Analytical Essay Two, due Sunday, March 31st at 1100 pmTopi.docx

Analytical Essay Two, due Sunday, March 31st at 11:00 pm
Topic A
In Unit 9, we described some of the ways that the Silk Road
facilitated both the spread of religion and the dispersal of
commodities.
In an essay of 600 to 1200 words, explore the videos and the
primary source evidence to make an argument about some of the
ways the Silk Road created a form of (near) globalization. In
the end, you should persuade your reader, through your
thoughtful analysis of the historical evidence that succeeded in
creating aspects of a common culture in throughout Eurasia.
When organizing your ideas and drafting your essay, follow
these guidelines:
1. Build your analysis using the course materials. The basis of
your essay should be the primary source material found at the
end of Unit 9 under “Unit 9 Resources.” By all means, take the
ideas and evidence offered in the videos (and please note that
we have provided transcripts of the videos as well.) This
information will provide context for the primary resources.
*DO NOT base your observations on other evidence that you
locate on the web or elsewhere. Remember, a big part of this
essay is showing us your mastery of the course material we have
assigned.*
2. After reviewing the material from Week 9, use both primary
sources to make a persuasive case about the role of the Silk
Roads in creating a new form of globalization. While you want
to show that you understand the larger trends in the material,
take the time to explore in depth these specific sources.

3. When you refer to specific historical evidence (which should
be something you do frequently throughout the essay), indicate,
in parentheses, the location in the course materials of the
evidence.
4. Do not simply copy what we (or anyone else) have said. If
you do, use quotation marks to indicate that the words were
written by someone else and be sure to indicate your source for
the quotation in parentheses. Plagiarism is a serious violation of
GSU policy that leads to severe penalties!
5. To qualify for a grade in the C range, your essay must be at
least 600 words (which is approximately 2 double-spaced pages,
depending on the formatting of your document). B-range essays
must be at least 900 words, and A-range essays must be at
least 1200 words. However, meeting the word requirement does
not mean that you will necessary receive a certain grade.
We will grade the essay out of 100 possible points according to
these criteria:
Up to 30 points for the student's grasp of the larger
historical context covered in the units
Up to 25 points for the appropriateness of the student's choice
of examples to analyze in depth and proper citation of these
sources
Up to 25 points for the quality of the student's analysis of those
examples
Up to 20 points for appropriate grammar and graceful
expression
Topic B
Friar John of Pian de Carpine and William of Rubruck each
provide a description of a Mongol court. In an essay of 600 to
1200 words, explore their descriptions to make an argument
about cross-cultural interactions in the premodern world. In the

end, you should persuade your reader, through your thoughtful
analysis of the historical evidence, that the Mongol empire
shaped cross-cultural exchange and interaction in critical ways.
When organizing your ideas and drafting your essay, follow
these guidelines:
1. Build your analysis using the course materials. The basis of
your essay should be the primary source material found at the
end of Unit 10 under “Unit 10 Resources.” By all means, take
the ideas and evidence offered in the videos (and please note
that we have provided transcripts of the videos as well.) This
information will provide context for the primary resources.
*DO NOT base your observations on other evidence that you
locate on the web or elsewhere. Remember, a big part of this
essay is showing us your mastery of the course material we have
assigned.*
2. After reviewing the material from Week 10, use both primary
sources to make a persuasive case for the Mongol empire’s role
in shaping cross-cultural exchange and interaction. While you
want to show that you understand the larger trends in the
material, take the time to explore in depth these specific
sources.
3. When you refer to specific historical evidence (which should
be something you do frequently throughout the essay), indicate,
in parentheses, the location in the course materials of the
evidence.
4. Do not simply copy what we (or anyone else) have said. If
you do, use quotation marks to indicate that the words were
written by someone else and be sure to indicate your source for
the quotation in parentheses. Plagiarism is a serious violation of
GSU policy that leads to severe penalties!
5. To qualify for a grade in the C range, your essay must be at

least 600 words (which is approximately 2 double-spaced pages,
depending on the formatting of your document). B-range essays
must be at least 900 words, and A-range essays must be at
least 1200 words. However, meeting the word requirement does
not mean that you will necessary receive a certain grade.
We will grade the essay out of 100 possible points according to
these criteria:
Up to 30 points for the student's grasp of the larger
historical context covered in the units
Up to 25 points for the appropriateness of the student's choice
of examples to analyze in depth and proper citation of these
sources
Up to 25 points for the quality of the student's analysis of those
examples
Up to 20 points for appropriate grammar and graceful
expression
Unit Twelve Transcript: Mongols
12.1 Nomads We Have Known
The geography of Mongolia, away from the ocean and bordered
by forest, mountains, and
desert, meant that the climate of the region—characterized by
seasonal extremes—made it
unsuitable for agriculture. In pre-modern times, therefore, the
region was inhabited by nomadic
herdsmen and their sheep, cattle, camels, and horses.

This did not mean that the population was cut off from the rest
of the work, but instead
they were connected by an expansive east-west trade route
known as the Silk Road, that ran
across the southern region of the steppe. This important trade
route connected China with the
Mediterranean. Agricultural communities developed to the south
of the Silk Road and wealthy
cities developed along the course of the trade route. This is also
the first region where the horse
was domesticated and this would have significant implications
for military battles. There were
several different linguistic groups living in the high plateau of
the region, the Mongols were one
of these groups, but initially were among the least important of
them. Turkish people also lived
in the region and were culturally similar but linguistically
distinct.
Sometimes these nomadic people band together to form much
larger tribes—sometimes
empires—that expanded outward beyond the region of the
steppes. For example, the Xiongnu
from the region of Mongolia were a large collection of tribes
who fought against the Han dynasty
in China and eventually became tributaries of Han China,
although they maintained political and
territorial sovereignty until the 1st century. In the western part
of the steppes, between the 4th and
6th centuries, the Huns, a nomadic group from Eastern Europe
established an empire and fought
several times against the Roman Empire. A few centuries later,
again in the East, the Jurchen
people established the Jin Dynasty and gained control of
Northern China until the twelfth
century, when they were defeated by the most expansive empire

from the steppes, the Mongols.
12.2 Mongols Uniting
The Eurasian Steppe region was home to several different tribes
but these nomadic tribes
were united by a powerful leader, eventually known as Genghis
Khan (or Chinggis), in the 12th
and 13th centuries.
Genghis Khan’s birth name was Temujin and he was the son of
the leader of the Borjigin
clan, the ruling Mongol clan—here “Mongol” is a linguistic
grouping, only loosely affiliated
with a region, and not a country. We don’t know much about his
early life because the there is
only one written primary source—and, while historians have
used other methods like
archaeology to verify the story written in The Secret History of
the Mongols, it is difficult to
evaluate the accuracy of the story of the rise of Genghis Khan.
Temujin’s father died before he reached manhood and he and
his brothers lived with their
mother. After his father’s death, the Borjigin clan was scattered
throughout the region. Reuniting
the clan was the first military and political feat that Temujin
achieved. He used his lineage but
also his skills in cultivating relationships as well as his military
expertise to succeed in this
mission. He also expanded his family as he defeated rival
tribes—he had his mother adopt boys
from each of the tribes and acknowledged them as his younger
brothers. In doing so, he
symbolically joined the tribes through family. This practice is
described as “fictive kinship,” and

Temujin accepted conquered people into his tribe on premise
that they were now equal and full
members of the tribe.
According to the Secret History, one of his followers told
Temujin about a dream that he
had in which he became “master of the nation.” Over the next
few years, more and more Mongol
bands joined Temujin’s cause and in 1189 he was proclaimed
Khan of the Mongols. At this time
he took the name Genghis Khan—“Khan” was a word used to
describe the ruler of a tribe or
nation, but scholars disagree regarding the meaning of Genghis
(or Chinggis), some say
“universal” while other argue for some variation of “strong.”
Genghis expanded his empire—though not without some
setbacks and defeats—but
eventually he was able to isolate his enemies. His strategy
relied increasingly on discipline and
violence and this helped him achieve decisive victories that
destroyed the enemy.
12.3 Mongols United
Genghis Khan is remembered as a violent ruler. He rewarded his
followers and treated
them well, but to his enemies he was merciless. By the turn of
the 13th century, Genghis Khan
had gained considerable power but his Mongol confederation
still have a few important rivals in
each direction. But he quickly defeated the remaining rivals and
became the sole ruler of the
Mongol steppe in 1206. He used intelligence gathering and a

spy network to shape his military
strategy and implemented new technologies and strategies, such
a siege warfare.
Genghis organized this large and diverse group of people not by
tribal origin but instead
into equally sized units and promotion was based on merit and
not family lineage. Households
remained intact and each larger unit was composed of both
civilian and military communities.
This system allowed him to easily incorporate new populations
from different regions and
inspired dedicated loyalty among his officers and soldiers.
The nomadic life of the tribes of the Mongol confederation
made it relatively easy for
Genghis to assemble large military units on short notice. All
men between 16 and 61 years old
could be summoned to serve at any time. The troops were paid
in shares of the plunder they
collected on military campaigns, but while Mongol expansion
remained in the steppe, the
plunder was mainly livestock and captives and not precious
metals or other trade goods. Mongol
expansion out of the steppe, was partly inspired by the need to
reward his army and by doing so
maintain their loyalty.
Genghis followed a long tradition of Mongol incursions into
China for his first campaign
abroad, but his efforts were aided by internal divisions in
China. The Chinese empire was
divided into three regimes: the Hsi Hsia (or Xi Xia), the Jin,
and the Sung (or Song). Genghis
first attached the Xi Xia whom he defeated quickly, but rather
than incorporating the soldiers

into his existing army, they remained in the cities because
Genghis was not convinced that they
could keep up with his more mobile army. Soon after Genghis
retreated to the steppes, the Xi
Xia declared war against the Jin who had refused to support
them against the Mongols.
Genghis next turned to the Jin and his campaign was facilitated
by intelligence gathering
by Muslim merchants many of whom controlled the trade along
the Silk Road. These merchants
allied with Genghis to help ensure the safety of their caravans.
Nevertheless, Genghis faced a
daunting opponent given the Jin’s military expertise and the
size of the military as well as the
overall population of the empire. The Jin also had impressive
fortifications and walled cities. In
1215, Genghis attacked and captured the Jin capital Zhongdu
(modern-day Beijing) and forced
the Jin emperor to abandon the northern part of the empire. The
Jin dynasty would eventually
collapse, but only under opposition from Genghis’s son.
Genghis soon turned his attention westward in a series of
campaigns, but the most
important conquest was in 1219 when he defeated Qara-Khitai,
the most important muslim
power in Central Asia. This moment signaled the Mongol
transition from a regional empire to a
global power.
To consolidate his state, Genghis established a law code and
appointed judges.

Importantly, he commissioned a Turkic-speaking scholar to
invent a written version of the
Mongolian language. Genghis sought religious advice from a
Buddhist and Confucian and a
religious scholar from the Jin court who convinced him to
preserve the agricultural regions of the
empire instead of converting all land for pastures.
12.4 China
Genghis Khan’s third son and his successor Ögedei Khan
continued Genghis’s expansion
and Mongol armies reached Persia and pushed further into
Russia and Eastern Europe. Two of
Ögedei’s nephews continued this expansion after his death.
Kublai, one of these nephews, was
elected the great Khan of the Mongols and he adopted the
dynastic name Yuan as the ruler of
China. Khanbalik (now Beijing) was the capital of his Chinese
empire and under his rule, trade
flourished; land routes under Mongol control facilitated travel
between Europe and China. While
the Yuan dynasty was modeled on the traditional Chinese
administrative system, the Mongol
rulers discriminated against the Chinese and reserved key
government positions for people from
central Asia. Because of this discrimination, many skilled
Chinese people turned to the theatre,
painting, and fiction and Yuan dynasty was a period of great
vibrancy in artistic activity.
Because of the discrimination under Mongol rule, the Chinese
resented the Yuan dynasty and
resisted when possible. Under Kublai’s successors, the Mongol
hold on China weakened and
they were finally overthrown by the founder of the Ming
dynasty, Chu Yüan-chang.

Kublai Khan sent a letter to the emperor of Japan inviting him
to join the Mongol Empire
and threatening him if he declined. The letter was ignored. In
consequence, Kublai launched his
first fleet in 1274. Mongols had typically done battle on land,
but they had learned naval warfare
in their defeat of the Sung dynasty. The Mongols met samurai
on shore who were both skilled in
hand to hand combat as well as with bow and horse and they
were driven back to their ships.
Storms drove the ships back and from the Mongol account a
typhoon destroyed the ships. But
Japanese sources credit the gods for offering protection.
In 1281, the Mongols sent a much larger fleet to attack Japan,
but the Japanese had
prepared and protected the only viable landing place. After a
two-month battle, again a storm hit
the fleet and destroyed many of the ships. Archival and
archaeological evidence does support the
narrative that a typhoon hit the region in 1281, but a recent
discovery of a Mongolian ship wreck
also reveals shoddy and hurried construction which may also
have contributed to the fleet’s
demise. The Mongols were in poor shape to combat the samurai
since their traditional and
successful methods of warfare could not be put to use.
12.5 Persia
The Mongols succeeded in defeating China, and they were no
less successful in
controlling Persia. The first incursions into Persia by the
Mongols were led by Genghis Khan in
1219. This invasion was followed a generation later by Genghis
Khan’s grandson, Hulagu,

beginning in 1251. Hulagu led a brutal and sustained attack on
the Abbasid dynasty, culminating
in an attack on the city of Baghdad -- the Abbasid’s capital city
-- in 1258. The city was sacked
by Mongol forces, and perhaps 200,000 inhabitants slaughtered.
The Caliph himself was
captured, rolled up in a rug, and then trampled to death by
Mongol horses. The defeat of the
Abassids and the execution of the Caliph signaled the collapse
of the Abassid dynasty.
In the place of the Abassids, the Mongols established the il-
Khanate, taking over the
administrative apparatus of the Abassids. The Mongols initiated
a brutal system of taxation, in
which the population was assessed multiple times in a year, and
tax collection was enforced
through corporal punishment and physical coercion. Agriculture
-- especially the planting,
reaping, and sowing cycle was significantly disrupted, as was
peasant life generally. The herding
practices of the Mongols also compounded the problem because
their animals destroyed farming
practices and tore up fields. Additionally, to prepare the attack
on the Abbasids, the Mongols
destroyed the intricate underground irrigation systems, and this
further compounded the ruination
of persian agriculture. Nonetheless, other industries flourished,
either because they were
connected to attempts to satisfy Mongol demands, or because
they enjoyed connections to the
China markets through the silk road. That said, the overall
picture of the Mongol invasion of
Persia is one of destruction on a wide scale.

However, Persians also transformed the occupying Mongols.
Persians continued to run
the bureaucracy, and there were attempts to fix what had been
broken. Also, the Persians
succeeded in converting many of the Mongols to Islam, and
there are some instances of
population blending, as when Mongol invaders married into the
local population. Indeed, we see
examples of Mongols setting aside nomadism in favor of settled
agricultural livelihood. Over
time, we see the Mongol invaders being assimilated into Persian
society, and as we will see,
victims of attacks by other Mongol groups in the late 14th and
early 15th centuries.
12.6 Central Asia: Chagatai Khanate
The Mongols succeeded in defeating the Abbasid Dynasty as
well as the dynasty in
China. nonetheless besides range and diversity meant the
Mongol Empire was difficult to
manage and there were conflicts among the various heirs. These
conflicts were focused most
intensely in Central Asia, in what is called the Chagatai
Khanate. The Chagatai Khanate
occupied territory that was the heartland of the Mongol Empire.
It retained a nomadic lifestyle
more so than other Mongol regions, and it was less populated.
Its central location also meant that
territorial expansion could come only at the expense of other
Mongol groups. At first, the
Chagatai refused to launch incursions into territory controlled
by other Mongols, but over time
they changed their strategy and began to invade the other
Khanates.
The Chagatai took offense at the conversion of other Mongol

groups to different
religions (such as Islam in Persia or Buddhism in China), seeing
in these religious changes a
diversion from some kind of essential quality. In short, the
religious conversions of other
Mongols served to legitimize attacks on their territories. One
can imagine this process in part as
an attempt on the part of the Chagatai Khanate to ensure that
the legacies of past greatness were
not diminished. Indeed, the Mongols of the Chagatai Khanate
sought to make Mongolia great
again by recalling the legacy of Genghis Khan and preserving
the traditional Mongol ways. For
instance, Chagatai rulers decreed that subjects should live in
yurts rather than in fixed buildings,
and they also launched attacks to the East against the Great
Khan. While the initial attack was
repulsed, it demonstrated the fractured nature of Mongol power
as well as the desire on the part
of some Mongols to maintain adherence to the old traditions.
12.7 Russia and the Hordes
After Genghis Khan’s death, the Mongol Empire was divided
between his four sons, but
the four appanages were united under a supreme Khan. Eastern
Europe was awarded to his eldest
son’s grandson, Batu, because the son had died six months
before Genghis’s death. To claim
control of the region, Ögedei Khan, Genghis’s successor,
dispatched Batu to the region with an
army. Batu led an army of Tartars to Russia in the 13th century
and left a trail of burned towns

and dead bodies. The army pillaged the towns, as was typical
after a Mongol victory. Batu
camped in a large beautifully embroidered silk tent which
inspired the label “golden” for his
army. He settled his camp on the River Volga to establish the
capital of his empire.
The Russian principalities in the region retained semi-
independence and controlled local
government but they were tributaries of the Khan who
controlled princely succession and
collected exorbitant taxes. Following Ogedei Khan’s death,
rivalry among the Khan’s effectively
ended the united Mongol Empire and the Khanate of the Golden
Horde was a semi-autonomous
state.
Batu Khan’s successor converted to Islam in 1255 but tolerated
other religions in the
empire. Eventually, in the early 14th century, the Golden Horde
adopted Islam as the official
religion. As a result, Islam spread to most of the population.
The Golden horde established
diplomatic relationships with the Byzantine Empire and the
Mamluk Empire in Egypt and had
extensive commercial relations in the East and West.
A rapid series of successions and constant warfare with
neighboring a khanate weakened
the empire in the second half of the 14th century. The Golden
Horde also fell victim to the
bubonic plague which depleted the population by about a
quarter. The rise of Tamerlane forced
the end of the Golden horde and the region was divided into a
series of smaller states. The
Crimean Khanate issued the final blow to the golden horde and

eventually the entire region fell
to the grand duke of Moscow, the predecessor state of modern
Russia.
12.8 Mongol Empire as Conduit Mongol Empire as Conduit
The Mongols are often depicted as a destructive force in world
history but that misses
some important elements of their story. One significant aspect
of the Mongols is that as a group
they were the one that joined all the others together: Christians,
Muslims, and Buddhists were all
connected in and through the Mongols. The Mongols, in short,
are usefully understood as being a
bridge that connected the Eurasian world together.
Connections between east and west were facilitated by the
Mongols who supported trade,
and travel guidebooks to the voyage from Europe to China were
even produced that allowed
travelers to understand where they were going and what they
might see and do along the way.
Famous travelers on the Silk Road like Marco Polo provide just
one example of the ways in
which the Mongols facilitated travel and trade between Europe
and Asia.
The Mongols themselves didn't directly produce many goods,
and therefore they relied
on taxation on travel and trade in order to maintain their power.
Because the Mongols controlled
the overall network they could enrich themselves without doing
much of the work, but they also
did other things to make trade function more smoothly and
efficiently. They attempted to enforce
standard weights and measures, they supported merchants, and
most importantly they provided a
type of security throughout the network. The Mongols also

provided a system of diplomatic
missions the connected east and west through their power
centers. In this way it became possible
for Europeans and the Chinese to connect with one another
through the networks provided by the
Mongols. Scholars call this promotion and protection of travel
and trade by the Mongols the Pax
Mongolica -- the Mongolian peace -- that recalls but transforms
older structures like the Pax
Sinica or the Pax Romana.
The Mongols also fostered a type of cultural exchange. They
accomplished this by
uprooting populations and forcing them to relocate. These
population migrations, along with
religious missions along the Silk Road, accomplished a
transformation of the cultural horizon of
Eurasia. In addition, cross-cultural or cross-confessional
marriages (meaning marriages between
people of different religious traditions) also helped shape new
types of connections between east
and west.
There's one final aspect to the Pax Mongolica that we want to
pay attention to, and that
has to do with the transmission of disease. The Black Death, or
the bubonic plague was
dependent on the Mongols for transmission to new populations.
The plague began in China
around 1320, then was transmitted through the network via trade
and through religious missions
along the Silk Road and through Mongol herd animals into
Central Asia, Persia, and then finally
to Europe. In these ways the Mongols helped shape in dramatic
form not only the course of

world history but also the nature and quality of transcultural
interactions in the pre-modern
period.
12.9 Mongols Fading
As we have seen, following Genghis Khan’s death, his vast
empire was split among his
four heirs. While each of these Khans expanded further over
time, this division of Genghis
Khan’s empire also set in motion a death-spiral of competition.
The divisions that existed
between the Golden Horde, the Great Khan, the il-Khan of
Persia, and the Chagatai Khanate
meant that Mongol rule after Genghis Khan was divided and
Mongol ambitions never unfolded
as a concerted effort.
By the 1330s -- even as the plague was spreading through
Mongol-controlled networks --
the Mongols were already in decline. The Chagatai Khanate
split into two; in China, the Great
Khanate saw quick dynastic turnover and protracted rivalry for
the throne. The Mongol lands
also experienced a sequence of disasters, some man-made,
others not. The Mongols endured
agricultural declines that generated famine; their irrigation
systems failed; and currency
devaluation threatened economic collapse. The result was a
contraction of Mongol power
throughout Eurasia, and outright revolution in China, where the
Mongols were popularly
understood to have lost the Mandate of Heaven. The result of
these political critiques was
nothing less than catastrophic for the Mongols, who were
supplanted by the Ming dynasty in

1368.
12.10 Timurid Empire
The Mongol legacy, despite contraction and revolution,
remained potent. We see
evidence of the ways that the Mongols continued to inspire
dreams of empire when we consider
the life of Timur Lenk, or Tamerlane. Tamerlane sought to
rekindle the Mongol empire in the
late 1300s, leading attacks on political entities throughout
Eurasia.
Timur Lenk -- or Timur the Lame -- was born in 1336. He
developed his ambitions in the
frayed political context of the Chagatai Khanate, and he learned
how to play factions off one
another in order to promote his own fortunes. He succeeded in
building a fearsome force of
horsemen, his cavalry able to sweep through his enemies with
ease.
Timur established a capital in the city of Samarkand, located in
current-day Uzbekistan.
From this base, Timur could launch attacks on enemies
throughout central Asia and Persia. He
first attacked Persia, in 1380. Then, he moved his horsemen
onto Baghdad, which he conquered
in 1393. Before the turn of the fifteenth century, he had
launched attacks into modern-day
Russia, wiping out the Khanate of the Golden Horde in little
more than a year. He then turned his
attention to India, attacking Punjab and destroying Delhi in
1398. His final target was the

Ottoman Turks, defeating their troops in Ankara and capturing
the Sultan, Bayezid I -- using him
as a footstool in order to demean him. Launching yet another
campaign, this time against the
Ming in China, Timur died in 1405.
The Mongols represented a novel force in world history. A
triumph of nomadism, the
Mongols succeeding in knitting together the Eurasian world in
novel ways. They extracted
wealth from trade even as they protected travelers and promoted
a Eurasian marketplace. The
proved to be remarkably adaptable when it came to the
questions of social organization, political
administration, and religious belief. Most importantly, they
provided a conduit not only for
goods and for people, but also for the pathogens that would
imperial the system as a whole.
Unit Nine: Towards a Global Order II: Global Commerce and
Culture
9.1 The (Almost) Global Market: Afro-Eurasian Webs
One important task of world historians is to investigate the
various structures that tied the
world together in previous periods of time. We are used to
thinking in the 21st century about
“globalization,” imagining that this process of integrating the
world economically – and to some
degree politically – was a relatively new phenomenon. And one
of the things that world history
can teach us is that these webs of interconnectivity – whether

regional or global in scale – have a
much longer and more varied history than we sometimes
imagine. So we need to begin looking
at some of the ways that the Afro-Eurasian world was joined
together in previous time periods.
Significantly, these connections not only operated on an East-
West basis, but also joined North
and South.
Exchange and trade were the key mechanisms connecting the
Afro-Eurasian world. These
are the important categories that historians have employed to
understand and to evaluate the
strength of global connections before globalization. That said,
how did this trade work? What
types of exchanges characterized these premodern webs? It is
useful to imagine these
connections as what one historian has called a “network of
exchange and communication” that
demonstrate the growing significance of long-distance trade.
Trade, communication, and
exchange had two significant consequences. Trade changed the
political structures in place, and
trade facilitated the spread and transformation of certain
religions.
Long distance trade, such as the trade relationships
proliferating along what came to be
known as the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean –
helped shape the political
institutions and states through which this trade was conducted.
The trade of commodities like
salt, spices, incense and perfume, as well as the most significant
commodity: silk – helped
change the practice of politics along the trade routes. Trade
helped generate political change and
consolidation – wealth generated by controlling and taxing
trade, or by extracting tribute from

merchants helped generate political consolidation and in some
case expansion.
Long distance trade also shaped the history of religion. Trade
was a significant factor in
religious transformation, conversion, and spread. As different
religious and cultural traditions
came into contact with one another, religions changed and
transformed – some religious
principles and practices were weakened and disappeared; others
extended their reach, using trade
as a mechanism to bring their principles to new populations of
people who could be converted.
In other cases, religious traditions were blended, creating what
one historian calls “syncretism,”
or a blurring of religious boundaries with a synthetic set of
traditions located in the middle
ground.
Long distance trade – perhaps best exemplified by the
historical experiences of people
living along the trade routes known as the Silk Road – set in
place three important historical
transitions. First, trade created an integrated Afro-Eurasian
world – a globalization before
globalization. Second, long distance trade helped fabricate new
types of political structures that
were built upon the wealth generated by economic exchange;
and third, long distance trade
created a matrix within which religious change, transformation,
and conversion was carried out.
9.2 Social Structures and Global Commerce
Long distance trade and global commerce had many
ramifications. The Afro-Eurasian
world was integrated; trade impacted the strength and vitality of
various political entities; and

trade also provided a way for religious change and
transformation – and in some cases
conversion and synthesis – to develop. But long distance trade
also had important social and
cultural ramifications.
One of these social changes is seen in the creation of a distinct
class of people –
merchants – who because they could be transitory and who
seemed to violate a range of standing
moral taboos were often viewed with suspicion. That said,
merchants often formed a distinct
social class, and this social differentiation was reinforced
through certain mechanisms that
merchants developed in order to make their ventures more
profitable. One way that historians
have analyzed trade in this period of time is to investigate the
ways that groups of merchants
worked together. One strategy that merchant groups used was to
create long chains of
settlements. Merchants would migrate to far-off locations, and
establish a trading outpost, in
which they would remain essentially alienated from host
society. The other strategy was to
continually move from one location to another, constantly
trading along the way. The first of
these strategies is significant because over time, these trading
outposts became more highly
specialized and complex, and merchants from the same group
often developed webs of
interrelated business interests that historians have called a
“trade diaspora.” What they mean by
this term is a group of merchants united by kinship or place of

origin who settle independently in
different areas, but who still trade with one another and retain
an affiliation. These communities
of merchants that made up a trade diaspora remained significant
over long periods of historical
change…Perhaps tenuous at first, these trade diasporas could
harden over time, forming the
foundation of deeply entrenched and powerful merchant
networks.
A second change developing out of new forms of long distance
trade – and by extension
the trade diasporas of the premodern world – is seen in
important economic terms: integration
helped break down the economic self-sufficiency of a region.
Trade, in other words, meant that
there was not only a wider variety of commodities available in
any particular area, but it also
meant that those connections could intensify over time,
becoming vital to the economic health of
a region.
A third consequence coming out of the creation of global
commercial networks was the
creation of a set of conditions conducive to the spread of
diseases through the human population.
While disease outbreaks had characterized human settlements
for millennia, the enhanced
networks of communication and trade made the spread of
disease not only more frequent but also
across a wider territory. In this way, the Afro-Eurasian disease
pool was created at the same time
that the Afro-Eurasian world was integrated. And as we will
see, trade networks and disease
outbreaks were closely matched. As traders and merchants
moved commodities from one area to

another, they also brought diseases with them. And as we will
see, the Silk Road was a prime
conduit for the transmission of disease from the Pacific to the
Mediterranean.
9.3 Silk Roads I: Theory
The Silk Roads were a main source of overland trade and
communication between the
Pacific and the Mediterranean for roughly 1,000 years. These
connections that linked the Afro-
Eurasian world joined Chinese merchants to those working in
the Mediterranean, in the Persian
gulf, in North Africa, in the Indian ocean, and even in South
East Asia. This broad network of
traders, most of whom bought and sold goods that they
transported over only a small section of
the overall network, created what is called a relay trade – a
commodity might travel long
distances before reaching a resting place, passed from merchant
to merchant until it reached the
hands of a final consumer.
Silk was a key commodity in this network, one that
fundamentally shaped what one
historian has called the “commercial integration” of the Afro-
Eurasian world. The silk road, and
the path that silk would take from where it was produced in
China to where it was consumed,
was built upon preexisting frameworks for trade. In other
words, a whole series of individual
trade routes existed; silk was a commodity so in sought after
that it transformed these individual
trade segments into a more cohesive and unified structure.

The Silk Road produced two important transformations – it
connected nomads,
transforming their societies and political structures, and it
transformed the nature of urban
trading centers throughout the network. The Silk Road
transformed the life of nomadic groups.
Both marauders and pastoralists saw their lives change when the
trade connections of the Silk
Road created new opportunities and made new commodities
available. The Silk Roads changed
the lives of nomads by creating conduits between them,
initiating forms of exchange between
and across cultures that had not existed previously. The
diffusion of ideas and technologies – not
to mention commodities – meant that the structure of nomadic
society changed. Groups living
and working on the “rim” of the network found consistent and
willing trading partners in the
interior of the network. This partnership joined the coasts with
the arid steppes, creating a form
of economic exchange that bridged pastoral and agricultural
societies. In other words – farmers
and shepherds found trade to be a way of forging
commonalities. These types of connections
were important and persistent. Gradually, more sophisticated
and complex social arrangements
developed to anchor the ends of the silk roads – we see groups
like the Romans and Hellenes in
the West and the Han dynasty in China shaping the flows of
commodities back and forth across
the network as a whole.
We see with these groups how the Silk Road helped shape
political geography. The
middle east rose in importance due to its geographical position
at the crossroads of trade. We
also see China extending its cultural and economic influence

into Korea and Southeast Asia.
India too would contribute much to the ways the Silk Road
operated, and we will se how South
Asian cultural influences were transmitted along the Silk Road.
But perhaps one of the most
interesting outcomes of the Silk Road centers on its impact on
urban settlements. Trade on the
Silk Road helped build massive urban settlements. Described as
“caravan cities” by historians,
these cities developed along overland trade or caravan routes
and they exhibited a vibrant
economic, cultural, and social life. Petra, for instance, was a
city carved out of rock catering to
the needs of travellers and merchants. Over the span of four
centuries (roughly 200 BCE to 200
CE) it displayed a rich cultural existence and even had a theater
that could seat 10,000 people at
once. Another richly vibrant city, Palmyra (now in Syria), was
built upon cloth and weaving
trades, and it demonstrated the reach of Hellenic culture and
how it was blended with the cultural
traditions of the near east. Much of its beautiful architecture –
once one of the world’s great
treasures – was systematically destroyed when the city was
occupied by the Islamic State in the
course of the Syrian civil war.
9.4 Silk Roads II: Practice
The Silk Roads developed as a medium of commodity
exchange. The so-called “silk
economy” that joined Eurasia developed in part because of the
fact that silk was an extremely
useful material. Silk was used to make clothing that was far
more comfortable than wool – cool
in the summer and warm in the winter. It could be used to craft
bags, even ones that could be

used to transport liquids because silk can be waterproof. Silk
thread is extremely strong and
could even be woven into ropes that had a very good weight to
strength ratio. Silk was even used
as armor – if woven tightly enough it can blunt a knife, arrow,
or sword attack. Silk cloth was
even used as a durable form of communication – by painting on
it, one was able to use silk as an
extremely long-lasting medium of communication. Silk, in other
words, was an extremely useful
commodity, one that was sought after throughout the Eurasian
world. In this way, silk – which
was spun from silk worms living on mulberry trees in the north
of China – could forge a long
range economy.
The silk economy and the silk roads generally had important
implications. One of these
implications was the way that silk exchange helped in the
process of state formation. Political
units along the silk roads were strengthened through their
connections to a tribute economy as
well as direct exchanges with merchants. In China, especially,
silk helped form a vibrant
administrative and urban apparatus.
The silk roads were also a conduit of religious expansion –
religion and trade followed
one another along the silk roads; these exchanges allowed cross-
cultural conversions but also the
fabrication of scenarios conducive to religious syncretism or
blending. In other words, as people
from different faith traditions came into contact with one
another in the course of their
participation in the silk economy they were presented with

opportunities to convert others to
their faith or to blend their religious traditions with those of
others. We see evidence of this
trend, for instance, with the spread of Buddhism. Buddhism
followed the trade routes as conduits
of religious change. Beginning in India and the Kushan Empire,
Buddhism spread beginning in
first century, CE to China and to Central Asia. Christianity too
spread along the silk roads from
the Mediterranean basin east to central Asia. The spread of both
Buddhism and Christianity was
ultimately blocked, however, when these faiths came into
contact with Zoroastrianism in the
Iranian plateau. Indeed Zoroastrians were able to use the silk
roads themselves, spreading their
ideas to China and to the Mediterranean.
9.5 Sea Trade I
The overland trade routes of the silk roads were only one form
of trade and mobility in
Eurasia. The seas provided another form of trade,
communication, and cross cultural exchange.
We need to focus for a moment on two areas of sea trade: the
red sea and the Indian Ocean.
Transit in and through the red sea was innovated by Arab sailors
trading spices and precious
metals. These Arab sailors would trade up and down the red sea,
taking goods to the ports of
South Asia and to the Arabian landmass. One of the critical
ports in this trade was the city of
Alexandria, which sat at the nexus of the red sea, the
Mediterranean, and the River Nile. In this
way, goods and commodities were transmitted across the eastern
Mediterranean and from there
throughout Arabia and the horn of Africa.

The red sea trade was a natural conduit to the larger trading
zone of the Indian Ocean.
Trade across the Indian Ocean was important because it
connected East Africa, the
Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. Trade across the
Indian Ocean was seasonally
determined by the trade winds generated by the monsoon cycle.
Monsoons blow from the
Southwest from October to April – allowing traders to make the
voyage from East Africa and the
Arabian landmass to South Asia. The winds then shift, blowing
from the Northeast from April to
October allowing traders to make a return voyage. This
variation in the wind patterns allowed
circular trade throughout the Indian Ocean to follow predictable
seasonal patterns.
Travel across the Indian Ocean was facilitated by new methods
of navigation as well.
Sailors navigated by celestial objects, using the positions of
stars to chart their locations. Their
ships, called dhows, employed large sails that could be rigged
in different ways to take
advantage of the winds to carry commodities on the long haul
across the Indian Ocean. This
transit up and down the red sea and across the Indian Ocean –
and then back – provided another
form of connection across the Eurasian world. Instead of just a
single overland route, this trade
made it possible to think of a water route connecting China to
the Mediterranean.
9.6 Sea Trade II

Sea trade within the Red Sea or across the Indian Ocean were
only part of the ways in
which humans carried out long distance trade over waterways.
There were also robust
connections between groups of people carried out across the
Bay of Bengal and throughout the
Java and South China Seas. Indeed, there were strong trade
routes connecting China, Southeast
Asia, Borneo, and the islands now making up Indonesia. These
sea trading routes helped
facilitate the growth of strong governments, particularly in the
Malay peninsula and in Sumatra
because trade was funneled through a narrow passageway
known as the Straight of Malacca, a
pinchpoint in the trade that made it possible to tax ships making
their way through the Straight.
The Straight, which had long been a fertile area for pirates to
seize cargo, also helped facilitate
the creation of strong tax-levying bureaucratic states in Java
and Sumatra. Water trade in
Southeast Asia, which followed the great river networks of the
Mekong and Iradaddy systems,
was based not on mass population migration but on trade
diasporas. These trade systems, like the
case in Sumatra and Java, had political consequences such as
the growth of the power and status
of the Khmer empire with its central metropolitan nexus at
Angkor. These river networks also
facilitated the spread of Indian culture across the region, and it
was through those conduits that
Buddhism was introduced to the region along with texts written
in Sanskrit. In Sumatra, the
growth of cosmopolitan cities like Palembang went hand in
hand with the growth of Malay
power, which was often based on a blending of local religious
traditions with Buddhism. But

Buddhism was not only religious tradition imported to
Southeast Asia through trade with
Indians. Hinduism made an appearance too. The temple complex
of Angkor Wat – the largest
religious structure anywhere in the premodern world – was built
based on Hindu principles and
later incorporated into Buddhist traditions. And later still, these
trade networks continued to exert
an influence over cultural forms. When Islamic traders arrived,
they too began to convert locals
to their religious principles.
9.7 Overland Trade I
The Silk Roads and sea trade in the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean,
and in the Bay of Bengal
were two mechanisms that helped forge the Eurasian world
through trade. There was also a third
mechanism at work that performed the same cultural and social
work: caravan trade in Africa
that joined sub-Saharan Africa with the Mediterranean.
One factor that helps explain the development of trade networks
in Africa is the
economic and regional diversity of Africa. The coastal areas
bordering the Mediterranean had
access not only to the material wealth of the Mediterranean
world but also commodities that
were produced there like cloth and glass. Commodities from
Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa –
things like copper and salt – were highly prized, along with
crops like millet and yams. That said,
the introduction of the camel to the trans-Saharan network was
the key development that
reconfigured the Sahara from a barrier to commerce to a “sea”
that could be traversed.

Caravans of camels joined the disparate regions of Africa, and
helped generate
commercial connections beginning around 300 CE. Scholars
report that the camel caravans could
number as many as 5000 camels. The most important element in
this trans-Saharan trade was
gold, which was transferred by camel across the Sahara to the
coastal region of North Africa.
Gold was perhaps only slightly more important than the trade in
human beings, however. The
trans-Saharan slave trade provided a significant source of
captives for the coastal regions of
North Africa and the Mediterranean. This trade network, as we
have seen in other contexts,
created a foundation for political consolidation and state
formation in sub-Saharan and in west
Africa; one important result of this trade demands to be
highlighted. In west Africa, trade helped
increase the social complexity and hierarchy of those societies.
It is also important to note that
the significance of the slave trade and of slavery shouldn’t be
discounted, but I want to remind
you that the form of slavery was different than what would
develop later in the Atlantic world
beginning in the 15th century.
9.8 Overland Trade II
The overland trade route across the Sahara, which linked the
sub-Saharan regions with
the coastal areas of the Mediterranean, created a trans-African
trading network in gold, salt,

dates, and slaves. This commodity exchange proved to be
transformative to the people living and
working along these trade routes. The changes adhering to these
developing networks were
perhaps most apparent in the growth trade cities like Timbuktu,
located in modern day Mali. The
city of Timbuktu was located on the Southern edge of the
Sahara, and it was therefore a terminus
for the camel caravan trade across the desert. Timbuktu was
also, however, integrated into a west
African trading network that connected the Senegambian coast
to cities in the interior of the
continent like Timbuktu and Gao. In this way, the city served a
useful dual purpose – connecting
the interior of the continent with the west coast of Africa and
serving as the end of the caravan
line across the Sahara.
Visitors to Timbuktu, like the great Muslim traveler of the 15th
century Leo Africanus,
were stunned at the wealth on display in the city. More than just
a vibrant hub of commerce and
trade, the city also concentrated wealth within its borders.
Equally significant, the city was also a
nexus of learning and scholarship that bridged the various
cultures of west Africa and the trans
Saharan region. The city’s library, which housed thousands of
rare manuscripts, was a highpoint
of education in the medieval period. Sadly, the wealth of
knowledge accumulated in the city was
partially destroyed in 2013, when rebel forces occupied portions
of the town and destroyed this
intellectual heritage of humankind. That said, many of the
Timbuktu manuscripts, including
priceless copies of the Koran, were safely relocated to the city
of Bamako in Mali, thus
preserving aspects of the important historical record of a vibrant

and important trading and
cultural center.
9.9 Disease and Global Networks
The silk roads, the sea trade in the Indian Ocean and Bay of
Bengal, and the trans-
Saharan trade helped forge a Eurasian world. The connections
and exchanges that were a part of
this world let us glimpse a world system that bridged
continents, cultures, and faiths. But these
connections that joined various parts of the world together were
not without their risks. Just as
commodities and religions were transmitted through this
network, so too were terrible diseases.
And the cities that were the beating heart of the network as a
whole were particularly susceptible
to diseases brought there by trade or religious mission. These
emergent diseases were
particularly devastating because as disparate areas of the globe
were knitted together through
trade, populations of people were exposed to new pathogens to
which they lacked natural
immunity.
To give one example of how disease followed the trade
networks, consider the case of the
city of Constantinople – now Istanbul – in the sixth century CE.
The so-called plague of
Justinian, named for the Byzantine Emperor, is one example of
the problem. Constantinople was
located at a very strategic point, bridging Europe and the
Middle East and sitting on top of trade
routes connecting European market in the Mediterranean with
the silk road. The city was thus an

important nexus of trade and commerce, a place at which people
from all throughout the global
trading network congregated. In 541 CE, the city began to
experience an outbreak of disease,
now thought to be the bubonic plague. The disease, it is thought
by scholars now, was brought to
the city of Constantinople by traders from Egypt – thus
indicating the ways that the entire
Eastern Mediterranean ultimately became part of a single
disease pool. The outbreak in
Constantinople of the “plague of Justinian” was awful. After the
disease arrived in the city, it
quickly spread. At its height, the plague killed between 5,000
and 10,000 residents of
Constantinople each day. From there, the plague spread
throughout the eastern Mediterranean,
carried by traders and religious missionaries. By the time the
disease outbreak subsided the
following year, 542 CE, perhaps 25 million people living in the
eastern Mediterranean had died.
9.10 Pros and Cons: The Global Market and the Local
Producer/Consumer
The silk roads, the over sea trade in the Indian Ocean and Bay
of Bengal, and the trans-
Saharan caravan trade together formed an Afro-Eurasian world.
This world, which would come
later to be simply be called the “old world,” united all of the
world’s population except those
living in the Americas. This system had its benefits to be sure.
Valuable commodities like silk –
produced in China but in demand throughout the system –
indicated how local commercial
practices might be attractive in far-flung locales. Other
commodities – salt, gold, and slaves from

Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa, for instance – were equally
valued. This commercial world
helped transform trading cities like Timbuktu, Constantinople,
Angkor, and Palmyra into
powerhouses of commercial, cultural, and political activity. And
it is important to recognize that
this commercial vitality was built upon a foundation of regional
economic variability – regions
produced different things, yet there was a global market for
those items.
This trading system also impacted two other areas of life.
Different religious traditions
spread or blended with others along the trade routes. Buddhism,
for instance, was carried by
traders from India to China and Southeast Asia. Christianity left
the Mediterranean and was
carried into the middle east. Zoroastrianism – the religion of
pre-Islamic Persia – did the same.
After Islam developed in the seventh century CE, it too
travelled along the trade routes into
Southeast Asia, North Africa, and – later – the eastern
Mediterranean.
If trade helped spread religion, it also helped spread disease,
and we see in the formation
of a single trading zone the consequent formation of a single
disease pool in which pathogens
were carried from region to region by traders or by religious
missionaries. The plague of
Justinian, like earlier plagues affecting Athens or the cities of
China, indicated the possibilities of
explosive disease transmission through the networks of the
premodern Afro-Eurasian world.

Analytical Essay Two, due Sunday, March 31st at 1100 pmTopi.docx

Analytical Essay Two, due Sunday, March 31st at 1100 pmTopi.docx

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