The Early Modern World - 1450-1750

The early modern era includes "globalization, distinct 'modern' societies and a growing European presence in world affairs…".

Globalization - through shipping and trade routes countries are able to explore distant lands and colonize them for their own specific use.

Distinct modern societies - although there is no industrial revolution, societies are building on the technologies of the past. Ships have better ranges, mapmaking becomes more sophisticated, navigation through the use of stars and the discovery of different currents (atlantic) open up a wide variety of opportunities.

Leading to a growing European presence in the world. Because of the proximity of Europe to the Atlantic ocean they were able to discover new lands, branch out and take over to benefit the home country. There was very little regard for the natives who already inhabited the land. This allowed the European countries to compete with the resource rich Eurasian areas. Europe needed more land to support greater commerce in agriculture and livestock.

Exploitation is the consistent theme with all of the conquering countries. They had no remorse about taking over other lands and people. Silver mining from Spanish America, Fur trade from North America and Siberia enabled the Europeans to break into the Asian markets. In order to support the vast labor need, many countries also stole people from Africa and sold them into slavery.

Another interesting key point to this era was the expansion of the major religions and science. This led to different factions breaking away from Christianity. Eastern Orthodox was at odds with Western Christianity which was agains the spread of Islam and lead to the beginning of the crusades.

Second Wave Civilizations….

The Agricultural Revolution began an ongoing cycle for the development of larger communities, cities, states and eventually what we in modern terms would consider empires. The term 'empire'  refers to 'aggressive states that conquer, rule and extract resources from other states and people' (pg 118).  An empire is a large area under the direction and rule of a single governing body.  In the case of the early  empire, the Greek civilization  was considered the first democratic society where the 'people' (of a certain definition) were represented in the government. During the same time the empires of Persia and China who were ruled by a single ruler/dynasty. Although Empires ruled over vast areas and cultures they were a very important aspect of human development allowing for the sharing of ideas, technologies and values.

These empires did not last forever and eventually they became too big and overextend to govern effectively. It became difficult to sustain resources and larger families who owned larger estates in the empires began to avoid paying taxes, convert smaller free farmers into tenant farmers and ultimately diminish the authority of the central government.

Many changes come from oppression, and in China this was the case. Initially a 'legalist' society the rules and punishments were very harsh. On the surface, this would seem like a reasonable way to keep order in a community but ultimately it pushes people into rebellion. In China, Confucius, who was well educated and born to an upper middle class family wanted to help solve China's problem of disorder. Although he never became a man of power in his lifetime he left many writings and teachings which were gathered after his death. Scholars would take his writings and comment on the ideas which ultimately created 'Confucianism'. His teachings were based on respect between the unequal relationships of people, that of the superior (male authoritarian) and the lesser people such as children, wife or servant. He had very clear guidelines for the place of women and how they should act towards the family and husband, as well as how leaders should treat their followers.