Chapter 26 Epilogue to Chapter 20: The World on the Eve of European Expansion

During the 1,000 years from 500 to 1500 in the Middle Ages, the global balance of power underwent profound changes.In the beginning, the West was a troubled outpost in the heart of Eurasia, devastated by the collapse of empires and repeated invasions.As late as the twelfth century, the English chronicler William of Malmesbury expressed this sense of loneliness and insecurity: But by then, the tide had begun to turn.The West is exploiting its internal resources, its internal dynamism; first manifested in its long and successful crusades against Muslims and infidels, and later in its overseas expansion around the world.Ming China, by contrast, was retreating into isolation; and the Ottoman Turks, after the futile expulsion of the Portuguese from the Indian Ocean, resignedly concluded: "God gave us the land, and the sea to the Christians." Also telling are the fact that in his famous Autobiography Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, never mentions the Portuguese; Muslim dominance in the Indian Ocean.Thus, the oceans of the world were left empty for the Westerners, who were quick to take advantage of this great opportunity.The importance of world affairs is clearly shown in the following comment by an observer of the Ottoman Empire in 1625:

If this insightful analysis is compared with that of William of Malmesbury 500 years earlier, a fundamental change in the structure of the world becomes apparent.Indeed, this change was so fundamental that it marked the advent of modern times in which the West predominated. Both the preclassic and medieval periods began with the overland invasions of nomads who used their superior mobility to break into the centers of civilization while empires were weakened.In contrast, the modern era began with the maritime aggression of the Westerners; with the same mobility, the Westerners operated on the world's oceans and proceeded unhindered to start activities on a global scale.

In addition to the acknowledged superiority of the seas, Westerners also possessed a more important and comprehensive technological advantage-an advantage that grew steadily in the following centuries.Thus, in the sixteenth century, Europeans, with their seagoing sails and sea cannon, enjoyed the same advantage that iron weapons had over copper, and in the nineteenth century, their ships, manufacturing industries, and machine guns gave them the same advantages as peasants. A more favorable advantage over hunters.Thus, as the Bantu replaced the Bushmen, and the Mongols replaced the Ainu, the Europeans ruthlessly established their global hegemony.In the process, the Europeans brought the continents into direct contact with each other for the first time, thus ending the Eurasian regional phase and beginning a global one in world history.

The extent of human activity throughout history has been determined by the level of technological development.The more primitive the technology, the more limited the range of activities; conversely, the more advanced the technology, the wider the range of activities.Thus, the range of Pleistocene primates with primitive pebble tools and poor clothing was limited to the warm African savannah; The range of activities of humans extended to the temperate zone of Eurasia; humans with more sophisticated technology pushed their range of activities further to northern Eurasia, the Americas and Australia.

Technological advances not only expanded the range of activities but also led to population growth.The more advanced the technology, the more effective the development of the natural environment will be, and therefore, the more people can live in a given area. The population explosion is naturally limited to those races that participated in the technological revolution.Thus some races increased in population and rose to the dominant positions they now occupy, while others declined into oblivion. With the advent of the Agricultural Revolution, disparities in population growth not only caused some races to prosper and others to decline, but also caused an increase in farmers and a decrease in hunters.Farmers with more advanced technology far outnumber hunters.

The Agricultural Revolution made possible the emergence of civilization.Civilization first arose only in the fertile areas of the great river basins most suitable for agricultural production.Therefore, the early civilizations, as shown in Figure 6 "Eurasian Ancient Civilizations 3500-1500 BC", were a few small islands in a vast ocean of barbarism.During the second millennium BC, the invasion of nomadic tribes speaking Indo-European and Semitic languages ​​subdued these ancient civilizations, thus clearing the ground for the classical civilization that followed them. These classical civilization areas and empires include not isolated great river basin areas, but complete areas.Such as the development of regional empires in Europe, India and China.Together these regional empires formed the Eurasian Core, a long continuous strip of civilizations and empires across Eurasia.

Classical civilizations, like ancient civilizations, were in many cases overthrown by new waves of Eurasian-wide invasion.In much of Eurasia imperial organizations were eventually re-established and consolidated, but in the west the short-lived Carolingian Empire was overthrown by new waves of Muslim, Magyar and Viking invasions.There were two other great waves of invasion that deeply affected medieval Eurasia, the Islamic invasions that began in the seventh century and the Mongol invasions in the thirteenth century. These invasions, although destructive at first, also acted as a link, creating a more tightly knit Eurasian core than in classical times.This new medieval core already had a network of trade routes and a wide range of travelers.

In the late Middle Ages, Western Europe moved away from self-defense and turned to the offensive.This expansionism is the product of a combination of technological progress, economic development, population boom, and religious militancy.As a result, successive Crusades invaded the East, and there were religious considerations and secular considerations that contributed to the Eastward invasions; the Eastern invasions spread in all directions. Because Western Europe played a leading role in global exploration, a series of expeditions by the Chinese in the early fifteenth century are often overlooked.This series of expeditions was far more ambitious and far-reaching than any contemporaneous expeditions in Western Europe.

As striking as the differences in navigation between the Chinese and the Portuguese were, the Byzantines and Russians of Eastern Europe had very different destinies.Under the rule of Justinian I, the Byzantine Empire once covered the entire Mediterranean basin, but in the following centuries, its territory continued to shrink, and only a few periods restored; by the 15th century, only two small ones remained. footholds, one in the Peloponnese and the other near Constantinople.To the north, the opposite is true, the Russians are going around grabbing land under Russian leadership. At the same time, developments similar to those in Eurasia were taking place in the non-Eurasian world, only at a slower pace.After the introduction of agriculture and iron smelting technology to sub-Saharan Africa, it promoted the development of local economy, commerce and the establishment of empires.In the Americas, agriculture developed independently and was very successful because of the large number of plants domesticated and cultivated there.However, due to the isolation of the Americas, ironmaking technology never reached the Americas as it did from Eurasia to sub-Saharan Africa.Still, thriving agriculture provided the basis for the creation of states comparable to the empires of sub-Saharan Africa.

As a result of the historical developments described above, by 1500, when Europeans began to expand overseas, bringing all regions into direct contact with each other for the first time, the various regions of the world had reached various levels of development.The difference in level of development was of fundamental historical importance, as it determined the line and speed of European expansion in the following centuries.The slower the development of the overseas territories, the more rapid and overwhelming the European invasion; conversely, the more advanced the overseas territories, the more effective and persistent their resistance to the Europeans.