2. The Grand Tour: Europe
► The world of 1492, soon to be connected
into a global system, comprised a host of
disparate societies with leaders of varying
abilities. Europe swarmed with small states,
some of which were coalescing into larger
units.
► Portugal.- experienced a lull in exploration
► Spain.- Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of
Castile
► Italy.- Genoa and Venice
► France.- Charles VIII of France to invade
the peninsula
► Russia.- Golden Horde, as the Mongol
rulers of
Russia were known
3. The Grand Tour: Turkey to Africa
► Turkey The Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II's
vast Muslim domains stretched across North
Africa, and from Persia to Serbia and the
Southern Ukraine. Ottoman capital at Istanbul
formerly the Christian city of Constantinople,
had ended the Byzantine Empire, last remnant
of
The ancient Roman Empire.
► Africa Turks and other Islamic peoples
dominated a great swath of land from the
south
of Spain across North Africa and down into
Africa as far as Mozambique
4. The Grand Tour: South Asia
► India In 1492 most of India was under
Muslim domination, except for the Hindu
Kingdom of Vijayanagar in the south.
In the countries of southeast Asia, the
people were Theravada (the "lesser
wheel") Buddhists, who venerated their
leaders as gods.
5. The Grand Tour: China and Japan
► China Fifteenth-century had the
potential to expand greatly its geographical
horizons, In the sixteenth century, Chinese
merchants would be forbidden to travel
abroad.
Extensive trade routes covered all regions
along the China Sea and the Indian Ocean
as well as nearby islands in the Pacific
China lacked incentive to round Africa and
directly contact Europe, the dwarf
kingdoms would visit the giant, not the
reverse.
► Japan In the Japan that Columbus
hoped to visit, not only was there no
Great Lord but the ruling clan was also
dissolving.
6. The Grand Tour: The Western
Hemisphere
► In 1492 the Reverend Speaker Ahuitzotl,
eighth leader of the Aztecs, was extending
the confederation of the Triple Alliance
through Mesoamerica.
► The destruction of Mayan culture prevents
us from learning of their society's
intellectual accomplishments.
► The Incas, much as did the Aztecs,
underwent an explosive expansion toward
the end
of the fifteenth century. Under the rule of
Tupac Inca Yupan-qui, who succeeded his
father Pachacuti in 1471, they
consolidated a unified empire from the
present
Columbia-Ecuador border to central Chile-
a coastal distance of over 2,500 mile
7. The Staff of Life
► By 1492 the planet had already reached the
end of the long warming trend that had
encouraged the Norse exploration half a
millennium before.
As cultivated in Europe, wheat (along with
barley, oats, and rye) was a low-yield crop
grown on individual plots that required the
cooperative labor of humans and animals
to turn the soil.
► Europeans developed into aggressive
individuals. Their life was always insecure
because the yield per seed was very low, and
their crops constantly were at the mercy
of the weather or the caprices of long-
distance transportation. Thus famine
alternated with plenty.
The annual killing of field animals that were
unlikely to survive winter inured Europe's
peasants to blood-letting on a massive scale
8. The Great Traditions
► Four major forms of civilization
flourished in the broad landmass of
Eurasia.
► All four great centers of civilization had
elaborate bureaucratic structures,
significant cities, iron implements,
writing, and a high technology.
► These characteristics created stable
societies which, even if they might be
overthrown, would prove difficult for
outsiders to change. From the thirteenth
to the fifteenth century, successive
waves of aggressive Turks and Mongols
had pressed their way into China, India,
North Africa, and north- eastern Europe
9. The European Challenge
► By maintaining contact with each other,
societies in the ecumene enjoyed an
enormous
► head start over portions of the world
that were relatively isolated. Western
Europe
► made better use of these contacts than
did any other part of Eurasia. This was
due to
► the historical developments in western
Europe that fused intense local rivalries
to an
► aggressive form of commerce and an
expansionistic religion
► The Portuguese (rather than the Spanish)
ruling house made the first moves in the
early 1400s to break out of Europe's
isolation.
