmer than that. They urged the Austrians to move swiftly while the other
powers were still angry at Serbia. They also indicated that a failure to act
would be evidence of Austria-Hungary’s uselessness as an ally. The
Austrians hoped, with the protection of Germany, to avoid a general
European conflict but were prepared to risk one. The Germans also knew
that they risked a general war but hoped to “localize” the fight between
Austria and Serbia. Bethmann-Hollweg hoped that German support would
deter Russian involvement. Failing that, he believed that rapid victory over
France would allow a full-scale attack on the Russians, who were slow to
bring their strength into action. This policy depended on British neutrality,
and the German chancellor convinced himself that the British could be
persuaded to stand aloof. But all these hopes were futile.
 Image

Image

Assassination of the Archduke. Above: The Austrian Archduke

Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. Later
in the day the royal couple were assassinated by young
revolutionaries trained and supplied in Serbia, igniting the crisis
that led to World War I. Below: Moments after the assassination
the Austrian police captured one of the assassins.

Why did this assassination trigger World War I?

ImageRead the Document

Borijove Jevtic: The Murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo (28
June 1914) at myhistorylab.com

The Austrians were slow to act. They did not even deliver their deliberately
unacceptable ultimatum to Serbia until July 24, when the general hostility
toward Serbia had begun to subside. Serbia returned an embarrasingly
conciliatory answer, but the Austrians were determined to fight. On July 28,
they declared war on Serbia, even though they could not field an army until
mid-August.

ImageHear the Audio

World War 1 at myhistorylab.com
The Russians responded angrily. Nationalists, pan-Slavs, and most of the
politically conscious classes demanded action. The government ordered
partial mobilization against Austria only. This policy was militarily
impossible, but its purpose was diplomatic: to pressure Austria to hold back
its attack on Serbia.

mobilization
The placing of a country’s military forces on a war footing.

Mobilization of any kind, however, was generally understood to be

equivalent to an act of war. It was especially alarming to German General
Helmuth von Moltke (1848–1916). Russian mobilization could upset the
delicate timing of Germany’s battle plan—the Schlieffen Plan, which
required an attack on France first—and would endanger Germany. From
this point on, Moltke pressed for war. The pressure of military necessity
became irresistible (see Map 28–2 on page 739).

Schlieffen Plan
Germany’s plan for achieving a quick victory in the West at the outbreak of
World War I by invading France through Belgium and Luxembourg.

CHRONOLOGY
The western European powers were not eager for war. The French gave the
Russians the same assurances that Germany had given its ally. The British
worked hard for another conference of the powers, but Austria would not
hear of it. The Germans privately supported the Austrians but were publicly
conciliatory in the hope of keeping the British neutral.

Bethmann-Hollweg soon realized what he should have known all along: If

Germany attacked France, Britain must fight. While Bethmann-Hollweg
was urging restraint on the Austrians, Moltke was pressing them to act. In
any case, it was too late for the Austrians to back down.

On July 30, Austria ordered mobilization against Russia. Russia and

Germany then ordered general mobilization. The Schlieffen Plan went into
effect. The Germans invaded Belgium on August 3. The British had
guaranteed Belgian neutrality, so Britain was now united against Germany.
Germany then invaded France. On August 4, Britain declared war on
Germany. The Great War had begun; Europe would never be the same.

STRATEGIES AND STALEMATE (1914–1917)

Jubilation greeted the outbreak of war throughout Europe. No general war

had been fought since Napoleon, and the horrors of modern warfare were
not yet understood. The dominant memory was of Bismarck’s swift and
decisive campaigns in which costs and casualties were light and the
rewards great. Both sides expected quick victory. The Triple Entente
powers—or the Allies, as they came to be called—had superior numbers
and financial resources as well as command of the sea. Germany and
Austria, the Central Powers, had the advantages of internal lines of
communication and of having launched their attack first.

After 1905 Germany’s only war plan was the one developed by Count
Alfred von Schlieffen (1833–1913), chief of the German general staff from
1891 to 1906 (see Map 28–2). It aimed to outflank the French defenses by
sweeping through Belgium to the Channel, then wheeling to the south and
east to envelop the French and crush them against the German fortresses in
Lorraine. In the East the Germans planned to stand on the defensive against
Russia until France had been beaten, a task they thought would take only
six weeks.

The execution of his plan, however, was left to Helmuth von Moltke, a
gloomy and nervous man, who made enough tactical mistakes to cause it to
fail by a narrow margin. As a result, the French and British were able to
stop the Germans at the battle of the Marne in September 1914. Thereafter,
the war in the West became one of position. Both sides dug in behind a wall
of trenches protected by barbed wire that stretched from the North Sea to
Switzerland. Machine-gun nests made assaults dangerous. Both sides,
nonetheless, attempted massive attacks initiated by artillery bombardments
of unprecedented force and duration. The defense always prevented a
breakthrough.

MAP 28–2. The Schlieffen Plan of 1905. Germany’s grand strategy for
quickly winning the war against France in 1914 is shown by the wheeling
arrows on the map. The crushing blows at France were, in the original plan,
to be followed by the release of troops for use against Russia on Germany’s
Eastern Front. But the plan was not adequately implemented, and the war
on the Western Front became a long contest instead.

Why did the Schlieffen Plan fail?

In the East, the Russians advanced into Austrian territory and inflicted
heavy casualties, but Russian incompetence and German energy soon
reversed the situation. General Erich Ludendorff (1865–1937), under the
command of the elderly Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934), destroyed or
captured an entire Russian army at the battle of Tannenberg. In 1915, the
Central Powers drove into the Baltic States and western Russia, inflicting
more than 2 million casualties. Russian confidence was shaken (see Map
28–3 on page 740).

Image

Trench Warfare. French infantry soldiers approach German

soldiers during a battle near Champagne, France in 1917. This
scene of trench warfare characterizes the twentieth century’s first
great international conflict.

How did military tactics change in World War I?

Both sides sought new allies. Turkey and Bulgaria joined the Central
Powers. Italy joined the Allies in 1915, after they agreed to give Italy Italia
Irredenta (i.e., the Trentino, the South Tyrol, Trieste, and some of the
Dalmatian Islands) from Austria after victory. Romania joined the Allies in
1916 but was quickly defeated and driven from the war. In the Far East,
Japan honored its alliance with Britain and overran the German colonies in
China and the Pacific.

Italia Irredenta
Meaning “unredeemed Italy.” Italian-speaking areas that had been left
under Austrian rule at the time of the unification of Italy.

In 1915, the Allies undertook to break the deadlock in the fighting by going
around it. The idea came chiefly from Winston Churchill (1874–1965), first
lord of the British Admiralty. He proposed to attack the Dardanelles and
capture Constantinople. This policy would knock Turkey out of the war and
ease communication with Russia. Success depended on daring leadership,
which was lacking. Before the campaign was abandoned, the Allies lost
almost 150,000 men.

ImageSee the Map

The Actual German Advance, 1914 at myhistorylab.com

ImageRead the Document

British Soldiers on the battle of the Somme at myhistorylab.com

Both sides turned back to the west in 1916. Erich von Falkenhayn (1861–
1922), who had succeeded Moltke in September 1914, sought success by
an attack on the French stronghold of Verdun. It failed. The Allies, in turn,
launched a major offensive along the River Somme in July, resulting in
enormous casualties on both sides. The land war dragged on with no end in
sight.

ImageSee the Map

The Western Front, 1914–1918 at myhistorylab.com

Image

MAP 28–3. World War I in Europe. Despite the importance of military

action in the Far East, in the Middle East, and at sea, the main theaters of
activity in World War I were in the European areas shown here.

Which regions were most affected by military action?

A Closer Look

The Development of the Armored Tank

Warfare frequently proves a source of technological innovation. Such

was true of World War I, which witnessed the development of
numerous new weapons. Among the most important of these was the
tank—an armored vehicle using a caterpillar track rather than wheels
for transport. The caterpillar track had been invented in Great Britain
but was then purchased by the American Holt tractor company, which
devised a caterpillar tractor in the first decade of the century to
cultivate areas with either wet or loose earth where a wheeled vehicle
would sink into the ground. During World War I the British modified
the caterpillar tractor by introducing a heavily armored closed
compartment for a crew armed with machine guns. These early slow-
moving tanks could drive over trenches, small hills, and rough terrain
and through mud and thus bring mobility to the combat zones where
trench warfare had made any kind of effective assault on troops
difficult. The tank was used primarily by France and the United States
in relatively small numbers in World War I, but later rapidly moving
tanks became the major weapons of subsequent twentieth-century
warfare.

Image

Image

Questions
 1. What technological developments prior to World War I made
tank warfare possible? What military developments made it
desirable?

2. What advantages does tank warfare offer?

3. How do tanks interact with other military units to achieve

success?

4. What devices and tactics have modern armies developed to

combat the tank?

Image To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to

www.myhistorylab.com

Control of the sea gained importance. In spite of international law, the

British imposed a strict blockade to starve out the enemy. The Germans
responded with submarine warfare to destroy British shipping. They
declared the waters around the British Isles a war zone, where even neutral
ships would not be safe. Both policies were unwelcome to neutrals,
especially the United States, but the sinking of neutral ships by German
submarines was both more dramatic and offensive than Britain’s blockade.

In 1915, the British Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine.

Among the 1,200 drowned were 118 Americans. President Woodrow
Wilson (1856–1924) protested, and the Germans desisted rather than
further anger the United States. This development gave the Allies a
considerable advantage. The German fleet that had cost so much played no
significant part in the war.

In December 1916, President Wilson attempted to bring about a negotiated

peace. But neither side would give up its hopes for total victory. The war
seemed likely to continue until one or both sides reached exhaustion.

Two events early in 1917 changed the situation. One was the February 1
announcement by the Germans of the resumption of unrestricted submarine
warfare. Another was the overthrow of Russia’s tsarist government in
March 1917. Since Wilson conceived of the war as an idealistic crusade “to
make the world safe for democracy,” the presence of autocratic tsarist
Russia among the Allies had been a deterrent to American intervention.
The United States declared war on Germany on April 6.

Image

A German U-Boat at Its Mooring, 1917. By this date German

submarine warfare had been severely curtailed.

How did submarines transform naval warfare?

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

ImageWHY WERE the Bolsheviks able to seize power in Russia?

The March revolution in Russia was neither planned nor led by any
political faction. It was the result of the collapse of the monarchy’s ability
to govern. Military and domestic failures produced massive casualties,
widespread hunger, worker strikes, and disorganization. All political
factions were discontented.

ImageSee the Map

Russian Armies in the Eastern Front at myhistorylab.com

In early March 1917, strikes and demonstrations erupted in Petrograd, as

Saint Petersburg had been renamed. The ill-disciplined troops in the city
refused to fire on the demonstrators, and the tsar abdicated on March 15.
The Duma formed a provisional government composed chiefly of
Constitutional Democrats with Western sympathies. Various Socialists also
began to organize the workers into councils called soviets. Initially, they
allowed the provisional government to function without actually supporting
it. But they became estranged as the Constitutional Democrats failed to
control the army or purge “reactionaries” from the government.

soviets
Workers’ and soldiers’ councils formed in Russia during the Revolution.

The provisional government decided to continue the war against Germany,

but a new offensive in the summer of 1917 collapsed. Disillusionment with
the war, shortages of food and other necessities, and the demand for land
reform undermined the government, even after its leadership had been
taken over by the moderate Socialist Alexander Kerensky (1881–1970).

ImageRead the Document

Bolshevik Seizure of Power, 1917 at myhistorylab.com

The Bolsheviks had been working against the provisional government since
April. The Germans had rushed V. I. Lenin (1870–1924) in a sealed train
from his exile in Switzerland to Petrograd in the hope that he would cause
trouble for the revolutionary government. The Bolsheviks demanded that
all political power go to the soviets, which they controlled. They attempted
a coup, but it failed. Lenin fled to Finland, and his chief collaborator, Leon
Trotsky (1877–1940), was imprisoned. An abortive right-wing counter-
coup gave the Bolsheviks another chance. Trotsky, released from prison,
led the powerful Petrograd Soviet. Lenin returned in October, and by the
extraordinary force of his personality persuaded his colleagues to act.
Trotsky organized the November 6 coup that concluded with an armed
assault on the provisional government. The Bolsheviks seized power.
QUICK REVIEW

The Russian Revolution

Image March 1917: tsar abdicates, formation of provisional

government

Image November 1917: Bolsheviks seize power

Image Bolsheviks withdraw from World War I

Image Bolsheviks defeat “White” Russians in civil war

The victors moved to fulfill their promises and to assure their own security.
The provisional government had decreed an election for late November to
select a Constituent Assembly. The Social Revolutionaries won a large
majority over the Bolsheviks. When the assembly gathered in January, the
Red Army, controlled by the Bolsheviks, dispersed it. All other political
parties ceased to function in any meaningful fashion. The Bolshevik
government nationalized the land and turned it over to its peasant
proprietors. Factory workers were put in charge of their plants. Banks were
seized for the state, and the debt of the tsarist government was repudiated.
The property of the church was also seized.

ImageHear the Audio

World War 1 at myhistorylab.com

The Bolsheviks believed the war benefited only capitalism. They signed an
armistice with Germany in December 1917. On March 3, 1918, they
accepted the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, by which Russia yielded Finland,
Poland, the Baltic States, the Ukraine, and Georgian territory in the
Transcaucasus. The Bolsheviks also agreed to pay an indemnity. These
terms were a high price to pay for peace, but the Bolsheviks needed time to
impose their rule on a devastated and chaotic Russia.
The Bolsheviks confronted massive domestic resistance. A civil war
erupted between the “Red” Russians supporting the revolution and the
“White” Russians, who opposed the Bolsheviks and received aid from the
Allies. In the summer of 1918, the tsar and his family were murdered. Led
by Trotsky, the Red Army overcame the opposition. By 1921, Lenin and his
supporters were in firm control.

“White” Russians
Those Russians who opposed the Bolsheviks (the “Reds”) in the Russian
Civil War of 1918–1921.

Image

Petrograd Munitions Workers Demonstrating in 1917. The

barely legible slogan at the top of the banner reads, “Victory to
the Petrograd Workers!”

Who benefited from the Russian Revolution?

OVERVIEW Casualties of the Major Belligerents in World War I

Image

END OF WORLD WAR I

 ImageWHY DID the Versailles settlement leave Germany bitter?

MILITARY RESOLUTION

ImageRead the Document

Woodrow Wilson, The Fourteen Points (1918) at myhistorylab.com

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk brought Germany to the peak of its success. In

1918, it decided to gamble everything on a last offensive. But the German
army could not get beyond the Marne. Germany was exhausted. The Allies,
on the other hand, bolstered by the arrival of American troops in ever-
increasing numbers, launched a counteroffensive that was irresistible. As
the Austrian fronts in the Balkans and Italy collapsed, the German high
command knew that the end was imminent but wanted peace to be made
before the army could be thoroughly defeated in the field, so that
responsibility would fall on civilians. The army allowed a new government
to be established on democratic principles to seek peace. The new
government, under Prince Max of Baden (1867–1928), asked for peace on
the basis of the Fourteen Points that President Wilson had declared as the
American war aims. These were idealistic principles, but Wilson insisted
that he would deal only with a democratic German government that spoke
for the German people.

Fourteen Points
President Woodrow Wilson’s (1856–1924) idealistic war aims.

The disintegration of the German army forced William II to abdicate on

November 9, 1918. The Social Democratic Party proclaimed a republic to
prevent the establishment of a soviet government. Two days later this
republican, socialist-led government signed an armistice and accepted
German defeat. The German people were, in general, unaware that their
army had been defeated. No foreign soldier stood on German soil. Many
Germans expected a mild settlement. The real peace embittered the German
people, many of whom came to believe that Germany had been betrayed by
republicans and socialists at home.

Casualties on all sides came to about 10 million dead and twice as many
wounded. The financial resources of the European states were badly
strained. The victorious Allies, formerly creditors to the world, became
debtors to the new American colossus.

The old international order was dead. Russia was ruled by a Bolshevik
dictatorship that preached world revolution. Germany was in chaos.
Austria-Hungary had disintegrated. These changes also stirred the colonial
empires ruled by the European powers. Europe was no longer the center of
the world, free to interfere when it wished or to ignore the outer regions if it
chose. Its easy confidence in progress was shattered. The memory of war
shook the nerve of the victorious Western powers in the postwar world.

Image

John Singer Sargent, Gassed, 1918–1919. Many new weapons

were used extensively for the first time in the Great War of 1914–
1918, including machine guns, barbed wire, tanks, airplanes, and
several kinds of poison gas. The Germans were the first to
employ gas as a weapon, firing a nonlethal kind of tear gas at the
Russians on the Eastern Front in January 1915. By April, they
had learned how to use the poison gas chlorine against the Allies
on the Western Front. Gassed, by the American painter John
Singer Sargent, can be compared to ancient Greek friezes
depicting mythical battles. There is, however, an important
difference in treatment: While Greek sculptures always portray
an element of heroism along with death and suffering, Sargent’s
painting reveals only the horror of battle.
 John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), “Gassed, an Oil Study.” 1918–
19 Oil on Canvas. Private Collection. Photo © Christie’s Images.
The Bridgeman Art Library International.

Why did World War I alter European attitudes toward

warfare?

SETTLEMENT AT PARIS

Representatives of the victorious states gathered at Versailles and other

Parisian suburbs in the first half of 1919. Wilson speaking for the United
States, David Lloyd George (1863–1945) for Britain, Georges Clemenceau
(1841–1929) for France, and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando (1860–1952) for
Italy made up the Big Four. Japan, recognized for the first time as a great
power, also had an important part in the discussions.

QUICK REVIEW

The Big Four at Versailles

Image Woodrow Wilson, United States

Image David Lloyd George, Britain

Image Georges Clemenceau, France

Image Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, Italy

Image Significant role for Japan

Image The Soviet Union and Germany excluded

Wilson’s idealism came into conflict with the war aims of the victorious
powers and with the secret treaties that had been made before and during
the war. The British and French people had been told that Germany would
be made to pay for the war. Romania had been promised Transylvania at
the expense of Hungary. Italy and Serbia had competing claims in the
Adriatic. During the war, the British had encouraged Arab hopes of an
independent Arab state carved out of the Ottoman Empire; those plans
conflicted with the Balfour Declaration (1917), in which the British seemed
to accept Zionism and to promise the Jews a national home in Palestine.
Both of these plans conflicted with an Anglo-French agreement to divide
the Near East between themselves.

The national goals of the victors presented further obstacles to an idealistic

“peace without victors.” France was eager to achieve a settlement that
would permanently weaken Germany and preserve French political and
military superiority. Italy sought to acquire Italia Irredenta; Britain looked
to its imperial interests; Japan pursued its own advantage in Asia; and the
United States insisted on freedom of the seas, which favored American
commerce, and on its right to maintain the Monroe Doctrine.

ImageRead the Document

The Balfour Declaration, 1917 at myhistorylab.com

Finally, the peacemakers of 1919 faced a world in turmoil. The greatest

immediate threat appeared to be Bolshevism. While Lenin and his
colleagues were distracted by civil war, the Allies landed small armies in
Russia to help overthrow the Bolshevik regime. Communist governments
were established in Bavaria and Hungary. Berlin also experienced an
abortive communist uprising. The Allies were so worried that they
supported the suppression of these communist movements by right-wing
forces. They even permitted an army of German volunteers to fight the
Bolsheviks in the Baltic States. But, contrary to Marxist-Leninist theory,
there was little affinity and less coordination between these communist
movements, and all except Russia’s were quickly suppressed. Russia’s civil
war continued into the early 1920s, but the White Russians were politically
fragmented and militarily undersupplied, so they were eventually defeated.
Meanwhile, fear of Germany remained the chief concern for France, and
traditional interests governed the policies of the other Allies.

The Paris settlement consisted of five separate treaties between the victors
and the defeated powers. Formal sessions began on January 18, 1919, and
the last treaty was signed on August 10, 1920. The notion of “a peace
without victors” became a mockery when the Soviet Union (as Russia was
now called) and Germany were excluded from the peace conference. The
Germans were simply presented with a treaty and compelled to accept it,
which fully justified their complaint that the treaty had not been negotiated
but dictated. The principle of national self-determination was, unavoidably,
violated many times. The diplomats of the small nations were angered by
their exclusion from decision making. The undeserved adulation accorded
Wilson on his arrival gradually turned into equally undeserved scorn. He
had not abandoned his ideals lightly but had merely given way to the
irresistible force of reality.

Wilson put great faith in the new League of Nations. Its covenant was an
essential part of the peace treaty. The league was not intended as an
international government but as a body of sovereign states that agreed to
pursue common policies. If war threatened, the members promised to
submit the matter to an international court or the League Council. Refusal
to abide by this agreement would justify league intervention in the form of
economic or military sanctions. But the league was to have no armed
forces. Action would require the unanimous consent of its council, which
was to consist of Britain, France, Italy, the United States, Japan, and four
other states with temporary seats. The league was generally seen as a
device to ensure the security of the victorious powers, and the exclusion of
Germany and the Soviet Union undermined the league’s claim to
evenhandedness.

League of Nations
The association of sovereign states set up after World War I to pursue
common policies and avert international aggression.
Provisions of the covenant that dealt with colonial areas and disarmament
were ineffective. Members of the league remained fully sovereign and
continued to pursue their national interests. In the West, the main territorial
issue was the fate of Germany (see Map 28–4). The French would have
liked to set up the Rhineland as a buffer state, but Lloyd George and Wilson
would not permit that. France did receive Alsace-Lorraine and the right to
work the coal mines of the Saar for fifteen years. Germany west of the
Rhine, and 50 kilometers east of it, was to be a demilitarized zone; Allied
troops could stay on the west bank for fifteen years. The treaty also
provided that Britain and the United States would guarantee to aid France if
it were attacked by Germany. Such an attack was made more unlikely by
the permanent disarmament of Germany. Its army was limited to 100,000
men; its fleet was all but eliminated; and it was forbidden to have war
planes, submarines, tanks, heavy artillery, or poison gas. As long as these
provisions were observed, France would be safe.

ImageRead the Document

The Covenant of the League of Nations at myhistorylab.com

The settlement in the East ratified the collapse of the empires that had ruled
it for centuries. Germany lost part of Silesia, and East Prussia was cut off
from the rest of Germany by a corridor carved out to give the revived state
of Poland access to the sea. The Austro-Hungarian Empire disappeared.
Most of its German-speaking people in the small Republic of Austria were
forbidden to unite with Germany. The Magyars occupied the much-reduced
kingdom of Hungary.
MAP 28–4. World War I Peace Settlement in Europe and the Middle
East. The map of central and eastern Europe, as well as that of the Middle
East, underwent drastic revision after World War I. The enormous territorial
losses suffered by Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire,
Bulgaria, and Russia were the other side of the coin represented by gains
for France, Italy, Greece, and Romania and by the appearance, or
reappearance, of at least eight new independent states from Finland in the
north to Yugoslavia in the south. The mandate system for former Ottoman
territories outside Turkey proper laid foundations for several new, mostly
Arab, states in the Middle East.

How did the creation of new countries in central and eastern

Europe set the stage for future conflicts?

The Czechs of Bohemia and Moravia joined with the Slovaks and
Ruthenians to form Czechoslovakia, which also included several million
dissatisfied Germans. The southern Slavs were united in the kingdom of
Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, or Yugoslavia. Italy gained the Trentino and
Trieste. Romania gained Transylvania from Hungary and Bessarabia from
Russia. Bulgaria lost territory to Greece and Yugoslavia. Finland, Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania became independent states, and much of Poland was
carved out of formerly Russian soil. In the Caucasus, the new nations of
Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan took advantage of the turmoil following
the Russian Revolution to enjoy a period of independence (1918–1921).
Ukraine and Russia were also briefly autonomous.

Image

Peacemakers. The Allies promoted Arab efforts to secure

independence from Turkey in an effort to remove Turkey from
the war. Delegates to the peace conference of 1919 in Paris
included British Colonel T. E. Lawrence, who helped lead the
rebellion against Turkey, and representatives from the Middle
East. Prince Feisal, the third son of King Hussein, stands in the
foreground of this picture; Lawrence is in the middle row, second
from the right; and Brigadier General Nuri Pasha Said of
Baghdad is second from the left.
 What happened to the Ottoman Empire?

The old Ottoman Empire disappeared. The new republic of Turkey was
limited to little more than Constantinople and Asia Minor. Palestine and
Iraq came under British control and Syria and Lebanon under French
control as mandates under the purely theoretical authority of the League of
Nations. Germany’s former colonies in Africa and the Pacific were divided
among the victors. In practice, mandated territories were treated as
colonies, and colonialism remained a problem.

ImageSee the Map

Southeastern Europe, 1914 at myhistorylab.com

Perhaps the most debated part of the peace settlement dealt with
reparations. Before the armistice, the Germans promised to pay
compensation “for all damages done to the civilian population of the Allies
and their property.” France and Britain, however, wanted Germany to pay
the full cost of the war. No sum was fixed at the conference; Germany was
to pay $5 billion annually until 1921, when a final figure would be set,
which Germany would have to pay within thirty years. The French
calculated that either Germany would be bled into impotence or refuse to
pay and justify French intervention.

ImageWatch the Video

The Continuing Legacy of World War I in the Middle East at
myhistorylab.com

To justify these huge reparation payments, the Allies inserted the notorious
war guilt clause into the treaty, which placed the responsibility for the war
solely on Germany. The Germans bitterly resented the charges but were
given no opportunity to negotiate. The German government led by the
Social Democrats and the Catholic Center Party signed the treaty. These
parties formed the backbone of the German Republic, but they never
overcame the stigma of accepting the Treaty of Versailles.

war guilt clause

Clause of the Versailles Treaty that assigned responsibility for World War I
solely to Germany.

EVALUATION OF THE PEACE

Few peace settlements have been more attacked than the Treaty of
Versailles, but many of the attacks on it are unjustified. Germany was
neither dismembered nor ruined. Reparations were scaled down, and until
the Great Depression of the 1930s, the German economy recovered. The
attempt at achieving self-determination for nationalities was less than
perfect, but it was the best Europe had ever accomplished.

The peace, nevertheless, was unsatisfactory. The elimination of the Austro-

Hungarian Empire, however inevitable, created serious problems.
Economically it was disastrous, for it separated raw materials from
manufacturing areas and producers from their markets. Poland and
especially Czechoslovakia contained unhappy German minorities. Disputes
over territories in eastern Europe promoted further tension. The peace also
rested on a defeat that Germany did not admit. Germans believed they had
been cheated.

Finally, the peace failed to accept reality. Germany and Russia must
inevitably play an important part in European affairs, yet they were
excluded from the settlement and from the League of Nations. Given the
many discontented parties, the peace was not self-enforcing; yet no
satisfactory machinery for enforcing it was established. The League of
Nations was never a serious force for this purpose, particularly after
Wilson’s political mistakes helped prevent American ratification of the
treaty. It was left to France, with no guarantee of support from Britain and
no hope of help from the United States, to defend the new arrangements.
France was simply not strong enough for the task if Germany were to
rearm. The Treaty of Versailles was neither conciliatory enough to remove
the desire for change nor harsh enough to make another war impossible. A
lasting peace required enforcing German disarmament while the more
obnoxious clauses of the peace treaty were revised. Such a policy
demanded continued attention to the problem, unity among the victors, and
far-sighted leadership; none of these was present in adequate supply during
the next two decades.

SUMMARY

ImageWHAT WAS the New Imperialism?

Expansion of European Power and the “New Imperialism.” Economic

and social factors—especially the pursuit of prestige—were significant
drivers of the New Imperialism. By 1914, European nations had divided
Africa among themselves and controlled large parts of Asia and the islands
of the Pacific. Much of the Middle East was under the nominal control of
the Ottoman Empire, which was itself under European influence. The
Monroe Doctrine made Latin America a protectorate of the United States.
Japan had become an imperial power at the expense of China and Korea.
page 725

ImageWHAT WERE Bismarck’s goals for Germany?

Emergence of the German Empire. Bismarck masterminded the creation

of the German Empire and created a system of treaties and alliances to
ensure that Germany would not be threatened on two fronts simultaneously.
In 1890, the young Kaiser William II dismissed Bismarck, and soon Russia
and France were allied against Germany. By 1914, Britain too was
enmeshed in military partnership with France against Germany. page 732

ImageWHAT CAUSED the outbreak of World War I in 1914?

World War I. The alliance system divided Europe into two armed camps.
What began as yet another Balkan war involving the European powers
became a world war that influenced the rest of the world. As the terrible
war of 1914 to 1918 dragged on, the motives that had driven the European
powers to fight gave way to public affirmations of the principles of
nationalism and self-determination. page 735

ImageWHY WERE the Bolsheviks able to seize power in Russia?

The Russian Revolution. Russia suffered during the war, and many groups
blamed the government. In March 1917, the tsar was overthrown. The
provisional government was overturned by the Bolsheviks in November,
largely thanks to Lenin’s persuasive powers. Russia withdrew from the war
soon thereafter. page 742

ImageWHY DID the Versailles settlement leave Germany bitter?

End of World War I. Europe’s imperial nations, especially Britain and

France, paid an enormous price in lives, money, and will for their victory in
the war. The peace settlement at Versailles has been criticized for many
reasons, both fair and unfair. Certainly it left many tensions unresolved.
Germany was given many obligations to fulfill, without being given any
opportunity to negotiate. Tension between colonies and their ruling nations
was a cause of instability in the world created by the Paris treaties of 1919.
page 744

KEY TERMS

Fourteen Points

Italia Irredenta (ih-TAL-eeyuh IHR-ih-DENT-ah)

League of Nations

mobilization

New Imperialism

pan-Slavic movement
 Schlieffen Plan (SHLEE-fehn)

soviets

war guilt clause

“White” Russians

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Which explanation or combination of explanations for the New

Imperialism seem most plausible and why?

2. Summarize the experiences of three regions in Africa with the

New Imperialism.

3. What role did Bismarck envisage for the new Germany after
1871? How successful was he in carrying out his vision? Was he
wise to tie Germany to Austria-Hungary?

4. Why and in what stages did Britain abandon “splendid

isolation” at the turn of the century? Were the policies it pursued
instead wise ones, or should Britain have followed a different
course?

5. How did developments in the Balkans lead to the outbreak of

World War I? What was the role of Serbia? of Austria? of Russia?
What was the aim of German policy in July 1914? Did Germany
want a general war?

6. Why did the United States enter World War I? Were there good
reasons for it to enter the war when it did, or would it have been
better for the United States to enter earlier, later, or not at all?

7. Why did Germany lose World War I? Could Germany have

won, or was victory never a possibility?
 8. Why was Lenin successful in establishing Bolshevik rule in
Russia? What role did Trotsky play? Was it wise policy for Lenin
to take Russia out of the war?

9. Assess the settlement of Versailles. What were its benefits to

Europe, and what were its drawbacks? Was the settlement too
harsh or too conciliatory? Could it have secured lasting peace in
Europe? How might it have been improved?

10. How did World War I alter the relationship between imperial
powers and colonized peoples?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn
to the Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional
sources related to this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

ImageConnections

Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many

documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

ImageStudy and Review Chapter 28

ImageRead the Document A British View of Egyptian Agriculture, 1840,

p. 730

Edward D. Morel, The Black Man’s Burden, p. 730

 Serbian Society of National Defense, Program for Nationalism, p.
733

Borijove Jevtic: The Murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at

Sarajevo (28 June 1914), p. 737

British Soldiers on the Battle of the Somme, p. 740

Bolshevik Seizure of Power, 1917, p. 742

Woodrow Wilson, The Fourteen Points (1918), p. 744

The Balfour Declaration, 1917, p. 745

The Covenant of the League of Nations, p. 746

ImageSee the Map Africa before the Scramble, p. 729

Congress of Berlin, p. 733

Diplomatic Crises, 1905–1914, p. 736

The Actual German Advance, 1914, p. 740

The Western Front, 1914–1918, p. 740

Russian Armies in the Eastern Front, p. 742

Southeastern Europe, 1914, p. 748

ImageHear the Audio World War 1, p. 737

World War 1, p. 743

ImageWatch the Video The Origins of Modern Imperialism and

Colonialism, p. 726

The Continuing Legacy of World War I in the Middle East, p. 748

Research and Explore

ImageWatch the Video New Imperialism

Image

ImageWatch the Video World War I

Image

ImageHear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 28 at www.myhistorylab.com

29
Depression, European Dictators, and the
American New Deal

Hear the Audio for Chapter 29 at www.myhistorylab.com

 Weimar Germany. In this painting, which reflects the mood of social
and political disillusionment that prevailed in much of Europe in the
1920s, George Grosz satirized conservative and right-wing groups in
Weimar Germany, including the army, the courts, the newspapers, and
the Nazi Party.

Grosz, George (1893–1959) © VAGA, NY, Stuetzen der Gesellschaft

(pillars of Society), 1926. Oil on canvas, 2000,0 108,0 cm. Photo:
Joerg P. Anders. Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin,
Germany.

What references to violence can you find in this painting?

AFTER VERSAILLES: DEMANDS FOR REVISION AND

ENFORCEMENT

WHICH GROUPS were dissatisfied with the Versailles settlement?

TOWARD THE GREAT DEPRESSION IN EUROPE

WHAT FACTORS made the Great Depression so severe and long lasting?

THE SOVIET EXPERIMENT

HOW DID Stalin gain and keep power in the Soviet Union?

THE FASCIST EXPERIMENT IN ITALY

WHY DID the Fascists achieve power in Italy?

GERMAN DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP

WHAT ROLE did terror play in Nazi Germany?

THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE NEW DEAL IN THE UNITED

STATES

HOW DID FDR’s policies affect the role of the federal government?

In the two decades that followed the conclusion of the Paris settlement, the
Western world saw a number of experiments in politics and economic life.
Two broad factors accounted for these experiments. First, the war, the
Russian Revolution, and the peace treaty had transformed the political face
of Europe. The new regimes that emerged in the wake of the collapse of the
monarchies of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia faced economic
dislocation, nationalistic resentments, and in some cases doubts about their
legitimacy.
Second, the Great Depression caused political instability and economic
crisis. In Europe, government responses often produced authoritarian
regimes. In the United States the response led to an increased role for the
federal government.

AFTER VERSAILLES: DEMANDS FOR

REVISION AND ENFORCEMENT

ImageWHICH GROUPS were dissatisfied with the Versailles

settlement?

The Paris settlement fostered resentments that sullied European politics for
the next two decades. The arrangements for reparations led to endless
haggling. National groups in eastern Europe felt that injustice had been
done to them and demanded border adjustments. The victorious powers,
especially France, often believed that the treaty was being inadequately
enforced. Voters’ demands to either revise or enforce the Paris treaties
contributed to domestic political turmoil across the Continent.
 GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

THE INTERWAR PERIOD IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES

The two decades between the great wars marked a period of immense
political and economic transition around the globe. Many regions endured
political turmoil and economic instability, followed by the establishment of
militaristic authoritarian regimes. In Italy, it was the Fascists; in Germany,
the Nazis; in the Soviet Union, Stalin’s regime. Spain too came under the
rule of a military dictator who rose to power with the assistance of the
Nazis. Many Europeans, battered by the global economic crisis of the 1930s
and, in the case of Germany, the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles,
believed that only strong leaders could bring prosperity to their countries
again in the global competition for resources and territory. In East Asia,
Japan came into the grip of a right-wing militaristic government. China saw
more than twenty years of civil war and revolution that would culminate
with the communists’ rise to power under Mao. Most of Latin America
came under the sway of dictators or governments heavily influenced by the
military.

With the exception of Russia (and later China), all of these governments
were right-wing. In fact, the Russian Revolution was a pivotal factor in the
rise of right-wing and Fascist dictators, who often justified their power on
the basis of their firm opposition to the “Red Menace” and the growing
popularity enjoyed by socialism and communism in many European
countries during the economic crisis of the 1930s.
To many observers in the late 1930s, the day of liberal parliamentary
democracy appeared to be ending. The disruptions arising from World War
I and the social and economic turmoil of the Depression seemed to pose
problems that liberal governments could not address. Only the radical
medicine of socialism, communism, or right-wing dictatorships seemed
capable of resolving the crisis. Deep political divisions between the right
and left brought some nations, such as France in the mid-1930s, to the brink
of civil war. Spain became engulfed in the civil war that brought General
Francisco Franco (1892–1975) to power in 1939.
The interwar period also departed from the nineteenth-century ideal of
laissez-faire economics, in which central governments assumed little
responsibility for guiding the economies of their countries. The German
inflation of the early 1920s, the worldwide financial collapse of the late
1920s, the vast unemployment of the early 1930s, and the agricultural crisis
of both decades roused demands for government action as millions of
people experienced very real, and often sudden, economic hardship and
suffering. One reason for these demands was simply that more governments
throughout the world were responsible to mass democratic electorates.
Governments that failed to adequately address the problems were put out of
office. This happened to the Republicans in the United States, the Socialist
and Liberal parties in Germany, the left-wing parties in Japan, and various
political parties in Latin America that failed to deal with the Depression.
Paradoxically, many democratic electorates actually turned themselves over
to politically authoritarian regimes as they searched for social and economic
stability.
Extreme forms of nationalism in both Europe and Japan also spawned
authoritarianism. The authoritarian governments of Germany, Italy, and
Japan all had agendas of nationalistic aggression. They shared the
nineteenth-century conviction that territorial expansion was essential to
national prestige and economic security. As a result, they were prepared to
move wherever they saw fellow nationals living outside their borders (a
legacy of the creation of nation-states in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries) or where they could establish dominance over other peoples and
thus become imperial powers. Japan moved against Manchuria and later
other parts of Asia. Italy invaded Ethiopia. Germany sought union with
German-speaking peoples in Austria and Czechoslovakia and then sought to
expand throughout eastern Europe. In turn, those actions challenged the
dominance of Great Britain and the vital security interests of the United
States. By the end of the 1930s the authoritarian regimes and the liberal
democracies stood on the brink of a major confrontation.

Focus Questions
 Image Why did many people in the 1930s lose faith in liberal
democracy and laissez-faire economics?
Image What led many countries to adopt authoritarian regimes during
this period? Why did authoritarian governments seem to offer a
solution to economic hardship and social instabililty?
Image What was the relationship between extreme nationalism and the
outbreak of World War II?

TOWARD THE GREAT DEPRESSION IN

EUROPE

ImageWHAT FACTORS made the Great Depression so severe and long

lasting?

Three factors combined to bring about the severity and the extended length
of the Great Depression. First, a financial crisis stemmed directly from the
war and the peace settlement. In addition, a crisis erupted in the production
and distribution of goods in the world market. Finally, these difficulties
were exacerbated because no major western European country or the United
States provided responsible economic leadership.

Great Depression
A prolonged worldwide economic downturn that began in 1929 with the
collapse of the New York Stock Exchange.

FINANCIAL TAILSPIN
France was determined to collect reparations from Germany. The United
States was no less determined that its allies repay the wartime loans it had
extended to them. German reparations were to provide the means of
repaying these debts.
 Hear the Audio
Depression at myhistorylab.com

The quest for payment of German reparations caused a major diplomatic

crisis, which resulted in further economic upheaval. In early 1923, the
Allies—France in particular—declared Germany to be in default of its
reparation payments. On January 11, French troops occupied Germany’s
Ruhr mining and manufacturing district. The Weimar Republic ordered
passive resistance. Confronted with this tactic, the French ran the German
mines and railroads. The Germans paid, but Britain became more
sympathetic to Germany. The cost of the Ruhr occupation, moreover,
damaged the French economy.

Weimar Republic
The German democratic regime that existed between the end of World War
I and Hitler’s coming to power in 1933.

The political and economic turmoil of the Ruhr invasion led to

international attempts to ease German payment of reparations. The most
famous such attempts were the Dawes Plan of 1924 and the Young Plan of
1929, both devised by Americans. At the time, American investment capital
was pouring into Europe. However, the crash of Wall Street in October
1929—the result of unregulated speculation—saw the loss of large amounts
of money. Thereafter, little American capital was available for investment
in Europe.
In May 1931, the Kreditanstalt—a primary lending institution for much
of central and eastern Europe—collapsed. The German banking system then
came under severe pressure. As German difficulties increased, U.S.
President Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) announced in June 1931 a one-year
moratorium on all payments of international debts. The Hoover moratorium
was a prelude to the end of reparations. In the summer of 1932, the
Lausanne Conference, in effect, ended the era of reparations.

Image
 Jarrow Crusade. In what was known as the “Jarrow Crusade” during
the autumn of 1936, a group of approximately 200 protesters marched
from the town of Jarrow in northeastern England to London to
demonstrate their need for employment and the plight of their town,
where the previous year the shipyard had been closed.

Why was unemployment so widespread in Europe in the 1930s?

PROBLEMS IN AGRICULTURAL COMMODITIES

The 1920s witnessed a contraction in the market demand for European
goods. The difficulty arose from agriculture. Better methods of farming and
more extensive transport facilities all over the globe vastly increased the
quantity of grain. Wheat prices fell to record lows, decreasing the income of
European farmers while increasing the cost of the industrial goods they
used. Consequently, farmers had great difficulty paying off their debts.
These problems were especially acute in central and eastern Europe and
abetted farmers’ disillusionment with liberal politics. German farmers, for
example, would become prime supporters of the National Socialist Workers
Party (Nazis).
Outside Europe similar problems affected wheat, sugar, coffee, rubber,
wool, and lard producers. The people who produced these goods in
underdeveloped nations could no longer make enough money to buy
finished goods from industrial Europe. Commodity production had
outstripped world demand.
The result was stagnation and depression for European industry. Coal,
iron, and textiles had depended largely on international markets.
Unemployment spread from these industries to those producing consumer
goods. Unemployment in Britain and Germany during the 1920s had
created “soft” domestic markets. Governments reduced spending, which
further weakened domestic demand. By the early 1930s, the Depression
was feeding on itself.

QUICK REVIEW
Commodity Market Collapse
Image Grain production increased, prices fell
Image Farm debt crisis in Europe
Image Non-European farmers unable to afford European manufactured
goods
Image Cycle of unemployment, economic depression created

DEPRESSION AND GOVERNMENT POLICY

The governments of the late 1920s and the early 1930s were not well suited
to confront the unemployment and social insecurity caused by the
Depression. The electorates demanded action. Government response
depended largely on the severity of the Depression in a particular country
and on the self-confidence of its political system.
Great Britain and France undertook moderate political experiments. In
1924, Britain’s Labour Party governed for the first time, under Prime
Minister Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937). Under the pressure of the
Depression, MacDonald organized a National Government, a coalition of
the Labour, Conservative, and Liberal parties that remained in power from
1929 until 1935, when the Conservatives regained power.
The most important French political experiment was the Popular Front
Ministry, which came to office in 1936. This government was composed of
socialists, radicals, and communists—the first time that socialists and
communists had cooperated in a ministry. The Popular Front addressed
major labor problems in the French economy, but by 1938 it came to an
end.

Popular Front
A government of all left-wing parties that took power in France in 1936 to
enact social and economic reforms.

The political experiments of the 1920s and 1930s that reshaped world
history involved a Soviet government in Russia, a Fascist regime in Italy,
and a Nazi dictatorship in Germany.
THE SOVIET EXPERIMENT

ImageHOW DID Stalin gain and keep power in the Soviet Union?

The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia led to the most durable of all

twentieth-century authoritarian governments. The Communist Party of the
Soviet Union retained power from 1917 until the end of 1991, and it
influenced the history of much of the world. Unlike the Italian Fascists or
the German National Socialists, the Bolsheviks seized power. Their leaders
long felt insecure about their hold on the country. The Communist Party
was neither a mass party nor a nationalistic one. The Bolsheviks confronted
a much less industrialized economy than that of Italy or Germany. They
believed in and practiced the collectivization of economic life attacked by
right-wing dictatorships. The Marxist-Leninist ideology was broader than
the nationalism of the Fascists and the racism of the Nazis. Communists
regarded their government and their revolution as epoch-making events in
the development of humanity. Fear of communism and determination to
stop its spread were leading political forces in western Europe and the
United States for most of the rest of the century.

WAR COMMUNISM
Within the Soviet Union, the Red Army had suppressed opposition. A new
secret police, known as Cheka, appeared. Throughout the Russian civil war
Lenin had declared that the Bolshevik Party, as the vanguard of the
revolution, was imposing the dictatorship of the proletariat. Under the
economic policy of War Communism, the revolutionary government
confiscated banks, transport facilities, and heavy industry. The state also
requisitioned grain and shipped it from the countryside to feed the army and
the cities.

War Communism
The economic policy adopted by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil
War to seize the banks, heavy industry, railroads, and grain.
 War Communism helped the Red Army defeat its opponents, but it
generated domestic opposition. Many Russians were no longer willing to
make the sacrifices demanded by central party bureaucrats. In 1920 and
1921, strikes occurred. Peasants resisted the requisition of grain. In March
1921, the navy mutinied. The proletariat itself was opposing the
dictatorship of the proletariat. Also, by late 1920, it had become clear that
revolution would not sweep across the rest of Europe. The Soviet Union
was a vast island of revolutionary socialism in a sea of worldwide
capitalism.

THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY

Lenin made a strategic retreat. In March 1921, he outlined the New
Economic Policy, or NEP. Apart from “the commanding heights” of
banking, heavy industry, transportation, and international commerce,
private economic enterprise was allowed and peasants could farm for a
profit. The countryside became more stable, and a secure food supply
seemed assured for the cities. Similar free enterprise flourished within light
industry and retail trade. The revolution seemed to have transformed Russia
into a land of small farms and private shops and businesses.

New Economic Policy (NEP)

A limited revival of capitalism, especially in light industry and agriculture,
introduced by Lenin in 1921 to repair the damage inflicted on the Russian
economy by the civil war and War Communism.

Image

Lenin. Anxiety over the spread of the Bolshevik Revolution was a

fundamental factor of European politics during the 1920s and 1930s.
Images like this Soviet portrait of Lenin as a heroic revolutionary
conjured fears among people in the rest of Europe of a political force
determined to overturn their social, political, and economic
institutions.
 Gemalde von A. M. Gerassimow, “Lenin as Agitator”/Bildarchiv
Preussischer Kulturbesitz.

Compare this painting of Lenin with the image of Stalin on page

760. What are the similarities and differences in how the two men
are portrayed?

STALIN VERSUS TROTSKY

The NEP had caused sharp disputes within the Politburo, the highest
governing committee of the Communist Party. These frictions increased
when Lenin suffered a stroke in 1922 and died in 1924. Two factions
emerged from an intense struggle for leadership of the party. One was led
by Lenin’s long-time colleague, Leon Trotsky (1879–1940), the other by
Joseph Stalin (1879–1953), who had become general secretary of the party
in 1922.
The power struggle was fought over the question of Russia’s path toward
industrialization and the future of the communist revolutionary movement.
Trotsky, speaking for what became known as the left wing, urged rapid
industrialization and looked to voluntary collectivization of farming by poor
peasants as a means of increasing agricultural production. Trotsky further
argued that the revolution in Russia could succeed only if new revolutions
took place elsewhere. A right-wing faction manipulated by Stalin pressed
for the continuation of Lenin’s NEP and a policy of relatively slow
industrialization. Stalin was the ultimate victor. He was much less an
intellectual and internationalist than the other early Bolshevik leaders. He
was also much more brutal. His power lay in his command of bureaucratic
and administrative methods. He mastered the crucial details of party
structure, including admission and promotion. He had the support of the
lower levels of the party.
 Hear the Audio
Communism at myhistorylab.com

In 1924, Stalin enunciated the doctrine of “socialism in one country.”

Russian success did not depend on the fate of the revolution elsewhere.
Stalin thus nationalized the previously international scope of the Marxist
revolution. By 1927, Trotsky had been ousted from the party. In 1929, he
was expelled from Russia and was eventually murdered in 1940 in Mexico
by one of Stalin’s agents. Stalin was firmly in control of the Soviet state.

QUICK REVIEW
Stalin’s Rise to Power
Image Sided with the opposition to Trotsky in the 1920s
Image Used control of the Central Committee to marginalize Trotsky
and his supporters
Image Emerged from struggle with Trotsky with unchallenged control
of the Soviet state

DECISION FOR RAPID INDUSTRIALIZATION

During the Depression, the Soviet Union registered tremendous industrial
advance. As usual in Russia, the direction and impetus came from the top.
Stalin far exceeded the tsars in the coercion and terror he brought to the
task. Russia achieved its economic growth during the 1930s only at the cost
of millions of human lives. Stalin’s economic policy clearly proved that his
earlier rivalry with Trotsky had been a matter of political power, not
ideological difference.

ImageStudy and Review

Lenin, 1920, vs. Stalin, 1931 at myhistorylab.com

Through 1928, Lenin’s NEP steered Soviet economic development. A

few farmers, the kulaks, became prosperous. During 1928 and 1929, the
kulaks and other farmers withheld grain from the market because prices
were too low. Food shortages in the cities caused unrest. Stalin came to a
momentous decision. Russia must industrialize rapidly to match the power
of the West. Agriculture must be collectivized to produce sufficient grain
for food and export and to free peasant labor for the factories. This program
unleashed a second Russian revolution.

ImageRead the Document

Stalin Demands Rapid Industrialization of the USSR (1931) at
myhistorylab.com

In 1929, Stalin ordered party agents to confiscate hoarded wheat. As part

of the general plan to collectivize farming, the government undertook to
eliminate the kulaks as a class. (See Document: “Stalin Calls for the
Liquidation of the Kulaks as a Class.”) A kulak, however, soon came to
mean any peasant who opposed Stalin’s policy. In the countryside, peasants
at all levels of wealth resisted stubbornly. They wreaked their vengeance on
the policy of collectivization by slaughtering more than 100 million horses
and cattle between 1929 and 1933. The situation in the countryside
amounted to open warfare. As many as 10 million peasants were killed, and
millions of others were sent to labor camps. Because of the turmoil, famine
persisted in 1932 and 1933. Yet Stalin persevered. Peasants had their lands
incorporated into large collective farms. The state controlled the machinery
for these units.

collectivization
The bedrock of Stalinist agriculture, which forced Russian peasants to give
up their private farms and work as members of collectives, large
agricultural units controlled by the state.

ImageRead the Document

Irina Ivanovna Kniazeva, “A Life in a Peasant Village” (USSR), 1917–
1930s at myhistorylab.com

The government now had primary direction over the food supply.
Peasants could no longer determine whether there would be stability or
unrest in the cities. Stalin and the Communist Party had won the battle of
the wheat fields, but the problem of producing enough grain still plagues
the former Soviet Union.
 The revolution in agriculture had been undertaken for the sake of
industrialization. The increased grain supply was to feed the labor force and
provide exports to finance the imports required for industrial development.
The Soviet Union’s industrial achievement between 1928 and World War II
was one of the most striking accomplishments of the twentieth century.
Soviet industrial production rose approximately 400 percent between 1928
and 1940. Few consumer goods were produced. Labor for this development
was supplied internally. Capital was raised from the export of grain, even at
the cost of internal shortage. Technology was borrowed from industrialized
nations.

Image

Kulaks. During Stalin’s drive to collectivize agriculture, wealthy

peasants known as kulaks become the object of his wrath. Here a
group of mostly peasant women demonstrate against the kulaks.

What happened to the kulaks?

The organizational vehicle for industrialization was a series of five-year

plans that began in 1928. The State Planning Commission, or Gosplan, set
the production goals and organized the economy to meet them.
Coordinating all facets of production was difficult and complicated. A vast
program of propaganda was undertaken to sell the five-year plans to the
Russian people. The industrial labor force became subject to regimentation
similar to that being imposed on the peasants. The accomplishment of the
three five-year plans probably allowed the Soviet Union to survive the
German invasion. Industries that had never existed in Russia now
challenged or surpassed their counterparts in the rest of the world. Large
new industrial cities had been built and populated by hundreds of thousands
of people.

DOCUMENT
 Stalin Calls for the Liquidation of the Kulaks as a Class

The core of Stalin’s agricultural policy undertaken in the late 1920s and
early 1930s was the replacement of private farms with large collective
farms run by the state. The greatest obstacle to this policy was the kulaks—
prosperous, productive peasants. In this speech of 1929, Stalin first explains
why collective farms must replace small peasant farming to achieve an
adequate food supply for the cities and the industrial workers. He then calls
for the liquidation of the kulaks as a class. As might be expected, the kulaks
resisted collectivization by destroying crops and farm animals. In turn,
Communist Party agents killed millions of peasants to achieve
collectivization.

• WHAT were the goals of the collectivization of farms in the Soviet

Union? How did the kulaks stand in the way of collectivization?
How does Stalin dehumanize the kulaks by discussing them entirely
as a class and as part of the capitalistic system?

Can we advance our socialized industry at an accelerated rate as long as we

have an agricultural base, such as is provided by small-peasant farming,
which is incapable of expanded reproduction, and which, in addition, is the
predominant force in our national economy? No, we cannot.…

What, then, is the solution? The solution lies in enlarging the agricultural
units, in making agriculture capable of accumulation, of expanded
reproduction, and in thus transforming the agricultural bases of our national
economy.
[T]he socialist way [to enlarge farming units], which is to introduce
collective farms and state farms in agriculture, the way which leads to the
amalgamation of the small-peasant farms into large collective farms,
employing machinery and scientific methods of farming, and capable of
developing further, for such agricultural enterprises can achieve expanded
reproduction.…
The characteristic feature in the work of our Party during the past year is
that we, as a Party, as the Soviet power,
 (a) have developed an offensive along the whole front against the
capitalist elements in the countryside;
(b) that this offensive, as you know, has brought about and is bringing
about very palpable, positive results.
What does this mean? It means that we have passed from the policy of
restricting the exploiting proclivities of the kulaks to the policy of
eliminating the kulaks as a class.…
Until recently the Party adhered to the policy of restricting the exploiting
proclivities of the kulaks.…
Could we have undertaken such an offensive against the kulaks five years
or three years ago? Could we then have counted on success in such an
offensive? No, we could not. That would have been the most dangerous
adventurism. It would have been playing a very dangerous game at
offensive. We would certainly have failed, and our failure would have
strengthened the position of the kulaks. Why? Because we still lacked a
wide network of state and collective farms in the rural districts which could
be used as strongholds in a determined offensive against the kulaks.
Because at that time we were not yet able to substitute for the capitalist
production of the kulaks the socialist production of the collective farms and
state farms.…
Now we are able to carry on a determined offensive against the kulaks, to
break their resistance, to eliminate them as a class and substitute for their
output the output of the collective farms and state farms. Now, the kulaks
are being expropriated by the masses of poor and middle peasants
themselves, by the masses who are putting solid collectivization into
practice. Now, the expropriation of the kulaks in the regions of solid
collectivization is no longer just an administrative measure. Now, the
expropriation of the kulaks is an integral part of the formation and
development of the collective farms. Consequently it is now ridiculous and
foolish to discourse on the expropriation of the kulaks. You do not lament
the loss of the hair of one who has been beheaded.

Source: From Stalin, “Problems of Agrarian Policy in the USSR,”

Speech at a conference of Marxist students of the Agrarian question,
December 27, 1929, in Problems of Leninism, pp. 391–393, 408–409,
411–412, as quoted in Robert V. Daniels, A Documentary History of
 Communism, rev. ed. (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England,
1984), pp. 224–227. Reprinted by permission.

Image

Propaganda. Stalin used intimidation and propaganda to support his

drive to collectivize Soviet agriculture. The poster shows an idealized
Soviet collective farm on which tractors owned by the state have
replaced peasant labor. In reality, collectivization provoked fierce
resistance and caused famines in which millions of peasants died.

1932 (colour litho) by Klutchis (fl.1932). Deutsches Plakat Museum,

Essen, Germany/Archives Charmet/The Bridgeman Art Library.

Why might collages such as this, which mixed printed slogans with
portions of multiple photographs, have been effective
propaganda?

THE PURGES
Stalin’s decisions to industrialize rapidly and to move against the peasants
aroused internal political opposition because they were departures from
Lenin’s policies. In 1933, Stalin began to fear that he would lose control
over the party apparatus. These fears were probably paranoid. Nevertheless,
they resulted in the Great Purges, which were among the most mysterious
and horrendous political events of the twentieth century.

Great Purges
The imprisonment and execution of millions of Soviet citizens by Stalin
between 1934 and 1939.
 On December 1, 1934, Sergei Kirov (1888–1934), the popular party chief
of Leningrad (formerly Saint Petersburg), was assassinated. In the wake of
the shooting, thousands of people were arrested, and still more were
expelled from the party and sent to labor camps. It now seems certain that
Stalin himself authorized Kirov’s assassination to forestall any threat from
him.
The purges after Kirov’s death were just the beginning. Between 1936
and 1938, spectacular show trials were held in Moscow. Soviet leaders
publicly confessed political crimes and were executed. Their confessions
were palpably false. Other leaders and party members were tried in private
and shot. Thousands received no trial at all. After the civilian party
members had been purged, important officers, including heroes of the civil
war, were killed. The exact numbers of executions and imprisonments are
unknown but ran into the millions. The scale of the political turmoil was
unprecedented. The Russians themselves did not comprehend what was
occurring. The only rational explanation is found in Stalin’s concern for his
own power. The purges created a new party structure absolutely loyal to
him.

Image

Party Congress, 1936. By the mid-1930s Stalin’s purges had

eliminated many leaders and other members from the Soviet
Communist Party. This photograph of a meeting of a party congress in
1936 shows a number of the surviving leaders with Stalin, who sits
fourth from the right in the front row. To his left is Vyacheslav
Molotov, longtime foreign minister. The first person on the left in the
front row is Nikita Khrushchev, who headed the Soviet Union in the
late 1950s and early 1960s.

Why did the Soviet experiment attract political admirers around

the world for much of the twentieth century?
 Despite the violence and repression, the Soviet experiment found many
sympathizers. The Soviet Union had fostered Communist parties
subservient to Moscow throughout the world. Even non-party members
sympathized with what they believed to be the Soviet Union’s goals. For
decades, the Soviet Union managed to capture the imagination of some
intellectuals around the globe who hoped for a utopian egalitarian
transformation of society. During much of the 1930s, the Soviet Union also
appeared as an enemy to the Fascist experiments in Italy and Germany.
Marxist ideology appealed to many people living in the European colonial
empires as a vehicle for freedom. The Soviet Union welcomed and trained
many anticolonial leaders. With what is now known about Soviet
repression, it is difficult to understand the power the nation exercised over
many people’s political imaginations, but that attraction was a factor in
world politics from the 1920s through at least the early 1970s.

ImageRead the Document

John Scott, excerpt from Behind the Urals: An American Worker in
Russia’s City of Steel at myhistorylab.com

THE FASCIST EXPERIMENT IN ITALY

ImageWHY DID the Fascists achieve power in Italy?

The first authoritarian political experiment in western Europe that arose in

part from fears of the spread of bolshevism occurred in Italy. The general
term fascist, which has been used to describe the various right-wing
dictatorships that arose between the wars, was derived from the Italian
Fascist movement of Benito Mussolini (1883–1945).

ImageRead the Document

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, “Futuristic Manifesto” at myhistorylab.com
 Governments regarded as Fascist were antidemocratic, anti-Marxist,
antiparliamentary, and frequently anti-Semitic. They hoped to hold back the
spread of bolshevism, which seemed a real threat at the time. They sought a
world that would be safe for the middle class and small farmers. Fascism
rejected the political ideas of the French Revolution and of liberalism.
Facists believed that parliamentary politics sacrificed national greatness to
petty party disputes. They wanted to overcome the class conflict of
Marxism and the party conflict of liberalism by consolidating all classes
within the nation for great national purposes. Fascist governments were
usually single-party dictatorships rooted in mass political parties and
characterized by terrorism and police surveillance. (See Document:
“Mussolini Heaps Contempt on Political Liberalism” on page 763.)

fascism
Nationalist, antidemocratic, anti-Marxist, antiparliamentary, and often anti-
Semitic political movement. Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) founded the
first Fascist regime in Italy in the 1920s.

RISE OF MUSSOLINI
The Italian Fasci di Combattimento (“Band of Combat”) was founded in
1919 in Milan. Most of its members were war veterans who felt that the
sacrifices of World War I had been in vain. They feared socialism, inflation,
and labor unrest.

Hear the Audio

Fascism at myhistorylab.com

Their leader or Duce, Benito Mussolini, had been active in Italian

socialist politics but broke with the socialists in 1914 and supported Italian
entry into the war. He then established his own newspaper, Il Popolo
d’Italia, and was wounded in the army. In 1919 Mussolini was just another
politician, his organization one of many small political groups in Italy.

Duce
Meaning “leader.” Mussolini’s title as head of the Fascist Party.
 Postwar Italian politics was a muddle. Many Italians were dissatisfied
with the parliamentary system. They felt that Italy had not been treated as a
great power at the peace conference and had not received the territories it
deserved. Between 1919 and 1921, Italy was also wracked by social
turmoil. Numerous strikes occurred, and workers occupied factories.
Peasants seized land. Parliamentary government seemed incapable of
dealing with this unrest. Many Italians believed that a communist revolution
might break out.

ImageRead the Document

Benito Mussolini, “The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism” at
myhistorylab.com

Mussolini first supported the factory occupations and land seizures but
soon reversed himself. He had discovered that many upper- and middle-
class Italians who were pressured by inflation and feared property loss had
no sympathy for the workers or peasants. They wanted order. Consequently,
Mussolini and his Fascists took direct action. They terrorized socialists,
attacked strikers and farm workers, and protected strikebreakers.
Conservative land and factory owners were grateful. The government
ignored these crimes. By early 1922, the Fascists controlled the local
government in much of northern Italy.

Image

Benito Mussolini became famous for bombastic public speeches

delivered in settings surrounded by his Fascist followers and military
supporters.

Compare this photograph with the one of Hitler on page 769. Do

you see any similarities? What are the differences?
 In 1921, Mussolini and thirty-four of his followers had been elected to
the Chamber of Deputies. The Fascist movement now had hundreds of
thousands of supporters. In October 1922, the Fascists, dressed in their
characteristic black shirts, began a march on Rome. King Victor Emmanuel
III (r. 1900–1946) refused to use the army against them, ensuring a Fascist
seizure of power. The cabinet resigned. On October 29, the king
telegraphed Mussolini in Milan and asked him to become prime minister.
The next day Mussolini arrived in Rome by train, as head of the
government.
Technically, Mussolini had come into office by legal means. The
monarch had the power to appoint the prime minister. Mussolini, however,
had no majority in the Chamber of Deputies. Behind the legal facade lay the
months of terrorist intimidation and the threat of the Fascists’ October
march.

QUICK REVIEW
Mussolini’s Rise to Power
Image Broke with socialists to support Italian entry in World War I
Image Built political base in northern Italy
Image Terrorized opponents
Image Appointed prime minister by king

THE FASCISTS IN POWER

Mussolini, who had not expected to be appointed prime minister, succeeded
because of the impotence of his rivals, his use of his office, his power over
the masses, and his ruthlessness. On November 23, 1922, the king and
Parliament granted Mussolini dictatorial authority for one year to restore
order. Wherever possible, Mussolini appointed Fascists to office. In 1924,
Parliament changed the election law so that the party that gained the largest
popular vote (with at least 25 percent) received two-thirds of the seats in the
chamber. Coalition government, with all its compromises and hesitations,
would no longer be necessary. In the election of 1924, the Fascists won
complete control of the Chamber of Deputies. They used that majority to
end legitimate parliamentary life. Laws permitted Mussolini to rule by
decree. In 1926, Italy was transformed into a single-party, dictatorial state.
 One domestic initiative brought Mussolini significant political dividends
and respectability. Through the Lateran Accord of February 1929, the
Roman Catholic Church and the Italian state made peace with each other.
The agreement recognized the pope as the temporal ruler of Vatican City.
The Italian government agreed to pay an indemnity to the papacy for
confiscated land. The state also recognized Catholicism as the religion of
the nation, exempted church property from taxes, and allowed church law to
govern marriage.

DOCUMENT

Mussolini Heaps Contempt on Political Liberalism

• WHO would be some nineteenth-century liberal political leaders

included in Mussolini’s attack? Why might Mussolini’s audience
have been receptive to these views? What events or developments
within liberal states allowed Mussolini to portray liberalism as so
corrupt and powerless?

Liberalism is not the last word, nor does it represent the definitive
formula on the subject of the art of government…. Liberalism is the product
and the technique of the nineteenth century…. It does not follow that the
Liberal scheme of government, good for the nineteenth century, for a
century, that is, dominated by two such phenomena as the growth of
capitalism and the strengthening of the sentiment of nationalism, should be
adapted to the twentieth century, which announces itself already with
characteristics sufficiently different from those that marked the preceding
century….
I challenge Liberal gentlemen to tell if ever in history there has been a
government that was based solely on popular consent and that renounced all
use of force whatsoever. A government so constructed there has never been
and never will be. Consent is an ever-changing thing like the shifting sand
on the sea coast, it can never be permanent: It can never be complete…. If it
be accepted as an axiom that any system of government whatever creates
malcontents, how are you going to prevent this discontent from overflowing
and constituting a menace to the stability of the State? You will prevent it
by force. By the assembling of the greatest force possible. By the
inexorable use of this force whenever it is necessary. Take away from any
government whatsoever force—and by force is meant physical, armed force
—and leave it only its immortal principles, and that government will be at
the mercy of the first organized group that decides to overthrow it. Fascism
now throws these lifeless theories out to rot…. The truth evident now to all
who are not warped by [liberal] dogmatism is that men have tired of liberty.
They have made an orgy of it. Liberty is today no longer the chaste and
austere virgin for whom the generations of the first half of the last century
fought and died. For the gallant, restless and bitter youth who face the dawn
of a new history there are other words that exercise a far greater fascination,
and those words are: order, hierarchy, discipline….
Know then, once and for all, that Fascism knows no idols and worships
no fetishes. It has already stepped over, and if it be necessary it will turn
tranquilly and step again over, the more or less putrescent corpse of the
Goddess of Liberty.

Source: From Benito Mussolini, “Force and Consent” (1923), as trans.

in Jonathan F. Scott and Alexander Baltzly, eds., Readings in European
History Since 1814 (New York: F. S. Crofts, 1931), pp. 680–682.

GERMAN DEMOCRACY AND

DICTATORSHIP

ImageWHAT ROLE did terror play in Nazi Germany?

THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC

The German Weimar Republic was born from the defeat of the imperial
army, the revolution of 1918, and the hopes of German Liberals and Social
Democrats. Its name derived from the city of Weimar, where its constitution
was written in August 1919. While the constitution was being debated, the
republic, headed by the Social Democrats, accepted the humiliating
Versailles Treaty. Although its officials had signed only under duress, the
republic was permanently associated with the national disgrace. Throughout
the 1920s, nationalists and military figures whose policies had brought on
the tragedy and defeat of the war blamed the young republic and the
socialists for its results. In Germany, the desire to revise the treaty was
related to a desire to change the form of government.

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The Weimar Constitution was an enlightened document. It guaranteed

civil liberties and provided for direct election, by universal suffrage, of the
Reichstag and the president. It also, however, contained structural flaws
that eventually allowed it to be overthrown. A complicated system of
proportional representation made it relatively easy for small political parties
to gain seats in the Reichstag, creating instability. The president appointed
and removed the chancellor, the head of the cabinet. Article 48 allowed the
president, in an emergency, to rule by decree. This permitted a possible
presidential dictatorship.

Reichstag
The German Parliament, which existed in various forms until 1945.

Violence was the hallmark of the first five years of the republic. In March
1920, a right-wing Kapp, or armed insurrection, erupted in Berlin. It failed,
but only after government officials had fled the city. In the same month,
strikes took place in the Ruhr, and the government sent in troops. Such
extremism from both the left and the right haunted the republic. In May
1921, the Allies presented a reparations bill for 132 billion gold marks. The
German government accepted this preposterous demand only after new
Allied threats. Throughout the early 1920s, there were assassinations or
attempted assassinations of republican leaders.
Inflation brought on the major crisis of this period. The value of German
currency fell due to the war and postwar deficit spending. By early 1921,
the German mark traded against the American dollar at a ratio of 64 to 1,
compared with a ratio of 4.2 to 1 in 1914. The German financial community
contended that the mark could not be stabilized until the reparations issue
had been solved. Meanwhile, the government kept issuing paper money,
which it used to redeem government bonds. The French invasion of the
Ruhr in January 1923 and the German response of passive economic
resistance produced cataclysmic inflation. Unemployment spread, creating a
drain on the treasury and reducing tax revenues. The printing presses had
difficulty providing enough paper currency to keep up with the daily rise in
prices. Money was literally not worth the paper it was printed on. Stores
were unwilling to exchange goods for the worthless currency, and farmers
hoarded produce.
The values of thrift and prudence were undermined. Middle-class
savings, pensions, insurance policies, and investments in government bonds
were wiped out. Debts and mortgages could not be paid off. Speculators
made fortunes, but to the middle and lower-middle classes, inflation was
another trauma coming hard on the heels of military defeat and the peace
treaty. This social and economic upheaval laid the groundwork for the later
German desire for order and security at almost any cost.

Image

Inflation in Germany. During the German inflation of 1923, currency

literally was not worth the paper on which it was printed.

What led to such extreme inflation in postwar Germany?

In 1923, Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) made his first significant appearance

on the German political scene. The son of a minor Austrian customs
official, Hitler absorbed the rabid German nationalism and extreme anti-
Semitism that flourished in Vienna. He came to hate Marxism, which he
associated with Jews. During World War I, Hitler fought in the German
army, was wounded, rose to the rank of corporal, and won the Iron Cross
for bravery.
 After the war, Hitler settled in Munich and became associated with a
small nationalistic, anti-Semitic party that in 1920 adopted the name the
National Socialist German Workers Party, better known as the Nazis. The
group paraded under a red banner with a black swastika. Its program called
for repudiation of the Versailles Treaty, unification of Austria and Germany,
exclusion of Jews from German citizenship, agrarian reform, prohibition of
land speculation, confiscation of war profits, state administration of the
giant cartels, and replacement of department stores with small retail shops.

Nazis
The German Nationalist Socialist Party.

The “socialism” of Hitler and the Nazis had nothing to do with traditional
German socialism. It meant not state ownership of the means of production
but instead the subordination of all economic enterprise to the welfare of
the nation. It often implied protection for small economic enterprises. The
party appealed to economic groups that were at risk and under pressure.
Nazis often tailored their messages to the particular local problems these
groups confronted in different parts of Germany. The Nazis also found
considerable support among war veterans, who faced economic and social
displacement in Weimar society. The ongoing Nazi demand for revision of
the Versailles Treaty appealed to a broad spectrum of economic groups as
well as the disaffected war veterans.

QUICK REVIEW
National Socialism
Image Hitler became associated with the National Socialist German
Workers Party (Nazis) in 1920
Image Party goals included repudiation of Treaty of Versailles,
unification of Austria and Germany, and exclusion of Jews from
German citizenship
Image Nazi “socialism” meant the subordination of economic
enterprises to the welfare of the nation

Nazi stormtroopers, or SA (Sturm Abteilung), were organized under the

leadership of Captain Ernst Roehm (1887–1934). The stormtroopers were
the chief Nazi instrument for terror and intimidation before the party
controlled the government. The organization constituted a means of
preserving military discipline and values outside the small army permitted
by the Paris settlement. The existence of such a private party army was a
sign of the potential for violence in the Weimar Republic and of contempt
for the republic.

SA
Sturm Abteilung, or Nazi stormtroopers.

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Adolf Hitler, excerpt from Mein Kampf at myhistorylab.com

The social and economic turmoil following the French occupation of the
Ruhr and the German inflation gave the Nazis an opportunity for direct
action against the Weimar Republic. By this time, Hitler dominated the
Nazi Party. On November 9, 1923, Hitler and a band of followers,
accompanied by General Erich Ludendorff (1865–1937), attempted an
unsuccessful putsch (an attempt to overthrow the government) at a beer hall
in Munich. Local authorities crushed the rising, and sixteen Nazis were
killed. Hitler and Ludendorff were tried for treason. The general was
acquitted. Hitler made himself into a national figure. In his defense, he
condemned the republic, the Versailles Treaty, and the Jews. He was
sentenced to five years in prison but spent only a few months in jail before
being paroled. During this time, he dictated Mein Kampf (My Struggle).
Another result of the brief imprisonment was his decision to seize political
power by legal methods.

Mein Kampf
Meaning “My Struggle.” Hitler’s statement of his political program,
published in 1924.

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) was primarily responsible for

reconstruction of the republic and its achievement of a sense of self-
confidence. Stresemann abandoned the policy of passive resistance in the
Ruhr. With the aid of banker Hjalmar Schacht (1877–1970), he introduced a
new German currency. The rate of exchange was 1 trillion of the old
German marks for one new Rentenmark. Stresemann also moved against
challenges from both the left and the right. He supported the crushing of
both Hitler’s abortive putsch and smaller communist disturbances. In late
November 1923, after four months as chancellor, he became foreign
minister, a post he held until his death in 1929.
In 1924 the Weimar Republic and the Allies renegotiated the reparation
payments. The Dawes Plan lowered the annual payments and allowed them
to fluctuate according to the fortunes of the German economy. The last
French troops left the Ruhr in 1925. That same year, Field Marshal Paul
von Hindenburg (1847–1934), a military hero and a conservative
monarchist, was elected president of the republic. He governed in strict
accordance with the constitution, and conservative Germans seemed
reconciled to the republic. The latter 1920s were prosperous, and prosperity
helped to establish broader acceptance and appreciation of the republic.
In foreign affairs, Stresemann pursued a conciliatory course. He fulfilled
the provisions of the Versailles Treaty but attempted to revise it by
diplomacy. He accepted the settlement in the west but aimed to recover
German-speaking territories lost to Poland and Czechoslovakia and
possibly to unite with Austria, chiefly by diplomatic means.
These developments gave rise to the Locarno Agreements of October
1925. Foreign ministers Austen Chamberlain (1863–1937) for Britain and
Aristide Briand (1862–1932) for France accepted Stresemann’s proposal for
a fresh start. France and Germany accepted the western frontier established
at Versailles. Britain and Italy agreed to intervene if either side violated the
frontier or if Germany sent troops into the demilitarized Rhineland. No such
agreement was made about Germany’s eastern frontier, but the Germans
made treaties with Poland and Czechoslovakia, and France strengthened its
alliances with those countries. France supported German membership in the
League of Nations and agreed to withdraw its occupation troops from the
Rhineland in 1930, five years earlier than specified at Versailles.

QUICK REVIEW
Locarno Agreements
Image October 1925: Britain and France accepted revision of the
Treaty of Versailles
Image Agreements brought new hope to Europe
 Image Many people in both Germany and France were unhappy with
Locarno

Germany was pleased to have achieved respectability and a guarantee

against another Ruhr occupation, as well as the possibility of revision in the
East. Britain enjoyed playing a more evenhanded role. Italy was glad to be
recognized as a great power. The French were happy, too, because the
Germans voluntarily accepted the permanence of their western frontier,
which was also guaranteed by Britain and Italy, and France maintained its
allies in the East.
The Locarno Agreements brought new hope to Europe. Chamberlain,
Briand, and Stresemann received the Nobel Peace Prize. The spirit of
Locarno was carried even further when the leading European states, Japan,
and the United States signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928, renouncing
“war as an instrument of national policy.” The joy and optimism were not
justified. France had merely recognized its inability to coerce Germany
without help. Britain had shown its unwillingness to uphold the settlement
in the East. Germany was not reconciled to the eastern settlement.
In both France and Germany, moreover, the conciliatory politicians
represented only a part of the populace. In Germany especially, most people
continued to reject Versailles and regarded Locarno as an extension of it.
Despite these problems, war was by no means inevitable. Europe, aided by
American loans, was returning to prosperity. German leaders like
Stresemann would certainly have continued to press for change but not
through warfare. Continued prosperity and diplomatic success might have
won the loyalty of the German people for the Weimar Republic and
moderate revisionism, but the Great Depression of the 1930s brought new
forces to power.

DEPRESSION AND POLITICAL DEADLOCK

The outflow of foreign, and especially American, capital from Germany
that began in 1928 undermined the prosperity of the Weimar Republic. The
resulting economic crisis brought parliamentary government to a halt. In
1928, a coalition of center parties and the Social Democrats governed.
When the Depression struck, the coalition partners differed sharply on
economic policy, and the coalition dissolved in March 1930. President von
Hindenburg appointed Heinrich Brüning (1885–1970) as chancellor.
Lacking a majority in the Reichstag, the new chancellor governed through
emergency presidential decrees. The Weimar Republic had become a
presidential dictatorship.

CHRONOLOGY

MAJOR POLITICAL EVENTS OF THE 1920s AND 1930s

Image

German unemployment rose from 2,258,000 in March 1930 to more than

6,000,000 in March 1932. The economic downturn and the parliamentary
deadlock worked to the advantage of extremists. In the election of 1928, the
Nazis had won only 12 seats in the Reichstag and the communists won 54.
In the election of 1930, the Nazis won 107 seats and the communists won
77.
The power of the Nazis in the streets also rose. Unemployment brought
thousands of men into the stormtroopers, which had almost 1 million
members in 1933. The SA attacked communists and Social Democrats. For
the Nazis, politics meant the capture of power through terror and
intimidation as well as through elections. Decency and civility in political
life vanished. Nazi rallies resembled religious revivals. They paraded
through the streets and the countryside. They gained powerful supporters in
the business, military, and newspaper communities. Some intellectuals were
also sympathetic. The Nazis transformed the discipline and enthusiasm born
of economic despair and nationalistic frustration into electoral results.

HITLER COMES TO POWER

Brüning governed for two years. The economy did not improve, and the
political situation deteriorated. In 1932, the 83-year-old president stood for
reelection. Hitler ran against him and Hindenburg won. But Hitler got 36.8
percent of the final vote, convincing Hindenburg that Brüning had lost the
confidence of conservative Germans. In May 1932, he appointed Franz von
Papen (1878–1969) chancellor. Papen was one of a small group of
extremely conservative advisers on whom Hindenburg had become
dependent. With the continued paralysis in the Reichstag, the advisers’
influence over the president amounted to control of the government.

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Papen and the circle around the president wanted to draw the Nazis into
cooperation with them without giving Hitler effective power. The
government needed the popular support on the right that only the Nazis
seemed able to generate. The Hindenburg circle decided to convince Hitler
that the Nazis could not come to power on their own. Papen removed the
ban on Nazi meetings that Brüning had imposed and called a Reichstag
election for July 1932. The Nazis won 230 seats and polled 37.2 percent of
the vote. Hitler would enter the cabinet only if he were made chancellor.
Hindenburg refused. Another election was called in November. The Nazis
gained only 196 seats, and their percentage of the popular vote dipped to
33.1 percent. Hindenberg’s advisers still refused to appoint Hitler to office.
In early December 1932, Papen resigned and General Kurt von
Schleicher (1882–1934) became chancellor. People were now afraid of civil
war between the extreme left and the far right. Schleicher tried to fashion a
coalition of conservatives and trade unionists. The Hindenburg circle did
not trust Schleicher’s motives, which have never been clear. They
persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler chancellor. To control him, Papen
was named vice chancellor, and other traditional conservatives were
appointed to the cabinet. On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became the
chancellor of Germany.
Hitler had come into office by legal means. The proper procedures had
been observed, so the civil service, courts, and other government agencies
were able to support him in good conscience. He had forged a rigidly
disciplined party structure and had mastered the techniques of mass politics
and propaganda. His support appears to have come from across the social
spectrum. Pockets of resistance appeared among Roman Catholic voters in
the country and small towns. Support for Hitler was strong among farmers,
veterans, and the young, who had suffered from the insecurity of the 1920s
and the Depression. Hitler promised them security, effective government in
place of petty politics, and a strong, restored Germany.
There is little evidence that business contributions made any crucial
difference to the Nazis’ success. Hitler’s supporters were frequently
suspicious of business and giant capitalism. They wanted a simpler world in
which small property would be safe from both socialism and large-scale
capitalist consolidation. These people looked to Hitler and the Nazis rather
than to the Social Democrats because the Social Democrats never appeared
sufficiently nationalistic. The Nazis won out over other conservative
nationalistic parties because only the Nazis addressed the problem of social
insecurities.

Image

Hitler. Hitler’s mastery of the techniques of mass politics and

propaganda—including huge staged rallies like this one in 1938—was
an important factor in his rise to power.

Why do you think people participated in mass events such as this

rally?

HITLER’S CONSOLIDATION OF POWER

Once in office, Hitler moved swiftly to consolidate his control. This process
had three facets: the capture of full legal authority, the crushing of
alternative political groups, and the purging of rivals within the Nazi Party
itself. On February 27, 1933, a mentally ill Dutch communist set fire to the
Reichstag building in Berlin. The Nazis claimed that the fire proved the
existence of a communist threat to the government. To the public, this
seemed plausible. Hitler suspended civil liberties and arrested communists
or alleged communists under a decree that was not revoked for as long as
Hitler ruled Germany.
 In early March another Reichstag election took place. The Nazis received
only 43.9 percent of the vote, but the arrest of the newly elected communist
deputies and the political fear aroused by the fire meant that Hitler could
control the Reichstag. On March 23, 1933, the Reichstag passed an
Enabling Act that permitted Hitler to rule by decree. Thereafter, there were
no legal limits on his power. The Weimar Constitution was never formally
repealed—it was simply supplanted.
Hitler understood that he and his party had come to power because his
potential opponents had stood divided between 1929 and 1933. To prevent
them from regrouping, Hitler outlawed or undermined any German
institutions that might have served as rallying points for opposition. By the
close of 1933, all major institutions of potential opposition—trade unions,
other political parties, the federal state governments—had been eliminated.
The final element in Hitler’s personal consolidation of power involved
the Nazi Party itself. Ernst Roehm, the commander of the SA, was a
possible rival to Hitler. The German officer corps, whom Hitler needed to
rebuild the army, were jealous of the SA. To protect his own position and to
shore up support with the army, Hitler ordered the murder of key SA
officers, including Roehm. Between June 30 and July 2, 1934, more than
800 people were killed, including the former chancellor Kurt von
Schleicher and his wife. The German army, which might have prevented the
murders, did nothing. On August 2, 1934, President Hindenburg died, and
the offices of chancellor and president were combined. Hitler was now the
sole ruler, or Führer, of Germany and of the Nazi Party.

Führer
Meaning “leader.” The title taken by Hitler when he became dictator of
Germany.

THE POLICE STATE

As Hitler consolidated his power, he oversaw the organization of a police
state. The chief vehicle of police surveillance was the SS (Schutzstaffel), or
security units, commanded by Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945). This group
was a more elite paramilitary organization than the larger SA. In 1933, the
SS had approximately 52,000 members. It was the instrument that carried
out the blood purges of the party in 1934. By 1936, Himmler had become
head of all police matters in Germany.

SS
Schutzstaffel, elite paramilitary police surveillance unit under the Nazis.

The police character of the Nazi regime permeated society, but the people
who most consistently experienced its terror were the Jews. Anti-Semitism
had been a key plank of the Nazi program, an anti-Semitism based on
biological racial theories stemming from late nineteenth-century thought
rather than from religious discrimination. Before World War II, the Nazi
attack on the Jews went through three stages. In 1933, the Nazis excluded
Jews from the civil service and attempted to enforce boycotts of Jewish
businesses. The boycotts won little public support. In 1935, the Nuremberg
Laws robbed German Jews of their citizenship. All persons with at least one
Jewish grandparent were defined as Jews. The professions and major
occupations were closed to Jews. Marriage and sexual intercourse between
Jews and non-Jews were prohibited. Legal exclusion and humiliation of the
Jews became the norm.
The persecution of the Jews increased again in 1938. In November, under
orders from the Nazi Party, thousands of Jewish stores and synagogues
were destroyed. The Jewish community itself had to pay for the damage
that occurred on this Kristallnacht because the government confiscated the
insurance money. In both large and petty ways, the German Jews were
harassed. This persecution allowed the Nazis to inculcate the rest of the
population with the concept of a master race of pure German “Aryans” and
also to display their own contempt for civil liberties.

Kristallnacht
Meaning “crystal night” because of the broken glass that littered German
streets after the looting and destruction of Jewish homes, businesses, and
synagogues across Germany on the orders of the Nazi Party in November
1938.

After the war broke out, Hitler decided in 1942 to destroy the Jews in
Europe. It is thought that over 6 million Jews, mostly from eastern
European nations, died as a result of that decision, unprecedented in its
scope and implementation.

Image

Anti-Jewish Policies. Soon after seizing power, the Nazi government

began harassing German Jewish businesses. Non-Jewish German
citizens were urged not to buy merchandise from shops owned by
Jews.

Why did the Nazis target Jews?

WOMEN IN NAZI GERMANY

The Nazis believed in separate social spheres for men and women. Men
belonged in the world of action, women in the home. Women who sought to
liberate themselves and to adopt roles traditionally followed by men in
public life were considered symptoms of cultural decline. Respect for
women should arise from their function as wives and mothers.
These attitudes conflicted with the social changes that German women,
like women elsewhere in Europe, had experienced during the first three
decades of the twentieth century. German women had become much more
active and assertive. They worked in factories or were independently
employed and had begun to enter the professions. Under the Weimar
Constitution, they voted. Throughout the Weimar period, there was also a
lively discussion of women’s emancipation. For the Nazis, these
developments were signs of cultural weakness.
The Nazis’ point of view was supported by women of a conservative
outlook and women who followed traditional roles as housewives. In a
period of high unemployment, the Nazi attitude also appealed to many men
because it discouraged women from competing with them in the workplace.
Such competition had begun during World War I, and many Nazis
considered it symptomatic of the social confusion that had followed the
German defeat.
The Nazi discussion of the role of women was also rooted in Nazi
racism. It was the special task of German mothers to preserve racial purity.
Hitler championed the view that women were to breed strong sons and
daughters for the German nation. Nazi journalists often compared the role
of women in childbirth to that of men in battle. Each served the state in
particular gender roles. In both cases, the good of the nation was superior to
that of the individual. The Nazis attacked feminist outlooks. Women were
encouraged to bear many children because the Nazis believed the declining
German birthrate was the result of emancipated women who had spurned
their natural roles as mothers. The Nazis sponsored schools that taught
women how to rear children. The Nazis saw women as educators of the
young and thus the protectors of German cultural values. Through cooking,
dress, music, and stories, mothers were to instill a love for the nation. As
consumers for the home, women were to buy German goods and avoid
Jewish merchants.

A Closer Look

The Nazi Party Rally

Nazi rallies were a centerpiece of the party effort to generate mass

support and to embody its broad appeal. These rallies were also often
associated with raising money to support the party. Furthermore, the
Nazis intended their rallies to generate fervent nationalistic group
solidarity that would demonstrate that whatever other divisions might
exist in the nation, loyalty to the Nazi Party and to the nation would be
more important than any other group loyalty.

Image
Questions
1. How might the holding of rallies serve to give the sense that loyalty
to the Nazi Party and the nation overrode all other social and
political loyalties?
2. How could the experience of attending Nazi rallies or viewing them
through movies or news reels convey to the German and non-
German public throughout Europe a sense of inevitable Nazi success
and widespread support?

Image To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to

www.myhistorylab.com

OVERVIEW

Characteristics Shared by Fascist, Nazi, and Soviet Communist

Regimes of the 1920s and 1930s

1. Well-organized, highly disciplined political parties

2. Intense nationalism (often denied while realized in practice in the
Soviet Union)
3. Programs that promised to cure social, political, and economic
malaise
4. A monopoly over mass communications and propaganda
5. Highly effective instruments of terror and police power
6. Real or imagined national, class, or racial enemies who could be
demonized to whip up mass support
7. Command over modern technology and its capacity for immense
destruction

The Nazis realized that in the midst of the Depression many women
would need to work, but the party urged them to pursue employment that
the Nazis considered natural to their character. These tasks included
agriculture, teaching, nursing, social work, and domestic service.
Nonetheless, the percentage of women employed in Germany changed little
from the Weimar to the Hitler years: 37 percent in 1928 and the same again
in 1939. Thereafter, because of the war, many more women were recruited
into the German workforce.

THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE NEW

DEAL IN THE UNITED STATES

HOW DID FDR’s policies affect the role of the federal government?

The United States emerged from World War I as a world power. It retreated
from that role when the Senate refused to ratify the Versailles Treaty and
failed to join the League of Nations. In 1920, Warren Harding (1865–1923)
became president and urged a return to what he termed “normalcy,” which
meant minimal involvement abroad and conservative economic policies at
home. Business interests remained in the ascendant, and the federal
government took a relatively inactive role in national life, especially under
Harding’s successor, Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933).
The first seven or eight years of the decade witnessed remarkable
American prosperity. New electrical appliances such as the radio,
phonograph, washing machine, and vacuum cleaner appeared on the
market. Real wages rose for many workers. Industry grew at a robust rate.
Automobile manufacturers assumed a major role in national economic life.
Factories became mechanized. Engineers and efficiency experts were the
heroes of the business world. The stock market boomed. This activity stood
in marked contrast to the economic dislocations of Europe.
This material prosperity emerged in a divided society. Segregation
remained a basic fact of life for black Americans. The Ku Klux Klan, which
sought to terrorize blacks, Roman Catholics, and Jews, enjoyed a
resurgence. Lynchings of African Americans continued, especially in the
South. The Prohibition Amendment of 1919 (repealed in 1933) forbade the
manufacture and transport of alcoholic beverages. In the wake of this
divisive national policy, major criminal operations arose to supply liquor
and disrupt civic life. Many immigrants came from Mexico and Puerto
Rico, settling in cities where their labor was desired but where they were
often not welcomed or assimilated. Finally, the wealth of the nation was
concentrated in few hands.

Women Members of the Ku Klux Klan in New Castle, Indiana,

August 1, 1923. The revived Klan was a powerful presence in scores
of American communities during the early 1920s, especially among
native-born white Protestants, who feared cultural and political
change. In addition to preaching “100 percent Americanism,” local
Klan chapters also served a social function for members and their
families.

Does the fact that these Klu Klux Klan members are from Indiana
complicate commonly held notions about racial tolerance in the
United States?

ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
In March 1929 Herbert Hoover became president, the third Republican in as
many elections. On October 29, 1929, the New York stock market crashed.
The other financial markets also went into a tailspin. During the next year
the stock market continued to fall. The banks that had loaned people money
with which to speculate in the market suffered great losses.
 The financial collapse of 1929 triggered the Great Depression in
America, although there were other underlying domestic causes.
Manufacturing firms had not made sufficient capital investment. The
disproportionate amount of profits going to about 5 percent of the U.S.
population had begun to undermine the purchasing power of other
consumers. Agriculture had been in trouble for years. Finally, the economic
difficulties in Europe and Latin America, which predated those in the
United States, meant foreigners were less able to purchase U.S.-made
products.
The most pervasive problem of the Great Depression was unemployment.
Joblessness hit unskilled workers first, then moved to factory and white-
collar workers. As unemployment spread, small retail businesses suffered.
In the major American manufacturing cities, hundreds of thousands of
workers could not find jobs. The price of corn fell so low in some areas that
it was not profitable to harvest it. By the early 1930s, banks began to fail,
and people lost their savings.

ImageRead the Document

The Great Depression: An Oral Account (1932) at myhistorylab.com

The federal government was not equipped to address the emergency.

There was no tradition of federal action to alleviate economic distress.
President Hoover organized economic conferences and encouraged the
Federal Reserve to make borrowing easier. He supported the ill-advised
Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of 1930, which was intended to protect American
industry by erecting a high tariff barrier. Hoover believed relief was a
matter for local government and voluntary organizations; however, many
local relief agencies had run out of money by 1931. By 1932 U.S.
unemployment had risen to over 23 percent, and thousands of banks had
failed. The gross national product had slipped, with international trade
falling by approximately two-thirds since 1929.

NEW ROLE FOR GOVERNMENT

The election of 1932 was one of the most crucial in American history. The
Democratic Party’s candidate, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945),
promised “a new deal for the American people.” He overwhelmingly
defeated Hoover and quickly redirected federal policy toward the
Depression.
Roosevelt had been born into a moderately wealthy New York family and
was a distant cousin of Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). After serving in
World War I as assistant secretary of the navy, in 1920 he ran as the
Democratic vice presidential candidate. The next year he was struck with
polio and his legs became paralyzed, but he went on to be elected governor
of New York in 1928. As president, he attempted to convey to the nation the
same kind of optimistic spirit that had informed his personal recovery.
Roosevelt’s first goal was to give the nation a sense that the federal
government was meeting the economic challenge. The first hundred days of
his administration became legendary. He immediately closed all the banks
and permitted only sound institutions to reopen. Congress rapidly passed a
new banking act and then enacted the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the
Farm Credit Act to aid farmers. To provide jobs, Roosevelt sponsored the
Civilian Conservation Corps. The Federal Emergency Relief Act funded
state and local relief agencies. To restore confidence, Roosevelt began
making speeches, known as “fireside chats,” to the American people.

The Works Progress Administration. This group of men repairing a

street worked for the Works Progress Administration, one of the chief
New Deal agencies designed to create public works projects that
would generate employment.
 What was the New Deal?

Roosevelt’s most ambitious program was the National Industrial

Recovery Act (NIRA), which established the National Recovery
Administration (NRA). This agency attempted to foster codes written by
various industries to regulate wages and prices, in hopes that regulated
competition might protect jobs and assure production.
The NIRA and other New Deal legislation, such as the Wagner Act of
1935, which established the National Labor Relations Board and the Fair
Labor Standards Act of 1938, provided a larger role in the American
economy for organized labor. It became easier for unions to organize.
Union membership grew steadily, and American unionism took on a new
character. Previously, most unions had organized by craft and had been
affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL). In the 1930s,
however, whole industries composed of workers in various crafts were
organized in a single union. The most important of these organizations were
the United Mine Workers and United Automobile Workers. These new
unions organized themselves into the Congress of Industrial Organizations
(CIO). The CIO and the AFL were rivals until they merged in the 1950s.
These organizations introduced a powerful new force into the American
economic scene.
In 1935 the U.S. Supreme Court declared the NRA unconstitutional.
Thereafter, Roosevelt deemphasized centralized economic planning. The
number of federal agencies increased, but they operated in general
independence from each other.
Through New Deal legislation, the federal government was far more
active in the economy than it had ever been. The government itself
attempted to provide industrial employment. The major institution of the
relief effort was the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Created in
1935, the WPA began a massive program of public works.

Works Progress Administration (WPA)

New Deal program created by the Roosevelt administration in 1935 that
provided relief for the unemployed in the industrial sector during the Great
Depression in the United States.
 New Deal programs involved the federal government directly in
economic development rather than turning such development over to
private enterprise. Through the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the
government became directly and extensively involved in the economy of
the four states of the Tennessee River Valley. The TVA built dams and then
produced and sold hydroelectricity. Another major new function for the
government was providing security for the elderly through the
establishment of the Social Security Administration in 1935.

QUICK REVIEW
New Deal
Image Legislated extensive government involvement in economy
Image Did not end unemployment
Image Demonstrated flexibility and strength of democracy and
capitalism

In one area of American life after another, government was now expected
to provide personal economic security. These actions established a mixed
economy in the United States, in which the federal government would play
an active, ongoing role alongside the private sector. The New Deal changed
much of American life, but it did not solve the unemployment problem. In
the late 1930s, the economy began to falter again. Only the nation’s entry
into World War II brought the U.S. economy to full employment.
There were limitations to the liberalism of the New Deal, the most
significant of which related to race. Southern Democratic senators, who
provided Roosevelt with necessary votes to pass his economic legislation,
opposed federal legislation to prohibit lynchings. Roosevelt played
pragmatist and so did not support anti-lynching legislation.
At the same time, many businesspeople found Roosevelt too liberal and
his policies too activist.
Despite shortcomings, the New Deal preserved capitalism in a
democratic setting of free political debate—much of it critical of the
administration. The experience of the United States under the New Deal
stood in marked contrast to the economic and political experiments in
Europe. The United States had demonstrated that a nation with a vast
industrial economy could confront its gravest economic crisis and still
preserve democracy.
SUMMARY

WHICH GROUPS were dissatisfied with the Versailles settlement?

After Versailles: Demands for Revision and Enforcement. The Versailles
settlement bred political discontent and resentment throughout Europe
among both victors and the defeated. Wrangles over reparations between
Germany and the Allied powers persisted through the 1920s. page 753

WHAT FACTORS made the Great Depression so severe and long

lasting?
Toward the Great Depression in Europe. After World War I, Europe
never recovered its prewar prosperity or stability. The Great Depression was
triggered by a financial crisis relating to German reparations and a
commodity crisis caused by overproduction. It caused severe economic,
social, and political problems throughout Europe, and no government
offered responsible financial leadership. page 754

HOW DID Stalin gain and keep power in the Soviet Union?
The Soviet Experiment. The Bolsheviks were forced to consolidate their
regime within Russia. Lenin’s New Economic Policy gave the state control
over heavy industry, transportation, and international commerce but
allowed for small-scale private enterprise and peasant farms. Stalin
abandoned this policy to push for rapid industrialization. He abolished
private enterprise, collectivized agriculture, and eliminated his opponents in
a series of purges in which millions were imprisoned or killed. Despite the
violence and oppression, Marxists and others around the world were
attracted to the Soviet Union as the world’s only communist state and the
enemy of fascism. page 756

WHY DID the Fascists achieve power in Italy?

The Fascist Experiment in Italy. Many Italians were dissatisfied with the
terms of the Versailles Treaty and frightened by the social unrest that
followed World War I. Benito Mussolini promised order and a strong state.
Although he achieved power by legal means, he soon transformed Italy into
a single-party dictatorship. In 1929 he came to terms with the Catholic
Church by negotiating the Lateran Accord, which recognized the pope as
the independent ruler of Vatican City. page 761

WHAT ROLE did terror play in Nazi Germany?

German Democracy and Dictatorship. The Weimar Republic was
buffeted by social, political, and financial instability. Many Germans
refused to accept Germany’s defeat in World War I or the terms of the
Versailles Treaty. Rampant inflation destroyed middle-class savings, and the
Great Depression brought financial collapse and massive unemployment.
Once Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, he established a one-party
dictatorship based on police terror, propaganda, racial anti-Semitism, and
the cult of Hitler as supreme leader. Jews, in particular, were persecuted.
page 763

HOW DID FDR’s policies affect the role of the federal government?
The Great Depression and the New Deal in the United States. The
United States emerged from World War I as a world power but retreated
into isolation during the 1920s. The prosperity of the 1920s ended in the
Great Depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal greatly expanded
the power of the federal government in social and economic affairs and
preserved capitalism in a democratic setting. page 772

KEY TERMS

collectivization
Duce (DOO-chay)
fascism
 Führer
Great Depression
Great Purges
Kristallnacht
Mein Kampf
Nazis
New Economic Policy (NEP)
Popular Front
Reichstag (REYEKS-tahg)
SA
SS
War Communism
Weimar Republic
Works Progress Administration (WPA)

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Were there any groups that supported the Versailles settlement?

2. Explain the causes of the Great Depression. Why was it more
severe, and why did it last longer, than previous economic
downturns? Could it have been avoided?
3. What was the cause of disagreement between Trotsky and Stalin?
What was the outcome of their disagreement?
4. How did Stalin achieve supreme power in the Soviet Union? Why
did he decide that Russia had to industrialize rapidly? Why did this
require the collectivization of agriculture? Was the policy a success?
How did it affect the Russian people? What were the causes of the
Great Purges?
5. What influence did the Soviet Union exert on other parts of Europe
during this period?
6. Why was Italy dissatisfied and unstable after World War I? How did
Mussolini achieve power?
7. What were the characteristics of the Fascist state?
8. Why did the Weimar Republic collapse in Germany? Discuss
Hitler’s rise to power. Which groups in Germany supported Hitler,
 and why were they pro-Nazi? How did he consolidate his power?
9. Compare the authoritarian regimes in the Soviet Union, Italy, and
Germany. What characteristics did they have in common? What role
did terror play in each?
10. Why did the U.S. economy collapse in 1929? What policies did
Roosevelt use to combat the Depression? How did his policies affect
the role of the federal government in national life?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources
related to this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections

Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many

documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 29

ImageRead the Document Stalin Demands Rapid

Industrialization of the USSR (1931), p. 758
Irina Ivanovna Kniazeva, A Life in a Peasant Village (USSR) 1917–
1930s, p. 758
John Scott, excerpt from Behind the Urals: An American Worker in
Russia’s City of Steel, p. 761
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, “Futuristic Manifesto,” p. 761
Benito Mussolini, “The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism,” p.
761
 Adolf Hitler, excerpt from Mein Kampf, p. 765
The Great Depression: An Oral Account (1932), p. 773

Hear the Audio Depression, p. 754

Communism, p. 757
Fascism, p. 761
Nazis 1, p. 764

ImageView the Image Nazis 2, p. 768

Study and Review Lenin, 1920, vs. Stalin, 1931, p. 758

Research and Explore

ImageView the Image Bread Line during the “Great Depression”

ImageView the Image Works Project Administration (WPA)

 Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 29 at www.myhistorylab.com

30
World War II

Hear the Audio for Chapter 30 at www.myhistorylab.com

 Nazi Terror. In this vivid poster, the artist Ben Shahn (1898–1969)
memorialized the destruction of Lidice. The Czechoslovakian town
was obliterated by the Nazis on June 11, 1942, in retaliation for Czech
resistance against their Nazi rulers.

How did the Nazis gain control of Czechoslovakia?

AGAIN THE ROAD TO WAR (1933–1939)

WHAT WERE the main events between 1933 and 1939 that led to World
War II?

WORLD WAR II (1939–1945)

WHY WAS 1942 the turning point in World War II?

THE DOMESTIC FRONTS

HOW DID war affect civilians in Germany, France, Britain, the United
States, and the Soviet Union?

PREPARATIONS FOR PEACE

WHY DID cooperation between the Soviet Union and the Western powers
break down in 1945?

The more idealistic survivors of the first World War, especially in the United
States and Great Britain, thought of it as “the war to end all wars” and “a
war to make the world safe for democracy.” Only thus could they justify the
awful slaughter, expense, and upheaval. How appalled they would have
been had they known that only twenty years after the peace treaties, a
second great war would break out that would be more truly global than the
first. In this war the democracies would be fighting for their lives against
militaristic, nationalistic, authoritarian, and totalitarian states in Europe
and Asia. Great Britain and the United States would be allied with the
communist Soviet Union. The defeat of the militarists and dictators would
not bring the longed-for peace, but rather a Cold War in which the
European states became second-class powers, subordinate to the two new
great powers, partially or fully non-European: the Soviet Union and the
United States.

AGAIN THE ROAD TO WAR (1933–1939)

WHAT WERE the main events between 1933 and 1939 that led to
World War II?

World War I and the Versailles Treaty had only a marginal relationship to
the world Depression of the 1930s. But in Germany, where the reparations
settlement had contributed to the vast inflation of 1923, economic and
social discontent focused on the Versailles settlement as the cause of all ills.
Throughout the late 1920s, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party denounced
Versailles as the source of Germany’s troubles; the economic woes of the
early 1930s seemed to bear them out. This, coupled with Nazi Party
discipline and a message of fervent nationalism, helped Hitler overthrow
the Weimar Republic and take control of Germany.

See the Map

Expansion of Germany in the 1930s at myhistorylab.com

HITLER’S GOALS
Hitler’s racial theories and goals were central to his thought. He meant to go
far beyond Germany’s 1914 borders to bring the entire German people
(Volk), understood as a racial group, into a single nation. The new Germany
would include all the Germanic parts of the old Habsburg Empire, including
Austria. This virile nation would need more space to live (Lebensraum),
which would be taken from the Slavs, a lesser race. The new Germany
would be purified by the removal of the Jews, the most inferior race in Nazi
theory. The plan required the conquest of Poland and the Ukraine as the
primary areas for the settlement of Germans and for the provision of food.
However, neither Mein Kampf nor later statements of policy were blueprints
for action. Hitler was a brilliant improviser who exploited opportunities as
they arose. But he never lost sight of his goal, which would almost certainly
require a major war. (See Document: “Hitler States His Plans for Russia” on
page 782.)

Lebensraum
German for “living space,” the term refers to the Nazi plan to colonize and
exploit eastern Europe.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

WORLD WAR II

The second great war of the twentieth century (1939–1945) grew out of the
unsatisfactory resolution of the first. In retrospect, the two wars appear to
some people to be one continuous conflict—a kind of twentieth-century
Thirty Years’ War—with the two main periods of fighting separated by an
uneasy truce. To others, that point of view distorts the situation by implying
that the second war was the inevitable result of the first and its inadequate
peace treaties.

The latter opinion seems more sound. Whatever the flaws of the treaties
of Paris, the world suffered an even more terrible war than the first as a
result of failures of judgment and will on the part of the victorious
democratic powers. The United States, which had become the wealthiest
and potentially the strongest nation in the world, disarmed almost entirely
and withdrew into a shortsighted and foolish isolation; it could play no
important part in restraining the angry and ambitious dictators who brought
on the war. Britain and France refused to face the reality of the threat the
Axis powers posed until the most deadly war in history was required to put
it down. If the victorious democracies had remained strong, responsible,
and realistic, they could have remedied whatever injustices or mistakes
arose from the treaties without endangering the peace.
Equally important, however, was the unwillingness of the victorious
powers to adjust the peace treaties from World War I, or to compel
compliance even in the face of Germany’s obvious unwillingness or
inability to pay the war reparations the victors demanded. Here too, the
isolationism of the United States played a pivotal role, as the government
insisted that its allies in World War I, France and Britain, whose economies
were also struggling after the war, repay their debts to the United States.
France and Britain, in turn, sought to fund their war debts using reparations
extracted primarily from Germany. The inability of the democratic German
government of the Weimar Republic to negotiate a better deal from the
victors of World War I added to the perception of ordinary Germans that it
was weak and inept and thus contributed to its downfall.
The second war itself was plainly a global war. The Japanese occupation
of Manchuria in 1931, though not technically a part of that war, was a
significant precursor. Italy attacked Ethiopia in 1935. Italy, Germany, and
the Soviet Union intervened in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Japan
attacked China in 1937. European colonies or former colonies, such as
Australia and other South Pacific islands, the Philippines, and regions of the
Middle East and North Africa became theaters of war or, like India, were
drawn into the conflict by helping to supply the combatants. Men and
women from all the inhabited continents thus took part. The use of atomic
weapons brought the frightful struggle to a close, but what are called
conventional weapons did almost all the damage while state-sponsored
genocide, such as Hitler’s Holocaust, killed millions of civilians. The world
reached a level of destructiveness that threatened the very survival of
civilization, even without the use of atomic or nuclear devices.
The aftermath of World War II, and the victors’ analysis of the causes of
the conflict, led to the creation of the United Nations, an international
organization designed to forestall future conflict through improved
international diplomacy.
Focus Questions
What was the relationship between World War I and World War II?
Why was the United States’ isolationism after World War I such an
important factor in the advent of World War II?
Why was World War II truly a global war?
What lessons did the world learn from the experiences of World War
I and World War II?

Read the Document

Adolf Hitler, “The Obersalzberg Speech” at myhistorylab.com

WEAKNESS OF THE VERSAILLES TREATY AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

When Hitler came to power, Germany was weak. Germany withdrew from
the League of Nations, and, in March 1935, Hitler violated the Versailles
Treaty with the formation of an air force. Soon Hitler reinstated
conscription, aiming at an army of half a million men. His path was made
easier because the League of Nations was ineffective. In September 1931,
Japan occupied Manchuria. China appealed to the league, which
condemned the Japanese action. Japan withdrew from the league and kept
Manchuria.
The league formally condemned Hitler’s decision to rearm Germany but
took no steps to prevent it. France and Britain met with Italian leader Benito
Mussolini (1883–1945) in June 1935 to form the so-called Stresa Front and
agreed to maintain the status quo in Europe by force if necessary. But
Britain soon made a separate naval agreement with Hitler, allowing him to
rebuild the German fleet to 35 percent of the British navy.

QUICK REVIEW
Discrediting the League of Nations
Germany withdrew from league to pursue rearmament
Japan withdrew from league to keep Manchuria
League sanctions against Italy for invading Ethiopia were ineffective
ITALY ATTACKS ETHIOPIA
Using a border incident as an excuse, Mussolini attacked Ethiopia in
October 1935, in part to avenge a humiliating Italian defeat there in 1896.
The League of Nations voted economic sanctions and imposed an arms
embargo. But Britain and France were afraid of alienating Mussolini, so
they refused to place an embargo on oil, the one sanction that could have
prevented Italian victory. The British also permitted Italian troops and
munitions to move through the Suez Canal. The League of Nations and
collective security were discredited, and Mussolini turned to Germany. By
November 1, 1936, he could speak publicly of a Rome-Berlin “Axis.”

REMILITARIZATION OF THE RHINELAND

Hitler noted the Western powers’ lack of determination and, on March 7,
1936, sent a small armed force into the demilitarized Rhineland. This was a
breach of both the Versailles Treaty and the Locarno Agreements, and it
removed an important element of French security. Yet Britain and France,
weakened by growing pacifism, made only feeble protests.
A Germany that was rapidly rearming and had a defensible western
frontier presented a new problem to the Western powers. Their response
was the policy of appeasement. It was based on the assumption that
Germany had real grievances, that Hitler’s goals were limited, and that the
wise thing to do was to make concessions before a crisis could lead to war.
Behind this approach was the horror of another war. As Germany armed,
the French huddled behind the defensive Maginot Line, and the British
hoped for the best.

appeasement
The Anglo-French policy of making concessions to Germany in the 1930s
to avoid a crisis that would lead to war. It assumed that Germany had real
grievances and that Hitler’s aims were limited and ultimately acceptable.

THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

The new European alignment was made clearer by the Spanish Civil War,
which broke out in July 1936. In 1931, the Spaniards had established a
republic. The left won elections in February 1936, but the Falangists
(Spanish Fascists) and other groups would not accept defeat at the polls. In
July, General Francisco Franco (1892–1975) led an army against the
republic.
The ensuing civil war lasted almost three years, killed hundreds of
thousands, and provided a training ground for World War II. The Soviet
Union sent equipment and advisers to the Republicans. Liberals and leftists
from Europe and America volunteered to fight in the Republican ranks
against fascism. Germany and Italy aided Franco with troops and supplies.
This brought them closer together and led to the Rome-Berlin Axis Pact.
Japan joined the Axis powers in the Anti-Comintern Pact, ostensibly against
communism but really as part of a powerful new diplomatic alliance. By
early 1939 the Fascists effectively controlled Spain.

Axis
The alliance between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Also called the Pact
of Steel.

Read the Document

Constancia de la Mora from “In Place of Splendor” at myhistorylab.com

DOCUMENT

Hitler States His Plans for Russia

As was revealed in detail only after World War II, Hitler had definite, if
vainglorious, views on Russians and positive plans for Germany’s
exploitation of Russia in the event of Germany’s victory.

• WHAT were Hitler’s plans for Russia under German rule? How did
they fit his racial theories? How would he justify his plans for
Russia and the Russians?
The German colonists ought to live on handsome, spacious farms. The
German services will be lodged in marvelous buildings, the governors in
palaces. Beneath the shelter of the administrative services, we shall
gradually organize all that is indispensable to the maintenance of a certain
standard of living. Around the city, to a depth of thirty to forty kilometers,
we shall have a belt of handsome villages connected by the best roads.
What exists beyond that will be another world, in which we mean to let the
Russians live as they like. It is merely necessary that we should rule them.
In the event of a revolution, we shall only have to drop a few bombs on
their cities, and the affair will be liquidated. Once a year we shall lead a
troop of Kirghizes through the capital of the Reich, in order to strike their
imaginations with the size of our monuments.

What India was for England, the territories of Russia will be for us.
When one contemplates this primitive world, one is convinced that
nothing will drag it out of its indolence unless one compels the people to
work. The Slavs are a mass of born slaves, who feel the need of a master.…
It’s better not to teach them to read. They won’t love us for tormenting them
with schools. Even to give them a locomotive to drive would be a mistake.
…
The Germans—this is essential—will have to constitute amongst
themselves a closed society, like a fortress. The least of our stable-lads must
be superior to any native.
For German youth, this will be a magnificent field of experiment. We’ll
attract to the Ukraine Danes, Dutch, Norwegians, Swedes. The army will
find areas for maneuvers there, and our aviation will have the space it
needs.

Source: Hitler’s Secret Conversations, 1941–1944, trans. by Norman

Cameron and R. H. Stevens (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young,
1953), pp. 20, 28-29.
 Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937. The Spanish Civil War divided
Europe, with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany assisting Franco, and
Soviet Russia aiding the republic. Before its end in 1939, the war in
Spain took some 500,000 lives. On April 26, 1937, planes from the
German Condor Legion bombed the Basque town of Guernica, killing
some 1,000 men, women, and children and destroying about 70
percent of the buildings. It was the most effective aerial bombardment
of a city up to that time, and its purpose was simply to create terror.

Pablo Picasso, “Guernica” 1937, Oil on canvas. 11’5 1/2 × 25’5 3/4.
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia/(c)2007 Estate of Pablo
Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Why is the Spanish Civil War sometimes described as a rehearsal

for World War II?

AUSTRIA AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA

In 1938 the new diplomatic situation encouraged Hitler to attempt a Nazi
coup in Austria. The resulting Anschluss, or union of Germany and Austria,
had great strategic significance. Czechoslovakia was now surrounded by
Germany on three sides. It was allied both to France and the Soviet Union
but contained about 3.5 million ethnic Germans who lived in the
Sudetenland, a portion of Czechoslovakia near the German border (see Map
30–1). Supported by Hitler, they agitated for privileges and autonomy
within the Czech state. In September 1938, German intervention seemed
imminent. British prime minister Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) sought
to appease Hitler by compelling the Czechs to grant the Sudetenland
separate status. But Hitler then increased his demands and insisted on
immediate German military occupation of the Sudetenland.

Anschluss
Meaning “union.” The annexation of Austria by Germany in March 1938.

QUICK REVIEW
The Occupation of the Sudetenland
May 1938: Czechs mobilize their army in response to rumors of
German invasion
September 1938: Neville Chamberlain forces Czechs to separate the
Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia
September 29, 1938: Sudetenland is given to Germany at Munich
conference

MAP EXPLORATION

To explore this map further go to http://www.myhistorylab.com

MAP 30–1. Partitions of Czechoslovakia and Poland, 1938–1939. The
immediate background of World War II is found in the complex
international drama unfolding on Germany’s eastern frontier in 1938 and
1939. Germany’s expansion inevitably meant the victimization of Austria,
Czechoslovakia, and Poland. With the failure of the Western powers’
appeasement policy and the signing of a German-Soviet pact, the stage for
the war was set.

How did the failure of appeasement lead to war?

FAILURE OF APPEASEMENT
France and Britain prepared for war. At the last moment, Mussolini
proposed a conference of Germany, Italy, France, and Britain, which met on
September 29 at Munich. Hitler received almost everything he had
demanded. The Sudetenland became part of Germany, thus depriving the
Czechs of any chance of self-defense. In return, the rest of Czechoslovakia
was spared. Hitler promised, “I have no more territorial demands to make in
Europe.” Chamberlain told a cheering crowd, “I believe it is peace for our
time.”
Appeasement was a failure. On March 15, 1939, Hitler broke his promise
and occupied Prague, putting an end to Czech independence and to illusions
that his only goal was to restore Germans to the Reich. Munich remains an
example of short-sighted policy that helped bring on a war in
disadvantageous circumstances, as a result of the fear of war and the failure
to prepare for it.

Agreement at Munich. On September 29–30, 1938, Hitler met with

the leaders of Britain and France at Munich to decide the fate of
Czechoslovakia. The Allied leaders abandoned the small democratic
nation in a vain attempt to appease Hitler and avoid war. Hitler sits in
the center of the picture. To his right is British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain.

What is appeasement?
 Poland was the next target of German expansion. In the spring of 1939,
the Germans pressured Poland to restore the formerly German city of
Danzig and allow a railroad and a highway through the Polish corridor to
connect East Prussia with the rest of Germany. On March 31, Chamberlain
announced a Franco-British guarantee of Polish independence. Hitler did
not take the guarantee seriously, knowing that both countries were
unprepared for war. Furthermore, neither France nor Britain could
physically get help to the Poles. The only way to defend Poland was to
bring Russia into the alliance against Hitler, but the French and British were
hostile to communism and distrusted Stalin. Besides, both Poland and
Romania were suspicious of Russian intentions—with good reason. As a
result, Western negotiations with Russia were slow and cautious.

Hear the Audio

World War II 1 at myhistorylab.com

THE NAZI-SOVIET PACT

The Russians resented being left out of the Munich agreement and were
annoyed by the low priority that the West seemed to give to negotiations
with Russia. They rightly feared that the Western powers meant for them to
bear the burden of the war against Germany. As a result, they opened
negotiations with Hitler, and on August 23, 1939, the world was shocked to
learn of a Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact. Its secret provisions divided
Poland between them and allowed Russia to annex the Baltic States and
take Bessarabia from Romania.

See the Map

Partitions of Czechoslovakia and Poland, 1938–1939 at myhistorylab.com

The Nazi-Soviet Pact sealed the fate of Poland. On September 1, 1939,

the Germans invaded Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declared
war on Germany. World War II had begun.

WORLD WAR II (1939–1945)

 WHY WAS 1942 the turning point in World War II?

World War II was truly global. Fighting took place in Europe and Asia, the
Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
The demand for the fullest exploitation of material and human resources for
increased production, the use of blockades, and the intensive bombing of
civilian targets made the war of 1939 even more “total”—that is,
comprehensive and intense—than that of 1914.

CHRONOLOGY

EVENTS LEADING TO WORLD WAR II

GERMAN CONQUEST OF EUROPE
The speed of the German victory over Poland astonished the world, and the
Russians hastened to collect their share of the booty. On September 17,
Russia invaded Poland from the East, dividing the country with the
Germans. The Russians then absorbed Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. In
November 1940, the Russians invaded Finland, but the Finns fought back
and retained their independence.
The Western Front was quiet until April 1940, when the Germans
invaded Denmark and Norway. A month later, a combined land and air
attack struck the Low Countries. The Dutch surrendered in a few days, and
the Belgians soon thereafter. British and French armies in Belgium were
forced to flee to the English Channel to evacuate the beaches of Dunkirk.
More than 200,000 British and 100,000 French soldiers were saved, but
valuable equipment was abandoned.
The Maginot Line ran from Switzerland to the Belgian frontier. Hitler’s
swift advance through Belgium therefore circumvented France’s main line
of defense. The French army, poorly led, collapsed. Mussolini attacked
France on June 10, though without success. Less than a week later, the
French government asked for an armistice. The terms of the June 22
armistice allowed the Germans to occupy more than half of France,
including the Atlantic and English Channel coasts. To prevent the French
from fleeing to North Africa to continue the fight, Hitler left southern
France unoccupied. A collaborationist regime was established at the resort
city of Vichy. Most of the French were too stunned to resist. A few, notably
General Charles de Gaulle (1890–1969), fled to Britain and organized the
French National Committee of Liberation, or “Free French.” As
expectations of a quick German victory faded, French resistance arose.

BATTLE OF BRITAIN
Hitler expected to make a deal with the British. He was prepared to allow
Britain to retain its empire in return for a free hand in Europe. Any chance
of such terms disappeared when Winston Churchill (1874–1965) replaced
Chamberlain as prime minister in May 1940.
 One of Churchill’s greatest achievements was establishing a close
relationship with the American president Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–
1945). In 1940 and 1941, before the United States was at war, America sent
military supplies, traded destroyers for leases on British naval bases, and
even convoyed ships across the Atlantic to help the British survive. As
Britain remained defiant, Hitler was forced to contemplate an invasion,
which required control of the air. The German air force (Luftwaffe)
destroyed much of London. About 15,000 people were killed. But theories
of victory through airpower alone proved vain; casualties were much less
than expected, and the bombings made the British people more resolute.
Moreover, the Royal Air Force (RAF), aided by the newly developed
technology of radar, inflicted heavy losses on the Luftwaffe. Hitler lost the
Battle of Britain in the air and was forced to abandon his plans for invasion.

Luftwaffe
The German air force in World War II.

Image

Battle of Britain. A rubble-strewn street in London after the city had

experienced a night of German bombing. Despite many casualties and
widespread devastation, the German bombing of London did not break
British morale or prevent the city from functioning.

What did Hitler hope to accomplish by the aerial bombing of

Britain?

GERMAN ATTACK ON RUSSIA

Operation Barbarossa, the code name for the German invasion of Russia,
was aimed at knocking Russia out of the war before winter could set in.
Success required an early start. Here Hitler’s Italian alliance proved costly.
Mussolini had launched an attack against the British in Egypt and also
invaded Greece. (See Map 30-2.) The British counterattacked successfully
in North Africa, and the Greeks repulsed the Italians. In March 1941, the
British sent help to the Greeks, and Hitler was forced to divert his attention
to the Balkans and North Africa. General Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) soon
drove the British back into Egypt. In the Balkans, the German army
occupied Yugoslavia and crushed Greek resistance. All this cost Hitler six
weeks. Operation Barbarossa was launched against Russia on June 22,
1941, and it almost succeeded. Stalin panicked. By November, the German
army stood at the gates of Leningrad, on the outskirts of Moscow, and on
the Don River. Of the 4.5 million troops with which the Russians had begun
the fighting, they had lost 2.5 million; of their 15,000 tanks, only 700 were
left.

QUICK REVIEW
Operation Barbarossa
Surprise invasion of Soviet Union by Germany launched June 22,
1941
Germany advanced rapidly in the early stages of the campaign
German failure to deliver a decisive blow delayed victory until
winter set in, turning the tide in Soviet favor

A German victory seemed imminent, but then Hitler diverted significant

forces to the south. By the time he marched on Moscow, winter was setting
in. The German army lacked appropriate equipment, and Stalin had
reorganized, fortified the city, and brought in troops from Siberia. In
November and December, the Russians counterattacked. Hitler’s blitzkrieg
(“war by lightning strokes”) turned into a war of attrition.

blitzkrieg
Meaning “lightning war.” The German tactic early in World War II of
employing fast-moving, massed armored columns supported by airpower to
overwhelm the enemy.

See the Map

The Nazi Empire in 1942 at myhistorylab.com
HITLER’S EUROPE
The demands of war and Hitler’s defeat prevented him from fully carrying
out his plans. But the measures he took before his death suggest a regime
unmatched in history for planned terror and inhumanity. Hitler regarded
most conquered lands merely as a source of plunder, slave labor, and
ultimately Lebensraum for Germans. He stripped them of entire industries
and their peoples of basic necessities. Regions inhabited by people Hitler
considered racially akin to the Germans (Scandinavia, the Low Countries,
Switzerland) were to be absorbed into Germany.

RACISM AND THE HOLOCAUST

The most horrific aspect of Nazi rule in Europe arose from the inhumanity
inherent in Hitler’s racial doctrines. He considered the Slavs
Untermenschen, subhuman creatures like beasts. In Poland the upper and
professional classes were jailed, deported, or killed; harsh living conditions
were imposed on everyone else. Russia was worse: Hitler spoke of his
Russian campaign as a war of extermination. Some 6 million Russian
prisoners of war and deported civilian workers may have died under Nazi
rule.

Read the Document

Wannsee Protocol at myhistorylab.com

Image

MAP 30–2. Axis Europe 1941. On the eve of the German invasion of the
Soviet Union, the Germany–Italy Axis bestrode most of western Europe by
annexation, occupation, or alliance—from Norway and Finland in the north
to Greece in the south and from Poland to France. Britain, the Soviets, a
number of insurgent groups, and, finally, the United States had before them
the long struggle of conquering this Axis “fortress Europe.”
 What were the strengths and weaknesses of Germany’s territorial
position in 1941?

Image

Roundup of Hungarian Jewish Women.

World War II resulted in the near-total destruction of the Jews of
Europe, victims of the Holocaust spawned by Hitler’s racial theories of
the superiority and inferiority of particular ethnic groups. Hitler placed
special emphasis on the need to exterminate the Jews, to whom he
attributed particular wickedness. This picture shows Hungarian Jewish
women, after “disinfection” and head shaving, marching to the
concentration or death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Photo by Bernhard Walter; source: National Archives and Records

Administration.

How did the Holocaust fundamentally transform European

society?

Image

MAP 30–3. The Holocaust. The Nazi policy of ethnic cleansing—targeting

Jews, Gypsies, political dissidents, and “social deviants”—began with
imprisoning them in concentration camps, but by 1943 the Endlösung, or
Final Solution, called for the systematic extermination of “undesirables.”
 Which countries were most severely affected by the Holocaust?

Hitler had special plans for the Jews. He meant to make all Europe
Judenrein (“free of Jews”). For a time he thought of deporting Jews but
later decided on the “final solution of the Jewish problem”: genocide. The
Nazis built extermination camps in Germany and Poland and used the latest
technology to kill millions of men, women, and children just because they
were Jews. Before the war was over, 6 million Jews had died in what has
come to be called the Holocaust. Only about a million remained alive,
mostly in pitiable condition (see Map 30–3).

ImageView the Image

Emaciated Woman at Bergen-Belsen at myhistorylab.com

Holocaust
The Nazi extermination of millions of European Jews between 1940 and
1945. Nazis called it the “final solution to the Jewish problem.”

THE ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR AND AMERICA’S ENTRY INTO THE

WAR
The war took on truly global proportions in December 1941. The Japanese
were already at war with China, and between the outbreak of that war in
1937 and the opening of the World War II campaign in the Pacific, there
were three critical junctures. The first was Japan’s January 1938 invasion of
China to overthrow the Chinese Nationalist Party government in Nanjing.
The Japanese army occupied most of the cities and railroads of eastern
China, killing more than 300,000 people and brutally raping 7,000 women.
Chinese Nationalist leader Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek), however, refused
to surrender. The ensuing stalemate lasted until 1945.
The second critical decision was the Tripartite Pact that Japan signed
with Germany and Italy in September 1940. Germany’s European victories
in late spring 1940 seemed a prelude to German victory, and Japan hoped
that the pact would help it achieve three objectives: to isolate the United
States (which was demanding that Japan withdraw from China); to take
over the Southeast Asian colonies of Britain, France, and the Netherlands;
and to improve its relations with the Soviet Union through Germany’s help.
This last objective was reached when Japan signed a neutrality pact with the
Soviet Union in April 1941. Japan remained neutral when Germany
attacked the Soviet Union and ceased at that point to work with the Axis
powers.
The third and fateful decision was to go to war with the United States. In
June 1941, following Germany’s defeat of France, Japanese troops had
occupied northern French Indochina. The United States retaliated by
limiting strategic exports to Japan. In July 1941 Japanese troops took
southern Indochina, and the United States embargoed all exports to Japan,
cutting Japanese oil imports by 90 percent. The Japanese navy urged seizure
of the oil-rich Dutch East Indies, but this was dangerous as long as the
United States held the Philippines. Japan’s navy, therefore, planned a
preemptive strike against the United States. On December 7, 1941, Japan
launched an air attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the chief American naval
base in the Pacific. The next day, the United States and Britain declared war
on Japan. Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United
States.

Image

Pearl Harbor. The successful Japanese attack on the American base at

Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, together with
simultaneous attacks on other Pacific bases, brought the United States
into war against the Axis powers. For Japan, it was the opening phase
of a campaign to capture European and American colonies in
Southeast Asia. This picture shows the battleships USS West Virginia
and USS Tennessee in flames as a small boat rescues a man from the
water.

How was Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor the beginning of its

ultimate demise?
THE TIDE TURNS
The potential power of the United States was enormous, but America was
ill prepared for war. The army was tiny, inexperienced, and poorly supplied;
American industry was not ready for war. The Japanese swiftly captured
Guam, Wake Island, and the Philippines (see Map 30–4). They also
attacked Hong Kong, Malaya, Burma, and Indonesia. By the summer of
1942, the Japanese Empire stretched from the western Aleutian Islands
south almost to Australia, and from Burma east to the Gilbert Islands in the
mid-Pacific.

Image

MAP 30–4. The War in the Pacific. As in Europe, the Allies initially had
trouble recapturing areas that the Japanese had seized quickly early in the
war. The map shows the initial expansion of the Japanese and the long
struggle of the Allies to push them back to their homeland and defeat them.

What was the American strategy for defeating Japan in World War II?

Read the Document

Japanese Total War Research Institute; Plan for the Greater East Asia Co-
Prosperity Sphere, 1942 at myhistorylab.com

In the same year, the Germans almost reached the Caspian Sea in their
drive for Russia’s oil fields. In Africa, Rommel drove the British back
toward the Suez Canal and was finally stopped at El Alamein, only 70 miles
from Alexandria. Relations between the democracies and their Soviet ally
were not close; German submarines were threatening British supplies; the
Allies were being thrown back on every front, and the future looked bleak.
 The tide turned at the battle of Midway in June 1942. A month earlier,
both sides had suffered massive losses in the battle of the Coral Sea, but
greater U.S. ship production made such sacrifices more costly for Japan. At
Midway, American planes destroyed four Japanese aircraft carriers. Soon
American Marines landed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. The war
in the Pacific was far from over, but Japan was checked sufficiently to
allow the Allies to concentrate first on the West.

ImageWatch the Video

FDR on Winning the War at myhistorylab.com

In the spring of 1943, the German army was trapped by British and
American forces in Tunisia and crushed. The Mediterranean was now under
Allied control, and southern Europe was exposed. In July and August 1943
the Allies took Sicily. Mussolini was driven from power, the Allies landed
in Italy, and Marshal Pietro Badoglio (1871–1956), the leader of the new
Italian government, declared war on Germany. German resistance was
tough; the need to defend Italy left the Germans vulnerable on other fronts.
The Russian campaign became especially demanding. In the summer of
1942 the Germans had resumed the offensive on all fronts. In the south,
their goal was the oil fields near the Caspian Sea, and they got as far as
Stalingrad on the Volga. The battle of Stalingrad raged for months with
unexampled ferocity. The Russians lost more men there than the Americans
lost in combat during the entire war, but their heroic defenses prevailed.
Stalingrad marked the turning point of the Russian campaign. Thereafter, as
the German military and material resources dwindled, the Russians
advanced inexorably westward.
In 1943 the Allies also gained ground in production and logistics. The
industrial might of the United States neared full force. New technology and
tactics reduced the submarine menace. The American and British air forces
began a series of massive bombardments of Germany. This bombing did not
have much effect on the war until 1944, when the Americans introduced
long-range fighters that could protect the bombers. By 1945 the Allies
could bomb at will.

ImageView the Image

Operation Overlord, Normandy, 1944 at myhistorylab.com
DEFEAT OF NAZI GERMANY
On June 6, 1944 (D-Day), in one of the greatest amphibious assaults ever
attempted, Allied troops landed in force on the coast of Normandy (see Map
30–5 on page 792). By the beginning of September France had been
liberated.

Image

D-Day. American soldiers land at Omaha Beach in Normandy on D-

Day, June 6, 1944.

The Allied invasion of Normandy was the greatest amphibian

assault in history. Does this photo capture the scale and size of the
invasion?

Image

MAP 30–5. Defeat of the Axis in Europe, 1942–1945. Here we see some
major steps in the progress toward Allied victory against Axis Europe.
From the south through Italy, the west through France, and the east through
Russia, the Allies gradually conquered the continent to bring the war in
Europe to a close.

Why was it important for the Allies to force the Germans to fight on
more than one front?
 All went smoothly until December, when the Germans launched a
counterattack called the battle of the Bulge through the Forest of Ardennes.
It was their last gasp. The Allies recovered the momentum and pushed
eastward. They crossed the Rhine in March 1945, and German resistance
crumbled. This time there could be no doubt that the Germans had lost the
war on the battlefield.

See the Map

World War II in Europe, 1939–1945 at myhistorylab.com

In the East, the Russians were within reach of Berlin by March 1945.
Because the Allies insisted on unconditional surrender, the Germans fought
on. Hitler committed suicide in an underground hideaway in Berlin on May
1, 1945, and the Russians occupied the city. The Third Reich had lasted a
dozen years instead of the millennium predicted by Hitler.

FALL OF THE JAPANESE EMPIRE

The war in Europe ended on May 8, 1945, and by then victory over Japan
was in sight (see also Chapter 27). The original Japanese attack on the
United States had been a calculated risk against the odds. The longer the
war lasted, the greater the impact of American superiority in industrial
production and human resources. Beginning in 1943 American forces began
a campaign of “island hopping,” selecting strategic locations along the
enemy supply line. Starting from the Solomons, they moved northeast
toward the Japanese homeland. American bombers launched a terrible wave
of bombings that destroyed Japanese industry and disabled the Japanese
navy. But still the Japanese government, dominated by a military clique,
refused to surrender. Confronted with Japan’s determination, the Americans
made plans for a frontal assault on the Japanese homeland, which, they
calculated, would cost unacceptable American casualties and even greater
losses for the Japanese.

Read the Document

The Franck Report at myhistorylab.com
 Read the Document
An Eyewitness to Hiroshima (1945) at myhistorylab.com

ImageView the Image

Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Attack—August 1945 at myhistorylab.com

See the Map

World War II in the Pacific, 1939–1945 at myhistorylab.com

At this point, science and technology presented the Americans with

another choice. Since early in the war a secret program had been working to
use atomic energy for military purposes. On August 6, 1945, an American
plane dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. More than 70,000
of its 200,000 residents were killed. Two days later the Soviet Union
declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria. The next day a second
atomic bomb fell, this time on Nagasaki. Even then it was only the
unprecedented intervention of Emperor Hirohito (r. 1926–1989) that forced
the Japanese government to surrender on August 14. President Harry
Truman (1884–1972), who had come to office on April 12, 1945, on the
death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, accepted one condition: Japan could keep
its emperor. Peace was formally signed on September 2, 1945.

THE COST OF WAR

World War II was the most terrible war in history. Military deaths are
estimated at 15 million, and at least as many civilians were killed. If deaths
linked indirectly to the war are included, as many as 40 million may have
died. Most of Europe and significant parts of Asia were devastated. The
dawn of the Atomic Age that brought a dramatic end to the war made
people conscious that another major war might destroy humanity.
Everything depended on the conclusion of a stable peace. Yet even as the
fighting ended, the victors began to quarrel.

Image
 Hiroshima. This photo, taken a few days after an atomic bomb was
dropped, poignantly captures the total devastation wreaked on the city.

Why did the United States use nuclear weapons against Japan?

THE DOMESTIC FRONTS

HOW DID war affect civilians in Germany, France, Britain, the United
States, and the Soviet Union?

World War II represented an effort of total war by all the belligerents. Never
before had so many men and women and so many resources been devoted
to military effort. One result was the carnage that occurred on the
battlefields and at sea. Another was an unprecedented organization of
civilians on the various home fronts. Each domestic effort and experience
was different, but almost no one escaped the impact of the conflict.
Shortages, propaganda campaigns, and new political developments were
ubiquitous. In this section we look at the home fronts of the principal
European belligerents.

GERMANY: FROM APPARENT VICTORY TO DEFEAT

Hitler had expected to defeat all his enemies by blitzkrieg. Such campaigns
would scarcely have affected Germany’s society and economy. During the
first two years of the war, Hitler demanded few important sacrifices from
the German people. The failure to knock out the Soviet Union changed
everything. Because sufficient food could no longer be imported from the
East, Germany had to mobilize for total war, and the government demanded
major sacrifices.
A great expansion of the army and military production began in 1942.
Major German business enterprises aided the growth of wartime
production. Germany met its military needs instead of making consumer
goods. Between 1942 and late 1944 the output of military products tripled,
but as the war went on the army absorbed more men from industry, hurting
the production of even military goods. Beginning in 1942 everyday
products became scarce. Prices and wages were controlled, but the standard
of living of German workers fell. Burdensome food rationing began in
April 1942.
By 1943 there were also serious labor shortages. The Nazis required
German teenagers and retirees to work in the factories, and increasing
numbers of women joined them. To achieve total mobilization the Germans
closed retail businesses, raised the maximum age of women eligible for
compulsory service, shifted non-German domestic workers to wartime
industry, moved artists and entertainers into military service, closed
theaters, and reduced basic services such as mail. Finally, the Nazis forced
thousands of people from conquered lands to labor in Germany.

Youth Rally. Members of the Nazi German Women’s Youth

Movement perform calisthenics.

What roles did the Nazis encourage for women?

 Hitler assigned women a special place in the war effort. The celebration
of motherhood continued, with an emphasis on women who were the
mothers of important military figures. Films portrayed ordinary women
who became especially brave and patriotic during the war and remained
faithful to their husbands who were at the front. The government portrayed
other wartime activities of women as the natural fulfillment of their
maternal roles. As air raid wardens they protected their families; as factory
workers in munitions plants they aided their sons on the front lines. Women
working on farms were providing for their soldier sons and husbands; as
housewives they were helping to win the war by conserving food and
managing their households frugally. Finally, by their faithful chastity,
German women were protecting racial purity.

Read the Document

Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, “Speech to the Nazi Women’s Organization”
(Germany), 1935 at myhistorylab.com
 Bombing of Cologne. The Allied campaign of aerial bombardment
did terrible damage to German cities. This photograph shows the
devastation it delivered to the city of Cologne on the Rhine.

What was the overall effect of Allied aerial bombing?

There was an intensification of political propaganda beyond what

occurred in other countries. Hitler and other Nazis believed that weak
domestic support had led to Germany’s defeat in World War I, and they
were determined that this would not happen again. Nazi propaganda blamed
the outbreak of the war on the British. It stressed the might of Germany and
the inferiority of its foes. Later in the war government broadcasts
exaggerated claims of Nazi victories. As the German armies were checked
on the battlefield, propaganda became a substitute for victory. To stiffen
German resolve, propaganda also aimed to frighten the German population
about the consequences of defeat.
After May 1943, when the Allies began their major bombing offensive
over Germany, the German people had much to fear. Cities endured heavy
bombing, fires, and destruction. But the bombing did not undermine
German morale—on the contrary, it may have confirmed the general fear of
defeat at the hands of such savage opponents and increased German
resistance.
Every area of the economy and society came under the direct influence or
control of the Nazi Party. The Nazis were determined that they, rather than
the traditionally honored German officer corps, would profit from the new
authority flowing to the central government because of the war effort.
Throughout the war years there was minimal opposition to Hitler or his
ministers. In 1944 a small group of army officers made an attempt to
assassinate Hitler, but the effort failed, and it had no significant popular
support.
The war brought great changes to Germany, but what transformed the
country afterward was the experience of defeat accompanied by vast
physical destruction, invasion, and occupation. Hitler and the Nazis had
brought the nation to such a complete and disastrous end that only a new
kind of state with new political structures could emerge.
FRANCE: DEFEAT, COLLABORATION, AND RESISTANCE
In France the Vichy government cooperated closely with the Germans for a
variety of reasons. Some of the collaborators believed that the Germans
were sure to win and wanted to be on the victorious side. A few
sympathized with the ideas and plans of the Nazis. Many conservatives
regarded the French defeat as a judgment on what they saw as the corrupt,
secularized, liberal Third Republic; conservatives and extreme rightists saw
the Vichy government as a device to reshape the French national character.
The Vichy regime embraced an intense, chauvinistic nationalism. It
encouraged the long-standing prejudice against foreigners working in
France and persecuted those who were not regarded as genuinely French.
The chief victims were French Jews. Anti-Semitism was not new in France.
Even before Germany undertook Hitler’s “final solution,” the French had
begun to remove Jews from government, education, and publishing. In 1941
the Germans began to intern Jews living in occupied France; soon they
carried out killings and imposed large fines collectively on the Jews of the
occupied zone. In the spring of 1942 the Germans began deporting Jews,
ultimately over 60,000, to the extermination camps of eastern Europe. The
Vichy government made no protest.
Most of the French were not active collaborators and remained
demoralized by defeat. Resistance seemed imprudent and futile. A few
Frenchmen had fled to join de Gaulle’s Free French forces soon after the
defeat of 1940. Serious internal resistance to the German occupiers and to
the Vichy government developed only late in 1942. The total number of
resisters was small: Less than 5 percent of the adult French population
appear to have been involved.
By early 1944 the tide of battle had shifted. An Allied victory appeared
inevitable, and the Vichy government was clearly doomed. Only then did an
active Resistance assert itself. From Algiers on August 9, 1944, the
Committee of National Liberation declared the authority of Vichy
illegitimate. Soon French soldiers joined in the liberation of Paris and
established a government for Free France. On October 21, 1945, France
voted to adopt a new constitution as the basis of the Fourth Republic. Bitter
quarrels over who had done what during the occupation and the Vichy
period divided the French for decades to come.
GREAT BRITAIN: ORGANIZATION FOR VICTORY
On May 22, 1940, the British Parliament gave the government emergency
powers. Churchill and the British war cabinet quickly mobilized the nation.
By the end of 1941 British production had surpassed Germany’s. To meet
the heavy demands on the labor force, factory hours were extended, and
great numbers of women joined the workforce. Unemployment
disappeared, and the working classes had more money than they had had for
many years. To avoid inflation, savings were encouraged and taxes were
raised.

Read the Document

Winston Churchill, “Their Finest Hour” (Great Britain), 1940 at
myhistorylab.com

The bombing “blitz” conducted by the German Luftwaffe in the winter

and spring of 1940 to 1941 was the most immediate experience of the war
for most British people. The German air raids killed thousands and
destroyed the homes of many more. Many families removed their children
to the countryside. Gas masks were issued to thousands of city dwellers,
who were frequently compelled to take shelter from the bombs in the
London subways. In England as in Germany, however, bombing did not
break the people’s spirit but seems to have made them more determined.
During the worst months of the “blitz” the remarkable speeches of
Winston Churchill cheered and encouraged the British people. He united
them with a sense of common suffering and purpose. They were called on
to make many sacrifices: Transportation facilities were strained, food and
clothing for civilians were in short supply, and the government adopted
strict rationing to achieve a fair distribution.
The British established their own propaganda machine. The British
Broadcasting Company (BBC) sent programs to every country in Europe in
the local language to encourage resistance against the Nazis. At home the
government used the radio to unify the nation. Soldiers at the front heard
the same programs as their families at home.
For most of the population the standard of living actually improved over
the course of the war, as did the general health of the nation. These gains
should not be exaggerated, but many connected them with the active
involvement of the government in the economy and the lives of the citizens.
This wartime experience may have contributed to the Labour Party’s
victory in 1945.

THE UNITED STATES: AMERICAN WOMEN AND AFRICAN AMERICANS

IN THE WAR EFFORT

In the United States, the induction of millions of men into the armed forces
created a demand for new workers, especially in the burgeoning defense
industries. It was filled in part by women. Economic pressures caused by
the Great Depression of the 1930s had already brought many more women
into the workforce than had been common before. Even so, the heavy
burden of housework and the widespread hostility to the idea of women
working outside the home kept the vast majority of women at home.

A Closer Look

Rosie the Riveter

The United States’ entry into the Second World War called for rapid
and vast increases in American industrial production to meet the needs
of the nation and its allies. At the same time the removal of millions of
American men from the workforce by the requirements of military
service created unprecedented demands for workers to fill the gaps. To
encourage women to go into war work, the U.S. government conducted
a publicity campaign to celebrate a new role for women as patriotic
citizens fully capable of supporting the war effort by taking jobs even
in heavy industry. The best known symbol created was “Rosie the
Riveter”—feminine but strong and able, the ideal woman worker:
loyal, efficient, and patriotic. A hit song, “Rosie the Riveter,” first used
the name in 1942 and made it very popular. Soon, the government
commissioned posters that featured Rosie over the caption “We Can Do
It.” Rosie became the most famous representation of a new and
important role for women in winning the war.

Printed by permission of the Norman Rockwell Family Agency.

Copyright © 1943 the Norman Rockwell Family Entities. © 1943
SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN. All rights
reserved. www.curtispublishing.com

Questions
1. Why was it necessary to lure great numbers of women into
industrial jobs?
2. What is the significance of Rosie’s footrest?
3. Based on what you have read about the years prior to U.S.
involvement in World War II, how much of a departure is this image
from the “traditional” role of women at the time? Was this the
precursor to a new direction for women in U.S. society, or did things
return to the way they had been once the war ended?
 Image To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com

America’s entry into the war changed things quickly. The need for vast
amounts of equipment to wage the war called for and attracted new groups
to seek work in the many enlarged and newly created factories. African
Americans from the South came to northern and western cities to seek well-
paying jobs, and women, too, came forward in greater numbers than ever
before. In October 1942, President Roosevelt made the new situation clear:
“In some communities employers dislike to hire women. In others they are
reluctant to hire Negroes. We can no longer afford to indulge such
prejudice.”
Many women already working moved over to jobs in the defense
industries; others entered the workforce for the first time, lured less by
wages than by patriotism. A popular song, “Rosie the Riveter,” told of a
young woman working in an aircraft factory to provide protection for her
boyfriend in the Marines. Rosie came to be one of the best-known symbols
of the war effort when she appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening
Post. (See “A Closer Look” on page 797.)

THE SOVIET UNION: “THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR”

No nation suffered greater loss of life or more extensive physical
destruction during World War II than the Soviet Union. Perhaps as many as
16 million people were killed, and vast numbers of Soviet troops were taken
prisoner. Hundreds of cities and towns and well over half the industrial and
transportation facilities of the country were devastated. The Germans sent
thousands of Soviet prisoners to work in factories in Germany as forced
labor. The Germans also confiscated grain supplies and drew mineral
resources and oil from the Soviet Union to serve their own war effort.
Stalin conducted the war as virtual chief of the armed forces, and the
State Committee for Defense provided strong central coordination. In the
decade before the war, Stalin had already made the Soviet Union a highly
centralized nation; he had attempted to manage the entire economy
centrally through the Five-Year Plans, the collectivization of agriculture,
and the purges. The country was thus on what amounted to a wartime
footing long before the conflict erupted. When the war began, millions of
citizens entered the army, but the army’s influence did not grow at the
expense of the state and the Communist Party—that is, Stalin.
Soviet propaganda differed from that of other nations. Because the Soviet
government distrusted the loyalty of its citizens, it confiscated radios to
prevent the people from listening to German propaganda. In major cities the
government erected large loudspeakers to broadcast to the people in place
of radios.

Image

Home front. Russian women apply grease to howitzer shells at a

munitions plant during World War II.

How was the entire Russian society mobilized for war during
World War II?

Soviet propaganda emphasized Russian patriotism, not Marxist class

conflict. The struggle was called “The Great Patriotic War.” As in other
countries, writers and playwrights helped sustain public support for the war.
Sometimes they drew on communist themes, but they also portrayed the
common Soviet citizen as contributing to a patriotic struggle. Some wrote
straightforward propaganda fostering hatred of the Germans. Great Russian
novels of the past reappeared; more than half a million copies of Tolstoy’s
War and Peace were published during the siege of Leningrad. The great
filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948) produced a vast epic entitled Ivan
the Terrible, which glorified one of the most brutal tsars of Russia’s past.
Musicians, such as Dimitri Shostakovich (1906–1975), wrote scores that
sought to evoke heroic emotions, including his Seventh Symphony—also
known as the “Leningrad Symphony.”

QUICK REVIEW
The Soviet Union in World War II
High casualties, extensive damage
Patriotism and propaganda both surged
 Stalin’s power consolidated
Soviet Union’s global standing elevated

Stalin even made peace with the Russian Orthodox Church. Stalin hoped
that this new policy would give him more support at home and improve the
Soviet Union’s image in those parts of eastern Europe where the Orthodox
Church predominated.
Within occupied portions of the western Soviet Union, an active
resistance movement arose against the Germans. The swiftness of the
German invasion had stranded thousands of Soviet troops, some of whom
escaped and carried on irregular resistance warfare behind enemy lines.
Stalin supported partisan forces in lands held by the enemy for two reasons:
He wanted to cause as much difficulty as possible for the Germans; and the
Soviet-sponsored resistance reminded the peasants in the conquered regions
that the Soviet government had not disappeared. Stalin feared that the
peasants’ hatred of the communist government might lead them to
collaborate with the invaders.
As the Soviet armies reclaimed the occupied areas and then moved across
eastern and central Europe, the Soviet Union established itself as a world
power second only to the United States. Stalin had been a reluctant
belligerent, but he emerged a major victor. The war and the extraordinary
patriotic effort and sacrifice it generated consolidated the power of Stalin
and the party more effectively than had the political and social policies of
the previous decade.

PREPARATIONS FOR PEACE

WHY DID cooperation between the Soviet Union and the Western
powers break down in 1945?

The split between the Soviet Union and its wartime allies that followed the
war should cause no surprise. As the self-proclaimed center of world
communism, the Soviet Union was openly dedicated to the overthrow of the
capitalist nations, although this message was muted when the occasion
demanded. The Western allies were equally open about their hostility to
communism and its chief purveyor, the Soviet Union.
Although cooperation against a common enemy and strenuous
propaganda efforts in the West helped improve Western feeling toward the
Soviet ally, Stalin remained suspicious and critical of the Western war
effort. Likewise, Churchill never ceased planning to contain the Soviet
advance into Europe. Roosevelt seems to have hoped that the Allies could
continue to work together after the war, but even he was losing faith by
1945. Differences in historical development and ideology, as well as
traditional conflicts over political power and influence, soon dashed hopes
of a mutually satisfactory peace settlement and continued cooperation.

THE ATLANTIC CHARTER

In August 1941, even before America entered the war, Roosevelt and
Churchill had agreed to the Atlantic Charter. A broad set of principles in the
spirit of Wilson’s Fourteen Points, it provided a theoretical basis for the
peace they sought. When Russia and the United States joined Britain in the
war, the three powers entered a purely military alliance in January 1942,
leaving all political questions aside. The first political conference was the
meeting of foreign ministers in Moscow in October 1943. The ministers
reaffirmed earlier agreements to fight on until the enemy surrendered
unconditionally and to continue cooperating after the war in a united
nations organization.

Read the Document

Roosevelt and Churchill: The Atlantic Charter, 1941 at myhistorylab.com

TEHRAN
The first meeting of the three leaders took place at Tehran, the capital of
Iran, in 1943. Western promises to open a second front in France the next
summer (1944) and Stalin’s agreement to join in the war against Japan
(when Germany was defeated) created an atmosphere of goodwill in which
to discuss a postwar settlement. Stalin wanted to retain what he had gained
in his pact with Hitler and to dismember Germany. Roosevelt and Churchill
made no firm commitments.
The most important decision was for the Western Allies to attack
Germany from Europe’s west coast instead of from southern Europe by way
of the Mediterranean. This decision meant, in retrospect, that Soviet forces
would occupy eastern Europe and control its destiny. At Tehran in 1943 the
Western Allies did not foresee this clearly, for the Russians were still
fighting deep within their own frontiers. Among other important
concessions Roosevelt and Churchill made to Stalin was to move Poland’s
western border to the Oder and Neisse rivers.
By 1944 the situation was different. In August, Soviet armies were in
sight of Warsaw, which had risen in expectation of liberation. But the
Russians turned south into the Balkans, allowing the Polish rebels to be
annihilated. The Russians gained control of Romania and Hungary.
Alarmed by these developments, Churchill went to Moscow and met with
Stalin in October. They agreed to share power in the Balkans, though these
agreements were not enforceable without American approval, and the
Americans frowned on such un-Wilsonian devices as “spheres of
influence.”
The three powers easily agreed on Germany’s disarmament and
denazification and on its division into four zones of occupation by France
and the Big Three (the USSR, Britain, and the United States). Churchill,
however, began to balk at Stalin’s plan to dismember Germany and objected
to his demand for reparations in the amount of $20 billion as well as for
forced labor from all the zones, with Russia to get half of everything. These
matters were left to fester and cause dissension in the future.
The settlement of eastern Europe remained a problem. Everyone agreed
that the Soviet Union deserved neighboring governments that were friendly,
but the West insisted that they also be independent, autonomous, and
democratic. Stalin knew that independent, freely elected governments in
Poland and Romania might not be friendly to Russia. Under pressure from
the Western leaders, Stalin signed a Declaration on Liberated Europe,
promising self-determination and free democratic elections. Stalin feared
that the Allies might still make an arrangement with Germany and betray
him. He was eager to avoid conflict before the war with Germany was over,
and he probably thought it worth endorsing some meaningless principles as
the price of continued harmony. In any case, he wasted little time violating
these agreements.

YALTA
The next meeting of the Big Three was at Yalta in the Crimea in February
1945. The Western armies had not yet crossed the Rhine, and the Soviet
army was within 100 miles of Berlin. The war with Japan continued, and no
atomic explosion had yet taken place. Roosevelt, faced with an invasion of
Japan and prospective heavy losses, was eager to bring the Russians into the
Pacific war as soon as possible.
As a true Wilsonian, Roosevelt also suspected Churchill’s determination
to maintain the British Empire and Britain’s colonial advantages. The
Americans thought that Churchill’s plan to set up British spheres of
influence in Europe would encourage the Russians to do the same and lead
to friction and war. To encourage Russian participation in the war against
Japan, Roosevelt and Churchill made extensive concessions to Russia in
Asia. Again in the tradition of Wilson, Roosevelt stressed a united nations
organization. Soviet participation in this venture seemed well worth
concessions elsewhere.

ImageView the Image

The Big Three at Yalta, at myhistorylab.com

POTSDAM
The Big Three met for the last time in the Berlin suburb of Potsdam in July
1945. Much had changed by then. Germany was defeated, and news of the
successful experimental explosion of an atomic weapon reached the
American president during the meetings. The cast of characters was also
different: President Truman had replaced Roosevelt; Clement Attlee (1883–
1967), leader of the Labour Party, replaced Churchill during the conference.
Previous agreements were reaffirmed, but progress on undecided questions
was slow.
 Russia’s western frontier was moved far into what had been Poland and
included part of German East Prussia. In compensation, Poland was
allowed “temporary administration” over the rest of East Prussia and parts
of eastern Germany. In effect, Poland was moved about 100 miles west, at
the expense of Germany, to accommodate the Soviet Union. The Allies
agreed that Germany would be divided into occupation zones until the final
peace treaty was signed. The country remained divided until the end of the
Cold War more than forty years later.
A Council of Foreign Ministers was established to draft peace treaties for
Germany’s allies. Growing disagreements made the job difficult, and it was
not until February 1947 that Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland
signed treaties. The Russians signed their own agreements with the
Japanese in 1956.

Big Three at Potsdam. This photograph shows the “Big Three” at

Potsdam. By the summer of 1945 only Stalin remained of the original
leaders of the major Allies. Roosevelt and Churchill had been replaced
by Harry Truman and Clement Attlee.

What agreements did the Allied leaders reach at the end of the
war?
SUMMARY

WHAT WERE the main events between 1933 and 1939 that led to
World War II?
Again the Road to War (1933–1939). The second great war of the
twentieth century (1939–1945) grew out of the unsatisfactory resolution of
the first. But whatever the flaws of the treaties of Paris, the world suffered
an even more terrible war than the first as a result of failures of judgment
and will on the part of the victorious democratic powers. Italy attacked
Ethiopia in 1935. Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union intervened in the
Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Japan attacked China in 1937. Aggressive
forces were on the march around the globe, and the defenders of the world
order lacked the will to stop them. Britain and France refused to face the
threat posed by the Axis powers until the deadliest war in history was
required to put it down. page 779

WHY WAS 1942 the turning point in World War II?

World War II (1939–1945). The formation of the Axis among Germany,
Italy, and Japan guaranteed that a second war would be fought around the
world with battles in Asia, Africa, the islands of the Pacific, and Europe.
Hitler’s demented racial theories combined with preexisting anti-Semitism
to create the concentration camps where millions of Jews and other
“undesirables” were killed. In 1942, the United States won the battle of
Midway, Allied forces controlled North Africa, and the Russians went on
the offensive. The use of atomic weapons brought the struggle to a close.
page 784

HOW DID war affect civilians in Germany, France, Britain, the United
States, and the Soviet Union?
The Domestic Fronts. All the belligerents strove for total war. Economic
mobilization and propaganda campaigns were noteworthy features of
involvement on the home front. Other experiences varied: Hitler
restructured German society, but these changes largely disappeared with the
Reich; France was largely passive, until the Resistance became a significant
force near the end of the conflict; the British government was more
involved in citizens’ lives than ever; the United States relied on the labor of
women, African Americans, and others who previously had been
discouraged from seeking high-paying jobs; and the Soviet Union united
around Russian nationalism. page 793

WHY DID cooperation between the Soviet Union and the Western
powers break down in 1945?
Preparations for Peace. A series of conferences and meetings among the
victors brought the war to a close without a formal peace treaty in Europe.
The world quickly split into two unfriendly camps, led by the United States
and the Soviet Union, as the ideological opposition between communism
and capitalism reemerged. page 799

KEY TERMS

Anschluss (AHN-shloos)
appeasement
Axis
blitzkrieg (BLIHTZ-kreeg)
Holocaust
Lebensraum (LAY-behnz-ROWM)
Luftwaffe (LOOFT-vah-fah)

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What was the relationship between World War I and World War II?
Why was the isolationism of the United States after World War I
such an important factor in the advent of World War II?
2. Why was World War II truly a global war?
3. What were Hitler’s foreign policy aims? Was he bent on conquest in
the East and dominance in the West, or did he simply want to return
Germany to its 1914 boundaries?
4. What was Hitler’s “final solution” to the “Jewish problem”? Why
did Hitler want to eliminate Slavs as well?
5. Why did Britain and France adopt a policy of appeasement in the
1930s? What were its main features? Did the appeasers buy the
West valuable time to prepare for war by their actions at Munich in
1938?
6. How was Hitler able to defeat France so easily in 1940? Why was
the air war against Britain a failure? Why did Hitler invade Russia?
Why did the invasion ultimately fail? Could it have succeeded?
7. Why did Japan attack the United States at Pearl Harbor? What was
the significance of American intervention in the war?
8. Why did the United States drop atomic bombs on Japan? Did
President Truman make the right decision when he ordered the
bombs used?
9. What impact did World War II have on the civilian population of
Europe? How did experiences on the domestic front of Great Britain
differ from those of Germany and France? What impact did “The
Great Patriotic War” have on the people of the Soviet Union? Did
participation in World War II solidify Stalin’s hold on power?
10. Some historians have looked at the twentieth century and have
seen a period of great destruction as well as of great progress. Can
the twentieth century be described as a “century of Holocaust”?
Discuss.

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources
related to this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections
 Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many
documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 30

Read the Document Adolf Hitler, “The Obersalzberg Speech,” p. 780

Constancia de la Mora from “In Place of Splendor,” p. 781

Wannsee Protocol, p. 787
Japanese Total War Research Institute; Plan for the Greater East Asia
Co-Prosperity Sphere, 1942, p. 790
The Franck Report, p. 793
An Eyewitness to Hiroshima (1945), p. 793
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, “Speech to the Nazi Women’s Organization”
(Germany), 1935, p. 794
Winston Churchill, “Their Finest Hour” (Great Britain), 1940, p. 796
Roosevelt and Churchill: The Atlantic Charter, 1941, p. 799

See the Map Partitions of Czechoslovakia and Poland, 1938–1939, p.

784

The Nazi Empire in 1942, p. 786

World War II in Europe, 1939–1945, p. 792
World War II in the Pacific, 1939-1945, p. 793

View the Image Emaciated Woman at Bergen-Belsen, p. 789

Operation Overlord, Normandy, 1944, p. 791

Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Attack–August 1945, p. 793

Hear the Audio World War II 1, p. 784

 ImageWatch the Video FDR on Winning the War, p. 790

Research and Explore

See the Map The Expansion of Germany in the 1930s, p. 779

View the Image The Big Three at Yalta, p. 800

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 30 at www.myhistorylab.com

31
The West since World War II

Hear the Audio for Chapter 31 at www.myhistorylab.com

The “beautiful game,” by way of Europe. In the twentieth century
the sport of soccer became the most popular game in the world. The
World Cup, which takes place every four years, is a truly global event.
The 2006 Cup attracted over 28 billion television viewers—the most
watched event in history. Here Florent Malouda from France is taken
down by two Italian players in the final in Berlin on July 10, 2006.
Like several other players from the French squad, Malouda was an
emigré. Indeed, the captain of the French team, Zinedine Zidane, who
 was ejected in a controversial call late in the game, has been quoted as
saying, “First I am an Algerian from Marseille, and then a
Frenchman.” Italy went on to win the match 5–3 in penalty kicks.

Why has immigration changed European society?

THE COLD WAR ERA

WHAT WERE the causes of the Cold War?

TOWARD WESTERN EUROPEAN UNIFICATION

WHY HAVE European nations chosen to unify their economies?

EUROPEAN SOCIETY IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE TWENTIETH

CENTURY AND BEYOND

WHAT MAJOR trends have marked European society since World War II?

AMERICAN DOMESTIC SCENE SINCE WORLD WAR II

WHAT ARE the main themes that have characterized postwar America?

THE SOVIET UNION TO 1989

HOW DID leaders after Stalin attempt to reform Soviet government?

1989: YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS IN EASTERN EUROPE

WHY DID communist regimes collapse so easily in Eastern Europe in

1989?

THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET UNION

WHO WERE the leaders in the period surrounding the collapse of the
Soviet Union?
THE COLLAPSE OF YUGOSLAVIA AND CIVIL WAR

HOW DID the West respond to the collapse of Yugoslavia?

CHALLENGES TO THE ATLANTIC ALLIANCE

IS NATO still a viable alliance in the post–Cold War era?

Since the conclusion of World War II, Europe’s influence on the world scene
has been transformed. The destruction of the war itself left Europe
incapable of exercising the kind of power it had formerly exerted. The Cold
War between the United States and the Soviet Union made Europe, along
with other parts of the world, a divided and contested territory. The
European powers themselves could not determine the outcome of the
superpowers’ struggle for world dominance. Furthermore, less than five
years after the war Europeans began to lose control of their overseas
empires.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

THE WEST SINCE 1945

Immediately after 1945 the nations of the West entered the Cold War. That
ideological, economic, and military rivalry between the United States and
the Soviet Union dominated political struggles throughout the world for
more than half a century. It divided Europe between NATO and Warsaw
Pact military forces and forced nations outside of Europe—in Asia, Africa,
and Latin America—to side with one or the other of the superpowers.
Hence the Cold War too became a world war that had an important impact
on non-Western nations. At times these other nations became theaters of
conflict in which indigenous civil wars melded into the struggle between
the United States and the Soviet Union, as in the case of Cuba, Angola,
Korea, and Vietnam. A neutral stance in this conflict became extremely
difficult for any nation to sustain.
 In the later 1980s, however, the Cold War unexpectedly ended as the
Soviet Union and the nations of Eastern Europe, their economies exhausted
from failed experiments in central planning and repression, experienced
enormous internal political changes and began the difficult transition to
democracy and capitalism. These changes have clearly opened a new epoch
of Western history. The United States has emerged from the Cold War as the
single remaining superpower. Western Europe has achieved a new level of
economic and political unity under the auspices of the European Union,
although its peoples and governments are hesitant to press the process too
far too rapidly. The economic success of the European Union has inspired
other regional global treaties to promote free markets, including NAFTA
(North Atlantic Free Trade Association), as well as the global WTO (World
Trade Organization). Europe has also been more ambitious than the United
States in promoting international organizations such as the World Court
designed to discipline countries that oppress their neighbors or threaten
world peace. Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are experiencing
economic turmoil and political uncertainty. Although some Eastern
European countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary were
better prepared than others to join the European Union, the fact that all
Eastern European nations aspire to become EU members bodes well for the
future of this region. Except for Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, newly
independent former regions of the Soviet Union such as Ukraine, Georgia,
and Belarus have an even more difficult path ahead of them in developing
their economies and societies. Together with the Islamic countries, such as
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, these states face added
difficulties from the legacy of repressive authoritarian government and
centrally planned economies. The security of Europe’s eastern borders will
depend on the success of these Eastern European nations and former Soviet
republics in making the transition to democracy.
Another important factor in the history of both the United States and
Europe since World War II has been the rising immigration from the rest of
the world. Germany has seen the influx of significant numbers of Islamic
gastarbeiters (guest workers) from Turkey, while France, Italy, and Spain
receive more Islamic immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East,
many from their former colonies. The United States, with its long history as
an immigrant nation, has been more comfortable dealing with the influx of
non-European immigrants, but struggles persist over language, cultural
identity, and assimilation. Europe, less accustomed to non-European
immigration, has found it even more difficult to accommodate immigrants
whose religions, languages, and appearance differ from those of Europeans
and who may not seek to assimilate to the cultures of the nations where they
have come to reside.

Focus Questions
What was the Cold War, and why can we rightly call it a world war?
How has the relationship between the United States and Europe
changed since World War II? How might it develop in the future?
What immediate and long-term factors accounted for the collapse of
the Soviet Union?
How has immigration changed the face of Europe since 1945? What
is the religious dimension of that immigration?

The greatest change that took place after 1945 was the emergence of the
United States as a fully active great power. The American retreat from
leadership that occurred in 1919 was not repeated. The United States’
decision to take an activist role in world affairs touched virtually every
aspect of the postwar world. American domestic politics and foreign policy
became intertwined as never before.
European society continued to develop in new directions. Yet for forty-
five years after World War II, Europe remained divided between a Western
region generally characterized by democracies and an Eastern region
characterized by Communist Party authoritarian states dominated by the
Soviet Union. From the late 1970s onward there were political stirrings and
economic stagnation in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. These
culminated in 1989 with revolutions throughout Eastern Europe and in
1991 with the collapse of communist government in the Soviet Union itself.
Since then, Europeans have sought new political direction. The
movement toward unification, particularly of the currency, continues in
Western Europe. Political confusion and economic stagnation afflict some
of the nations that emerged from the Soviet Union, and the attacks of
September 11, 2001, on the United States led to events that have challenged
the post–World War II Western alliance. The world financial crisis
originating in 2008 has brought serious challenges to European economic
life.

THE COLD WAR ERA

WHAT WERE the causes of the Cold War?

AREAS OF EARLY COLD WAR CONFLICT

The tense relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union that
dominated world history during the second half of the twentieth century
originated in the closing months of World War II. In part, the coldness arose
from the mutual feeling that each had violated previous agreements. The
Russians were plainly asserting permanent control of Poland and Romania
under puppet communist governments. The United States, meanwhile, was
taking a harder line on the extent of German reparations to the Soviet
Union.

See the Map

Cold War 1 at myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

Josef Stalin, excerpts from the “Soviet Victory” Speech, 1946 at
myhistorylab.com

Hostility among the former allies emerged quickly. In February 1946

both Stalin and his foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986),
gave public speeches in which they spoke of the Western democracies as
enemies. A month later Churchill (1874–1965) delivered a speech in which
he spoke of an Iron Curtain that had descended on Europe, dividing a free
and democratic West from an East under totalitarian rule. He warned
against communist subversion and urged Western unity and strength to
counter the new menace. In this atmosphere, difficulties grew.

Read the Document

Iron Curtain Speech, Winston Churchill at myhistorylab.com

H-bomb Shelter. In 1950 Albert Einstein wrote that “Radioactive

poisoning of the atmosphere and hence annihilation of any life on earth
has been brought within the range of technical possibilities.… In the
end, there beckons more and more clearly general annihilation.” The
U.S. government, however, fostered belief in manageable atomic
warfare in spite of the evidence from Japan, and backyard bomb
shelters were a 1950s fad. This one could house a small family for up
to five days. Standard features included canned food and water, sterno
stove, battery-powered radio, chemical toilet, flashlight, blankets, and
first-aid kit. During peacetime, the shelter could be used as a spare
bedroom, for storage space, or even to cultivate mushrooms.

Why does this family appear to be at ease even though it is sitting

inside a bomb shelter?
 The attempt to deal cooperatively with the problem of atomic energy was
an early victim of the Cold War. The Americans proposed a plan to place
the manufacture and control of atomic weapons under international control,
but when the Russians balked at certain requirements the plan fell through.
The United States continued to develop its own atomic weapons in secrecy,
and the Russians did the same. By 1949, the Soviet Union had exploded its
own atomic bomb, and the race for nuclear weapons was on.

Cold War
The ideological and geographical struggle between the United States and its
allies, and the USSR and its allies that began after World War II and lasted
until the dissolution of the USSR in 1989.

The resistance of Westerners to what they perceived as Soviet

intransigence and communist subversion took clearer form in 1947. Since
1944, civil war had been raging in Greece between the royalist government
restored by Britain and insurgents supported by the communist countries. In
1947, Britain informed the United States that it was financially no longer
able to support the Greeks. On March 12, President Truman (1884–1972)
asked Congress to provide funds to support Greece and Turkey, which was
also under Soviet pressure. Congress complied. In what became known as
the Truman Doctrine, the American president advocated a policy of
supporting “free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed
minorities or by outside pressures,” by implication anywhere in the world.

Read the Document

The Truman Doctrine (1947) Harry S. Truman at myhistorylab.com

American aid to Greece and Turkey took the form of military equipment
and advisers. For Western Europe, where the menacing growth of
Communist parties was fueled by postwar poverty and hunger, the
Americans devised the European Recovery Program. Named the Marshall
Plan after George C. Marshall (1880–1959), the secretary of state who
introduced it, this program provided broad economic aid to European states
only on condition that they work together. The Soviet Union forbade its
satellites to take part. The Marshall Plan helped restore prosperity to
Western Europe, setting the stage for its unprecedented economic growth,
and led to the establishment of solid democratic regimes in this region of
the world.

Marshall Plan
The U.S. program, named after Secretary of State George C. Marshall, that
provided economic aid to Europe after World War II.

Read the Document

George C. Marshall, The Marshall Plan, 1947 at myhistorylab.com

From the Western viewpoint, this policy of “containment” was a new and
successful response to the Soviet and communist challenge. Stalin may
have considered it a renewal of the old Western attempt to isolate and
encircle the USSR. Stalin’s answer was to replace all multiparty
governments behind the Iron Curtain with thoroughly communist regimes
under his control. In 1947, he organized the Communist Information Bureau
(Cominform), dedicated to spreading revolutionary communism throughout
the world. In February 1948 a brutal display of Stalin’s new policy took
place in Prague. The communists expelled the democratic members of what
had been a coalition government, murdered the foreign minister, and forced
the president to resign. Czechoslovakia was brought fully under Soviet rule.
These Soviet actions increased America’s determination to make its own
arrangements in Germany. The Russians dismantled German industry in the
eastern zone, but the Americans tried to make Germany self-sufficient,
which meant restoring its industrial capacity. To the Soviets restoration of a
powerful industrial Germany was unacceptable.
Disagreement over Germany produced the most heated postwar debate.
When the Western powers agreed to go forward with a separate constitution
for the western sectors of Germany in February 1948, the Soviets walked
out of the joint Allied Control Commission. Berlin, though well within the
Soviet zone, was governed by all four powers. The Soviets sealed off the
city by closing all railroads and highways to West Germany. Their purpose
was to drive the Western powers out of Berlin. The Western allies
responded to the Berlin Blockade with an airlift of supplies that lasted
almost a year. In May 1949, the Russians were forced to reopen access to
Berlin. The incident greatly increased tensions and suspicions between the
two powers and hastened the separation of Germany into two states, which
prevailed for forty years. West Germany became the German Federal
Republic in September 1949, and the eastern region became the German
Democratic Republic a month later.

Berlin Airlift. The Allied airlift in action during the Berlin Blockade.
Every day for almost a year Western planes supplied the city until
Stalin lifted the blockade in May 1949.

Why was the lifting of the Berlin blockade a major victory for the
West?

NATO AND THE WARSAW PACT

Meanwhile, the nations of Western Europe were coming closer together.
The Marshall Plan encouraged international cooperation. In April 1949,
Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal signed a treaty with Canada and the
United States that formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
for mutual assistance in case of attack. NATO formed the West into a bloc.
A few years later Greece, Turkey, and West Germany joined the alliance.
The formation of NATO was the culmination of the United States’
containment policy, which had originated with the Truman Doctrine and
Marshall Plans. This policy assumed that the Soviet Union by its
fundamental political character sought to be an expansionist power, which
must be resisted or contained. (See Document: “The United States National
Security Council Proposes to Contain the Soviet Union” on page 810.)
The states of Eastern Europe were under direct Soviet domination
through local Communist parties controlled from Moscow and overawed by
the Red Army. The Warsaw Pact of May 1955, which included Albania,
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and
the Soviet Union, merely gave formal recognition to the existing system:
Europe stood divided into two unfriendly blocs.
Stalin died in 1953; later that year an armistice was concluded in Korea
(see Chapter 32). Both events produced hope that international tensions
might lessen, but the rivalry of power and polemics soon resumed.

Hear the Audio

Cold War 1, Slide 2 at myhistorylab.com

CRISES OF 1956
The events of 1956 had considerable significance both for the Cold War and
for what they implied about the realities of European power in the postwar
era.

Read the Document

Gamal Abdel Nasser, Speech on the Suez Canal (Egypt), 1956 at
myhistorylab.com

In July 1956, President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) of Egypt

nationalized the Suez Canal. Britain and France feared that this action
would imperil their supplies of oil in the Persian Gulf. In October 1956, war
broke out between Egypt and Israel. The British and French intervened. The
United States, however, refused to support them, and the Soviet Union
protested vehemently. The Anglo-French forces had to be withdrawn, and
control of the canal remained with Egypt. The Suez intervention proved that
without the support of the United States, the nations of Western Europe
could no longer impose their will on the rest of the world.
Developments in Eastern Europe demonstrated similar limitations on
independent action among the Soviet bloc nations. When the prime minister
of Poland died, the Polish Communist Party refused to ratify the successor
selected by Moscow. Considerable tension developed. In the end,
Wladyslaw Gomulka (1905–1982) emerged as the new communist leader of
Poland. He proved acceptable to the Soviets because he promised to keep
Poland in the Warsaw Pact. However, he halted the collectivization of
Polish agriculture and improved relations with the Polish Roman Catholic
Church.

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Escaping the Berlin Wall at myhistorylab.com

Hungary provided the second trouble spot for the Soviet Union. In late
October, fighting erupted in Budapest. A new ministry headed by Imre
Nagy (1896–1958) was installed. Nagy was a communist who sought an
independent position for Hungary. Unlike Gomulka, he called for
Hungarian withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, a position unacceptable to the
Soviet Union. Soviet troops deposed Nagy, who was later executed, and
imposed Janos Kadar (1912–1989) as premier.

QUICK REVIEW
Polish-Soviet Relations
1956: Wladyslaw Gomulka comes to power in Poland
Gomulka confirmed Poland’s membership in Warsaw Pact, promised
an end to collectivization, and improved relations with the Catholic
Church
Compromise prompted Hungary to seek greater autonomy

THE COLD WAR INTENSIFIED

The events of 1956 ended the era of fully autonomous action by the
European nation-states. The two superpowers had demonstrated the new
political realities. After 1956 the Soviet Union began to talk about
“peaceful coexistence” with the United States. In 1959 tensions relaxed
sufficiently for Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) to tour the
United States. A summit meeting was scheduled for May 1960 in Paris, and
American President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) was to go to
Moscow.

Read the Document

The Kitchen Debate at myhistorylab.com

DOCUMENT

The United States National Security Council Proposes to Contain

the Soviet Union

In response to the domination of Eastern Europe by Communist parties

beholden to the Soviet Union and the occupation of these nations by Soviet
troops, the United States government in 1950 adopted a policy of
“containment” of the Soviet Union. This policy had been debated for many
months and had for all practical purposes been in effect since the
declaration of the Truman Doctrine in 1947. It was formally set forth after
a period of implementation in what became known as the National Security
Council Paper 68, arguably the most important statement of American
foreign policy of the mid-twentieth century. The paper presented the Soviet
Union as a nation determined to pursue an expansionist foreign policy and
ideological struggle. As a long-term solution to that challenge, it proposed
a policy of containing the influence of the Soviet Union diplomatically and
militarily.

• HOW did the National Security Council characterize Soviet policy?

How did the Council actively encourage U.S. engagement with the
rest of the world? What were the goals of containment? Why did the
 Council urge that the Soviet Union always be given opportunity to
save face and to back down with dignity?

The fundamental design of those who control the Soviet Union and the
international communist movement is to retain and solidify their absolute
power, first in the Soviet Union and second in the areas now under their
control.…

The design, therefore, calls for the complete subversion or forcible

destruction of the machinery of government and structure of society in the
countries of the non-Soviet world and their replacement by an apparatus
and structure subservient to and controlled from the Kremlin.…
Our overall policy at the present time may be described as one designed
to foster a world environment in which the American system can survive
and flourish. It therefore rejects the concept of isolation and affirms the
necessity of our positive participation in the world community.
This broad intention embraces two subsidiary policies. One is a policy
which we would probably pursue even if there were no Soviet threat. It is a
policy of attempting to develop a healthy international community. The
other is the policy of “containing” the Soviet system.…
As for the policy of “containment,” it is one which seeks by all means
short of war to (1) block further expansion of Soviet power, (2) expose the
falsities of Soviet pretensions, (3) induce a retraction of the Kremlin’s
control and influence, and (4) in general, so foster the seeds of destruction
within the Soviet system that the Kremlin is brought at least to the point of
modifying its behavior to conform to generally accepted international
standards.…
One of the most important ingredients of power is military strength.…
Without superior aggregate military strength… a policy of “containment”—
which is in effect a policy of calculated and gradual coercion—is no more
than a policy of bluff.
At the same time, it is essential to the successful conduct of a policy of
“containment” that we always leave open the possibility of negotiation with
the USSR.…
In “containment” it is desirable to exert pressure in a fashion which will
avoid so far as possible directly challenging Soviet prestige, to keep open
the possibility for the USSR to retreat before pressure with a minimum loss
of face and to secure political advantage from the failure of the Kremlin to
yield or take advantage of the openings we leave it.

Source: National Security Council, Paper Number 68, Foreign

Relations of the United States (Washington, DC: U. S. Government
Printing Office, 1977), Sections: III, IV, VI, as cited on
http://www.seattleu.edu/artsci/history/us1945/docs/nsc68-1.htm.

CHRONOLOGY

MAJOR DATES IN THE COLD WAR ERA

 Just before the gathering, however, the Soviet Union shot down an
American U-2 aircraft that was flying reconnaissance over Soviet territory.
As a result, Khrushchev refused to take part in the summit conference, and
Eisenhower’s trip was canceled. In fact, the Soviets had long been aware of
the American flights. They chose to protest at this time for two reasons.
Khrushchev had hoped that the leaders of Britain, France, and the United
States would be so divided over the future of Germany that a united Allied
front would be impossible. These divisions did not arise. Second, by 1960
the communist world had become split between the Soviets and the
Chinese, who accused the Russians of lacking revolutionary zeal.
Khrushchev’s action was an attempt to prove the Soviet Union’s hard-line
credentials.
The abortive Paris conference opened the most difficult period of the
Cold War. Throughout 1961, thousands of refugees from East Germany had
fled to West Berlin. To stop this outflow, in August 1961 the East Germans
erected a barrier—the Berlin Wall—completely surrounding the Western
sectors that would remain until November 1989. A year later the Cuban
Missile Crisis brought the most dangerous days of the Cold War. The Soviet
Union placed missiles in Cuba, a nation friendly to Soviet aims lying less
than 100 miles from the United States. The United States blockaded Cuba,
halted the shipment of new missiles, and demanded the removal of existing
installations. After a tense week the Soviets backed down.

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Cold War Connections: Russia, America, Berlin, and Cuba at
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QUICK REVIEW
The Cuban Missile Crisis
1959: Fidel Castro comes to power as a result of the Cuban
revolution
1962: Khrushchev orders construction of missile bases in Cuba
Tense negotiations resulted in the Soviets backing down and
removing the missiles
 Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The American ambassador to the
United Nations displayed photographs to persuade the world of the
threat to the United States less than 100 miles from its own shores.

Does a photograph such as this one directly demonstrate the

presence of a threat, or does the photograph need to be interpreted
and explained?

DÉTENTE AND AFTERWARD

In 1963 the two powers concluded a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This
agreement marked the start of a détente, or lessening in tensions, between
the United States and the Soviet Union that intensified during the
presidency of Richard Nixon (1913–1994). This policy involved trade
agreements and mutual reduction of strategic armaments. But the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 hardened relations between Washington
and Moscow, and the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the Strategic Arms
Limitation Treaty of 1979.
 President Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) and Soviet leader Mikhail S.
Gorbachev (b. 1931) held a friendly summit meeting in 1985, the first East–
West summit in six years. Other meetings followed. In December 1987, the
United States and the Soviet Union agreed to dismantle more than 2,000
medium- and shorter-range missiles. The treaty provided for mutual
inspection. This action represented the most significant agreement since
World War II between the two superpowers.
The political upheavals in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union soon
overwhelmed the issues of the Cold War. The Soviet Union abandoned its
support for communist governments in Eastern Europe. By the close of
1991, the Soviet Union itself had collapsed. The Cold War concluded in a
manner that virtually no one had predicted.

President Ronald Reagan and Premier Mikhail Gorbachev confer

at a summit meeting in December 1989.

Why are the missile agreements signed by Gorbachev and Reagan

among their most important accomplishments?
TOWARD WESTERN EUROPEAN
UNIFICATION

WHY HAVE European nations chosen to unify their economies?

Since 1945, the nations of Western Europe have taken unprecedented steps
toward economic cooperation. The process is not complete and has been
complicated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of new
free governments in Eastern Europe.
The Marshall Plan and NATO gave the involved countries new
experience in working with each other and demonstrated the productivity,
efficiency, and simple possibility of cooperative action. In 1950 France,
West Germany, Italy, and the “Benelux” countries (Belgium, the
Netherlands, and Luxembourg) organized the European Coal and Steel
Community. Its success reduced the suspicions of government and business
groups about the concept of coordination and economic integration.
It took more, however, to draw European leaders toward further unity.
The unsuccessful Suez intervention and the resulting diplomatic isolation of
France and Britain persuaded many Europeans that only through unified
action could they significantly influence the two superpowers or control
their own destinies. In 1957, through the Treaty of Rome, the six members
of the Coal and Steel Community agreed to form a new organization: the
European Economic Community (EEC), or Common Market. The
members sought to achieve the eventual elimination of tariffs, a free flow of
capital and labor, and similar wage and social benefits in all the
participating countries. The Common Market was a stunning success. By
1968, all tariffs among the six members had been abolished. Trade and
labor migration among the members grew steadily. Moreover, nonmember
states began to seek membership. In 1973, Denmark, Great Britain, and
Ireland became members, and Austria, Finland, Greece, Portugal, Spain,
and Sweden were eventually admitted.
European Economic Community (EEC)
The economic association formed by France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the
Netherlands, and Luxembourg in 1957. Also known as the Common
Market.

The Euro. Some thousand people stand around a huge euro symbol in
a park in Frankfurt’s banking district in Germany, January, 1, 1997.

How has the euro given Europeans a new identity?

In 1988, the leaders of the EEC decided to create a virtual free-trade zone
throughout the member community. In 1991, the Treaty of Maastricht called
for a unified currency and a strong central bank. The European Community
was renamed the European Union (EU). The most striking instance of
expanding economic cooperation was the adoption of a common currency,
the euro. In January 2002 the national currencies of twelve nations—mostly
in western Europe—were replaced by new coins and notes denominated in
the euro. Such a widespread common currency is unprecedented in
European history. In 2004, the EU accepted ten new members (see Map 31–
1). Expansion has posed enormous challenges, because the economies of
the newer members (mostly former states from the Eastern Soviet bloc) are
much less developed than those of the original members. Newer members
will be permitted to adopt the euro only when their economies have become
sufficiently strong.
 Read the Document
A Common Market and European Integration (1960) at myhistorylab.com

European Union (EU)

The new name given to the EEC in 1993. It included most of the states of
western Europe.

euro
The common currency created by the EEC in the late 1990s.

In 2007 the heads of state of the European Union signed the Lisbon
Treaty. The purpose of this agreement was to create new institutions within
the Union, which would allow it to function more nearly as a unitary body
on the world scene. The treaty established a presidency and also created
vehicles for unified policy on matters such as climate change. It
strengthened the enforcement of rights for citizens of the Union. The treaty
stirred considerable debate in the various countries of the Union, but it went
into effect in late 2009.

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Treaty on European Union at myhistorylab.com

View the Image

European Union Flag at myhistorylab.com
MAP 31–1. The Growth of the European Union. This map traces the
growth of membership in the European Union from its founding in 1957
through 2007. Note that Turkey has applied for membership, but it has not
yet been admitted.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of European Union

membership?

Ongoing debate over the possible admission of Turkey serves as a proxy

for debate over the cultural and religious character of the EU itself. Religion
has not been a major topic of discussion within the EU, but the possible
admission of a nation with an overwhelmingly Islamic population has
brought the issue to the fore. Similarly the determination of France to assert
the secular character of its state by attempting to forbid Muslim women
students from wearing headscarves has raised much controversy. The Italian
government has moved to remove crucifixes from classrooms in public
schools. All of these factors and others have begun to stir more public
discussion about the character of religious freedom and the relationship of
church and state in the European Union. The Roman Catholic Church has
vigorously asserted the role of Christianity in the formation of European
identity and has urged the recognition of religious freedom as a human
right.

See the Map

Contemporary Europe at myhistorylab.com

EUROPEAN SOCIETY IN THE SECOND HALF

OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND
BEYOND

WHAT MAJOR trends have marked European society since World

War II?

TOWARD A WELFARE STATE SOCIETY

The Great Depression, the rise of authoritarian states, and the experiences
of World War II changed how many Europeans thought about social
welfare. Governments began to spend more on social welfare than they did
on the military. This reallocation of funds was a reaction to the state
violence of the first half of the century and was possible because the NATO
defense umbrella, which the United States primarily staffed and funded,
protected Western Europe.
The modern European welfare state was broadly similar across the
Continent. Before World War II, except in Scandinavia, the two basic
models for social legislation were the German and the British. Bismarck
had introduced social insurance in Germany during the 1880s to undermine
the German Social Democratic Party. In effect, the imperial German
government provided workers with social insurance and thus some sense of
social security while denying them significant political participation. In
early twentieth-century Britain, where all classes had access to the political
system, social insurance was targeted toward the poor. In both the German
and British systems, workers were insured only against the risks from
disease, injury on the job, and old age. Unemployment was assumed to be
only a short-term problem and often one that workers brought on
themselves. People higher in the social structure could look out for
themselves and did not need government help.
After World War II, the concept emerged that social insurance against
predictable risks was a social right and should be available to all citizens.
The first major European nation to begin to create a welfare state was
Britain in 1945 to 1951. The spread of welfare legislation (including
unemployment insurance) within Western Europe was related to both the
Cold War and domestic political and economic policy. The communist
states of Eastern Europe were promising their people social security as well
as full employment. The capitalist states came to believe they had to
provide similar security for their people, but, in fact, the social security of
the communist states was often more rhetoric than reality.

RESISTANCE TO THE EXPANSION OF THE WELFARE STATE

Western European attitudes toward the welfare state have reflected three
periods that have marked economic life since the end of the war. The first
period was one of reconstruction from 1945 through the early 1950s. It was
followed by twenty-five years of generally steady and expanding economic
growth. The third period brought first an era of inflation in the late 1970s
and then one of relatively low growth and high unemployment from the
1990s to the present. During each of the first two periods, a general
conviction existed that the foundation of economic policy was government
involvement in a mixed economy. From the late 1970s, more people came
to believe the market should be allowed to regulate itself and that
government should be less involved in the economy.
 The most influential political figure in reasserting the importance of
markets was Margaret Thatcher (b. 1925) of the British Conservative Party
who served as prime minister from 1979 to 1990. Her goal was to make the
British economy more efficient and competitive. Although her
administration aroused enormous controversy, over time the British Labour
Party itself largely came to accept what was at the time known as the
Thatcher Revolution.
While Thatcher redirected the British economy, continental Europe’s
government-furnished welfare services began to encounter resistance. The
leveling off of population growth in Europe has imperiled the benefits of
the welfare state. The next generation will have fewer workers to support
the retired elderly population. Confidence in the ability of market forces
rather than government intervention to sustain social cohesion has also
spread in the past twenty-five years. Governments across the Continent,
including those normally associated with left-of-center politics, such as the
British Labour Party and the German Social Democratic Party, have limited
further growth of the welfare state and have reduced benefits. In that
respect, Europeans in the next few decades may look at the second half of
the twentieth century as the Golden Age of welfare states and may find their
own societies dealing with social welfare differently.

QUICK REVIEW
Western Europe’s Consumer Society
Western Europe’s economy emphasized consumer goods in the
second half of the twentieth century
Soviet bloc economies focused on capital investments and the
military
Discrepancy between Western and Eastern European standards of
living caused resentment in the East

THE MOVEMENT OF PEOPLES

Many people migrated from, to, and within Europe during the half century
following World War II. In the decade and a half after 1945, approximately
a half million Europeans each year settled elsewhere in the world. Many of
these migrants were educated city dwellers. Decolonization in the postwar
period contributed to an inward flow of European colonials and non-
European inhabitants of the former colonies to Europe. This influx has
caused social tension and conflict. In Great Britain, for example, during the
1980s clashes arose between the police and non-European immigrants.
France has had similar difficulties. Moreover, large Islamic populations
now exist in several European nations and have become political factors in
France and Germany.
World War II and its aftermath created millions of refugees (see Map 31-
2 on page 816). Once the Cold War set in, Soviet domination made it
impossible for Eastern Europeans to migrate to other parts of Europe. The
major motivation for internal migration from the late 1950s onward has
been economic opportunity. The prosperous nations of northern and
Western Europe offered jobs that paid good wages and provided excellent
benefits. There was a flow of workers from the poorer countries of Greece,
Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, and Yugoslavia into the wealthier countries
of the Benelux nations, France, Switzerland, and West Germany. The
establishment of the EEC in 1957 facilitated this movement.
In the late 1980s politics again became a major factor in European
migration. With the collapse of the communist governments, people from
all over Eastern Europe migrated to the West. Civil war in the former
Yugoslavia also created many refugees. Europe has been in recession,
however, and the new migrants are generating tension, resentment, and
strife. Several nations have taken legal and administrative steps to restrict
migration. The financial collapse that commenced in 2008 has led many
people who had moved from eastern to western Europe in pursuit of
employment to move back to their original countries of residence.
MAP 31–2. Displaced Peoples in East and Central Europe, 1945–1950.
World War II left millions of Europeans displaced. In an attempt to
reestablish ethnic and linguistic uniformity within political boundaries,
more than 31 million people were resettled between 1945 and 1952.

What influence has human migration had on European history since

World War II?

THE NEW MUSLIM POPULATION

Well into the twentieth century Europeans encountered Muslims, if at all, as
subjects in their colonies. With the exception of a few minority
communities in the Balkans and the former Soviet Empire, Europeans saw
themselves and their national cultures as Christian or secular.
European indifference toward Islam had dissolved by the end of the
twentieth century as a sizable Muslim population settled in Europe. This
highly diverse immigrant community had become an issue in Europe even
before the events of September 11, 2001, discussed later in this chapter.
The immigration of Muslims into Europe and particularly Western
Europe arose from two chief sources: European economic growth and
decolonization. As Western economies recovered in the wake of World War
II, a labor shortage developed in Europe, and laborers (“guest workers”),
many of whom came from Muslim nations, were imported to fill it. For
example, Turkish “guest workers” were invited to move to West Germany
—on a temporary basis, it was presumed—in the 1960s, and Britain
welcomed Pakistanis. The aftermath of decolonization and the quest for a
better life led Muslims from East Africa and the Indian subcontinent to
settle in Great Britain. The Algerian war brought many Muslims from
North Africa into France. Today there are approximately 1.3 million
Muslims in Great Britain, 3.2 million in Germany, and 4.2 million in
France. Smaller but still significant numbers have settled in Italy, Spain,
Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands, nations that had previously had
generally homogeneous populations.
These Muslim immigrant communities share certain social and religious
characteristics. Many Muslims came to Europe expecting eventually to
return to their homelands, an expectation their host countries shared. Unlike
the United States, few European countries had any experience in dealing
with large-scale immigration, and many Muslim communities have
remained unassimilated. This apartness has provided internal community
support for Muslim immigrants but prevented them from fully engaging
with the societies in which they live. Many of their children have not
learned European languages well, and Muslim women tend to remain
strictly confined to their homes.
The world around these communities has changed. Many of the largely
unskilled jobs that the immigrants originally filled have disappeared. Most
of the Muslim immigrants to Europe were neither highly skilled nor
professionally educated, and many of the unskilled jobs that they originally
filled have disappeared. As European economic growth has slowed,
Muslims have been blamed for a host of problems, from crime to
unemployment.
The radicalization of parts of the Islamic world has also touched the
Muslim communities in Europe. Although Turkish Muslims living in
Germany come from a nation that has been secularized since the 1920s and
thus tend to be less religiously observant than Pakistani Muslims dwelling
in Great Britain, Muslims from both countries have been involved in radical
Islamic groups; some belonged to organizations involved in the September
11, 2001, attack on the United States. By contrast, the French government
has exerted more control over its Muslim community.
Despite the fact that Europe’s Muslims are not a homogeneous group—
they come from different countries, have different class backgrounds, and
espouse different Islamic traditions—their communities are often plagued
by poverty and unemployment.
 A Muslim woman wearing a traditional headscarf in Hamburg,
Germany votes in the Bundestag elections. The presence of foreign-
born Muslims whose labor is necessary for the prosperity of the
European economy is an important issue in contemporary Europe.
Many of these Muslims live in self-contained communities.

Why do some non-Muslim Europeans find headscarves

threatening?

QUICK REVIEW
Muslims in Europe
Many Muslims immigrated to Europe as “guest workers”
Assimilation rates are low
Unemployment rates are high
Islamic radicalization affects Muslim immigrant communities

NEW PATTERNS IN THE WORK AND EXPECTATIONS OF WOMEN

The work patterns and social expectations of women have changed
markedly since World War II. In all social ranks, women have begun to
assume larger economic and political roles. They have entered the
professions and are filling major managerial positions.
Despite enormous gains, gender inequality remained a major
characteristic of European societies at the opening of the twenty-first
century. After World War II, Simone de Beauvoir’s (1908–1986) book, The
Second Sex (1949), was a major influence on European feminism. She and
other feminists documented the social, legal, and economic disadvantages
of their gender, challenged discrimination against women in family law, and
called attention to social problems such as spousal abuse.
The number of married women in the work force has risen sharply in
both middle and working classes. In the twentieth century children were no
longer expected to make substantial contributions to family income. They
spent much of their time in compulsory schools. When families needed
more income than one worker could provide, both parents worked. Even
without financial necessity, both parents were now likely to work when
both were motivated to pursue careers.
Within Europe women’s childbearing age has risen. Women have tended
to bear children in their early twenties in eastern Europe and in their late
twenties in western Europe. In urban areas, childbearing occurs later and
the birthrate is lower than elsewhere. Many women have begun to limit
sharply the number of children they bear or to forgo childbearing and child
rearing altogether. Both men and women continue to expect to marry, but
the new careers open to women and the desire of couples to maintain as
high a standard of living as possible have contributed to a declining
birthrate.

Image

Simone de Beauvoir, here with her companion, the philosopher Jean-

Paul Sartre, was the major feminist writer in postwar Europe.

How have women’s roles changed in postwar Europe?

AMERICAN DOMESTIC SCENE SINCE

WORLD WAR II

WHAT ARE the main themes that have characterized postwar

America?

Three major themes have characterized the postwar American experience—

an opposition to the spread of communism, an expansion of civil rights to
blacks and other minorities at home, and a determination to achieve
ongoing economic growth. Virtually all of the major postwar political
debates and social divisions have arisen from these issues.

TRUMAN AND EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATIONS

The foreign policy of President Harry Truman was directed against
communist expansion in Europe and East Asia. He enunciated the Truman
Doctrine in regard to Greece and Turkey and initiated the Marshall Plan for
European reconstruction. As will be discussed in Chapter 32 he led the
United States to support the UN intervention against aggression in Korea.
Domestically, the Truman administration tried to continue the New Deal.
However, Truman encountered opposition from conservative Republicans,
who in 1947 passed the Taft-Hartley Act limiting labor union activity.
Truman won the 1948 election against great odds. Through policies he
called the Fair Deal, he sought to extend economic security. Those efforts
were frustrated by fears of a domestic communist menace fanned by
Senator Joseph McCarthy (1909–1957) of Wisconsin.
War hero Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) was elected in 1952. In
retrospect, his presidency seems a period of calm. Eisenhower ended the
Korean War. The country was generally prosperous. Home building
increased dramatically, and the vast interstate highway system was initiated.
The president was less activist than either Roosevelt or Truman had been.
Beneath the apparent quiet, however, stirred forces that would lead to the
disruptions of the 1960s.

CIVIL RIGHTS
In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka, declared racial segregation unconstitutional. Shortly thereafter, the
Court ordered the desegregation of schools. In 1957, President Eisenhower
had to send troops into Little Rock, Arkansas, to integrate the schools, but
resistance continued in other Southern states.
American blacks began to protest segregation in other areas. In 1955 the
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) organized a boycott in
Montgomery, Alabama, against segregated buses. The Montgomery bus
boycott marked the beginning of the use of civil disobedience to fight racial
discrimination in the United States. Drawing on the ideas of Henry David
Thoreau (1817–1862) and the experience of Mohandas Gandhi (1869–
1948) in India, the leaders of the civil rights movement went to jail rather
than obey laws they considered unjust. The civil rights struggle continued
well into the 1960s. One of its most dramatic moments was the 1963 march
on Washington by tens of thousands of supporters of civil rights legislation.
The greatest achievements of the movement were the Civil Rights Act of
1964, which desegregated public accommodations, and the Voting Rights
Act of 1965, which cleared the way for black Americans to vote. Black
citizens came closer to the mainstream of American life than they had ever
been.
Much, however, remained undone. In 1967 major race riots occurred in
several American cities, resulting in significant loss of life. Those riots,
followed by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968, weakened
the civil rights movement. Although African Americans had more access to
education and public office, especially in urban areas, they continued to lag
behind other Americans economically and in their prospects for good
health.

Image

Martin Luther King Jr., pictured here with his wife Coretta, was the
most prominent civil rights leader in the United States. Here he leads a
protest march in 1965.

What did the civil rights movement accomplish in the United

States? Is its work complete?

NEW SOCIAL PROGRAMS

The advance of the civil rights movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s
represented the cutting edge of a new advance of political liberalism, which
proved to be relatively short-lived. In 1960, John F. Kennedy (1917–1963)
narrowly won the presidential election. He attempted unsuccessfully to
expand medical care under the Social Security program, but the reaction to
his assassination in 1963 allowed his successor, Lyndon Johnson (1908–
1973), to press for activist legislation. Johnson’s domestic program, known
as the War on Poverty, established major federal programs to create jobs
and provide job training. It also added new entitlements to the Social
Security program, including Medicare, which provides medical services for
the elderly and disabled. Johnson’s drive for what he called the Great
Society ended the era of major federal initiatives that had begun under
Franklin Roosevelt. By the late 1960s the electorate had begun to become
much more conservative.

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Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham City Jail, 1963 at
myhistorylab.com

QUICK REVIEW
Desegregation Landmarks
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954
Montgomery bus boycott, 1955
Little Rock schools integrated, 1957
Civil Rights Act, 1964

THE VIETNAM WAR, DOMESTIC TURMOIL, AND WATERGATE

Johnson’s activist domestic vision was overshadowed by the U.S.
involvement in Vietnam (see Chapter 32). By 1965, Johnson had decided to
send American troops to Vietnam. This policy led to the longest of
American wars. At home, the war and the military draft provoked large-
scale protests; the Vietnam War divided the nation as had no conflict since
the Civil War.

See the Map

The Vietnam War at myhistorylab.com
 Johnson decided not to seek reelection in 1968. Richard Nixon led the
Republicans to victory. His election marked the beginning of an era of
American politics dominated by conservative policies. Perhaps the most
important act of his administration was to establish diplomatic relations
with the People’s Republic of China. Although half of the casualties in the
Vietnam War occurred under Nixon’s administration, he concluded the war
in 1972. That same year he was reelected, but the Watergate scandal began
to erode his administration.
On the surface, the Watergate scandal involved only the burglary of the
Democratic Party national headquarters by White House operatives in 1972.
The deeper issues related to presidential authority and the right of the
government to intrude into the lives of citizens. In 1974, audiotapes
revealed that Nixon had ordered federal agencies to try to cover up White
House participation in the burglary. Nixon became the first American
president to resign from office.
Watergate shook public confidence in the government. It was also a
distraction from the major problems facing the country, especially inflation,
which had resulted from fighting the war in Vietnam while expanding
domestic expenditures. The administrations of Gerald Ford (1974–1977;
1913–2006) and Jimmy Carter (1977–1981; b. 1924) battled inflation and
high interest rates without success.

Image

Kent State Protest. The clash between protesting students and the
Ohio National Guard at Kent State University was the most violent
moment in the protests against the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

What makes a photograph such as this one disturbing to so many

people?

THE TRIUMPH OF POLITICAL CONSERVATISM

In 1980 Ronald Reagan was elected president by a large majority and
reelected four years later. Reagan was the first fully ideological
conservative to be elected in the postwar era. Reagan sought to reduce the
role of the federal government in American life. The chief vehicle to this
end was a major tax cut and reform of the taxation system. Thereafter the
American economy experienced its longest peacetime expansion.
The straightforward conservatism of the Reagan administration proved
offensive to many Americans who had traditionally supported a liberal
political and social agenda. His policies were regarded as hostile to blacks
and women. High officials were involved in scandals, particularly the sale
of arms to Iran in exchange for the promised release of American hostages
in Lebanon. Despite these difficulties, Reagan left office as probably the
most popular and successful of the post–World War II American presidents.
In 1988, Reagan’s vice president George H. W. Bush (b. 1924) was
elected to the presidency. In the summer of 1990, in response to Iraq’s
invasion of Kuwait, he forged a worldwide coalition that forced Iraq out of
Kuwait in 1991. But Bush stumbled in the face of serious economic
problems. In 1992, the Democratic nominee, Governor William (Bill)
Clinton (b. 1946) of Arkansas, won the election. In 1994, the Republican
Party won majorities in both houses of Congress in an election that marked
a major conservative departure in American political life. This Congress
continued the conservative redirection of federal policy that had begun
under Reagan. President Clinton and a Republican-dominated Congress
were reelected in 1996, but scandals plagued both parties. Because of a
personal sexual scandal and allegations of perjury, President Clinton was
impeached in 1998 but acquitted. In terms of policy, Clinton moved the
Democratic Party to a centrist stance.

Read the Document

Republican Party Nomination Acceptance at myhistorylab.com

The presidential election of 2000 between Texas governor George W.

Bush (the son of the former president) and Vice President Al Gore was the
closest in modern American history. Gore won a majority of the popular
vote but failed to win a majority in the electoral college. The pivotal
electoral votes depended on which candidate carried Florida, where the
final vote count was disputed for more than a month. After complicated
legal proceedings, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to halt a ballot
recount, which resulted in Bush being declared the winner.
On September 11, 2001, a surprise terrorist attack on New York City and
Washington, D.C., transformed the political life of the United States. The
nation rallied to respond, with remarkable bipartisan cooperation. In
October 2001, the United States began a war against terrorism with air
attacks against terrorist positions in Afghanistan. U.S. forces also attacked
the forces of the extremist Islamic Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which
had tolerated the presence of Islamic terrorists. In 2003 the United States
invaded Iraq (an event discussed further in the last section of this chapter
and in Chapter 33).

Read the Document

Addresses by George W. Bush, 2001 at myhistorylab.com

In 2004 President Bush overcame Democratic challenger John Kerry, this

time being elected with a popular and electoral college majority vote. In the
congressional elections of 2006 the Democratic Party regained control of
both houses of Congress in an election fought largely over the American
intervention in Iraq. In 2008 in the wake of criticism of the Bush foreign
policy and the growing worldwide financial meltdown, Senator Barack
Obama of Illinois was elected as the first African American president of the
United States. The Democratic Party expanded its control of both houses of
Congress. The new administration faced the most challenging economic
crisis since the Great Depression. Its initial moves involved extensive
government spending in support of the financial system and the creation of
new jobs.

THE SOVIET UNION TO 1989

HOW DID leaders after Stalin attempt to reform Soviet government?

 The Soviet Union emerged from World War II as a major world power,
but Stalin did little or nothing to modify the repressive regime he had
fostered. Stalin’s personal authority over the party and the nation remained
unchallenged. In foreign policy he solidified Soviet control over Eastern
Europe for the purposes of both communist expansion and Soviet national
security. The Soviet army assured subservience to the goals of the Soviet
Union. This continued until Stalin died on March 6, 1953.

Image

The Kitchen Debate. One of the most famous incidents of the Cold
War was a spontaneous debate between Nikita Khrushchev and Vice
President Richard Nixon at a trade fair in Moscow. Because it took
place at a display of kitchen appliances, it is sometimes called the
Kitchen Debate.

Did either Nixon or Khrushchev “win” the Kitchen Debate?

THE KHRUSHCHEV AND BREZHNEV YEARS

No single leader immediately replaced Stalin. By 1956 Nikita Khrushchev
became premier, but without the extraordinary powers of Stalin.
In 1956, at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party, Khrushchev
denounced Stalin and his crimes. This “Secret Speech” shocked party
circles and opened the way for limited internal criticism of the Soviet
government. Under Khrushchev, intellectuals were somewhat freer to
express their opinions. In economic policy, Khrushchev made moderate
efforts to decentralize economic planning, but the consumer sector
improved only marginally. The ever-growing defense budget and the space
program that successfully launched the first human-engineered earth
satellite, Sputnik, in 1957 made major demands on the nation’s productive
resources. Khrushchev redirected Stalin’s agricultural policy, removing the
most restrictive regulations on private cultivation, but the agricultural
problem continued to grow. The Soviet Union could not feed its own
people; by the 1970s the Soviet Union imported vast quantities of grain
from the United States and other countries.
By 1964 Communist Party leaders had concluded that Khrushchev had
tried to do too much too soon and had done it too poorly. His foreign policy,
culminating in the backdown over the Cuban Missile Crisis, appeared a
failure. On October 16, 1964, Khrushchev was forced to resign. Leonid
Brezhnev (1906–1982) emerged as his successor.
The Soviet government became more repressive after 1964. Intellectuals
enjoyed less freedom, and Jewish citizens were harassed. The internal
repression gave rise to a dissident movement. A few Soviet citizens dared to
criticize the regime for violating the human rights provisions of the 1975
Helsinki Accords. The Soviet government responded with further
repression.
In foreign policy the Brezhnev years witnessed attempts both to reach
accommodation with the United States and to continue to expand Soviet
influence and maintain Soviet leadership of the communist movement.
Growing spending on defense squeezed the consumer side of the economy.
In December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan for reasons
that remain unclear. The Afghanistan invasion exacerbated tensions with
the United States and tied the hands of the Soviet government in Eastern
Europe. Soviet hesitation to react to events in Poland during the 1980s
stemmed in part from the military commitment in Afghanistan and from the
condemnation the invasion provoked from many governments. The Soviet
government also lost support at home as its army became bogged down and
suffered steady losses.

Read the Document

Nikita Khrushchev, Speech to the Twenty-Second Congress of the
Communist Party, 1962 at myhistorylab.com

COMMUNISM AND SOLIDARITY IN POLAND

In July 1980 the Polish government raised meat prices, causing strikes
across the country. In August, a strike at the Lenin shipyard at Gdansk
spread to other shipyards, transport facilities, and factories. The Gdansk
strike, led by Lech Walesa (b. 1944), ended on August 31 after the
government promised the workers the right to organize an independent
union, called Solidarity. Less than a week later the Polish communist head
of state was replaced; later that year the state-controlled radio—for the first
time in thirty years—broadcast a Roman Catholic Mass.
In the summer of 1981, for the first time in any European communist
state, secret elections for the Polish party congress permitted choices among
the candidates. Poland remained a communist state, but real debate was
temporarily permitted within the party congress. This experiment ended in
December 1981, when General Wojciech Jaruzelski (b. 1923) became head
of the party. Martial law was declared and continued until late in the 1980s.

Image

The Polish Trade Union “Solidarity” in 1989 successfully forced the

Polish communist government to hold free elections. In June of that
year Solidarity, whose members here are collecting funds for their
campaign, won overwhelmingly.

Which members of Polish society belonged to Solidarity?

GORBACHEV ATTEMPTS TO REDIRECT THE SOVIET UNION

Both of Brezhnev’s immediate successors, Yuri Andropov (1914–1984) and
Constantin Chernenko (1911–1985), died after holding office for short
periods. In 1985, Mikhail S. Gorbachev (b. 1931) came to power and
immediately set about making the most remarkable changes that the Soviet
Union had witnessed since the 1920s. His reforms unleashed forces that
within seven years would force him to retire and end both communist rule
and the Soviet Union itself.
Initially, Gorbachev and his supporters challenged the way the party and
bureaucracy managed the Soviet government and economy. Under the
policy of perestroika, or “restructuring,” they proposed major economic
and political reforms. The centralized economic ministries were
streamlined. By early 1990, Gorbachev had even begun to advocate private
ownership of property. He and his advisers considered policies to move the
economy rapidly toward a free market. However, the Soviet economy,
instead of growing, stagnated and even declined. Shortages of food,
consumer goods, and housing became chronic. Old-fashioned communists
blamed these results on the abandonment of centralized planning, while
democratic critics blamed them on overly slow reform.

perestroika
Meaning “restructuring.” The attempt in the 1980s to reform the Soviet
government and economy.

Read the Document

Mikhail Gorbachev on the Need for Economic Reform (1987) at
myhistorylab.com

Gorbachev also allowed public criticism of Soviet history and Soviet

Communist Party policy. This development was termed glasnost, or
“openness.” In factories, workers were permitted to criticize party officials
and the economic plans of the party and the government. Censorship was
relaxed and free expression encouraged. Dissidents were released from
prison. In 1988, a new constitution permitted contested elections. After real
political campaigning, the Congress of People’s Deputies was elected in
1989 and then formally elected Gorbachev as president.

glasnost
Meaning “openness.” The policy initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev in the
1980s of permitting open criticism of the policies of the Soviet Communist
Party.

1989: YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS IN EASTERN

EUROPE
 WHY DID communist regimes collapse so easily in Eastern Europe in
1989?

In 1989 Soviet domination and communist rule in Eastern Europe came to

an abrupt end. None of these revolutions could have taken place without the
Soviet Union’s refusal to intervene militarily as it had done in 1956 and
1968. For the first time since the end of World War II, the peoples of
Eastern Europe could shape their own political destiny. Once they realized
the Soviets would stand back, thousands of citizens denounced Communist
Party domination and asserted their desire for democracy.
The generally peaceful character of most of these revolutions may have
resulted in part from the shock with which the world responded to the
violent repression of prodemocracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen
Square in May 1989. The Communist Party officials of Eastern Europe and
the Soviet Union clearly decided that they could not offend world opinion
with a similar attack.

View the Image

Statue of Lenin Toppled during Soviet Collapse at myhistorylab.com

SOLIDARITY REEMERGES IN POLAND

During the mid-1980s, Poland’s government relaxed martial law. By 1984,
the leaders of Solidarity began again to work for free trade unions and
democratic government. New dissenting organizations emerged. Poland’s
economy continued to deteriorate. In 1988, new strikes occurred. This time
the communist government failed to reimpose control. Solidarity was
legalized.
Jaruzelski, with the tacit consent of the Soviet Union, promised free
elections to Parliament. When elections were held in 1989, the communists
lost overwhelmingly to Solidarity candidates. On August 24, 1989, after
negotiating with Lech Walesa and getting Gorbachev’s approval, Jaruzelski
named Tadeusz Mazowiecki (b. 1927) the first noncommunist prime
minister of Poland since 1945.

Image

Statue of Lenin. The collapse of Communist Party governments in

Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union was the most important political
event of the closing years of the twentieth century. It was accompanied
by the destruction of the public symbols of those governments.
Throughout the region gigantic statues of Communist Party leaders
were torn down. Here, Hungarians explore a toppled statue of Lenin.

Why were most Eastern European revolutions peaceful?

HUNGARY MOVES TOWARD INDEPENDENCE

Hungary had for some time shown the greatest economic independence
from the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe. The Hungarian government had
emphasized the production of food and consumer goods. In early 1989, the
Hungarian communist government permitted independent political parties
and free travel between Hungary and Austria, opening the first breach in the
Iron Curtain. Thousands of East Germans then moved through Hungary and
Austria to West Germany.
In May 1989, Premier Janos Kadar (1912–1989) was voted from office
by the Parliament. In October, Hungary promised free elections. By 1990, a
coalition of democratic parties governed the country.

THE BREACH OF THE BERLIN WALL AND GERMAN REUNIFICATION

In the autumn of 1989 demonstrations erupted in East German cities. The
streets filled with people demanding an end to Communist Party rule.
 Gorbachev told the leaders of the East German Communist Party that the
Soviet Union would no longer support them. They resigned, making way
for a younger generation of Communist Party leaders who promised
reforms. Few East Germans were convinced, however. In November 1989,
the government of East Germany ordered the opening of the Berlin Wall,
and thousands of East Berliners crossed into West Berlin. By early 1990,
the communist government of East Germany had been swept away.
The citizens of the two Germanys were determined to reunify. By
February 1990, reunification had become a foregone conclusion, accepted
by the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France.

THE VELVET REVOLUTION IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Late in 1989, in “the velvet revolution,” communist rule in Czechoslovakia
unraveled. In November, under popular pressure from street demonstrations
and well-organized political opposition, the Communist Party began to
retreat from office. The patterns were similar to those occurring elsewhere:
Old leadership resigned, and younger communists replaced them, but the
changes they offered were inadequate.
The popular new Czech leader was Václav Havel (b. 1936), a renowned
playwright whom the government had imprisoned. Havel and his group,
called Civic Forum, negotiated changes with the government that included
an end to the political dominance of the Communist Party and the inclusion
of noncommunists in the government. In late December 1989, Havel was
elected president.

VIOLENT REVOLUTION IN ROMANIA

The most violent upheaval of 1989 occurred in Romania, where President
Nicolae Ceausescu (1918–1989) had governed without opposition for
almost a quarter century. Romania was a corrupt, one-party state with total
centralized economic planning. Ceausescu, who had long been at odds with
the Soviet government, maintained his Stalinist regime in the face of
Gorbachev’s reforms. He was supported by a loyal security force.
 A Closer Look

Collapse of the Berlin Wall

No single structure so illustrated the divisions of the Cold War as the

Berlin Wall, which was erected in 1961. The most symbolic moment in
the collapse of communism across Eastern Europe came in November
1989 when that wall was breached.

Image

Questions
1. How did the vast numbers of photographs of this event, as well as
amateur movies and videos, illustrate that governments could no
longer control the manner in which information was dispersed?
2. In June 1989, the Chinese government had violently suppressed a
vast rally in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. How does this picture
from Berlin about six months later illustrate the decision of the
Soviet and East German governments to behave differently in the
face of popular opposition?
3. What does this picture both reveal and fail to reveal about the
motives of the East Germans who crossed the Berlin Wall in
November 1989?

Image To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to

www.myhistorylab.com

On December 15, troubles erupted in the city of Timisoara in western

Romania. The security forces fired on demonstrators, and casualties ran into
the hundreds. By December 22, Bucharest was in full revolt. Fighting broke
out between the army, which supported the revolution, and the security
forces. Ceausescu and his wife attempted to flee the country but were
captured and executed on December 25. His death ended the fighting. The
provisional government in Bucharest announced the first free elections
since the end of World War II.

THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET UNION

WHO WERE the leaders in the period surrounding the collapse of the
Soviet Union?

Gorbachev believed that the Soviet Union could no longer afford to support
communist governments in Eastern Europe. He also saw that the
Communist Party within the Soviet Union was losing power.

RENUNCIATION OF COMMUNIST POLITICAL MONOPOLY

In early 1990, Gorbachev formally proposed that the Soviet Communist
Party relinquish its monopoly of power. After intense debate, the Central
Committee abandoned the Leninist position that only a single elite party
could act as the vanguard of the revolution and forge a new Soviet society.
Gorbachev confronted challenges from three major political forces by
1990. One group—considered conservative in the Soviet context—wanted
to maintain the influence of the Communist Party and the Soviet army.
They were distressed by the country’s economic stagnation and disorder.
They appeared to have significant support. During late 1990 and early 1991,
Gorbachev, who himself seems to have been disturbed by the nation’s
turmoil, began to appoint members of this group to government posts. In
other words, Gorbachev seemed to be making a strategic retreat. He
apparently believed that these more conservative forces could give him the
support he needed against opposition from a second group, led by Boris
Yeltsin (b. 1931), who wanted to move quickly to a market economy and a
more democratic government. In 1990, Yeltsin was elected president of the
Russian Republic, the most important of the Soviet Union’s constituent
republics. That position gave him a firm political base from which to
challenge Gorbachev’s authority and increase his own.

QUICK REVIEW
Political Forces Opposed to Gorbachev
Conservatives wanted to preserve power of Communist Party, Soviet
Army
Yeltsin’s faction wanted faster movement to market economy,
democracy
Regional unrest in Baltics, Islamic Central Asian republics

The third force was regional unrest, especially from the three Baltic
republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. During 1989 and 1990, the
parliaments of the Baltic republics tried to increase their independence, and
Lithuania actually declared itself independent. Discontent also arose in the
Soviet Islamic republics in Central Asia. Gorbachev sought to negotiate
new constitutional arrangements between the republics and the central
government but failed. This may have been the most important reason for
the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union.

THE AUGUST 1991 COUP AND THE YELTSIN YEARS

The turning point came in August 1991 when the conservative forces that
Gorbachev had brought into the government attempted a coup. Armed
forces occupied Moscow, and Gorbachev himself was placed under house
arrest in the Crimea. Yeltsin denounced the coup and asked the world for
help.
Within two days the coup collapsed. Gorbachev returned to Moscow, but
in humiliation, having been victimized by the groups he had turned to for
support. From that point on, Yeltsin steadily became the dominant political
figure in the nation. The Communist Party, compromised by its
participation in the coup, collapsed. On December 25, 1991, the Soviet
Union ceased to exist, Gorbachev left office, and the Commonwealth of
Independent States came into being (see Map 31–3).

Image
MAP 31–3. The Commonwealth of Independent States. In December
1991 the Soviet Union broke up into its fifteen constituent republics. Eleven
of these were loosely joined in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Also shown is the autonomous region of Chechnya, which has waged two
bloody wars with Russia in the past two decades.

What does the breakup of the Soviet Union say about the importance
of nationalism in the modern world?

As president of Russia, Yeltsin was head of the largest and most powerful
of the new states, but by 1993 he faced serious problems. Opposition to
Yeltsin personally and to his economic and political reforms grew in the
Russian Parliament, whose members were mostly former communists. In
September 1993, Yeltsin suspended Parliament, which responded by
deposing him. The military, however, backed Yeltsin and surrounded the
Parliament building. On October 4, 1993, after pro-Parliament rioters
rampaged through Moscow, Yeltsin ordered tanks to attack the Parliament
building, crushing the revolt.
These actions temporarily consolidated Yeltsin’s position and authority.
The major Western powers supported him. But the crushing of Parliament
left Yeltsin highly dependent on the military, and the country’s continuing
economic problems bred unrest. In the December 1993 parlimentary
elections, radical nationalists made an uncomfortably strong showing. In
1994 and again after 1999, the central government faced war in the
province of Chechnya. In December 1999, Yeltsin, who suffered from poor
health, resigned and was succeeded as president by Vladimir Putin (b.
1952), who promised strong leadership.

PUTIN TESTS RUSSIAN POWER

Putin was elected president in his own right in March 2001. He renewed the
war against the rebels in Chechnya, which resulted in heavy casualties and
enormous destruction there, but strengthened Putin’s political support
within Russia.
The Chechen war spawned an appalling terrorist act. In September 2004,
a group of Chechens captured an elementary school in Beslan, in the north
Caucasus. Approximately 1,200 students, teachers, and parents were held
hostage for several days. When government troops stormed the school,
approximately 330 of the hostages were killed. By the middle of the decade,
however, Russian forces had clearly established the upper hand over the
Chechen rebels and the drive toward independence was firmly checked—at
a very high cost in lives on both sides.
Putin sought to diminish local autonomy and centralize power in his own
hands. He won broad Russian public support for imprisoning some leading
oligarchs and other businessmen. These enormously wealthy and
economically powerful figures were viewed as one of the causes of the
economic hardship of the 1990s. Putin also imprisoned political critics and
moved against independent newspapers and television stations.
Under Putin a clear trade-off occurred between political freedom and
economic and political stability. The Russian economy improved: Foreign
debts were paid, the Russian ruble was accepted as a serious currency, and
many more consumer goods were available. Much of this relative prosperity
was the result of the oil resources available to the Russian Federation and
the rising price of oil on the world market. In 2008 Putin left the elected
presidency, turning the office over to his handpicked successor Dmitri
Medvedev (b. 1965). At the same time, Putin assumed the office of prime
minister and clearly remained the chief political figure in the country. (See
Document, “Vladimir Putin Outlines a Vision of the Russian Future.”)
Putin has been determined to use the nation’s economic recovery and
new wealth to allow Russia to reassert its position as a major power. After
the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Putin supported the
American assault on Afghanistan, largely because the Russian government
feared the spread of Islamic extremism within Russia and neighboring
states. This period of cooperation was brief, however, and Putin became one
of the leading critics of American policy.
Putin has also been sharply critical of the ongoing expansion of NATO
which has embraced nations directly bordering the Russian Federation. His
government continued to attempt to exert influence in various of the new
nations, such as the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia, that
came into existence with the collapse of the former Soviet Union. For
nearly twenty years both the European Union and NATO had been
expanding into regions previously dominated by or part of the former
Soviet Union. The Russian Federation found itself unable to stop or
significantly influence these expansions. The United States had indicated
support for bringing both Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. Putin and other
leaders of the Russian Federation had witnessed the manner in which
various regions of the former Yugoslavia, most recently Kosovo in February
2008, had broken away from Serbia and established their own
independence. The Russian Federation feared that Kosovo might serve as
an example for potential breakaway regions in the Russian Federation. It
also feared encirclement by NATO member nations where the United States
might locate military bases.
Russia’s determination to dominate nations that were once part of the
Soviet Union dramatically displayed itself in August 2008, when Russian
Federation troops invaded the Republic of Georgia. Shortly before, Georgia
had sent troops into South Ossetia, itself a part of the former Soviet Union
that had been divided into regions dominated by Russia and Georgia.
Georgia sought greater influence there. Russian troops first drove the
Georgians out of South Ossetia and then continued into Georgia itself.
Russia withdrew after a ceasefire, but had succeeded in demonstrating its
power in the region. The absence of any effective resistance to Russian
actions in Georgia from either the United States or the European Union
nations raised doubts about the capacity of either to influence events in the
Black Sea region. Therefore, though the Russian incursion into Georgia was
relatively brief, it demonstrated that the classic issues of European great
power politics remain alive in the new Europe. It also demonstrated Russian
willingness to take advantage of American involvement in Iraq and
Afghanistan to reassert its potential authority in those regions it has
dominated since the wars of Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century.

DOCUMENT

Vladimir Putin Outlines a Vision of the Russian Future

Vladimir Putin served as president of the Russian Federation from 1998 to
2008 when he moved to the office of prime minister. In one of his last
presidential speeches he outlined his view of a democratic Russian future as
well as his concerns about the relationship of the Russian Federation to
NATO. His speech embraced a strong rhetoric of democracy, but at the
same time placed considerable limits on the kind of activity and criticism
that democratic parties might exercise. Note that he made no provision
about who might decide if parties were behaving in a fashion dangerous to
the national interest. In his own time in office he imprisoned numerous
political opponents. Also note his concerns about the Russian Federation’s
future place in the world and his strong commitment to expansion of its
military defense capacities.

• HOW does Putin seem to embrace democratic reform? What are the
limits that he places on democratic activity? How might those limits
lead to government interference with the activity of political parties?
What are Putin’s concerns regarding NATO and the place of the
Russian Federation in world affairs?

The desire of millions of our citizens for individual freedom and social
justice is what defines the future of Russia’s political system. The
democratic state should become an effective instrument for civil society’s
self-organization.…

Russia’s future political system will be centered on several large political

parties that will have to work hard to maintain or affirm their leading
positions, be open to change and broaden their dialogue with the voters.
Political parties must not forget their immense responsibility for Russia’s
future, for the nation’s unity and for our country’s stable development.
No matter how fierce the political battles and no matter how
irreconcilable the differences between parties might be, they are never
worth so much as to bring the country to the brink of chaos.
Irresponsible demagogy and attempts to divide society and use foreign
help or intervention in domestic political struggles are not only immoral but
are illegal. They belittle our people’s dignity and undermine our democratic
state.…
 No matter what their differences, all of the different public forces in the
country should act in accordance with one simple but essential principle: do
nothing that would damage the interests of Russia and its citizens and act
only for Russia’s good, act in its national interests and in the interest of the
prosperity and security of all its people.…
It is now clear that the world has entered a new spiral in the arms race.
This does not depend on us and it is not we who began it.…
NATO itself is expanding and is bringing its military infrastructure ever
closer to our borders. We have closed our bases in Cuba and Vietnam, but
what have we got in return? New American bases in Romania and Bulgaria,
and a new missile defense system with plans to install components of this
system in Poland and the Czech Republic soon it seems.…
We are effectively being forced into a situation where we have to take
measures in response, where we have no choice but to make the necessary
decisions.…
Russia has a response to these new challenges and it always will. Russia
will begin production of new types of weapons over these coming years, the
quality of which is just as good and in some cases even surpasses those of
other countries.

Source: Validmir Putin, Speech at Expanded Meeting of the State

Council on Russia’s Development Strategy through to 2020, February
8, 2008, President of Russia, Official Web Portal,
http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/text/speeches/2008/02/08/1137_type82912ty
pe82913_159643.shtml

Image

Russian Invasion of Georgia. The aftermath of an attack by a Russian

warplane on an apartment block in Gori, Georgia during the conflict in
South Ossetia in August 2008. Here a Georgian man cradles the body
of a relative killed during the bombing, which killed at least five
people.
 What were Russia’s objectives in this conflict?

See the Map

Successor Republics of the Soviet Union at myhistorylab.com

In late 2008 another question suddenly confronted Russia. As one

element in the worldwide financial crisis, commodity prices dropped
sharply, including the price of oil. It remains to be seen whether Russia will
be able to maintain its economic growth and political resurgence in the face
of declining income.

THE COLLAPSE OF YUGOSLAVIA AND

CIVIL WAR

HOW DID the West respond to the collapse of Yugoslavia?

Yugoslavia was created after World War I. It included six major national
groups—Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Macedonians, and
Bosnians (Muslims)—among whom there have been ethnic disputes for
centuries (see Map 31–4). The Croats and Slovenes are Roman Catholic
and use the Latin alphabet. The Serbs, Montenegrins, and Macedonians are
Eastern Orthodox and use the Cyrillic alphabet. The Bosnians are Islamic.
Most members of each group reside in a region with which they are
associated historically, and these regions constituted individual republics
within Yugoslavia. Many Serbs, however, lived outside Serbia proper.
Yugoslavia’s first communist leader, Marshal Tito (1892–1980) held
Yugoslavia together largely through a cult of personality. After his death,
ethnic differences came to the fore. Nationalist leaders—most notably
Slobodan Milošević (b. 1941) in Serbia and Franjo Tudjman (b. 1922) in
Croatia—gained increasing authority. Ethnic tension and violence soon
resulted.

MAP EXPLORATION

To explore this map further, go to http://www.myhistorylab.com.

Image

MAP 31–4. Ethnic Composition in the Former Yugoslavia.

The rapid changes in Eastern Europe during the close of the 1980s
intensified longstanding ethnic tensions in the former Yugoslavia. This
map shows where Yugoslavia’s ethnic population lived in 1991, before
internal conflicts escalated.

How does the Balkans conflict illustrate the importance of ethnic

identity in the modern world?

During the summer of 1990, in the wake of the changes in the former
Soviet bloc nations, Slovenia and Croatia declared independence from the
central Yugoslav government. By June 1991, full-fledged war had erupted
between Serbia and Croatia. In 1992, Croatian and Serbian forces divided
Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Muslims in Bosnia—who had lived alongside
Serbs and Croats for generations—were soon crushed between the opposing
forces. The Serbs in particular, pursuing a policy called ethnic cleansing,
killed or forcibly moved many Bosnian Muslims.

Image
 Destruction of Sarajevo. An elderly parishioner walks through the
ruins of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Sarajevo. The church
was destroyed by Serb shelling in May 1992.

Which other regions of the world have experienced “ethnic

cleansing” in recent years?

CHRONOLOGY

THE BREAKUP OF YUGOSLAVIA

Image

The United Nations attempted unsuccessfully to intervene. In 1995,

NATO forces carried out strategic air strikes. Later that year, under the
leadership of the United States, the leaders of the warring forces completed
a peace agreement in Dayton, Ohio, which recognized an independent
Bosnia. The terms of the agreement were enforced by the presence of
NATO troops.

Read the Document

Zlata Filipovi, from Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo at
myhistorylab.com

In the late 1990s Serbian aggression against ethnic Albanians in the

province of Kosovo again provoked a NATO response. In early 1999 NATO
launched an air attack against the Serbian forces. The Serbian army
withdrew from Kosovo, and NATO ground forces protected ethnic
Albanians. In 2000 a revolution overthrew the regime of Slobodan
Milošević, and the new Yugoslav government handed him over in June
2001 to the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague for trial as a
war criminal. (Milošević died in prison in 2006 of natural causes.)
 See the Map
The Former Yugoslavia after 1991 at myhistorylab.com

CHALLENGES TO THE ATLANTIC

ALLIANCE

IS NATO still a viable alliance in the post–Cold War era?

CHALLENGES ON THE INTERNATIONAL SECURITY FRONT

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO has expanded its membership
to include Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and nine other formerly
Eastern-bloc nations. Yet the present purpose of NATO remains ill defined.
NATO attempted to assume the role of internal peacekeeper in the new
Europe, but some members and European publics disapproved.
NATO’s uncertain mission and continental Europe’s inward-looking
tendency shaped reactions to the September 11, 2001, attack by al-Qa’ida
on the United States. Initially, Europeans sympathized deeply with
Americans, but a significant split soon developed over President George W.
Bush’s response to the terrorist assault. In what Bush termed “a war on
terrorism,” the United States overthrew the Taliban government of
Afghanistan in late 2001. This destroyed some of al-Qa’ida’s bases but not
its leadership.
The Bush administration then set forth a new policy of preemptive strikes
and intervention against potential enemies of the United States, which
marked a major departure from previous United States foreign policy and
aroused controversy both at home and abroad. The American invasion of
Iraq in 2003 received the support of numerous European governments, but
some traditional European allies of the United States—particularly France
and Germany—sharply criticized American decision making and actions.
Popular political opinon across Europe dissented vocally from American
policy.

Suicide Bombing in Moscow Metro. Russian emergency workers

carry the body of a victim of a terrorist attack from the Lubyanka
metro station in Moscow on March 29, 2010, after two female suicide
bombers blew themselves up on packed metro trains in central
Moscow’s morning rush hour, killing at least 40 people.

Is violence an effective form of political action? Can it ever be

morally justified?

Terrorists have struck in Europe and have shown how al-Qa’ida–

sponsored attacks can influence European politics. On March 11, 2004, at
least 190 people were killed in commuter train bombings in Madrid, Spain,
and on July 7, 2005, more than 50 were killed by a similar attack in
London. The Spanish attack occurred just before an election, and the
Spanish government that had supported the American invasion of Iraq was
voted from office.
 Profound divisions have arisen between the United States and many of its
historic postwar allies. Many Europeans see their values and their emerging
political community as different from those of Americans. Over time,
external events and the wider conflict between the West and radical political
Islam will most likely determine the character of the Atlantic alliance, just
as the division between a democratic West and a communist East did in the
past.

Read the Document

Statement from Chancellor Schröder on the Iraq Crisis (2003) at
myhistorylab.com

STRAINS OVER ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

The impact of economic development on the environment has been a
growing concern. This concern has involved issues of pollution of water
from industrial and urban waste and the pollution of the atmosphere from
the emissions of hydrocarbons set loose in the air by industrial plants and
the ever-growing number of automobiles and other vehicles using internal
combustion engines as well as coal-burning utility plants and other
industrial sites. One result of this new interest in the environment has been
the rise of politically active environmental movements around the world.
Some of these movements have worked within the existing political system;
others have taken more radical courses of action, including ecological
terrorism, sabotage, and confrontation with police at major meetings of
world leaders, particularly at the G-8 Summit meetings.

Read the Document

European Criticism of American Environmental Policies, 2007 at
myhistorylab.com

Environmental issues have proved divisive within the industrial

democracies. During the past decade the political tensions arising from
environmentalism have begun to impinge upon international relations, too.
The chief issue has been the emission of what are termed greenhouse gases,
which the scientific community has concluded is raising the temperature of
the planet.

Watch the Video

The Role of the Environment in History at myhistorylab.com

In 1997 various members of the United Nations signed the Kyoto

Protocol on Climate Change. This treaty set specific mandatory goals for
reducing the emission of greenhouse gases in the most developed industrial
countries against 1990 benchmarks. Those gases include carbon dioxide,
methane, hydrofluorocarbons, and sulphur hexafluoride, among others. The
Kyoto Protocol received the support of numerous major nations including
Japan, Russia, and the European Union and became binding on its
signatories in 2005. But the United States has not ratified the protocol. The
Bush administration indicated that it feared implementation would harm
economic growth in the United States. The administration also criticized
those parts of the treaty that permit developing nations such as China and
India not to reduce their emissions, contending this would disadvantage the
United States in world trade.
The United States’ stance on the Kyoto Protocol put it at odds with
traditional European allies as well as Japan. Moreover, as the United States
pursued its intervention in Iraq, numerous European governments criticized
the American government for pressing unilateral policies on a number of
fronts. In the spring of 2007 the United States sought to modify its position,
offering to enter into negotiations with all nations that are major
contributors to greenhouse emissions including India and China, and to
negotiate specific targets for elimination of emissions. Germany and other
nations, meanwhile, have proposed ambitious goals for the reduction of
greenhouse emissions. The exact position of the Obama administration on
international environmental issues remains to be determined, but it will
probably pursue a less unilateral policy than the Bush administration.
 Protesters at the UN Climate Change Conference, Montreal.
Thousands of people march through the streets of Montreal on
December 3, 2005, as part of a worldwide day of protest against global
warming. The demonstration coincided with a United Nations Climate
Change Conference.

Why are most of the demonstrators in this photograph young

people?

Numerous factors account for the recent shifts in U.S. environmental

policy statements. The American National Academy of Sciences has
determined that the rate of worldwide greenhouse emissions is growing
faster than anyone has predicted. Many industrial and commercial
companies have found it to their advantage to embrace the environmental
cause. Several companies and industries have even come to believe they
can prosper by addressing climatic issues. Across the globe, advocates for a
more rapid response to the growing environmental challenge appear to have
been making great strides in persuading public opinion that their case is
both valid and urgent, a development reflected by changes in the stances of
various governments—even of those that have not embraced the Kyoto
Protocol.

Read the Document

The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change, Article Two at myhistorylab.com

Two developments lie ahead in the immediate future. First,

environmental pollution will continue to grow. Second, a period of
protracted negotiations will ensue. Those negotiations will contribute to
ongoing tension between the United States and its traditional Atlantic
partners.

SUMMARY

WHAT WERE the causes of the Cold War?

The Cold War Era. U.S.–Soviet cooperation did not survive World War II.
After 1945 Europe was divided into a Soviet-dominated zone in the East
(the Warsaw Pact) and a U.S.-led zone in the West (NATO). U.S.–Soviet
rivalry played itself out around the world from the 1950s to the 1980s,
although gradually a spirit of détente arose between the two powers,
especially under President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev. The Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in
1991. page 806

WHY HAVE European nations chosen to unify their economies?

Toward Western European Unification. Participation in the Marshall Plan
and NATO gave some Western European nations a taste of the benefits of
cooperation. Since then, the region has moved slowly but seemingly
inexorably toward political and economic unification symbolized by the
adoption of a common currency, the euro, in 2002. page 812

WHAT MAJOR trends have marked European society since World

War II?
European Society in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century and
Beyond. Since World War II, European society has been reshaped by
migration. Debates about the proper roles of the welfare state and of
religion in the secular state have recurred, while women have gained more
rights and opportunities. page 814

WHAT ARE the main themes that have characterized postwar

America?
American Domestic Scene since World War II. The major themes in
postwar American history were opposition to communism at home and
abroad, the expansion of civil rights to African Americans, and economic
prosperity. Politically, the relatively liberal years from the late 1950s
through the 1970s were succeeded by a growing conservatism, especially
under the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and George W.
Bush. Even the democratic President Bill Clinton was more centrist than
liberal. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States
embarked on a war on terrorism that led to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
page 818

HOW DID leaders after Stalin attempt to reform Soviet government?

The Soviet Union to 1989. Khrushchev loosened the grip of the Stalinist
state, but his foreign policy failures—notably the Cuban Missile Crisis—led
to his resignation in 1964. The Brezhnev era saw both increased repression
at home and attempts to reach accommodations with the West. Poland’s
Solidarity movement was temporarily suppressed. Gorbachev’s reformist
policies were built around the concepts of perestroika (restructuring) and
glasnost (openness). page 821
 WHY DID communist regimes collapse so easily in Eastern Europe in
1989?
1989: Year of Revolutions in Eastern Europe. Solidarity reemerged in
Poland, and in 1989 Gorbachev approved Poland’s first postwar
noncommunist prime minister. In Hungary in 1990, open elections
displaced communist rule. East Germany opened the Berlin Wall in late
1989, and soon Germany reunified. Vaclev Havel, a playwright, led the
“velvet revolution” in Czechoslovakia. In Romania, however, the overturn
of communist rule was violent, ending with the execution of dictatorial
president Ceausescu. page 823

WHO WERE the leaders in the period surrounding the collapse of the
Soviet Union?
The Collapse of the Soviet Union. The failure of the communist regimes
in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to produce economic prosperity or
political liberalization led to their growing unpopularity. Soviet economic
difficulties led Mikhail Gorbachev to institute liberal reforms that led to the
collapse of communist rule first in Eastern Europe, then in the Soviet Union
itself. The disappearance of the Soviet Union led to independence for much
of the former Soviet Empire. Russia experienced social, economic, and
political turmoil under Boris Yeltsin. Vladimir Putin has used a firm hand
and oil wealth to project Russian power. page 826

HOW DID the West respond to the collapse of Yugoslavia?

The Collapse of Yugoslavia and Civil War. In the former Yugoslavia, the
end of communist rule led to dismemberment and civil war. In the 1990s
the NATO powers, led by the United States, intervened to halt the fighting
and end a pattern of ethnic atrocities. page 830

IS NATO still a viable alliance in the post–Cold War era?

Challenges to the Atlantic Alliance. NATO has endured and grown, but its
mission is unclear. The Bush administration’s unilateralism alienated
traditional American allies. Environmental policy is another area of
disagreement between Europe and the United States. page 832

KEY TERMS

Cold War
euro
European Economic Community (EEC)
European Union (EU)
glasnost (GLAZ-nohst)
Marshall Plan
perestroika (PAYR-uhs-TROY-kuh)

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What were the causes of the Cold War? What was the effect of the
Cold War on Europe?
2. How did the outcome of World War II affect Europe’s position in the
world? What prompted European unification? How successful has it
been?
3. What were the chief characteristics of Western European society in
the decades after 1945? What was the experience of Eastern Europe
during the same period, and why was it different? Be sure to discuss
women’s roles.
4. How has immigration changed the face of Europe since 1945?
5. What were the most important developments in the domestic history
of the United States between 1945 and 1968? How did the Vietnam
War affect American society? When did the shift to political
conservatism occur in the United States? What did it mean for the
role of the federal government?
6. Describe the Soviet economy between 1945 and 1990. Did it meet
the needs of the Soviet people? What were the causes of the collapse
of the Soviet Union? What role did Gorbachev play in that process?
 7. Describe the collapse of communist rule in Eastern Europe. Why
was it a relatively bloodless revolution? What problems have
ensued?
8. Why did Yugoslavia break apart and slide into civil war? How did
the West respond to this crisis?
9. How did the American response to the attacks of September 11,
2001, cause significant rifts in the NATO alliance? Why do some
European nations dissent from U.S. policy?
10. What aspects of environmental policy have divided the United
States and Europe?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources
related to this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

Connections

Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many

documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

Study and Review Chapter 31

Read the Document Josef Stalin, excerpts from the “Soviet Victory”
Speech, p. 807

Iron Curtain Speech, Winston Churchill, p. 807

The Truman Doctrine (1947), Harry S. Truman, p. 808
George C. Marshall, The Marshall Plan, 1947, p. 808
Gamal Abdel Nasser, Speech on the Suez Canal (Egypt), 1956, p. 809
 The Kitchen Debate, 810
A Common Market and European Integration (1960), p. 813
Treaty on European Union, p. 813
Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham City Jail, 1963, p. 819
Republican Party Nomination Acceptance, p. 820
Addresses by George W. Bush. 2001, p. 821
Nikita Khrushchev, Speech to the Twenty-Second Congress of the
Communist Party, 1962, p. 822
Mikhail Gorbachev on the Need for Economic Reform (1987), p. 823
Zlata Filipovi, from Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo, p. 832
Statement from Chancellor Schröder on the Iraq Crisis (2003), p. 833
European Criticism of American Environmental Policies, 2007, p. 833
The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change, Article Two, p. 834

See the Map Cold War 1, p. 807

Contemporary Europe, p. 814

The Vietnam War, p. 819
Successor Republics of the Soviet Union, p. 830
The Former Yugoslavia after 1991, p. 832

View the Image European Union Flag, p. 813

Statue of Lenin Toppled during Soviet Collapse, p. 823

Hear the Audio Cold War 1, Slide 2, p. 809

Watch the Video Escaping the Berlin Wall, p. 809

Cold War Connections: Russia, America, Berlin, and Cuba, p. 811

The Role of the Environment in History, p. 833

Research and Explore

Watch the Video Is the USA an Imperial Power? Is this an Imperial

Age?
Watch the Video BP Environmental Disaster

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 31 at www.myhistorylab.com

32
East Asia: The Recent Decades

Hear the Audio for Chapter 32 at www.myhistorylab.com

The Price of Growth. A coal-powered plant in Hebei province,

northern China, February 2006. According to the Worldwatch Institute,
sixteen of the world’s twenty most polluted cities are in China. On
average, China builds one coal-fired plant a week.
 What are the costs of China’s economic expansion?

JAPAN

HOW DID the postwar occupation change Japan politically?

CHINA

WHY DID Mao launch the Cultural Revolution?

TAIWAN

HOW DO U.S. and Chinese policies toward Taiwan differ?

KOREA

HOW DID South Korean and North Korean postwar developments differ?

VIETNAM

HOW DOES the recent history of Vietnam illustrate the legacies of both
colonialism and the Cold War?

The history of East Asia since World War II may be divided into two phases.
In the first, from 1945 to 1980, Japan, and then South Korea and Taiwan
(along with Singapore and Hong Kong), demonstrated amazing economic
growth. The values of the East Asian heritage seemed, if given half a
chance, to lead to economic growth. In stark contrast, those East Asian
nations that became communist—China, Vietnam, and North Korea—did
poorly. Vietnam was wracked by wars. North Korea was impossibly
totalitarian. The government of China proved incapable of tapping the
talents and energies of its people, despite having gained undisputed
authority over a territory comparable to the Qing Empire.
After 1980, the situation changed (see Map 32–1 on page 842). Those
nations that had prospered during the first phase continued to do so. Japan
was free and democratic, and despite new problems, enjoyed a European
level of economic well-being, as well as social stability and a rich cultural
life. South Korea and Taiwan transformed themselves into democracies and
continued to prosper. But the most striking change was in China, which in
1978 launched a semi-capitalist market economy. Long suppressed
entrepreneurial abilities surfaced, production grew, and exports boomed.
Within a few decades, China became an important player in global markets.
Chinese society, too, was slowly transformed. Vietnam adopted a weaker
version of the Chinese policy, encouraging private enterprise and opening
its markets to foreign capital. Only North Korea resisted the changes
sweeping the rest of the communist world. The rigidities of its singular
brand of communism inflicted hunger and misery on its people and led its
government to pursue desperate policies.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

MODERN EAST ASIA

Before World War II, only Europe, the United States, and Japan had
successfully combined the ingredients needed for modern economic growth.
It was as though these countries had a magic potion that the rest of the
world lacked. Industrialization in East Asia during the second half of the
twentieth century made clear that there was no magic potion: The West and
Japan just got there first. The industrialization of East Asia raises issues that
powerfully affect relations among nations.

One question is whether high-wage nations will be able to compete with

those low-wage nations that have found the formula for growth. Until
recently, advanced nations were satisfied with their share of world trade.
They sold the products of their heavy industries and advanced technologies
and bought raw materials and labor-intensive products. They assumed that
their technological edge was permanent—that they would always be
sufficiently ahead of the less developed nations to maintain high wages for
their workers. This assumption is now challenged. Since the 1960s, Taiwan,
South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore have achieved modern growth in
high technological fields well before their wages reached Western levels.
This has made them formidable competitors in precisely those areas the
West saw as its own. Since the late 1980s, China has done the same. The
United States kept its market open and regained a measure of
competitiveness during the 1990s, but at the cost of holding down wages,
corporate restructuring, relocating jobs abroad, and huge trade deficits. Can
it continue to pay this price? Will the new competition, combined with
runaway immigration, create a permanent two-tier system of wages? China,
the most recent East Asian industrializer, will have fairly cheap labor for
decades. As it advances, the impact on high-wage nations will be massive.
A second issue is natural resources. An oil crisis occurred in the early
1970s when demand outran supply. There were shortages at the pumps, a
steep rise in the price of oil, and a transfer of wealth from industrial to oil-
rich nations. Market forces, however, uncovered new sources of supply and
the crisis faded. Yet oil reserves are still dwindling. At some point demand,
including new demand from China, India, and Brazil, will outstrip supply.
Will struggles over scarce resources shape future international relations?
A third issue is population. Japan’s population quadrupled in the course
of industrialization and then leveled off. Its pattern resembled that of
western Europe. China, in contrast, had a huge population when it began
industrialization. Since it could ill afford a further quadrupling, it adopted
tough policies to limit births. Its population may peak at 1.6 billion in 2030.
Whether other less developed nations in the world follow the Japanese or
Chinese pattern will depend on their particular circumstances, but for many,
the Chinese model may be unavoidable. More people are no blessing.
A fourth issue is politics. The recent history of Taiwan and South Korea
suggests that East Asian dictatorships may evolve toward democracy as
standards of living rise. Will this happen in China? China is prospering; its
people are caught up in consumerism; but the Chinese Communist Party
shows no signs of relaxing its monopoly on government. Also, postwar
Taiwan and South Korea were less thoroughly authoritarian to begin with
and were strongly influenced by the United States. It is too early to make
predictions.
A final issue is pollution, the dark companion of industrial and
demographic growth. When the world was underdeveloped, industrial
wastes seemed to vanish harmlessly into the vast reaches of surrounding
lands and seas. But as the world industrializes, pollution threatens. It is
particularly severe in China. And even apart from disasters such as
Minamata and Chernobyl, automobile fumes, industrial effluents, chimney
gases, pesticides, garbage, and sewage cause lakes to die, forests to wither,
and levels of toxins to rise.

Focus Questions
What is the impact of East Asian economic growth on the world’s
natural resources? On international relations?
Does recent history suggest that the Chinese government will
become more democratic as its citizens become more prosperous?

JAPAN

HOW DID the postwar occupation change Japan politically?

By early 1945, most Japanese were poor, hungry, and ill-clothed. Cities
were burnt out, factories scarred by bombings; ships had been sunk,
railways were dilapidated, and trucks and cars were scarce. On August 15,
1945, the emperor broadcast Japan’s surrender to the Japanese people. They
expected a harsh and vindictive occupation, but when they found it
constructive, their receptivity to new democratic ideas and their repudiation
of militarism led one Japanese writer to label the era “the second opening of
Japan.”

See the Map

Japan in 1945 at myhistorylab.com

THE OCCUPATION
General Douglas MacArthur was the supreme commander for the Allied
powers in Japan, and the occupation forces were mostly American. The
chief concern of the first phase of the occupation was demilitarization and
democratization. Civilians and soldiers abroad were returned to Japan, and
the military was demobilized. Wartime leaders were brought to trial for
“crimes against humanity.” Shinto was disestablished as the state religion,
labor unions were encouraged, and the holding companies of zaibatsu
combines were dissolved. Land reform expropriated landlord holdings and
sold them to landless tenants at a fractional cost.
The new constitution, written by MacArthur’s headquarters in 1947 and
passed into law by the Japanese Diet, fundamentally changed Japan’s polity
in five respects:

1. A British-style parliamentary state was established along with an

American-style independent judiciary and a federal system of
prefectures with elected governors.
2. Women were given the right to vote.
3. The rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, a free press, and
free assembly were guaranteed. These were joined by newer rights,
such as academic freedom, collective bargaining, sexual equality in
marriage, and minimal standards of wholesome and cultural living.
4. Article 9, the no-war clause, stipulated: “The Japanese people
forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation” and will
never maintain “land, sea, and air forces” or “other war potential.”
This article, though never strictly observed, made Japan into
something unique in the world: a major power without
commensurate military strength.

Article 9 of the No-War Constitution

Article 9 of the Japanese constitution forbids not only the use of force as a
means to settling international disputes but also the maintenance of an
army, navy, or air force.

5. The constitution defined the emperor as “the symbol of the state,

deriving his position from the will of the people with whom resides
sovereign power.”
The Japanese people accepted the new constitution and embraced
democracy with uncritical enthusiasm. (See Document, “Two Views of the
‘Symbol Emperor’” on page 843.)
 To create a climate in which the new democracy could flourish, the
occupation in its second phase turned to Japan’s economic recovery. It
dropped plans to deconcentrate big business further, encouraged the
Japanese government to curb inflation, and cracked down on communist
unions. The United States also gave Japan $2 billion in economic aid.
The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 marked the start of the third and
final phase of the occupation. The American military had little time for
Japan, and the Japanese cabinet and Diet began to assume more
responsibility for the country. When Japan regained its sovereignty in April
1952, the changeover was hardly noticeable in the daily life of the Japanese
people. On the same day as the peace treaty, Japan signed a security treaty
with the United States, which became the cornerstone of Japan’s minimalist
defense policy.

Emperor Hirohito and General MacArthur. The two men met at the
U.S. Embassy in Tokyo in 1945. MacArthur felt the emperor
contributed to the stability of Japan and made the work of the
 occupation easier. The emperor was glad to be of use and relieved that
he was not hanged as a war criminal.

What was the occupation?

MAP 32–1. Contemporary East Asia.

Which nations in East Asia are communist today?

PARLIAMENTARY POLITICS
In 1945, Japan had a parliamentary potential that harked back to the rise of
party power in the Diet between 1890 and 1932. It also had an authoritarian
potential compounded of those factors that had led to the rise of militarism.
Had the country been occupied by the Soviet Union, the efficiency of its
bureaucracy, its wartime economic planning organs, its educated and
disciplined work force, and its receptivity to change after defeat would
doubtless have made Japan a model communist state. Occupied by the
United States, the parliamentary potential emerged.
Japan’s postwar politics can be divided into three periods. In the first,
from 1945 to 1955, prewar politics continued, with modifications to fit the
new environment. Two conservative parties, the Liberals and the
Democrats, and the Japanese Socialist Party emerged. For most of this
decade, the Liberals held power.

Read the Document

The Constitution of Japan (1947) at myhistorylab.com

DOCUMENT

Two Views of the “Symbol Emperor”

The murkiest aspect of Japan’s prewar emperor-centered ideology was the

juxtaposition of the emperor as a modern monarch and the emperor as a
living deity, ultimately descended from the sun goddess. In the first
selection, former Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru, a product of Meiji Japan,
basically accepts the prewar ideology but argues that because in fact the
emperor exercised little power before World War II, nothing was changed
by the postwar constitution. In the second selection, Nobel Prize winner Ōe
Kenzaburō, a humanistic and slightly leftist novelist, recognizes that the
emperor has been stripped of his former authority but worries about a
revival of his Shinto identity.
• WHAT does Yoshida mean by “as naturally,” and why does Ōe call
the prewar emperor an “absolute ruler”?

1. In regard to the question of the Imperial structure of government, as

it existed in Japan, I pointed out that the Meiji Constitution had
originated in the promises made to the Japanese people by the
Emperor Meiji at the beginning of his reign, and there was little
need to dwell on the fact that democracy, if we were to use the word,
had always formed part of the traditions of our country, and was not
—as some mistakenly imagined—something that was about to be
introduced with the revision of the Constitution. As for the Imperial
House, the idea and reality of the Throne had come into being
among the Japanese people as naturally as the idea of the country
itself; no question of antagonism between Throne and people could
possibly arise; and nothing contained in the new Constitution could
change that fact. The word “symbol” had been employed in the
definition of the Emperor because we Japanese had always regarded
the Emperor as the symbol of the country itself—a statement which
any Japanese considering the issue dispassionately would be ready
to recognize as an irrefutable fact.
2. Japan’s emperor system, which had apparently lost its social and
political influence after the defeat in the Pacific War, is beginning to
flex its muscles again, and in some respects it has already recouped
much of its lost power—with two differences: first, the Japanese
today will not accept the prewar ideology-cum-theology that held
the emperor to be both absolute ruler and living deity. Nevertheless,
imperial rites performed quite recently were done in such a manner
as to impress upon us that the emperor’s lineage can be traced to a
deity; I am referring here to the rituals associated with the present
emperor’s enthronement and the so-called Great Thanksgiving
Service that followed it. These ceremonies provoked little objection
from either the government or the people, indeed most Japanese
seemed to take it all very much for granted.

1. Yoshida Shigeru, The Yoshida Memoirs. Copyright © 1961 Heine-

man Books, p. 139. 2. From “Speaking on Japanese Culture Before a
 Scandinavian Audience,” Japan, The Ambiguous and Myself: The
Nobel Prize Speech and Other Lectures by Kenzaburō Ōe. Published
by Kodansha International, Ltd., 1995. Copyright © 1992 by
Kenzaburō Ōe. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.

In the long second period from 1955 to 1993, the Liberal Democratic
Party (LDP), which was formed by a merger of the two conservative
parties, held power and the Japanese Socialist Party was the permanent
opposition. The LDP became identified as the party that was rebuilding
Japan and maintaining Japan’s security through close ties with the United
States. Despite the cozy relationships that developed between the LDP and
business, periodic scandals, and a widespread distrust of politicians, the
Japanese people voted to keep it in power. Rule by a single party for such a
long period provided an unusual continuity in government policies.

LDP
The Liberal Democratic Party. A conservative party that has dominated
postwar Japanese politics.

A third era of politics began with the 1993 election. The notable feature
of this era was the decline and fall of the left. The end of the Cold War and
the worldwide rejection of Marxism contributed to the demise of socialism
in Japan, and the Communist Party also slumped.

CHRONOLOGY
 The collapse of the left inaugurated an era of multiparty conservative
politics. The players were the LDP, still the largest party, a shifting number
of smaller conservative parties, and the Clean Government Party. Japanese
electoral politics during the 1990s was punctuated by scandals and factional
strife, but the overriding issue was the economy. In 1993 the LDP lost 52 of
its 275 seats, a punishment for failing to end the recession. In its place, a
non-LDP Conservative coalition held power between 1994 and 1996.
Political scientists hailed this development as the beginning of the two-
party conservative government. The possibility was not absent. But as the
economic crisis continued, voters again turned to the LDP in the hope that
its more seasoned politicians would be better able to cope with the lagging
economy. To some extent it did, and the LDP stayed in power until 2009.
Most LDP prime ministers were easily forgettable. The quirky but
charismatic Koizumi Junichirō held office from 2001 to 2006. But all LDP
prime ministers offered Japan more of the same: dependency on the
bureaucracy, pork barrel projects for LDP voters, and public works to keep
employment up.
 But the electorate had tired of programs that led Japan deeper into debt.
Also, the number of voters who saw themselves as “independents”
increased. In the election of 2009, the LDP dropped from 293 seats in the
Lower House to 119. The winner with 305 of the 480 Diet seats was the
Democratic Party of Japan, a new party cobbled together 11 years earlier
from a variety of small opposition parties. The new prime minister was
Hatoyama Ichirō, who was a grandson of a prime minister, a graduate of
Tokyo University, and a Ph.D recipient in engineering from Stanford. His
platform included stricter control of the bureaucracy, better relations with
China, and equality with the United States.

ECONOMIC GROWTH
The extraordinary story of the postwar East Asian economy started with
Japan. Japanese growth continued at a double-digit pace for almost two
decades. By the late 1970s, Sony, Toyota, Honda, Panasonic, Toshiba,
Seiko, and Canon were known throughout the world for the quality of their
products. Several factors explain this growth. An infrastructure of banking,
marketing, and manufacturing skills had carried over from prewar Japan.
The international situation was also favorable: Oil was cheap, access to raw
materials and export markets was easy, and American sponsorship gained
Japan early entry into international financing organizations. A tradition of
frugality created a rate of savings close to 20 percent, which helped
reinvestment.
A revolution in education contributed as well. By the early 1980s, almost
all middle school graduates went on to high school, and a rising percentage
went on to higher education. By the early 1980s, Japan was graduating
more engineers than the United States. (The annual output of law schools in
the United States equals the total number of lawyers in Japan.) This
upgrading of human capital and channeling of its best minds into productive
careers let Japan tap the huge backlog of technology that had developed in
the United States during and after the war years. After “improvement
engineering,” Japan sold its products to the world.
 Nissan Motors. An almost completely automated assembly line at the
company’s Zama factory. The high cost of labor in Japan makes such
robot-intensive production economical.

Why are labor costs high in Japan?

High-quality, cheap labor was abundant. The population in 1950 was 83

million; by 2010 it approached 128 million. It is expected to stabilize and
then decline in the twenty-first century. Workers quickly moved from
agriculture to industry, and labor organizations proved no bar to economic
growth. The government also aided manufacturers with tariff protection,
foreign exchange, and special depreciation allowances. Industries engaged
in advanced technologies benefited from cheap loans, subsidies, and
research products of government laboratories. Critics who spoke of “Japan
Inc.” as though Japan were a single gigantic corporation overstated the case,
but government was more supportive of business than it was regulative.
By 1973, the Japanese economy had become “mature.” Double-digit
growth gave way to 4 percent growth. Smokestack industries declined while
service industries, pharmaceuticals, specialty chemicals, scientific
equipment, computers, and robotics grew. Japan’s trade began to generate
huge surpluses. The surpluses were generated mainly by the appetite of
world markets for Japanese products, but they were also a result of
protectionist policies that the United States and Europe insisted be
abolished.

View the Image

Japanese Technician Testing Equipment at myhistorylab.com

Convinced that their boom would never end, Japanese bid up the price of
corporate shares and land to unrealistic levels—several times those of
Europe and America. In 1991 the “bubble” burst: The price of land and
stocks plummeted. Japanese who had bought shares of stock or real estate at
exaggerated prices were hard hit; banks that had made housing or margin
loans incurred huge losses. As banks and individuals retrenched, the
economy slowed. Incremental growth characterized the next two decades.
Thousands of small companies went bankrupt; large companies restructured
and cut research budgets; some workers were laid off or retired early; fewer
new graduates were hired and unemployment rose.

QUICK REVIEW
Factors in Japan’s Postwar Growth
Survival of prewar service and skills infrastructure
High savings rate facilitated reinvestment
Growing, well-educated labor force
Pro-business government policies

Mixed trends appeared during the first decade of the twenty-first century.
(1) As in the United States and Europe, some industrial production moved
abroad in search of cheap, skilled labor. Sony television sets were no longer
manufactured in Japan. (2) Chinese demand for Japanese high-tech
products rose, helping Japan to recover from the world recessions in 2000
and 2007; Japanese economists began to speak of the “complementarity” of
Japanese and Chinese markets. (3) The government had no program in
place to address its national debt—relative to GDP, it was the largest of all
industrial nations. Most working Japanese, still protected by the cocoon of
lifetime employment, were unwilling to accept higher taxes. (Large
personal savings and foreign currency reserves partially offset the national
debt.)
But Japanese strengths remained formidable: Industry was restructured
during the 1990s, with greater rewards for those who displayed talent.
Japanese automobiles were coveted throughout the world, and the Japanese
export surplus grew. Even Japan’s management skills seemed exportable:
Nissan’s Tennessee plant took 17.37 hours to assemble an automobile,
while at General Motors the average was 26.75. Equally notable was
Japan’s determination to maintain its lead in flat screens, fermentation
chemistry, robotics, and materials research and to become a world force in
biotechnology, medical instruments, and airplanes. Today, new science and
engineering buildings on the Tokyo University campus dwarf the dreary
prewar brick buildings of the faculties of law, letters, economics, and
education.
At the dawn of the third millennium Japan’s economy loomed large. It
was second only to that of the United States, and almost as large as the
economies of Germany and France combined. (See the comparative data in
Figure 32–1.) Japan had achieved affluence through the peaceful
development of human resources in a free society.

FIGURE 32–1. The above GDP figures represent purchasing power.

Japanese economy is almost the equal of the two leading European nations.

What is remarkable about Japan’s economic growth?

SOCIETY AND CULTURE
The triple engines of change—occupation reforms, economic growth, and
rapid expansion of higher education—transformed Japanese society. In
1945, almost half of the population lived in villages; sixty years later most
Japanese lived in cities, more than a quarter in the Tokyo–Osaka industrial
corridor. A tiny percentage of the population produced the food for the rest.
Families changed, too. In 1945 the three-generation extended family of
grandparents, parents, and children was held up as the ideal, and most
marriages were arranged. Fifty years later the nuclear family of parents and
children was the norm, and most marriages were “love matches.” In the
1950s and 1960s, companies and government offices built huge apartment
blocks for their employees on the edges of cities. In the 1960s and 1970s,
larger apartments, called “mansions” in Japanese, were built in cities and
purchased by middle- and higher-income families; only the rich could
afford city houses. As incomes rose, people bought rice cookers, washing
machines, dryers, televisions, computers, and other electronic equipment.
Consumerism was constrained only by the small size of living units.
 Middle School Students in a Japanese Literature Class. Girls and
boys wear school uniforms and study together. Desks are pushed
together to accommodate large classes. The teacher is dressed like a
businessman.

What role has education played in Japan’s development?

Reforms imposed during the American occupation gave women the right
to vote, legal equality, and equal inheritance rights. As women were
admitted to prestigious universities and embarked on careers, the average
age of marriage rose and more wives worked outside the home. A working
wife had a greater say in household matters. Greater economic leeway also
made divorce an option: The number tripled to European levels between
1970 and 2010.
Prospering in the new Japan depended on education, and a rigorous
system of examinations determined admission at every level. A few
students rebelled against the rigid system, but most realized that the
pressure to excel was for their own good and limited their rebellion to
reading violent and sadistic manga [stylized mature-content comic books].
The enormous prewar gap between a tiny educated elite and those with
only a middle school education disappeared. More than 90 percent of
Japanese saw themselves as middle class—though the percentage below the
poverty line was about the same as that of the United States. This
consciousness was the social base for the new democracy. More education
also explains Japan’s tremendous consumption of newspapers, magazines,
and books. Bookstores stock every variety of books imaginable: serious
fiction, mysteries, histories, poetry, science fiction, romances, cookbooks,
and translations, as well as books on investing, self-improvement, and home
repairs.
A new respect for personal autonomy helped diminish some traditional
ethnic prejudices toward the approximately 2 percent of the population that
are minorities.
As the new millennium began, a serious social problem facing Japan was
the aging of its population. In 1980, there were five workers for every
retired person; in 2010 there were fewer than two. A recurring question is
how the old will be supported and how they will vote. This problem, of
course, is not unique to Japan. All developed nations have experienced a
shift from high to lower fertility and mortality, but the imbalance was
exaggerated by wartime population losses and postwar baby booms in
Japan, Italy, and Germany. Urban Japan is crowded, and some see its
current low birthrate as an opportunity to reduce population. The problem
of too few workers, some argue, can be solved by raising the retirement age
and tapping the reservoir of nonworking, middle-aged women. Others
advocate incentives to encourage marriage and larger families. The average
Japanese family today has 1.23 children, one of the lowest figures in the
world. During the past two decades, people of Japanese descent from Brazil
and Peru and illegal immigrants from other parts of Asia have taken the
lowly jobs that Japanese shun. In the recession of 2008–2009, some illegal
immigrants were deported, and some Brazilian Japanese were given one-
way tickets home. The barriers to immigration are still high.

Comic Book. Raised from childhood in the arts of ninja, the young
heroine Azumi slays evil men. The popularity of this Bigu Komikku
(Big Comic) led to a movie (anime, or animated) version. Was this the
Japanese model for the American movie Kill Bill? Japan has
specialized comics for every demographic group—children, teenage
boys, teenage girls, and adults.
 Why might the escapism of comic books be particularly appealing
for the Japanese?

The cultural strains produced by Japan’s rapid transformation have

dislocated some people and created followings for new religions. One
aberrant apocalyptic cult released nerve gas in a Tokyo subway in 1995.
White-collar workers, or “salary men,” spent hours commuting to work in
crowded buses and trains. In Japan’s corporate world karōshi, or death from
overwork, became a recognized phenomenon.
Yet the ability of the society—family, school, office, and workshop—to
absorb strains and lend support to the individual was impressive. Lifetime
employment gave both workers and salaried employees a sense of security.
Even during the long recession of the 1990s, layoffs were exceptional.
Japanese wives, if public opinion polls are to be believed, felt better off
than their American counterparts. By most comparative measures Japanese
society was stable and orderly.
Japanese culture also remained vital. The traditional arts were
maintained. The awareness of nature, so evident in films like Kurosawa
Akira’s Rashomon or The Seven Samurai, carried over to television dramas.
Japanese films, music, literature, and even clothing design are admired
around the world. Postwar Japan amply supports an argument for
parallelism between economic and cultural dynamics.

JAPAN AND THE WORLD

At the start of the new millennium, Japan had three sets of critical
international relationships: with the world, East Asia, and the United States.
With the world, Japan was a trading partner and, as it described itself, a
“UN nation.” It gave generous foreign aid to developing countries and was
a member of major international economic organizations. A second set was
with its East Asian neighbors. For reasons of history and proximity, Japan
was extraordinarily alert to developments in Korea, Taiwan, China, and the
Russian Far East. China’s growing military strength was a concern. The
third critical relationship was with the United States. The two countries
were political allies, major trading partners, and linked by mutual security
concerns. The 1952 security treaty remained the cornerstone of Japanese
defense planning. In recent decades Japan has moved toward more positive
military cooperation—within the limits of its constantly reinterpreted and
elastic “peace constitution.” When terrorists struck at the United States in
September 2001, Prime Minister Koizumi spoke out in support of the
United States and against terrorism. The Diet passed legislation that
allowed Japanese Self-Defense Force to participate in non-combat roles in
international military actions, and in 2003 Japan sent troops to Iraq. In 2006
the Self-Defense Agency became a cabinet ministry. In an East Asia in
which China, Russia, and the United States have atomic arsenals, and even
North Korea has A-bombs, Japanese feel increasingly vulnerable. If its trust
in the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” should ever waver, Japan would become a
nuclear power overnight.

Body Language. Japanese businessmen exchange business cards in

Tokyo. A businesswoman stands to one side and observes. An almost
diplomatic formality governs such occasions.

What social changes have resulted from economic growth?

CHINA
 WHY DID Mao launch the Cultural Revolution?

The story of China after 1949 is rooted in theories about economics and
population. Marx rejected the Malthusian hypothesis that population growth
tends to outstrip food production as a myth of capitalist societies, and Mao
Zedong agreed. From 1949 until 1981, China’s population increased from
550 million to nearly 1 billion. Growth in the Chinese economy was eaten
up by all the new mouths, and in 1981 China adopted a policy of one child
per family. This policy runs contrary to the deep-rooted Chinese sense of
family, but the government argued that without it, China’s future would be
bleak. Thereafter population growth slowed dramatically, but the population
still crossed the 1.3 billion mark in 2005. Since the median age in China is
low, the birthrate is high—despite the one-child policy. Population will
peak, it is predicted, in 2030, and then very slowly decline.

Read the Document

China’s One-Child Family Policy (1970s) at myhistorylab.com

SOVIET PERIOD (1950–1960)

Civil war in China ended in 1949 as the last of Jiang Jieshi’s troops fled to
Taiwan. The People’s Republic of China was proclaimed in October. The
following year, China entered into an alliance with the Soviet Union. The
decade that followed is often called the Soviet period because the Soviet
model was adopted for the government, the army, the economy, and higher
education.
The first step taken by the communist government was military
consolidation. Areas inhabited by Tibetans, Uighur Turks, Mongols, and
other minorities were occupied by the Chinese army and settled by Chinese
immigrants.

A Closer Look
Trial of a Landlord

During the early 1950s, land redistribution followed the communist

victory in China. Former landlords were put on trial for their crimes
against the people.

Questions
1. How would you distinguish between a judicial procedure and
political theater?
2. Why are army representatives present at the trial?
 To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to
www.myhistorylab.com

Political consolidation followed. The Communist Party held the key

levers of power in the government, army, and security forces. Mao was
chairman of the party and head of state. He ruled through the Politboro and
a system of regional, provincial, and district committees with party cells in
every village, factory, school, and government office. Party members were
exhorted to enforce the local enactment of government policies. Economic
reconstruction was attempted on a massive scale, with the help of the Soviet
Union, which sent financial aid as well as engineers and planners.

Hear the Audio

Communist China 3 at myhistorylab.com

Rural society underwent two fundamental changes: land redistribution

and collectivization. In the early 1950s, party cadres visited villages and
held meetings at which landlords were denounced and forced to confess
their crimes. Some were rehabilitated, others were sent to labor camps, and
hundreds of thousands—perhaps several million—were killed. Their
holdings were redistributed to the landless, and local responsibilities
formerly borne by landlord gentry were shifted to associations dominated
by former tenant farmers. Then in 1955–1956, before the new landowners
had time to put down roots as private landowners, all lands were seized by
the state and collectivized. The timing was important: In the Soviet Union,
collectivization had come six years after redistribution; it was resisted by
the kulaks, who had had time to put down roots.

QUICK REVIEW
Sino-Soviet Relations
1958: Mao abandons Soviet economic model in favor of Great Leap
Forward
Disputes over borders and Chinese dissatisfaction with Soviet aid
leads to deteriorating relations
1960: Soviet Union halts economic aid and withdraws engineers
 During the early 1950s, intellectuals and universities also became a target
for thought reform; the Chinese slang term was brainwashing. This
involved study and indoctrination in Marxism, group pressures to produce
an atmosphere of insecurity and fear, followed by confession, repentance,
and reacceptance by society. The indoctrination was intended to strengthen
party control and mobilize human energies on behalf of the state. By the
late 1950s, Mao was disappointed with the results of collectivization, and in
1958, he resorted to mass mobilization to unleash the productive energies of
the people, a policy called the Great Leap Forward. Campaigns were
organized to accomplish vast projects, and village-based collective farms
gave way to communes of 30,000 persons or more. The results were
disastrous. Between 1958 and 1962, 20 to 30 million Chinese reportedly
starved to death. Policies were modified, but agricultural production
continued to fall through the 1970s, plagued by the ills of low incentives
and collective responsibility.

brainwashing
Attempting to “reeducate” or alter a person’s thoughts and beliefs to create
behavior desired by the state, regardless of the individual’s wishes.

Great Leap Forward

Mao’s disastrous attempt to modernize the Chinese economy in 1958.

Sino-Soviet relations also deteriorated. Disputes arose over borders.

China was dissatisfied with Soviet aid. The Soviet Union condemned the
Great Leap Forward as “leftist fanaticism” and resented Mao’s view of
himself, after Stalin’s death, as the foremost exponent of world
communism. In 1960, the Soviet Union halted economic aid and withdrew
its engineers from China. Each country deployed about a million troops
along their mutual border. The Sino-Soviet split was arguably the single
most important development in postwar international politics.
The years between 1960 and 1965 saw conflicting trends. The failure of
the Great Leap Forward led some Chinese leaders to turn away from Mao’s
reckless radicalism toward more moderate policies. Mao remained head of
the party but had to give up his post as head of state. Yet, even as the
government moved toward realistic goals and stable bureaucratic
management, ideological indoctrination was revived. A new mass
movement was also begun to transform education.

Performance during Cultural Revolution. Members of the

Xiangyang Commune in Jiangsu province take part in the campaign to
“Criticize Lin Biao and Confucius,” one of the last large “campaigns”
directed by members of the government in charge of the Cultural
Revolution. Here, the commune’s amateur troupe performs a ballad
criticizing Confucius. The campaign began after the death of Lin Biao,
who for a time was Mao Zedong’s chosen successor but later was
accused of attempting to seize power.

What was the Cultural Revolution?

THE GREAT PROLETARIAN CULTURAL REVOLUTION (1965–1976)

In 1965, Mao once again emerged to dominate Chinese politics. He feared
that the Chinese revolution—his revolution—would end up as a Soviet-
style bureaucratic communism run for the benefit of officials. So he called
for a new revolution to create a truly egalitarian culture.

Read the Document

Decision Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution at
myhistorylab.com

Obtaining army support, Mao urged students and teenagers to form bands
of Red Guards to carry out a new Cultural Revolution. Mao’s sayings, the
“Little Red Book,” assumed the status of scripture. Universities were shut
down as student factions fought. Teachers were beaten, imprisoned, and
humiliated. Books were burned and art was destroyed. Homes were
ransacked for foreign books, and Chinese who had studied abroad were
persecuted. Red Guards beat to death those viewed as reactionaries. High
officials were purged. Chinese today recall these events as a species of mass
hysteria that defies understanding.

Cultural Revolution
A movement launched by Mao between 1965 and 1976 against the Soviet-
style bureaucracy that had taken hold in China. It involved widespread
disorder and violence.

Eventually Mao tired of the violence and near anarchy. In 1968 and 1969
he called in the army to take over the revolutionary committees. In 1969, a
new Central Committee, composed largely of military men, was
established, and Lin Biao was named as Mao’s successor. As violence
ended, millions of students and intellectuals were sent to the countryside to
work on farms. In 1970 and 1971 revolutionary committees were
reconstituted as party committees. Worsening relations with the Soviet
Union also made China’s leaders desire greater stability at home. In 1969, a
pitched battle had broken out between Chinese and Russian troops over an
island in the Ussuri River. It was just at this time that President Nixon
began to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam. When he proposed a renewal
of ties, China quickly responded. Nixon visited Beijing in 1972, opening a
new era of diplomatic relations.
 See the Map
China in the Era of Revolution and Civil War at myhistorylab.com

The second phase of the Cultural Revolution between 1969 and 1976 was
moderate only in comparison with what had gone before. On farms and in
factories, ideology was still substituted for economic incentives.
Universities reopened, but students were admitted by class background, not
examination. In 1971, the so-called Gang of Four, which included Mao’s
wife and was abetted by the aging Mao, came to power. Class struggle was
revived, and an official campaign was launched attacking the rightist
“political swindlers” Lin Biao and Confucius.

Hear the Audio

Communist China 4 at myhistorylab.com

POLITICS AND SOCIETY AFTER MAO

Mao’s death in 1976 brought immediate changes. The Gang of Four and
their radical supporters were arrested. In their place, Deng Xiaoping (1904–
1997) emerged as the dominant figure in Chinese politics. Deng ousted his
enemies, rehabilitated those purged during the Cultural Revolution, and put
his supporters in power. After the lunacy of the Cultural Revolution, a
“normal” Communist Party dictatorship was a relief. The people could now
enjoy a measure of security and material improvement. There continued,
however, a tension between the determination of the ruling party to
maintain its grip on power and its desire to obtain the benefits of
liberalization.

CHRONOLOGY
 The tension was most visible in China’s intellectual life. The
government’s repudiation of the Cultural Revolution had led to an
outpouring of stories, plays, and reports. But criticism of Deng’s rule was
not allowed. In 1983, 1985, and 1987, the government organized campaigns
against “spiritual pollution,” “capitalist thinking,” and “bourgeois
democracy,” respectively.
Universities returned to normal in 1977. Entrance examinations were
reinstituted, purged teachers returned to their classrooms, and scholars were
sent to study in Japan and the West. Students began to demand still greater
freedoms and even political democracy. During the late 1980s, the ferment
that marked Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union under Gorbachev also
appeared in China: it was as if a new virus had entered the communist
world.
Student demands came to a head in April and May of 1989, when
hundreds of thousands of students, workers, and people from all walks of
life demonstrated for democracy in Tiananmen Square in Beijing and in
dozens of other cities. The government sent in tanks and troops. Hundreds
of students were killed, and leaders who did not escape abroad were jailed.
The event defined the political climate in China for the decades that
followed: Freedom was allowed in most areas of life, but no challenge to
Communist Party rule was tolerated.
Deng officially stepped down in 1992, though he continued to exert
strong “backroom power” until his death in 1997. Meanwhile Jiang Zemin,
a generation younger, served as a figurehead. He argued, among other
things, that the CCP must represent “the most advanced economic forces in
society.” One Chinese newspaper responded, not wholly inaccurately, with
the headline “China’s Communists Recruit Capitalist.” Jiang stepped down
in 2002 and Hu Jintao became president of China. His policies are not
unlike those of Deng and Jiang, but the China he governs has changed
immensely.
 Goddess of Democracy and Freedom. Student activists construct a
“Goddess of Democracy and Freedom,” taking the Statue of Liberty as
their model. The goddess was in place in Tiananmen Square shortly
before tanks drove students from the square in June 1989.

What happened in Tiananmen Square?

CHINA’S ECONOMY AFTER MAO

In the economic sphere, China’s leaders repudiated the policies of Mao.
Deng’s great achievement in the years after 1978 was to demonstrate in
China the superiority of market incentives to central planning. In China’s
villages, as the family farm once again became the basic unit of production,
grain production rose.

Read the Document

Deng Xiaoping, on Introducing Capitalist Principles to China at
myhistorylab.com

The state sector, the glory of the Maoist command economy, underwent
radical surgery. The role of the state continued to be larger than in Japan,
South Korea, and Taiwan—nations in which the state played a greater role
than in the West. But most Chinese government enterprises were sold to
private concerns. The new owners fired excess workers and turned to
production for national and international markets. During the 1990s, joint
ventures with foreign firms became increasingly prominent.
The surge in new enterprises began in “special economic zones” along
the border with Hong Kong and up the coast, but soon spread. Shanghai,
with a population of more than 20 million (in 2010), became a city of
skyscrapers and industrialists and the site of China’s first stock exchange.
Shandong and Manchuria, in the northeast, attracted huge foreign
investments and achieved stunning growth. Wuhan, a large city on the
Yangzi that manufactured automobiles, averaged growth of 17 percent
during the 1990s. In 2010 China became the largest automobile
manufacturer in the world.
In 2010, China passed Japan to become the second largest economy in
the world. Per capita income has risen to a level that is ahead of India,
Vietnam, and Indonesia, but still behind Thailand and Malaysia. In Japan,
South Korea and Taiwan, rapid growth ended when per capita incomes
reached the $14,000 level. If that figure applies to China, growth may
continue for several decades more.

Image

Cheap Labor. Wages at this Beijing shirt factory are low by Western
standards but high by Chinese standards. This is not a sweatshop but a
modern factory.

Should Western nations leave the production of textiles to low-

wage nations? What about steel or microelectronics?

FOREIGN RELATIONS AFTER MAO

The Cold War largely defined the first phase of China’s foreign relations.
The United States, Japan, South Korea, and U.S.-protected Taiwan were
enemies. Other communist nations—the Soviet Union, North Korea, and
North Vietnam—were allies. But then China broke with the Soviet Union in
1960 and remained hostile thereafter. Overall, China’s foreign relations
until after Mao’s death in 1976 reflected the revolutionary tumult within.
A second phase of international relations, China as an “emerging nation,”
began in 1980. Its new market capitalism was coupled with an emphasis on
export-led economic growth, which necessitated improved relations with
the world’s nations. The opening broadened as the Cold War drew to an end
after 1989. China reestablished relations with Russia and Vietnam, and
more importantly, improved relations with the United States, Japan, Korea,
Taiwan, and Europe.
 View the Image
Modern Hong Kong at myhistorylab.com

Ties to the United States were complicated, despite the U.S. recognition
of China in 1979. American military alliances with Japan and South Korea,
its support of Taiwan, and its ties to the noncommunist nations of Southeast
Asia continued to act as the main countervailing force to Chinese hegemony
in the region. China resented this U.S. support for the independence of other
East Asian nations within what it considered—in Middle Kingdom fashion
—its own proper sphere of influence. Americans appreciated Chinese goods
but criticized the extreme imbalance in trade: China’s exports to the United
States had increased from $5 billion to $296 billion between 1986 and
2009; but its imports from the United States measured only from $5 billion
to $69 billion. The United States also protested the continuing Chinese
piracy of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of U.S. movies, computer
software, and CDs each year, and was critical of Chinese human rights
abuses. Despite disagreements, Chinese and American presidents regularly
exchanged visits. In the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and
elsewhere, China slowly began to adapt to the standards of the larger
international community.

QUICK REVIEW
Sino-American Relations
1979: United States recognizes China
China resents U.S. military alliances in region
United States criticizes China’s human rights record, nuclear testing,
and arms sales
Immense imbalance in U.S.-China trade

The third phase of foreign relations was China’s emergence as a power to

be reckoned with in the world. This phase began soon after the beginning of
the twenty-first century, though it is difficult to give an exact date. Was it
when China’s per capita income doubled, or was it when its national
product became greater than that of leading European states? Was it in 2003
when China began to cooperate with South Korea, Japan, Russia, and the
United States to negotiate an end to North Korean nuclear endeavors? Was
it during the first decade of the new century when China began buying up
natural resource companies in Africa, Australia, and elsewhere? Or should
it be defined by China’s purchase of submarines from Russia and the
continued modernization of its military and nuclear weapons? Was it
inaugurated by the extravagent 2008 Beijing Olympics? Or was it in 2009
when China’s foreign currency reserves passed the $2 trillion mark and
reached 2.6 trillion and China produced more automobiles than any other
nation? Taken together, these developments mark China’s advance to a new
level.

Image

Olympics. Performers pass National Stadium, also known as the

“Bird’s Nest,” during rehearsals for the opening ceremonies for the
2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. China’s hosting of the Olympics was
yet another confirmation of its status as a major player on the world
stage.

Can China be described as a “superpower”?

See the Map

The Emergence of Modern China, 1919 to the Present at myhistorylab.com

TAIWAN

HOW DO U.S. and Chinese policies toward Taiwan differ?

Taiwan is a mountainous island less than 100 miles off the coast of central
China. A little larger than Massachusetts, it has a population of 22.9
million. It was part of the Qing Empire before becoming a Japanese colony
in 1895. The Japanese colonial government suppressed opium and bandits,
eradicated epidemic diseases, built roads and railroads, reformed the land
system, and improved agriculture. It also introduced mass education and
light industries.
Anticolonial feelings rose slowly, but the Taiwanese were happy to see
the Japanese leave in 1945. Kuomintang (Guomindang, or GMD) officials,
however, looted the economy and ruled harshly. By the time Jiang Jieshi
and 2 million other military and civilian mainlanders fled to the island in
1949, its economy and society were in disarray. Taiwanese hated their new
rulers and even compared them unfavorably to the Japanese.
From the 1950s onward three interdependent developments occurred: the
economy grew, politics became democratic, and the relation to the Chinese
mainland changed.
In managing the economy, the GMD, which had failed in China,
succeeded in Taiwan. Its control of the island was complete, and the times
were peaceful. By the mid-1950s it had restored order, and rapid growth
followed. Heavy industries were put under state control; other former
Japanese industries were sold to private parties. With the outbreak of the
Korean War in 1950, U.S. aid became substantial. Foreign investment was
welcomed. Light industries were followed by consumer electronics, steel,
and petrochemicals and then by computers and semiconductors. Private
industries led the way. By the late 1990s, Taiwan was the world’s largest
producer of monitors, keyboards, motherboards, and computer mice; it was
second in notebook PCs and fourth in integrated circuits. Many of these
goods were actually manufactured in Taiwanese-owned plants in mainland
China. By 2009, Taiwanese investments in China rose to $150 billion, and
Chinese investments in Taiwan were permitted for the first time. Estimated
Taiwanese GDP in 2009 was $360 billion (or as measured in purchasing
power, $700 billion and a per capita income of $30,000).
The transition to democratic government in Taiwan was not unlike that in
South Korea. For the first twenty years, the GMD government was a
dictatorship, ruling as it had on the mainland. It maintained that it was the
legitimate government of all of China. Social changes began during the
1960s. Education advanced, with rising numbers entering universities.
Taiwanese and mainlanders began to intermarry. As the economy advanced,
a new middle class emerged. Jiang Jieshi died in 1975. His son Jiang
Jingguo was president from 1978 to 1988; in 1987, he ended martial law
and permitted opposition parties to form.
After that, changes came quickly. In 1988 a native-born Taiwanese, who
had risen to the top of the GMD, became president. In 1996, he was
reelected in what he billed as “the first free election in 5,000 years of
Chinese history.” In 2000, another Taiwanese, the leader of an opposition
party, became president in an election hailed by one scholar as “the first
peaceful transition of power from one political party to another in
Taiwanese history, and probably in all of Chinese history.” He was reelected
in 2004. A GMD candidate, Ma Jing-jeou, won the 2008 election. Ma was
born in Hong Kong and educated at National Taiwan University, New York
University, and Harvard. He campaigned on a platform of economic
revitalization and better relations with China. Possibly his victory signaled
the beginning of a two-party system in Taiwan.

Image

The World’s Tallest Building. Evening traffic swirls around the

Taipei 101, a building with 101 floors. At 1,671 feet, it was the only
building in the world in 2004 to be over a half kilometer in height. The
design was inspired by traditional Chinese architecture.

What regions of China have benefited most from economic

growth?

Since 1949, Beijing has maintained that Taiwan is a province of China

and has spoken of reclaiming the island by force. It refused ties with any
nation maintaining diplomatic ties with Taiwan. From the outbreak of the
Korean War in 1950 until 1979, Taiwan was a protégé of the United States,
which provided for the island’s defense. But in 1979 the United States
formally broke off relations with Taipei and recognized Beijing as the
legitimate government of a China that included Taiwan. The United States
stressed, nevertheless, that any reunion of China and Taiwan should be
peaceful. It continued to trade with Taiwan and sell it arms. Curiously, it
was during the years of diplomatic limbo after the 1979 break that Taiwan’s
economy grew and its society became democratic.
At the onset of the twenty-first century, the status of Taiwan was still an
issue. China was concerned that a democratically elected government gave
Taiwan a claim to legitimacy and that Taiwan’s prosperity would make its
peoples less willing to rejoin the mainland. Occasionally it spoke of taking
the island by force. But China was keenly aware that doing so would
enormously disrupt China’s world trade. China also knew that economic
ties between Taiwan and China, and China’s rising prosperity, might
eventually make an invasion unnecessary. China is Taiwan’s number one
trading partner, and almost a million Taiwanese live in China. The United
States watched, with some unease, the steady rise of Chinese military
power. But as of 2010, all sides seemed content to leave the status of
Taiwan to an indefinite future.

KOREA

HOW DID South Korean and North Korean postwar developments

differ?

Korea and Vietnam both became colonies: Korea, annexed by Japan in

1910; Vietnam, a part of French Indochina in 1883. In both countries, the
imposition of colonialism on peoples with strong indigenous cultures and
national identities engendered powerful anticolonial nationalisms. After
World War II, both countries were divided into a communist north and a
noncommunist south, Korea immediately and Vietnam years later. Both
experienced civil war. In each case, the United States entered the conflicts
to stem the spread of communism. Never before had the United States
fought in countries about which it knew so little.

KOREA AS A JAPANESE COLONY

The political, economic, and social ills of Choson Korea increased during
the nineteenth century. As the century drew to a close, a three-cornered,
imperialist rivalry arose among China, Japan, and Russia, with Korea as the
prize. Japan won by defeating China in the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895)
and Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). Japan made Korea a
protectorate in 1905 and annexed it in 1910.
Japan strove to make Korea a model colony. A land survey and land tax
reform clarified land ownership. Public hygiene was enforced, infectious
diseases dropped sharply, and the population grew from 14 million in 1910
to 24 million in 1940. School attendance increased. Banks were established.
As in Taiwan, huge investments were made in transportation and
communications. The 1920s saw more diversified investments. Most large-
scale industries were Japanese-owned, but Korean entrepreneurs began
textile mills, shipping lines, and small industries.
The colonial transformation was not limited to economics. By the 1930s
a modern culture was forming in Korea’s cities. In sum, Korea became
vastly different from what it had been in 1910.
Being a Japanese colony was nonetheless a hard road to modernity. The
colonial government was authoritarian. Its goal was to make Korea into a
subordinate part of Imperial Japan, and benefits to Koreans were incidental.
The Japanese in Korea received better salaries, medical care, education, and
jobs than their Korean counterparts. After 1937, the Japanese policy of
“assimilation” grew even harsher: Koreans were pressured to adopt
Japanese names, drafted to fight in Japan’s wars, and sent to labor in
factories in Japan. “Comfort women” were recruited, occasionally by force,
to service Japanese troops. This bitter colonial legacy has only begun to
subside in recent decades.

Image

Comfort Women. South Korean women, who were forced by the

Japanese military to serve in brothels during World War II, protest near
the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, January 2003.

What is the relationship between Japan and South Korea today?

NORTH AND SOUTH

Read the Document

James F. Schnabel, from United States Army in the Korean War at
myhistorylab.com

On Japan’s defeat in 1945, Soviet troops entered the North; a month later
U.S. forces occupied Korea south of the thirty-eighth parallel. Despite a
promise of unification, two separate states developed. In the South, the
United States initially aimed at the formation of a democratic, self-
governing nation but settled for the anticommunist and authoritarian
government of Syngman Rhee (1875–1965), a longtime nationalist leader
whose party won the 1948 election. His government was strongly supported
by conservative Koreans and by the million or so Koreans who fled from
the North.
In the North, the Russians established a communist government under
Kim Il Sung (1912–1994). Kim had worked with the Chinese communists
during the 1930s and subsequently with the Soviet Union. When the South
held elections in 1948, the North hurriedly followed suit, and the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was established. At the end of 1948
the Soviet Union withdrew its troops from North Korea. During 1949 and
early 1950 the United States withdrew most of its troops from the South, as
part of a larger American disengagement from continental Asia after the
communist victory in China.

QUICK REVIEW
Two Koreas
After defeat of Japan in 1945, U.S. troops occupied the South and
Soviet troops occupied the North
United States supported government of Syngman Rhee in the South
Soviets supported government of Kim Il-Sung in the North
THE KOREAN WAR AND U.S. INVOLVEMENT
In June 1950, North Korea invaded the South in an attempt to reunify
Korea. Kim Il Sung, the North Korean leader, had received Stalin’s
permission for the invasion and a promise from Mao to send Chinese troops
if the United States entered the war. He planned for a quick victory before
the United States had time to react. But the Cold War had already begun in
Europe, and the invasion, coming four months after the signing of the Sino-
Soviet Alliance, was seen by the United States as an act of aggression by
world communism. The United States rushed troops from Japan to South
Korea and obtained United Nations backing. It also sent naval forces to
protect Taiwan, and over the next several years, entered into military
alliances with the noncommunist states of Southeast Asia. The Korean War
was the catalyst for a major turn in postwar American foreign policy.
During the first months of the war, the unprepared American and South
Korean forces were driven southward to Korea’s southeastern rim (see Map
32–2). But then, amphibious units led by the United Nations commander
General Douglas MacArthur landed at Inchon in the middle of Korea’s
western coast and drove back the North Korean armies beyond the thirty-
eighth parallel deep into North Korea. American policy shifted from the
containment of communism to a rollback.
The UN forces in Korea were half American and two-fifths Korean; the
rest were contingents from Britain, Australia, Turkey, and twelve other
nations. In the final phase of the war, China sent in “volunteers” to rescue
the beleaguered North Korean forces. Chinese troops pushed the
overextended UN forces back to a line close to the thirty-eighth parallel.
The war became stalemated in 1951 and ended with an armistice in July
1953. Thereafter the two Koreas maintained a hostile peace. The 142,000
American casualties made the war the fourth largest in U.S. history.

Image

MAP 32–2. The Korean War, 1950–1953.

 Why did the Korean War end in stalemate?

SOUTH KOREA: GROWTH AND DEMOCRACY

After the armistice, two intertwined stories unfolded in South Korea:
stunning economic growth and the rise of a democratic polity. Massive
student demonstrations forced Rhee to retire in 1960. There followed
twenty-seven years of rule by two generals. Park Chung-Hee seized power
in a military coup d’état in 1961, then won a rigged election and became a
civilian president. His rule was semiauthoritarian: Opposition parties were
legal and active, but their leaders were often jailed. In time, even Koreans
who approved of Park’s economic policies came to resent his police tactics.
But when Park was assassinated by his intelligence chief in 1979, another
general seized power, transformed himself into a civilian president, and
ruled until 1987 in the pattern established by his predecessor.

View the Image

South Korea Enters the U.S. Auto Market at myhistorylab.com

At the inception of Park’s rule, unemployment had been rife and poverty
widespread. Emphasizing science and technology, both Park and his
successor supported business and expanded higher education. Labor was
disciplined, hardworking, and cheap. The United States gave large amounts
of aid and provided an open market for Korean exports. The result was
several decades of double-digit growth. Especially notable was the growth
of chaebol such as Hyundai or Daewoo, which resembled the Mitsui or
Mitsubishi zaibatsu of prewar Japan. South Korea’s economic growth
policies were hugely successful. Korea’s gross national product rose
dramatically (see Figure 32–2). With an average income in 2009 of $16,500
(with a purchasing power of $28,000), South Korea became a prosperous
nation with one the world’s largest economies. Its voice in world affairs
grew accordingly.

chaebol
Large family-owned business conglomerates with strong ties to the South
Korean government.

The second development since 1987 was the rise of democracy.

Ironically, industrialization and urbanization had created an affluent and
educated middle class that was no longer willing to tolerate authoritarian
rule. The presidential elections held at five-year intervals between 1987 and
2007 reflect a new consciousness within Korea. In 1987, a third ex-general
was elected, but the election was free and fair. In 1992, a conservative
politician with no ties to the military became president. He purged the
generals who had supported the two previous presidents, replacing them
with officers willing to work with party governments. He also launched
investigations of his predecessors’ finances, uncovering hundreds of
millions of dollars in secret bank accounts.
In 1997 and 2002, a deeper break with the past occurred when liberal
leaders of opposition parties were elected as presidents. Both Kim Dae-Jung
and Roh Moo-Hyun continued to emphasize economic growth. Unlike their
predecessors, they also attempted a rapprochement with North Korea. This
was known as the “sunshine policy,” which for a time had popular support.
Koreans were patriotic and wanted to see their country reunited. The
sunshine policy ultimately failed, when South Korean initiatives were
spurned by the North. In 2007, in reaction to the failure, the conservative
Lee Myung-Bak was elected as president. Since then, tensions with the
North have increased. But the principle that conservatives and liberals—
both committed to the electoral process—may alternate in power appears to
have been established within the South Korean polity.

Image

FIGURE 32–2. Growth of South Korean Gross Domestic Product, as

Measured in Purchasing Power.

What enabled South Korea’s economy to grow so dramatically?

NORTH KOREA
Japanese industries in colonial Korea were mainly in the North, which gave
its postwar industrialization an early edge. North Korea’s planned economy,
however, was enclosed within a tightly sealed, authoritarian state, which
stressed heavy industry, collectivized farms, and totally controlled
education and the media. By the 1970s, its economy stagnated, and
shortages of food, clothing, and necessities were chronic. During the 1990s
and after the turn of the century, periods of famine were not uncommon.
The misery of the North Korean people was highlighted by the lavish
lifestyle of its leaders. The cult of personality surrounding “the great
leader” Kim Il Sung went beyond that of even Stalin or Mao. The Korean
Communist Party was Marxist-Leninist, but the kinship terminology used to
describe the fatherly leader, the mother party, and the familial North Korean
state gave the official state philosophy a Confucian tinge. Kim designated
his son, “the beloved leader” Kim Jong-Il (b. 1942), as his successor, and
when the father died in 1994, the son became the leader of North Korea—
the only instance of hereditary succession in a communist state.
The North Korean record was poor in every respect: It ran prison camps,
threatened Japan, and engaged in counterfeiting and drug smuggling to
obtain hard currency. With a garrison state mentality, it used a Pakistani
connection to import nuclear technology and develop its own atomic
weapons. When charged with this in 2003, it first denied and then boasted
of the development.

Image

The Two Kims. South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung traveled to

Pyongyang in June 2000 to promote his “sunshine policy.” As he
departed he gave Kim Jong-Il, the North Korean leader, a hug. When
the North Korean leader failed to return his visit or to ease tensions,
sunshine turned to rain and Kim Dae-jung’s popularity sagged.

Why is North Korea such a closed society?

 Early on, North Korea was backed by the Soviet Union and China. After
the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, Russia had little interest in its
former ally. China continued to offer aid and trade, but it was put off by the
North’s poverty and radical eccentricity. China was more attracted by the
economically vibrant South Korea, with which it established diplomatic
relations in 1992. Since then, South Koreans have invested billions in China
and trade between the two nations has flourished—in 2010 South Korea
was China’s third most important export market.
Since 2003, the United States, China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan
have tried to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons. Even
China did not want a nuclear North Korea on its doorstep. But both China
and South Korea were reluctant to apply pressure, fearing a North Korean
collapse and a flood of refugees. In October 2006 North Korea detonated its
first atomic bomb. This led China to toughen its stance. The failure of the
“sunshine policy” and the election of a conservative president made South
Korea more willing to apply sanctions. As of early 2010, the future was
unclear. All that can be said with certainty is that a small, isolated, bankrupt
dictatorship has kept the attention of its larger neighbors for more than a
decade.

Read the Document

Famine in North Korea, 2002 at myhistorylab.com

VIETNAM

HOW DOES the recent history of Vietnam illustrate the legacies of

both colonialism and the Cold War?

THE COLONIAL BACKDROP

The Nguyen Dynasty that reunited Vietnam in 1802 was still vigorous in
1858, but was no match for France. France completed its conquest of
Vietnam and Cambodia in 1883, formed the Indochinese Union in 1887,
and added Laos to the Union in 1893.
Indochina was a classic example of colonial rule: a people of one race
and culture, for the sake of economic benefits and national glory,
controlling and exploiting a people of another race and culture in a far-off
land. To obtain access to the country’s natural resources, the French built
harbors, roads, and a railway linking Saigon, Hanoi, and southern China.
They established rubber and tea plantations, introduced modern mining
technology, and built factories. Large industries were dominated by the
French, smaller enterprises by Vietnamese-Chinese. Workers were paid
poorly. Vietnamese were mainly laborers, except for the few who became
landlords. Although new irrigation works in the Mekong Delta quadrupled
the area of rice fields, peasant consumption of rice declined. The skewed
distribution of wealth meant that no indigenous middle class developed,
apart from landlords. The French did little to educate the Vietnamese: in
1939, over 80 percent of the population was illiterate.

QUICK REVIEW
French Indochina
Transportation infrastructure and extractive industries developed by
the French
Most Vietnamese were poorly paid laborers
No indigenous middle class developed
Poor education left majority illiterate

In the early twentieth century, Vietnamese nationalists in exile in China,

Japan, and France formed political parties. Within Vietnam, only
clandestine parties survived. The most skilled party organizer was Ho Chi
Minh (1892–1969), who had participated in the founding of the French
Communist Party in 1920, studied in Moscow in 1923, and worked under
the Comintern agent Mikhail Borodin in Canton in 1925. Ho founded the
Revolutionary Youth League of Vietnam in 1925 and sent its cadres to
China and the Soviet Union for training. He then founded the Indochinese
Communist Party in 1930. When the Popular Front gained power in France
(1936–1938), opposition parties were briefly tolerated in Vietnam and Ho’s
party was the strongest. After 1938 the French again suppressed all
opposition groups. Shortly before the outbreak of the Pacific War, the
Japanese occupied Vietnam. For their own convenience, until March 1945,
they ruled through Vichy French puppets. Ho, who in 1941 had formed the
Viet Minh (League for the Independence of Vietnam) as a popular front
organization to resist the Japanese, proclaimed the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam after Japan’s defeat in 1945 and became the preeminent nationalist
leader in his country. There followed three cycles of war and three decades
of peace.

Read the Document

Ho Chi Minh, “Equality!” at myhistorylab.com

Read the Document

Resolution Establishing the Viet Minh, 1941 at myhistorylab.com

Viet Minh
The communist-dominated popular front organization formed by Ho Chi
Minh to establish an independent Vietnamese republic.

ImageStudy and Review

Frantz Fanon and Ho Chi Minh Speak Out against Imperialism at
myhistorylab.com

THE ANTICOLONIAL WAR

The first war lasted from 1946 to 1954. On one side was the Viet Minh, led
by Ho. It was controlled by communists but included representatives of
nationalist parties. On the other side were the French, who had reoccupied
Vietnam immediately after the war, and their conservative Vietnamese
allies. Starting in 1950, the French received American aid. But the French
lost a major battle at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and departed in defeat.
 Read the Document
Ho Chi Minh on Self-Determination (1954) at myhistorylab.com

The country was divided into a communist North and a noncommunist

South. In the South, Ngo Dinh Diem, a nationalist leader who had not
collaborated with the French, came to power and established the Republic
of Vietnam. Much of his political support came from the 900,000
Vietnamese who fled from the North.

THE VIETNAM WAR

The second cycle of war, from 1959 to 1975, began with guerrilla attacks
against Southern troops in the late 1950s. Local incidents eventually turned
into a full-scale war between the North and the South (see Map 32–3). The
North received material aid but no “volunteers” from the Soviet Union and
China. The United States sent troops to aid the South: 600 military advisers
in 1961, 16,000 troops in 1963, 70,000 in 1965, and over half a million in
1969. Despite this massive support, South Vietnam—and the United States
—lost the war. The reasons were several.
1. The South was difficult to govern. In comparison to the North, the
region had been less deeply influenced by Chinese culture. It was
ethnically diverse and religiously divided. The inability of
successive Southern governments to unify their fragmented society
was a basic weakness in their struggles with the communist North.

Image

Ho Chi Minh (1892–1969). Ho became a communist in France in

1920, studied in Moscow, and founded the Indochinese Communist
Party in 1930. He fought, in succession, against the Japanese, French,
Americans, and South Vietnamese. He did not live to see the
communist victory in 1975.
 How did Ho Chi Minh use Western ideas in his fight against
Western imperialism?

2. All too often corrupt, the South Vietnamese government inspired

little loyalty in its citizens.
3. Ho Chi Minh was a national hero to many South Vietnamese as well
as to Northerners. Even noncommunists sometimes viewed the
United States as the successor to the French and the communist
guerrillas as fighting an anticolonial war.
4. Both communist guerrillas in the South and North Vietnamese
troops fought better than the soldiers of the South Vietnamese
government.
5. In the jungle terrain of Vietnam, the technological edge of the
United States was blunted. A greater tonnage of bombs was dropped
on supply trails in Cambodia than on Japan in World War II, yet
supplies continued to flow south.

At the beginning, the U.S. government saw the war as part of its struggle
against world communism. After the Sino-Soviet split, they saw it as a war
to halt the spread of Chinese communism. Few in the United States
understood the depth of Vietnamese ambivalence toward China. As the war
dragged on and casualties mounted, Americans turned against the war.
When Richard Nixon became president, he called for the “Vietnamization”
of the war and began to withdraw American troops. In January 1973, a
ceasefire was arranged in Paris, and two months later the last U.S. troops
left. Fighting broke out anew between North and South; South Vietnamese
forces collapsed in 1975; the country was reunited under the Hanoi
government in the North; Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
After the war, few areas of the world were as devastated as Vietnam and
its neighbors. After unifying the country, Hanoi sent thousands of those
associated with the former South Vietnamese government to labor camps,
collectivized agricultural lands, and in 1976 began a five-year plan for the
economy. Several hundred thousand Vietnamese and ethnic Chinese fled by
boat or across the Chinese border.

MAP EXPLORATION
To explore this map further, go to www.myhistorylab.com

Image

MAP 32–3. Vietnam and Its Southeast Asian Neighbors.

The map identifies important places during the war in Vietnam.

Which neighboring countries were most affected by the Vietnam

War?

WAR WITH CAMBODIA

Pol Pot (1926–1998) and his radical Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodia) came
to power in Cambodia in 1975. During the next three years, he evacuated
cities and towns, abolished money and trade, banned Buddhism, and
executed or caused to die of starvation an estimated 1 million persons,
roughly 15 percent of the Cambodian population. Schoolteachers and the
educated were singled out as special targets. Vietnam was Cambodia’s
historical enemy, as China was Vietnam’s. When Pol Pot purged the Khmer
Rouge of pro-Vietnamese elements in 1978, Vietnam invaded and occupied
most of Cambodia, setting up a puppet government. Cambodians accepted
the government because they feared Pol Pot more than they hated Vietnam.
But Vietnamese troops were unable to suppress Pol Pot’s guerrilla forces
completely.
The unified Vietnam of 1975 became an ally of the Soviet Union and
gave the Soviets a naval base in return for economic, military, and
diplomatic support. But relations with China soured. Vietnam feared
Chinese domination and resented Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, when
American troops were still fighting on its soil. China, for its part, felt
Vietnam had not duly appreciated its wartime aid, resented Vietnam’s
treatment of its ethnic Chinese, and feared Vietnam’s close ties to the Soviet
Union. In 1979, China decided to “teach Vietnam a lesson” and invaded
four northern provinces. Seasoned Vietnamese troops repelled the invaders,
but losses were heavy on both sides. For years thereafter China supported
Pol Pot’s guerrillas and occasionally shelled Vietnam’s northern border.

Khmer Rouge
Meaning “Red Cambodia.” The radical communist movement that ruled
Cambodia from 1975 to 1978.

See the Map

The Vietnam War at myhistorylab.com

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
The situation changed abruptly in the late 1980s. The collapse of the Soviet
Union ended Vietnam’s primary foreign relation. In 1989 Vietnam
withdrew from its costly occupation of Cambodia in favor of a UN-
sponsored government. Eight years later one faction, led by a pro-
Vietnamese leader, took over the Cambodian government in a coup. His
role was strengthened in 1998 when Pol Pot died and the Khmer Rouge
collapsed. Vietnam-Chinese relations improved, and China’s landlocked
province of Yunnan began using the Vietnamese port of Haiphong as an
outlet for its products. In 1995, Vietnam joined the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN), and also reestablished diplomatic relations with
the United States. As it moved toward “normal” relations with the rest of
the world, Europeans and Americans began to take package tours to
Vietnam, visiting scenic locales that only two decades earlier had been
battle zones.
By the late 1990s, a “Chinese pattern” emerged in Vietnam. On the one
hand, the communist government in Hanoi monopolized political power
and controlled the army, police, and media. On the other, the leaders, aware
that victories in wars were hollow as long as their people remained
destitute, embraced capitalism as the road to growth. In place of collective
agriculture, farmers were allowed to keep the rice they grew: Vietnam went
from near starvation to become the world’s second largest exporter of rice.
Stock markets were established in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Taxes were
kept low and a premium was put on education. Garment manufacturing,
food processing, and the production of other consumer goods grew apace.
Between 1991 and 2007, the economy averaged over 8 percent growth and
received more offers of foreign investment than it could absorb. Taiwan and
Singapore were the largest investors, but Intel, Nike, and other American
companies were not far behind. Vietnam’s exports to the United States in
2006 were nine times greater than its imports, a pattern not unlike that of
China and the United States. By the turn of the millennium, shops in
Vietnam were full of food and goods, when only a decade or so earlier there
had been regional famines. During the first decade of the millennium,
Vietnam experienced the second fastest economic growth in the world.
South Vietnam was the engine of this economy. Even northern Vietnamese
saw its openness, pluralism, and cosmopolitanism as attractive.

Image

Skulls. A worker cleans a skull excavated from a mass grave in

Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot, murdered about one-
sixth of the Cambodian population. Doctors, teachers, and other
educated people were targeted.

Who were the Khmer Rouge?

With a population of 87 million, Vietnam is one of the world’s most

densely populated nations. The government limits families to two children.
Hanoi had a population of 130,000 in the 1930s and has 7 million today; Ho
Chi Minh City (Saigon) rose from less than a million at the war’s end in
1975 to 8 million today. As the economy grew, the gap between rural and
urban widened. More than half of the population was born after 1975, and
labor is still cheap. But conditions have improved immensely: in 1990, the
national product was less than $10 billion; in 2010 it will reach $92 billion
(or $258 billion in purchasing power), and per capita income has risen to
$1057, with a purchasing power of about $3,000. In short, Vietnam
illustrates the trajectory common to all East Asian nations, except North
Korea.

SUMMARY

HOW DID the postwar occupation change Japan politically?

Japan. The U.S.-led occupation after World War II established a
democratic government and set Japan on the way to its remarkable postwar
prosperity. By the twenty-first century, Japan had the second largest
economy in the world. Politically, the conservative Liberal Democratic
Party has remained dominant, despite occasional electoral losses. Socially,
Japan has remained stable with the world’s highest longevity rate. page 840

WHY DID Mao launch the Cultural Revolution?

China. Communist rule was established in 1949. Until his death in 1976,
Mao Zedong controlled China. Mao broke with the Soviet Union in the
1960s and launched the disastrous Cultural Revolution in 1965 in an ill-
conceived effort to avoid Soviet-style bureaucratization. After Mao’s death,
China opened its economy to free-market reforms. The result has been
surging economic growth and rising prosperity. Politically, the Communist
Party has blocked democratic reform, even using force in 1989 to crush a
pro-democracy movement. page 848

HOW DO U.S. and Chinese policies toward Taiwan differ?

Taiwan. The Nationalist Party set up a separate state in Taiwan under U.S.
protection after its defeat in the Chinese civil war in 1949. Since then
Taiwan has moved from poverty to prosperity, from dictatorship to
democracy. The Chinese government insists that Taiwan is a province of
China. The status of Taiwan is an outstanding issue between the United
States and China. page 854
 HOW DID South Korean and North Korean postwar developments
differ?
Korea. The postwar occupation of Korea by the Soviet Union and the
United States led to its division into the communist state of North Korea
and pro-Western South Korea. This division survived the Korean War of
1950 to 1953. The prosperity of democratic South Korea contrasts with the
poverty and hunger of North Korea. North Korea remains a closed society
and now has nuclear capabilities. page 856

HOW DOES the recent history of Vietnam illustrate the legacies of

both colonialism and the Cold War?
Vietnam. From the end of World War II until the 1970s, Vietnam was
almost continuously involved in war, first against the reimposition of
French colonial rule, then against the United States and its South
Vietnamese allies. North Vietnam’s victory over South Vietnam in 1975
reunified the country. Vietnam has recently embraced free-market
principles. page 859

KEY TERMS

Article 9 of the No-War Constitution

brainwashing
chaebol (JHE-buhl)
Cultural Revolution
Great Leap Forward
Khmer Rouge
LDP
Viet Minh

REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Is postwar Japan better understood as a return to the relative
liberalism of the 1920s or as a fresh start based on occupation
reforms? Why did the occupation of Japan go so smoothly, in
contrast to the American occupation of Iraq?
2. How has Japanese society changed since 1945? In what ways does it
seem to be a more fair and open society? Is there a downside to the
changes?
3. Compare present-day Chinese and Japanese income levels and
standards of living. In Japan, what factors led double-digit growth to
turn into single-digit growth? Will the same factors come into play
in China?
4. Is China from 1949 until the death of Mao better understood as an
outgrowth of its earlier history or as a communist state comparable
to the old Soviet Union? And to what country would you compare
post–Deng China?
5. Does recent history suggest that the Chinese government will
become more democratic as its citizens become more prosperous?
6. How did the precolonial and colonial eras of Korea and Vietnam
shape their history after World War II? How did the Cold War shape
their history?
7. What factor or factors were most important in the defeat of South
Vietnam (and the United States) in the Vietnam War?
8. Given the failure of South Korea’s “sunshine policy” toward North
Korea, can you see any way to improve relations between the two
Koreas or to improve relations between other countries and North
Korea?
9. If you were the U.S. secretary of state, what long-term China policy
would you propose to the president? Where would Japan fit into
your policy?
10. What has been the impact of East Asian economic growth on
international relations?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources
related to this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com
 Image Connections

Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many

documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

ImageStudy and Review Chapter 32

Read the Document The Constitution of Japan (1947), p. 842

China’s One-Child Family Policy (1970s), p. 848
Decision Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, p.
851
Deng Xiaoping, on Introducing Capitalist Principles to China, p. 852
James F. Schnabel, from United States Army in the Korean War, p. 857
Famine in North Korea, 2002, p. 859
Ho Chi Minh, “Equality!”, p. 860
Resolution Establishing the Viet Minh, 1941, p. 860
Ho Chi Minh on Self-Determination (1954), p. 860

See the Map Japan in 1945, p. 840

The Emergence of Modern China, 1919 to the Present, p. 854

View the Image Japanese Technician Testing Equipment, p. 845

Modern Hong Kong, p. 853
South Korea Enters the U.S. Auto Market, p. 858

Hear the Audio Communist China 3, p. 850

Communist China 4, p. 851
 ImageStudy and Review Frantz Fanon and Ho Chi Minh Speak Out
against Imperialism, p. 860

Research and Explore

See the Map China in the Era of Revolution and Civil War, p. 851

See the Map The Vietnam War, p. 862

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 32 at www.myhistorylab.com
33
Postcolonialism and Beyond: Latin
America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle
East

Hear the Audio for Chapter 33 at www.myhistorylab.com

Darfur, Western Sudan. Distraught Sudanese refugees wait at a food

and clothing aid distribution point. The conflict, which began in
February 2003, has killed as many as 400,000 people through violence,
 hunger, and disease. Some 2.5 million people have been displaced by
the fighting.

Why do you think this photograph shows mostly women and

children?

BEYOND THE POSTCOLONIAL ERA

WHAT ARE the two main developments that have occurred in the
postcolonial world?

LATIN AMERICA SINCE 1945

WHERE IN Latin America did the major attempts to establish

revolutionary governments occur?

POSTCOLONIAL AFRICA

WHAT ARE the most significant issues that Africa faces in the twenty-first
century?

THE ISLAMIC HEARTLANDS FROM NORTH AFRICA TO

INDONESIA

HOW HAS Islam affected politics in the developing world?

THE POSTCOLONIAL MIDDLE EAST

HOW DID the creation of the state of Israel affect the history of the
modern Middle East?

The decades after World War II saw Europe eclipsed by the rise of two
superpowers—the United States and the Soviet Union—and then the
collapse of the Soviet Union. Elsewhere in the world, the postwar decades
witnessed the end of Western colonialism and challenges to imperialism.
New nations emerged in Africa and Asia.
Two developments in non-Western regions have major implications for
the future. First, as explored in the previous chapter, Japan, and more
recently China, have emerged as major political and economic powers.
Second, the rise of militant, politicized Islam as a result of developments in
the postcolonial Middle East now presents a challenge to the global status
quo. The waning of imperial and colonial dominance of the many by the few
and the emergence of powerful new forces from the formerly colonized
world must, however, be set within a larger historical perspective. Since the
1500s, many regions of the globe had been drawn into the European sphere
of economic and political influence. Those areas to be treated here—Latin
America, Africa, Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia, and the Middle
East—were often conquered, exploited, and colonized by European powers.
The period of colonialism that began in earnest in the seventeenth century
was a fateful, but relatively brief, episode in world history. The last
significant colonial territories gained their independence in the 1970s.

BEYOND THE POSTCOLONIAL ERA

WHAT ARE the two main developments that have occurred in the
postcolonial world?

With the collapse of apartheid in South Africa, the fall of the Berlin Wall,
and economic growth in India and China, it may be argued that the
postcolonial era has ended. Remnants of pre-1950s colonialism persist in
many global regions today, however. Even with the global recession of
2009–2010, industrial nations have in the past decade experienced strong
economic growth, much as in the early 1990s in East Asia. We have also
seen new regional and transregional political alignments emerge; internal
struggles to build political systems that encourage civil society and limit
oligarchic or dictatorial power; and, most dramatically, the determination of
radical Islamists to contest European and American political and economic
global power.
 GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

DEMOCRATIZATION, GLOBALIZATION, AND TERRORISM

Two remarkable political and economic developments have shaped our era:
democratization and globalization.

Since 1970, on one continent or another, democratic political rights have

expanded. Authoritarian regimes of both the right and the left have been
reformed or collapsed. Dictatorships, military juntas, or one-party
autocracies have begun to yield to more representative governments.
Progress has not been uniform, but more and more people everywhere
aspire to have a voice in how they are governed. This process of political
change, usually termed democratization, involves expanding participation
in political processes, as well as both orderly selection and succession of
executive and legislative leaders through elections and establishment of
viable civil societies. Many autocracies and authoritarian states still
flourish, but more nations than ever before have seen democratic or
semidemocratic forms of government instituted.
An unprecedented series of economic linkages, generally termed
globalization, has paralleled the spread of more democratic institutions.
This process has included the forging of new trade and manufacturing
agreements, such as NAFTA, among leading industrial nations.
Globalization has reduced trade barriers, including tariffs and other
regulations hindering circulation of goods, services, and labor among
nations. The emergence of worldwide trading and investment networks has
led to consolidation of economic enterprises as owners of capital seek to
locate their centers of production in the most advantageous labor and
resource markets. The giant corporations of the United States, Europe, and
Asia now operate in a multinational setting.
Globalization’s supporters contend that it will produce more goods and
services at lower consumer cost than a highly regulated economy. Critics
argue that globalization concentrates power in the hands of unregulated
corporations and that governments have surrendered too much of their
authority to regulate the economy, preserve the environment, and protect
workers. Critics also believe that the new economic structures mean that
poor nations, many of them the emerging nations discussed in this chapter,
become poorer as rich nations become richer. Globalization rode the wave
of prosperity that seems to have crested in the late 1990s. It remains to be
seen what will occur in today’s more difficult times.
The debate over globalization has made its admirers and detractors more
aware of the vast, persistent areas of deep poverty around the world,
especially in South and Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, and much
of Asia—regions still struggling with the legacy of European colonialism.
Most of these regions were impoverished even in the late nineteenth century
by globalization when it was just beginning, but today’s enormous
prosperity in much of the Northern Hemisphere has made poorer regions
more conscious of their poverty and, especially in Africa and the Middle
East, ripe for political extremism. Among Muslims, such extremism has
often been associated with political Islamism. The United States and Europe
have become particular targets of those suffering from and opposed to
globalization.
The economic, military, and diplomatic involvement of the United States
and its European allies in other regions has led some to view them as
imperial powers and even to use terrorist tactics against them. The
overwhelming American support for the state of Israel, the festering Israeli-
Palestinian conflict, and, most recently, the U.S. invasion of Iraq have also
convinced many peoples, especially those in the Muslim world, that the
United States especially is inimical to Islam. Within the United States and
also around the world, debate continues over the future role of the United
States and whether it can best protect its citizens’ interests and world peace
and prosperity through unilateral, preemptive invasions such as that of Iraq
or through greater cooperation with international bodies such as the United
Nations.

Focus Questions
What are the arguments of the proponents and opponents of
globalization?
How has the legacy of European colonialism affected the Middle
East, Asia, and Africa?
 Why has the United States become a prime target for terrorists?

Hear the Audio

Decolonization 1 at myhistorylab.com

After 1945 two distinct developments occurred in the world. The first—
in a process generally termed decolonization—was the emergence of the
various parts of Africa and Asia from the direct administration of foreign
powers (see Map 33–1 on page 870). The second was the organization of
those previous colonial dependencies into independent states with greater or
lesser degrees of stability.

decolonization
The achievement of political self-determination for former colonies, usually
through national independence.

Postcolonial societies have experienced four stages in their relationship

to the industrial European and Europeanized nations: the influence of Cold
War rivalries on the new states, the economic effects of globalization,
progress in the spread of the ideals of civil society and participatory
government, and finally a resurgence of cultural and religious traditions.

globalization
Term used to describe the increasing economic and cultural
interdependence of societies around the world.
 The End of Empire. A statue of Queen Victoria is removed from the
front of the Supreme Court building in Georgetown, former capital of
the British colony of Guyana, in February 1970, in preparation for the
transition to independence.

Why was there a wave of decolonization in the mid-twentieth

century?

A central question for the present era is whether to see the global variety
of social, cultural, and religious traditions as a creative or divisive force in
the twenty-first century and beyond. One model for understanding the
complex international scene today is that of the “West versus the Rest,” in
which the European and Europeanized world and its ethos are seen as the
hope of the future, while all other social, religious, and cultural traditions
are depicted as rallying points for opposition to the spread of European-
style “modernity.” This analysis pits Islamic, European and Eastern
Orthodox Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Confucian, and other religious,
social, and cultural traditions against one another in a clash of civilizations.
This concept became popular following the terrorist attack of September 11,
2001, on the United States.
clash of civilizations
Political theory, most often identified with Harvard political scientist
Samuel P. Huntington, that contends that conflict between the world’s
religiocultural traditions or “civilizations” increasingly dominates world
affairs.

Other observers urge that studying the world’s varied cultural traditions
leads to an understanding of the modern world as a domain in which many
cultural, religious, and political traditions interact and compete but in which
people of all kinds can get along. Our common need for solutions to
transnational, planetwide problems must take precedence over vague
“civilizational” differences.
In any case, we must recognize the persistent influence of the great
religious and moral traditions of humankind. In particular, Buddhist,
Christian, and Islamic faith and values continue to claim the allegiance of
major sectors of our globe. No longer can we assume that secular
rationalism will monopolize ideology during the process of material
modernization. Rather, we can expect a pluralistic global community in
which diverse traditions best coexist and learn from one another.

LATIN AMERICA SINCE 1945

WHERE IN Latin America did the major attempts to establish

revolutionary governments occur?

Starting in the second half of the twentieth century, the nations of Latin
America experienced divergent paths of political and economic change.
Leaders tried repeatedly to alleviate their people’s dependence on the more
developed portions of the globe. These efforts produced mixed results, at
best.
MAP 33–1. Decolonizaton since World War II. Europe’s rapid retreat
from imperialism after World War II is graphically depicted on this map,
showing half the globe—from Africa to the Pacific.

How are the effects of colonialism still present in Africa and Asia
today?

Before World War II, the states of Latin America had been economically
dependent on the United States and western Europe. Beginning in the
1950s, Latin America became an arena for confrontations between the
United States and the Soviet Union. Attempts were made to expand the
industrial base and agricultural production of the various national
economies. Financing came from U.S. and western European banks or from
Soviet subsidies. Enormous debts were contracted that made Latin
American economies virtual prisoners to fluctuations in interest rates or
Soviet preferences. These new relationships did not alter the underlying
character of most Latin American economies, which remain exporters of
agricultural commodities and mineral resources. Since the 1970s, Latin
America has also shipped massive amounts of cocaine to the United States
and Europe. This has led to political turmoil and civil war in Colombia. In
recent years the problem of drug cartels has erupted in Mexico. The desire
to halt drug trafficking has led to formal and informal interventions by the
United States. These efforts have involved incentives to diversify local
economies away from drug cultivation as well as providing arms to
governments seeking to disrupt drug lords. The real question in Colombia,
parts of Mexico, and other regions of the Andes is whether governments or
drug cartels actually hold authority.
The social structures of the Latin American nations have become more
complicated since World War II. A culture of poverty remains the dominant
social characteristic of the area. (See Document, “Lourdes Arizpe Discusses
the Silence of Peasant Women” on page 872.) Even periods of economic
boom, such as that fostered in Mexico by oil production in the late 1970s,
proved brief and were almost inevitably followed by decline. Migration into
the cities from the countryside has created tremendous urban overcrowding
and slums inhabited by the desperately poor (see Figure 33–1). In many
countries standards of health and nutrition have fallen. The growth of
service industries in the cities has fostered the emergence of a professional,
educated middle class. This new middle class has displayed little taste for
radical politics, major social reform, or revolution.

FIGURE 33–1. Population of Major South American Cities, 1930–2006.

 What trend is clearly visible?

Political events in Latin America led to the establishment of authoritarian

governments of both the left and the right and to a retreat from the model of
parliamentary democracy. Only Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, and Costa
Rica remained parliamentary states throughout this period. Elsewhere, two
paths of political development were followed. In Cuba and Nicaragua, and
briefly in Chile, revolutionary socialist governments with close ties to the
Soviet Union were established. Elsewhere, often in response to the fear of
revolution or communism, military governments held power, sometimes
punctuated with brief interludes of civilian rule. Such were the situations in
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay. Governments of both
the left and the right engaged in political repression.

Read the Document

Liberation Theology (1950s) at myhistorylab.com

These political changes fostered new roles for the military and the
Roman Catholic Church. Latin American armies have played key political
roles since the wars of independence. But since World War II, they have
frequently assumed the direct government of nations. Many Roman
Catholic priests and bishops have protested inequalities and attacked
political repression. Certain Roman Catholic theologians have combined
traditional Christian concern for the poor with Marxist ideology to
formulate what is called liberation theology, which has been attacked by
the Vatican; as a result its impact has diminished.

Read the Document

Address before the Puebla Conference (1979) at myhistorylab.com

liberation theology
The effort by certain Roman Catholic theologians to combine Marxism with
traditional Christian concern for the poor.

During the last decade and a half, Latin America has changed
significantly. Several nations have moved toward democratization and free-
market economies. Yet in most nations, the military keeps a watchful eye on
possible disorder. The end of the Cold War brought to a close one source of
external political challenge, but internal social problems continue to raise
difficulties.

REVOLUTIONARY CHALLENGES: CUBA, CHILE, AND NICARAGUA

Several Latin American nations experienced major attempts to establish
revolutionary governments pursuing profound social and economic change,
including Cuba in 1959, Chile in 1970, and Nicaragua in 1979. Each of
these initiatives involved some form of Marxist political organization, each
pursued a close relationship with the Soviet Union, and each had immense
symbolic importance in and beyond Latin America. The establishment of
these governments provoked active resistance by the United States. In
recent years leftist governments led by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo
Morales in Bolivia have embraced policies reminiscent of those regimes
including strong populist criticism of the United States, but they have not
produced the regional impact of the earlier revolutionary governments.

DOCUMENT

Lourdes Arizpe Discusses the Silence of Peasant Women

Lourdes Arizpe, a Mexican anthropologist, wrote extensively on the plight

of peasant women in the 1970s. In this passage she discusses how the lives
and history of Mexican peasant women are shrouded in silence. Although
her remarks are directed toward the situation in Mexico, they may well
apply to peasant women in other cultures as well.

• WHAT are the factors that Arizpe cites as leading to the historical
silence of peasant women? Why does she believe it is important for
such women to learn to speak with their own voices? How do the
stereotypes of Mexican peasant women both contribute to and arise
 from the silence? Why does she believe peasant women to be the
most marginalized of all women?

History has imposed a greater silence on peasant women than on any other
social group. Perhaps it is the solitude of the plains or the obligatory
circumspection of their gender or merely political repression, but
circumstances combine to force them to live in a secret world. Doubtless
there are those who would assert that their tie to nature leads them to
express themselves with actions rather than words. But the male peasant
lives in the natural world without being silenced.

Silence, when not deliberate (although, how can we be sure it isn’t?)

could be anger or wisdom or, simply, a gesture of dignity. When there is no
one worth talking to, I stay silent. If someone doesn’t want to recognize my
existence, I stay silent. In the spectrum of invisibility that history has
imposed on women, perhaps the most invisible of the invisibles have been
the peasants.
When direct expression is not permitted, the possibility of knowledge is
lost and we fill that disturbing vacuum with phantoms. It is therefore not
surprising that the Mexican mentality is filled with myths and stereotypes
about peasant women. There is the submissive Indian woman who is a
product of condescending maternalism; the wild woman both fantasized
about and feared by men; the brazen hussy of melodramatic soap operas;
the faint-hearted but treacherous small-town woman invented by the urban
mind. Silence is also created by everyone’s desire to hear what they want to
hear rather than listen to what women are trying to say.
Today it seems that everyone mouths concerns about peasant women
without any sincere interest.
… What is important today is to create opportunities for peasant women
to speak.
It is not that they have never spoken, only that their words have never
been recognized. Because their words are discomforting when they
denounce exploitation; disturbing when they display a deep understanding
of the natural world not shared by their city sisters; strange when they
describe an integrating vision of the universe; and because, being women’s
words, they are not important to androcentric [male-centered] history. Of all
the marginalized peoples, peasant women are the most marginalized.
 Source: Lourdes Arizpe, “Peasant Women and Silence,” trans. by
Laura Beard Milroy in Women’s Writing in Latin America: An
Anthology, by Sara Castro-Klarén, Sylvia Malloy, and Beatriz Sarlo.
Copyright © 1992 by Westview Press. Reprinted by permission of
Westview Press.

Cuba Cuba remained a colony of Spain until the Spanish-American War of

1898. It achieved independence within a sphere of U.S. influence that took
the form of economic domination and military intervention. The
governments of the island were ineffective and corrupt. During the 1950s,
Fulgencio Batista (1901–1973), a dictator supported by the United States,
ruled Cuba. On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro Ruz (b. 1926), his close
associate Ernesto Che Guevara, and others attacked a government army
barracks. The revolutionary movement that Castro thereafter came to lead
in exile took its name from that date: the Twenty-Sixth of July Movement.
In 1956, Castro and a handful of followers landed in Cuba and attacked
Batista’s forces. Batista fled Cuba on New Year’s Day in 1959.
Castro undertook the most extensive political, economic, and social
reconstruction seen in recent Latin American history. Castro aligned
himself with the Cuban Communist Party and with the Soviet bloc. He
rejected parliamentary democracy. The revolutionary government
concentrated on the agricultural sector and carried out major land
redistribution. Sugar preserved its leading role, fostering dependence on
large Soviet subsidies and Soviet-bloc markets.

Read the Document

Fidel Castro, History Will Absolve Me, 1953 at myhistorylab.com

The United States was hostile toward Castro and toward the presence of a
communist state less than 100 miles from Florida. Throughout the Cold
War, Cuba assumed an importance far greater than its size might suggest.
After 1959, Cuba served as a center for the export of communist revolution;
it sent troops to Angola in the late 1970s. The U.S. government, seeking to
prevent a second Cuban Revolution in Latin America, intervened in other
revolutionary situations and supported authoritarian governments in the
hemisphere. In 1961, the United States and Cuban exiles launched the
unsuccessful Bay of Pigs invasion. The close Cuban relationship to the
Soviet Union led to the missile crisis of 1962, the most dangerous incident
of the Cold War.
Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union—and the resulting loss of
economic subsidies—the Castro government continues firmly in charge.
Cuba remains the only state closely associated with the former Soviet bloc
that has not experienced substantial political or economic reform. In 2006
Castro experienced serious problems with his health and disappeared from
public sight. His brother Raul assumed the daily oversight of the
government. Some observers believe Castro’s death will cause a collapse of
the government; others believe that the bureaucracy Castro created may
endure.

QUICK REVIEW
Salvador Allende
Elected president of Chile in 1970
Lacked support in congress and military
Marxist policies led to economic crisis
Assassinated in 1973 army coup

Chile Until the 1970s, Chile was Latin America’s exemplar of

parliamentary democracy. During the 1960s, however, Chilean politics had
become polarized. There was high unemployment, labor unrest, and popular
resentment of Chile’s economic domination by large U.S. corporations. The
situation came to a head in 1970 when Salvador Allende (1908–1973), a
Marxist, was elected president. His coalition did not control the Chilean
congress, nor did it have the support of the military. Allende nationalized
some businesses. Other policies were blocked in the congress, so Allende
governed by decree. He began to expropriate foreign property, frightening
Chilean business owners without satisfying workers. Inflation ballooned.
Harvests were poor. By 1973, Allende had little domestic political support
and many foreign enemies. The army became hostile, and the Nixon
administration supported the discontent. In mid-September 1973, an army
coup overthrew Allende, who was killed.
For the next fifteen years Chile was governed by a military junta under
General Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006). The military government pursued
a close relationship with the United States and resisted Marxism in the
region. It established a state-directed free-market economy and reversed the
expropriations of the Allende years. There was also harsh political
repression. In a referendum held in late 1988, Chileans rejected Pinochet’s
bid for another term as president. Democratization was relatively smooth,
and during the past two decades Chile has moved toward a more liberal
constitutional government. Civilian governments, moving slowly to avoid
provoking the military, investigated the political repression of the Pinochet
years and uncovered thousands of cases of torture and murder. During the
first decade of the present century politics in Chile were vigorously
contested, with peaceful changes between governments of the left and the
right.

Pariah. A 1977 poster from a New York protest highlights the

enormous international opposition to the policies of General Pinochet.

Which other political leaders have been accused of “crimes against

humanity” in recent times?
Nicaragua In the summer of 1979, a Marxist guerrilla force, the
Sandinistas, overthrew the corrupt dictatorship of the Somoza family in
Nicaragua. The Sandinistas established a collective government that
pursued social and economic reform and reconstruction. The movement,
with Roman Catholic priests on its leadership council, epitomized the new
political and social forces in Latin America. The Sandinistas also had close
ties to the Soviet Union. The revolutionary government confronted
significant domestic political opposition and military challenge from the
Contra guerrilla movement.

Sandinistas
The Marxist guerrilla force that overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in
Nicaragua in 1979.

The government of the United States, particularly under the Reagan

administration (1981–1989), was hostile to the Sandinistas, fearing the
spread of Marxist revolutionary activity in Central America. It provided
both direct and indirect aid to the Contras.
Sandinista rule came to a relatively quick end. In early 1990, after a
negotiated peace settlement with the Contras, they lost the presidential
election to an opposition coalition and relinquished power peacefully. A
democratic government supported by the United States has remained in
control despite persistent economic weaknesses.

PURSUIT OF STABILITY UNDER THE THREAT OF REVOLUTION:

ARGENTINA, BRAZIL, AND MEXICO
Argentina In 1955, the Argentine army revolted against the Perón
dictatorship and Juan Perón (1895–1974) went into exile. Two decades of
economic stagnation and social unrest followed. By 1976, the army had
undertaken direct rule. There was widespread repression; thousands of
citizens disappeared, never to be heard of again. In April 1982, General
Leopoldo Galtieri (b. 1926) launched a disastrous invasion of the Islas
Malvinas (Falkland Islands). Argentina was defeated by Britain, and the
military junta was thoroughly discredited.
 Read the Document
Juan Perón, excerpt from The Voice of Perón at myhistorylab.com

In 1983 civilian rule was restored, and Argentina set out on the road to
democratization. Under President Raúl Alfonsín (b. 1927), many of the
figures responsible for repression received prison sentences. Argentina has
provided the most extensive example in Latin America of the restoration of
democracy after military rule. Peaceful elections and transitions of
governments have occurred for over two decades. During the same era,
however, the Argentine economy has endured ongoing turmoil; no
government has been able to stabilize production and prices.

Read the Document

Brazil’s Constitution of 1988 at myhistorylab.com

Brazil In 1964 the military assumed the direct government of Brazil and
held it until 1985, stressing order and using repression to maintain it. Non-
Brazilian corporations were invited to spearhead the drive toward
industrialization. One result was a massive foreign debt, the servicing and
repayment of which have lingered as a national problem. Brazil became the
major industrialized nation in Latin America, which has had a huge impact
on the Brazilian rain forest. By 1998, large landowners, encouraged by
subsidies and tax incentives, had cleared 12 percent of Brazil’s rain forest.
Brazil’s critical question is how growing urbanization and other social
changes wrought by industrialism will receive political accommodation. In
2003, in the wake of economic turmoil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva became
the first person from a working-class background to be elected president of
Brazil. He was reelected in 2006. His administration has combined socialist
concern for social services with an austere economic policy. Those policies
set Brazil on a path of sustained economic growth. Furthermore, those
workers at the bottom of the income scale achieved greater improvement
than anywhere else in Latin America. Like the rest of the world, Brazil
encountered difficulties in the recent economic slump, but it appears to be
regaining its footing.
 Deforestation in the Amazon. A cut and burned section of trees on
federal land in Brazil’s Amazonian state of Para. The problems of
deforestation, wood trafficking, habitat destruction, slave labor, land
grabbing, and violence are all intertwined as colonization of the region
accelerates.

What is the global impact of deforestation in the Amazon?

Mexico Institutionally, Mexico has undergone relatively few political

changes since World War II. In theory, the government continued to pursue
the goals of the revolution. The Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI)
held power for decades. Yet shifts had occurred. In the early 1950s, certain
large landowners were exempted from the expropriation and redistribution
of land. The Mexican government maintained relations with Cuba and the
other revolutionary regimes of Latin America, but resisted Marxist
doctrines within Mexico.
Mexico experienced an oil boom from 1977 to 1983, but did not achieve
stable growth. Like other states in the region, Mexico amassed large foreign
debts and thus surrendered real economic independence.
 Read the Document
Chico Mendes on the Rainforest (1980s) at myhistorylab.com

After the hotly contested 1988 election, the PRI leadership began to
decentralize the party. President Carlos Salinas moved to privatize
economic enterprise. He also favored free-trade agreements. The most
important of these was the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), which created a vast free-trade area including Mexico, Canada,
and the United States. In 1991, Salinas made new accommodations with the
Roman Catholic Church, thus moving away from the traditional
anticlericalism of Mexican politics. By 1991, the PRI appeared to have
regained its political ascendancy.
In 1994, however, Mexico underwent a number of political shocks.
Troops had to quell armed rebellion in Chiapas. The leading candidate in
that year’s election was assassinated and party members were charged with
complicity. Early in 1995, Mexico suffered a major economic downturn,
and only loans from the United States saved the economy. Ernesto Zedillo,
elected president in 1994, blamed Salinas and his family for the situation,
and the corruption of the Salinas government became public. The
government faced further unrest in Chiapas, growing power among drug
lords, and turmoil within the governing party itself. In 2000 the PRI
candidate for president lost to Vicente Fox of the National Action Party
(PAN). Fox’s term ended in late 2006 with an election narrowly won by
another PAN candidate, Felipe Calderón. Calderón pursued policies of
social conservatism tied to liberal economic policies. His administration has
also been marked by expanding conflict between the state and the drug
cartels.

See the Map

Latin America, 2004 at myhistorylab.com

CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN RECENT LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY

The most striking aspect of the past six decades in Latin America is its
tragic continuity with the region’s previous history. Revolution has brought
moderate social change, but at the price of authoritarian government,
economic stagnation, and dependence on foreign powers. Real
independence has not been achieved.
The recent trends toward democratization and market economics may
mark a break in that pattern. The region could enjoy healthy economic
growth if inflation were contained and investment fostered. The challenge
will be to see that the fruits of any new prosperity are shared in a way that
prevents new political resentment and turmoil. Furthermore, as in the past,
economic turmoil far from Latin America may have an adverse impact on
its destiny. Each time such turmoil has occurred, the governments of Latin
America have found themselves economically dependent on either the
United States or European governments and bankers.

The Turn to the Left in Latin American politics is represented by

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who has oil wealth to fund his
ambitions, and Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia.
Chávez assumed power in 1999, Morales in 2006.

Why have Latin American politics generally been dominated by

conservative leaders?

A Closer Look
Mexican Farmers Protest the North American Free Trade Agreement

The North American Free Trade Agreement (1994), or NAFTA, was

actually a series of agreements involving the United States, Canada,
and Mexico. Its purpose was to remove trade barriers among these
nations. In this respect it represented one of the early moves toward
economic globalization, though it was restricted to North America. The
free flow of agricultural commodities represented one of the chief goals
of NAFTA. By 2008, agreements eliminated or phased out all
agricultural tariffs between the United States and Mexico. The value of
U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico rose significantly, having declined
prior to the agreement. Farmers in Mexico often felt that the
elimination of these tariffs worked to their disadvantage, with cheaper
U.S. products replacing their products in the market. In January 2008,
Mexican farmers riding their tractors protested the recent trade
liberalization, which they argued opened Mexican markets to the
importation of less expensive maize (corn) produced in the United
States. Jobs had been lost in the Mexican agricultural sector because of
the cheaper U.S. products—products made cheaper because of U.S.
government subsidies to agriculture. Mexican government subsidies to
agriculture had fallen in the same period. The farmers saw themselves
as caught in a downward economic spiral.
Questions
1. Even when tariffs and other trade barriers are lowered, how can
other government policies place different economic sectors at a
disadvantage? Why is agriculture especially vulnerable to such
arrangements?
2. Why are Mexican farmers at a greater disadvantage in protesting
policies that work to their detriment than unionized workers in
manufacturing industries?
3. This picture illustrates the challenges faced by Mexican farmers.
During the same period many U.S. manufacturers moved factories
to Mexico, where wages are lower. How did this economic shift
work to the disadvantage of U.S. wage earners in previously highly
industrialized regions of the United States, such as Michigan and
other parts of the Midwest?
4. What are the pros and cons of economic globalization?

To examine this image in an interactive fashion, please go to

www.myhistorylab.com
POSTCOLONIAL AFRICA

WHAT ARE the most significant issues that Africa faces in the
twenty-first century?

Most of Africa’s modern nations follow colonial boundaries; colonial

capitals have typically become national capitals. Africa provides striking
examples of how attractive nationalism can be as a motive for supratribal
and transregional state formation. In World War II the important roles that
Africa was called on to play with its natural and human resources, as well
as the experience of thousands of Africans who were conscripted or
volunteered to fight or labor abroad, proved a catalyst for African
nationalism. After the war, Europe was largely disposed to give up its
colonial empires.

THE TRANSITION TO INDEPENDENCE

Europe’s colonization of Africa had occurred in the historical blink of an
eye (see Chapters 26 and 28). Independence came almost as quickly. In
1950, only Egypt, Liberia, Ethiopia, and white-controlled South Africa
were sovereign states. By 1980 no sizeable African territory was ruled by a
European state, although South Africa and Namibia continued to be white-
dominated. African leaders, such as Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972) in the
Gold Coast (modern Ghana), Jomo Kenyatta (1893–1978) in Kenya, Julius
Nyerere (1922–1999) in Tanganyika (later Tanzania), and Patrice Lumumba
(1925–1961) in the Congo became symbols of African self-determination
and independence.
The actual transition from colonial administrative territories to
independent national states was generally peaceful. Violence was more
likely in colonies with large populations of European settlers (such as
Algeria) or lucrative exports of minerals or other resources (Congo, for
example). The internal conflicts that arose in some newly independent
states, however, were intense.
 Much of the instability in African states has been a legacy of both the
colonial powers’ minimal efforts to prepare their colonial subjects for self-
government and the haphazard nineteenth-century division of the continent
into arbitrary colonial units. Before World War II, colonial powers largely
assumed they would govern their African colonies indefinitely. Few African
states had the numbers of educated and experienced native citizens needed
to staff the apparatuses of a sovereign country.

Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah (center) waves to crowds of

supporters on March 6, 1957 in celebration of Ghana’s independence
from Great Britain. Ghana was the first sub-Saharan country to gain
independence.

Why were most African transitions to independence initially

peaceful?

After independence, corruption and military coups were rife; the attempt
to implement planned economies on a socialist model often brought
economic catastrophe; and tribal and regional revolts at times led to civil
war. The separatist struggles, civil wars, and border clashes that grew out of
the independence struggles tended to ratify the postcolonial state divisions
(instead of regional or tribal/linguistic divisions).

QUICK REVIEW
African Independence
By 1980, no African state was ruled by a European state
Transition to independent states was more peaceful than expected
Internal conflicts since independence have led to instability and
violence

STRIVING FOR STABILITY AND CIVIL SOCIETY: NIGERIA, SOUTH

AFRICA, CONGO, AND RWANDA
Nigeria The modern Republic of Nigeria is the most populous state in
Africa, with about 150 million inhabitants in 2009. Nigeria achieved
independence from Britain in 1960 as arguably the most powerful and
potentially successful state in independent Africa. The republican
constitution of 1964 federated three provincial regions—the Eastern,
Western, and Northern—under a national government based in Lagos, the
former British administrative capital. Nigeria’s largest ethnic and linguistic
groups are the major ones of the same three regions: Igbo in the Eastern,
Yoruba in the Western, and Hausa and Fulani in the Northern province.

See the Map

Africa, 2004 at myhistorylab.com

A 1966 coup d’état brought a military government into power. Its leader
was soon assassinated, and Lieutenant Colonel Yakubu Gawon (b. 1934)
took over amid ethnic unrest. In May 1967, the Eastern Province’s assembly
empowered its leader to form a new, independent state of Biafra. Biafra
secured arms and support from France, South Africa, and Portugal, and
developed successful worldwide propaganda depicting itself as a small,
brave, Christian country fighting for its survival against a hostile,
oppressive, Muslim central government. The ensuing two and a half years
saw a tragic civil war. The larger federal forces slowly chipped away at the
Biafran state. The estimated death toll soared above a million—the
overwhelming majority of whom were Igbo civilians, mostly refugees who
died of starvation—before the Biafrans surrendered in January 1970.
Gawon was overthrown by another military commander in 1975. In the
ensuing years Nigeria was plagued by political instability at the top, with its
leadership passing usually from one military ruler to another.

QUICK REVIEW
Nigeria
Achieved independence in 1960
Collapse of three-province federation led to dictatorship and civil
war Brutality, instability, and corruption have marked Nigerian
government since 1975

Nobel laureate author Wole Soyinka (b. 1934) led protest demonstrations
against the military government in 1994. Novelist and environmental
activist Kenule “Ken” Saro-Wiwa (1941–1995) was executed by the
military in 1995. Military rule was replaced in 1999 by civilian government
under an elected president, Olusegun Obasanjo, and a new constitution was
implemented. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua succeeded Obasanjo as president
after a flawed election in April 2007. Problems of religious animosities and
ethnic divisions remain. Despite the nation’s wealth, Nigeria’s development
has been hampered by corruption, lack of infrastructure, and
mismanagement.

Watch the Video

Creating Apartheid in South Africa at myhistorylab.com

South Africa The Union of South Africa was governed under the racist
policy of apartheid (“apartness”) from the time the Afrikaner-led National
Party (NP) came to power in 1948 until 1991. The white minority (in 1991,
5.4 million persons) ran the country, maintaining economic and political
control and privilege. Its 31 million blacks, 3.7 million “coloreds” (people
with dual ancestry), and 1 million Indians [all figures from 1991] were kept
strictly segregated—treated, at best, as second-class citizens. This system
was maintained chiefly by repression.
apartheid
“Apartness,” the term referring to racist policies enforced by the white-
dominated regime that existed in South Africa from 1948 to 1992.

In part as a result of worldwide opposition to apartheid, South Africa was

increasingly isolated. In the 1960s and 1970s the government created three
tiny “independent homelands” for blacks, so that they could be treated as
immigrant “foreigners” in the parts of South Africa where most had to
work. The international community refused to recognize the homelands, or
“Bantustans.” Zulu chief Albert Luthuli (1898?–1967) and Anglican bishop
Desmond Tutu (b. 1931) were awarded Nobel Prizes in 1969 and 1984,
respectively, for their work against apartheid.
By 1978, as Pieter Botha (1916–2006) came to power, apartheid was
failing: The homelands were economic and political catastrophes; the
country was in an inflationary recession; skilled whites were emigrating;
and South Africa was becoming a pariah state. Beginning in 1986, many
nations responded to Tutu’s call and imposed economic sanctions against
the government. Strikes by black workers in 1987 led the government to
declare a state of emergency: Western nations embargoed trade. In 1988
more than 2 million black workers went on strike to protest new repressive
labor laws and political bans. Botha resigned in 1989.
 Apartheid. A police officer checks a black African’s identification
card, under the apartheid system’s hated pass laws.

Can apartheid be compared to segregation in the United States?

How were they similar? How were they different?

In 1990 president F. W. de Klerk (b. 1936) began a series of landmark

actions: lifting the ban on the African National Congress (ANC), the main
anti-apartheid organization; releasing ANC leader Nelson Mandela after
twenty-seven years of imprisonment; and repealing the Separate Amenities
Act, the legal basis for segregation in public places. In early 1991 de Klerk
announced plans to end all apartheid laws. De Klerk and Mandela led the
endorsement of a new interim constitution, for which they shared the Nobel
Peace Prize for 1993.
Multiracial elections were held in April 1994. The ANC won 63 percent
of the vote. Nelson Mandela was elected president of what Tutu called the
Rainbow Nation, in honor of South Africa’s racial and political diversity.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), established in 1995,
offered an unprecedented way to come to terms with the country’s past:
Rather than attempting to bring to justice the many perpetrators of human
rights abuses during the apartheid era, the TRC offered amnesty in
exchange for testimony and provided victims a platform for detailing their
losses. The TRC’s premises were controversial—some victims of apartheid
atrocities protested that their persecutors were evading punishment—but it
is unlikely that any other mechanism could have generated a more
comprehensive account of apartheid’s abuses.
 Nelson Mandela campaigning for the presidency of post-apartheid
South Africa.

Why is Mandela so widely admired?

Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)

A quasi-judicial body that investigated apartheid-era human rights abuses.
The TRC emphasized disclosure over punishment and generally offered
amnesty in exchange for testimony.

The governments of Thabo Mbeki (b. 1942), who succeeded Mandela in

1999, then Kgalema Motlanthe (b. 1949), who completed Mbeki’s
unfinished term in 2008–2009, and Jacob Zuma (b. 1942), the current
president, have striven to deal with the major challenges that the country’s
49 million citizens face. Despite substantial mineral resources and the
highest GNP in Africa, South Africa’s problems are immense: one of the
world’s highest rates of HIV/AIDS infection (18.1 percent); high
unemployment, poverty, and crime rates; extreme income inequality;
inadequate public services and infrastructure; and water shortages. Only
time will tell how well the new democracy can handle these serious issues
and whether it can meet the nation’s hopes for a new era of socioeconomic
progress.

Read the Document

Nelson Mandela, from Freedom, Justice and Dignity for All South Africa at
myhistorylab.com

Congo European rule in Africa may have reached its nadir in the Congo
Free State. In this personal fiefdom of Belgium’s King Leopold II between
1885 and 1908, Africans were routinely mutilated or killed for offenses
such as failing to meet local officials’ quotas for rubber collection. As a
Belgian colony, Congo fared only slightly better, and since independence in
1960 Congo’s history has been infamous for ongoing atrocities.

ImageView the Image

Voters Waiting to Vote in South Africa’s First Open Election, 1994 at
myhistorylab.com

The Republic of Congo gained independence on June 30, 1960, with

Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961) as prime minister and Joseph Kasavubu
(1910–1969) as president. Lumumba and Kasavubu belonged to different
parties. Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba from office; Lumumba resisted. In
the ensuing crisis the Congolese Army’s chief of staff, Joseph-Désiré
Mobutu (1930–1997), overthrew them both. Lumumba was assassinated in
1961. Various presidents served brief terms until 1965, when Mobutu again
seized power. This time he had the backing of the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency, and he kept power for more than thirty years. Mobutu outlawed all
political parties except his own, the Popular Movement of the Revolution,
from 1967 to 1990. He launched the Authenticité campaign to celebrate
African culture, and he renamed the country Zaire. Mobutu developed a
powerful cult of personality. Corruption made his rule a kleptocracy.
The combination of the end of the Cold War and Mobutu’s failing health
created an opening for opposition leaders. Refugees from Rwanda’s
genocide (see below) further destabilized the country, and, starting in 1996,
insurgents supported by Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, and Angola captured
much of eastern Zaire. Most of these outsiders backed Laurent Kabila
(1939–2001) when he was sworn in as president on May 29, 1997. The
country was again renamed, this time as the Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC). Since then, what has been called the Second Congo War (the
revolt against Mobutu being the first) or even the African World War has
roiled the DRC. In 2001, Kabila was assassinated; his son, Joseph Kabila,
took office. In 2006, in disputed elections, he defeated other candidates for
the presidency.
The DRC is immense and possesses vast natural resources, especially
valuable minerals. Nonetheless its future is uncertain; fighting continues,
much infrastructure has been destroyed, and most citizens understandably
mistrust their government.

Image

Rwandan Refugees carry their belongings as they stream out of the

Mugunga refugee camp in Zaire (Congo) back toward Rwanda, in the
aftermath of the 1994 genocide.

How did events in Zaire and Rwanda become interconnected?

Rwanda Rwanda is roughly one one-hundredth the size of the Democratic

Republic of the Congo, but during and after the Rwandan genocide of 1994
the two countries’ histories became intertwined. Under Belgian
administration, ethnicity in Ruanda-Urundi (now, Rwanda and Burundi)
was determined by wealth: Since the minority Tutsi tribe already
constituted the elite, anyone deemed wealthy by the Belgians became a
“Tutsi,” and most others were designated as belonging to the largest
preexisting ethnic group, the “Hutu.” (Rwanda also has a significant
minority population of Twa forest people, or “pygmies.”) At independence
in 1961, Rwanda and Burundi separated, and Rwanda became a republic
with Hutu leadership.
 Over the following decades, many crossborder clashes took place
between Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda. This violence was usually labeled
as Tutsi versus Hutu, regardless of its actual roots. On April 6, 1994, when
a helicopter carrying the (Hutu) presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot
down over Rwanda’s capital, killing both presidents, Tutsis were blamed.
The groundwork had been laid for interethnic civil war. Over the following
months, approximately 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in a
massive genocide. The Uganda-based, Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front
(RPF) under Paul Kagame (b. 1957) gradually took control of the country,
and millions of Hutu refugees fled to Zaire. RPF and Ugandan forces
pursued them into Zaire, creating one of the triggers for Mobutu’s
overthrow in 1997.
United Nations peacekeepers were on the ground in Rwanda when the
genocide began, but under the terms of their deployment they were unable
to intervene. United States President Bill Clinton was harshly criticized for
failing to take action.

Read the Document

Alain Destexhe, excerpt from Rwanda and Genocide in the Twentieth
Century at myhistorylab.com

Following a period of transitional government, a new constitution was

approved, and Kagame was elected president in 2003. Although Kagame
has been criticized for stifling dissent, his administration has been marked
by some democratic and economic progress; average income tripled from
1999 to 2009. In 2008 Rwanda became the first country with a majority of
women elected to its legislature.

THE AFRICAN FUTURE

Most African states have not achieved peace and prosperity. Some conflicts
—most notably in eastern Congo and the Darfur region of Sudan—are still
ongoing, their human consequences catastrophic and ultimate resolution
unclear. However, the last half-century has seen radical change and
development. Overall, prospects for future governmental stability have
never been stronger. Economic problems remain extremely threatening, but
progress is being made after decades of failures. Some burdens of the past
have been overcome, but problems of public health, environmental
degradation, social instability, and development still pose formidable
hurdles.

Image

MAP 33–2. Distribution of HIV Infection Rates in Africa.

What general trends do you notice in HIV infection rates in Africa?

Health and Environment A variety of health and environmental

challenges face Africa, the most notorious of which is HIV/AIDS. In late
2008, an estimated 22.4 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were living
with HIV. There are significant regional variations in HIV infection rates: In
general, rates are highest in southern Africa and lowest in West Africa (see
Map 33–2). Governments have varied tremendously in their responses to
HIV/AIDS. Uganda, for example, embarked on an aggressive public
education campaign in the 1990s, which seems to have helped reduce
infection rates there. In contrast, in early 2000, South African President
Mbeki publicly questioned whether HIV causes AIDS and made statements
that contributed to an atmosphere of denial and shame surrounding
HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

HIV/AIDS
Collection of symptoms and infections resulting from the specific damage
to the immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
The late stage of the condition leaves individuals susceptible to
opportunistic infections and tumors. Although treatments for AIDS and
HIV exist to decelerate the virus’s progression, there is currently no known
cure.
 Other diseases, while less likely to capture headlines in the West, sicken
or kill millions of Africans every year. The World Health Organization
declared the prevalence of tuberculosis an emergency in Africa in 2005.
Malaria and other tropical diseases reduce life expectancy, increase school
and job absenteeism, and reduce economic productivity almost everywhere
in Africa. Only very recently have significant global health initiatives, such
as the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases (established in
2006), begun to target Africa’s interrelated health challenges.
African environmental challenges run the gamut from wildlife poaching
to soil erosion to improper disposal of hazardous waste. Africans have been
in the forefront of the environmental justice movement, with activists
including Ken Saro-Wiwa and Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, leader of
Kenya’s Green Belt Movement, building grass-roots environmental
campaigns.

Read the Document

Nelson Mandela, Closing Address at the 13th International AIDS
Conference, July 2000 at myhistorylab.com

Social Change African society has changed rapidly during the postcolonial
period, though many traditions endure. Rapid urbanization began in
colonial times and continues to the present. The explosive growth of urban
centers at the expense of rural areas has disrupted the continent’s
traditionally agrarian-based societies, family and community allegiances,
religious values, and sociopolitical systems. Migrants flock to cities in
search of wage labor, but African urban economies have never grown as
quickly as their populations; many cities harbor large slums where masses
of people live in severely inadequate housing, lacking plumbing and other
essential infrastructure. Men have been more likely to migrate to urban
areas than women, so there are often gender imbalances in both rural and
urban areas.
Women were active in anticolonial and anti-apartheid movements and
took leadership roles in some post-independence rebellions (for example, in
Uganda). Only since the mid-1990s, however, have women been elected in
growing numbers to parliaments and other national offices. Ellen Sirleaf-
Johnson, the first woman elected to lead an African nation, won the
presidency of Liberia in 2005.
Demography and religion help shape African societies. Population
growth has been rapid throughout Africa, while deaths from HIV/AIDS
have created new population trends, such as the large numbers of “AIDS
orphans.” Christianity and Islam both continue to gain converts.
Evangelical Christianity, in particular, is growing rapidly.

Image

Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson was elected president of Liberia in 2005. She is

the first woman elected to lead an African nation.

What are some significant issues facing African nations today?

See the Map

HIV Prevalence in Africa at myhistorylab.com

TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT

During the Cold War, one of the areas in which the West and the Soviet bloc
competed was dispensing development aid in Africa. Starting in the 1990s,
trade has been emphasized as the best mechanism for improving African
economies and standards of living. Under President Clinton, for example,
the United States encouraged private-sector trade and investment through
the Partnership for Economic Growth and Opportunity in Africa. President
George W. Bush supported the African Global Competitiveness Initiative
(AGCI) to build sub-Saharan Africa’s capacity for trade and
competitiveness. A factor of rapidly growing importance is trade with, and
direct investment by, China. African economies still need to grow
tremendously to meet their populations’ needs.
THE ISLAMIC HEARTLANDS FROM NORTH
AFRICA TO INDONESIA

HOW HAS Islam affected politics in the developing world?

The lands today marked by Islamic culture and Muslim-majority

populations or major Muslim minorities are found in the Arab world from
Morocco to Iraq and the Gulf; in West and East Africa; in the Balkans, the
Turkish-speaking world of Turkey and the former Soviet Central Asian
republics; in Persian-speaking Iran and Central Asia, in western China, and
in South and Southeast Asia. The Muslims of the entire Arab world number
only about 275 million. Indonesia, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh have the
four largest Muslim populations in the world, with about 207, 171, 156, and
130 million Muslims, respectively. These varied nations illustrate the many
different ways in which Islamic allegiances manifest themselves and affect
political life.

TURKEY
Turkey is the product of a modernist republican experiment that has
attempted to create a democratic government and civil society despite
struggles over the roles of the military, ethnicity, culture, and religion. The
Turkish military has repeatedly deposed elected governments and
supervised selection of new leadership. Economically, Turkey has had
difficulties, but it and Israel are still the most economically advanced
Middle Eastern countries. It may be the most progressive Muslim nation in
its range of tolerated interpretations of Islam. With the creation of new
Turkic-language states in post-Soviet Central Asia, Turkey is seeking to
play a major role in this underdeveloped region.
Geographically and culturally Turkey belongs to both Europe and Asia.
Turkey is a member of NATO and is a candidate country for admission into
the European Union. Many Europeans, however, are skeptical about
admitting an overwhelmingly Muslim nation into the Union. Persecution of
Turkey’s Kurdish minority and other human rights violations, ongoing
denial of the Armenian genocide nearly a century ago, as well as
indebtedness to the International Money Fund, have worked against
Turkey’s case for EU admission. The emergence of Islamist parties in
Turkey has only complicated the political landscape. It remains to be seen
whether Turkey will align itself more with Europe, the Middle East, or
Central Asia in the years ahead; currently, it is making a strong effort to join
Europe while reaching out to Central Asia.

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Soviet and Turkish Plans for Industrialization at myhistorylab.com

IRAN AND ITS ISLAMIC REVOLUTION

Iran was ruled as a monarchy from 1925 to 1941 by a former army
commander, Reza Khan. He came to power through a British-supported
military takeover and governed as Reza Shah with the ancient Persian name
Pahlavi. Much like his Turkish contemporary, Atatürk (1881–1938), he
attempted to introduce modernist economic, educational, and governmental
reforms. He tried to create a rich landlord and industrial class with few
benefits for the pastoral, peasant, and urban classes. Reza Shah built a
highly centralized autocracy, not a parliamentary state. His reforms differed
from Atatürk’s in that he did not have to deal with a battle-tested, well-
armed military or an experienced and eager middle class, both of whom
Atatürk had to placate to realize his social and industrialization projects.
By the time Russian and British forces deposed Reza Shah in 1941 and
installed his son, Muhammad Reza, as shah, the activism of radical trade
unionists and the socialist-leaning intelligentsia had been crushed, and the
power of Shi’ite religious leaders, or ulama, had been muted through the
consolidation of a strong, centralized state. The son sought legitimacy
through linkage with the imperial dynasties of pre-Islamic Persia and
continued his father’s secular and industrial state building from after World
War II until 1978, with one interruption from 1951 to 1953. Those three
years saw Muhammad Mosaddeq (1881–1967) become prime minister by
successfully drawing together a broad coalition of workers, bazari
merchants, religious leaders, intelligentsia, and government workers. They
formed a political force, the National Front, which won the minds and
hearts of Iranians with the nationalization of the British-owned Anglo-
Iranian Oil Company in Abadan in 1951. Mosaddeq was ousted by the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency and British Military Intelligence in a 1953
coup d’etat, earning the United States and Britain generations of distrust.

Image

Khomeini. The bearded ayatollah waves to a cheering throng in

Tehran, Iran, in February 1979.

Who supported the Iranian Revolution that brought Khomeini to

power?

Having clamped down on opponents after the 1953 coup, in the 1960s
Muhammad Reza Shah still faced two opposition groups, one led by
educated secularists and the other by the ulama. Land reform and other
Pahlavi initiatives were opposed by both groups for different reasons. The
shah’s heavy-handed, often brutal repression of any protest backfired.
While the ulama preferred continuing nonviolent opposition through the
1970s, the middle- and upper-class professionals opted for tactical, violent
clashes with the regime and its U.S. ally. For all the modernizing military
and economic buildup that the United States and the shah initiated, the gap
between the extremely wealthy few and the extremely poor masses never
narrowed. That fully half of Iran’s 60-odd million inhabitants are Turkish,
Kurdish, Arabic, and other minorities did little to help Reza consolidate and
strengthen his centralized monarchy.
Finally, in 1978 religious leaders and secularist revolutionaries joined
forces to end the shah’s long regime through a revolution engaging a wide
spectrum of emotion, ideology, and secular as well as religious symbolism.
What had begun as an “Iranian Revolution” ended up as an “Islamic
Revolution,” so that in 1979 the new post-shah republic that emerged was
not a secular but an Islamic one crafted under the guidance of the Shi’ite
religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989).
 Image

Iranian Nobel Prize Winner Shirin Ebadi at the Street Children’s

Home That She Founded in Tehran. Ebadi was awarded the
prestigious prize for her work in defending human rights. She was the
first Muslim woman to be awarded a Nobel.

Does Ebadi’s accomplishment contradict widely held views in the

West on the status of women in the Muslim world?

A protracted war with Iraq (1980–1988) and new repression followed.

Still, the new state—with religious leaders exercising a degree of influence
over politics not seen since early Safavid times in the sixteenth century—
has survived. Khomeini and his successors have continued to struggle to
find a new formula for combining Muslim values and norms with
contemporary Realpolitik.

ImageView the Image

Ayatollah Khomeini at myhistorylab.com

Mohammad Khatami was elected president in 1997 in the first real

national leadership election since the 1979 revolution. Khatami tried to
steer Iran on a more moderate, liberal course. Wide-ranging reforms failed
to materialize, however. In 2003, Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi won the
Nobel Peace Prize for her work to improve the status of women and
children in Iran; Iran’s leadership paid no attention. In 2005, Mahmud
Ahmadinejad (b. 1956), a veteran of the Iraq–Iran War, won the presidential
election. The United States and its allies (particularly Israel) oppose his
policies on nuclear energy and military involvement in Iraq. The Obama
administration’s policies toward Iran are still evolving, and the future of
Iran’s international relations remains uncertain.

QUICK REVIEW
Islamic Revolution in Iran
 1978: Shi’ites and secularists joined to overthrow shah
1979: Republican constitution is Islamic, not secular
Shi’ite leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini takes power

ImageStudy and Review

The Political Vision of Atatürk and Khomeini at myhistorylab.com

AFGHANISTAN AND THE FORMER SOVIET REPUBLICS

North of Iran, 40 million Central Asian Muslims predominate in the broad
region that stretches across the south-central reaches of the former Soviet
Union between the Crimea and China, in addition to at least 20 million
Chinese Muslims, concentrated in adjacent southwestern China. In the
1980s both Soviet and Chinese Muslims appeared to be asserting
themselves. The 1979 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, whose people had
close ties to Soviet Muslims, reflected the potential importance of this
movement.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had unexpected results. Thousands of
Muslims, mostly fundamentalists, had arrived in Afghanistan to oust the
Soviets and their Afghan puppets. Conservative Arab states and the United
States supported this effort. The conservative Arab states saw the Afghan
War as an opportunity both to resist the expansion of Soviet influence and
to divert the energies of their own religious extremists. The United States
saw the Afghan War as another round in the Cold War. The militant Muslim
fundamentalists saw it as a religious struggle against an impious non-
Muslim power.
The Soviets withdrew in 1988, leaving a power vacuum. By 1998,
extreme rigorist Muslims known as the Taliban seized control. They
imposed their own literalist version of Islamic law, involving strict
regimentation of women and public executions or mutilations for criminal
offenses. The Taliban allowed Muslim terrorist groups such as al-Qa’ida
(“the base”) to establish training camps in Afghanistan. The terrorists who
attacked U.S. targets on September 11, 2001, came from these camps. As
will be seen later, one American response to those attacks was a military
campaign against the Afghani Taliban government.
INDIA
India, a largely Hindu state, and Pakistan, a largely Muslim state, gained
independence in 1947 after the British agreed to a partition of the
subcontinent. Much of their subsequent history has been one of mutual
antagonism. About 8 million Muslims were displaced from the new India,
and another 8 million Hindus and Sikhs were displaced from the new
Pakistan. The two states still have not resolved their major differences,
including their conflicting claims to Kashmir. Their rivalry has been
exacerbated by Indian underground nuclear tests in 1998, which were
closely followed by similar Pakistani tests.
Since the assassination of Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948) by a Hindu
fanatic, India has been directed for most of its existence by the leaders of
Gandhi’s Congress Party. Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) developed India’s
famous theory of political neutrality vis-à-vis world alignments. His
secularist, reconciliatory policies reduced communal hatreds, religious
zealotry, and regional tensions, and he also made progress in the huge task
of economic development of the overpopulated, underdeveloped new
nation. Nehru’s resolute opposition to caste privilege helped improve
equality of citizenship.
Indira Gandhi (1917–1984; no familial relation to Mohandas Gandhi)
similarly managed to steer a tricky course of neutralism during the Cold
War. India’s 1971 victory over Pakistan and the subsequent creation of
Bangladesh to replace East Pakistan strengthened her political control, but
the failure of her efforts to reduce national poverty overcame her postwar
popularity. Her resolute efforts to quell Sikh separatism brought about her
assassination in 1984 by two Sikhs from her own palace guard.

Image

Hindu Militants. Hindu militants attack a Muslim mosque in

Ayodhya, India, December 6, 1992. The razing of this mosque at the
hands of a mob led by Hindu communalist extremists touched off a
wave of Hindu–Muslim violence in India. The Hindus claimed the
mosque, built some 500 years ago, occupied the site of what had
 originally been a Hindu temple and sought to have a new temple built
once the mosque was cleared away.

Why have Hindus and Muslims been in conflict in India?

Indira Gandhi’s son, Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991), was elected prime

minister after her, and his handling of the thorny Sikh issue was generally
applauded. Indications that he and Pakistan’s prime minister Benazir Bhutto
(1953–2007) might work together to resolve some Indian–Pakistani
hostilities were also promising. But he was assassinated by a Sri Lankan
Tamil suicide bomber in 1991.
Because no party won the subsequent national vote, the leader of the
Congress Party, P. V. Narasimha Rao, was asked to form a government. He
and the Congress managed to make substantial economic progress. In 1997,
Vice President K. R. Narayanan, a former academic and foreign service
officer, assumed the presidency. He and his party were displaced in 2004 by
an unexpected Congress Party victory that brought Manmohan Singh,
formerly finance minister (1991–1996) in as prime minister, a post he
retained in the 2009 general elections.

Read the Document

Jawaharlal Nehru, “Why India Is Non-Aligned” (India), 1956 at
myhistorylab.com

India’s problems continue to loom large. Poverty and disease remain

serious. Separatist movements have pulled at the unity of the Indian state.
Industrialization and agricultural modernization have recently made great
strides, yet India’s population is now at about 1 billion and growing at
nearly 2 percent per year. New outbreaks of communal violence between
Hindus and India’s large Muslim minority threaten political stability. As the
world’s largest functioning democracy, India will be an important model of
representative government and pluralistic society if it succeeds in staying
together and reducing its harshest problems: overpopulation and mass
poverty.
QUICK REVIEW
Nehru Dynasty
Jawaharal Nehru (1889–1964): First prime minister of India
Indira Gandhi (1917–1984): Daughter of Nehru, prime minister of
India (1966–1977)
Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991): Son of Indira Gandhi, prime minister of
India (1984–1989)

PAKISTAN AND BANGLADESH

The first president of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948),
oversaw the creation of a Muslim state comprising the widely separated
East and West Pakistan in the two predominantly Muslim areas of
northwest India and East Bengal. In 1971 East Pakistan seceded and
became the new Islamic nation of Bangladesh.

Read the Document

Jinnah, the “Father” of Pakistan at myhistorylab.com

Pakistan’s groping efforts to create a fully Islamic society and to solve its
massive economic problems have been hampered by periodic lapses into
dictatorship. A military coup brought the military leader Zia ul-Haqq
(1924–1988) to power in 1977. The elections of November 1988, following
his death in a suspicious air crash, opened the door again to parliamentary
rule, but Pakistan has not stabilized. Benazir Bhutto (1953–2007), the
daughter of the man whom Zia ul-Haqq had overthrown and executed, was
elected prime minister following Zia’s death, becoming the first female
leader of a major Islamic state in the twentieth century. But her time in
office was cut short by the president’s dismissal of her government in
August 1990; she was elected again in 1993, only to be deposed on charges
of corruption in 1996. The successor government did not last long; in 1999,
General Parviz Musharraf took over as president until his resignation under
increasing protest in 2008. Bhutto had tried the previous year to win back
her post as prime minister, only to be assassinated in December 2007. Upon
Musharraf’s resignation the following summer, her husband, Asif Ali
Zardari was elected president in September 2008.
 Of all Central Asian governments, that of Pakistan has confronted the
most direct challenge from radical Islam, and the presence of armed groups
of Taliban or their sympathizers in west and northwest Pakistan continues to
be a source of instability and threat for the governments of both Pakistan
and Afghanistan. Whether Pakistan can achieve real stability remains an
open question.

INDONESIA AND MALAYSIA

Indonesia was created in 1949 as a republic, succeeding the long Dutch and
brief Japanese colonial dominions in the East Indies. As the largest Muslim
country in the world (over 200 million of its people, or an estimated 88% of
its population, are Muslim), Indonesia must determine how the Muslim
religious faith is to be reconciled with secularist government.
The much smaller territory of Malaya received its independence from
British colonial rule in 1957 as a federation under a rotating monarch; it
was later joined by the states of Sarawak and Sabah in northern Borneo,
forming the federation of Malaysia. The overriding problem for Malaysia
(population 26 million) has been the cleft between the largely Chinese (24
percent) and partly Indian (7 percent) non-Muslim minority on the one
hand, and the largely Muslim majority of Malay and other indigenous
peoples (60 percent) on the other.
Both Indonesia and Malaysa have rich cultural traditions and natural
resources; it remains to be seen how each will preserve them while meeting
the demands of modern global politics and participation in the global
economy. Not just the future of these two Asian states, but an important part
of Islam’s future as a global religiocultural tradition is at stake.

THE POSTCOLONIAL MIDDLE EAST

HOW DID the creation of the state of Israel affect the history of the
modern Middle East?
POSTCOLONIAL ARAB NATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
The modern Middle East arose from the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the
intervention in the region by Western powers, which carved out new nations
and protectorates. Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia became sovereign states
after World War I; Lebanon and Syria were given independence by France
during World War II. Subsequently, other Arab states gained independence:
Jordan, 1946; Libya, 1951; Morocco and Tunisia, 1956; Algeria, 1962; and,
by 1971, Yemen, Oman, and the small Arabian/Persian Gulf sheikhdoms.
(Palestine/Israel is a special case; see below.) (See Map 33–3.)
MAP 33–3. The Modern Middle East and the Distribution of Major
Religious Communities. The inset shows Israel and the Occupied
Territories.

How has religion shaped the Arab-Israeli conflict?

As elsewhere in the industrializing world, these states have sought

political self-determination amidst political instability and autocratic rule.
All share the classical Arabic written language, but the spoken colloquial
language varies. Attempts to create pan-Arab alliances or federations have
failed primarily because of regional differences and political interests, but
appeals to Arab nationalism remain powerful.
In the wake of World War II, many of the leaders of Arab nationalism,
such as Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt (1918–1970), were sympathetic to
socialism or to the Soviet Union. Soviet-style communism, however, was so
overtly secular and antireligious that it held little appeal to Arab, Turkish,
and Iranian Muslims. Popular among both secular and religious middle-
class supporters, “Islamic socialism” had gained considerable support in the
1980s until discredited by the contradictory actions of Arab, Turkish,
Iranian, and Kurdish leaders.
Nationalism in the basic sense of “patriotism to the homeland” remains
the most important ideology from Morocco to India. Arab governments,
defining themselves according to the values of nationalism, have worked
out arrangements with local Muslim authorities. For example, the Saudi
royal family turned over its educational system to adherents of a rigorist,
puritanical form of Islam called Wahhabism (see Chapter 26) while
modernizing the country’s infrastructure. The Egyptian government
attempted to play different Islamic militant and professional groups off
against one another. These governments retained the support of prosperous,
devout middle-class Muslims while doing little about the plight of the poor.
Consequently, for many in the Middle East today Arab nationalism and
socialism are associated with deceptions, self-interest, and a failed Arab
identity.

THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT

Nowhere have the effects of the West’s interventions in the Middle East
been more sharply felt than in the 1948 creation of the state of Israel in the
former British mandate territory of Palestine. The concept of return to the
Holy Land had a long history in Judaism. Under the Ottomans, the Holy
Land had been the home of Arabic-speaking Palestinians, primarily
Muslims, but also Christians and Jews. The British had occupied the
territory since defeating the Ottomans in World War I; in 1923 they
received a formal League of Nations Mandate to govern Palestine.
Meanwhile the British Balfour Declaration of 1917 favored the
establishment of a national homeland for the Jews in Palestine as long as
“non-Jewish” rights were preserved. By 1920 there were only about 60,000
Jews and ten times that number of Muslim and Christian Arabs in Palestine.
As some at the time, such as the American King-Crane Commission,
foresaw, and events would bear out, serious trouble lay ahead.

See the Map

The Partition of Palestine after World War II, 1948 at myhistorylab.com

The interwar years saw increasing Jewish settlement and growing

communal conflict. Immigration of Jews, largely from eastern Europe,
increased in the 1920s and 1930s. Britain’s efforts to restrict it in 1936
tragically prevented many Jews from escaping the Nazi Holocaust. After
the war, the Zionist movement received a tremendous boost from Jews
worldwide who felt a desperate need for a homeland where they might be
safe from future persecutions, and from Allied nations that felt the need to
atone for the Holocaust by securing such a refuge.
In 1947, the British turned the issue over to the United Nations. The UN
called for partition of the mandate territory into a Jewish and an Arab state.
The Arab states refused to accept the UN resolution, but in May 1948, Jews
in Palestine proclaimed the independent state of Israel. Egypt, Iraq, Jordan,
Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria promptly attacked Israel but lost to the
better-armed, better-trained, and more resolute Israelis. The Israeli-Arab
war of 1948 to 1949 won the Jews not only the UN-proposed territory but
also a substantial portion of that proposed for a Palestinian state.

Israeli Invasion of Gaza. Palestinian students view the ruins of the

Islamic University in Gaza City, destroyed on December 29, 2008
during the 22-day offensive by Israel in Gaza.

Why has the peace process broken down?

Since 1948, nearly 75 percent of the Palestinians in the world have been
refugees from their homeland. The United Nations has established 60 UN
Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza,
the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. Seven regional wars and
two Palestinian Intifadahs (uprisings: literally, “shaking off”) have further
swelled the ranks of refugees. Today, 4 million Palestinians live in diaspora
from Turkey to Texas. The Palestinians understandably do not see why they
should be displaced, either because of another people’s historic religious
attachment to the land or as reparation for Europe’s sins against the Jews.

Intifadah
Literally, “shaking.” Uprisings by the Palestinians against Israeli
occupation.
 Since 1948 there has been, at best, an armed truce between Israel and its
neighbors. Israel (with the support of the United States) has taken
aggressive measures, often in defiance of world opinion and international
law regarding occupied territories. The most serious military
confrontations have been the Suez Crisis of 1956, when Israel (and briefly
France and England) invaded the Sinai; the 1967 June war (the “Six Day
War”), when Israel occupied the Sinai, the Golan Heights, and the West
Bank (of the Jordan River); the October (Yom Kippur) war of 1973, when
the Egyptians and Syrians staged a surprise attack on Israel; the Israeli
invasions of Lebanon in 1978, 1982, and 2006 to extirpate anti-Israeli
terrorist havens; and the 2009 Israeli invasion of Gaza.

occupied territories
Land occupied by Israel as a result of wars with its Arab neighbors in
1948–1949, 1967, and 1973.

Arab and some non-Arab states have been equally intransigent in

refusing to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Egypt was the first notable
exception to this policy. Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat (1918–1981) and
Israel’s prime minister Menachem Begin (1913–1994), with the mediation
of U.S. President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924), reached an agreement—the
Camp David Accords—in 1978 and in 1979 signed a formal peace treaty.
Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by Egyptian Muslim extremists, but the
treaty has held up.

Read the Document

Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government
Arrangements (1993) at myhistorylab.com

In 1991, in the wake of the Gulf War that followed Iraq’s invasion of
Kuwait, the parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict began peace negotiations.
The resulting 1993 Middle East Peace Agreement, also known as the Oslo
Agreement, raised hopes for a negotiated settlement and the creation of an
independent Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state of Israel. But there
has been little substantive progress since then, as extremists on both sides
have put up obstacles to peace.
 ImageView the Image
Rabin and Arafat Shake Hands at the White House, 1993 at
myhistorylab.com

Jordan and Egypt did agree in 1994 to a peace treaty with Israel, but
many other Arab states—Syria foremost—have not been willing to
negotiate with Israel, and Israel has continued to develop settlements and
roads in ways that minimize the availability of contiguous territory with
which to form a viable Palestinian state.
The Palestinian Authority created by the 1993 peace agreement, under
the leadership of Yasser Arafat (1929–2004), grew steadily more corrupt,
ineffective, and out of touch with its constituencies. Despite the efforts of
the Palestinian and Israeli security forces, Palestinian guerrillas of the
extremist wing of the resistance organization Hamas found ways to kill
Israelis in a sustained effort to torpedo the already shaky peace process.
These terrorist attacks led Israel to seal its borders, resulting in the
additional loss of 11 percent of West Bank Palestinian farmlands, a source
of livelihood for thousands of Arabs in the occupied territories who
normally work in Israel proper. This has exacerbated Gaza’s plight, in turn
feeding the extremist resistance groups.

peace process
Efforts, chiefly by the United States, to broker a peace between the State of
Israel and the PLO.

In March 2000, Ariel Sharon became Israel’s prime minister. His

administration was marked by an escalation of violence on both sides.
Sharon proposed that Israel withdraw from Gaza and close Israeli
settlements in that region, a proposal that proved controversial on both
sides. His government erected a massive fence separating Israeli and
Palestinian territory.

Image
 Palestinian Rocket Attack. An Israeli surveys the damage in a school
classroom caused by a Palestinian rocket on December 31, 2008, in
Beer Sheva, Israel.

What new developments in world history can you imagine that

might help facilitate peaceful coexistence between the Palestinians
and the Israelis?

Arafat died in late 2004. His passing presented a new opportunity for
negotiations with the Palestinians, now led by Mahmoud Abbas, who was
elected to the Palestinian presidency in January 2005. However, the virtual
pullback of the United States in the later Bush administration from serious
effort at bringing either Israelis or Palestinians back into negotiations meant
that this opportunity was lost. With a new American administration since
2009, some increased efforts at a return to negotiation have been made, but
in early 2010, the hard-line Israeli leader, Binyamin Natanyahu, approved a
new settlement in East Jerusalem, despite the opposition of the United
States and world opinion. Meanwhile, neither Abbas nor anyone from any
Palestinian faction seems able or willing to come seriously to the
negotiating table even if Netanyahu were to change his antagonistic
position.
Added to this bleak history and current struggle is the ugly legacy of hate
instilled in many on both sides for decades. Arabs and even many Muslims
outside the Arab world have come to label non-Israeli Jews, Israelis, and
both religious and political Zionists as oppressors and enemies, making no
distinctions among them. Many Israelis and many Jews around the world
have similarly vilified all Arabs and Muslims. In some ways Arab-Israeli
and Muslim-Jewish relations are at an all-time low, and it may require one
or several generations to displace the prejudice, stereotyping, and hatred so
long accumulated. The human crisis is far from over, even if peace were to
arrive tomorrow.

MIDDLE EASTERN OIL

The oil wealth of the Arab and Iranian world has been both a blessing and a
curse for the people and countries of the Middle East. World demand for oil
has surged since the 1908 discovery of oil in Iran. In the mid-1970s, oil
became a major bargaining chip in international diplomacy, one the Arab
and other oil-rich Third World states—such as Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, and
Indonesia—have used to their advantage. In the Arab countries of North
Africa and especially of Arabia and the Gulf, oil production and wealth
have changed every aspect of life. Oil has propelled formerly peripheral
countries into major roles in the world of international banking and finance.
Oil has also boosted the self-confidence of the Arab world, damaged by a
century and a half of European domination. Testimony to the global
importance of Middle Eastern oil was the willingness of the United States
and European nations to form a coalition with some Arab countries and
commit massive forces to expel Iraq from Kuwait after Iraq’s invasion of its
neighbor in 1990.
Though the economic benefits of oil are obvious, this resource, as already
noted, has not necessarily had political benefits for people in the Middle
East. Oil has been the motivator for considerable foreign involvement in the
Middle East. George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 was arguably once
again motivated in part by interest in Iraqi and Central Asian oil outlets.

See the Map

The Modern Middle East at myhistorylab.com

THE RISE OF MILITANT ISLAMISM

The increase in the global importance of the oil-producing states of the
Middle East has coincided with a surging movement there and elsewhere
for the revival of pristine Muslim values and reformation of Muslim
societies. Many Muslims have sought to return to the “fundamentals” of
Islam, which they see as a means for rejuvenating societies corrupted by
Western secularist and materialist values. A major new element in Muslim
revivalism is a consciousness of being a viable response to the destructive
influence of Western-style “modernity.”
Such Muslim fundamentalism—or more correctly, “Islamist
reformism”—motivated the overthrow of the shah of Iran in 1978, the
Muslim Brethren movement in Egypt and elsewhere, and many other
groups, from Morocco to the Persian Gulf and beyond the Middle East.
Much of the appeal of Islamist groups everywhere is their willingness
and ability to address the needs of the underclasses. Where governments of
Muslim-majority countries have failed to provide social services such as
housing, medical care, education, and jobs, the Islamist groups have
succeeded. Although the world press reports only on the relatively small
fringe groups of Islamist extremists, Muslims at the grass-roots level have
watched while the major Islamist groups in the dictatorships or military
regimes under which most of them live provide services for which the state
has long abdicated responsibility. Whether these movements will bring
lasting change to Islamic societies is an open issue, but there is no question
about their current attraction and influence.

THE MODERN MIDDLE EASTERN BACKGROUND

The background to modern Islamist reform lies in the European expansion
over much of the globe in just a few centuries. This expansion brought far
more social and political change than religious or cultural change to the
Islamic world. It saw the emergence globally of European-style nationalism
and the idea of the nation-state; of post-Enlightenment ideals of individual
liberties, rights, and representative government; and of the concept of one’s
religious faith and affiliation as a strictly private, “religious” matter and
one’s citizenship as a public, “secular” matter. Such ideas proved disruptive
in the Islamic world, especially in this century.
Parts of the Islamic world today have a checkered history of autocratic
governments that are as far removed from their citizenries as any medieval
or premodern dynasty. Experiments with European-style parliamentary
government have only rarely taken hold; nor have either liberal democratic
or Marxist-socialist ideals proven viable for the long term. Until recently,
however, political discourse in Islamic lands has given little serious thought
to Islamic alternatives.
The postcolonial independence of many national states divorced politics
from Islamic religious traditions and norms. In the late twentieth and early
twenty-first centuries, Islamic religious allegiance has commonly been
invoked to bolster a ruler’s claim to legitimacy and to cloak mundane
objectives and programs in pious garb. The recent past has seen no
realization of an “ideal” Islamic state in which religious authority and
political authority are conjoined. Even in the postrevolutionary Islamic
Republic of Iran a clear division exists between political realities and
religious standards. Calls for a congruence of religion and politics trace less
to some ideal model of a religious state or so-called theocracy than to a
sorely felt need for simple social and political justice. The cries for a jihad
of Muslims are aimed less often outward than inward, less at foreign
“devils” and more at domestic tyrants, corruption, and social and economic
injustice. The most international and widely influential of all contemporary
Islamic revivalist or reform movements, the Tabligh-i Jama’at, is explicitly
apolitical. It aims to convert the individual to true submission (islam), not
lip service, on the principle that reform of the world begins with oneself.

theocracy
A state ruled by religious leaders who claim to govern by divine authority.

As for those reform movements that are avowedly political, be they

activist but nonviolent (the majority) or extremist and violent, they feed on
the deep sense of socioeconomic and political injustice that citizens of most
Islamic countries rightfully feel. When such feelings go over the edge, the
result is extremism and terrorism. Osama bin Laden, the disposessed Saudi
millionaire who founded and has led al-Qa’ida from the 1990s to the
present, stunned the world by using U.S. civilian airliners to destroy the
World Trade Center towers and part of the Pentagon building on September
11, 2001. His motive was revenge for the American military presence in
Saudi Arabia, the American-led blockade of Iraq, and the American support
of Israel against the Palestinians.
These carefully executed and massively destructive attacks have involved
the U.S. military ever more deeply in the Middle East and Central Asia. In
October 2001, the United States attacked the Taliban government of
Afghanistan, rapidly overthrew it, and dispersed—but did not destroy—al-
Qa’ida’s organization. Whether this military response to the threat of
terrorism will be successful remains to be seen. Certainly the ongoing war
on terrorism is radically changing the security needs of the United States.
The U.S. military is transferring many of its troops and bases, previously
located in western Europe and East Asia, closer to the Middle East.
American troops will not soon leave this part of the world. Further United
States intervention followed in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq.

IRAQ: INTERVENTION AND OCCUPATION

The modern nation of Iraq was established after World War I. Iraq as such
had never been a distinct political unit and until 1921 was primarily a
geographic term, referring to today’s southern Iraq. Postwar imperial
concern and the potential of oil under Iraqi soil motivated the British
government to oversee the creation of an Iraq that they felt would best
protect their interests in the region. Given the disparate ethnic and religious
groups in the country, the British could not find a suitable native leader.
They imported a politician from Arabia, Faysal ibn Husayn, and crowned
him first king of the Hashemite monarchy. The dynasty ruled with British
help until 1958.

QUICK REVIEW
Iraq in the Early Twentieth Century
Territory controlled by Britain after World War I
Competing ethnic and religious groups
Ruled by Arab Hashemite Dynasty, 1921–1958

Iraqis developed a sense of national identity that led them to resent the
foreign presence in their country, and in 1958 a bloody coup, led by Abd al-
Karim Qasem, terminated the monarchy. By 1979, the Ba’ath Party had
become the dominant force in Iraq politics, bringing Saddam Hussein to the
start of his tyrannical reign. Following a long, bloody, and unsuccessful war
with Iran (1980–1988), Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait
(1990). After an international military coalition under the leadership of the
United States expelled the Iraqi army from Kuwait in Operation Desert
Storm, Iraq became an international pariah. It was subject to economic
sanctions monitored by the United Nations until 1998, when the Iraqi
government expelled the UN inspectors; the United Nations was unable to
reinsert them for almost five years.
In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks the Bush
administration decided that Saddam Hussein had to be overthrown to
remove the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. During late 2002
and early 2003, the U.S. and British governments sought to obtain passage
of the UN Security Council resolutions that would require Iraq to disarm on
its own or to face disarmament by military force. When opposition from
France and Russia blocked the resolution, Australia, Great Britain, and the
United States, with more than forty other nations (the “Coalition of the
Willing”) invaded Iraq. After three weeks of fighting that began in mid-
March 2003, the coalition removed Saddam Hussein from power. The
announced goals of the invasion, in addition to toppling the Iraqi regime,
were to destroy Iraq’s capacity to manufacture or deploy weapons of mass
destruction and to bring consensual government to the Iraqi people.

Read the Document

Saddam Hussein’s Invasion of Kuwait: (a) Saddam Hussein, “Victory Day”
Speech; (b) Bishara A. Bahbah, “The Crisis in the Gulf: Why Iran Invaded
Kuwait” at myhistorylab.com

The invasion of Iraq occasioned considerable international opposition,

most notably from France, Germany, and Russia, and provoked large
antiwar demonstrations in the United States and other parts of the world.
The war has created strains within the European Union and NATO and has
begun a new era in international relations.
Currently, it remains difficult to ensure peace and stability in Iraq. Many
Iraqis resisted the occupation by foreign forces, and historical factors
militate against a unified government. The lack of preparation by the
Americans and their allies for dealing with the chaos of postwar Iraq
exacerbated matters. The complete failure to find weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq led to wide questioning of the real rationale for the war.
The widespread destruction and suffering and the prolonged state of quasi-
civil war that has only recently begun to diminish has left the American
government open to criticism in the region and around the world.
Throughout Iraq an insurgency was launched against the Coalition forces
and against Iraqis, particularly those in the security services, who had
cooperated with the Coalition and the recently installed Iraqi government.
In late January 2005, an election was held in Iraq under conditions of
insurgent attacks to elect the Assembly that will write a new constitution.
With voter turnout much higher than anticipated, the election succeeded.
However, the challenges of securing internal support for the construction of
democratic processes still confront the shaky Iraqi government and
American policy makers. A “surge” policy increasing American troop
presence in 2009 under U.S. President Obama seems to have helped internal
stability somewhat, and the elections of 2010, while in dispute, seem as of
March 2010 to hold promise of bringing a more democratic Iraqi
government to power. Internal violence has not ended, but a 2009 American
plan for phased withdrawal of American troops seems to have some
possibility of success in the coming year or two.

Image

Suicide Bomb Explosion, Iraq 2010. Iraqi civilians help rescue teams
remove rubble at the site of a suicide bomb explosion that targeted a
restaurant in the center of Baghdad. In 2010, suicide bombings
continue to occur at an alarming rate, wounding and killing scores of
civilians.

How is violence in Iraq transforming international relations?

SUMMARY

WHAT ARE the two main developments that have occurred in the
postcolonial world?
Beyond the Postcolonial Era. Since 1945, independent states have
emerged from the European colonies of Africa and Asia. These states have
had to adjust their political and economic relations first to the superpowers
during the Cold War and, more recently, to the globalized economy and
political structures. page 867
 WHERE IN Latin America did the major attempts to establish
revolutionary governments occur?
Latin America since 1945. Most Latin American countries remain
politically and economically dependent. Cuba was the only revolutionary
movement to overturn the traditional structure of Latin American society,
though socialist revolution was also attempted in Chile and Nicaragua.
Despite social and economic problems, Argentina and Brazil have managed
to move from military rule to stable democratic, civilian government. In
Mexico, the PRI’s long dominance ended in 2000. page 869

WHAT ARE the most significant issues that Africa faces in the
twenty-first century?
Postcolonial Africa. Independent Africa has faced arbitrary boundaries,
disease, economic dependence, and political instability. While Nigeria has
experienced ethnic and religious strife under a succession of military
dictatorships, South Africa has emerged as a stable, multiethnic democracy.
The challenge for Africa as a whole is to build a truly civil society and
achieve economic health and political stability despite health,
environmental, and other hurdles. page 877

HOW HAS Islam affected politics in the developing world?

The Islamic Heartlands from North Africa to Indonesia. The vast area
encompassing countries with large Muslim populations includes diverse
national stories. Turkey straddles Europe and Central Asia geographically
and culturally. India’s politics have been significantly shaped by relations—
generally antagonistic—with Muslim Pakistan. Indonesia has the world’s
largest population of Muslims. page 882

HOW DID the creation of the state of Israel affect the history of the
modern Middle East?
The Postcolonial Middle East. Controversy surrounding the creation of
the state of Israel has dominated the politics of the Middle East since the
1940s. Although efforts to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian peace have
sometimes progressed, the cycle of terror and retaliatory violence has
persisted. Vast deposits of oil have made some Middle Eastern governments
wealthy, yet they have not led to the creation of prosperous democratic
societies. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the
United States overthrew Saddam Hussein in Iraq and became embroiled in a
chaotic and unstable region of the world. page 886

KEY TERMS

apartheid (uh-PAHRT-heyed)
clash of civilizations
decolonization
globalization
HIV/AIDS
Intifadah (IN-tuh-FAH-duh)
liberation theology
occupied territories
peace process
Sandinistas (sahn-dihn-EES-tahs)
theocracy
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Are the nations of Latin America still economically dependent on

the United States and western Europe? If so, why? How did the
superpower rivalry of the Cold War affect Latin America? How
successful has the worldwide trend toward democratization been in
Latin America? Describe the transition from military rule to civilian
democracy in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. Has Mexico made a
similar transition?
2. What challenges did many newly independent states in Africa
share? Has postcolonial Nigeria lived up to its potential? Why is
 Nigeria’s record significant for Africa as a whole? Describe the
apartheid regime in South Africa. Why was it dismantled in the
1990s? What problems does the Democratic Republic of the Congo
face? What factors contributed to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda?
3. Compare and contrast the roles of social change, religion, and
economics in Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia. How does the
profound influence of Islam in this and other regions of the world
suggest the power of religious tradition in modern politics and
society?
4. What have been the major factors in the creation of the modern
Middle East? How have interventions by European powers and the
United States affected this region? Compare and contrast the roles of
religion and nationalism in the Middle East.
5. Explain the origin and course of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
What have been the major turning points? Have there been moments
when the conflict might have reached a peaceful resolution?
6. Describe the origins and character of political and militant Islam.
Why has it taken so radical a political course in the post–Iranian
Revolution era (1979)? Why was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
an important event in its development?
7. What is globalization? What are its costs and its benefits?
8. How has the legacy of European colonialism affected the Middle
East, Asia, and Africa?
9. How and why was Iraq created? What influence does this early
twentieth-century history have on current events in the region? What
has happened in Iraq in the twenty-first century?

Note: To learn more about the topics in this chapter, please turn to the
Suggested Readings at the end of the book. For additional sources
related to this chapter please see www.myhistorylab.com

ImageConnections

Reinforce what you learned in this chapter by studying the many

documents, images, maps, review tools, and videos available at
 www.myhistorylab.com

Read and Review

ImageStudy and Review Chapter 33

Read the Document Liberation Theology (1950s), p. 871

Address before the Puebla Conference (1979), p. 871

Fidel Castro, History Will Absolve Me, 1953, p. 873
Juan Perón, excerpt from The Voice of Perón, p. 874
Brazil’s Constitution of 1988, p. 874
Chico Mendes on the Rainforest (1980s), p. 875
Nelson Mandela, from Freedom, Justice and Dignity for All South
Africa, p. 879
Alain Destexhe, excerpt from Rwanda and Genocide in the Twentieth
Century, p. 880
Nelson Mandela, Closing Address at the 13th International AIDS
Conference, July 200, p. 881
Jawaharlal Nehru, “Why India Is Non-Aligned” (India), 1956, p. 885
Jinnah, the “Father” of Pakistan, p. 886
Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government
Arrangements (1993), p. 889
Saddam Hussein’s Invasion of Kuwait: (a) Saddam Hussein, “Victory
Day” Speech; (b) Bishara A. Bahbah, “The Crisis in the Gulf: Why
Iran Invaded Kuwait,” p. 892

See the Map Africa, 2004, p. 878

HIV Prevalence in Africa, p. 882

The Partition of Palestine after World War II, 1948, p. 888
The Modern Middle East, p. 890

View the Image Voters Waiting to Vote in South Africa’s First Open
Election, 1994, p. 879
 Ayatollah Khomeini, p. 884
Rabin and Arafat Shake Hands at the White House, 1993, p. 889

Hear the Audio Decolonization 1, p. 868

Watch the Video Creating Apartheid in South Africa, p. 878

ImageStudy and Review

Soviet and Turkish Plans for Industrialization, p. 883

The Political Vision of Atatürk and Khomeini, p. 884

Research and Explore

See the Map Latin America, 2004, p. 875

Image

See the Map Map Discovery: Palestine

Image

Hear the Audio

Hear the audio file for Chapter 33 at www.myhistorylab.com

Suggested Readings

Chapter 1

General Prehistory
P. Bogucki, The Origins of Human Society (1999). An excellent
summary of recent scholarship on the earliest origins of human
societies.
F. Bray, The Rice Economies: Technology and Development in Asian
Societies (1986). Still the best authority on the origins of rice
cultivation and its effect on the develepment of ancient Asia.
M. Ehrenberg, Women in Prehistory (1989). An account of the role of
women in early times.
C. Freeman, Egypt, Greece and Rome: Civilizations of the Ancient
Mediterranean (2004). Good comparative study of Egypt with
Greece and Rome.
D.C. Johnson and M.R. Edey, Lucy: The Beginning of Mankind
(1981). An account of the African origins of humans.
S.M. Nelson, ed., Ancient Queens: Archaeological Explorations
(2003). Reassesses women rulers and female power in the ancient
world.
S.M. Nelson and M. Rosen-Ayalon, In Pursuit of Gender: Worldwide
Archaeological Approaches (2002). Essays on gender and the
archaeology of the ancient world.
D.L. Nichols and T.H. Charlton, eds., The Archaeology of City-States:
Cross-cultural Approaches (1997). One of a growing body of books
and essay collections employing cross-cultural and comparative
approaches to world history and archaeology.
 M. Oliphant, The Atlas of the Ancient World: Charting the Great
Civilizations of the Past (1992). An excellent comprehensive atlas
of the ancient world.
P.L. Shinnie, Ancient Nubia (1996). A study of the African state most
influenced by Egyptian culture.

Near East
M.E. Auber, The Phoenicians and the West (1996). A new study of an
important sea-going people who served as a conduit between East
and West.
Ben-Tor, ed., The Archaeology of Ancient Israel (1992). A useful and
up-to-date survey.
J. Bottéro, Everyday Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (2001). Interesting
vignettes of ancient Mesopotamian life.
H. Crawford, Sumer and the Sumerians (1991). A discussion of the
oldest Mesopotamian civilization.
I. Finkelstein and N.A. Silberman, The Bible Unearthed:
Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its
Sacred Texts (2001). An interesting discussion of the insights of
recent archaeological finds on the history of the Bible and ancient
Israel.
G. Leick, Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City (2002). Good
discussion of the urban history of ancient Mesopotamia.
J.N. Postgate, Early Mesopotamia (1992). An excellent study of
Mesopotamian economy and society from the earliest times to about
1500 B.C.E., helpfully illustrated with drawings, photos, and
translated documents.
D.B. Redford, Akhenaten (1987). A study of the controversial
religious reformer.
W.F. Saggs, The Might That Was Assyria (1984). A history of the
northern Mesopotamian Empire and a worthy companion to the
author’s account of the Babylonian Empire in the south.
M. Van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000–323
B.C. (2004). An up-to-date comprehensive survey of ancient Near
Eastern history.
India
D.P. Agrawal, The Archaeology of India (1982). A fine survey of the
problems and data. Detailed, but with excellent summaries and brief
discussions of major issues.
C. Chakraborty, Common Life in the Rigveda and Atharvaveda—An
Account of the Folklore in the Vedic Period (1977). An interesting
attempt to reconstruct everyday life in the Vedic period from the
principal Vedic texts.
J.R. Mcintosh, A Peaceful Realm: The Rise and Fall of the Indus
Civilization (2002). Discusses what archaeologists have managed to
unearth so far regarding Harrapan civilization.
W.D. O’flaherty, The Rig Veda: An Anthology (1981). An excellent
selection of Vedic texts in prosaic but very careful translation, with
helpful notes on the texts.
J.E. Schwartzberg, ed., A Historical Atlas of South Asia (1978). The
definitive reference work for historical geography. Includes
chronological tables and substantive essays.
R. Thapar, Early India: From the Origins to A.D. 1300 (2003). A
comprehensive introduction to the early history of India.

China
M. Loewe and E. Shaughnessy, eds., The Cambridge History of
Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C. (1999).
A comprehensive and authoritative history of ancient China.
K.C. Chang, The Archeology of Ancient China, 4th ed. (1986). The
standard work on the subject.
K.C. Chang, Art, Myth, and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in
Ancient China (1984). A study of the relation between shamans,
gods, agricultural production, and political authority during the
Shang and Zhou dynasties.
N. Di Cosmo, Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic
Power in East Asian History (2002). An excellent study of the
relationship between China and nomadic peoples that was a
powerful force in shaping Chinese and Central Asian history.
 C.Y. Hsu, Western Chou Civilization (1988).
D.N. Keightley, The Origins of Chinese Civilization (1983).
M.E. Lewis, Sanctioned Violence in Early China (1990).
X.Q. Li, Eastern Zhou and Qin Civilizations (1986). Includes fresh
interpretations based on archaeological finds.

Americas
R.L. Burger, Chavín and the Origins of Andean Civilization (1992). A
lucid and detailed account of the rise of civilization in the Andes.
M.D. Coe and R. Koontz, Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs
(2002). Good survey of ancient Mexico.
D. Drew, The Lost Chronicles of the Maya Kings (1999). Fine
introduction to the history of Maya civilization.
V.W. Fitzhugh and A. Crowell, Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of
Siberia and Alaska (1988). Covers the area where the immigration
from Eurasia to the Americas began.
R. Ford, ed., Prehistoric Food Production in North America (1985).
Examines the origins of agriculture in the Americas.
P.D. Hunt, Indian Agriculture in America: Prehistory to the Present
(1987). Includes a discussion of preconquest agriculture.
A. Knight, Mexico: From the Beginning to the Spanish Conquest
(2002). First of a three-volume comprehensive history of Mexico.
C. Morris and A. Von Hagen, The Inka Empire and Its Andean Origins
(1993). An overview of Andean civilization with excellent
illustrations.
M. Moseley, The Incas and Their Ancestors: The Archaeology of
Ancient Peru (1992). An overview of Peruvian archaeology.
J.A. Sabloff, The New Archaeology and the Ancient Maya (1990). A
lively account of recent research in Maya archaeology.
I. Silverblatt, Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in
Inca and Colonial Peru (1987). A controversial but thought-
provoking discussion of Incan ideas about gender.

Chapter 2
China
R. Bernstein, Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient
Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment
(2001). Discusses the diffusion of Buddhism from India to China.
H.G. Creel, What Is Taoism? And Other Studies in Chinese Cultural
History (1970).
W.T. de Bary et al., Sources of Chinese Tradition (1960). A reader in
China’s philosophical and historical literature. It should be consulted
for the later periods as well as for the Zhou.
H. Fingarette, Confucius—The Secular as Sacred (1998).
Y.L. Fung, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, ed. by D. Bodde
(1948). A survey of Chinese philosophy from its origins down to
recent times.
A. Graham, Disputers of the Tao (1989).
D. Hawkes, Ch’u Tz’u: The Songs of the South (1985).
D.C. Lau, trans., Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching (1963).
D.C. Lau, trans., Confucius, The Analects (1979).
C. Li, ed., The Sage and the Second Sex: Confucianism, Ethics, and
Gender (2000). A good introduction to gender and ethics in
Confucian thought.
B.I. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China (1985).
A. Waley, Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China (1956). An easy
yet sound introduction to Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism.
A. Waley, The Book of Songs (1960).
B. Watson, trans., Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsun Tzu, and Han Fei
Tzu (1963).
B. Watson, trans., The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (1968).
H. Welch, Taoism, The Parting of the Way (1967).

India
A.L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, rev. ed. (1963). Still
unsurpassed by more recent works. Chapter VII, “Religion,” is a
 superb introduction to the Vedic Aryan, Brahmanic, Hindu, Jain, and
Buddhist traditions of thought.
W.N. Brown, Man in the Universe: Some Continuities in Indian
Thought (1970). A penetrating yet brief reflective summary of
major patterns in Indian thinking.
W.T. de Bary et al., Sources of Indian Tradition (1958). 2 vols. Vol. I,
From the Beginning to 1800, ed. and rev. by Ainslie T. Embree
(1988). Excellent selections from a variety of Indian texts, with
good introductions to chapters and individual selections.
P. Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism (1990). Chapters 1–3 provide
an excellent historical introduction.
T.J. Hopkins, The Hindu Religious Tradition (1971). A first-rate,
thoughtful introduction to Hindu religious ideas and practice.
K. Klostermaier, Hinduism: A Short History (2000). A relatively
compact survey of the history of Hinduism.
J.M. Koller, The Indian Way (1982). A useful, wide-ranging handbook
of Indian thought and religion.
R.H. Robinson and W.L. Johnson, The Buddhist Religion, 3rd ed.
(1982). An excellent first text on the Buddhist tradition, its thought
and development.
R.C. Zaehner, Hinduism (1966). One of the best general introductions
to central Indian religious and philosophical ideas.

Israel
A. Bach, ed., Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader (1999). Excellent
introduction to the ways in which biblical scholars are exploring the
role of women in the Bible.
Bright, A History of Israel (1968), 2nd ed. (1972). One of the standard
scholarly introductions to biblical history and literature.
W.D. Davies and L. Finkelstein, eds., The Cambridge History of
Judaism. Vol. I, Introduction: The Persian Period (1984). Excellent
essays on diverse aspects of the exilic period and later.
J. Neusner, The Way of Torah: An Introduction to Judaism (1979). A
sensitive introduction to the Judaic tradition and faith.
The Oxford History of the Biblical World, M. D. Coogan, ed. (1998).
Greece
The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philosophy, D.
Sedley ed. (2003).
G.B. Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement (1981). An excellent
description and analysis.
J. Lear, Aristotle: The Desire to Understand (1988). A brilliant yet
comprehensible introduction to the work of the philosopher.
T.E. Rihil, Greek Science (1999). Good survey of Greek science
incorporating recent reseach on the topic.
J.M. Robinson, An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy (1968). A
valuable collection of the main fragments and ancient testimony to
the works of the early philosophers, with excellent commentary.
G. Vlastos, The Philosophy of Socrates (1971). A splendid collection
of essays illuminating the problems presented by this remarkable
man.
G. Vlastos, Platonic Studies, 2nd ed. (1981). A similar collection on
the philosophy of Plato.
G. Vlastos, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (1991). The results
of a lifetime of study by the leading interpreter of Socrates in our
time.

Comparative Studies
(Increasingly, world historians are looking at ancient civilizations in
relationship to each other rather than as isolated entities to try to understand
commonalities and differences in social and cultural development.)
W. Doniger, Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient
Greece and India (1999).
G.E.R. Lloyd, The Ambitions of Curiosity: Understanding the World
in Ancient Greece and China (2002).
G.E.R. Lloyd, The Way and the Word: Science and Medicine in Early
China and Greece (2002).
T. McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies of
Greek and Indian Philosophies (2002).
Chapter 3

The Rise of Greek Civilization

P. Cartledge, The Spartans (2003). A readable account of this
enigmatic people.
J. Chadwick, The Mycenaean World (1976). A readable account by a
man who helped decipher Mycenaean writing.
R. Drews, The Coming of the Greeks (1988). A fine discussion of the
Greeks’ arrival as part of the movements of the Indo-European
peoples.
J.V. Fine, The Ancient Greeks (1983). An excellent survey that
discusses historical problems and the evidence that gives rise to
them.
M.I. Finley, World of Odysseus, rev. ed. (1965). A fascinating attempt
to reconstruct Homeric society.
P. Green, Xerxes at Salamis (1970). A lively and stimulating history of
the Persian War.
D. Hamel, Trying Neaira (2003). A lively account of the events
surrounding a famous jury trial that sheds interesting light on
Athenian society in the fourth century B.C.E.
V.D. Hanson, The Western Way of War (1989). A brilliant and lively
discussion of the rise and character of the hoplite phalanx and its
influence on Greek society.
V.D. Hanson, The Other Greeks (1995). A revolutionary account of the
Greek invention of the family farm and its centrality for the shaping
of the polis.
D. Kagan, The Great Dialogue: A History of Greek Political Thought
from Homer to Polybius (1965). A discussion of the relationship
between the Greek historical experience and political theory.
W.K. Lacey, The Family in Ancient Greece (1984).
J.F. Lazenby, The Defense of Greece, 490–479 B.C. (1993). A new and
valuable study of the Persian Wars.
 J.F. McGlew, Tyranny and Political Culture in Ancient Greece (1993).
A recent account of political developments in the Archaic period.
S.G. Miller, Ancient Greek Athletics (2004). The most complete and
most useful account of the subject.
O. Murray, Early Greece (1980). A lively and imaginative account of
the early history of Greece to the end of the Persian War.
A.M. Snodgrass, The Dark Age of Greece (1972). A good examination
of the archaeological evidence.
B.S. Strauss, The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter That Saved
Greece and Western Civilization (2004). A lively account of the
major naval battle of the Persian Wars and its setting.
A.G. Woodhead, Greeks in the West (1962). An account of the Greek
settlements in Italy and Sicily.
W.J. Woodhouse, Solon the Liberator (1965). A discussion of the great
Athenian reformer.

Classical and Hellenistic Greece

W. Burkert, Greek Religion (1987). An excellent study by an
outstanding student of the subject.
J.R. Lane Fox, Alexander the Great (1973). An imaginative account
that does more than the usual justice to the Persian side of the
problem.
Y. Garlan, Slavery in Ancient Greece (1988). An up-to-date survey.
P. Green, Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the
Hellenistic Age (1990). A remarkable synthesis of political and
cultural history.
C.D. Hamilton, Agesilaus and the Failure of Spartan Hegemony
(1991). An excellent biography of the king who was the central
figure in Sparta during its domination in the fourth century B.C.E.
N.G.L. Hammond, Philip of Macedon (1994). A new biography of the
founder of the Macedonian Empire.
N.G.L. Hammond and G.T. Griffith, A History of Macedonia, Vol. 2,
550–336 B.C. (1979). A thorough account of Macedonian history
that focuses on the careers of Philip and Alexander.
R. Just, Women in Athenian Law and Life (1988). An account of
women’s place in Athenian society.
 D. Kagan, The Peloponnesian War (2003). A narrative history of the
war.
B.M.W. Knox, The Heroic Temper: Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy
(1964). A brilliant analysis of tragic heroism.
D.M. Lewis, Sparta and Persia (1977). A valuable discussion of
relations between Sparta and Persia in the fifth and fourth centuries
B.C.E.
A.A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics
(1974). An account of Greek science in the Hellenistic and Roman
periods.
R. Meiggs, The Athenian Empire (1972). A fine study of the rise and
fall of the empire, making excellent use of inscriptions.
J.J. Pollitt, Art and Experience in Classical Greece (1972). A scholarly
and entertaining study of the relationship between art and history in
classical Greece, with excellent illustrations.
J.J. Pollitt, Art in the Hellenistic Age (1986). An extraordinary
analysis that places the art in its historical and intellectual context.
E.W. Robinson, Ancient Greek Democracy (2004). A stimulating
collection of ancient sources and modern interpretations.
D.M. Schaps, Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece (1981).
B.S. Strauss, Athens after the Peloponnesian War (1987). An
excellent discussion of Athens’ recovery and of the nature of
Athenian society and politics in the fourth century B.C.E.
B.S. Strauss, Fathers and Sons in Athens (1993). An unusual synthesis
of social, political, and intellectual history.
V. Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (1970). A fine
study of the impact of Hellenism on the Jews.
G. Vlastos, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (1991). The results
of a lifetime of study by the leading interpreter of Socrates in our
time.

Chapter 4

Iran
 M. Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (1979).
A detailed survey by the current authority on Zoroastrian religious
history, organized historically and based on extensive research. See
Chapters 7–9.
M. Boyce, ed. and trans., Textual Sources for the Study of
Zoroastrianism (1984). Well-translated selections from a broad
range of ancient Iranian materials and an important introduction that
includes Boyce’s arguments for a revision of the dates of Zoroaster’s
life (to between 1400 and 1200 B.C.E.).
J.M. Cook, The Persian Empire (1983). Survey of the Achaemenid
period.
J. Curtis, Ancient Persia (1989). Excellent portfolio of photographs of
artifacts and sites, with a clear historical survey of the arts and
culture of ancient Iran.
W.D. Davies and L. Finklestein, ed., The Cambridge History of
Judaism, Vol. 1, Introduction; “The Persian Period.” Good articles
on Iran and Iranian religion as well as Judaism.
J. Duchesne-Guillemin, trans., The Hymns of Zarathushtra, trans. by
M. Henning (1952, 1963). The best short introduction to the original
texts of the Zoroastrian hymns.
R.N. Frye, The Heritage of Persia (1963, 1966). A first-rate survey of
Iranian history to Islamic times: readable but scholarly. Chapter 6
deals with the Sasanid era.
R. Ghirshman, Iran (1954). Good material on culture, society, and
economy as well as politics and history.
R. Ghirshman, Persian Art: The Parthian and Sasanid Dynasties
(1962). Superb photographs, and a very helpful glossary of places
and names. The text is minimal.
W.W. Malandra, trans. and ed., An Introduction to Ancient Iranian
Religion: Readings from the Avesta and Achaemenid Inscriptions
(1983). Helpful especially for texts of inscriptions relevant to
religion.
Geo Widengran, Mani and Manichaeism (1965). Still the standard
introduction to Mani’s life and the later spread and development of
Manichaeism.

India
A.L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, rev. ed. (1963). Excellent
material on Mauryan religion, society, culture, and history.
A.L. Basham, ed., A Cultural History of India (1975). A fine collection
of historical-survey essays by a variety of scholars. See Part I, “The
Ancient Heritage” (Chapters 2–16).
N.N. Bhattacharyya, Ancient Indian History and Civilization: Trends
and Perspectives (1988). Covers Mauryan and Gupta times as well
as earlier periods, with chapters on political systems, cities and
villages, ideology and religion, and art.
W.T. de Bary et al., comp., Sources of Indian Tradition, 2nd ed.
(1958). Vol. I: From the Beginning to 1800, ed. and rev. by Ainslie
T. Embree (1988). Excellent selections from a wide variety of Indian
texts, with good introductions to chapters and selections.
S. Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India (1962). The
standard work. See especially Chapters 3 (“Bhakti”) and 4
(“Monasteries under the Gupta Kings”).
D.G. Mandelbaum, Society in India (1972). 2 vols. The first two
chapters in Volume I of this study of caste, family, and village
relations are a good introduction to the caste system.
B. Rowland, The Art and Architecture of India: Buddhist/Hindu/Jain,
3rd rev. ed. (1970). The standard work, lucid and easy to read. Note
Part Three, “Romano-Indian Art in North-West India and Central
Asia.” See also the excellent chapters on Sungan, Andhran, and
other early Buddhist art (6–8, 14), the Gupta period (15), and the
Hindu Renaissance (17–19).
V.A. Smith, ed., The Oxford History of India, 4th rev. ed. by Percival
Spear et al. (1981), pp. 71–163. A dry, occasionally dated historical
survey. Includes useful reference chronologies. See especially pp.
164–229 (the Gupta period and following era to the Muslim
invasions).
R. Thapar, A History of India, Part I (1966), pp. 50–108. Three
chapters that provide a basic survey of the period.
R. Thapar, Ashoka and the Decline of the Mauryans (1973). The
standard treatment of Ashoka’s reign. Three chapters cover the rise
of mercantilism, the Gupta “classical pattern,” and the southern
dynasties to ca. 900 C.E.
 S. Wolpert, A New History of India, 2nd ed. (1982). A basic survey
history. Chapters 5 and 6 cover the Mauryans, Guptas, and Kushans.
P. Younger, Introduction to Indian Religious Thought (1972). A
sensitive attempt to delineate classical concerns of Indian religious
thought and culture.

Greek and Asian Dynasties

A.K. Narain, The Indo-Greeks (1957. Reprinted with corrections,
1962). The most comprehensive account of the complex history of
the various kings and kingdoms.
F.E. Peters, The Harvest of Hellenism (1970), pp. 222–308. Helpful
chapters on Greek rulers of the Eastern world from Seleucus to the
last Indo-Greeks.
J.W. Sedlar, India and the Greek World: A Study in the Transmission
of Culture (1980). A basic work that provides a good overview.
D. Sinor, ed., The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (1990). See
especially Chapters 6 and 7.

Chapter 5

R. Bates, V.Y. Mudimbe, and Jean O’Barr, eds., Africa and the
Disciplines (1993). Explores how knowledge of Africa has shaped
various fields of scholarship. The essay on history by Steven
Feierman is particularly relevant to this chapter.
P. Bohannan and P. Curtin, Africa and Africans, rev. ed. (1995). An
enjoyable and enlightening discussion of African history and
prehistory and of major African institutions (e.g., arts, family life,
religion).
R. Bulliet, The Camel and the Wheel (1990). Explains why the camel
was chosen over the wheel as a means of transport in the Sahara.
P. Curtin, On the Fringes of History: A Memoir (2005). An engaging
autobiography by one of the pioneers in African Studies in the
United States; explores what it means to be a historian in the
modern world.
P. Curtin, S. Feiermann, L. Thompson, and J. Vansina, African History,
rev. ed. (1995). The classic survey history, written by four of the
leaders in the field.
T.R.H. Davenport and Christopher Saunders, South Africa: A Modern
History, rev. ed. (2000). A comprehensive survey, beginning with
coverage of prehistoric southern Africa, the Khoisan peoples, and
the Bantu migrations.
B. Davidson, Africa in History, rev. ed. (1995). A sweeping history of
the diverse parts of Africa, emphasizing cultural exchange within
the continent and beyond.
C.A. Diop, Precolonial Black Africa (1988). A seminal work by the
pioneering Afrocentric scholar; his conclusions are controversial,
but his writings are always provocative.
P.A. Ebron, Performing Africa (2002). Analyzes the role of
performance in the creation and global circulation of African history
and identity.
P. Garlake, Early Art and Architecture of Africa (2002). Highlights the
diversity and sophistication of early African art and discusses the
social context in which it was created.
E. Gilbert and J. Reynolds, Africa in World History, 2nd ed. (2008).
The best new survey of African history, placing it in a global
context. In conversational prose, the authors attend to environmental
factors in African history and emphasize the roles of Western bias in
shaping what we now know (and think we know) about Africa.
J. Iliffe, Africans: The History of a Continent (1995). A thematic
survey of African history, from the paleontological record to the end
of apartheid, with a focus on environment and demography.
E. Isichei, A History of Christianity in Africa: From Antiquity to the
Present (1995). An amazing survey of Christianity’s role on the
African continent, from the time of Christ through European
missionaries to the present popularity of Christian faith.
R. Oliver, The African Experience (1991). A masterly, balanced, and
engaging sweep through African history.
I. Van Sertima, Black Women in Antiquity, rev. ed. (1988). From Lucy
to Hatshepsut and beyond, essays explore the role and status of
women in African societies of the past.
 L. White et al., eds., African Words, African Voices: Critical Practices
in Oral History (2001). A lively group of essays offer various
perspectives on the uses of oral history in African research.

Chapter 6

From Republic to Empire

R. Baumann, Women and Politics in Ancient Rome (1995). A study of
the role of women in Roman public life.
A.H. Bernstein, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus: Tradition and
Apostasy (1978). A new interpretation of Tiberius’s place in Roman
politics.
T.J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the
Bronze Age to the Punic Wars, c. 1000–264 B.C. (1995). A
consideration of the royal and early republican periods of Roman
history.
T. Cornell and J. Matthews, Atlas of the Roman World (1982). Much
more than the title indicates, this book presents a comprehensive
view of the Roman world in its physical and cultural setting.
J-M. David, The Roman Conquest of Italy (1997). A good analysis of
how Rome united Italy.
A. Goldsworthy, Roman Warfare (2002). A good military history of
Rome.
A. Goldsworthy, In the Name of Rome: The Men Who Won the
Roman Empire (2004). The story of Rome’s greatest generals in the
republican and imperial periods.
E.S. Gruen, Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (2002). A fine
study of Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman world.
E.S. Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (1984). A
new interpretation of Rome’s conquest of the eastern Mediterranean.
W.V. Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327–70 B.C.
(1975). An analysis of Roman attitudes and intentions concerning
imperial expansion and war.
 A. Keaveney, Rome and the Unification of Italy (1988). The story of
how Rome organized its defeated opponents.
S. Lancel, Carthage, A History (1995). Includes a good account of
Rome’s dealings with Carthage.
J.F. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War: A Military History of the Second Punic
War (1978). A careful and thorough account.
F.G.B. Millar, The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (1999). A
challenge to the view that only aristocrats counted in the late
republic.
M. Pallottino, The Etruscans, 6th ed. (1974). Makes especially good
use of archaeological evidence.
H.H. Scullard, A History of the Roman World, 753–146 B.C., 4th ed.
(1980). An unusually fine narrative history with useful critical notes.
G. Williams, The Nature of Roman Poetry (1970). An unusually
graceful and perceptive literary study.

Imperial Rome
W. Ball, Rome in the East: The Transformation of an Empire (2001). A
thorough account of the influence of the East on Roman history.
T. Barnes, The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (1982).
K.R. Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome (1994). A study of the role
of slaves in Roman life.
P. Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity,
200–1000 (1996). A vivid picture of the spread of Christianity by a
master of the field.
A. Ferrill, The Fall of the Roman Empire, The Military Explanation
(1986). An interpretation that emphasizes the decline in the quality
of the Roman army.
K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture (1996). A work that integrates art,
literature, and politics.
A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 3 vols. (1964). A
comprehensive study of the period.
D. Kagan, ed., The End of the Roman Empire: Decline or
Transformation? 3rd ed. (1992). A collection of essays discussing
the problem of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
J.E. Lendon, Empire of Honor, The Art of Government in the Roman
World (1997). An original and path-breaking interpretation.
E.N. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (1976). An
original and fascinating analysis by a keen student of modern
strategy.
R. MacMullen, Roman Social Relations, 50 B.C. to A.D. 284 (1981).
R. MacMullen, Corruption and the Decline of Rome (1988). A study
that examines the importance of changes in ethical ideas and
behavior.
R.W. Mathison, Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul: Strategies for
Survival (1993). An unusual slant on the late empire.
J.F. Matthews, Laying Down the Law: A Study of the Theodosian
Code (2000). A study of the importance of Roman law as a source
for the understanding of Roman history and civilization.
W.A. Meeks, The Origins of Christian Morality: The First Two
Centuries. An account of the shaping of Christianity in the Roman
Empire.
F. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World, 31 B.C.–A.D. 337
(1977). A study of Roman imperial government.
F. Millar, The Roman Empire and Its Neighbors, 2nd ed. (1981).
H.M.D. Parker, A History of the Roman World from A.D. 138 to 337
(1969). A good survey.
M.I. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire,
2nd ed. (1957). A masterpiece whose main thesis has been much
disputed.
V. Rudich, Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of
Dissimulation (1993). A brilliant exposition of the lives and
thoughts of political dissidents in the early empire.
E.T. Salmon, A History of the Roman World, 30 B.C. to A.D. 138
(1968). A good survey.
R. Syme, The Roman Revolution (1960). A brilliant study of
Augustus, his supporters, and their rise to power.
R. Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy (1985). An examination of the
new ruling class shaped by Augustus.
L.A. Thompson, Romans and Blacks (1989).
Chapter 7

D. Bodde, China’s First Unifier (1938). A study of the Qin unification

of China, viewed through the Legalist philosopher and statesman Li
Si.
T.T. Ch’u, Law and Society in Traditional China (1961). Treats the
sweep of Chinese history from 202 B.C.E. to 1911 C.E.
T.T. Ch’u, Han Social Structure (1972).
A. Cotterell, The First Emperor of China (1981). A study of the first
Qin emperor.
R. Coulborn, Feudalism in History (1965). One chapter interestingly
compares the quasi feudalism of the Zhou with that of the Six
Dynasties period.
J.K. Fairbank, E.O. Reischauer, and A.M. Craig, East Asia: Tradition
and Transformation (1989). A fairly detailed single-volume history
covering China, Japan, and other countries in East Asia from
antiquity to recent times.
J. Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization (1982). A survey of
Chinese history.
D.A. Graff and R. Higham, A Military History of China (2002).
C.Y. Hsu, Ancient China in Transition (1965). On social mobility
during the Eastern Zhou era.
C.Y. Hsu, Han Agriculture (1980). A study of the agrarian economy of
China during the Han Dynasty.
J. Levi, The Chinese Emperor (1987). A novel about the first Qin
emperor based on scholarly sources.
M. Loewe, Everyday Life in Early Imperial China (1968). A social
history of the Han Dynasty.
J. Needham, The Shorter Science and Civilization in China (1978). An
abridgment of the multivolume work on the same subject with the
same title—minus Shorter—by the same author.
S. Owen, ed., and Trans., An Anthology of Chinese Literature:
Beginnings to 1911 (1996).
I. Robinet, Taoism: Growth of a Religion (1987).
M. Sullivan, The Arts of China (1967). An excellent survey history of
Chinese art.
 D. Twitchett and M. Loewe, eds., The Ch’in and Han Empires, 221
B.C.E.–C.E. 220 (1986). Vol. 1 of The Cambridge History of China.
Z. S. Wang, Han Civilization (1982).
B. Watson, Ssu-ma Ch’ien, Grand Historian of China (1958). A study
of China’s premier historian.
B. Watson, Records of the Grand Historian of China, Vols. 1 and 2
(1961). Selections from the Shiji by Sima Qian.
B. Watson, The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry (1986).
F. Wood, The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia
(2003). A lively narrative combined with photographs and paintings.
A. Wright, Buddhism in Chinese History (1959).
Y.S. Yu, Trade and Expansion in Han China (1967). A study of
economic relations between the Chinese and their neighbors.

Chapter 8

General
P. Bol, This Culture of Ours (1992). An insightful intellectual history
of the Tang through the Song dynasties.
J. Cahill, Chinese Painting (1960). An excellent survey.
J.K. Fairbank and M. Goldman, China: A New History (1998). The
summation of a lifetime engagement with Chinese history.
F.A. Kierman Jr., and J.K. Fairbank, eds., Chinese Ways in Warfare
(1974). Chapters by different authors on the Chinese military
experience from the Zhou to the Ming.

Sui and Tang

P.B. Ebrey, The Aristocratic Families of Early Imperial China (1978).
D. McMullen, State and Scholars in T’ang China (1988).
S. Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang (1980).
 S. Owen, trans. and ed., An Anthology of Chinese Literature:
Beginnings to 1911 (1996).
E.G. Pulleyblank, The Background of the Rebellion of An Lu-shan
(1955). A study of the 755 rebellion that weakened the central
authority of the Tang Dynasty.
E.O. Reischauer, Ennin’s Travels in T’ang China (1955). China as seen
through the eyes of a ninth-century Japanese Marco Polo.
E.H. Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samarkand (1963). A study of
Tang imagery.
So. Teiser, The Ghost Festival in Medieval China (1988). On Tang
popular religion.
D. Twitchett, ed., The Cambridge History of China, Vol. III: Sui and
T’ang China, 589–906 Part 1 (1979).
G. W. Wang, The Structure of Power in North China during the Five
Dynasties (1963). A study of the interim period between the Tang
and the Song dynasties.
A. F. Wright, The Sui Dynasty (1978).

Song
B. Birge, Women, Property, and Confucian Reaction in Song and Yuan
China (960–1366) (2002). The rights of women to property—
whether in the form of dowries or inheritances—were considerable
during the Song but declined thereafter.
C.S. Chang and J. Smythe, South China in the Twelfth Century (1981).
China as seen through the eyes of a twelfth-century Chinese poet,
historian, and statesman.
E.L. Davis, Society and the Supernatural in Song China (2001).
J.W. Haeger, ed., Crisis and Prosperity in Song China (1975).
R. Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen (1987). On the transformation of
officials into a local gentry elite during the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries.
R. Hymes, Way and Byway: Taoism, Local Religion, and Models of
Divinity in Sung and Modern China (2002).
M. Rossabi, China among Equals (1983). A study of the Liao, Qin, and
Song empires and their relations.
 W.M. Tu, Confucian Thought, Selfhood as Creative Transformation
(1985).
K. Yoshikawa, An Introduction to Song Poetry, trans. by B. Watson
(1967).

Yuan
T.T. Allsen, Mongol Imperialism (1987).
J.W. Dardess, Conquerors and Confucians: Aspects of Political
Change in Late Yuan China (1973).
I. de Rachewiltz, Trans., The Secret History of the Mongols: A
Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century (2003). A new
translation of a key historical work on the life of Genghis.
H. Franke and D. Twitchett, eds., The Cambridge History of China,
Vol. VI: Alien Regimes and Border States, 710–1368 (1994).
J.D. Langlois, China under Mongol Rule (1981).
R. Latham, trans., Travels of Marco Polo (1958).
H.D. Martin, The Rise of Chingis Khan and His Conquest of North
China (1981).
D. Morgan, The Mongol Empire and Its Legacy (1999). Genghis, the
several khanates, and the aftermath of empire.
P. Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan, His Life and Legacy (1992). The rise
to power of the Mongol leader, with a critical consideration of
historical sources.

Chapter 9

M. Adolphson, The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers, and Warriors in

Premodern Japan (2000). A new interpretation stressing the
importance of temples in the political life of Heian and Kamakura
Japan.
B.L. Batten, To the Ends of Japan: Premodern Frontiers, Boundaries,
and Interactions. (2003). An interesting treatment of Heian Japan,
topic by topic.
C. Blacker, The Catalpa Bow (1975). An insightful study of folk
Shinto.
R. Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane and the Early Heian Court (1986).
A study of a famous courtier and poet.
D.M. Brown, ed., The Cambridge History of Japan: Ancient Japan
(1993). This series of six volumes sums up several decades of
research on Japan.
D. Brown and E. Ishida, eds., The Future and the Past (1979). A
translation of a history of Japan written in 1219.
The Cambridge History of Japan, D.M. Brown, ed.; Vol. 1, Ancient
Japan, W. McCullough and D. H. Shively eds; Vol. 2, Heian Japan,
K. Yamamura, ed. Vol. 3, Medieval Japan. Fine multi-author works.
M. Collcutt, Five Mountains (1980). A study of the monastic
organization of medieval Zen.
T.D. Conlon, State of War: The Violent Order of Fourteenth Century
Japan (2003). Compare Conlon’s account with those of Souyri and
Friday.
W.T. DeBary, D. Keene, G. Tanabe, and P. Varley, Comps., Sources of
Japanese Tradition, 2nd ed. (2001).
P. Duus, Feudalism in Japan (1969). An easy survey of the subject.
W.W. Farris, Population, Disease, and Land in Early Japan, 645–900
(1985). An innovative reinterpretation of early history.
W.W. Farris, Heavenly Warriors: The Evolution of Japan’s Military,
500–1300 (1992).
W.W. Farris, Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures (1998). Studies of
Japan’s prehistory and early history, based on recent Japanese
research.
K.F. Friday, Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan
(2004). Weapons and warfare in Japan from the tenth to fourteenth
centuries.
A.E. Goble, Go-Daigo’s Revolution (1996). A provoking account of
the 1331 revolt by an emperor who thought emperors should rule.
J.W. Hall, Government and Local Power in Japan, 500–1700: A Study
Based on Bizen Province (1966). A splendid and insightful book.
J.W. Hall and T. Toyoda, Japan in the Muromachi Age (1977). Another
collection of essays.
D. Keene, ed., Anthology of Japanese Literature from the Earliest Era
to the Mid-Nineteenth Century (1955).
D. Keene, ed., Twenty Plays of the Nō Theatre (1970).
T. Lamarre, Uncovering Heian Japan: An Archeology of Sensation and
Inscription (2000). The “archeology” in the title refers to digging
into literature.
I.H. Levy, The Ten Thousand Leaves (1981). A fine translation of
Japan’s earliest collection of poetry.
J.P. Mass and W. Hauser, eds., The Bakufu in Japanese History (1985).
Topics in Bakufu history from the twelfth to the nineteenth
centuries.
I. Morris, trans., The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon (1967).
Observations about the Heian court life by the Jane Austen of
ancient Japan.
S. Murasaki, The Tale of Genji comparison of this translation with
those of E. Seidensticker and R. Tyler.
S. Murasaki, The Tale of Genji, trans. by E.G. Seidensticker (1976).
The world’s first novel and the greatest work of Japanese fiction.
R.J. Pearson et al., eds., Windows on the Japanese Past: Studies in
Archaeology and Prehistory (1986).
D.L. Philippi, trans., Kojiki (1968). Japan’s ancient myths.
J. Piggot, The Emergence of Japanese Kingship (1997).
E.O. Reischauer, Ennin’s Diary, the Record of a Pilgrimage to China in
Search of the Law and Ennin’s Travels in T’ang China (1955).
E.O. Reischauer and A.M. Craig, Japan: Tradition and Transformation
(1989). A more detailed work covering the sweep of Japanese
history from the early beginnings through the 1980s.
H. Sato, Legends of the Samurai (1995). Excerpts from various tales
and writings.
D.H. Shively and W.H. McCullough, eds., The Cambridge History of
Japan: Heian Japan (1999).
D.T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture (1959).
H. Tonomura, Community and Commerce in Late Medieval Japan
(1992).
R. Tsunoda, W.T. de Bary, and D. Keene, comps., Sources of the
Japanese Tradition (1958). A collection of original religious,
 political, and philosophical writings from each period of Japanese
history. The best reader. A new edition was published in 2005.
H.P. Varley, Imperial Restoration in Medieval Japan (1971). A study of
the 1331 attempt by an emperor to restore imperial power.
A. Waley, trans., The Nō Plays of Japan (1957). Medieval dramas.
K. Yamamura, ed., Cambridge History of Japan: Medieval Japan
(1990).

Chapter 10

O. Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art (1973). A critical and

creative interpretation of major themes in the development of
distinctively Islamic forms of art and architecture.
A. Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (1991). A masterly survey
of the Arabs down through the centuries and a clear picture of many
aspects of Islamic history and culture that extend beyond the Arab
world.
H. Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic
Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century (1986). The best
survey of early Islamic history.
I. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (1988). A comprehensive
overview of the rise and development of Islam all over the world.
F.E. Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam (1994). A balanced
analysis of the life of Muhammad.
F. Rahman, Major Themes of the Qur’an (1980). The best introduction
to the basic ideas of the Qur’an and Islam, seen through the eyes of
a perceptive Muslim modernist scholar.
F. Schuon, Understanding Islam (1994). Compares the Islamic world-
view with Catholic Christianity. A dense, but intellectually
stimulating, discussion.
M. Sells, Approaching the Qur’an. The Early Revelations (1999). A
fine introduction and new translations of some of the more common
earlier Qur’anic revelations.
B. Stowasser, Women in the Qur’an, Traditions and Interpretation
(1994). An outstanding systematic study of statements regarding
 women in the Qur’an.

Chapter 11

K. Armstrong, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet (1992).

Strong on religion.
R. Bartlett, The Making of Europe, 950–1350 (1992). A study of the
way immigration and colonial conquest shaped the Europe we
know.
M. Bloch, Feudal Society, Vols. 1 and 2, trans. by L. A. Manyon
(1971). A classic on the topic and as an example of historical study.
C.B. Brown, Singing the Gospel: Lutheran Hymns and the Success of
the Reformation (2005). Outstanding study of Luther’s hymns for
children.
C.M. Brand, Byzantium Confronts the West, 1180–1204 (1968).
Analyzes the internal and external pressures that Byzantium
experienced during this quarter-century time period.
P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (1967). Late antiquity
seen through the biography of its greatest Christian thinker.
J.H. Burns, The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c.
350–c. 1450 (1991). The best scan.
R.H.C. Davis, A History of Medieval Europe: From Constantine to St.
Louis (1972). Unsurpassed in clarity.
N.M. El-Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs (2004). Examines
the Arabic-Islamic view of Byzantium.
R. Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity
(1998). Up-to-date survey.
J.B. Glubb, The Great Arab Conquests (1995). Jihadists.
G. Guglielmo, ed., The Byzantines (1997). Updates key issues.
D. Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture (1998). A comparative
intellectual history.
G. Holmes, ed., The Oxford History of Medieval Europe (1992).
Overviews of Roman and northern Europe during the “Dark Ages.”
B.J. Kaplan, Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of
Toleration in Early Modern Europe (2007). How the Reformation
 created religious toleration and sowed the seeds of religious
pluralism.
B. Lewis, The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years
(1995).
A.E. Laiou and H. Maguire, eds., Byzantium, a World Civilization
(1992). Examines the centrality of Byzantium’s role in world
history.
C. Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome (1980).
J. Martin, Medieval Russia 980–1584 (1995). A concise narrative
history.
R. Mckitterick, ed., Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation
(1994). Fresh essays.
J.J. Norwich, Byzantium: The Decline and Fall (1995).
J.J. Norwich, Byzantium: The Apogee (1997). The whole story in two
volulmes.
G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State (1999). Traces the
thousand-year course of the Byzantine Empire.
R.I. Page, Chronicles of the Vikings: Records, Memorials, and Myths
(1995). Sources galore.
F. Robinson, ed., The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic
World (1996). Spectacular.
S. Runciman, Byzantine Civilization (1970). Succinct, comprehensive
account by a master.
P. Sawyer, The Age of the Vikings (1962). Old but solid account.
C. Stephenson, Medieval Feudalism (1969). Excellent short summary
and introduction.
L. White Jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change (1962). Often
fascinating account of how primitive technology changed life.
D. Whitford, Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to
Research (2008). A goldmine of information on all aspects of the
Reformation.
H. Wolfram, The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples (1997).
Challenging, but most rewarding.

Chapter 12
The Islamic Heartlands
L. Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern
Debate (1992). A good historical survey of the status of women in
Middle Eastern societies.
J. Berkey, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near
East, 600–1800 (2002). An interesting new synthesis focusing on
political and religious trends.
C.E. Bosworth, The Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and
Genealogical Handbook (1967). A handy reference work for
dynasties and families important to Islamic history in all periods and
places.
M.A. Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic
Thought (2001). A masterful analysis of the development of Islamic
law.
P.K. Hitti, History of the Arabs, 8th ed. (1964). Still a useful English
resource, largely for factual detail. See especially Part IV, “The
Arabs in Europe: Spain and Sicily.”
A. Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (1991). The newest survey
history and the best, at least for the Arab Islamic world.
S.K. Jayyusi, ed., The Legacy of Muslim Spain, 2 vols. (1994). A
comprehensive survey of the arts, politics, literature, and society by
experts in various fields.
B. Lewis, ed., Islam and the Arab World (1976). A large-format,
heavily illustrated volume with many excellent articles on diverse
aspects of Islamic (not simply Arab, as the misleading title
indicates) civilization through the premodern period.
D. Morgan, The Mongols (1986). A recent and readable survey history.
J.J. Saunders, A History of Medieval Islam (1965). A brief and simple,
if sketchy, introductory survey of Islamic history to the Mongol
invasions.

India
 W.T. de Bary et al., comp., Sources of Indian Tradition, 2nd ed.
(1958), Vol. I, From the Beginning to 1800, ed. and rev. by Ainslie
T. Embree (1988). Excellent selections from a wide variety of Indian
texts, with good introductions to chapters and individual selections.
S.M. Ikram, Muslim Civilization in India (1964). The best short survey
history, covering the period 711 to 1857.
R.C. Majumdar, gen. ed., The History and Culture of the Indian
People, Vol. VI, The Delhi Sultanate, 3rd ed. (1980). A
comprehensive political and cultural account of the period in India.
F. Robinson, ed., The Cambridge History of India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldives (1989). A
very helpful quick reference source with brief but well-done survey
essays on a wide range of topics relevant to South Asian history
down to the present.
A. Wink, Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Vol. 1
(1991). The first of five promising volumes to be devoted to the
Indo-Islamic world’s history. This volume treats the seventh to
eleventh centuries.

Southeast Asia
L. Andaya, The World of Maluku: Eastern Indonesia in the Early
Modern Period (1993). A comprehensive view of the formation of
what is now Indonesia.
B.W. Andaya and L. Andaya, A History of Malaysia (1982). A good
overview of Indonesia’s smaller but critical northern neighbor.
J. Siegel, Shadow and Sound: The Historical Thought of a Sumatran
People (1979). An excellent analysis tracing the relation between
foreign influences and local practice.

Chapter 13

B.S. Bauer, The Development of the Inca State (1992). Emphasizes

archaeological evidence over the Spanish chronicles in accounting
for the emergence of the Inca Empire.
B. S. Bauer, Ancient Cuzco: Heartland of the Inca (2004). Exploration
of the ramifications of late-twentieth-century archaeological
explorations of the ancient Inca capital
K.O. Bruhns, Ancient South America (1994). A clear discussion of the
archaeology and civilization of the region with emphasis on the
Andes.
E. M. Brumfiel, The Aztec World (2008). A well-illustrated work.
R.L. Burger, Chavín and the Origins of Andean Civilization (1992). A
detailed study of early Andean prehistory by one of the leading
authorities on Chavín.
R. L. Burger, Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas
(2008). The best study of this famous site.
I. Clendinnen, Aztecs: An Interpretation (1995). A classic exploration
of the Aztec world.
B. Cobo and R. Hamilton, History of the Inca Empire, rev. ed. (1983).
A seventeenth-century account, with a modern translation and
interpretation.
M.D. Coe, Breaking the Maya Code (1992). The story of the
remarkable achievement of deciphering the ancient Mayalanguage.
M.D. Coe, Mexico from the Olmecs to the Aztecs (2008). A wide-
ranging introductory discussion.
G. Conrad and A.A. Demarest, Religion and Empire: The Dynamics of
Aztec and Inca Expansionism (1984). An interesting comparative
study.
T. N. D’Altroy, The Incas (2004). A major study of all aspects of Inca
civilization
A. Demarest, Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest
Civilization (2004). Lively and engaged in recent scholarly debates.
S. T. Evans, Ancient Mexico & Central America: Archaeology and
Culture History (2008). Now the best wide-ranging introduction.
S. Freidel, L. Schele, and J. Parker, Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand
Years on the Shaman’s Path (1995). The best account of the subject.
S.D. Gillespie, The Aztec Kings (1989).
R. Hassig, Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control
(1995). Explores the achievement of the Aztec Empire.
J. Hyslop, Inka Settlement Planning (1990). A detailed study.
 M. León-Portilla, Fifteen Poets of the Aztec World (1992). An
anthology of translations of Aztec poetry.
G. M. McEwan, The Incas: New Perspectives (2006). An excellent
overview with fine reading lists for further exploration.
H. McKillop, The Ancient May: New Perspectives (2004). Clear
presentations of recent research and debates.
M.E. Miller, The Art of Mesoamerica from Olmec to Aztec (2006).
Most recent edition of a pioneering work.
C. Morris and A. Von Hagen, The Inka Empire and Its Andean Origins
(1993). A clear overview of Andean prehistory by a leading
authority. Beautifully illustrated.
M.E. Mosely, The Incas and Their Ancestors: The Archaeology of
Peru (2001). Readable and thorough.
J.A. Sabloff, The Cities of Ancient Mexico (1989). Capsule summaries
of ancient Mesoamerican cultures.
L. Schele and M.E. Miller, The Blood of Kings (1986). A rich and
beautifully illustrated study of ancient Maya art and society.
H. Silverman, Andean Archaeology (2004). Overview of various
Andean peoples.
M.E. Smith, The Aztecs (2002). Emphasizes impact of late-twentieth-
century archaeological research.
R. Stone-Miller, Art of the Andes: From Chavin to Inca (2002). A
well-illustrated overview.

Chapter 14

J. Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period (1987).

The most recent North African survey. Pages 59–247 are relevant to
this chapter.
E.K. Akyeampyong, ed., Themes in West Africa’s History (2006). A
wide-ranging collection of essays by leading scholars.
I. Battuta, N. King, and S. Hamdun, Ibn Battuta in Black Africa, rev.
ed. (2005). Well-selected excerpts from Battuta’s extensive journals.
P. Ben-Amos, Art, Innovation and Politics in Eighteenth-Century
Benin (1999). Offers insights into the many levels of meaning and
 authority in Benin’s artworks.
I. Berger, E.F. White, and C. Skidmore-Hess, Women in Sub-Saharan
Africa: Restoring Women to History (1999). A valuable resource on
the role of women in African history.
D. Birminham, Central Africa to 1870 (1981). Chapters from the
Cambridge History of Africa that give a brief, lucid overview of
developments in this region.
P. Bohannan and P. Curtin, Africa and Africans, rev. ed. (1995).
Accessible, topical approach to African history, culture, society,
politics, and economics.
P.D. Curtin, S. Feiermann, L. Thompson, and J. Vansina, African
History, rev. ed. (1995). An older, but masterly survey. The relevant
portions are Chapters 6–9.
B. Davidson, West Africa before the Colonial Era (1998). A typically
readable survey by one of the great popularizers of African history.
R. Elphick, Kraal and Castle: Khoikhoi and the Founding of White
South Africa (1977). An incisive, informative interpretation of the
history of the Khoikhoi and their fateful interaction with European
colonization.
R. Elphick and H. Giliomee, The Shaping of South African Society,
1652–1820 (1979). A superb, synthetic history of this crucial period.
J.D. Fage, A History of Africa, rev. ed., (2001). Still a readable survey
history.
E. Gilbert and J. Reynolds, Africa in World History, 2nd ed. (2008).
The best new survey of African history, placing it in a global
context. See especially Chapters 6 and 7 on Islam, and Chapters 8
through 12 for the period leading to European colonization.
M. Hiskett, The Development of Islam in West Africa (1984). The
standard survey study of the subject. Of the relevant sections
(Chapters 1–10, 12, 15), that on Hausaland, which is treated only in
passing in this text, is noteworthy.
M. Horton and J. Middleton, The Swahili (2000).
R.W. July, A History of the African People, 3rd ed. (1980). Chapters
3–6 treat Africa before about 1800 area by area; Chapter 7 deals
with “The Coming of Europe.”
N. Levtzion and R. Pouwels, eds. History of Islam in Africa (2000). A
wide-ranging collection of essays.
 N. Levtzion and D.T. Niani, eds., Africa from the Twelfth to the
Sixteenth Century, UNESCO General History of Africa, Vol. IV
(1984). Many survey articles cover the various regions and major
states of Africa in the centuries noted in the title.
R. Oliver, The African Experience (1991). A masterly, balanced, and
engaging survey, with outstanding syntheses and summaries of
recent research.
C.A. Quinn and F. Quinn, Pride, Faith, and Fear: Islam in Sub-Saharan
Africa (2005). A readable account of Islam in Africa, bringing the
story almost to the present.
D. Robinson, Muslim Societies in African History (2004). A
comprehensive overview.
A.F.C. Ryder, Benin and the Europeans: 1485–1897 (1969). A basic
study.
John K. Thornton, The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition,
1641–1718 (1983). A detailed and perceptive analysis for those who
wish to delve into Kongo state and society in the seventeenth
century.
M. Wilson and L. Thompson, eds., The Oxford History of South
Africa, Vol. I., South Africa to 1870 (1969). Relatively detailed, if
occasionally dated, treatment.

Chapter 15

M. Brecht, Martin Luther: His Road to Reformation, 1483–1521

(1985). Best on young Luther.
C. Brown et al., Rembrandt: The Master and His Workshop (1991). A
great master’s art and influence.
R. Briggs, Witches and Neighbors: A History of European Witchcraft
(1996). A readable introduction.
E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars (1992). Strongest argument yet
that there was no deep Reformation in England.
H.O. Evennett, The Spirit of the Counter Reformation (1968). The
continuity and independence of Catholic reform. Hans-Jürgen
 Goertz, The Anabaptists (1996). Best treatment of minority
Protestants.
O.P. Grell and A. Cunningham, Health Care and Poor Relief in
Protestant Europe (1997). The civic side of the Reformation.
M. Holt, The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629 (1995). Scholarly
appreciation of religious side of the story.
J.C. Hutchison, Albrecht Durer (1990). The life behind the art.
H. Jedin, A History of the Council of Trent, Vols. 1, 2 (1957–1961).
Comprehensive, detailed, and authoritative.
M. Kitchen, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Germany (1996).
Comprehensive and accessible.
A. Kors and E. Peters, eds., European Witchcraft, 1100–1700 (1972).
Classics of witch belief.
W. Maccaffrey, Elizabeth I (1993). Magisterial study.
G. Mattingly, The Armada (1959). A masterpiece, novel-like in style.
D. Mccolloch, The Reformation (2004). No stone unturned, with
English emphasis.
H.A. Oberman, Luther: Man between God and Devil (1989).
Authoritative biography.
J.W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (1993). Extremely detailed account of
the creation of the Society of Jesus and its original purposes.
S. Ozment, The Age of Reform, 1250–1550: An Intellectual and
Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe (1980).
Broad, lucid survey.
S. Ozment, When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe
(1983). Effort to portray the constructive side of Protestant thinking
about family relationships.
S. Ozment, The Bürgermeister’s Daughter: Scandal in a Sixteenth-
Century German Town (1996). What a woman could do at law in
the sixteenth century.
G. Parker, The Thirty Years’ War (1984). Large, lucid survey.
J.H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance (1964). A comprehensive
account of explorations from 1450 to 1650.
W. Prinz, Durer (1998). Latest biography of Germany’s greatest
painter.
J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (1968). The best account of Henry’s reign.
 G. Strauss, ed. and trans., Manifestations of Discontent in Germany on
the Eve of the Reformation (1971). A rich collection of sources for
both rural and urban scenes.
H. Wunder, He Is the Sun, She Is the Moon: Women in Early Modern
Germany (1998). Best study of early modern women.

Chapter 16

J. Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period (1987).

The essential North African survey. Pages 59–247 are relevant to
this chapter.
D. Birminham, Central Africa to 1870 (1981). Chapters from the
Cambridge History of Africa that give a brief, lucid overview of
developments in this region.
P. Bohannan and P. Curtin, Africa and Africans, rev. ed. (1971).
Accessible, topical approach to African history, culture, society,
politics, and economics.
P.D. Curtin, S. Feiermann, L. Thompson, and J. Vansina, African
History (1978). An older, but masterly survey. The relevant portions
are Chapters 6–9.
R. Elphick, Kraal and Castle: Khoikhoi and the Founding of White
South Africa (1977). An incisive, informative interpretation of the
history of the Khoikhoi and their fateful interaction with European
colonization.
R. Elphick and H. Giliomee, The Shaping of South African Society,
1652–1820 (1979). A superb, synthetic history of this crucial period.
J.D. Fage, A History of Africa (1978). Still a readable survey history.
M. Hiskett, The Development of Islam in West Africa (1984). The
standard survey study of the subject. Of the relevant sections
(Chapters 1–10, 12, 15), that on Hausaland, which is treated only in
passing in this text, is noteworthy.
R.W. July, Precolonial Africa: An Economic and Social History
(1975). Chapter 10 gives an interesting overall picture of slaving in
African history.
 R.W. July, A History of the African People, 3rd ed. (1980). Chapters
3–6 treat Africa before about 1800 area by area; Chapter 7 deals
with “The Coming of Europe.”
I.M. Lewis, ed., Islam in Tropical Africa (1966), pp. 4–96. Lewis’s
introduction is one of the best brief summaries of the role of Islam
in West Africa and the Sudan.
D.T. Niani, ed., Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century,
UNESCO General History of Africa, Vol. IV (1984). Many survey
articles cover the various regions and major states of Africa in the
centuries noted in the title.
R. Oliver, The African Experience (1991). A masterly, balanced, and
engaging survey, with outstanding syntheses and summaries of
recent research.
J.A. Rawley, The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History (1981).
Impressively documented, detailed, and well-presented survey
history of the Atlantic trade; little focus on African dimensions.
A.F.C. Ryder, Benin and the Europeans: 1485–1897 (1969). A basic
study.
John K. Thornton, The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition,
1641–1718 (1983). A detailed and perceptive analysis for those who
wish to delve into Kongo state and society in the seventeenth
century.
M. Wilson and L. Thompson, eds., The Oxford History of South
Africa, Vol. I., South Africa to 1870 (1969). Relatively detailed, if
occasionally dated, treatment.

Chapter 17

R. Adorno, The Polemics of Possession in Spanish American Narrative

(2008). An exploration of the rhetoric used by the Spanish to assure
their holding of their American empire.
A.C. Bailey, African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Beyond the
Silence and the Shame (2006). Delivers just what the title promises.
B. Bailyn, Atlantic History: Concepts and Contours (2005). An
essential overview to this burgeoning area of historical inquiry,
 written by a leader in the field.
I. Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery
in North America (1998); Generations of Captivity: A History of
African American Slaves (2003). Two volumes representing the
most extensive and important recent treatment of slavery in North
America; highlights the diversity of slave experiences.
R. Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery from the Baroque to
the Modern 1492–1800 (1997). An extraordinary work.
V. Carretta, Equiano, the African: The Biography of a Self-Made Man
(reprint 2007). Provides context and analysis of the renowned
accounts of one-time slave Olaudah Equiano.
N.D. Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–
1650 (1998). A survey of the devastating impact of previously
unknown diseases on the native populations of the Americas. M.S.
Creighton and L. Norling, eds. Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender
and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700–1920 (2006). Eye-
opening accounts of life at sea, and how gender roles were shaped
and challenged on the Atlantic.
P.D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (1969). Remains a
basic work.
P.D. Curtin, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex (1998).
Places the plantation economy in the context of world history.
D.B. Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the
New World (2006). A splendid overview by a leading scholar.
J.H. Elliot, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in
America 1492–1830 (2006). A brilliant, accessible comparative
history.
D. Eltis, The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (1999). Detailed
discussion of the size and scope of the Atlantic market, with
attention to the role of Africans on both sides of the Atlantic.
H.L. Gates Jr. and W.L. Andrews, eds., Pioneers of the Black Atlantic:
Five Slave Narratives from the Enlightenment, 1772–1815 (1998).
An anthology of autobiographical accounts.
S. Gruzinski, The Conquest of Mexico: The Incorporation of Indian
Societies into the Western World, 16th–18th Centuries (1993).
Interprets the experience of Native Americans, from their own point
of view, during the time of the Spanish conquest.
L. Hanke, All Mankind Is One: A Study of the Disputation between
Bartolome De Las Casas and Juan Gines De Sepulveda in 1550 on
the Intellectual and Religious (1994). A study of the Spanish debate
over the humanity of Native Americans in the Spanish Empire.
R. Harms, The Diligent: A Voyage through the Worlds of the Slave
Trade (2002). A powerful narrative of the voyage of a French slave
trader.
J. Hemming, The Conquest of the Incas, rev. ed., (2003). A lucid
account of the conquest of the Inca Empire and its aftermath.
J. Hemming, Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Native
Americans, 1500–1760 (1978). A careful account with excellent
bibliography.
H. Kamen, Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763
(2005). An excellent overview by a major scholar.
H. Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade (1999). A synthesis of scholarly
knowledge.
W. Klooster and A. Padula, The Atlantic World: Essays on Slavery,
Migration, and Imagination (2004). Essays by leading scholars
examine important aspects of the creation of a new way of living—
and a new way of thinking about the world.
P.E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in
Africa (2000). An important new evaluation of slavery as it was
practiced within Africa, and its relation to the Islamic and
transatlantic slave trades.
K. Macquarrie, The Last Days of the Incas (2007). A fast-moving
popular account.
K. Mann, Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of a Black
Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil (2005). This
analysis of the dynamics of human and cultural migration and
exchange on the busiest route of the slave trade is a significant
addition to Atlantic World scholarship.
P. Manning, Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and
African Slave Trades (1990). An admirably concise economic-
historical synthesis of the evidence, with multiple tables and
statistics to supplement the magisterial analysis.
A. Pagden, Lords of All the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain,
Britain, and France c. 1500–c. 1800 (1995). An effort to explain the
 imperial thinking of the major European powers.
S. Peabody and K. Grinberg, Slavery, Freedom, and the Law in the
Atlantic World: A Brief History with Documents (2007). Examines
the legal frameworks through which slavery was institutionalized,
and documents the many ways people challenged slavery.
M. Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History (2007). A exploration
of the harrowing experience of slave transportation across the
Atlantic.
M. Rediker, Villains of all Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age
(2008). A serious historical treatment of the subject.
D.K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of
Early America, new ed. (2003). Uses the biographies of three Native
Americans to offer a fresh perspective on North American history
from the time of Columbus to the American Revolution.
M. Russell, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (2003). Challenges
many long-held views of the event.
S.B. Schwartz, All Can Be Saved: Religious Tolerance and Salvation
in the Iberian Atlantic World (2009). The most important recent
study of the social and religious life of the Spanish Empire.
S.B. Schwartz, ed., Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the
Atlantic World, 1450–1680 (2003). A comprehensive examination
of the role of sugar in the plantation economy.
S.E. Smallwoord, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to
American Diaspora (2008). An intimate examination of the
experience and economy of the slave trade.
H. Thomas, Conquest: Montezuma, Cortés, and the Fall of Old Mexico
(1993). A splendid modern narrative of the event, with careful
attention to the character of the participants.
J. Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World,
1400–1680 (1992). A discussion of the role of Africans in the
emergence of the transatlantic economy.
N. Wachtel, The Vision of the Vanquished: The Spanish Conquest of
Peru through Indian Eyes, 1530–1570 (1977). A presentation of the
Incan experience of conquest.
C.A. Williams, Bridging the Early Modern Atlantic World (2009).
Explores the cultural and ethnic diversity of the transatlantic
economy.
Chapter 18

China
D. Bodde and C. Morris, Law in Imperial China (1967). Focuses on
the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911).
T. Brook, The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming
China (1988).
C.S. Chang and S.L.H. Chang, Crisis and Transformation in
Seventeenth-century China: Society, Culture, and Modernity (1992).
P. Crossley, Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial
Ideology (1999).
W.T. De Bary, Learning for One’s Self: Essays on the Individual in
Neo-Confucian Thought (1991). A useful corrective to the view that
Confucianism is simply a social ideology.
M.C. Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity
in Late Imperial China (2001). The latest word; compare to Crossley
above.
M. Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past: A Social and Economic
Interpretation (1973). A controversial but stimulating interpretation
of Chinese economic history in terms of technology. It brings in
earlier periods as well as the Ming, Qing, and modern China.
J.K. Fairbank, ed., The Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s
Foreign Relations (1968). An examination of the Chinese tribute
system and its varying applications.
H.L. Kahn, Monarchy in the Emperor’s Eyes: Image and Reality in the
Ch’ien-lung Reign (1971). A study of the Chinese court during the
mid-Qing period.
P. Kuhn, Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (1990).
Li Yu, The Carnal Prayer Mat, trans. by P. Hanan (1990).
F. Mote and D. Twitchett, eds., The Cambridge History of China: The
Ming Dynasty 1368–1644, Vols. VI (1988) and VII (1998).
S. Naquin, Peking Temples and City Life, 1400–1900 (2000).
 S. Naquin and E.S. Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century
(1987).
J.B. Parsons, The Peasant Rebellions of the Late Ming Dynasty
(1970).
P.C. Perdue, Exhausting the Earth, State and Peasant in Hunan, 1500–
1850 (1987).
D.H. Perkins, Agricultural Development in China, 1368–1968 (1969).
E. Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial
Institutions (1998).
M. Ricci, China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matthew
Ricci, 1583–1610 (1953).
W. Rowe, Hankow (1984). A study of a city in late imperial China.
G.W. Skinner, The City in Late Imperial China (1977).
J.D. Spence, Ts’ao Yin and the K’ang-hsi Emperor: Bondservant and
Master (1966). An excellent study of the early Qing court.
J.D. Spence, Emperor of China: A Self-Portrait of K’ang-hsi (1974).
The title of this readable book does not adequately convey the extent
of the author’s contribution to the study of the early Qing emperor.
J.D. Spence, Treason by the Book (2001). An account of the legal
workings of the authoritarian Qing state that reads like a detective
story.
L.A. Struve, trans. and ed., Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm
(1993). A reader with translations of Chinese sources.
F. Wakeman, The Great Enterprise (1985). On the founding of the
Manchu Dynasty.

Japan
M.E. Berry, Hideyoshi (1982). A study of the sixteenth-century unifier
of Japan.
M.E. Berry, The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto (1994). On the Warring
States era.
H. Bolitho, Treasures among Men: The Fudai Daimyo in Tokugawa
Japan (1974). A study in depth.
H. Bolitho, Bereavement and Consolation: Testimonies from
Tokugawa Japan (2003). Instances of how Tokugawa Japanese
handled the death of a child.
C.R. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 1549–1650 (1951).
The Cambridge History of Japan; Vol. 4, J.W. Hall, ed., Early Modern
Japan (1991). A multi-author work.
M. Chikamatsu, Major Plays of Chikamatsu, trans. by D. Keene
(1961).
R.P. Dore, Education in Tokugawa Japan (1965).
G.S. Elison, Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early
Modern Japan (1973). A brilliant study of the persecutions of
Christianity during the early Tokugawa period.
J.W. Hall and M. Jansen, eds., Studies in the Institutional History of
Early Modern Japan (1968). A collection of articles on Tokugawa
institutions.
J.W. Hall, K. Nagahara, and K. Yamamura, eds., Japan before
Tokugawa (1981).
S. Hanley, Everyday Things in Premodern Japan: The Hidden Legacy
of Material Culture (1997).
H.S. Hibbett, The Floating World in Japanese Fiction (1959). An
eminently readable study of early Tokugawa literature.
M. Jansen, ed., The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 5 in The Cambridge
History of Japan (1989).
K. Katsu, Musui’s Story, trans. by T. Craig (1988). The life and
adventures of a boisterous, no-good samurai of the early nineteenth
century. Eminently readable.
D. Keene, trans., Chushingura, the Treasury of Loyal Retainers (1971).
The puppet play about the forty-seven men who took revenge on the
enemy of their former lord.
O.G. Lidin, Tanegashima: The Arrival of Europe in Japan (2002). The
impact of the musket and Europeans on sixteenth-century Japan.
M. Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan,
trans. by M. Hane (1974). A seminal work in this field by one of
modern Japan’s greatest scholars.
J.L. McClain et al., Edo and Paris: Urban Life and the State in the
Early Modern Era (1994). Comparison of city life and government
role in the capitals of Tokugawa Japan and France.
K.W. Nakai, Shogunal Politics (1988). A brilliant study of Arai
Hakuseki’s conceptualization of Tokugawa government.
 P. Nosco, ed., Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture (1984). A lively
collection of essays.
H. Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law
(1996).
A. Ravina, Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan (1999). A
sociopolitical study of three Tokugawa domains.
I. Saikaku, The Japanese Family Storehouse, trans. by G.W. Sargent
(1959). A lively novel about merchant life in seventeenth-century
Japan.
G.B. Sansom, The Western World and Japan (1950).
J.A. Sawada, Confucian Values and Popular Zen (1993). A study of
Shingaku, a popular Tokugawa religious sect.
C.D. Sheldon, The Rise of the Merchant Class in Tokugawa Japan
(1958).
T.C. Smith, The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan (1959). On the
evolution of farming and rural social organization in Tokugawa
Japan.
P.F. Souyri, The World Turned Upside Down: Medieval Japanese
Society (2001). After a running start from the late Heian period, an
analysis of the overthrow of lords by their vassals.
R.P. Toby, State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the
Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu (1984).
C. Totman, Tokugawa Ieyasu: Shōgun (1983).
C. Totman, Green Archipelago, Forestry in Preindustrial Japan (1989).
H.P. Varley, The Ōnin War: History of Its Origins and Background
with a Selective Translation of the Chronicle of Ônin (1967).
K. Yamamura and S.B. Hanley, Economic and Demographic Change
in Preindustrial Japan, 1600–1868 (1977).

Korea
T. Hatada, A History of Korea (1969).
W.E. Henthorn, A History of Korea (1971).
Ki-Baik Lee, A New History of Korea (1984).
P. Lee, Sourcebook of Korean Civilization, Vol. I (1993).
Vietnam
J. Buttinger, A Dragon Defiant, a Short History of Vietnam (1972).
Nguyen Du, The Tale of Kieu (1983).
N. Tarling, ed., The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia (1992).
K. Taylor, The Birth of Vietnam (1983).
A.B. Woodside, Vietnam and the Chinese Model (1988).

Chapter 19

R.C. Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective

(2009). A much needed addition to the study of the industrial
revolution.
F. Anderson, The Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate
of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766 (2000). A splendid
narrative and analysis.
W. Beik, Louis XIV and Absolutism: A Brief Study with Documents
(2000). An excellent collection by a major scholar of absolutism.
T. Blanning, The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648–1815 (2007). The best
recent synthesis of the emergence of the modern European state
system.
J. Blum, Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth
Century (1961). Remains a thorough and wide-ranging discussion.
P. Burke, The Fabrication of Louis XIV (1992). Examines the manner
in which the public image of Louis XIV was forged in art.
J. Burnet, Gender, Work and Wages in Industrial Revolution Britain
(2008). A major revisionist study of the wage structure for work by
men and women.
P. Bushkovitch, Peter the Great: The Struggle for Power, 1671–1725
(2001). Replaces previous studies.
C. Clark, The Rise and Downfall of Prussia 1600-1947 (2006). A
stunning survey.
L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (1992) A major
study of the making of British nationhood.
P. Deane, The First Industrial Revolution (1999). A well-balanced and
systematic treatment.
J. De Vries, The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the
Household Economy, 1650 to the Present (2008). Discusses the rise
of development through the psychology and actions of consumers,
thus presenting an important new perspective.
W. Doyle, The Old European Order, 1660–1800 (1992). Remains a
classic study.
D. Fraser, Frederick the Great: King of Prussia (2001) Excellent on
both Frederick and eighteenth-century Prussia.
T. Harris, Restoration: Charles II and His Kingdom, 1660–1685
(2006). A major exploration of the tumultuous years of the
restoration of the English monarchy after the civil war.
E. Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire: The Birth of the Industrial
Revolution (1999). A survey by a major historian of the subject.
K. Honeyman, Women, Gender and Industrialization in England,
1700–1850 (2000). Emphasizes how certain work or economic roles
became associated with either men or women.
O.H. Hufton, The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France, 1750–1789
(1975). A brilliant classic study of poverty and the family economy.
L. Hughes, Russia in the Age of Peter the Great (1998). An excellent
account.
C.J. Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–1815 (2000). The best
recent survey.
D.I. Kertzer and M. Barbagli, The History of the European Family:
Family Life in Early Modern Times, 1500–1709 (2001). A series of
broad-ranging essays covering the entire Continent.
S. King and G. Timmons, Making Sense of the Industrial Revolution:
English Economy and Society, 1700–1850 (2001). Examines the
industrial revolution through the social institutions that brought it
about and were changed by it.
M. Kishlansky, A Monarchy Transformed: Britain 1603–1714 (1996)
An excellent synthesis.
A. Lossky, Louis XIV and the French Monarchy (1994). The most
recent major analysis.
F.E. Manuel, The Broken Staff: Judaism through Christian Eyes
(1992). An important discussion of Christian interpretations of
 Judaism.
M.A. Meyer, The Origins of the Modern Jew: Jewish Identity and
European Culture in Germany, 1749–1824 (1967). A general
introduction organized around individual case studies.
S. Pincus, 1688: The First Modern Revolution (2009). The most
important recent study.
G. Treasure, Louis XIV (2001). The best, most accessible recent study.
D. Valenze, The First Industrial Woman (1995). An elegant work
exploring the manner in which industrialization transformed the
work of women.
J. West, Gunpower, Government, and War in the Mid-Eighteenth
Century (1991). A study of how warfare touched much government
of the day.

Chapter 20

S.S. Blair and J. Bloom, The Art and Architecture of Islam, 1250–
1800 (1994). A fine survey of the period for all parts of the Islamic
world.
R. Canfield, ed., Turko-Persia in Historical Perspctive (1991). A good
general collection of essays.
K. Chelebi, The Balance of Truth (1957). A marvelous volume of
essays and reflections by probably the major intellectual of Ottoman
times.
W.T. de Bary et al., comp., Sources of Indian Tradition, 2nd ed.
(1958), Vol. I, From the Beginning to 1800, ed. and rev. by Ainslie
T. Embree (1988). Excellent selections from a wide variety of Indian
texts, with good introductions to chapters and individual selections.
S. Faroqi, Towns and Townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia (1984).
Examines the changing balances of economic power between the
urban and rural areas.
C.H. Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire:
The Historian Mustafa Ali (1541–1600) (1986). A major study of
Ottoman intellectual history.
G. Hambly, Central Asia (1966). Excellent survey chapters (9–13) on
the Chaghatay and Uzbek (Shaybanid) Turks.
R.S. Hattox, Coffee and Coffee-Houses: The Origins of a Social
Beverage in the Medieval Near East (1985). A fascinating piece of
social history.
M.G.S. Hodgson, The Gunpowder Empires and Modern Times, Vol. 3
of The Venture of Islam, 3 vols. (1974). Less ample than Vols. 1 and
2 of Hodgson’s monumental history, but a thoughtful survey of the
great post–1500 empires.
S.M. Ikram, Muslim Civilization in India (1964). Still the best short
survey history, covering the period from 711 to 1857.
H. Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600
(1973). An excellent, if dated, survey with solid treatment of
Ottoman social, religious, and political institutions.
H. Inalcik, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire,
1300–1914 (1994). A masterly survey by the dean of Ottoman
studies today.
C. Kafadar, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman
State (1995). A readable analysis of theories of Ottoman origins and
early development.
N.R. Keddie, ed., Scholars, Saints, and Sufis: Muslim Religious
Institutions in the Middle East since 1500 (1972). A collection of
interesting articles well worth reading.
M. Mujeeb, The Indian Muslims (1967). The best cultural study of
Islamic civilization in India as a whole, from its origins onward.
G. Necipoglu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power: The Topkapi
Palace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (1991). A superb
analysis of the symbolism of Ottoman power and authority.
L. Pierce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sex in the Ottoman
Empire (1993). Ground-breaking study on the role of women in the
Ottoman Empire.
D. Quatarert, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire,
1300–1914 (1994). The authoritative account of Ottoman economy
and society.
J. Richards, The Mughal Empire, Vol. 5 of The New Cambridge
History of India (1993). A impressive synthesis of the varying
interpretations of Mughal India.
 S.A.A. Rizvi, The Wonder That Was India, Vol. II (1987). A sequel to
Basham’s original The Wonder That Was India; treats Mughal life,
culture, and history from 1200 to 1700.
F. Robinson, Atlas of the Islamic World since 1500 (1982). Brief,
excellent historical essays, color illustrations with detailed
accompanying text, and chronological tables, as well as precise
maps, make this a refreshing general reference work.
R. Savory, Iran under the Safavids (1980). A solid and readable survey.
S.J. Shaw, Empire of the Gazis: The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman
Empire, 1280–1808, Vol. I of History of the Ottoman Empire and
Modern Turkey (1976). A solid historical survey with excellent
bibliographic essays for each chapter and a good index.

Chapter 21

D. Beales, Joseph II, 2 Vols. (1987, 2009). The best treatment in

English of the life of Joseph II.
M. Biagioli, Galileo Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of
Absolutism (1993). A major revisionist work that emphasizes the
role of the political setting in Galileo’s career and thought.
D.D. Bien, The Calas Affair: Persecution, Toleration, and Heresy in
Eighteenth-Century Toulouse (1960). Classic treatment of the
famous case.
T.C.W. Blanning, The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture: Old
Regime Europe 1660–1789 (2002). The strongest treatment of the
relationship of eighteenth-century cultural changes and politics.
P. Blom, Enlightening the World: Encyclopedie, The Book That
Changed the Course of History (2005). A lively, accessible
introduction.
J. Buchan, Crowded with Genius: The Scottish Enlightenment (2003).
A lively, accessible introduction.
J.A. Conner, Kepler’s Witch: An Astronomer’s Discovery of Cosmic
Order amid Religious War, Political Intrigue, and the Heresy Trial of
His Mother (2005). Fascinating account of Kepler’s effort to
vindicate his mother against charges of witchcraft.
L. Damrosch, Rousseau: Restless Genius (2007). The best recent
biography.
R. Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (1982).
Classic essays on the world of printers, publishers, and booksellers.
P. Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its
Ambitions, 1500–1700 (2001). A broad-ranging study of both the
ideas and institutions of the new science.
I. De Madariaga, Catherine the Great: A Short History (1990). A good
brief biography.
M. Feingold, The Newtonian Moment: Isaac Newton and the Making
of Modern Culture (2004). A superb, well-illustrated volume.
S. Gaukroger, The Emergence of a Scientific Culture: Science and the
Shaping of Modernity (2007). A challenging book exploring the
differing understanding of natural knowledge in early modern
European culture.
S. Gaukroger, Francis Bacon and the Transformation of Early-Modern
Philosophy (2001). An excellent, accessible introduction.
J. Gleixk, Isaac Newton (2003). The best brief biography.
D. Goodman, The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the
French Enlightenment (1994). Concentrates on the role of salons.
J.L. Heilbron, The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar
Observatories (2000). A remarkable study of the manner in which
Roman Catholic cathedrals were used to make astsronomical
observations and calculations.
C. Hesse, The Other Enlightenment: How French Women Became
Modern (2004). Explores the manner in which French women
authors created their own sphere of thought and cultural activity.
K.J. Howell, God’s Two Books: Copernican Cosmology and Biblical
Interpretation in Early Modern Science (2003). Best introduction to
early modern issues of science and religion.
J. Melton, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenmen Europe (2001). A
superb overview of the emergence of new institutions that made the
expression of a broad public opinion possible in Europe.
C. A. Kors, Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (2002). A major
reference work on all of the chief intellectual themes of the era.
J. Marshall, John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture
(2006). A magisterial, challenging survey of seventeenth-century
 arguments for and against toleration.
T. Munck, The Enlightenment: A Comparative Social History 1721–
1794 (2000). A clear introduction to the social background that
made possible the spread of Enlightenment thought.
S. Muthu, Enlightenment against Empire (2003) A study of
philosophes who criticized the European empires of their day.
D. Outram, The Enlightenment (1995). An excellent brief introduction.
R. Peason, Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom (2005). An
accessible biography.
R. Porter, The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story of the
British Enlightenment (2001). A superb, lively overview.
J. Repcheck, Copernicus’ Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began
(2007). A highly accessible biography of Copernicus.
E. Rothchild, Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the
Enlightenment (2001). A sensitive account of Smith’s thought and
its relationship to the social questions of the day.
S. Shapin, The Scientific Revolution (1996). An important revisionist
survey emphasizing social factors.
J. Sheehan, The Enlightenment Bible (2007). Explores the
Enlightenment treatment of the Bible.
D. Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and
Catholics from London to Vienna (2008). Argues that important
Enlightenment figures sought to protect religion.
L. Steinbrügge, The Moral Sex: Woman’s Nature in the French
Enlightenment (1995). Emphasizes the conservative nature of
Enlightenment thought on women.
P. Zagorin, How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West
(2003). An excellent exploration of the rise of toleration.

Chapter 22

D. Andress, The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in

Revolutionary France (2006). The best recent survey of the reign of
terror.
R. Anstey, The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, 1760–1810
(1975). A standard overview that emphasizes the role of religious
factors.
B. Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967).
An important work illustrating the role of English radical thought in
the perceptions of the American colonists.
K.M. Baker, Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French
Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century (1990). Important essays
on political thought before and during the revolution.
K.M. Baker and C. Lucas, eds., The French Revolution and the
Creation of Modern Political Culture, 3 vols. (1987). A splendid
collection of important original articles on all aspects of politics
during the revolution.
R.J. Barman, Brazil: The Forging of a Nation, 1798–1852 (1988). The
best coverage of this period.
D. Bell, The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of
Warfare as We Know It (2007). A consideration of the Napoleonic
conflicts and the culture of warfare.
M. S. Bell, Toussaint Louverture: A Biography (2007). An outstanding
new biography.
J.F. Bernard, Talleyrand: A Biography (1973). A useful account.
L. Bethell, The Cambridge History of Latin America, Vol. 3 (1985).
Contains an extensive treatment of independence.
R. Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776–1848 (1988).
A major discussion quite skeptical of the humanitarian
interpretation.
J. Brooke, King George III (1972). The best biography.
R. Cobb, The People’s Armies (1987). The major treatment in English
of the revolutionary army.
O. Connelly, Napoleon’s Satellite Kingdoms (1965). The rule of
Napoleon and his family in Europe.
D.B. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–
1823 (1975). A transatlantic perspective on the issue.
W. Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution (2003). A
broad, complex narrative with an excellent bibliography.
L. Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian
Revolution (2004). An analytic narrative likely to replace others.
P. Dwyer, Napoleon: The Path to Power, 1769–1799 (2008). A major
study of the subject.
J. J. Ellis, His Excellency: George Washington (2004). A biography
that explores the entire era of the American Revolution.
M. Glover, The Peninsular War, 1807–1814: A Concise Military
History (1974). An interesting account of the military campaign that
so drained Napoleon’s resources in western Europe.
J. Godechot, The Counter-Revolution: Doctrine and Action, 1789–
1804 (1971). An examination of opposition to the revolution.
A. Goodwin, The Friends of Liberty: The English Democratic
Movement in the Age of the French Revolution (1979). A major
work that explores the impact of the French Revolution on English
radicalism.
L. Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (1986).
A series of essays that focus on the modes of expression of the
revolutionary values and political ideas.
F. Kagan, The End of the old order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801–1805
(2006). A masterful narrative.
W.W. Kaufmann, British Policy and the Independence of Latin
America, 1802–1828 (1951). A standard discussion of an important
relationship.
E. Kennedy, A Cultural History of the French Revolution (1989). An
important examination of the role of the arts, schools, clubs, and
intellectual institutions.
M. Kennedy, The Jacobin Clubs in the French Revolution: The First
Years (1982). A careful scrutiny of the organizations chiefly
responsible for the radicalizing of the revolution.
M. Kennedy, The Jacobin Clubs in the French Revolution: The Middle
Years (1988). A continuation of the previously listed study.
H. Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the
Problems of Peace, 1812–1822 (1957). A provocative study by an
author who became an American secretary of state.
G. Lefebvre, The Coming of the French Revolution (trans. 1947). A
classic examination of the crisis of the French monarchy and the
events of 1789.
G. Lefebvre, Napoleon, 2 vols., trans. by H. Stockhold (1969). The
fullest and finest biography.
J. Lynch, Simon Bolivar: A Life (2006). Now the standard biography.
J. Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 1808–1826 (1986). An
excellent one-volume treatment.
P. Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of
Independence (1997). Stands as a major revision of our
understanding of the Declaration.
S.E. Melzer and L.W. Rabine, eds., Rebel Daughters: Women and the
French Revolution (1992). A collection of essays exploring various
aspects of the role and image of women in the French Revolution.
M. Morris, The British Monarchy and the French Revolution (1998).
Explores the manner in which the British monarchy saved itself
from possible revolution.
R. Muir, Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon
(1998). Examines the wars from the standpoint of the soldiers in
combat.
H. Nicolson, The Congress of Vienna (1946). A good, readable
account.
R.R. Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled: The Committee of Public Safety
during the Terror (1941). A clear narrative and analysis of the
policies and problems of the committee.
R.R. Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political
History of Europe and America, 1760–1800, 2 vols. (1959, 1964).
An impressive survey of the political turmoil in the transatlantic
world.
C. Proctor, Women, Equality, and the French Revolution (1990). An
examination of how the ideas of the Enlightenment and the attitudes
of revolutionaries affected the legal status of women.
A.J. Russell-Wood, ed., From Colony to Nation: Essays on the
Independence of Brazil (1975). A series of important essays.
P. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848
(1994). A fundamental treatment of the diplomacy of the era.
R. Scurr, Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution (2007).
A compelling analysis of a personality long difficult to understand.
A. Soboul, The Parisian Sans-Culottes and the French Revolution,
1793–94 (1964). The best work on the subject.
D.G. Sutherland, France, 1789–1825: Revolution and
Counterrevolution (1986). A major synthesis based on recent
 scholarship in social history.
T. Tackett, Religion, Revolution, and Regional Culture in Eighteenth-
Century France: The Ecclesiastical Oath of 1791 (1986). The most
important study of this topic.
T. Tackett, Becoming a Revolutionary: The Deputies of the French
National Assembly and the Emergence of a Revolutionary Culture
(1789–1790) (1996). The best study of the early months of the
revolution.
J.M. Thompson, Robespierre, 2 vols. (1935). The best biography.
D.K. Van Key, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From
Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560–1791 (1996). Examines the
manner in which debates within French Catholicism influenced the
coming of the revolution.
M. Walzer, ed., Regicide and Revolution: Speeches at the Trial of
Louis XVI (1974). An important and exceedingly interesting
collection of documents with a useful introduction.
I. Woloch, The New Regime: Transformations of the French Civic
Order, 1789–1820s (1994). An important overview of just what had
and had not changed in France after the quarter century of
revolution and war.
G. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–
1815 (2009) A major interpretation.
A. Zamoyski, Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress
of Vienna (2007). A lively analysis and narrative.

Chapter 23

I. Berlin, Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American

Slaves (2003). A major work.
P. Bew, Ireland: The Politics of Enmity 1789–2006 (2007). A major,
new, outstanding survey of the sweep of modern Irish history.
D. Blackbourn, The Long Nineteenth Century: A History of Germany,
1780–1918 (1998). An outstanding survey.
D.G. Creighton, John A. MacDonald (1952, 1955). A major biography
of the first Canadian prime minister.
D. Donald, Lincoln (1995). Now the standard biography.
R.B. Edgerton, Death or Glory: The Legacy of the Crimean War
(2000). Multifaceted study of a badly mismanaged war that
transformed many aspects of European domestic politics.
D.K. Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham
Lincoln (2005). An accessible study of Lincoln’s administration.
M. Holt, The Fate of Their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension,
and the Coming of the Civil War (2005). A brief introduction to the
crucial decade of the 1850s in the United States.
M. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian
Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (2003). An extensive survey
of the Jacksonian era.
R. Kee, The Green Flag: A History of Irish Nationalism (2001). A vast
survey.
W. Lacquer, A History of Zionism (1989). The most extensive one-
volume treatment.
M.B. Levinger, Enlightened Nationalism: The Transformation of
Prussian Political Culture, 1806–1848 (2002). A major work.
J.M. McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
(1988). An excellent one-volume treatment.
D. Morton, A Short History of Canada (2001). Useful popular history.
J.P. Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian
Britain (1994). An outstanding study.
A. Plessis, The Rise and Fall of the Second Empire, 1852–1871
(1985). A useful survey of France under Napoleon III.
D.M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 (1976) A penetrating
study of the coming of the American Civil War.
L. Riall, Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero (2007). An exploration of a
nationalist hero’s reputation in his own day and later.
D. Shafer, The Paris Commune: French Politics, Culture, and Society
at the Crossroads of the Revolutionary Tradition and Revolutionary
Socialism (2005). Excellent in relating the Commune to previous
and later revolutionary traditions.
A. Sked, Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 1815–1918 (2001).
A major, accessible survey of a difficult subject.
A. Sked, Metternich and Austria: An Evaluation (2008). A thoughtful
restoration of Metternich to the position of leading diplomat of his
 age.
D.M. Smith, Cavour (1984). An excellent biography.
C.P. Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict (1977, 1981). A study of
Canadian foreign relations.
D. Wetzel, A Duel of Giants: Bismarck, Napoleon III, and the Origins
of the Franco-Prussian War (2001). Broad study based on most
recent scholarship.

Chapter 24

M. Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and

Ideologies of Western Dominance (1989). The best single volume
on racial thinking and technological advances as forming ideologies
of European colonial dominance.
A. Ascher and P.A. Stolypin, The Search for Stability in Late Imperial
Russia (2000). A broad-ranging biography based on extensive
research.
I. Berlin, Karl Marx: His Life and Environment, 4th ed. (1996). A
classic volume that remains an excellent introduction.
P. Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea (2003). An outstanding
survey.
Janet Browne, Charles Darwin, 2 vols. (2002). An eloquent, accessible
biography.
J. Burrow, The Crisis of Reason: European Thought, 1848–1914
(2000). The best overview available.
A.D. Chandler Jr., The Visible Hand: Managerial Revolution in
American Business (1977). Remains the best discussion of the
innovative role of American business.
A. Clarke, The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of
the British Working Class (1995). An examination of the manner in
which industrialization made problematical the relationships
between men and women.
W. Cronin, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, 1848–
1893 (1991). The best examination of any major American
nineteenth-century city.
P. Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988). The new standard
biography.
P. Gay, Modernism: The Lure of Heresy (2007). A broad
interdisciplinary exploration.
R.F. Hamilton, Marxism, Revisionism, and Leninism: Explication,
Assessment, and Commentary (2000). A contribution from the
perspective of a historically minded sociologist.
S. Hahn, A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the
Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (2003). A major
synthesis.
A. Hourani, Arab Thought in the Liberal Age 1789–1939 (1967). A
classic account, clearly written and accessible to the nonspecialist.
T. Hunt, Marx’s General: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels
(2009). A biography that also considers the general landscape of late
nineteenth-century socialism.
D.I. Kertzer and M. Barbagli, eds., Family Life in the Long Nineteenth
Century, 1789–1913: The History of the European Family (2002).
Wide-ranging collection of essays.
J.T. Kloppenberg, Uncertain Victory: Social Democracy and
Progressivism in European and American Thought (1986). An
extremely important comparative study.
J. Köhler, Zarathustra’s Secret: The Interior Life of Friedrich Nietzsche
(2002). A controversial new biography.
L. Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism: Its Rise, Growth, and
Dissolution, 3 vols. (1978). Especially good on the last years of the
nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth.
P. Krause, The Battle for Homestead, 1880–1892 (1992). Examines
labor relations in the steel industry.
D. Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So
Rich and Some So Poor (1998). A major international discussion of
the subject.
B. Lightman, Victorian Popularizers of Science: Designing Nature for
New Audiences (2007). A study that adds numerous new
dimensions to the subject.
G. Makari, Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis
(2008). A major, multidimensional survey.
 M. McGerr, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive
Moevement in America, 1870–1920 (2003). The best recent
synthesis.
E. Morris, Theodore Rex (2002). Major survey of Theodore
Roosevelt’s presidency and personality.
A. Pais, Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and Life of Albert Einstein
(1983). Remains the most accessible scientific biography.
J. Rendall, The Origins of Modern Feminism: Women in Britain,
France and the United States, 1780–1860 (1985). A well-informed
introduction.
R. Service, Lenin: A Biography (2002). Based on new sources and will
no doubt become the standard biography.
R.M. Utley, The Indian Frontier and the American West, 1846–1890
(1984). A broad survey of the pressures of white civilization against
Native Americans.
D. Vital, A People Apart: The Jews in Modern Europe, 1789–1939
(1999). A deeply informed survey.

Chapter 25

S. Arrom, The Women of Mexico City, 1790–1857 (1985). A

pioneering study.
W. Baer, Brazilian Economy: Growth and Development (2007). An in-
depth study of the subject.
L. Bethell, ed., The Cambridge History of Latin America, 8 vols.
(1992). The single most authoritative coverage, with extensive
bibliographical essays. This series has now been published in
several smaller, nation-specific volumes edited by L. Bethell.
J.P. Brennan and M. Rougier, The Politics of National Capitalism:
Peronism and the Argentine Bourgeoisie, 1946–1976 (2009). A
challenging study of the relationship of Perón and business.
V. Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America since
Independence (1994). Remains a major.
E.B. Burns, The Poverty of Progress: Latin America in the Nineteenth
Century (1980). Remains a significant work arguing that the elites
 suppressed alternative modes of cultural and economic
development.
D. Bushnell and N. Macaulay, The Emergence of Latin America in the
Nineteenth Century (1994). A survey that examines the internal
development of Latin America during the period.
R. Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1850–1889 (1971).
Still a good survey of the most important problem in Brazil in the
second half of the nineteenth century.
R. Conrad, World of Sorrow: The African Slave Trade to Brazil
(1986). An excellent treatment of the subject.
N. Craske, Women and Politics in Latin America (1999). A useful
overview.
E.V. Da Costa, The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories (1985).
Essays that provide a thorough introduction to Brazil during the
period of empire.
H.S. Ferns, Britain and Argentina in the Nineteenth Century (1968).
Classic exploration of the intermeshing of the two economies.
M. Font, Coffee, Contention, and Change in the Making of Modern
Brazil (1990). Extensive discussion of the problems of a single-
commodity economy.
A. Gilly, The Mexican Revolution: A People’s History (2005).
Explores lesser known figures of the revolution.
R. Graham, Britain and the Onset of Modernization in Brazil (1968).
Another study of British economic dominance.
S.H. Haber, Industry and Underdevelopment: The Industrialization of
Mexico, 1890–1940 (1989). Examines the problem of
industrialization before and after the revolution.
G. Hahner, Emancipating the Female Sex: The Struggle for Women’s
Rights in Brazil, 1850–1940 (1990). An extensive examination of a
relatively understudied issue in Latin America.
C.H. Haring, Empire in Brazil: A New World Experiment with
Monarchy (1958). Remains a useful overview.
J. Hemming, Amazon Frontier: The Defeat of the Brazilian Indians
(1987). A brilliant survey of the experience of Native Americans in
modern Brazil.
R.A. Humphreys, Latin America and the Second World War, 2 vols.
(1981–1982). The standard work on the topic.
D. James, Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine
Working Class, 1946–1976 (1994). Explores the complicated
relationship of Perón and the working class over several decades.
M.B. Karush and O. Chamosa, The New Cultural History of Peronism:
Power and Identity in Mid-Twentieth-Century Argentina (2010).
Interdisciplinary collection of essays on the emergence of Peronism.
F. Katz, ed., Riot, Rebellion, and Revolution in Mexico: Social Base of
Agrarian Violence, 1750–1940 (1988). Essays that put the violence
of the revolution in a longer context.
F. Katz, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa (1998). An extensive
critical biography
A. Knight, The Mexican Revolution, 2 vols. (1986). The best treatment
of the subject.
C. M. MacLachlan, A History of Modern Brazil: The Past against the
Future (2003). A basic brief introduction.
S. Mainwaring, The Catholic Church and Politics in Brazil, 1916–1985
(1986). An examination of a key institution in Brazilian life.
F. McLynn, Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution
(2002). Examines the revolution through the lives and
interrelationship of its two most important figures.
M. Morner, Adventurers and Proletarians: The Story of Migrants in
Latin America (1985). Examines immigration to Latin America and
migration within it.
A.D. Ortiz, Eva Perón: A Biography (1997) A biography of one of the
most enigmatic figures of modern Latin America.
J. Page, Perón: A Biography (1983). The standard English treatment.
M. B. Plotkin, Manana Es San Perón: A Cultural History of Perón’s
Argentina (2003). Explores Argentina during the curious
governance of Perón.
D. Rock, Politics in Argentina, 1890–1930: The Rise and Fall of
Radicalism (2009). The major discussion of the Argentine Radical
Party.
D. Rock, Argentina, 1516–1987: From Spanish Colonization to
Alfonsin (1987). Now the standard survey.
D. Rock, ed., Latin America in the 1940s: War and Postwar Transitions
(1994). Essays examining a very difficult decade for the continent.
 R.M. Schneider, “Order and Progress”: A Political History of Brazil
(1991). A straightforward narrative with helpful notes for further
reading.
R. Scott, The Abolition of Slavery and the Aftermath of Emancipation
in Brazil (1988). A brief overview.
T.E. Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian
Thought (1993). Examines the role of racial theory in Brazil.
T.E. Skidmore, Politics in Brazil 1930–1964: An Experiment in
Democracy (2007). An in-depth exploration of Brazilian politics
before and after World War II.
S.J. Stein and B.H. Stein, The Colonial Heritage of Latin America:
Essays on Economic Dependence in Perspective (1970). A classic
statement of the dependence interpretation.
D. Tamarin, The Argentine Labor Movement, 1930–1945: A Study in
the Origins of Perónism (1985). A useful introduction to a complex
subject.
H.J. Wiarda, Politics and Social Change in Latin America: The
Distinct Tradition (1974). Excellent essays that stress the ongoing
role of Iberian traditions.
J.D. Wirth, ed., Latin American Oil Companies and the Politics of
Energy (1985). A series of case studies.
J. Wolfe, Working Women, Working Men: São Paulo and the Rise of
Brazil’s Industrial Working Class, 1900–1955 (1993). Pays
particular attention to the role of women.
J. Womack, Zapata and the Mexican Revolution (1968). A classic
study.

Chapter 26

General Works
S. Cook, Colonial Encounters in the Age of High Imperialism (1996).
A good introduction to the imperial enterprise in Africa and Asia.
 D.K. Fieldhouse, The West and the Third World. Trade: Colonialism,
Depedence and Development (1999). Addresses whether
colonialism was detrimental or beneficial to colonized peoples.
D. Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the
Age of Imperialism, 1850–1940 (1988). Discusses the roles of new
methods of transportation (railroads, steamships), forms of expertise
(doctors, botanists), and other types of “technology transfer” in
European colonization, and post-independence development.
P. Hopkirk, The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia
(1992). Focuses on the political and economic rivalries of the
imperial powers.

India
A. Ahmad, Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan, 1857–1964
(1967). The standard survey of Muslim thinkers and movements in
India during the period.
C.A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire, The
New Cambridge History of India, II. 1 (1988). One of several major
contributions of this author to the ongoing revision of our picture of
modern Indian history since the eighteenth century.
A. Ghosh, In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler’s
Tale (1992). An anthropologist traces the footsteps of a premodern
slave traveling with his master from North Africa to India. A
gripping tale of premodern life in the India Ocean basin and also of
contemporary Egypt.
R. Guha, ed., Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian History and
Society (1982). Essays on the colonial period that focus on the
social, political, and economic history of “subaltern” groups and
classes (hill tribes, peasants, etc.) rather than only the elites of India.
S.N. Hay, ed., “Modern India and Pakistan,” Part VI of Wm. Theodore
de Bary et al., eds., Sources of Indian Tradition, 2nd ed. (1988). A
superb selection of primary-source documents, with brief
introductions and helpful notes.
F. Robinson, ed., The Cambridge Encyclopedia of India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldives (1989). A
 fine collection of survey articles by various scholars, organized into
topical chapters ranging from “Economies” to “Cultures.”

Central Islamic Lands

W. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, 3rd ed. (2004). A
balanced and well-organized overview of modern Middle Eastern
history.
A. Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century, From
Triumph to Despair (2003). A good overview of the development of
Arab nationalism.
S. Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the
Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire, 1876–1909 (1998).
An impressive study on nationalism and reform in the Ottoman
Empire.
J.J. Donahue and J.L. Esposito, eds., Islam in Transition: Muslim
Perspectives (1982). An interesting selection of primary-source
materials on Islamic thinking in this century.
D.F. Eickelman, Knowledge and Power in Morocco: The Education of
a Twentieth-Century Notable (1985). A fascinating study of
traditional Islamic education and society in the twentieth century
through a social biography of a Moroccan religious scholar and
judge.
A. Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939 (1967).
The standard work, by which all subsequent scholarship on the topic
is to be judged.
N.R. Keddie, An Islamic Response to Imperialism (1968). A brief
study of al-Afghani, the great Muslim reformer, with translations of
a number of his writings.
B. Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 2nd ed. (1968). A
concise but thorough history of the creation of the Turkish state,
including nineteenth-century background.
J.O. Voll, Islam: Continuity and Change in the Modern World (1982).
Chapters 1–6. An interpretive survey of the Islamic world since the
eighteenth century. Its emphasis on eighteenth-century reform
movements is especially noteworthy.
Africa
C. Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1959). Reading this classic novel may
be the best way to get a profound sense of the ways African and
European cultures interacted in the early colonial period.
D. Anderson, Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the
End of Empire (2005). This account of the Kikuyu-led Mau Mau
movement in Kenya emphasizes the way Mau Mau activities, and
the British response, shaped and distorted Kenya’s independence
movement. (See also C. Elkins’s Imperial Reckoning below.)
A.A. Boahen, Africa under Colonial Domination, 1880–1935 (1985).
Vol. VII of the UNESCO General History of Africa. Excellent
chapters on various regions of Africa in the period. Chapters 3–10
detail African resistance to European colonial intrusion in diverse
regions.
W. Cartey and M. Kilson, eds., The Africa Reader: Colonial Africa
(1970). Original source materials give a vivid picture of African
resistance to colonial powers, adaptation to foreign rule, and the
emergence of the African masses as a political force.
P. Curtin, S. Feiermann, L. Thompson, and J. Vansina, African History
(1978). The relevant portions are Chapters 10–20.
B. Davidson, Modern Africa: A Social and Political History (1989). A
very useful survey of African history.
C. Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in
Kenya (2004). The Pulitzer Prize–winning account of Britain’s
appalling response to the Mau Mau movement in colonial Kenya;
while Elkins focuses on the British, D. Anderson in Histories of the
Hanged (see above) emphasizes the Kenyan side of the story.
J.D. Fage, A History of Africa (1978). The relevant chapters, which
give a particularly clear overview of the colonial period, are 12–16.
B. Freund, The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of
African Society since 1800 (1984). A refreshingly direct synthetic
discussion and survey that take an avowedly, but not reductive,
materialist approach to interpretation.
E. Gilbert and J.T. Reynolds, Africa in World History, 2nd ed. (2008).
An engaging overview of the period, with attention to technology,
 economics, and ideologies, among other factors. See especially
Chapters 13–15.
D. Headrick, Tools of Empire (1982). A provocative evaluation of the
roles played by technology in the imperial venture.
A. Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and
Heroism in Colonial Africa (1998). A compelling, well-documented
narrative of the atrocities committed in turn-of-the-twentieth-
century Congo when it was held as the personal fiefdom of
Belgium’s monarch.
T. Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (1991). An excellent analysis
of the imperialist age in Africa.
A.D. Roberts, ed., The Colonial Moment in Africa: Essays on the
Movement of Minds and Materials, 1900–1940 (1986). Chapters
from The Cambridge History of Africa treating various aspects of
the colonial period in Africa, including economics, politics, and
religion.

Chapter 27

China
P.M. Coble, The Shanghai Capitalists and the Nationalist Government,
1927–1937 (1980).
L.E. Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China under Nationalist Rule,
1927–1937 (1974).
L.E. Eastman, Seeds of Destruction: Nationalist China in War and
Revolution, 1937–1949 (1984).
M. Elvin and G.W. Skinner, The Chinese City between Two Worlds
(1974). A study of the late Qing and Republican eras.
J.W. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Rebellion (1987).
S. Et, China’s Republican Revolution (1994).
J.K. Fairbank and M. Goldman, China, a New History (1998). A
survey of the entire sweep of Chinese history; especially strong on
the modern period.
J.K. Fairbank and D. Twitchett, eds., The Cambridge History of China.
Like the premodern volumes in the same series, the volumes on
modern China represent a survey of what is known. Volumes 10–15,
which cover the history from the late Qing to the People’s Republic,
have been published, and the others will be available soon. The
series is substantial. Each volume contains a comprehensive
bibliography.
J. Fitzgerald, Awakening China: Politics, Culture, and Class in the
Nationalist Revolution (1996).
C. Hao, Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning,
1890–1911 (1987).
W.C. Kirby, ed., State and Economy in Republican China (2001).
P.A. Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China:
Militarization and Social Structure, 1796–1864 (1980). A study of
how the Confucian gentry saved the Manchu Dynasty after the
Taiping Rebellion.
P. Kuhn, Origins of the Modern Chinese State (2002).
J. Levenson, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and the Mind of Modern China (1953).
A classic study of a major Chinese reformer and thinker. Lu Xun,
Selected Works (1960). Novels, stories, and other writings by
modern China’s greatest writer.
S. Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900 (2000).
E.O. Reischauer, J.K. Fairbank, and A.M. Craig, East Asia: Tradition
and Transformation (1989). A detailed text on East Asian history.
Contains ample chapters on Japan and China and shorter chapters on
Korea and Vietnam.
H.Z. Schiffrin, Sun Yat-sen, Reluctant Revolutionary (1980). A
biography.
B.I. Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (1951). A
classic study of Mao, his thought, and the Chinese Communist Party
before 1949.
B.I. Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West
(1964). A fine study of a late-nineteenth-century thinker who
introduced Western ideas into China.
J.D. Spence, The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their
Revolution, 1895–1980 (1981). Historical reflections on twentieth-
century China.
 J.D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (1990). A thick text but
well written.
M. Szonyi, Practicing Kinship: Lineage and Descent in Late Imperial
China (2002).
S.Y. Teng and J.K. Fairbank, China’s Response to the West (1954). A
superb collection of translations from Chinese thinkers and political
figures, with commentaries.
T.H. White and A. Jacoby, Thunder Out of China (1946). A view of
China during World War II by two who were there.

Japan
G. Akita, Foundations of Constitutional Government in Modern Japan
(1967). A study of Itō Hirobumi in the political process leading to
the Meiji constitution.
G.C. Allen, A Short Economic History of Modern Japan (1958).
E. Barshay, The Social Sciences in Modern Japan: The Marxian and
Modernist Traditions (2004). Different interpretations of history.
J.R. Bartholomew, The Formation of Science in Japan (1989). The
pioneering English-language work on the subject.
W.G. Beasley, Japanese Imperialism, 1894–1945 (1987). Excellent
short book on the subject.
G.M. Berger, Parties Out of Power in Japan, 1931–1941 (1977). An
analysis of the condition of political parties during the militarist era.
G.L. Bernstein, ed., Recreating Japanese Women, 1600–1945
(1991).
The Cambridge History of Japan, The Nineteenth Century, M.B.
Jansen, ed. (1989); The Twentieth Century, P. Duus, ed. (1988).
Multi-author works.
A.M. Craig, Chōshū in the Meiji Restoration (2000). A study of the
Chōshū domain, a Prussia of Japan, during the period 1840–1868.
A.M. Craig and D.H. Shively, eds., Personality in Japanese History
(1970). An attempt to gauge the role of individuals and their
personalities as factors explaining history.
P. Duus, Party Rivalry and Political Change in Taisho Japan (1968). A
study of political change in Japan during the 1910s and 1920s.
P. Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of
Korea, 1895–1910 (1995). A thoughtful analysis.
S. Ericson, The Sound of the Whistle: Railroads and the State in Meiji
Japan (1996). An economic and social history of railroads, an
engine of growth and popular symbol.
Y. Fukuzawa, Autobiography (1966). Japan’s leading nineteenth-
century thinker tells of his life and of the birth of modern Japan.
S. Garon, The State and Labor in Modern Japan (1987). A fine study
of the subject.
C.N. Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period
(1988). A brilliant study of the complex weave of late Meiji thought.
A. Gordon, The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan: Heavy
Industry, 1853–1955 (1985). A seminal work.
B.R. Hackett, Yamagata Aritomo in the Rise of Modern Japan, 1932–
1922 (1973). History as seen through the biography of a central
figure.
I. Hall, Mori Arinori (1973). A biography of Japan’s first minister of
education.
T.R.H. Havens, The Valley of Darkness: The Japanese People and
World War II (1978). Wartime society.
A. Iriye, After Imperialism: The Search for a New Order in the Far
East, 1921–1931 (1965). (Also see other studies by this author.)
D.M.B. Jansen and G. Rozman, eds., Japan in Transition from
Tokugawa to Meiji (1986). Contains fine essays.
W. Johnston, The Modern Epidemic: A History of Tuberculosis in
Japan (1995). A social history of a disease.
D. Keene, ed., Modern Japanese Literature, An Anthology (1960). A
collection of modern Japanese short stories and excerpts from
novels.
Y.T. Matsusaka, The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904–1932
(2001). On railroad strategies in empire building.
J.W. Morley, ed., The China Quagmire (1983). A study of Japan’s
expansion on the continent between 1933 and 1941. (For diplomatic
history, see also the many other works by this author.)
R.H. Myers and M.R. Peattie, eds., The Japanese Colonial Empire,
1895–1945 (1984).
 T. Najita, Hara Kei in the Politics of Compromise, 1905–1915 (1967).
A study of one of Japan’s greatest party leaders.
K. Ohkawa and H. Rosovsky, Japanese Economic Growth: Trend
Acceleration in the Twentieth Century (1973).
M. Ravina, The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori
(2004). Unlike the movie, this account of the Satsu-ma uprising is
historical.
G. Shiba, Remembering Aizu (1999). A stirring autobiographical
account of a samurai youth whose domain lost in the Meiji
Restoration.
K. Smith, A Time of Crisis: The Great Depression and Rural
Revitalization (2001). An intellectual history of village movements
during the 1930s.
J.J. Stephan, Hawaii under the Rising Sun (1984). Japan’s plans for
rule in Hawaii.
R.H. Spector, Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan
(1985). A narrative of World War II in the Pacific.
E.P. Tsurumi, Factory Girls: Women in the Thread Mills of Meiji Japan
(1990). A sympathetic analysis of the key component of the Meiji
labor force.
W. Wray, Mitsubishi and the N. Y. K., 1870–1914 (1984). The growth
of a shipping zaibatsu, with analysis of business strategies, the role
of government, and imperialist involvements.

Chapter 28

L. Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914, 3 vols. (1952, 1957).

Discursive but invaluable.
V.R. Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of War in 1914 (1973). A
work similar in spirit to both of Fischer’s (see below) but stressing
the importance of Germany’s naval program.
S.B. Fay, The Origins of the World War; 2 vols. (1928). The most
influential of the revisionist accounts.
F. Fischer, Germany’s Aims in the First World War (1967). An
influential interpretation that stirred a great controversy in Germany
 and around the world by emphasizing Germany’s role in bringing on
the war.
D. Fromkin, Europe’s Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in
1914? (2004). A lively account that fixes on the final crisis in July
1914.
J.N. Horne, Labour at War: France and Britain, 1914–1918 (1991). An
examination of a major issue on the home fronts.
J. Keegan, The First World War (1999). A vivid and readable narrative.
P. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism 1860–1914
(1980). An unusual and thorough analysis of the political, economic,
and cultural roots of important diplomatic developments.
D.C.B. Lieven, Russia and the Origins of the First World War (1983).
A good account of the forces that shaped Russian policy.
A. Mombauer, The Origins of the First World War. Controversies and
Consensus (2002). A fascinating survey of the debate over the
decades and the current state of the question.
R. Pipes, A Concise History of the Russian Revolution (1996). A one-
volume version of a scholarly masterpiece.
Z. Steiner, Britain and the Origins of the First World War (1977). A
perceptive and informed account of the way British foreign policy
was made in the years before the war.
H. Strachan, The First World War (2004). A fine one-volume account
of the war.
A.J.P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848–1918 (1954).
Clever but controversial.
S.R. Williamson, Jr., Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First
World War (1991). A valuable study of a complex subject.

Chapter 29

W.S. Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single

German Town, 1930–1935, rev. ed. (1984). A classic treatment of
Nazism in a microcosmic setting.
A. Applebaum, Gulag: A History (2003). A superbly readable account
of Stalin’s system of persecution and resulting prison camps.J.
 Barnard, Walter Reuther and the Rise of the Auto Workers (1983). A
major introduction to the new American unions of the 1930s.
R.J. Bosworth, Mussolini (2002). A major new biography.
R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy: Life under the Fascist Dictatorship,
1915–1945 (2007) A broad-based study of both fascist politics and
the impact of those politics on Italian life.
A. Brinkley, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, & the
Great Depression (1983). An excellent study of Franklin Roosevelt’s
opponents.
M. Burleigh and W. Wipperman, The Racial State: Germany 1933–
1945 (1991). Emphasizes the manner in which racial theory
influenced numerous areas of policy.
R. Conquest, The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purges of the Thirties (1968).
Remains a major study.
B. Eichengreen, Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great
Depression, 1919–1939 (1992). A remarkable study of the role of
the gold standard in the economic policies of the interwar years.
R. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (2004) and The Third Reich
in Power, 1933–1939 (2005) A superb narrative.
M.S. Fausold, The Presidency of Herbert Hoover (1985). An important
treatment.
G. Feldman, The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in
the German Inflation, 1914–1924 (1993). The best work on the
subject.
S. Fitzpatrick, Stalin’s Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the
Russian Village after Collectivization (1994). A pioneering study.
J.K. Galbraith, The Great Crash (1979). A well-known account by a
leading economist.
R. Gellately, The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial
Policy, 1933–1945 (1990). A discussion of how the police state
supported Nazi racial policies.
R. Gellately and N. Stoltzfus, Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany
(2001). Important essays on Nazi treatment of groups the party
regarded as undesirables.
H.J. Gordon, Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch (1972). An excellent
account of the event and the political situation in the early Weimar
Republic.
R. Hamilton, Who Voted for Hitler? (1982). An examination of voting
patterns and sources of Nazi support.
P. Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass
Mobilization, 1917–1929 (1985). An examination of the manner in
which the communist government inculcated popular support.
D. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression
and War, 1929–1945 (2001). The best one-volume study of the era.
B. Kent, The Spoils of War: The Politics, Economics, and Diplomacy
of Reparations, 1918–1932 (1993). A comprehensive account of the
intricacies of the reparations problem of the 1920s.
I. Kershaw, Hitler, 2 vols. (2001) Replaces all previous biographies.
D. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and
Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present
(1969). Includes an excellent analysis of both the Great Depression
and the few areas of economic growth.
W.E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal: 1932–
1940 (2009). A superb one-volume treatment.
B. Lincoln, Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War (1989).
An excellent narrative account.
D.J.K. Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and
Racism in Everyday Life (1987). An excellent discussion of life
under Nazi rule.
R. Pipes, The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archives (1996). A
collection of previously unpublished documents that indicated the
repressive character of Lenin’s government.
P. Pulzer, Jews and the German State: The Political History of a
Minority, 1848–1933 (1992). A detailed history by a major historian
of European minorities.
L.J. Rupp, Mobilizing Women for War: German and America
Propaganda, 1939–1945 (1978). Although concentrating on a later
period, it includes an excellent discussion of general Nazi attitudes
toward women.
R. Service, Stalin: A Biography (2005). The strongest of a host of
recent biographical studies.
R. Service, Trotsky: A Biography (2009). A major new biography.
A. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 3 vols. (1974–1979). A
major examination of the labor camps under Stalin by one of the
 most important late twentieth-century Russian writers.
A.J.P. Taylor, English History, 1914–1945 (1965). Lively and
opinionated.
A. Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the
Nazi Economy (2006). A wide-ranging, accessible study of the
politics and ideology behind Nazi economic policy.
H.A. Turner Jr., German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler (1985).
An important major study of the subject.
L. Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932–1945
(1990). A major study of this fundamental subject in twentieth-
century history.

Chapter 30

A. Adamthwaite, France and the Coming of the Second World War,

1936–1939 (1977). A careful account making good use of the
French archives.
O. Bartov, Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide, and Modern
Identity (2001). Remarkably penetrating essays.
E.R. Beck, Under the Bombs: The German Home Front, 1942–1945
(1986). An interesting examination of a generally unstudied subject.
P.M.H. Bell, The Origins of the Second World War in Europe, 3rd ed.
(2007). A comprehensive study of the period and debates
surrounding the European origins of World War II.
A. Beevor, The Spanish Civil War (2001). Particularly strong on the
political issues.
C. Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of the
Nazi Jewish Policy (2004). The story of how Hitler’s policy
developed from discrimination to annihilation
A. Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, rev. ed. (1964). A brilliant
biography.
W.S. Churchill, The Second World War, 6 vols. (1948–1954). The
memoirs of the great British leader.
A. Crozier, The Causes of the Second World War, 1997. An
examination of what brought on the war.
R.B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire
(1998). A thorough, well-documented account of the last months of
the Japanese Empire and the reasons for its surrender.
J.L. Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (1998). A
fine account of the early years of the Cold War, making use of new
evidence emerging since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
J.L. Gaddis, P.H. Gordon, E. May, eds., Cold War Statesmen Confront
the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy since 1945 (1999). A collection of
essays discussing the effect of atomic and nuclear weapons on
diplomacy since World War II.
M. Gilbert, The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe during the
Second World War (1985). The best and most comprehensive
treatment.
A. Iriye, Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific War (1999).
Essays on how the Pacific war came about, including a selection of
documents.
J. Keegan, The Second World War (1990). A lively and penetrating
account by a master military historian.
I. Kershaw, Hitler: 1889–1936: Hubris (1999) and Hitler: 1936–1945:
Nemesis (2001). An outstanding two-volume biography.
W.F. Kimball, Forged in War: Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Second
World War (1998). A study of the collaboration between the two
great leaders of the West based on a thorough knowledge of their
correspondence.
W. Murray and A.R. Millett, A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second
World War, (2000). A splendid account of the military operations in
the war.
P. Neville, Hitler and Appeasement: The British Attempt to Prevent the
Second World War (2005). A defense of the British appeasers of
Hitler.
R. Overy, Why the Allies Won (1997). An anlysis of the reasons for
the victory of the Allies, with special emphasis on technology.
N. Rich, Hitler War Aims, 2 vols. (1973–1974). The best study of the
subject in English.
P. Wandycz, The Twilight of French Eastern Alliances, 1926–1936
(1988). A well-documented account of the diplomacy of central and
eastern Europe in a crucial period.
 G.L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II
(1994). A thorough and excellent narrative account.

Chapter 31

B.S. Anderson and J.P. Pinsser, A History of Their Own: Women in

Europe from Prehistory to the Present, Vol. 2 (1988). A broad-
ranging survey.
R. Bernstein, Out of the Blue: The Story of September 11, 2001, from
Jihad to Ground Zero (2002). An excellent account by a gifted
journalist.
A. Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (1996). An important commentary
by an English observer.
D. Calleo, Rethinking Europe’s Future (2003). A daring book by an
experienced commentator.
M. Cini, European Union Politics (2007). An authoritative guide.
J.F. Frieden, Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth
Century (2007). Background to the current financial crisis.
J.L. Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (2006). An important
overview.
D.J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the
Southern Leadership Conference, 1955–1968 (1986). The best work
on the subject.
M. I. Goldman, Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia (2008).
A thoughtful, but critical analysis.
D. Halberstam, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War
(2007). A superb narrative by a gifted journalist.
W. Hitchcock, Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a
Divided Continent, 1945–2002 (2003). The best overall narrative
now available.
D. Kearns, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (1976). Remains
a useful biography.
J. Keep, The Last of the Empires: A History of the Soviet Union,
1956–1991 (1995). A clear narrative.
 M. Mandelbaum, The Ideas That Conquered the World: Peace,
Democracy, and Free Markets (2002). An important analysis by a
major commentator on international affairs.
J. Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet
(2004). An account of the major foreign policy advisers behind the
invasion of Iraq.
R. Mann, A Grand Delusion: America’s Descent into Vietnam (2001).
The best recent narrative.
J. McCormick, Understanding the European Union: A Concise
Introduction (2002). Outlines the major features.
N. Naimark, Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century
Europe (2002). A remarkably sensitive treatment of a tragic subject.
T. R. Reid, The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the
End of American Supremacy (2004). A journalist’s exploration of
the impact of the European Union on American policy.
M.E. Sarotte, 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe
(2009). Explores paths taken and not taken at the time of the
collapse of communism.
V. Sebestyen, Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire (2009).
A masterful overview of the end of the Cold War Era.
L. Shevtsova, Russia—Lost in Transition: The Yelsin and Putin
Legacies (2007). A major analysis and meditation on the past two
decades.
R. Story, The Rise of Conservatism in America, 1945–2000: A Brief
History with Documents (2007). A basic introductory overview.
M. Walker, The Cold War and the Making of the Modern World
(1994). Remains a major survey.

Chapter 32

China
R. Baum, Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping
(1996).
A. Chan, R. Madsen, and J. Unger, Chen Village uunder Mao and
Deng (1992).
J. Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (1991). An intimate
look at recent Chinese society through three generations of women.
Immensely readable.
J. Feng, Ten Years of Madness: Oral Histories of China’s Cultural
Revolution (1996).
J. Fewsmith, China since Tiananmen: The Politics of Transition
(2001). Focus is on the rise to power of Jiang Zemin and Chinese
politics during the 1990s.
B.M. Frolic, Mao’s People: Sixteen Portraits of Life in Revolutionary
China (1987).
T. Gold, State and Society in the Taiwan Miracle (1986). The story of
economic growth in postwar Taiwan.
M. Goldman, Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China: Political
Reform in the Deng Xiaoping Era (1994).
A. Iriye, China and Japan in the Global Setting (1992).
D.M. Lampton, Same Bed, Different Dreams: Managing U.S.–China
Relations, 1989–2000 (2001).
H. Liang, Son of the Revolution (1983). An autobiographical account
of a young man growing up in Mao’s China.
K. Lieberthal, Governing China, from Revolution through Reform
(2004).
B. Liu, People or Monsters? and Other Stories and Reportage from
China After Mao (1983). Literary reflections on China.
R. MacFarquhar and J.K. Fairbank, eds., The Cambridge History of
China, Vol. 14, Emergence of Revolutionary China (1987), and Vol.
15, Revolutions within the Chinese Revolution, 1966–1982 (1991).
L. Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese
Diaspora (1990). A pioneer study that treats not only Southeast Asia
but the rest of the world as well.
M.R. Ristaino, Port of Last Resort: The Diaspora Communities of
Shanghai (2001).
T. Saich, Governance and Politics of China (2004).
H. Wang, China’s New Order (2003). Translation of a work by a
Qinghua University professor, a liberal within the boundaries of
what is permissible in China.
 G. White, ed., In Search of Civil Society: Market Reform and Social
Change in Contemporary China (1996).
M. Wolf, Revolution Postponed: Women in Contemporary China
(1985).
Zhang X. and Sang Y., Chinese Lives: An Oral History of
Contemporary China (1987).

Japan
A. Barshay, State and Intellectual in Imperial Japan (1988).
A. Barshay, The Social Sciences in Modern Japan (2007).
G.L. Bernstein, Haruko’s World: A Japanese Farm Woman and Her
Community (1983). A study of the changing life of a village woman
in postwar Japan.
T. Bestor, Neighborhood Tokyo (1989). A portrait of contemporary
urban life in Japan.
T. Bestor, Tsukiji (2003).
G.L. Curtis, The Logic of Japanese Politics: Leaders, Institutions, and
the Limits of Change (1999).
G.L. Curtis, Policymaking in Japan: Defining the Role of Politicians
(2002).
M.H. Cusumano, The Japanese Automobile Industry (1985). A neat
study of the postwar business strategies of Toyota and Nissan.
W.T. DeBary, C. Gluck, and A. E. Tiedemann, Comps., Sources of the
Japanese Tradition, 2nd ed. (2005).
R.P. Dore, Land Reform in Japan (1959). Another classic.
R.P. Dore, City Life in Japan (1999). A classic, reissued.
S. Garon, Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life
(1997).
S.M. Garon, The Evolution of Civil Society from Meiji to Heisei
(2002). That is to say, from the mid-nineteenth century to the
present day.
A. Gordon, ed., Postwar Japan as History (1993).
H. Hibbett, ed., Contemporary Japanese Literature: An Anthology of
Fiction, Film, and Other Writing since 1945 (1977). Translations of
postwar short stories.
 Y. Kawabata, The Sound of the Mountain, trans. by E.G. Seidensticker
(1970). Sensitive, moving novel by Nobel author.
J. Nathan, Sony, the Private Life (1999). A lively account of the
human side of growth in the Sony Corporation.
D. Okimoto, Between MITI and the Market (1989). A discussion of
the respective roles of government and private enterprise in Japan’s
postwar growth.
S. Pharr, Losing Face: Status Politics in Japan (1996).
E.F. Vogel, Japan as Number One: Lessons for America (1979).
Though dated and somewhat sanguine, this remains an insightful
classic.

Korea and Vietnam

B. Cumings, Korea: The Unknown War (1988).
B. Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War (Vol. 1, 1981; Vol. 2,
1991).
B. Cumings, The Two Koreas: On the Road to Reunification? (1990).
C.J. Eckert, Korea Old and New, A History (1990). The best short
history of Korea, with extensive coverage of the postwar era.
C.J. Eckert, Offspring of Empire: The Koch’ang Kims and the
Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism, 1876–1945 (1991).
G.M.T. Kahin, Intervention: How America Became Involved in
Vietnam (1986).
S. Karnow, Vietnam: A History, rev. ed., (1996).
L. Kendall, Shamans, Housewives, and Other Restless Spirits: Women
in Korean Ritual and Life (1985).
K.B. Lee, A New History of Korea (1984). A translation by E. Wagner
and others of an outstanding Korean work covering the full sweep of
Korean history.
T. Li, Nguyen Cochinchina: South Vietnam in the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries (1998).
D. Marr, Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power (1995).
C.W. Sorensen, Over the Mountains Are Mountains (1988). How
peasant households in Korea adapted to rapid industrialization.
A. Woodside, Vietnam and the Chinese Model (1988). Provides the
background for Vietnam’s relationship to China.
Chapter 33

General Works
P. Farmer, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New
War on the Poor (2003). Farmer, a physician, uses his experiences at
Harvard and in the Caribbean to argue that inadequate health care in
the Third World violates human rights and imperils us all.
J.H. Latham, Africa, Asia, and South America since 1800: A
Bibliographic Guide (1995). A valuable tool for finding materials on
the topics in this chapter.
S. Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
(2002). A masterful analysis of genocides in the twentieth century
(in Armenia, the Holocaust, the Khmer Rouge, Kurds, Rwanda, and
Bosnia) and the U.S. response.
J.D. Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
(2005). A renowned economist’s plan to end extreme poverty
around the world by 2025.

Latin America
S. Balfour, Castro (2008). A relatively brief survey of Castro’s ability
to hold power for half a century.
P. Brenner, A Contemporary Cuba Reader: Reinventing the Revolution
(2007). A useful analysis of the developments in this century.
J. Dominguez and M. Shifter, Constructing Democratic Governance in
Latin America (2008). Contains individual country studies.
G. W. Grayson, Mexico: Narco-Violence and a Failed State? (2009).
Explores the impact of drug violence on Mexican politics.
G. Joseph et al., The Mexico Reader: History, Culture, Politics (2003).
Excellent introduction to major issues.
P. Lowden, Moral Opposition to Authoritarian Rule in Chile (1996). A
discussion of Chilean politics from the standpoint of human rights.
 J. Preston and S. Dillon, Opening Mexico: The Making of a
Democracy (2004). Excellent analysis of developments in Mexico
prior to the outbreak of the drug wars.
H. Wiarda, Politics and Social Change in Latin America (2003).
Attempts to examine the subject in light of long-standing historic
trends in Latin America.
E. Williamson, The Penguin History of Latin America (2010). The
best recent survey.

Africa
B. Davidson, Let Freedom Come (1978). Remains a thoughtful
commentary of African independence.
P. Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be
Killed with Our Families (1999). An account of the Rwandan
genocide that is beautifully written and almost unbearable to read.
J. Herbst, States and Power in Africa (2000). Relates current issues of
African state-building to those before the colonial era.
R.W. July, A History of the African People, 5th ed. (1995). Provides a
careful and clear survey of post–World War I history and
consideration of nationalism.
N. Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson
Mandela (1995). Autobiography of the African leader who
transformed South Africa.
L. Thompson, A History of South Africa (2001). The best survey.
N. Van de Walle, African Economies and the Politics of Permanent
Crisis, 1979–1999 (2001). Exploration of the difficulties of African
economic development.

India and Pakistan

O.B. Jones, Pakistan: Eye of the Storm (2003). Best recent
introduction.
R. Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central
Asia (2001). Analysis of radical Isalmist regime in Afghanistan.
 R.W. Stern, Changing India: Bourgeois Revolution on the
Subcontinent (2003). Overview of forces now changing Indian
society.
S. Wolpert, A New History of India (2003). The closing chapters of
this fine survey history are particularly helpful in orienting the
reader in postwar Indian history until the mid-1980s.

Islam and the Middle East

A. Ahmed, Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and
Society, rev. ed. (2003). An excellent and readable overview of
Islamic–Western relations.
J. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality, 2nd ed. (1992). A
useful corrective to some of the polemics against Islam and Muslims
today.
J.J. Esposito, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam (1999). A
thematic survey of Islamic history, particularly strong in the Modern
Era.
D. Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman
Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (2001). Very
good on the impact of World War I on the region.
G. Fuller, The Future of Political Islam (2003). A very good overview
of Islamist ideology by a former CIA staff member.
J. Keay, Sowing the Wind: The Seeds of Conflict in the Middle East
(2003). A balanced account.
N.R. Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (2003).
Chapters 6–12 focus on Iran from 1941 through the first years of the
1978 revolution and provide a solid overview of history in this era.
G. Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (2002). An extensive
treatment by a leading French scholar of the subject.
Credits

Cover: © 2010 Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums

Trust, Mexico, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Chapter 1, page 1: De Agostini Editore Picture Library; page 4:

Reconstruction credited to John Swogger; page 7: Victory stele of Naram-
Sin, King of Akkad, over the mountain-dwelling Lullubi, Mesopotamian,
Akkadian Period, c. 2230 B.C. (pink sandstone). Louvre, Paris, France/The
Bridgeman Art Library International Ltd. page 8: Clay tablet from the
Chaldean period (612 539 B.C.E.) Courtesy of the Trustees of the British
Museum. © Copyright The British Museum; page 11: Kenneth
Garrettings/National Geographic Image Collection; page 12: Jon
Arnold/Alamy Images; page 13: “Seated Scribe” from Saqqara, Egypt. 5th
Dynasty, c. 2510-2460 B.C.E. Painted limestone, height 21’ (53 cm). Musée
du Louvre, Paris. Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY; page 14: British
Museum, London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library International Ltd. page
15: Gilgamesh. Relief from the Temple of Saragon II, Khorsabad. Assyrian,
8th century B.C.E. Louvre, Paris, France. Copyright Giraudon/Art Resource,
NY; page 18: Borromeo/Art Resource, NY; page 19: © Scala/Art
Resource, NY; page 24: Lowell Georgia/CORBIS - NY; page 26: Freer
Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: F1936.6; page
28: Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY.

Chapter 2, page 32: Courtesy of the Library of Congress; page 36:

National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China; page 37:
Courtesy of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington,
D.C.; page 42: Mario Tama/Getty Images, Inc. page 43:
Borromeo/EPA/Art Resource, NY; page 45: Courtesy of the Library of
Congress; page 46: Relief, Israel, 10th-6th Century: Judean exiles carrying
provisions. Detail of the Assyrian conquest of the Jewish fortified town of
Lachish (battle 701 BC). Part of a relief from the palace of Sennacherib at
Niniveh, Mesopotamia (Iraq). British Museum, London, Great Britain.
Copyright Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; page 47: Courtesy of the
Library of Congress. Gardiner Greene Hubbard Collection; page 50: ©
Scala/Art Resource; page 56: Courtesy of the Library of Congress; page
57: Minkowski, Maurycy (1881–1930). “After the Pogrom”, c. 1910. The
Jewish Museum, New York, NY, U.S.A. Photo Credit: Jewish Museum/Art
Resource, NY.

Chapter 3, page 58: Picture Desk, Inc./Kobal Collection, NY; page 61:
Scala/Art Resource, NY; page 63: Art Resource, NY; page 68: Courtesy of
the Trustees of the British Museum; page 69: Bibliotheque Nationale de
France; page 70: © Foto Marburg/Art Resource, NY; page 72:
cAAAC/Topham/The Image Works; page 79: Meredith Pillon/Greek
National Tourism Organization; page 81: David Lees/CORBIS; page 84:
Laocoon, Vatican Museums, Vatican State. Copyright Giraudon/Art
Resource, NY; page 85: © 2004 Christie’s Images, Inc.

Chapter 4, page 90: Art Resource, NY; page 94: © Tim Page/CORBIS All
Rights Reserved; page 97: © Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England, U.K.
page 98: Werner Forman Archive; page 99: Sculpted head of Buddha, from
Gandhara, 2nd century B.C. Paris, Musée Guimet. RMN: Reunion Musées
Nationaux. page 100: © CORBIS All Rights Reserved; page 103: A leaf
from a Manichaean Book, Kocho, Temple K (MIK III 6368), 8th-9th
century, manuscript painting, 17.2 × 11.2 cm. Bildarchiv Preussischer
Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY; page 106: Borromeo/Art Resource, NY;
page 109: Scala/Art Resource, NY; page 111: Rick
Sherwin/Photolibrary.com; page 116: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
Kansas City, Missouri. (Purchase: Nelson Trust) 50-20; page 117:
argus/Schwarzbach/Photolibrary/Peter Arnold, Inc.

Chapter 5, page 118: Henri Lhote Collection. Musée de l’Homme, Paris,

France. © Photograph by Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; page 123: John
Warburton-Lee/Danita Delimont Photography; page 126: AKG
Images/Jurgen Sorges; page 129: Nigeria, Nok head, 900BC-200AD, Rafin
Kura, Nok. Prehistoric West African sculpture from the Nok culture.
Terracotta, 36 cms high. © Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY; page 130:
University of Pennsylvania Museum object E8183, image# 142043; page
131: Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY; page 132: © Michael S.
Lewis/CORBIS; page 135: Getty Images Inc. - Hulton Archive Photos;
page 135: © Michael & Patricia Fogden/CORBIS All Rights Reserved;
page 137: © CORBIS All Rights Reserved; page 138: Anup Shah/Nature
Picture Library.

Chapter 6, page 142: Fresco with seated woman playing a kithara (lyre).
Roman, ca. 40-30 B.C. Paintings. Pompeian, Boscoreale. 1st Century B. C.
Wall painting from the east wall of large room in the villa of Publius
Fannius Synistor. Fresco on lime plaster. H. 6 ft. 1 1/2 in. W. 6 ft. 1 1/2 in.
(187 × 187 cm.). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1903.
(03.14.5) Photograph © 1986 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Art
Resource, NY; page 145: Sarcophagus of a Couple. Etruscan, 6th B.C.E.
Terracotta. H: 114 cm. Louvre, Paris, France. Copyright Erich Lessing/Art
Resource, NY; page 147: Alinari/Art Resource, NY; page 149: Getty
Images/De Agostini Editore Picture Library; page 151: Rheinisches
Landesmuseum, Trier, Germany. Alinari/Art Resource, NY; page 155:
Simon James © Dorling Kindersley; page 157: Charitable Foundation,
Gemeinnutzige Stiftung Leonard von Matt; page 158: Saturnia, Tellus,
Goddess of Earth, Air and Water. Panel from the Ara Pacis. 13-9 B.C.E..
Museum of the Ara Pacis, Rome. Nimatallah/Art Resource, NY; page 160:
Scala/Art Resource, NY; page 161: Sappho, idealized portrait of a girl
posing as a poetess. Fresco from Pompeii, Insula Occidentale. Museo
Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY;
page 161: Gismondi. Reconstruction of a large house and apartments at
Ostia. Museo della Civilta Romana, Rome, Italy. Copyright Scala/Art
Resource, NY; page 163: Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Chapter 7, page 174: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; page 178: Photo
Researchers, Inc.; page 179: KEREN SU/DanitaDelimont.com; page 183:
Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY; page 185: The Art Archive/Genius of
China Exhibition/Picture Desk, Inc./Kobal Collection; page 186: The
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri (purchase: Nelson
Trust) 34-206; page 189: National Archives and Records Administration;
page 190: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

Chapter 8, page 194: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; page 200: A Relief of
Emperor T’ai T’sung’s Horse, “Autumn Dew”. University of Pennsylvania
Museum, Philadelphia (NEG.#S8-62840); page 202: Werner Forman/Art
Resource, NY; page 203: © Réunion des Musées/Art Resource, NY; page
204: The Art Archive/British Museum; page 207: © Photograph by Wan-
go Weng, Collection of H.C. Wang; page 208: Ewer with carved flower
sprays. China; Yaozhou, Shaanxi province. Northern Song dynasty (960–
1127). Porcelain with carved decoration under celadon glaze. H. 9 5/8 in ×
W. 5 1/4 in × D. 7 3/4 in, H. 24.5 cm × W. 13.4 cm × D. 19.7 cm. Museum
purchase, B66P12 © Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Used by
permission; page 209: Reprinted by permission of the publisher from An
Introduction to Sung Poetry by Kojiro Yoshikawa, translated by Burton
Watson, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, © 1967 by the
Harvard-Yenching Institute; page 210: Xia Gui, Chinese (active 1180-after
1224), “Twelve Views of Landscape”. Southern Song Dynasty, (1127–
1279). Handscroll; ink on silk. 11″ × 90 3/4″ (28.0 × 230.5 cm) overall. The
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: Nelson
Trust, 32-159/2. Photograph by John Lamberton; page 213: National Palace
Museum, Taiwan, Republic of China; page 215: Getty Images, Inc
Bridgeman.

Chapter 9, page 218: Tokyo National Museum DNP Archives.Com Co.,

Ltd; page 220: The Granger Collection, New York; page 223: Demetrio
Carrasco © Dorling Kindersley; page 225: Picture Desk, Inc./Kobal
Collection; page 226: “Scroll w/depictions of the Night Attach on the Sanjo
Palace” from Heiji monogatari emaki, 2nd half of the 13th c. Unknown.
Japanese, Kamakura Period. Handscroll; ink & colors on paper. 41.3 ×
699.7 cm. Fenollosa-Weld C. Photograph © 2007 Courtesy Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston; page 227: Calligraphy attributed to Fujiwara no
Sadanobu. Album leaf from the “Ishiyama-gire.” Heian, period, early 12th
century. Ink with gold and silver on decorated and collaged paper, 8 × 6 3/8
in. (20.3 × 16.1 cm). Courtesy of The Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, D.C.; page 228: Archivo Iconografico,
S.A./Archivo Inconografico; page 229: Corel Corporation; page 231:
Dorling Kindersley Media Library; page 232: Courtesy of the Library of
Congress; page 235: Galileo Picture Services, LLC; page 238: William
Waterfall/PacificStock.com; page 239: Art Resource, NY; page 239:
CORBIS - NY.

Chapter 10, page 240: Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Near Eastern
Secion, African and Middle Eastern Division; page 291: Photo
Researchers, Inc.; page 247: Jaggat Images/Alamy Images; page 247:
SuperStock, Inc.; page 247: Paolo Koch/Photo Researchers, Inc.; page 252:
Art Resource, NY page 253: Magnus Rew © Dorling Kindersley; page
253: Library of Congress; page 253: Library of Congress; page 254: Atta
Kenare/AFP/Getty Images; page 256: English Heritage/National
Monuments Record; page 258: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford;
page 259: Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY; page 259: Adam Lubroth/Art
Resource, NY; page 260: Arabic Manuscript: 30.60 Page from a Koran,
8th-9th century. Kufic script. H: 23.8 × W: 35.5 cm. Courtesy of the Freer
Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Purchase,
F1930.60r.

Chapter 11, page 262: Turkish Tourism and Information Office; page 265:
Giraudon/Art Resource, NY; page 267: “Theodora and Attendants”. The
Court of Theodora. Mosaic. San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy. Scala/Art Resource,
NY; page 269: Turkish Tourism and Information Office; page 270: Ancient
Art & Architecture/DanitaDelimont.com; page 274: A Moor and a
Christian playing the lute, miniature in a book of music from the ‘Cantigas’
of Alfonso X ‘the Wise’ (1221-84). 13th Century (manuscript). Monasterio
de El Escorial, El Escorial, Spain/Index/Bridgeman Art Library; page 279:
Bronze equestrian statuette of Charlemagne, from Metz Cathedral, 9th-10th
c. 3/4 view. Louvre, Paris, France. Copyright BridgemanGiraudon/Art
Resource, NY; page 280: The Art Archive/Picture Desk, Inc./Kobal
Collection; page 282: Art Resource/The Pierpont Morgan Library; page
285: Spanish School (7th century). Lord and vassal, decorated page
(vellum). Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona,
Spain/Index/Bridgeman Art Library.
Chapter 12, page 288: Courtesy of the Library of Congress; page 293:
Bodleian Library, University of Oxford; page 294: Robert Frerck/Getty
Images Inc. - Stone Allstock; page 294: Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY;
page 296: John Tsantes. Courtesy of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, D.C.; page 296: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY;
page 298: Bibliotheque Nationale de France; page 302: Taxi/Getty Images;
page 307: South Indian bronze figure of Krishna dancing on the head of the
serpent Kaliya, from Vijayanagar, ca. fifteenth century. Asian Art Museum
of San Francisco, The Avery Brundage Collection B65B72.

Chapter 13, page 310: Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Rare Book
and Special Collections Divsion; page 314: Andy Crawford © Dorling
Kindersley, Courtesy of the University Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, Cambridge; page 315: © Danny Lehhman/CORBIS All
Rights Reserved; page 316: Mitchell Photography; page 318: Picture Desk,
Inc./Kobal Collection; page 318: Kal Muller/Woodfin Camp & Associates,
Inc.; page 319: The Art Archive/Dagli Orti; page 320: Bibliotheque
Nationale, Paris, France/The Bridgeman Art Library; page 321: President
and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum, 48-63-20/17561; page
322: Sexto Sol/Getty Images, Inc. - Photodisc./Royalty Free; page 325:
Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Berkeley University of Califrnia
Press, 1992. General Collections; page 326: Scala/Art Resource, NY; page
329: SGM/Stock Connection; page 329: Courtesy of UCLA Fowler
Museum of Cultural History; page 331: Dorling Kindersley © Sean Hunter;
page 331: Ira Block/National Geographic Image Collection; page 332: The
Granger Collection.

Chapter 14, page 336: M. & E. Bernheim/Woodfin Camp & Associates,

Inc.; page 341: Will Steeley/Alamy Images; page 343: The Granger
Collection; page 345: Henning Christoph/DAS
FOTOARCHIV/Photolibrary/Peter Arnold, Inc.; page 349: © President and
Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum, 16-43-50/B1481; page
350: South African Tourism Board; page 351: © British Library Board
G.7158 pg 497; page 352: Steve Outram/Stock Connection; page 353:
Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY; page 354: Great Zimbabwe Site
Museum, Zimbabwe; page 355: Hottentots(litho) (b/w photo) by Dutch
School (17th century) Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library.

Chapter 15, page 358: Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Rare Book
and Special Collections Division; page 363: Scala/Art Resource, NY; page
364: Fotomarburg/Art Resource, NY; page 365: Scala/Art Resource, NY;
page 367: Cliche Bibliotheque Nationale de France - Paris; page 368:
Copyright Scala/Art Resource, NY; page 369: William haranguing his
troups for combat with the English army. Detail from the Bayeux tapestry,
scene 51. Musée de la Tapisserie, Bayeux, France. Photograph copyright
Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY; page 373: The Granger
Collection, New York; page 374: Statue of Pope Boniface VIII. Museo
Civico, Bologna. Scala/Art Resource, NY; page 377: St. Bavo, Ghent,
Belgium/The Bridgeman Art Library; page 377: Embassy of Italy; page
378: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

Chapter 16, page 384: Courtesy of the Library of Congress; page 387:
Sebastiano del Piombo (1485–1547). Portrait of a man, said to be
Christopher Columbus (born about 1446, died 1506. 1519. Oil on canvas,
42 × 34 3/4 in. (106.7 × 88.3 cm). Gift of J. Pier-pont Morgan, 1900
(00.18.2). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA. Image
copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY; page
391: Lawrence Pordes © Dorling Kindersley, Courtesy of The British
Library; page 391: Art Resource, NY; page 394: Courtesy of the Library of
Congress; page 395: “Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me,” 1538
(oil on panel) by Lucas Cranach, the Elder (1472–1553) © Hamburger
Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany/The Bridgeman Art Library; page 398:
Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640)/Art Resource, NY; page 399: “Holbein,
Hans the Younger” (1497–1543) after: The Artist’s Family. Photo: P.
Bernard. Location: Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille, France Photo Credit:
Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY; page 400: Hacker Art
Books Inc.; page 402: The Art Archive/Musée des Beaux Arts
Lausanne/Picture Desk, Inc./Kobal Collection; page 403: The “Milch
Cow.” Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; page 404: Elizabeth I (1558–1603)
standing on a map of England in 1592. An astute politician in both foreign
and domestic policy, Elizabeth was perhaps the most successful ruler of the
sixteenth century. By courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London;
page 406: “The Weather Witches” 1523 Hans Baldung Grien (1484/85–
1545 German) Oil on wood Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main,
Germany/Superstock; page 408: Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Rare
Book and Special Collection Divsion; page 412: The Pentecost, ca. 1150–
1175. Made in Meuse Valley, South Netherlands, Champleve’ enamel on
copper gilt. Overall: 4 1/16 × 4 1/16 in. (10.3 × 10.3 cm). The Cloisters
Collection, 1965 (65.105) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
NY, USA. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art
Resource, NY; page 413: Lee Marriner/AP Wide World Photos.

Chapter 17, page 414: The Granger Collection; page 416: Jeremy
Horner/CORBIS - NY; page 418: Samuel Scott, “Old Custom House
Quay” Collection. V&A Images, The Victoria and Albert Museum,
London; page 419: © Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource,
NY; page 420: The Granger Collection, New York; page 422: Library of
Congress; page 424: Fur traders and Indians: engraving, 1777. © The
Granger Collection, New York; page 426: The Granger Collection; page
426: Photolibrary/Peter Arnold, Inc.; page 430: Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
Folk Art Museum, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg,
VA; page 432: Courtesy of the Library of Congress; page 435: Library of
Congress; page 436: The New York Public Library/Art Resource, NY.

Chapter 18, page 440: Tosa (attributed to): people along the river. Detail
from screen representing the River Festival. 17th century. Painting on paper.
Photo: Arnaudet. Musée des Arts AsiatiquesGuimet, Paris, France. Reunion
des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY; page 444: Plate, Ming Dynasty,
late 16th-early 17th century, “Kraakporselein,” probably from the Ching-te
Chen kilns. Porcelain, painted in underglaze blue. Diameter 14 1/4 in. The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1916 (16.13). Photograph ©
1980 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Art Resource, NY; page 448:
CORBIS - NY; page 449: China, Unidentified Artist 16th century, Portrait
of Qianlong Emperor As a Young Man, Qing dynasty (1644–1911).
Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk; Overall: 63 1/2 × 30 1/2in. (161.3 ×
77.5cm). Rogers Fund, 1942. (42.141.8). The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, NY, USA. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of
Art/Art Resource, NY; page 450: 1977-42-1. Tu, Shen. “The Tribute
Giraffe with Attendant”. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of John T.
Dorrance, 1977; page 451: The Granger Collection; page 453: Japan
Airlines Photo; page 455: “Arrival of the Portugese in Japan” Detail—
central section of the boat. 1594–1618. Screen. Paint, gold, paper. Museo
Soares Dos Reis, Porto, Portugal. Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY;
page 456: DND Archives.com Company, Ltd./Tokio National Museum;
page 457: Albert Craig; page 460: Albert Craig; page 461: Albert Craig;
page 463: Kitagawa Utamaro (1753–1806), “Mother Bathing Her Son”.
Print. Color woodblock print, oban, tate-e, nishikie, mica 14 7/8” × 10 1/8”
(37.8 × 25.7 cm.). The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City,
Missouri (Purchase: Nelson Trust). © The Nelson Gallery Foundation. All
Reproduction Rights Reserved; page 467: Brian Lovell/Photolibrary.com;
page 468: Rank Badge. Choson Dynasty. Colored silk and gold paper,
thread on figured silk. 1600–1700. Victoria and Albert Museum,
London/Art Resouce, NY; page 471: Lee Boltin/American Museum of
Natural History; page 473: Sami Sarkis/Getty Images, Inc. -
Photodisc./Royalty Free.

Chapter 19, page 476: De Agostini Editore Picture Library; page 480:
Anthony van Dyck, “Portrait of Charles I. Hunting”. c. 1635. Oil on
Canvas. 8′11″ × 6′11 1/2″ (2.72 × 2.12 m). Musée du Louvre, Paris. RMN
Reunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY; page 481: Bridgeman-
Giraudon/Art Resource, NY; page 482: Pierre Patel, “Perspective View of
Versailles.” Chateaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles, France. Photo
copyright Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY; page 484: The
Apotheosis of Tsar Peter I the Great 1672–1725 by unknown artist 1710.
Historical Museum Moscow Russia. E.T. Archive; page 485: The Granger
Collection; page 487: De Agostini Editore Picture Library; page 491: The
Granger Collection; page 492: General James Wolfe’s expedition against
Quebec in 1759: English engraving, 1760. The Granger Collection, New
York; page 494: © National Gallery, London; page 495: Francis Wheatley
(RA) (1747–1801) “Evening”, signed and dated 1799, oil on canvas, 17 1/2
× 21 1/2 in. (44.5 × 54.5 cm), Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon
Collection/Bridgeman Art Library (B1977.14.118); page 496: Art
Resource/Musée du Louvre; page 498: Walker Art Gallery, National
Museums Liverpool/The Bridgeman Art Library; page 502: Joseph Wright
of Derby, The Blacksmith’s Shop, 1771, oil on canvas, 50 1/2 × 41 in.
(128.3 × 104.1 cm). Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection;
page 503: Art Resource/Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz; page 504:
Judaica Collection Max Berger, Vienna, Austria. Photograph © Erich
Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

Chapter 20, page 508: V & A Picture Library; page 514: “Istanbul
University Kutuphanesi, T. 5964, fols. 8b-9a, photograph courtesy of Talat
Halman.”; page 515: Suleyman I (Kanuni); Shehzade by Talikizade Suphi.
Folio 79a of the Talikizade Shehnamesi, Library of the Topkapi Palace
Museum, A3592, photograph courtesy of Talat Halman; page 517: Arifi,
“Suleymanname,” Topkapi Palace Museum, II 1517, fol. 31b, photograph
courtesy of Talat Halman; page 518: © Philip Spruyt/CORBIS All Rights
Reserved; page 519: Ancient Art & Architecture/DanitaDelimont.com;
page 520: © Roger Wood/CORBIS All Rights Reserved; page 520:
Woman with a veil. Riaz Abbasi, Ca. 1590-95 (1565–1635). Opaque
watercolor, ink, and gold on paper 34.2 × 21.5 cm. Arthur M. Sackler
Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Lent by The Art and
History Trust, LTS1995.2.80; page 522: Christine Pemberton/Omni-Photo
Communications, Inc.; page 523: Bichitr, “Jahangir Preferring a Sufi
Shaikh to Kings”, ca. 1660-70. Album page. Opaque watercolor, gold and
ink on paper. 25.3 cm H × 18.1 cm W (10″ × 7-1/8″). Courtesy of the Freer
Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; page 525:
Michel Gotin; page 526: K. L. Kamat.

Chapter 21, page 532: Chateaux de Malmaison et Bois-Preau, Rueil-

Malmaison. Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY; page 535: Courtesy
of the Library of Congress. Rare Book and Special Collection Divsion;
page 536: Art Resource/Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz; page 537: ©
James A. Sugar/CORBIS; page 538: Pierre-Louis the Younger Dumesnil
(1698–1781), “Christina of Sweden (1626-89) and her Court: detail of the
Queen and Rene Descartes (1596–1650) at the Table.” Oil on canvas.
Chateau de Versailles, France/Bridgeman Art Library; page 540: Jean-
Simon Berthelemy (1743–1811), “Denis Diderot” (1713–1784). Writer and
Encyelopaedist. Oil on canvas, 551× 46 cm. Inv.: P 2082. Photo: Bulloz.
Musée de la Ville de Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Paris, France/Art Resource,
NY; page 543: Denis Diderot, Encyclopedie, ou, Dictionnaire Raisonne des
Sciences, des Arts et des Metiers. Recueil de Planches, sur les Sciences.,
(Paris, 1762), vol 1 Special Collections, University of Virginia Library;
page 544: © Historical Picture Archive/CORBIS; page 545: The Granger
Collection; page 547: Art Resource, NY; page 550: Jacques Louis David
(1748–1825) “The Oath of the Horatii”, c. 1784, oil on canvas, 330,× 425
cm Inv: 3692. Photo: G. Blot/C. Jean. © Reunion des Musées
Nationaux/Art Resource, NY/Louvre, Paris, France; page 551: The Granger
Collection; page 553: Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Rare Book
Collection, Law Library.

Chapter 22, page 556: CORBIS - NY; page 559: The Granger Collection,
New York; page 561: Anonymous, 18th century CE. “To Versallies, to
Versallies”. The Women of Paris going to Versailles, 7 October, 1789.
French. Musée de la Ville de Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Paris, France.
Photograph copyright Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY; page 562:
CORBIS - NY; page 556: 18th century C.E. “Execution of Louis XVI.”
Aquatint. French. Musée de la Ville de Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Paris,
France. Copyright BridgemanGiraudon/Art Resource, NY; page 567: Art
Resource/Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz; page 569: © Historical
Picture Archive/CORBIS; page 570: Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art
Library; page 570: Francisco de Goya, “Los fusilamientos del 3 de Mayo,
1808” 1814. Oil on canvas, 8′6″ × 11′4″. © Museo Nacional Del Prado,
Madrid; page 574: Library of Congress; page 576: SuperStock, Inc.; page
580: The Granger Collection, New York.

Chapter 23, page 584: © Scala/Art Resource, NY; page 590: Lynn
Museum; page 591: “The Insurrection of the Decembrists at Senate Square,
St. Petersburg on 14th December, 1825” (w/c on paper) by Russian School
(19th century). Private Collection/Archives Charmet/Bridgeman Art
Library; page 592: Art Resource, NY; page 593: Image Works/Mary Evans
Picture Library Ltd; page 594: Picture Desk, Inc./Kobal Collection; page
597: Library of Congress; page 599: National Archives and Records
Administration; page 601: Getty Images Inc. - Hulton Archive Photos;
page 603: Lady Elizabeth Thompson Butler (1846–1933), “The Roll Call:
Calling the Roll after an Engagement, Crimea (unframed)”. The Royal
Collection © 2005, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Photo by SC. page
604: Art Resource/Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz; page 608: Getty
Images.

Chapter 24, page 612: “Parade of Tsarina’s Meadow”. Vsesoiuznyi Muzei

A.S. Pushkina; page 615: Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, “Il Quarto Stato”
1901. Oil on canvas, 283 cm × 550 cm. Photo by Marcello Saporetti.
Galleria D’Arte Moderna, Milano. Copyright Comune di Milano; page 617:
American Textile History Museum, Lowell, Mass; page 618: Edgar Degas
(1834–1917), “The Bellelli Family” c. 1858–60. Musée d’Orsay, Paris,
France. Photograph copyright Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY;
page 619: Image Works/Mary Evans Picture Library Ltd; page 619:
Reunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY; page 620: Private
Collection/Bridgeman Art Library; page 621: Opitz, George Emanuel.
Dedication of a Synagogue in Alsace, c. 1820. The Jewish Museum, New
York, NY, U.S.A.; page 623: The Granger Collection; page 626:
UPI/CORBIS - NY; page 628: Soldiers fire on demonstrators infront of the
Winter Palace on “Bloody Sunday”, January 9, 1905. © Bildarchiv
Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY; page 630: The Denver Public
Library, Western History Collection, Photographer J.B. Silvis, Call Number
X-22221; page 632: Brown Brothers; page 633: Lewis W. Hine/Library of
Congress; page 635: National History Museum, London, UK/Bridgeman
Art Library; page 636: French Government Tourist Office; page 638:
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

Chapter 25, page 642: Mexico City, 1942 (tempera on masonite) by Juan
O’Gorman (1905-82) Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City,
Mexico/Index/The Bridgeman Art Library Nationality/copyright status:
Mexican/in copyright until 2058; page 648: Picture Desk, Inc./Kobal
Collection; page 651: CORBIS - NY; page 652: Guatemala Tourist
Commission; page 653: CORBIS - NY; page 654: Courtesy of the Library
of Congress; page 655: AP Wide World Photos; page 656: Private
Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library; page 658: Edouard Manet (1832–
1883), “The Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, June 19, 1867”.
Oil on canvas. Location: Staedtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim, Germany. Art
Resource, NY; page 659: UPI/CORBIS - NY; page 660: The Granger
Collection; page 662: UPI/CORBIS - NY.

Chapter 26, page 666: The Granger Collection, New York; page 670:
Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library;
page 671: Hulton Archive/Getty Images; page 673: Margaret Bourke-
White/Getty Images/Time Life Pictures; page 676: Bibliotheque des Arts
Decoratifs, Paris, France/The Bridgeman Art Library; page 677: Courtesy
of the Library of Congress; page 678: Chateau de Versailles, France/The
Bridgeman Art Library; page 678: Illustrated London News of April 14,
1877. Mary Evans Picture Library Ltd.; page 680: Courtesy of the Library
of Congress; page 681: Caravan with Ivory, French Congo, (now the
Republic of the Congo). Robert Visser (1882–1894). c. 1890–1900,
postcard, collotype. Publisher unknown, c. 1900. Postcard 1912. Image No.
EEPA 1985-140792. Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives. National
Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution; page 683: Getty Images
Inc. - Hulton Archive Photos; page 684: Courtesy of the Library of
Congress; page 686: Brown Brothers; page 688: © CORBIS All Rights
Reserved; page 688: Getty Images Inc. - Hulton Archive Photos; page 692:
Art Resource/Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz; page 693: Courtesy of
the Library of Congress. African and Middle Eastern Division; page 693:
Photolibrary/Peter Arnold, Inc.

Chapter 27, page 694: Mita Arts Gallery CO., LTD; page 698: Courtesy
United States Naval Academy Museum; page 701: Scala/Art Resource,
NY; page 701: Adachi Ginko (active 1847–1894). View of the Issuance of
the State Constitution in the State Chamber of the New Imperial Palace.
Japan, Meiji period (1868–1912), March 2, 1889 (Meiji 22). Triptych of
polychrome woodblock prints; ink and color on paper. The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Gift of Lincoln Kirstein, 1959 (JP3233-JP3225) Image ©
The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY; page 702: ZUMA
Press; page 703: Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Gift of Mrs. E. Crane
Chadbourne; 1930; page 704: © Bettmann/CORBIS All Rights Reserved;
page 707: National Archives and Records Administration; page 710:
CORBIS - NY; page 711: The Art Archive/Picture Desk, Inc./Kobal
Collection; page 712: Harvard-Yenching Library/Harvard University; page
713: Library of Congress; page 713: © Burton Holmes/CORBIS All Rights
Reserved; page 714: Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library; page
717: IN/GEN/Camera Press/Retna Ltd; page 720: FPG/Getty Images Inc. -
Hulton Archive Photos.

Chapter 28, page 724: Mary Evans Picture Library; page 727:
Bettman/CORBIS/Bettman; page 731: Anti-Slavery International; page
733: German Information Center; page 737: Brown Brothers; page 739:
National Archives and Records Administration; page 741: Photo
Researchers; page 742: CORBIS - NY; page 743: Ria-
Novosti/Sovfoto/Eastfoto; page 745: John Singer Sargent (1856–1925),
“Gassed, an Oil Study”. 1918-19 Oil on Canvas. Private Collection. Photo
© Christie’s Images. The Bridgeman Art Library; page 748: CORBIS - NY.

Chapter 29, page 752: Art Resource/Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz;

page 755: Getty Images Inc. - Hulton Archive Photos; page 757: Gemalde
von A. M. Gerassimow, “Lenin als Agitator.” Bildarchiv Preussischer
Kulturbesitz; page 758: AP Wide World Photos; page 760: Poster
concerning the 1st 5 Year Plan with a photograph of Joseph Stalin 1879–
1953), ‘At the end of the Plan, the basis of collectivisation must be
completed’, 1932 (colour litho) by Klutchis (fl.1932). Deutsches Plakat
Museum, Essen, Germany/Archives Charmet/The Bridgeman Art Library;
page 760: Itar-Tass/Sovfoto/Eastfoto; page 762: AP Wide World Photos;
page 764: Library of Congress; page 769: Art Resource/Bildarchiv
Preussischer Kulturbesitz; page 770: Art Resource/Bildarchiv Preussischer
Kulturbesitz; page 771: Art Resource/Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz;
page 773: Ball State University Libraries, Archives & Special Collections,
W.A. Swift Photo Collection; page 774: CORBIS - NY; page 777:
Courtesy of the Library of Congress; page 777: Library of Congress.

Chapter 30, page 778: The Granger Collection; page 782: Pablo Picasso,
‘Guernica’ 1937, Oil on canvas. 11’5 1/2 × 25’5 3/4. Museo Nacional
Centro de Arte Reina Sofia/© 2007 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York. page 784: Ullstein Bild, Berlin. The Granger
Collection, New York. page 786: The Granger Collection; page 788: Photo
by Bernhard Walter; source: National Archives and Records
Administration; page 789: National Archives and Records Administration;
page 791: courtesy of the Library of Congress; page 793: CORBIS - NY;
page 794: Getty Images Inc. - Hulton Archive Photos; page 794: United
States Signal Corps; page 797: Printed by permission of the Norman
Rockwell Family Agency. Copyright © 1943 the Norman Rockwell Family
Entities and © 1943 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN.
All rghts reserved. www.curtispublishing.com; page 798: Getty Images Inc.
- Hulton Archive Photos; page 801: Karlin/U.S. Army Photo.

Chapter 31, page 804: © CORBIS All Rights Reserved; page 807:
Courtesy of the Library of Congress; page 808: Art Resource/Bildarchiv
Preussischer Kulturbesitz; page 811: © CORBIS; page 812: AP Wide
World Photos; page 812: AP Wide World Photos; page 817: Mike
Schroeder/argus/Photolibrary/Peter Arnold, Inc.; page 818:
Keystone_Paris/Getty Images Inc. - Hulton Archive Photos; page 819:
CORBIS - NY; page 820: AP Wide World Photos; page 821: Magnum
Photos, Inc.; page 822: Bernard Bisson/CORBIS - NY; page 824: Les
Stone/CORBIS - NY; page 825: CORBIS - NY page 830: Gleb
Garanich/CORBIS - NY; page 831: Reuters/CORBIS - NY; page 833: Igor
Rodin/AFP/Getty Images; page 834: © Christinne Muschi/CORBIS All
Rights Reserved.

Chapter 32, page 838: © Liu Liqun/CORBIS All Rights Reserved; page
841: CORBIS - NY; page 845: Reuters/Susumu Takahashi/Reuters
Limited; page 846: Getty Images, Inc.; page 847: Clive Streeter © Dorling
Kindersley; page 848: Nick Clements/Getty Images, Inc.; page 849: ©
Bettmann/CORBIS All Rights Reserved; page 850: © Bettmann/CORBIS
All Rights Reserved; page 852: Reuters/Ed Nachtrieb/Reuters Limited;
page 853: A. Ramey/PhotoEdit Inc.; page 854: Getty Images; page 855: ©
Imagemore Co., Ltd./CORBIS All Rights Reserved; page 856: ©
Reuters/CORBIS All Rights Reserved; page 859: Koren POOL/Yonhap/AP
Wide World Photos; page 860: CORBIS - NY; page 862: AP Wide World
Photos.
Chapter 33, page 866: © Nic Bothma/CORBIS All Rights Reserved; page
868: © Bettmann/CORBIS All Rights Reserved; page 873: Courtesy of the
Library of Congress; page 874: © Douglas Engle/CORBIS All Rights
Reserved; page 875: Newscom; page 876: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty
Images; page 877: UPI/CORBIS - NY; page 878: Getty Images Inc. -
Hulton Archive Photos; page 879: © Peter Turnley/CORBIS; page 880:
David Guttenfelder/AP Wide World Photos; page 882: Luc
Gnago/CORBIS -NY; page 883: © Bettmann/CORBIS; page 884: ©
Micheline Pelletier/CORBIS All Rights Reserved; page 885: Sunil
Malhotra/Reuters/CORBIS - NY; page 888: Getty Images, Inc. AFP; page
889: Getty Images, Inc. - Getty News; page 893: AFP/Getty Images.
Index

A
Aachen, 277
Abacus, 206
Abbas I, Shah, 519
Abbasid caliphate, 518
Abbasids, 250, 255, 258, 293, 299
Abduh, Muhammad, 677
Abelard, Peter, 366–367
Abode of Islam, 255
Abraham, 34, 45, 244
Absolutism, 478, 548
Abyssinian Christian church, 131
Academy, 52, 84
Achaemenid Persian Empire, 91, 92
agriculture, 97
bureaucracy’s adoption of Aramaic, 97
Cambyses, 95
coinage system, 97
communication and propaganda systems, 97
Cyrus the Great, 95
economy, 97
Jews, 95
luxury crafts and goods, 97
map, 96
state, 96–97
Acropolis, 79, 353
Adab, 259
Adoption, 7
The Advancement of Learning, 537
Aeschylus, 79
Affonso I, 351
Africa, early history
Aksumite empire, 131
Bantu expansion and diffusion, 135
Central, 125
central Sudan, 132–134
characteristics of different regions, 123–125
Christian Ethiopia, 132
chronology, 128
coastal areas, 123
diffusion of languages and peoples, 125–126
East, 125, 136–139
Ethiopian highlands, 125
Fulbe people, 134
history and disciplinary boundaries, 121–123
internal movements of peoples, 125
Iron Age, 129
Kalahari Desert, 123, 125
Khoisan people, 136
Kushite kingdom, 129
major trade goods, 124
map, 127
means of survival, 124
Meroitic empire, 130–131
Napatan empire, 130
Niger-Kongo family, 126
Nok culture, 129
North, 125
people, 120, 125–127
race and physiological variation, 126–127
Sahara, 123, 128
Sahel, 123
savannah, 123
slave trade, 138
Songhai rulers of Gao, 134
Soninke people, 134
sources, 120–121
South, 125
story of Gikuyu, 122
Sudanic cultures, 128–129
trade routes, 133, 133, 136
Twa people, 136
West, 125
West African sculptural traditions, 129
western Sudan, 132–134
Africa (ca. 1000–1700)
Angola, 351
Benin kingdom, 348–350
Bornu, 345–347
Cape settlement, 354–355
central, 347, 347–348, 350–351
Changamire Shona Dynasty, 354
coastlands, 348–350
east, 351–353
eastern Sudan, 347
Egypt, 338
food crops in coastlands, 348
Ghana, 340–341
Gold Coast, 348–350
Iron Age sites, 354
Islamic influence in sub-Saharan Africa, 339–340
Kanem, 345–347
Kanuri power, 345–347
Keita Dynasty, 341–342
Khoikhoi people, 354
Kongo Kingdom, 350–351
Mali, 341–343
map, 342, 344
Ndongo Kingdom, 351
North African societies, 338
Portuguese and Omanis of Zanzibar, 352–353
Sahelian empires, 340–347, 345
Senegambia, 348–350
slavery, 340, 350, 355
Songhai kingdom, 343–345
southern, 353–355
southern Zimbabwe, 353–354
Swahili coastal centers, 352
Swahili culture, 351–352
west, 347–348
West African forest kingdoms, 347–348
African Christian churches, 684
African Global Competitiveness Initiative (AGCI), 882
African nationalism, 688–689
Afrikaans, 355
Afrikaner-led National Party (NP), 878
Agape, 163
Age of Agriculture, 4
Age of the ghetto, 504
Agesilaus, 78
Agricultural Adjustment Act, 774
Agricultural revolution, 497
Agriculture
Andean region of South America, 327
Angola, 351
Europe, modern, 496–499
European livestock in American agriculture, 426
Japanese history, 233
Mali, 341
Meroitic kingdom, 130
Mesoamerica, 314–315
Mohenjo-Daro, 18
Neolithic Age, 3
raised-field system, 330
terracing and irrigating system, 330
three-field system, 280
Tiwanaku, 330
Zanzibar, 353
Ahimsa, 41, 110
Ahmad, Sudanese Muhammad, 682
Ahura Mazda, 94
Ajivikas, 107
Akhetaten, 13
Akkadians, 5
Aksum, 131
Al-Afghani, Jamal al-Din, 638, 677
Al-Andalus, 293
Al-Arabi, Ibn, 294
Alawma, Idris, 347
Al-Azhar Mosque, 295
Al-Biruni, 296
Alcuin, 279
Al-Din, Nur, 295
Al-Din, Salah, 295
Aleksei, 484
Alexander, 52, 59
Alexander I, Tsar, 570
Alexander III, 80
Alexander’s conquests, 80–83, 82, 92
Alexandria Eschate, 81
Alfonsín, President Raúl, 874
Algarotti, Francesco, 538
Algeria, 686
Al-Ghazali, Nizamiyyah Muhammad, 208, 299
Al Gore, Vice President, 821
Alhambra Palace, 293
Al-Hilli, 251
Ali, 250, 255
Ali, Muhammad, 677–678
Ali, Selim, 678
Ali, Sonni, 343, 345
Allende, Salvador, 873
Allied Control Commission, 808
Almagest, 535
Al-Maghili, Muhammad, 346
Al-Malik, caliph Abd, 256
Al-Mawardi, 251
Almoravids, 294, 340
Al-Mulk, Nizam, 297
Al-Qa’ida, 692, 832–833, 892
Al-Rahman I, Abd, 293
Al-Rahman III, Abd, 293–294
Al-Razi, 273
Al-Shafi’i, 259
Altar of Peace (Ara Pacis), 158
Al-Turi, Askia Muhammad, 344, 346
Amarna, 13
Amazon basin, 28
America, Industrialization of United States
European migration, 630
unions, 630–632
American Civil War, 581
American Federation of Labor (AFL), 774
American National Academy of Sciences, 834
American Revolution
of British Colonies, 557–558
crisis and independence, 559–560
political ideas of American colonists, 558–559
American U-2 aircraft, 811
Americas, 21
Andean civilization, 326–328
Aztecs, 322–326
Chavín de Huantar, 328
Chimu empire, 330–331
early civilization, 27–29
Huari, 329–330
Inca empire, 331–333
Maya civilization, 319–321
Mesoamerica, 313–317
Moche culture, 329
Nazca culture, 329
Olmec civilization, 316–317
Teotihuacán’s rise, 317–319
Tiwanaku, 329–330
Toltecs, 321–322
Amida, 455
Amitabha Buddha, 202
Amorites, 6
Amun, 13
Amunhotep IV, 13
Amun-Re, 13
Anabaptism, 394
Anacreon of Teos, 69
Analects, 35
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, 50
Anaximander, 49
Andean civilization, 326–328
Andean region of South America, 28, 28
agriculture, 327
coastal area, 327
pottery, 327
public buildings in highlands, 327
seven periods of civilization, 327
stone-walled structures, 327
Andropov, Yuri, 822
Angilbert, 279
Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902, 704
Anglo-Saxons, 264
Animal domestication
Mesoamerica, 314–315
Neolithic Age, 3
Anna, Antonio López de Santa, 657
Annam, 471
Anosharvan, Sasanid Chosroes, 100
Anschluss, 783
Anthony of Egypt, 274
Antigonus I, 83
Anti-French marriage alliances, 380
Anti-Muslim Soso people, 341
Antiochus III, 150
Anti-Semitism, 607, 622
Antoinette, Queen Marie, 563, 567
Antoninus Pius, 160
Apartheid, 355, 878
Apatheia, 85
Aphrodite, 68
Apollo, 68
Apostles’ Creed, 412
Apostolic primacy, 274
Apostolic Succession, 163
Appeasement, 781
Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 208
The Arabian Nights, 273
Arabic numerals, 2, 110
Arab-Israeli Conflict, 888–889
Arab shaykhs (“sheiks”), 249
Arab-Swahili eastern coast, 681
Arab thinkers, 2
Arafat, Yasser, 889
Aramaic language, 15, 98
Archimedes, 85
Architecture and sculpture
Carolingian, 282
Hellenistic civilization, 85–86
Islamic civilization, 259–260
Mamluks, 296
Moche, 329, 329
Old Temple, 328
Archons, 70
Ardashir I, 102
Areopagus, 70
Ares, 68
Argentina
postcolonial era, 874
post independence, 653–655
Arian creed, 264
Arianism, 169
Aristagoras, 71
Aristarchus of Samos, 86
Aristobulus, 85
Aristocratic resurgence, 493
Aristophanes, 79
Aristotle, 34, 50, 52–53, 79
Arsacids, 91
Art
Arabic poetry, 242
Benin artists and artisans, 348, 349
Byzantine, 272
Carolingian, 282
cave, 2, 135
Gandharan School of, 43, 108
Greco-Buddhist, 100
imperial Rome, 155
Islamic civilization, 259–260
Mughals, 523
Olmec artifacts, 316
Ottoman, 515
paintings of Song Dynasty, 210
poetry, Islamic civilization, 258
rock paintings, 137
Safavids, 520, 520
Tang painting, 204
Yamato-e style painting, 234
Artaxerxes II, 77
Artemis, 68
Article 9 of the No-War Constitution, 841
Arthashastra, 104
Aryan, 19
Aryanized northern Indian society, 38
Aryans, 17, 20, 608
Aryans, early seminomadic, 21
Ashoka pillar or column at Sarnath, 106
Ashrat al sa’a, 269
Asia, east, 220
Asia, south
Gupta era, 109–113
map, 105
Mauryas, 104–107
modern, 104
North India, 108–109
Asia, west and inner, 92–93
Achaemenids, 95–97
Elamites, 93
Indo-Greek rulers, 99
Iranian dynasts, 94
Kushans, 99–100
old Iranian culture and religion, 94
Parthian Arsacid Empire, 98–99
Sasanids, 100–104
Seleucid rule, 98
steppe peoples, 98
Scythians, 99–100
Zoroaster and the Zoroastrian Tradition, 94–95
Asiento, 490
Assignats, 563
Assyrians, 15, 45
Ataraxia, 84
Atatürk, 678, 883
Aten, 13
Athena, 68
Athenian citizenship, 60
Athenian empire
Athenian citizenship, 76
democracy, 75–76
key events, 75
women, 76
Atlantic Alliance, challenges to, 832–834
Atlantic Charter, 799
Atlantic world, 416–417
Colonial Brazil, 422–423
Colonial Spanish America and economic activity, 420–422
Columbian Exchange, 424–427
European diseases, 425
European livestock in American agriculture, 426
European overseas expansion, 417
French and British colonies in America, 423–424
mercantilism, 417–418
slavery in Americas, 427–430
slave trade, 430–437
Spanish conquest of America, 418–420
Atman-Brahman, 39
Atomists, 50–51
Attic tragedy, 79
Augustine, 170
Augustinian monastery, 391
Augustus, Philip, 157, 158, 363, 391
Aurelian, 164
Ausgleich (Compromise) of 1867, 606
Austin, Stephen F., 657
Australia, 601
Austria, 604
Austrian Reichsrat, 606
Austro-Hungarian Empire, 733, 748
Avenue of the Dead, 317
Axis powers, 783
Ayan, 515
Aybak, 295
Ayutthaya kingdom, 470
Ayyubid Dynasty, 295
Aztecs, 27, 322–326
commerce and economy, 326
conquests, 324
moral laws and customs, 325–326
position of women, 326
religious and ritual traditions, 325
society, 325
before Spanish Conquest, 323
B
Babur, 518
Babylon, 16
Babylonian captivity, 45
Babylonian World Map, 8
Bacon, Francis, 537
Bactria, 99
Bakr, Abu, 250
Bakufu-domain system, 229, 360, 453
collapse of, 697–699
Baptism, 163
Barbary war horses, 342
Barley, 18
Bashō, 463
Basil I, 269
Basil II, 269
Basil the Great, 274
Battle of Manzikert, 270
Battle of Marne, 739
Battuta, Ibn, 214, 352
Baybars, 295
Bazaari, 676
Bazari, 883
Becquerel, Henri, 636
Beg, Tughril, 296
Behaim, Martin, 389
Beijing University, 716
Belgian Congo, 730
Beliefs, 1
Bello, Muhammad, 682
Benedictine, 274
Benefices, 276
Benin kingdom, 347–350
Berber, Almoravid, 341
Berke, 299
Berlin wall, collapse of, 824–825
Bessus, 81
Beyond Good and Evil, 637
Bhagavad Gita, 108, 111
Bhakti movement, 111, 306–307, 524
Bhakti piety, 307
Bharatas, 20
Bhikkhus, 40
Bhutto, Benazir, 885–886
Bichitr, 523
Bilad al-Sudan, 126
The Birth of Tragedy, 637
Bishops, 163
Black Death, 295, 372–373
Black Legend, 419
Black-on-red painted pottery, 18
Blitz, 796
Blitzkrieg, 786
Bo, Li, 203
Bodhisattva, 113, 202
Bodhi tree, 40, 42
Bohemia kingdom, 485
Boleyn, Anne, 396
Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, 756
Bolsheviks, 627, 743, 746
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 568–571, 675
Boniface, Saint, 277
Book of the Dead, 13, 14
The Book of the Han, 188
Bornu, 345–347
Bossuet, Bishop Jacques-Bénigne, 483
Boston Tea Party, 559
Botha, Pieter, 878
Boulton, Matthew, 502
Bourgeoisie, 503
Boxers, 715
Boyars, 483–484
Brahe, Tycho, 536
Brahman (priest), 110
Brahmanas, 22, 38
Brahmanic Age, 21
Brainwashing, 850
Brazil, post independence, 660–663
Brazilian independence, 578–579
British Broadcasting Company (BBC), 796
British Cape Colony, 684
British cultural imperialism, 670
British Military Intelligence, 883
British ministry of Lord North, 559
British North America Act of 1867, 602
British “pacification,” 669
Bronze Age China, 24
Bronze tools and vessels, 18
Buddha, 34, 42
Amida, 235
moral Eightfold Path, 42
Noble Truth of suffering (Dukkha), 40, 42
teaching, 40
Buddha Amitabha, 113
Buddha Maitreya, 199
Buddha’s teaching, 40
Buddhism, 2, 451
Buddhist temple of Borobodur, 111
in China, 189–191, 214
Mahayana, 112–113
medieval Japan, 234
Nara and Heian, 227–229
Pure Land, 234–235
spread in Southeast Asia, 112–113
Theravada, 112–113
Tibetan, 214
Tokugawa era, 463
Buddhist Middle Path, 105
Bund, 713
Bush, Texas governor George W., 821
Bush, vice president George H. W., 820
Butler, Lady, 603
Buyids at Baghdad, 296
Byzantine empire, 59, 166–167, 264–265
contribution to Islam, 272–273
Justinian era, 265–269

C
Cacau, Ah, 321
Caesar, Gaius Julius, 156
Caesaropapism, 271
Cahuachi, 329
Calas, Jean, 543
Calendar system
Aztec Calendar Stone, 314
Egyptian civilization, ancient, 9
Long Count calendar, 320
Mayan, 320
Caliphate, 249–250
Calixtus II, Pope, 361
Calles, Plutarco Elías, 659
Calpulli, 325
Calvin, John, 395
Calvinism, 394–395
Camacho, Manuel Ávila, 659
Cambyses, 95
Camp David Accords, 889
Canaan, 44
Canada
Anglo-French ethnic divisions, 601
Constitutional Act of 1791, 601
distinct English and French cultures, 602
Quebec Act of 1774, 601
1837 rebellions, 601
Roman Catholic Church, 601
self-government, 601
Canada Act of 1840, 601
Candaces, 130
Cantonments, 671
Cárdenas, Lázaro, 659
Carolingians, 242, 272, 276, 281–283
Carolus, 276
Carranza, Venustiano, 658
Carter, Jimmy, 820, 889
Carthage, 148–150
Carthaginian Punic state, 125
Carthaginians Poeni or Puni, 149
Cartography, 8
Çatal Hüyük, 3–4
Cataracts, 123
Cathedral of Notre Dame, 567
Catherine II, 549
Catherine of Aragon, 396
Catherine the Great of Russia, 494, 504, 830
Catholic emancipation, 593
Cato, 151
Catullus, 155
Caudillo, 652, 655, 657
Cave art, 2
Cavendish, Margaret, 538
Cavour, Count Camillo, 602, 604
Ceausescu, President Nicolae, 824, 826
Censor, 148
Censorate, 197
Central Asian Islam, 524–526
Centuriate assemble, 148
chaebol, 858
Chaghatays, 525
Chakravartin, 105
Chamberlain, Austen, 766
Chamberlain, Houston Stewart, 608
Chamberlain, Joseph, 727
Chams, 470
Chan (sect), 202
Chan Chan, 331
Chang’an, 196
Chanson de Roland, 293
Charlemagne dynasty, 265, 277–281
Charles, 281
Charles I, 479
Charles II, 479
Charles III, 575
Charles II of Spain, 488
Charles V, Emperor, 281, 392, 396
Charles VI, 486
Charter of the Nobility, 552
Chartism, 593
Châtelet, Emilie du, 538
Chattel slavery, 5, 7, 9
Chavín de Huantar, 28, 328
Chelebi, Katib, 515
Chernenko, Constantin, 822
Chiaroscuro, 376
Chicha, 332
Chikamatsu, 463
Child-rearing practices, 1
Chillon valley, 330
Chimu empire, 29, 330–331
China, modern
borderlands, 713–714
cultural revolution, 851
economy after Mao’s death, 852–853
education reforms, 715
foreign relations after Mao’s death, 853–854
Guomindang unification, 717–720
May Fourth Movement, 716–717
“one hundred days of reform,” 715
opium war, 710–711
political reforms, 715
politics and society after Mao’s death, 851–852
rebellions against Manchu rule, 711–712
1911–1912 revolution, 716
self-strengthening and decline, 712–713
Soviet Period (1950–1960), 848–850
War and Revolution (1937–1949), 720–721
China (221 B. C. E.-589 C. E.)
dynastic cycle, 178
former Han Dynasty, 178–185
Han culture, 187–191
later Han Dynasty, 185–187
Qin unification, 175–178
Chinese civilization, early, 23–26
Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 717
Chinese philosophy
Confucianism, 35–36
Daoism, 37
legalism, 37
Cholas, 307
Chōshū, 697–699
Choson Dynasty, 468–469, 714
Chosroes Anosharvan, 100, 104, 268
Christian III, 396
Christian Ethiopia, 132
Christianity, 2, 291
in Africa, nineteenth century, 683–684
during Byzantine empire, 270
Catholicism, 163
Charlemagne, 280
Christian writers, 170
Christians as “heretics,” 412
and city of Rome, 163
development of Roman church, 273–276
division of Christendom, 275–276, 413
doctrinal disputes, 169
doctrine of the Trinity, 169
eastern, 271, 275–276
incarnation of God, 412
Jesus of Nazareth, 162
Jew conversions, 505
in medieval Japan, 455–456
monastic culture, 274
of monophysites, 270
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, 270–271, 275
Nubia, 347
organization, 163
Ottoman empire, 517
papal primacy, 274–275
Paul of Tarsus, 162
persecutions of Christians, 163
removal of clergy, 413
Roman, 271, 275–276
Roman empire, late, 167–170
Russian Orthodox Church, 484
spread, 168
triumph of, 167, 167–170
Christian New Testament, 244
The Chronography, 270
Chung-Hee, Park, 858
Churchill, Winston, 740
Cicero, 152, 155
Cimon, 74
Cisneros, Francisco Jiménez de, 391
Cities, 2
Akkad, 5
Alexandria Eschate, 81
Assyrian, 16
Classic Maya, 320–321
of Corinth, 151
development in Song Dynasty, 206
Europe, early modern, 503–504
Europe, eighteenth century, 616
Greek, 71
Ionian, 47
Isfahan, 520
Larsa, 6
Mesoamerican, 27
Mohenjo-Daro, 18, 18
Nineveh, 16
Safavid, 520
Shang, 24
Shang and Western Zhou, 26
Sumerian city of Ur, 6
Sumerian city-states, 5
Teotihuacán’s, 319
of Toledo, 294
Washukanni, 15
The City of God, 170
“Civilization and Enlightenment Movement” of 1870s, 699
Civilizations, early
Bronze Age, 4–5
debate on, 120
developments, 2
Egyptian, 9–14
Mesopotamian, 5–9
in the Middle East, 5–14
Neolithic Age, 3–4
Paleolithic Age, 2
prehistoric cave dwellers, 2
river valley, 2
urban life, 5
Civil War in the United States (1861–1865), 671
Cixi, 712
Clash of civilizations, 869
Claudius, 160
Claudius II Gothicus, 164
Clemenceau, Georges, 745
Clement VI, Pope, 392
Cleopatra, Queen, 157
Clinton, Governor William (Bill), 820
Clinton, President Bill, 880
Clisthenes, 71
Clive, Robert, 492
Clovis, 276
Cluny reform movement, 360–361
Coalition of the Willing, 892
Coitus interruptus, 496
Cold War era, 806–808
Crises of 1956, 809
Khrushchev-Eisenhower meeting, 809–811
Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty of 1979, 812
Warsaw Pact, 809
Collection of Ten Thousand Leave, 227
Collectivization, 758
Colleges, 484
Cologne bombing, 794
Coloni, 166
Columbian Exchange, 424–427
Columbus, Christopher, 214, 313
Commodus, 160, 164
Common Market, 812
Communist Party, 826
Comnenus, Emperor Alexius I, 270
Compassion, 41
A Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, 208
Complutensian Polyglot Bible, 391
Comte, Auguste, 647
Confection, 616
Confucianism, 35–36
Confucius, 34–36
Congo Free State, 730
Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 774
Congress of Vienna, 572–574
Conquest of the Desert, 653
Conquistadores, 420
Constantine, 165–167
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, Emperor, 269
Constantinople, 265, 269, 363
Constitutional Act of 1791, 601
Constitutionalist Army, 658
Consubstantiation, 394
Consulate, 569
Convention, 566
Convention People’s Party, 688
Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, 538
Coolidge, Calvin, 772
Copernicus, Nicolaus, 86, 534–536
Copper tools and vessels, 18
Coptic Christianity, 347
Córdoba, Moorish, 273
Córdoba’s Great Mosque, 293
Corinthian War, 78
Cornwallis, Lord, 560
Corpus Juris Civilis code, 266
Cort, Henry, 502
Council of Clermont, 362
Counter-Reformation, 397
Courtship, 1
Cow, sacredness of, 38
Crassus, Marcus Licinius, 156
Creoles, 575, 644
Crimean War (1854–1856), 602, 675
Crises of 1956, 809
Critias, 50
Crito, 52
Croesus, 97
Cromwell, Oliver, 479
Crusader states, 363
Cuban Missile Crisis, 811
Cuban Revolution (1957), 648
Cultural Revolution, 851
Culture
Bantu, 135
classical Greek, 78–80
defined, 1
Ghaznavid, 296
Hellenistic civilization, 83–86
Indian civilization, post-Maurya period, 108
Indus, 18
medieval Japan, 234
Meroitic, 130
Ming and Qing dynasties, 451–452
Modern Japan, 846–847
monastic, 274
Nok, 129
Ottoman empire, 512, 516
Paleolithic, 2
Republican Rome, 151–152
Safavids, 520–521
Saharan, 128
Saljuq, 297
Song Dynasty, 208–210
Sudanic, 128–129
Sumerian, 5
Swahili, 351–352
Tang Dynasty, 201–205
Tokugawa era, 463–465
traditional Edo, 348
Yuan Dynasty, 214–215
Cunitz, Maria, 538
Curia, 374
Cuzco, 331
Cybele, 151
Cynics, 84
Cyrillic/Old Church Slavonic, 268
Cyrus, 78, 81, 94
Cyrus I, 95
Czechoslovakia, 607

D
Dae-Jung, Kim, 858
Daimyo, 232, 453
D’Alembert, Jean le Rond, 540
Damasus I, Pope, 274
Dao, 37
Daoism, 37, 203, 451
Dar al-Islam, 338
Darius I, 73, 95
Darius III, King, 81
Darwin, Charles, 635
Dasas, 22
David, Jacques Louis, 550
David, King, 44, 46
Dawud, Askia, 345
Day of Judgment, 46
D-Day, 791
Debt peonage, 420, 647, 648
Debt slavery, 7, 9
Deccan, 302
Declaration of Female Independence, 589
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, 561, 563, 565, 589
Declaration of the Rights of Woman, 563–564
Decolonization, 868
Decurions, 266
Deism, 542–543
De Lespinasse, Julie, 547
Delian League, 73
Demesne, 280
Demeter, 68
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, 857
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 880
Democritus, 84, 155
Democritus of Abdera, 50
Dependency theory, 644
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), 155
Descartes, Rene, 538
The Descent of Man, 635
Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World, 538
A Description of the World, 214
Dessalines, Jean-Jacques, 575
De Tencin, Claudine, 547
Devshirme, 514
Dhammacakkappavattanasutta, 40
Dharma, 39, 105
Dialogues on the Two Chief Systems of the World, 537
Dias, Bartholomew, 386
Díaz, Porfirio, 657
Dibbalemi, Mai Dunama, 345
Diderot, Denis, 540
Diem, Ngo Dinh, 860
Diet, 701
Diet of Worms, 392
Digest, 267
Dingiswayo, 681
Diocletian, 165–167
Diogenes of Sinope, 52
Dionysian festival, 79
Disraeli, 732–733
Divine Comedy, 535
Divine right of kings, 483
Divine Will, 85
Diwan, 254
Djoser, King, 10
Doctrine of “socialism in one country,” 757
Dogen, 235
Dome of the Rock, 252
Domestic or putting-out system, 500
Dominus, 165
Domitian, 160
Donation of Constantine, 277
Dressed stonework, 18
Dual Alliance, 733
Duarte, Eva, 655
Duce, 761
Duma, 627
Dungpo, Su, 209
Durham Report, 601
Durrani, Ahmad Shah, 522
Dutch East India Company, 355
Duxiu, Chen, 716
Dyaus, 21
Dyed woven fabric, 18

E
Earliest humans, 1–5
Early Horizon, 28
East Asia, modern
China, 848–854
Japan, 840–848
Korea, 856–859
Taiwan, 854–856
Vietnam, 859–863
Eastern empires, ancient
Assyrians, 15
Hittites, 14–15
Kassites, 15
Mitannians, 15
neo-Babylonians, 16
second Assyrian empire, 15–16
Eastern Europe, political consolidation, 606–607
Eastern Europe, post World War II
German reunification, 824
Hungary, 824
Poland, 823
Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, 824
Violent Revolution in Romania, 824–826
East German Communist Party, 824
Ecclesiastical History, 170
Eck, John, 392
Edict of Milan, 273
Edict of Nantes, 483
Edo castle, 700
Edo society, 348
Ego, 637
Egyptian civilization, ancient, 21
burial complexes (pyramid), 10–11, 12
eighteenth dynasty pharaohs, 11
geographical divisions, 9
god-kings of (pharaoh), 9
gods, or pantheon, 12–13
importance of Nile, 9
intermediate periods, 9, 11
language, 12
major dynasty, 12
map, 10
position of women, 13
predictable flood calendar, 9
“race” and physiological variation, 126
Ramessides of Dynasty 19, 12
rock-cut temples, 12
royal women, 13
slaves, 14
writing system, 12
Egyptian Feminist Union, 679
Egyptian Mamluks, 511
Einhard, 279
Einstein, Albert, 636
Eisai, 235
Eisenhower, President Dwight D., 810
Elamites, 6, 91, 93–94
Elburz Mountains of Iran, 295
Eleanor of Aquitaine, 369
Elements, 86
Elements of the Philosophy of Newton, 540
Elizabeth I, 478
Émile, 548
Emir, 250
Empiricism, 537
Enclosure, 498
Encomienda, 420
Encyclopedia, 540–541, 542
Engels, 720
English Reformation, 391
Enlai, Zhou, 717
Enlightened absolutism, 549–553
Enlightenment era
Catherine the Great, 551–552
critics of European Empire, 547
and deism, 542–543
economic development, 546
Encyclopedia, 540, 541
and Islam, 543–545
Joseph II of Austria, Emperor, 549–551
laissez-faire economic thought, 546
Montesquieu, Baron de, 545
and Partition of Poland, 553
philosophes, 543, 545–546
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 546–547
scientific revolution. See Scientific Revolution
sexual behavior, 548
Smith, Adam, 546
and society, 545–548
toleration, 543
Voltaire, 540
and Western imperialism, 546
women, 547–548
Environmental justice movement, 882
Epaminondas, 78
Ephors, 70
Epic Age, 20
Epicurean physics, 84
Epicurus, 155
Epicurus of Athens, 84
Epicycles, 536
Epilepsy, 47
Episteme, 52
Equestrians, 153
Erasmus, Desiderius, 390
Eratosthenes of Cyrene, 85, 86
Erik, 283
Erikson, Leif, 283
Esoteric cult, 38
Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 539
Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, 608
Estado Novo, 662
Estonia, 826
Ethnic cleansing, 831
Eucharist, 163
Euclid, 86
Euripides, 79–80
Europe (1500–1650)
Anabaptism, 394
Calvinism, 394–395
Catholic reform and counter-reformation, 397–398
Columbus voyages, 387
English reformation, 396
European expansion and impact on Europe and America, 387
French Wars of Religion (1562–1598), 401–402
German reformation, 391–394
Imperial Spain, 402–403
Lutheran reformation, 396
Northern Renaissance, 390–391
Portuguese Empire, 386–387
Protestant Reformation, 391
reformation, sixteenth-century religious movement, 389–398
religion and daily life, 398–401
Spain (1558–1603), 403–404
superstition and enlightenment, 405–409
Swiss reformation, 394
Thirty Years’ War, 404
wars of religion, 401–405
Europe, early modern
agricultural revolution, 496–499
aristocratic resurgence, 493
birth control, 496
cities, 503–504
eighteenth-century colonial arena, 488–490
eighteenth-century life in, 494
emergence of Russia, 483
family economy, 495
French monarchy, 481
Glorious Revolution, 480–481
Great Northern War with Sweden (1700–1721), 484
Habsburg empire, 485–486
industrial leadership of Great Britain, 500–502
industrial revolution of eighteenth century, 499–502
Jewish communities, 504–505
marriage within the family economy, 496
Old Regime, 493–494
parliamentary government in England, 479–480
peasants, 494
Peter’s domestic and foreign policies, 484
Peter the Great, 483–485
political developments, 478–488
political turmoil in Russia, 483
population expansion, 499
Pragmatic Sanction, 485–486
preindustrial urbanization, 503
rise of Prussia, 487–488
serfs, 494
Seven Years’ War, 491–493
textile-manufacturing revolution, 501
urban social structure, 503–504
War of Jenkins’s Ear, 491
War of the Austrian Succession, 491
wars of Louis XIV, 488
women participation in family economy, 495–496
years of personal rule in France, 481–483
Europe, nineteenth century
artisans, 615–616
British socialism, 626
emergence of factories, 616
factory system, 615
female employment patterns, 618–619
German socialism, 625–626
guild system, 616
industrialism, 614–616
major cities, 616
Marxian order, 622–625
political feminism, 619–621
Russian socialism, 626–628
social disabilities confronted by women, 617–618
socialism, 629
urban immigration, 615
women, 615–621
working-classes, 622
working-class women, 619
Europe, post Paris settlement
financial crises, 754–755
government response to depression, 756
problems in agricultural commodities, 755–756
European colonial rule, in Africa, 684–686
African resistance, 686–687
indirect rule, 686
Mau Mau uprising, 687
European Crusaders, 361–363, 363
European Economic Community (EEC), 812
European explorers, nineteenth-century
African territories, 684
Christian missionaries, 682–684
European liberalism, 589–590
European Recovery Program, 808
European Union (EU), 813
European welfare state
modern, 814
movement of peoples, 815–816
Muslim population, 816–817
resistance to expansion of, 814–815
work patterns and social expectations of women, 817–818
Eusebius of Caesarea, 170
Ezana, King, 131

F
Fabians, 625
Falsafa, 258
Family economy, 495
Farm Credit Act, 774
Fascism
fascists in power, 762–763
rise of Benito Mussolini, 761–762
Fealty, 284–285
Federal Emergency Relief Act, 774
Feizi, Han, 37
Ferdinand VII, 577
Feudalism, in Japan, 231
Feudal society
fragmentation, 285–286
origin, 284
vassalage and the Fief, 284–285
Fides, 146
Fiefs, 276
Filioque, 275
Fiqh, 253
Firdawsi, 296
Flavian Dynasty, 160–161
Fodio, Usman Dan, 676, 682
Forbidden Palace, 447
Ford, Gerald, 820
Fortifications, 4
Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, 608
Fourteen Points, 744
Fox, Vicente, 875
Franco-Prussian War, 605–606
Franco-Russian alliance, 570
Franks Kingdom, 264, 276–283
Frederick II of Prussia, 486, 488
French Revolution
of 1789, 560–563
of 1830, 592
Congress of Vienna and European Settlement, 572–574
Napoleonic era, 568–571
reconstruction of France, 563–565
Reign of Terror and consequences, 566–568
second, 565–566
Freud, Sigmund, 637
“Friends of Constitutional Government,” 704
Fronde, 481
Fu, Du, 203
Führer, 769
Fulani, 340
Fulbe, 340
Fulbe Muslim, 682
Funj state, 347

G
Gaius, 160
Galilei, Galileo, 51, 536–537
Galtieri, General Leopoldo, 874
Gama, Vasco da, 387
Gandharan School of art, 43, 108
Gandhi, Indira, 885
Gandhi, Mohandas K., 672–673, 885
Gandhi, Rajiv, 885
Gao kingdom, 339
Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 602
Gassed, 745
Gathas, 94
Gautama, Siddhartha, 42
The Genealogy of Morals, 637
Gentry, 447
Geocentricism, 535
Geoffrin, Marie-Thérèse, 547
Geometry, 86
George, David Lloyd, 745
George III, 492
German Empire (1873–1890)
Bismarck’s leadership, 732–733
Entente Cordiale, 734–735
Triple Alliance, 732
German Unification, 604–605
Germany, post World War I
depression and political deadlock, 766–768
Hitler reign, 768–770
Weimar Republic, 763–766
women in Nazi Germany, 770–772
Ghana, commerce and trade in, 340–341
Ghazis, 304
Ghettos, 504
Gibbon, Edward, 544
Gikuyu, 122
Gilgamesh, King, 7
Gita Govinda, 307
Glasnost, 823
Globalization, 868
Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, 881
Glorious Revolution, 480–481
Gobineau, Arthur de, 608
God of Abraham, 243
God’s holy Law (the Torah), 45–46
Gokhale, G. K., 672
Golden Horde, 379
Gold jewelry, 18
Gomulka, Wladyslaw, 809
Gong, Prince, 712
Gorbachev, Soviet leader Mikhail S., 812, 822, 826
Gospel of Matthew, 163
Goths, 264
Gouges, Olympe de, 563–564, 567
Goulert, President João, 663
Government
Athenian, 75–76
Canadian system of, 602
Choson, 469
for Confucius, 36
Inca empire, 332
Japanese bakafu, 229, 231–232
medieval European Society, 365
Ming and Qing dynasties, 447–449
Nara and Heian Japan, 223–225
Ottoman empire, 512–513
post Meiji restoration, 701
Qin Dynasty, 178
Song Dynasty, 207–208
Sui Dynasty, 196
Tang Dynasty, 196–197
Tokugawa era, 462
Gracchus, Gaius, 153
Gracchus, Tiberius, 154
Grammaticus, 151
Grand Canal, 196
Grand Mufti, 514
Gratian I, Emperor, 273
Great Depression, 754
Great Fear, 561
Great Leap Forward, 850
Great Peloponnesian War, 50
Great Purges, 760
Great Reform Bill (1832), 592
Great Schism, 374
Great Trek of Boer voortrekers, 681
Great Wall of China, 177, 196
Great Zimbabwe, 353
Greco-Buddhist art, 100
Greece, life in archaic
alphabet, 69
farmer’s life, 67
poetry, 69
religion, 68–69
society, 67–68
Greek civilization, 60
alphabet, 69
Athenian empire, 75–76
athletic contests, 68
classical period, 72–80
colonies, 65–67
development of Athens, 70–73
development of polis, 65
emergence of Hellenistic world, 77, 80–86
Homeric society, 63–64
hoplite phalanx, 65
Minoans, 60, 77
Mycenaeans, 61–63, 77
peace of thirty years with Sparta, 75
Peloponnesian Wars, 74–75, 75
Persian Wars, 71, 73
poetry, 69
private ethics, 68
“race” and physiological variation, 126
religion, 68–69
religious shrines, 68
society, 67–68
Tyrants, 67
Greek philosophy, 33
political and moral, 50–53
reason and scientific spirit, 48–50
Green Belt Movement, 882
Greenhouse gases, 834
Gregory VII, Pope, 361
Grounds of Natural Philosophy, 538
Gu, Ban, 188
Guang, Sima, 208
Guifei, Yang, 200–201
Guild, 365
Guinea coast of Cape Verde, 433
Gulf War, 889
Guofan, Zeng, 711
Guomindang (GMD), 717
Guptas, 91
caste system, 110
Chandragupta, 109
Chandragupta II, 109
culture, 109–110
religion and society, 110–113
Samudragupta, 109
Gutenberg, Johann, 390

H
Habsburg empire, 485–486
nationalistic unrest, 606–607
Haciendas, 645
Hadith, 259, 291–292
Hadrian, 160
Hagia Sophia, 262
Haitian Revolution, 574–575, 580
Hajj, 245, 303, 693
Hall of Mirrors, 606
Hall of Worthies, 469
Hammurabi, King, 6–7
Hammurabi’s code, 7
Hanbalites, 292
Han Dynasty, 36
aftermath of empire, 186–187
of Attila, 185
Confucianism, 187–188
decline and usurpation, 184–186
early years, 178–180
and eunuch dictatorship, 186
first century C.E., 185
government, 181–183
history, 188
map, 181
Neo-Daoism, 189
rule of Wudi, 180
Silk Road, 181, 183–184
title of Gaozu, 178
Xiongnu Empire, 180–181
Zhou-like principalities, 181
Hannibal, 149–150
Hanoi, 862
Harappan, 17
Harding, Warren, 772
Harem, 512
Hariri’s Assemblies, 298
Harun-al-Rashid, caliph, 279
Hashemite monarchy, 892
Hashishiyyin, 295
Hatshepsut, 13
Havel, Václav, 824
Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of 1930, 773
H-bomb Shelter, 806
He, Zheng, 449
Heart of Darkness, 731
Hebrew Bible, 44
Hebrew tribes, 44
Hegira, 245, 291
Heian Tendai sect, 234
Heisenberg, Werner, 636
Heliocentric theory of the universe, 86
Hellenistic civilization, 60
Alexander’s conquests, 80–83
Alexander’s successors, 83
architecture and sculpture, 85–86
culture, 83–86
literature, 85
Macedonian conquest, 80
mathematics and science, 86
philosophy, 84
Heloise, 367
Helots, 69
Henry IV, Emperor of Germany, 361
Henry V, Emperor, 361
Henry VI, Emperor, 363
Henry VIII, King, 396
Henry the Navigator, 386
Hephaestus, 68
Hera, 68
Heraclitus of Ephesus, 49
Heraclius, Emperor, 268
Herder, Johann Gottfried, 547
Heretics, 163
Hermes, 68
Herodotus, 16
Herzl, Theodor, 608
Hestia, 68
Hevelius, Elisabetha, 538
Hevelius, Johannes, 538
Hideki, General Tōjō, 710
Hideyoshi, Toyotomi, 450, 454
Hieroglyphs, 12, 317
Hindu-Buddhist Cambodian (Khmer) Empire, 471
Hinduism, 2, 38
Hindu polytheism, 111
Hindu tradition, 42
Hipparchus of Nicaea, 86
Hippias, 71
Hippocrates, 47
Hippodamus of Miletus, 85
Historical Records, 188
History of Rome, 158, 165
Hitler, Adolf, 606
Hittites, 12, 14–15
HIV/AIDS, 881
Hoa, Thanh, 472
Hobson, J. A., 726
Ho Chi Minh City, 862
Hohenzollern rulers, 487
Hōjō kinsmen, 229
Holocaust, 789
Holy Roman Empire, 374, 485, 487–488
Holy Spirit, 270
Holy Synod, 484
Home rule, 594
Honestiores, 164
Hong Kong, 721
Horace, 158
Horemheb, 11, 13
Houphouët-Boigny, Félix, 688
Huai River, 23
Huari empire, 329–330
Huari site, 29
Huerta, General Victoriano, 658
Huitzilopochtli, 322, 325
Humanism, 375
Humanitas, 151
Humbertus, cardinal, 271–272
Humiliores, 164
Hungarian Magyars, 606
Hunnish Xiongnu Empire, 467
Hurrians, 15
Husayn, 255
Husayn, Faysal ibn, 892
Husayn I, 520
Huss, John, 392
Hydrostatics, 86
Hyksos, 11, 129

I
Ibn-Sina, 273
Ichiro, Hatoyama, 844
Iconoclasm, 271
id, 637
Ieyasu, Tokugawa, 454
“Ignatius of Loyola’s ‘Rules for Thinking with the Church’”, 397
Iliad, 64
Imam, 250, 293, 693
Imperator, 157–158
Imperial autocracy, 207
Imperial China
policy toward Barbarians, 201
Song Dynasty, 205–210
Sui Dynasty, 195–196
Tang Dynasty, 196–205
Yuan Dynasty, 210–215
Imperial Rome
administration, 160
art and literature, 155
culture, 160–161
expansion in Italy and overseas, 152–153
Gracchan reforms, 153
life in, 161
Lucius Cornelius Sulla, 155
map, 159
Marius’s innovations, 154–155
Sulla’s dictatorship, 155
war against the Italian Allies, 155
Import substitution, 652
Inca empire, 331–333
area, 331
chicha, 332
emperorship, 331
origins, 331
regional administrative centers, 332
religion, 332
ritual practices, 331–332
and Spanish conquest, 333
Virgins of the Sun, 332
India
British dominance and colonial rule, 668–671
burden of Crown rule, 671
decline of Islamic preeminence, 674–675
Revolt of 1857, 671
road to Indian independence, 672–673
India, (1000 to 1500), 301, 306–307
Indian, 38
Indian Buddhist monastic communities, 108–109
Indian civilization, early
chronology, 23
Indus culture, 18–19
Vedic Aryan, 19–23
Indian civilization, post-Maurya period
economy, 108
religion and society, 108–109
Indian medicine, 101
Indian National Congress, 671
Indian–Pakistani hostilities, 885
Indo-Europeans, 19
Indo-Greek rulers, 99
Indo-Iranian world, 92
Indra, 22
Indus Stamp Seal, 19
Industrial revolution, of eighteenth century, 499–502
Indus valley civilizations, 2, 18, 21
Inheritance, 7
Innocent III, Pope, 363
Institutes, 267
Institutes of the Christian Religion, 395
Institutions, 1
Integralism, 662
The Interpretation of Dreams, 637
Intifadahs, 889
Investiture Controversy, 361
Iqbal, Muhammad, 672, 677
Iranian people, 94
Iranian Revolution, 884
Irigoyen, Hipólito, 654
Irish famine, 615
Iron Age empires, 2
Iron Age sites, 129
Isabella of Castile, 380
Ishaq, Hunayn ibn, 259
Ishraqi, 520
Islam, 2, 244
in Alwa, 347
case of Iran, 675–676
central Africa, reforms in, 681
central vision of, 692
east Africa, reforms in, 681
emulation of west, 677–679
God concept, 692
influence in sub-Saharan Africa, 339–340
integration of western ideas, 677
Islamic law, 692
issue of women’s roles in modern society, 679
Mahdist movement, 638
Muslim military weakness, 675
Muslims and physical environment, 693
and nationalism, 679
and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qa’ida terrorist movement, 692–693
purification and revival of, 676–677
reform movements, 682
salafiyya movement, 638
Sanussiya movement, 638
southern Africa, reforms in, 680–681
Wahhabi movement, 638, 693
west Africa, reforms in, 681
and Western “modernity,” 675–676
Islamic civilization
Abbasids’ revolution, 256
Arab kingdoms, 242
art and architecture, 259–260
caliphal administration, 254
caliphate, 249–250
chronology, 255
in classical era, 258–260
congregational mosques, 259
contribution of Byzantine empire, 272–273
decline of caliphal empire, 257
early Arab and Persian cultures, 242
early conquests, 247–248, 249
female veiling, 246, 247
high caliphate, 256–258
intellectual traditions, 258–259
Islamic achievement, 243
Kharijites, 254
marriage and divorce, 246
Meccan Arabs, 242
Muslim norms, 245
new Islamic state, 255–256
new world order, 249–256
origins and early development, 242–245
polygamy, 246
position of women, 246–247
pre-Islamic Arabia, 242
Prophet Muhammad and the Quran, 243–245
religious dictums, 246
ritual worship, 253
society, 256–257
ulama, 250–254
umma, 250, 254–256
Western debt to, 273
Islamic civilization (1000–1500)
in Asia, 299–300
in east, 296–299, 302
expansion, 290
and Indian culture, 304–305
Mamluk sultans, 295–296
map, 292
Mediterranean, 293–294
Muslim dynasties, 303
Muslim-Hindu encounter, 302, 306–307
regional developments, 293–300
religion and society, 290–293
Shi’ite Fatimids, 294–295
Shi’ite traditions, 293
Southeast Asia, 303–304
in Southeast Asia, 303–304
spread of Islam, 300–302
Sufi piety and organization, 292–293
Sunni orthodoxy, 291–292
Islamic civilization (1500–1800)
Acheh, 528–529
consequences of Shi’ite rift, 525–526
Malay Peninsula, 528–529
Mughals, 521–524
Ottomans, 510–518
post-Timur era, Central Asia, 524–526
Safavids, 518–521
Southern sea trades, 526–529
Sumatra, 528–529
Islamic Revolution, 884
Island of Naxos, 71
Isma’il, Shah, 519
Isma’ilis, 293
Isma’ili Shi’ite caliphs, 294
Italia Irredenta, 739, 740
Italian Unification, 602–604
Italy, 144
Iturbide, Agustín de, 657
Itzcoatl, 322
Ivan IV. See Ivan the Terrible
Ivan the Terrible, 483, 798
J
Jacobin Club, 567
Jacobins, 565
Jain ascetics, 41
Jains, 41–42
James VI of Scotland, 478
Janissaries, 513
Janissary corps, 515
Japan, modern
collapse of bakufu-domain system, 697–699
collapse of the left, 843–844
Democratic Party of Japan, 844
depression and recovery, 703
economic growth, 845
human costs of growth, 703
Japanese bank crisis, 1927, 703
Japanese strengths, 846
Japanese society, 703
land tax reforms, 702
Meiji restoration, 699–701
militarism and war (1927–1945), 707–709
modern sector of economy, 702–703
new institutions, 702
personal savings, 703
political parties, 706
political struggles, 704
revolution in education, 845
Russo-Japanese War, 1905, 703
silk production, 702
since 1945, 844
society and culture, 846–847
standard of living, 703
textiles and railroads, 702–703
Japanese history
agriculture, commerce, and medieval guilds, 233
Ashikaga era, 231–232
Buddhism and medieval culture, 234
early, chronology, 221
emperors, 223–224
feudalism, 231
indigenous religion of early Japan, 222–223
Jōmon, 219
Kamakura era, 229
Korean peninsula, 220–222
Kyoto guilds, 233
military arrangements, 233
Mongol invasions, 229–232
Nara and Heian Japan, 223–229
No play, 235–236
Old Stone Age, 219
pietism, 234–235
Shintō, 223
tomb culture, 220–221
women of warrior families, 233
Yamato aristocratic society, 220–221
Yayoi revolution, 219–220
Zen Buddhism, 235
Japanese Self-Defense Force, 848
Japan’s Diet, 709
Japan’s medieval history
Christianity, 455–456
foot soldier revolution, 454–455
foreign relations and trade, 455–456
fortunes of Christianity, 456
Portuguese pirate-traders, 455
Tokugawa era, 456–465
vermilion-seal trade, 455
Warring States daimyo, 453–454
warring states era, 453–456
Jaruzelski, General Wojciech, 822
Jatis, 110
Jaxartes, 99
Jayadeva, 307
Jenkins, Robert, 491
Jericho, town of, 3
Jerome, 170
Jesus, 244, 412
Jewish law, 162
Jews, European, 504–505
attitude towards, 621–622
emancipation of, 621–622
rights of citizenship, 621
Jiangxi Soviet, 718
Jieshi, Jiang, 717–718
Jihad movement, 345, 681–682
Jinnah, Muhammad Ali, 672, 886
Jito, Emperor, 223
Jizhi, Zhang, 210
Joao VI, 579
Joei Code, 229
Jomon society, 219
Joseph, 570
Joseph, Francis, 606
Joseph II, Emperor, 549
Josephinism, 551
Journey to the West, 190
Juarez, Benito, 656
Judah, kingdom of, 45
Judaic monotheism, 33–34, 45, 47
Judaism, 2, 93
Judith of Bavaria, 281
Jugurtha, 153
Julius II, Pope, 377
July Monarchy, 592
Junkers, 487
Junzi, concept of, 36
Jus gentium, 155
Justinian, Emperor, 265–269

K
Ka’ba, 242, 245
Kabila, Laurent, 879
Kabir, 524
Kabuki, 464
Kadar, Janos, 809, 824
Kagame, Paul, 880
Kalahari Desert, 123, 125
Kalinga war, 105
Kamakura era, 229
Kamatari, Fujiwara, 223
Kami, 223
Kamikaze, 230
Kanem, 345–347
Kangxi, Emperor, 449, 478
Kanishka, King, 43, 100
Kant, Immanuel, 547
Karma, 39, 41, 110
Karnak temple complex, 13
Kartir (or Kirdir), 102
Kasavubu, Joseph, 879
Kassites, 15
Kautilya, 104
Kavad I, 104
Keita Dynasty, 341–342
Kemal, Mustafa, 678
Kenya, 686
Kenyatta, Jomo, 122, 877
Kepler, Johannes, 536
Khadija, 244
Khafre (Chephren), 11
Khaldun, Ibn, 296
Khan, Genghis, 211, 525
Khan, Hulagu, 299
Khan, Kublai, 213–214, 229
Khan, Reza, 883
Khan, Sayyid Ahmad, 872
Khanate of Chagatai, 212
Khanates, 215
Kharijites, 254
Khayyam, Umar, 299
Khedives, 730
Khmer Rouge, 861
Khoisan, 126, 136
Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, 883–884
Khrushchev, Soviet Premier Nikita, 810
Khufu, King, 10
Kikuyu people, 687
Kin, Yax, 321
Kirch, Gottfried, 538
Kleindeutsch, 604
Klerk, F. W. de, 878
Koprülüs, 515
Korea
battles with Silla troops, 467
Choson Dynasty, 468–469
early history, 466–468
Koryo society, 467–468
Korean War, 857
Korin, Ogata, 463
Koryo society, 467–468
Kosmopolites, 52
Kotosh religious tradition, 327
Koizumi, Prime Minister, 848
Kristallnacht, 770
Kropotkin, Peter, 716–717
Kshatriya (noble/warrior/ruler), 110
Kuk, Lady Zac, 321
Ku Klux Klan, 773
Kumbi Saleh, 341
Kush, 129
Kushans, 99–100
Kushite kingdom, 129
Kyoto Protocol, 834
Kyushu, 230–231

L
La Frigiorique, 653
Laissez-faire, 546
Lambayeque valley, 330
Language, 1
Afro-Asiatic, 125
Altaic, 187, 466
Arabic, 242
Arawak, 387
Bantu, 126
Bantu-Arab Swahili, 135
Egyptian, 12
Ge’ez, 131
Indonesian, 526
Islamic civilization, 259
Japanese, 456
Khoisan speakers, 126, 136
Malagasy, 138
Nilo-Saharan, 126, 139, 343
Panini, 108
Semitic, 131
Slavic, 268
Sumerian, 5
Swahili, 352
Urdu-Hindi, 304
Laocoön, 86
Laozi, 37
La Reforma, 656–657
Latifundia, 153, 645
Latin America, post independence
abolition of slavery, 660
Argentina, 653–655
Asian immigration, 647
Brazil, 660–663
capitalization of local industry, 651
economic crises, 650, 651–652
equal rights principle, 644
European and U.S. economic penetration, 651
exploitation of resources, 650–651
fear of communism, 648
immediate consequences, 643–644
import substitution policies, 652
increased foreign ownership and influence, 651
landholding, 645–647
Mexico, 655–659
peninsulares, 644
petroleum exploitation, 651
political philosophy, 647–649
political stability, 652–653
population, 647
“scientific” racism, 648
social changes, 644–645
technological advances, impact, 653
urban life, 647
U.S. military intervention, 651
and World War II, 655
Latin American Revolution
Brazilian independence, 578–579
crusade against slavery, 579–581
in Haiti, 574–575
independence in New Spain, 577–578
initial movements, 575–576
by San Martin, 576
Simón Bolívar’s liberation of Venezuela, 576–577
Spanish control, 575
Latvia, 826
Le, 472
League of Nations, 746
Lebensraum, 780
Le Dynasty, 472
Levée en masse, 566
Legalism, 37
Lenin, 720, 743
Leningrad Symphony, 799
Leo I, Pope, 275
Leo III, Emperor, 268, 271, 275
Leo III, Pope, 278
Leo IX, Pope, 275
Leopold I, 486
Leopold II of Austria, 551, 564
Leopold II of Belgium, 684
Leotychidas, King, 73
Lessing, Gotthold, 543
Letter Concerning Toleration, 539
Letters on the English, 540
Leucippus, 84
Leucippus of Miletus, theory of, 50, 84
Levée en masse, 566
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), 843
“Liberation” (moksha), 39
Liberation theology, 871
Lictors, 147
Liege lord, concept of, 285
The Life of an Amorous Man, 464
The Life of an Amorous Woman, 464
Literature
Choson society, 469
Hellenistic civilization, 85
Ming and Qing dynasties, 451–452
Ottoman, 515
Tokugawa era, 464
Lithuania, 826
Livingstone, David, 683
Livy, 158, 165
Locarno Agreements, 781
Locke, John, 539
Logos, 49, 84
Logos, 49
Lombards, 273, 275, 277
Long Count, 320
Long March, 719
Lothar, 281
Lotus Sutra of the Wondrous Law, 235
Louise, Archduchess Marie, 570
Louis the Pious, 281, 285
Louis XIV, 481–482, 486, 488
Louis XVI, 560–562, 564–565
L’Ouverture, François-Dominique Toussaint, 574
Loyola’s “Rules for Thinking with the Church,” 397
Lucretius, 155
Ludendorff, General Erich, 739
Luftwaffe, 786, 796
Lugard, Frederick, 686
Lumumba, Patrice, 877, 879
Lushan, An, 200
Lusitania, 742
Luther, Martin, 390–392
Luthuli, Albert, 878
Ly, 472
Lyceum, 84
Lynchings of African Americans, 773
Lysander, 77

M
Maasai settlement, 138, 139
Maat, 9
Maathai, Wangari, 882
MacArthur, General Douglas, 857
MacDonald, John A., 602
Macedonian Dynasty, 269–270
Mach, Ernst, 635
Machiavelli, Niccolò, 378
Madero, Francisco, 658
Madrasa, 291, 295, 297
Magellan, Ferdinand, 387
Maghreb, 338
Magi, 95
Maginot Line, 781
Magna Carta, 369
Magyars of Hungary, 283, 491
Mahabharata, 20, 92, 108
Mahavira, 41
Mahdi, 682
Mahdist movement, 638
Mahmud II, 678
Mahmud of Ghazna, 296, 304
Maimonides, Moses, 273
Maitreya, 215
Mali, 341–343
Malinke, 341
Malinke clan, 341
Mallus, 279
Mamakuna, 332
Mamluks, 256, 303
Mamluk sultans, 295–296, 338
Ma’mun, caliph, 273
Manchu (Qing) Emperor, 445
Mandate of Heaven, 25
Mang, Wang, 185
Mani, 103
Manichaeism, 103
Mannerism, 376
Manors, 280
Mansa, 343
Maqama, 298
Marabouts, 345
Marathon, 71
March revolution in Russia, 742–743
Marcus Antonius, 156
Marcus Aurelius, 160
Mardonius, 73
Marius, Gaius, 153
Marquess of Ripon, 671
Marquise de Pompadour, 547
Marriage, 7, 462, 700
Athenian democracy, 76
and Catholic clergy, 361
Declaration of the Rights of Woman, 563
dynastic, 393, 396, 521
in early modern Europe, 399, 401
Greek and Persian intermarriage, 98
Hammurabi’s code, 7
Indian Muslims, 305–306
Japanese society in 1945, 846
Mali region, 341
Merovingians, 276
Middle Ages, 368
monogamous, 20
Muslim norms, 245–246
patricians and plebeians, 146
and Plato’s polis, 53
preindustrial Europe, 495–496
and reform in Middle East, 679
and revolutions of 1848 in Germany, 621, 770
Roman Christianity, 271–272
slave, 430, 599
story of the Gikuyu, 122
traditional Roman society, 157
Marshall, General George, 721, 808
Marshall Plan, 808, 812
Martel, Charles, 272, 276
Marx, 720
Marxism, 625
Marxist-Leninist theory, 746, 756
Material things, 1
The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 537
Mathematics, 101
development of, 7
Gupta era, 110
Mau Mau uprising, 687
Mauryas, 91–92, 104–107
Ashoka pillar or column at Sarnath, 104, 106
Bindusara, 104
Buddhist thought, 105
bureaucracy, 107
Chandragupta Maurya, 104
chronology of rule, 107
economic system, 107
and slavery, 107
Maximilian, Austrian Archduke, 657
Maximilian I, Emperor, 392
Maya civilization, 319–321
Chichén Itzá site, 321
Classic period, 319–320
Long Count calendar, 320
post-classic period, 321–326
in southern lowlands, 321
May Fourth Movement, 716–717
Mazarin, Cardinal, 481
Mazdakite movement, 100, 103
Mazzini, Giuseppe, 602
Mbeki, Thabo, 879
McKinley, William, 633
Mecca, 245
Mechanics, 86
Medes, 94
Medieval European Society
Black Death, 371–373
clerical view of women, 368–369
Cluny reform movement, 360–361
Crusades, 361–363
ecclesiastical breakdown and revival, 373–374
government, 365
growth of monarchies, 369–371
Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), 371
model of learning, 365–366
Order of Life, 367–368
Otto I and revival of empire, 360
Renaissance in Italy, 374–378
revival of monarchy, 378–381
towns and townspeople, 363–367
trade guilds, 365
Medina, 245
Mehmed II, 513
Meiji restoration
centralization of political power, 699–700
constitution, 701
equality in marriage and the rights of wives, 700
militarily security, 700
political parties, 700–701
Mein Kampf, 765, 780
Melanchthon, Philip, 396
Menander, 99
Mencius, 36
Mendel, Gregor, 635
Menkaure (Mycerinus), 11
Mensheviks, 627
Mercantilism, 417–418
Meroe, 130
Meroitic empire, 130–131
Merovingian society, 276, 284
Mesoamerica, 27–28, 28, 313–317
agriculture, 314–315
animal domestication, 314–315
ball games, 315–316
classic period, 317–321
development of villages, 315
Maya civilization, 319–321
Monte Albán, 316–317
nomadic hunter-gatherers, 315
Olmecs, 316
pottery, 315
Teotihuacán, 317–319
Valley of Oaxaca, 316–317
writing system, 317
Mesopotamian civilization, 4, 21, 44, 78, 515
Akkadians, 5
key events and people in, 9
omens, 7
religion, 7
Sumerian city of Uruk, 5
warfare, 5
writing system, 5
Mesopotamian-Iranian world, 92
Messiah, 46
Messianic age, 46
Mestizos, 645
Metal tools and weapons, 4
Metaphysics, 50
Mexica, 322
Mexican Revolution, 659
Mexico, post independence, 655–659
Mfecane, 680
Middle Ages in Western Europe
the Crusades, 361–363
medieval women, 368–369
model of learning, 365–366
Order of Life, 367–368
Otto I and revival of Empire, 360
revival of Catholic church, 360–361
towns and townspeople, 363–367
trade guilds, 365
western Europe, 360
Middle Ages, late
Black Death, 371–373
ecclesiastical breakdown and revival, 373–374
England, 369, 380–381
France, 370, 380
Hohenstaufen empire, 370–371
Hundred Years’ War, 371
Italy, Renaissance in, 374–378
medieval Russia, 379
Reformation, 390
revival of monarchies, 378–381
Spain, 380
Middle Comedy, 80
Middle East, 500
Middle East, modern
Arab-Israeli Conflict, 888–889
background to modern Islamist reforms, 891–892
Islamist reformism, 890–891
modern nation of Iraq, 892–893
oil wealth, 890
Middle Horizon, 29
Middle Passage, 433
Milinda, 99
Military power/weaponry
Japanese military arrangements, 233
Ming and Qing dynasties, 448
Muslim military weakness, 675
Ottoman empire, 514
Roman empire, late, 164
Songhai kingdom, 343
Tang dynasty, 197
U.S. military intervention in Latin America, post independence, 651
Millets, 515
Milošević, Slobodan, 830
Miltiades, 71
Ming and Qing dynasties
chronology, 448
collapse of Ming Dynasty, 447
commerce with British East India Company, 451
commercial revolution, 444–445
Confucian family ideal and women, 445
culture, 451–452
economic activity, 445
foreign relations, 449–451
foreign threats to Qing China, 450–451
gentry class, 447
government of, 447–449
institutions, 448
jurisdiction of Chinese officials, 448
land and people, 442–444
landholding, 445
military organization, 448
Ming–Qing despotism, 442
Ming–Qing system, 447
political system, 444–445
religious philosophies, 445
silver trade, 444–445
“thin horse” business, 446
urban growth, 445
Yangzi basin, 443
Minoans, 60
Mita, 332
Mitannians, 15
Mithraism, 274
Mitimaqs, 332
Mobad, 102
Mobilization, 737
Mobutu, Joseph-Désiré, 879
Moche culture, 28, 329
Moctezuma, Emperor, 318
Mohenjo-Daro, 18, 18
Monastic culture, 274
Money fiefs, 285
Monophysite, 131
Monotheism, 44
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 544
Monte Albán, 316–317
Montesquieu, Baron de, 545
Moo-Hyun, Roh, 858
Moors, 352
More, Sir Thomas, 391
Morelos, Hidalgo, 655
Morelos, José María, 655
Moroccan Crisis, 735–736
Mosaddeq, Muhammad, 883
Mosaic covenant at Sinai, 45
Moses, 44, 244
Mosquito, 124
Motlanthe, Kgalema, 879
Mozambique, 686
Muezzin, 341
Mughals, 521
Akbar’s reign, 521
art, 523
Awrangzeb, 521–522, 524
Jahangir, 521
Muslim eclectic tendencies, 524
origins, 521
political decline, 522
religious developments, 522–524
Shah Jahan, 521–522
vs Sikhs and Marathas, 522
Mujtahid, 676
Mulattos, 645
Murad IV, 515
Musa, Mansa, 343
Musharraf, General Parviz, 886
Muslim-Hindu encounter, 302, 306–307
Muslim lake, 272
Muslim League, 671
Mussolini, Benito, 761–762
Mutapa, Mwene, 354
Mutesa, King, 686
Mycale, 73
Mycenaean collapse, 60
Myung-Bak, Lee, 858

N
Nabrawi, Saize, 679
Nacionalismo, 655
Nagy, Imre, 809
Na’ima, 515
Nanak, Guru, 524
Napatan empire, 130
Napoleon III, 657
Napoleonic Code, 569, 617
Napoleonic Europe, 573
Nara and Heian Japan
Buddhism, 227–229
Chinese tradition, 227
culture, 226–227
government, 223–225
land holding, 225–226
literature, 227
people, 225–226
samurai, 226
tax system, 225–226
Naram-Sin, King, 5
victory stele of, 7
Narayanan, K. R., 885
The Narrow Road of Oku, 463
Nasser, President Gamal Abdel, 809, 887
National Action Party (PAN), 875
National Child Labor Committee, 633
National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), 774
Nationalism, 586–589, 680
creating nations, 587
meaning of nationhood, 587–588
Polish nationalists, 589
regions of nationalistic pressure in Europe, 589
vs liberalism, 590
Nationalist Society, 604
National Recovery Administration (NRA), 774
Natural selection, 635
Nazca culture, 329
Nazi Germany, 709–710, 765
Nazi-Soviet Pact, 784
Nearchus, 85
Nebuchadnezzar II, 16, 45
Nedim, 515
Nefertiti, 13
Negritude, 689
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 672, 885
Nelson, Admiral Horatio, 569
Nelson, Lord, 570
Neocolonial economy, 651
Neo-Confucian metaphysics, 445
Neo-Daoism, 189
Neolithic Age, 3–4
animal domestication, 3
diversification of agriculture, 3
productive animals, 3
Neolithic Revolution, 4
Nero, 160
Nestorian Christianity, 214
Nestorians, 103
New Atlantis, 537
Newcomen, Thomas, 502
New Economic Policy, 757
New Imperialism, 726
in Asia and the Pacific, 731–732
and “less developed” countries, 726
motives for, 726–727
scramble for Africa, 727–731
social Darwinism, 729
New Life Movement, 718–719
New Testament, 390
Newton, Isaac, 537–538
Newtonianism for Ladies, 538
New York stock market crash, 773
New Zealand, 590, 601
Nezahualcoyotl, 324
Nguyen Dynasty, 472, 473, 859
Nicene Christianity, 264
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, 270–271, 275, 277
Nicene Creed, 169
Nichiren, 235
Nicholas I, Pope, 275
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 636–637
Nile valley civilizations, 2, 4, 33, 339
Nilotic Africa, 125
Ninety-five theses, 392
Nirvana, 189
Nixon, Richard, 812, 820
Nkrumah, Kwame, 688, 877
Noah, 244
Nobiles, 148
Noble Truth of suffering (Dukkha), 40, 42
Nobunaga, Oda, 454
Nok culture, 129, 348
Norte Chico civilization, 327
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 875
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 809, 832, 892
North Korea, 859
Nose, Curl, 320
“Not Yet Uhuru,” 687
Novellae, 266
Novum Organum, 537
Nubians, 129
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 812
Nyerere, Julius, 877

O
The Oath of the Horatii, 550
Oba, 348
Obama, Senator Barack, 821
Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, 538
Obsidian, 314
“Occidental” slave trade, 430
Occupied territories, 889
Octavian rule
army and defense, 157
Augustan Principate, 157
Cnaeus Pompey, 156
Gaius Julius Caesar, 156
literature, 158
Marcus Licinius Crassus, 156
religion and morality, 157
Triumvirate’s program, 156–157
Odinga, Oginga, 687
Odovacer, 264
Oghuz Turkish peoples, 296
Oikos, 76
Old Church Slavonic, 268
Old Comedy, 79
Old Regime, 493–494, 499, 504–505, 569
Old Stone Age of Japan, 219
Old Temple, 328
Old Testament, 483
Olmec civilization, 27, 316–317
Olympians, 68
Omanis of Zanzibar, 352–353
On the Motion of Mars, 536
On the Origin of Species, 635
On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, 534
Opet festival, 13
Opium War treaties, 470
Oppenheimer, Samuel, 504
Optimates, 153
Oracle bone, 24
Organic Articles of 1802, 569
Orlando, Vittorio Emanuele, 745
Osiris, 13
Ostrogoths, 264
Ottoman empire, 338, 484, 675, 748
administrative and leadership training for successors, 513
art, 515
Christian population, 517
“Classical” Ottoman Order, 511–514
coffeehouse, 517
culture, 512
decline, 517–518
identity and culture, 516
map, 513
military arrangement, 514
origin and development, 510–511
post-Süleyman era, 514–517
privy council, 512
ruling class, 512
slave corps, 514
social institutions, 517
sovereignty, 511
timar system, 514
Ottoman Turks, 265

P
Pacal, Lord, 321
Padishah, 511
Paekche, state of, 221
Pahlavi initiatives, 883
Pahlavi monarchy, 100–101
Paine, Thomas, 560
Palaestra, 68
Paleolithic Age, 2
Paleologus, Michael, 363
Pampas, 654
Panhellenic gods, 68
Panini, 108
Pan-Islamism, 677
Pani tribe, 22
Pan-Slavic movement, 732
Papal primacy, 274–275
Papal States, 277
Paracas culture, 329
Paris settlement. See Treaty of Versailles
Parlements, 493
Parliamentary monarchy, 478
Parliament’s Test Act, 479
Parmenides of Elea, 49
Parni, 98
Parthian Arsacid Empire (ca. 247 B.C.E.–223 C.E.), 98–99
Parthian Empire in the East (113–117 C.E.), 160
Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), 875
Pasha, Sa’d Zaghlul, 678
Patricians, 146
Paul III, Pope, 398
Pausanias, 73
Pax Porfiriana, 658
Peace of Augsburg, 396
Peace of Nystad, 484
Peace of Westphalia, 487
Peace process, 889
Pedro I, 660
Pedro II, 660
Pelopidas, 78
Peloponnesian League, 70, 78
Peloponnesian Wars, 72, 74–75, 75
Peninsulares, 420, 575
People’s Liberation Army, 721
“People’s principles,” 717–718
Pepin, 281
Pepin II, 276
Perestroika, 823
Pericles, 74–75
Perón, Juan, 655
Peronism, 655
Perry, Commodore Matthew C., 698
Persepolis, 81
Perseus, 151
Persian Empire, 59
Persian War by Herodotus, 79
Persian Wars of sixth century, 69, 71, 73
Peter the Great, 451, 483–485, 484, 494, 551, 715
Pharaonic dynasty, 130
Philip, King of Macedon, 52, 59, 80
Philip of Anjou, 488
Philip of Hesse, 394
Philip V, 151, 488
Philosophes, 540, 549
philosophia Christi, 390
Philosophy
China, 34–37
Greek, 47–53
Han Dynasty, 187–191
Hellenistic civilization, 84
Zhu Xi, 468
Phoenicians, 125
Photius, Patriarch, 275
Piedmont, 604
Pillow Book, 227
Pimiko, 220
Pinochet, General Augusto, 873
Pisistratus, 70
Pius VII, Pope, 569
Pirs, 518
Pizarro, Francisco, 419
Plain of High Heaven, 233
Planck, Max, 636
Plan of Ayala, 658
Plantation economy, 429
Plato, 34, 50, 52, 79, 536
Plebeians, 146
Plenitude of power, 275
Pochteca, 325
Poetry
Bhakti movement, 307
Hindu mystical love, 307
Horace, 158
Ottoman, 515
Tang poets, 203
Pogroms, 621
Poincaré, Henri, 635
Poland, partition of, 553
Poleis, 83
Polis, 50–51, 53, 79, 83–84
Polish-Soviet relations, 809
Political consolidation
in 1848, Europe, 594–597
America, 597–601
anti-Semitism, 607
Britain’s Great Reform Bill, 592–594
Canada, 601–602
Crimean War, 602
Eastern Europe, 606–607
France, 592
Franco-Prussian War, 605–606
German Unification, 604–605
Italian Unification, 602–604
liberalism, 589–590
nationalism in Europe, 586–589
Russia, 591
Polo, Marco, 214
Polytheistic world, 44
Pompeiian woman, 161, 161
Pompey, Cnaeus, 156
Pompey imperium, 156
Pontifex maximus, 275
Populares, 153
Popular Front Ministry, 756
Portuguese of Zanzibar, 352–353
Porus, 81
Poseidon, 68
Positivism, 647
Postcolonial era
Afghanistan, 884–885
African future, 880–882
Argentina, 874
Bangladesh, 886
Brazil, 874
Chile, 873
Congo, 879–880
Cuba, 872–873
India, 885
Indonesia, 886
Iran, 883–884
Iraq, 892–893
Malaysia, 886
Mexico, 875
Middle East, 886–892
Nicaragua, 873–874
Nigeria, 877–878
Pakistan, 886
political and economic developments, 868–869
Rwanda, 880
six decades in Latin America, 875
South Africa, 878–879
Turkey, 883
Pottery, 4
Prada, Manuel Gonzalez, 649
Pragmatic Sanction, 485–486
Prazeros, 354
Prehistoric cave dwellers, 2
PRI, 659
Princeps, 158
Principia Mathematica, 537
Progressive era, 632–634
Prohibition Amendment of 1919, 773
Proletarianization, 615
Prophet Muhammad, 243–245, 255, 338
Protagoras of Abdera, 47
Protectorate, 678
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 395
Protestant Reformation (1517–1555), 390, 413
Protestant Schmalkaldic League, 396
Psellus, Michael, 270
Psychoanalysis, 637
Ptolemaic system, 535–536
Ptolemy I, 83, 85
Pugachev’s Rebellion, 494
Punic Wars, 149
Puritans, 479
Putin, Vladimir, 828–829
Pygmies, 136
Pyramid of the Moon, 317, 329
Pyramid of the Sun, 319, 329
Pyrrho of Elis, 84

Q
Qadis, 345
Qajar absolutism, 676
Qajar shahs, 676
Qanun, 514
Qanun-name, 511, 513
Qasida, 259
Qian, Sima, 188
Qianlong, Emperor, 449, 478
Qin laws, 37
Qin unification, 175–178
Qizilbash, 518
Quadruple Alliance, 573
Quakers, 579
Quebec Act of 1774, 601
Quechua, 331
The Questions of King Milinda, 99
Quiet River of Heaven, 224
Quipu, 330
Qur’an, 243–245, 250, 291, 293, 339, 677

R
Racism, 607
Racist nationalism, 608
Radical Party, 654–655
Radioactivity, 636
Raj, 670
Raja, 20
Rajputs, 302
Ramadan, 291
Ramayana, 20, 92, 108
Ramessides of Dynasty 19, 12
Ramses I, 12
Ramses II, 12
Rao, P. V. Narasimha, 885
Reagan, President Ronald, 812
Realpolitik, 884
Reconquista, 294
Red Menace, 754
Reformation
Anabaptism, 394
Calvinism, 394–395
Catholic, 397–398
English, 391, 396
Genevan, 394–395
German, 391–394
Martin Luther’s, 391–394
Northern Renaissance, 390–391
Parliament, 396
political consolidation of Lutheran, 396
postal systems and printing press, 390
Protestant, 390, 395
religion and society, 389–390
secular administrations, 390
Swiss, 394
Regular clergy, 367
Reign of Terror, 566–568
Reinsurance Treaty, 734
Relativity, 636
Religion, 92–93
in fifteenth century, 398
Guptas, 110–113
Han Dynasty, 187–191
Inca empire, 332
Indian, 38–43, 41
Indian Buddhist monastic communities, 108–109
Israelites, 44–47
Kotosh tradition, 327
monotheistic tradition, 45–47
Sasanid empire (224–651 C.E.), 102–103
in sixteenth-century, 399
Shang, 24
Teotihuacán’s, 319
Vedic, 21–22
Religious and philosophical revolutions, 2, 48
India, 524
Mughal, 522
Religious theory, 20
Renan, Ernest, 638
Repartimiento, 420
Report on the Affairs of British North America, 601
Republican Rome
and Carthage, 148–150
conquest of Hellenistic World, 150–151
conquest of Italy, 148
constitution, 146–148
Greek cultural influence, 151–152
nobiles, 148
struggle of the orders, 148
Republic of virtue, 567
Revisionism, 625
Revolutions, comparison of, 33–34
Reza, Muhammad, 883
Rhee, Syngman, 857
Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), 686
Ribah, Bilal ibn, 341
Rift Valley, 123, 123, 125, 139
Rig-Veda, 19
Rig-Vedic age, 20
Rig-Vedic hymns, 21
Rinzai sect, 235
Ritual practices
Aztecs, 325
Inca empire, 331–332
Maya civilization, 317
Paleolithic Age, 2
Vedic religion, 21–22
Rivadavia, Bernardino, 653
Rivera, Diego, 656
River valley civilizations, 2
Robinson, V. Gene, 413
Rock-cut temples, 12
Roentgen, Wilhelm, 636
Roman Apartment House, 161, 161
Roman Catholic Church, 413, 551
Roman civilization, 92
Roman empire, late
Christianity, 167–170
classical culture, 165
Constantine, 165–167
defense arrangements, 164
Diocletian, 165–167
military reorganization, 164
Romanov, Michael, 483
Rome
Augustan Principate, 157–158
fall of, 169
First Triumvirate, 156
imperial, 152–155
neighbors, 166
republican, 146–152
rise of Christianity, 162–163
royal period, 144–146
Second Triumvirate, 156–157
third and fourth century, 164–170
Rome, royal period
clientage, 146
family, 145–146
government, 144–145
patricians, 146
plebeians, 146
Rome-Berlin Axis Pact, 783
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 773–775
Roosevelt, Theodore, 633–634, 774
Rosas, Juan Manuel de, 653
“Rosie the Riveter,” 798
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 546–547
Roxane, 81
Roy, Ram Mohan, 670
Rudaki, Isma’ili Shi’ite, 296
Rule for Monasteries, 274
Rushd, Ibn, 273, 294
Russian nobles, 483
Russian Orthodox Church, 484
Russian revolution, 742–744
Russo-Japanese War of 1905, 720
Rutherford, Ernest, 636
Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), 880
Rwanda’s genocide, 879–880
S
Sadat, President Anwar, 889
Sa’dis, 338
Sadra, Mulla, 521
Safavids, 293
cities, 520
craft-works, 520
culture and learning, 520–521
decline, 520
intellectual life, 520
of Iran, 515
origin, 518–519
patronage of scholarship, 520
Shah Abbas I, 519
Saikaku, Ihara, 463, 464
Saint Paul, 162
Saka dynasties, 99
Salafiyya movement, 638
Salat, 245, 693
Saleh, Kumbi, 339
Salih, 244
Saljuq Turks, 265, 270, 296
Salt and Iron Debate, 180
Samanids at Bukhara, 296
Samsara, 39, 42
Samurai, 265
Sandinistas, 873
San Martin, José de, 576, 652
Sannyasi, 41
San Salvador, 387
Sans-culottes, 566, 567
Sanussiya movement, 638
Sao Tomé island, 350
Sappho of Lesbos, 69
Sardis, 71
Sargon, King, 5
Sarnath Museum, 106
Sasanid empire (224–651 C.E.), 91
aristocratic culture, 101
developments, 103–104
map, 101
religion, 102–103
society and economy, 100–101
Satraps, 97–98
Satsuma coup, 699
Satsuma Rebellion, 1877, 702
Sawm, 245
Schacht, Hjalmar, 765
Schlieffen Plan, 737
Scholasticism, 365
The Science of Mechanics, 635
Scientific Revolution, 533–534
astronomical observations, 536
Bacon, Francis, 537
Brahe, Tycho, 536
Copernican concept of circular orbits, 536
Copernicus idea of earth-centered universe, 534–536
Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection, 635
Galilei, Galileo, 536–537
Kepler, Johannes, 536
Locke, John, 539
mathematical harmonies, 536
Newton, Isaac, 537–538
Nietzsche thinking, 636–637
in physics, 635–636
Ptolemaic system, 535–536
women in, 538–539
Scipio, Publius Cornelius, 150
Scramble for Africa, 684, 727–731
Scutage, 284
Scythians, 99–100
Second Congo War, 880
Secular administrations, post reformations, 390
Secular clergy, 367
Seiyûkai, Rikken, 704
Sejong, King, 469
Seleucid kingdom (312–125 B.C.E.), 91, 98
Seleucus I, 83
Self-Defense Agency, 848
Self-government, 601
Self-strengthening, 712
Selim I, 511, 519
Selim II, 514
Selim III, 678
Seljuk institutions, 519
Seljuks of Rum, 510
Seljuk Turks, 362
Senghor, Leopold, 689
Separate Amenities Act, 878
Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, 670–671
Septimius Severus, 164
Serfs, 26, 280
Settled communities, 4
Settler colonies, 686
Seveners, 293
Seven Weeks’ War, 605
Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), 491–492, 549, 557, 579
Shah, Maydan-i, 519
Shah, Muhammad Reza, 95
Shah, Nadir, 520, 522
Shahada, 245
Shahanshah, 96, 100
Shahnama, 296
Shahrukh, 300
Shamans, 211
Shang Dynasty, 23–24, 36
Shanxi banks, 444
Sha’rawi, Huda, 679
Shari’a, 253, 512
Sharifian Dynasty, 338
Sharifs, 338, 525
Sharon, Ariel, 889
Shaykh, 346, 347
Shigeru, Prime Minister Yoshida, 843
Shi’ite Buyid Dynasty, 250
Shi’ite Fatimids, 294–295, 297
Shi’ite imams, 518
Shi’ites, 290, 338
Shi’ite Safavids, 525–526
Shikai, Yuan, 716
Shikibu, Murasaki, 227
Shingon sect, 228
Shinran, 234
Shōgun, 229, 232–233
Shonagon, Sei, 227
Shostakovich, Dimitri, 799
Shudra (servant/worker), 110
Si, Li, 37
Silk Road, 103
Silva, Luiz Inácio Lula da, 874
Silver Age, 161
Silver vessels and ornaments, 18
Simón Bolívar’s liberation of Venezuela, 576–577
Simonides of Cous, 69
Sinai Desert, 44
Singh, Manmohan, 885
Sino-American relations, 853–854
Sino-Turkic aristocracy, 207
Sirhindi, Ahmad, 524
Sirleaf-Johnson, Ellen, 882
Six Dynasties era, 186
Slavery
African slave trade, 138
on American plantations, 429–430
background, 427–428
chattel, 5, 7, 9
crusade against, 579–581
daily life of slaves, 430
debt, 7, 9
in Egypt, 14
establishment of, 429
Ghana, 340
Haitian slave revolt, 574–575
Korean, 468
Maurya Empire, 107
Meroitic kingdom, 130
South Africa, 355
Slave trade
African side of, 432
consequences, 436–437
description of Atlantic Passage, 434
extent of, 433
Middle Passage, 433
Occidental, 430
plantation economy and, 429
slave ship Brookes, 435
Smith, Adam, 546
Social Contract, 546
Social Darwinism, 729
Social Gospel, 633
Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 579–580
Socrates, 34, 50–52, 79
Solar cults, 13
Solomon, 44, 46
Solomon, Job Ben, 436
Solon, 70–71
Soma juice, 21
Song Dynasty, 205–210, 360
agricultural revolution, 205–206
calligraphy and painting, 210
civil service examination, 206
commercial revolution, 206–207
culture, 208–210
examination system, 208
government, 207–208
philosophy, 208
printing, 206
trade goods, 207
Songgye, Yi, 468
Songhai kingdom, 343–345
collapse of the Askia Dynasty, 347
imperial power of, 343
Islam in, 345
military arrangements, 343
Muslim reforms, 346
prosperity and intellectual life, 345
trading activity, 347
Soninke ruling group of Ghana, 340
Sophists, 50–51, 53
Sophocles, 79
Sotho kingdom of King Moshoeshwe, 681
Soto, 235
South Africa, 601, 684, 686
Southeast Asia, 500
South Korea, 858
Soviets, 627, 742
Soviet Union, collapse of, 826–830
Soviet Union, post World War I
economic policy, 757
Great Purges, 760–761
rapid industrialization, 758–760
Stalin vs Trotsky, 757–758
War Communism, 757
Soviet Union, post World War II
Gorbachev’s reforms, 822–823
Khrushchev and Brezhnev years, 821–822
Poland, 822
Spanish Umayyad culture, 293
Spartans, 69–70, 73
and Greek leadership, 77–78
hegemony, 78
and Peloponnesian war, 76–77
Spartan Society, 69
ephors, 70
power of the kings, 70
Spartan girls, 70
Spinning jenny, 500
The Spirit of the Laws, 545, 579
Spring and Autumn Annals, 188
SS (Schutzstaffel), 769
St. Maurice, 364
St. Peter apostle, 274
St. Petersburg, 484
Stalin, Joseph, 720, 757–758, 798
Stanley, Henry Morton, 730
Stephen II, Pope, 275, 277
Steppe nomads, 187, 212
Stoics, 84–85
Stone figurines and toys, 18
Streltsy, 483–484
Strikes, 652
Stuart Dynasty, 478–479
Studia humanitatis, 375
Stupas, 113
Subuktigin, 296
Sudan, 125
Suffragettes, 620, 627
Sufi, 292, 518
Sufi piety and organization, 292–293, 526
Sufism, 677
Sufi traditions, 290
Sui Dynasty, 195–196
Sukhothai kingdom, 470
Süleymaniye Mosque, 514
Sulla, Lucius Cornelius, 155
Sultan Mehmed II, 510
Sultans, 258, 295
Sumerian city of Uruk, 5
Sumerians, 5
Sundiata, King Keita, 343
Sung, Kim Il, 857
Sun Goddess, 224
Sun King, 481
Sunni orthopraxy, 291–292
Sunnis, 255
Sunni Sufi order, 518
Sun Zhongshan, 718
Superego, 637
Swadeshi, 673
Swahili, 352
Symposion, 68
Syncretic cults, 98
Syncretism, 167

T
Table of Ranks, 485
Taft, William Howard, 634
Tahmasp I, 519
Taille, 379
Taiping Rebellion, 711–712
Taiwan, 854–856
Takashi, Hara, 706
Takauji, Ashikaga, 231
Takrur, 340
The Tale of Genji, 227, 234
Tale of the Three Kingdoms, 186
Talib, Abu, 245
Taliban, 821, 884
Talleyrand, 573
Tang Dynasty, 196–205, 471
border policy, 199–200
commercial trade, 202
culture, 201–205
defense arrangement, 200, 212
equal field system, 198
examination system, 198
government, 196–197
land-tax system, 198
map, 198
military affairs, 197
position of women, 202
principal Buddhist sect, 202–203
principal threats to Tang state, 199–200
recruitment of officials, 198
Scholars of the North Gate, 199
temples and monasteries, 202
Wu’s machinations, 199
Tansar (or Tosar), 102
Tanzimat reforms, 678
Tawantinsuyu, 331
Temmu, Emperor, 223
Temples, 4
Hellenistic, 85
Temujin, 211
Ten lost tribes, 45
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), 774
Tennis Court Oath, 561
Tenno, 224
Teotihuacán, 27, 317–319
Terra-cotta figurines and toys, 18–19, 129, 179
Tetrarchy, 165
Texas settlers, 657
Textiles, 4
Tezcatlipoca god, 325
Thales of Miletus, 49
Theban hegemony, 78
Thebes river, 13
Themistocles, 71, 73
Theocracy, 891
Theodora, empress, 265, 267
Theodosius, Emperor, 165, 167, 169
Theodosius I, Emperor, 273
Theodulf of Orleans, 279
Theognis of Megara, 69
Theory of evolution, 635
Theory of induction, 537
Theory of universal gravitation, 538
Theresa, Maria, 486, 491, 549, 551
Thermidorian Reaction, 567
Thermopylae, 73
Thetes, 70
Third Estate, 560–561
Thirty Tyrants, 77
Thirty Years’ Peace of 445 B.C.E., 76
Thompson, Elizabeth, 603
Thomson, J. J., 636
Thoreau, Henry David, 672
A Thousand and One Nights, 258
Three-field system, 280
Thucydides, 48, 75, 85
Thus Spake Zarathustra, 637
Tiahuanaco site, 29
Tiantai sect, 190, 202
Tiberius, 158
Tigris-Euphrates civilizations, 2, 5, 518
Tigris-Euphrates River valley, 33
Tikal, 320
Tilak, B. G., 672
Timbuktu, 343
Time of Troubles, 483
Timur, 300
Tirpitz, Admiral Alfred von, 734
Tirthankara, 41
Tito, Marshal, 830
Titus, 160
Tiwanaku empire, 329–330
Tlaloc, 325
Tlatoani, 326
Tōgō, Admiral, 705
Tokugawa era
bakufu council, 460, 462
centralization and decentralization of government, 462
commerce, 463
culture, 463–465
Dutch Studies tradition, 465
economy, 463
eighteenth century, 460
guilds, 463
intellectual life, 464
landholding, 462
National Studies tradition, 465
political engineering and economic growth, 456–460, 462
Tokyo Imperial University, 702
Toland, John, 544
Tolstoy, Leo, 672
Toltec iconography, 322
Toltecs, 27, 321–322
Tong, Le Thanh, 472
Trajan, 160
Tran, 472
Transatlantic Revolutions, 558–559
Transmigration, concept of, 38
Transoxiana, 296, 525
Transubstantiation, 394
Treatise on Toleration, 543
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 491
Treaty of Amiens, 569
Treaty of Basel (1795), 567
Treaty of Campo Formio, 568
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), 657
Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardji, 552
Treaty of Paris (1763), 492, 557, 560
Treaty of Prague, 605
Treaty of Utrecht (1713), 488, 490
Treaty of Verdun, 281
Treaty of Versailles, 745–748
post, 753–754
Treaty ports, 713
Trekboers, 355
Tribunes, 148
Tripartite Pact, 708, 709, 789
Tripitaka, 467
Triple Alliance, 732
Trireme, 72
Triumvirate’s program, 156–157
Trojan Aeneas, 158
Trojan War, 85
Trotsky, Leon, 757
“True Pure Land” congregations, 235
Truman Doctrine, 808
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), 879
Tsetse fly, 124
Tsushima Straits, 466
Tudjman, Franjo, 830
Tudor, Mary, 396
Tula, 322
Tungusic tribes, 466
Tunisian dynasty, 294
Turkic khans, 196
Turkish Embassy Letters, 544
Turkomans, 296
Turko-Mongol conquest, 299
Tutankhamun, King, 11, 13
Tutsi tribe, 880
Twa people, 136
Twelvers, 293
Twelver Shi’ism, 519
Twenty-Sixth of July Movement, 872
Twa forest people, 880
Two Treatises of Government, 539

U
Uighur Turks, 200, 211–212
Ulama, 250–254, 291–292, 511, 514, 519–520, 522, 676, 883
Ul-Haqq, Zia, 886
Umar, 250
Umayyads, 250, 253–254
Umma, 245, 250, 254–256
United States, post World War I
economic crisis, 772–773
New Deal, 774–775
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 773–775
United States National Security Council, 810
University of Constantinople, 270
UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), 888
Untermenschen, 787
Upanishadic sages, 39
Upanishads, 22
Urban II, Pope, 362
Urban III, Pope, 363
Urdu-Hindi, 304
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, 883
Uthman, 250
Uzama, 348
Uzbeks, 525
Uzbek Turks, 518

V
Vaishnava devotionalism, 110
Vaishya (tradesperson/merchant etc.), 110
Vajra weapon, 22
Valentinian, Emperor, 165
Valerian, 100
Valley of Mexico, 322
Valley of Oaxaca, 316–317
Vandals, 264
Varangian Guard, 269
Vardhamana, 41
Vargas, Getulio, 661–663
Varnas, 110
Vasa, Gustavus, 396
Vassal, 284
Vassalage, 284–285
Vassi, 284
Vedas, 17, 19
Vedic Aryan civilization, 19–23
Vedic texts, 22
Vernacular, 369
Versailles, 482
Vespasian, 160
Vespucci, Amerigo, 313, 387
Vichy regime, 795
Viet Minh, 860
Vietnam
and Chinese rule, 471–472
chronology, 473
history of independent, 472
“the march to the south,” 472–473
Mekong Delta conquest, 473
Nguyen Dynasty, 473
origins, 470–471
in Southeast Asia, 469–470
Vietnam War, 819–820
Vijayanagar kingdom, 307
Vikings, 281
Villa, Pancho, 658
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 548
Virgil, 158
Virgins of the Sun, 332
Visigothic, 272
Visigoths, 263–264
Voltaire, 538, 540
Von Bethmann-Hollweg, Chancellor Theobald, 737–738
Von Bismarck, Otto, 604, 684
Von Falkenhayn, Erich, 740
Von Hindenburg, Paul, 739
Von Schlieffen, Count Alfred, 739
Voyages to the New World, consequences, 389
Vritra, 22

W
Wafd Party, 678
Wagner Act of 1935, 774
Wahhabi movement, 638
Wahhabis, 676
Wailing Wall riots in 1929, 679
Wakefield, Priscilla, 497
War and Peace, 798
War Communism, 757
War guilt clause, 748
War of Jenkins’s Ear, 491
War of the Austrian Succession, 491
War of the Spanish Succession, 488
Warsaw Pact, 809
Washington, George, 560
Water frame, 500
Watergate scandal, 820
Watt, James, 502
Wattle-and-daub pit dwellings, 23
The Wealth of Nations, 579
Weapons, Bronze Age, 4
Weber, Max, 638
Weimar Constitution, 769
Weimar Republic, 754, 763–766
Wei river, 25
Wellesley, Sir Arthur, 570
Wendi, Sui, 195
Western Europe unification, 812–814
Western Roman empire
barbarian invasions, 266–267
Byzantine empire, 264–265, 269–270
Christianity, 270–272
development of Roman Church, 273–276
early middle ages, 264
feudalism, 283–286
and impact of Islam, 272–273
importance of Constantinople, 265, 269
Kingdom of Franks, 276–283
reign of emperor Justinian, 265–269
Wheat, 18
Wheel of karma, 190
White Lotus Rebellion, 449
White Lotus sect, 202, 215
“White” Russians, 743
Wilkinson, John, 502
William I, 604
William I, Frederick, 487
William II, 733, 737, 744
William I of Prussia, 605
William of Orange, 479
William Pitt the Elder, 492
Will of Heaven, 36
Wilson, President Woodrow, 634, 742
Winkelmann, Maria, 538
Wollstonecraft, 548
Women
in ancient Egyptian civilization, 13
Athenian empire, 76
in Aztec society, 326
clerical view of, Medieval European Society, 368–369
Confucian family ideal and, 445
in Egyptian civilization, ancient, 13
Enlightenment era, 547–548
Europe, early modern, 495–496
Europe, nineteenth century, 615–621
European welfare state, 817–818
and Islam, 679
Islamic civilization, 246–247
medieval, 368–369
in Nazi Germany, 770–772
royal, ancient Egyptian civilization, 13
Scientific Revolution, 538–539
Tang Dynasty, 202
of warrior families, Japanese history, 233
working-class, nineteenth century Europe, 619
Works and Days, 67
Works Progress Administration (WPA), 774
World Health Organization, 881
World-orders, 51
Worldview
atomists’ explanation, 51
Chinese philosophy, 34
Christian, 34
Islamic, 34
Jain, 41
rebirth in paradise, 39
Upanishadic, 38–41
World War I
Anglo-French agreement, 745
casualties of the major belligerents, 744
development of numerous weapons, 741
end of, 744–749
evaluation of peace, 748–749
peace settlement in Europe and the Middle East, 747
road to, 735–736
Russian revolution, 742–744
Sarajevo and outbreak of War, 737–739
strategies and stalemate (1914–1917), 739–742
Treaty of Versailles, 745–748
World War II, 655
and Africa’s nationalist movements, 688
Atlantic Charter, 799
Austria and Czechoslovakia, 783–784
Battle of Britain, 786
cost of war, 793
defeat of Nazi, 791–792
failure of appeasement, 784
fall of Japanese Empire, 793
and France, 795–796
German invasion of Russia, 786
German victory over Poland, 785
and Germany, 793–795
and Great Britain, 796
Hitler’s Europe, 786
Mussolini’s attack on Ethiopia, 780–781
Pearl Harbor incident, 789
policy of appeasement, 781
Potsdam meeting, 801
preparations for peace, 799–801
racism and the Holocaust, 787–789
remilitarization of Rhineland, 781
road to, 779–784
and Soviet Union, 798–799
Spanish Civil War, 781–783
Tehran meeting, 800
U. S. intervention, 789–791
and United States, 796–798, 818–821
weakness of Versailles Treaty and League of Nations, 780
Yalta meeting, 800–801
Wrestling, 68
Writing system
cuneiform, 5
Egyptian civilization, ancient, 12
Mesoamerica, 317
Sumerian, 5
Wu, “Bodhisattva Emperor,” 190
Wudi, 180
Wuwei, 189

X
Xenophanes of Colophon, 47
Xenophon, 50
Xerxes, 73
Xi, Zhu, 209
Xia dynasty, 24
Xiongnu Empire, 180–181
Xiuquan, Hong, 711
X rays, 636
Xuanzang, 190
Xun, Lu, 716
Xunzi, 36–37

Y
Yahweh, 46
Yamato aristocratic society, 221
Yangban, 468
Yangming, Wang, 452
Yataro, Iwasaki, 702
Yathrib, 245
Yayoi revolution, 219–220
Y Costilla, Miguel Hidalgo, 577
Yellow river civilizations, 2, 4, 23, 176, 215
Yeltsin, Boris, 826–827
Yohime, 461
Yokkaichi, 233
Yoritomo, Minamoto, 229
Yoruba Oyo Empire, 436
Yoshimune, Tokugawa, 465
“Young Turk” revolution of 1908, 678
Youwei, Kang, 714
Yuan dynasty, 210–215
attack policy, 211
decline of, 215
drama, 215
foreign contacts and Chinese culture, 214–215
Mongol rule, 212–214
rise of Mongol empire, 210–212
Yuanpei, Cai, 716
Yugoslavia, 607
collapse of, 830–832
Yukichi, Fukuzawa, 699
Yupanqui, Inca, 331

Z
Zacharias, Pope, 277
Zaghawah, 345
Zaibatsu, 702
Zaïre River valley, 350
Zakat, 245, 693
Zanj, 351
Zanzibar, 352–353
Zapata, Emiliano, 658
Zarathustra, 94
Zardari, Asif Ali, 886
Zedillo, Ernesto, 875
Zedong, Mao, 719–720
Zen, 202, 209
Zeno, Emperor, 49, 265
Zeus, 21, 68
Zhao, Wu, 199
Zhongshan, Sun, 716
Zhongshu, Dong, 188
Zhou Confucianism, 188
Zhou Dynasty, 25–26, 34, 36
Zhuangzi, 37, 189
Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism, 452
Ziggurat, 7
Zionism, 608
Zionist movement, 608
Ziyad, Tariq ibn, 272
Zong, Xuan, 199–200
Zoroaster, 94
Zoroastrianism, 92, 95, 258
Zoroastrian traditions, 46, 98
Zulu nation and kingdom, 681
Zwingli, Ulrich, 394
1All quotations from Confucius in this passage are from Confucius,
The Analects, trans. by D. C. Lau (Penguin Books, 1979).
2All quotations from the Laozi are from Tao Te Ching, trans. by D. C.
Lau (Penguin Books, 1963).
3 Benjamin Farrington, Greek Science (London: Penguin Books,
1953), p. 37.

4 Frankfort et al., Before Philosophy (1949), pp. 14–16.

5Hermann Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 5th ed., ed. by Walther

Kranz (Berlin: Weidmann, 1934–1938), Frg. 4.

6 Ibid., Frgs. 14–16.

7 Aristotle, Politics, 1280b, 1281a.
1Steven Feierman, “African Histories and the Dissolution of World
History,” in R. Bates et al., eds., Africa and the Disciplines (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 168.
2SeeSally Falk Moore, “Changing Perspectives on a Changing Africa:
The Work of Anthropology,” in Bates et al., Africa and the Disciplines.
3For the discussion of language here and below, we rely on the
summary and analysis of R. Oliver, The African Experience (Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 1991), pp. 38–50, and of E. Gilbert and J.
Reynolds, Africa in World History (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Prentice Hall, 2008), especially Chapters 2 and 3.
4See Gilbert and Reynolds, Africa in World History, Chapters 1–4.
5Oliver, The African Experience, pp. 31–37.
6S. K. and R. J. McIntosh, Prehistoric Investigations in the Region of
Jenne, Mali (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 41–59, 434–
461; and Oliver, The African Experience, p. 90. The ensuing
discussion of West African urban settlement is taken primarily from
Oliver’s excellent summary, ibid., pp. 90–101.
7On distinctions between San and Khoikhoi, see Richard Elphick,
Kraal and Castle: Khoikhoi and the Founding of White South Africa
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977), pp. xxi–xxii, 3–42; on
the “construction” of their respective identities and for a summary of
research on their antiquity and history, see E. N. Wilmsen, Land Filled
with Flies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). Note also
that the once widely held notion that the Bantu and the Khoikhoi
arrived in southern Africa at about the same time as the first European
settlers was a fabrication to justify apartheid (see Chapter 34).
1E. Badian, Foreign Clientelae (264–70 B.C.E.) (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1958), p. 1.
1S.Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang. © 1980
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), p. 125. Reprinted by
permission.
2Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry, pp. 223–224.
3Yoshikawa, An Introduction to Sung Poetry, p. 117.
4J.K. Fairbank, E. O. Reischauer, and A. M. Craig, East Asia,
Tradition and Transformation (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), p.
164.
1R.Tsunoda, W. deBary, and D. Keene, Sources of Japanese Tradition
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), p. 217.
1Qur’an is a more accurate English transliteration of the Arabic word
than Koran; similarly, Muhammad is preferable to Mohammed,
Muslim to Moslem, emir to amir, and ulama to ulema.
2The twelve-month Muslim lunar year is shorter than the Christian
solar year by about eleven days, a difference of about three years per
century. Muslim dates are reckoned from the month in 622 in which
Muhammad began his hegira (Arabic: Hijra). Thus Muslims
celebrated the start of their lunar year 1401 in November 1980 (1979–
1980 C.E. = A.H. [Anno Hegirae] 1400), whereas it was only 1,358
solar years from 622 to 1980.
3Thisperiodization of early Islamic government follows that of M. G.
S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, Vol. 1 (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 217–236.
4Richard W. Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), especially pp. 7–
15, 128–138.
5 Grabar, Formation of Islamic Art, (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1973), pp. 1–103, 206–213.
1Robert de Claris, “La conquête de Constantinople,” in Three Old
French Chronicles of the Crusades, ed. Edward N. Stone (Seattle, WA,
1939), Chapter 81.

2George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State (New Brunswick,

NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999), p. 253.

3Charles M. Brand, Byzantium Confronts the West 1180–1204

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), p. 41.

4Nadia Maria El-Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs (London,

England: Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 67.
5El-Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, pp. 154, 60, 194.

6IrfanShahid, “Byzantium and the Islamic World,” in Byzantium, a

World Civilization, ed. Angeliki E. Laiou and Henry Maguire
(Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection,
© 1992), 51.
1IngaClendinnen, Aztecs: An Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991), p. 8.
2Michael Mosley, The Incas and Their Ancestors (New York: Thames
and Hudson, 1992), p. 42.
1S.K. and R. J. McIntosh, Prehistoric Investigations in the Region of
Jenne, Mali (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1980), pp. 41–59, 434–
461; R. Oliver, The African Experience (New York: HarperCollins,
1991), pp. 90–101.
2D. Conrad and H. Fisher, “The Conquest That Never Was: Ghana and
the Almoravids, 1076,” History in Africa 9 (1982): 1–59; 10 (1983):
53–78.
3For more on Mali, especially its wealth and Timbuktu’s role as a
center of scholarship, see E. Gilbert and J. T. Reynolds, Africa in
World History: From Prehistory to the Present (Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Prentice Hall, 2008), pp. 106-109.
4A. F. C. Ryder, Benin and the Europeans, 1485–1897 (New York:
Longman, 1969), p. 1. Ryder’s work is a basic reference for the
following brief summary about Benin.
5Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325–1354, trans. and selected by H. A.
R. Gibb (New York: Robert M. McBride, 1929), pp. 110–113.
6R.Elphick and H. Giliomee, The Shaping of South African Society,
1652–1820 (Cape Town: Longman, 1979), p. 4.
1DieReformation in Augenzeugen Berichten, ed. by Helmar Judghans
(Dusseldorf: Karl Rauch Verlag, 1967), p. 44.
2Geoffrey Parker, Europe in Crisis, 1598–1648 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1979), p. 50.
3Leviathan,
Parts I and II, ed. by H. W. Schneider (Indianapolis, IN:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1958), p. 86.

4Locke’s scientific writings are discussed in Chapter 23.

5The Second Treatise of Government, ed. by T. P. Peardon
(Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952), chap. 2, sects. 4–6, pp. 4–6.

6Ibid.
1Walter Dorn, Competition for Empire, 1740–1763 (New York: Harper,
1940), p. 266.
2The summary follows closely that of P. Manning, Slavery and African
Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 127–140.
3Scholars have spent decades attempting to assemble trustworthy
statistics on the slave trade; the database by Eltis et al., The Trans-
Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM (Cambridge and New
York: Cambridge University Press, revised 2008), has marshaled a
great deal of information in one spot, but new data continue to emerge.
Philip Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), provided the first detailed
analysis of the various proposed figures for the slave trade; see
especially p. 101.

4Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade, pp. 101, 129; James A. Rawley, The
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A History (New York: W. W. Norton,
1981), p. 129. Note that precise statistics are subject to revision in light
of more recent scholarship; see, for example, Eltis et al., The Trans-
Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM.

5Rawley, The Transatlantic Slave Trade, p. 429; Curtin, Atlantic Slave

Trade, p. 268.

6Manning, Slavery and African Life, pp. 37, 170–171.

7On all of the preceding points regarding the probable impact of the
trade, see Manning, Slavery and African Life, pp. 126–148, 168–176.
Also consult Eltis et al., The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database
on CD-ROM.
1R. Tsunoda, W. T. de Bary, and D. Keene, eds., Sources of the
Japanese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), p.
336.
1The Ottomans, sometimes called Osmanlis, are named after Osman
(1259–1326), also rendered Othman or Uthman, a ghazi said to have
founded the dynasty when he set up a border state about 1288 on the
Byzantine frontier in northwestern Anatolia.
1Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses, trans.
by G. D. H. Cole (New York: Dutton, 1950), p. 3.
2Sankar Muthu, Enlightenment against Empire (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2003), p. 268. This section draws primarily
from this excellent recent book.
1Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader (New York: W. W.
Norton, 1972), p. 353.
1 The history of Mau Mau is still contested. British administrators
deliberately destroyed much of the documentary evidence. For recent
attempts to reconstruct events and their meanings, see D. Anderson,
Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of
Empire (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2005), and C. Elkins,
Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya
(New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2004).