Unit 4-6 Summary (SCRIPTED)

Japan copied Chinese social forms, patriarchal family; slavery, harsh serfdom, the new social hierarchies; most forced into slavery or serfdom;

African artistic expression gained ground steadily; Japan copied many aspect of Chinese culture; some develop in isolation like the Polynesian zone in Pacific Islands and civilization of Americas, Mesoamerica, under Aztecs, and in Andes, vast Inca realm; West - agriculture civilization; scientific principles increasingly valued; growing wealth and new cultural currents = individual genius in art, trade, science, or military organization

Islam continued to expand but its political and commercial units fragmented; Western Europe established elaborate culture around Catholic Christianity

Contacts among civilizations intensified; 15th century, European countries began new exploration and new colonization in Africa, Asia, and the Americas and by formation of Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, Mughal and Ming empires in Asia, and emergence of Russia from two centuries of Mongol rule; African trade gain ground; areas in contact with China built increasingly elaborate societies; Chinese brief trading expeditions across Indian Ocean; Chinese isolation open way for western Europe overseas expeditions; Western explorers and merchants benefited from technologies newly learned from China and the Islamic world; European dominated international trade; globalism, exchange of plants and animals (cows, horses to Americas); inexpensive raw material and slave to advanced societies

New empires formed important regional political units; Russian monarchy formed, Sub-Saharan Africa more loosely organized, Japan, like western Europe, emphasized a decentralized feudal system, Arab caliphate perished, Islamic political force under the Ottoman Turks taking shape; Chinese concentrate on traditions of internal political, cultural, and commercial development; Scientific revolution reshaped Western culture; 17th cent. Western monarch began introduce bureaucratic principles similar to China; Gunpowder empires; nomadic intermediaries replaced by more direct relations among states or merchant groups

Weaponry – gunpowder – cannons and muskets in 15th cent; Western learned compass and triangular sail from China and Islamic world; Innovations – guns, faster oceangoing ships; Ship-based artillery; Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire, Mughal in India, Safavid in Persia, Qing dynasty relied on strength of land armies armed with guns; Guns also played a role in Japanese and African

Commerce grew in Africa, Americas, China, and Japan under influence of western Europe; Western Europe expanded role of urban commerce; Latin America depended heavily on sales to export merchants, on imports of processed goods, and on Western ships and merchants to handle international trade; Dependence encourage commercial exploitation of slaves and serf

International trade affected diverse societies and speed and range of sailing ships increased
Land-based empires formed in Russia, Persia, the Middle East and the Mediterranean, and India; Aztec and Inca empires show signs of strain and overextension by later 15th cent.; In Asia, Africa, Europe key development was decline of Arab political power and cultural dynamism; Commerce change social structure and basic attitudes toward family life and the natural environment; Human disease pool became fully international; Ottomans (most durable empire), Safavids, Mughals – short lived; Imported horse, sheep, cattle affects American grasslands and densely settled Indian farmlands; Imported diseases – measles and smallpox; Soil conditions changes by introduction of new crops (sugar) replaced native vegetation; North America to China, settlers in search of land to form began clearing temperate forests; clearing world’s great rainforests begin

forced labor systems, including slavery were abolished; gender relations took on new dimensions, and they continue to vary between societies; machines and male labor replaced or devalued women's work in many settings; world rise of female domestic servants

Inequality within many societies increased with the spread of wage labor; new Western beliefs begin to idealize women in other respects, giving them unprecedented credit for beauty and moral purity;

Population conversion to Islam began in sub-Saharan Africa at the end of 18th cent; Christianity;

Opium War between England and China; Mexican-American War- Taiping rebellion; Crimean War; American Civil War; Sino-Japanese War; Spanish-American War; Boxer Rebellion in China; Russo-Japanese War; WWI; worldwide trade; new forms of international relations; independent nations began to exchange diplomatic representatives worldwide;

Industrialization and imperialist expansion; colonial rule in India; military pressures made isolation more difficult for any civilization;

James Watt's steam engine; new machines; new transportation; technology gained supremacy over human agency; human agency not entirely crushed;

Postal exchange and commercial licensing across national boundaries; Red Cross and a new Olympic committee; new taxes and pressure to change the way farmers produce food;

demographic transition to low birth rates reflected the fact that child labor was being displaced by machines; children less useful than they had been in agricultural societies; high birth rates continue elsewhere; Chian and the Ottoman Empire both lost territories to Western imperialism; higher population densities intensified human ability to change the environment; higher levels of sewage disposal = chemical and smoke pollution; farmers cut down forests to plant crops;

Abolition of slavery in 19th cent. = end of another traditional institution of inequality; caste system crumbles; new social mobility, changes in gender relations; unemployment rate increases from the depression;

People were also challenged by growing interest in science, mass education systems; widespread voting rights; racist belief/gender inequality;

Most of world’s population in 1850 adhered to one of the great religions or philosophical systems created during the classical or postclassical eras (Confucianism, Christianity, Islam) although they had been challenged by new systems of belief like the more secular in orientation (liberalism, nationalism, communism)

Government contact with masses of citizens increased greatly; French Revolutions of 1789 attacked assumptions of structured inequality and legal privilege; World Wars and international depression; after WWII, tense struggle between communist societies (Soviet Union, US and allies); cold war; Holocaust;

Monarchies crumbled and were replaced by democracies, totalitarian governments, or authoritarian regimes; major civilizations tried to come to terms with Western examples while developing government vigorous enough to gain or maintain independence; government took new roles in trying to further economic growth, education, and health care; agriculture civilizations developed highly structures systems of inequality; aristocracies crumbled;

New weaponry; submarines;

Wars drained resources, bank went bankruptcy;

West’s declining – new international order; decolonization; Holocaust;