Topic: Europe, West Asia, and Empires of the Americas

Weekly Schedule
Due Date	Activity
July 28	Read & examine this week's module Textbook: Chapters 16-18 Read All Documents Watch: All Videos
July 28	Discussion
July 28	Review Quiz
July 28	Final Exam: Critical Thinking and Multiple Choice-True/False Quiz

Image: Aztec Serpent

Summary:

Europe

A series of crises assailed the west in the fourteenth century. Poor harvests led to famine; worker unrest exploded into revolts and conflict; the perception of ecclesiastical corruption led to a crisis of confidence in the church and its leadership; the Hundred Year's War devastated parts of the continent; worst of all, the Black Death, traveling with Italian merchants from Asia, struck Europe beginning in 1348. The papacy moved from Rome to Avignon, where the French king exerted considerable influence over it. Attempts to reform the papacy led to the Great Schism. These crises, however, spurred new movements in philosophy, art, and literature. The Renaissance, seen by contemporary intellectuals as different from the previous age, was characterized by humanism, an increased appreciation of the individual, a sense of human beings as having been created in God's image, realism in art, and activism in life. Though faithful Christians, Renaissance intellectuals valued human experience and achievement, lending the Renaissance a secular spirit. The focus of Renaissance learning, in which elite women too participated, was the humanist curriculum, based on the liberal arts and imparting a reverence for classical learning. The invention of an efficient printing press, which made books cheaper, encouraged literacy. Education did not, however, promote greater tolerance, as anti-Semitism rose and slavery was revived.

East Asia, with its spices and luxury products, fired the imaginations of Europeans seeking new sea routes when warfare closed overland routes. Hoping to obtain wealth and to spread Christianity, monarchs encouraged the voyages of exploration. The voyage of the Portuguese Vasco da Gama (1498) proved India could be reached by sea, while the expeditions of Columbus (1492-1502), sailing under Spanish royal patronage, opened a route to what turned out to be the Americas. This European presence meant serious clashes with original peoples and the eventual destruction of ancient ways of life and powerful native empires. Looking for sources of labor as death took a devastating toll on native peoples, Europeans introduced African slavery to the New World, importing 30,000 or more slaves a year by 1700. As they colonized, Europeans promoted religious conversion often forcibly of native peoples.

The end results of discovery and colonization were a new commercial revolution, the development of commercial capitalism, increasing worldwide economic interdependence, large-scale migration of colonists, and material changes in the European lifestyle, and a dramatic change in the populations of Europe, Africa, and the Americas through the Columbian Exchange.

Added to the dynamic forces of the period was the rising call for religious reform in Europe. The significant differences in theology, especially regarding salvation, led to Christianity's split into branches that remain separate today. Protestants disagreed with Catholics over sacraments, religious hierarchy, translation of the Bible into vernacular languages, and the usefulness of the monastic vocation. The Peace of Augsburg of 1555 allowed each German state to choose Lutheranism or Catholicism, but did not grant individuals freedom of conscience or make accommodation for other faiths. The Catholic Church underwent self-examination that culminated in the Council of Trent, which affirmed traditional church doctrines while attempting to eradicate corruption. The wars that afflicted Europe from 1559-1648 were often tied to religious antagonisms, but also involved political issues. With the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, the wars drew to a close.

Mughal, Safavid, and Ottoman Empires

This week we will examine new state and empire building in Afro-Eurasia in the aftermath of the Mongol invasions and the Black Death. In response to these crises, new states and empires emerged by keeping, discarding, adapting, and reshaping old and new institutions and ideas. As heirs to the Islamic imperial tradition, the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal societies carried their common political heritage into disparate environments and developed unique solutions to their problems. The height of their power and achievement can arguably be attributed to periods of embracing tolerance and inclusiveness, just as their gradual decline is marked by a rejection of external influence and cultural stasis.

In 1600, nearly all of southern Asia, from Anatolia to Indonesia, was dominated by Islam. But when the Europeans moved into the Indian Ocean with new commercial methods, they connected Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Indian Ocean commercial networks into a global trading system. Thereafter, wealth flowed out of the Indian Ocean region through European trading companies and to the West.

Unlike India, Southeast Asia proved to be a place were Islam could continue to expand. Located at the crossroads of international trade, it was of interest to both Muslims and Europeans. The Portuguese, Dutch, and English competed for commercial supremacy in the region. Initially, European commercial empires controlled trade and attempted to exclude rival powers, but they had minimal impact on local culture and customs. The situation changed in the nineteenth century when European commercial exploitation was augmented with colonial exploitation.

The Safavid Empire entered a period of decline under the successors to Shah Abbas I. The empire was weakened by internal rebellions and attacks on the empire by Afghans, Turks, and Russians. By the end of the eighteenth century, Safavid rule of Persia was at an end. Persia’s subsequent development was shaped by Shi’ite opposition to centralized government and the insistence that government be organized according to genuine Islamic principles. To many Persians, Shi’ism seemed the best defense against Russian and British intrusion.

By 1700, the once-powerful Ottomans had lost the initiative. As the tide turned against them, they belatedly responded to the European challenge by adapting to European ways. In Arabia, however, Wahhabism, an austere Muslim movement, blamed Islam’s decline on lax devotion, condemned the Ottomans for imitating unbelievers, and warned that Muslims could only triumph by rigidly adhering to the Prophet’s original message.

The Inca Empire

The Incas created an extensive empire in the Andes of south America. They called their kingdom Tawantinsuyo (The Land of the Four Quarters) and ruled from their magnificent capital at Cusco. Like other indigenous cultures, the Inca borrowed and built upon the achievements of the great civilizations that had gone before them, including the Wari, Tiwanaku, and Chimu. The Inca derived their subsistence from exploiting many different ecological niches of the Andes and practiced centuries-old religious rituals. From art and architecture to strategies of governance, the Incas carried on the cultural traditions of earlier societies. The Incas, however, attained a level of political consolidation previously unknown in the Andes and even greater than that of the Aztecs or the emerging monarchies of Western Europe in the fifteenth century. On the eve of the Spanish arrival, the Inca dominions extended 2,500 miles from the present-day boundary of Ecuador and Colombia in the north, southeast to Bolivia, as far as northern Argentina and central Chile in the south, and eastward beyond the slopes of the Andes, a territorial expanse larger than the contemporary Ottoman Empire or Ming Empire in China. Scholars believe that as many as twelve million people lived under Inca domination.

The Aztec Empire

The sophisticated cultures of Mesoamerica looked down on neighbors they regarded as backwards, particularly despised were northern tribes they called Chichimecas. These semi-nomadic people who, according to their rivals, lived like "dogs" in the central plateaus of northern Mexico began to migrate into central Mexico in the 1200s. One such group was the Mexica, who entered the Valley of Mexico in search of a new place to settle. They left their original homeland of Aztlan, somewhere in the northwest, and spent several years wandering around the Valley of Mexico serving as mercenaries in various local conflicts. After finding themselves persecuted and battered by local groups, they settled on an island in Lake Texcoco and from these inauspicious beginnings they would become the most powerful state in Mesoamerica by the early sixteenth century. Mexica society was very complex and they absorbed and adapted various traditions from the cultures that had risen and fallen in Mesoamerica. We can trace traditions extending all the way back to the Olmecs, Maya, Teotihuacanos, Zapotecs, Mixtecs, and the Toltecs. The Mexica were aware that they were the heirs of a long line of societies and they were proud to have created a cosmopolitan empire that embraced and reflected all of this previous knowledge. However, their empire came at a cost: the violent nature of their empire created tremendous pressure and resentment among their subjects, and they waited for an opportunity to throw off the yoke of Mexica domination.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this week's module, students will be able to:

Explore European Culture and History in the 16th and 17th centuries
Examine the increasing world contacts and connections that developed during this period
Analyze the rise of the Safavid, Mughal, and Ottoman Empires
Examine the complex society and traditions of the Mexica (Aztec) Empire
Examine the rise of the Inca empire and their culture and society