Rise of Empire Notes

January 14th
 Teleological: things that are getting better
o a teleological perspective on history would suggest that the present emerged
inevitably and progressively. Historians show that there are accidents and paths
not taken, and this is not the case.
 What is an Empire?
o all of the empires we will discuss have similar sets of problems.
o empire’s don’t do anything, people do things. Be aware of individuals and
adventurers.
o The hallmark of empires comprise a collection of diverse peoples and cultures. A
composite entity.
o Empires in Eurasia and pre-contact america bumped into eachother. Movement
often meant conflict.
o Empires have rivalries and control or maintenance of boundaries, but are often
fluid.
o Empires are not static
o Empires experience instability at the margins.
o For some empires these unstable margins were landlocked areas. They collided
with other landlocked areas and they pushed back and forth.
o The conflicts involved armies etc.
o Seaborn empires have their unstable boundaries in the form of coasts or islands,
involving navies.
o Empires have to figure out a way to raise the money to sustain armies and
navies.
o the problem is boundaries and the cost of maintaining them.
o they also must maintain loyalty in an empire.
o How do you keep diverse people within a regime?
o How do empires deal with succession?
o When the ruler dies, there is a problem of establishing a new regime.

Problems with empires:

1. Boundaries and costs of maintaining them
2. Internal problems of keeping diverse people within the regime.
3. Succession.

Archaic Global Integration, 1000-1500

 types of rule
o personal rule
o charismatic leaders
o warrior leaders
 forms of expansion
 land and sea networks
 cross cultural enclaves
o trade of high value luxury goods.
o travelled great distances across Eurasia etc.
o Trade was organized among many a cities
o ex. Moscow has original building that was the trading post of the muskaby
company, a British trading company.
 o These trades bring people together.
 movement of knowledge and belief
o held together with religions and faith.
o plants moved around too (refer to Crosby)

1. General Point about “Archaic Globalization”

 type of rule: personal by warriors and unstable
o Territorial “state” systems were more fluid than later
o The strategy of expansion was to coordinate not assimilate
 forms of expansion and mixing: invasion, enclaves, slave
 Land and sea Networks: silk road and Indian Ocean
 Cross Cultural Enclaves: resident merchants from another culture
o Movement of Knowledge and belief: prophets and pilgrims
o Movement is slow and in stages
 Examples covered in lectures over next two weeks: Byzantine Empire and Mongol
Empire
 Also, the example of global integration of a belief system: Islam and it’s the rapid “Arab
conquest of the 8th century.
 Also, the example of movement of major disease: “The Black Death”

The Rise of Empires from the Fall of Empires

 three conditions gave Rome and the Modern Greece the quality of the empire
o wiped out the enemy: Carthage
o Governed by Emperors (succession crises)
o Constantine a “Global Figure” and Constantinople
 set up his town in the abandoned Greek town Byzantium
 had military experience and was aware of military defensive possiblities of
Byzantium
 Constantinople was a choke point city: controlled trade routes from the
mediterranean to the black sea, and from the black see to the silk road.
 The secret to success of Constantinople was galley navies and slaves.
 For like 700 years trading centre.

Byzantine Influenced Art: The Cathedral of Monreale in Sicily, ca. 1180

Byzantine Wealth: SIlks and Precious metals

 textiles
 silver work & silver coin
 main feature of the empire was coining of a reliable currency that served world trade.
 gold coins of a reliable quality and value.

Varangian (Viking) Trade Routes

 Volga vikings
 drawn to the wealth of Byzantine empire as traders
 offered goods that we don’t think of as essential, but were to byzantine empires.
o fur
o honey (a major trade good from the 5th to 15th century)
o wax
o Amber
o Iron
 o Early forms of steel and armaments
o people
 The war galleys were powered by slaves, some supplied by vikings.
 Some of the mercenaries and palace guards were viking soldiers

The Byzantine draws in Italian merchants and traders and Vikings. An empire with a massive
beurocracy. Taxes and tax collectors.

January 15th
Byzantine Empire

 engaged in cunning diplomacy, duplicity and espionage.

 no lasting/enduring alliances.
o from genoa to venice
 Byzantine empire survives by wealth, mercenaries
 Vikings in the army & palace guard
o drawing resources from an immense region
 Constantinople does not have easy access to lots of shit, regardless of the fact that it’s a
choke point.
 1000 years: expanding and contracting Empire. As long as there was an emperor and
money, they can bring it back. (except for at the end.)
 The Byzantine Empire, though it succumbs to the Ottomans, it _____ the north.
 Raid&trade by crusader armies at Constantinople.
o stolen gold, lead from roofs etc.
o Lasting impact between roman catholics and orthodox.
 Constantinople is like ok when Ottoman’s attack, because it’s better than if they were
taken over by

 The big take home point is that Genoa experiments with boats which is then used by
portugese
 Cyril & Methodios
 Missionaries and pilgrims are among the great travellers.
 religious relics are attractions to travellers, and hold power.
 WHen Cyril and methodios move on, they take the greek alphabet with them
o put slavic languages into written form

Eastern Pressure on Byzantium

 arab invasions
 Seljuk Turks (Central Asians who adopted Persian vulture and language)
 Mongols
 Ottoman Turks ( Central Asian in origin like Seljuk Turks)
 ares of the world that were greek speaking etc. those areas become arab.
 Significant ways of migratory people.
 Land based pressure out of Asia

Diffusion of Islam, “the Golden Age’: 620s to 1258 CE

 continuation of conflicts and contacts between East (Persia) and West (Greek city
states; Rome)
 622 Muhammad’s flight from Mecca to Medina
  624 decisive struggle for influence in Arabia
 632 The Prophet’s Death
 630s control of great cities: Damascus and Antioch
 651 Conquest of Persia
 Taken over two thirds of Byzantium
 711 Bukhara and Samarkand (example of rapid spread to the east)
 712 Toledo (example of rapid spread to the west
 752 Confronted China
 Loss of strong identity; heterodoxy and syncretism
 Impact of Europe: The Pirenne theses of conflict and autonomy. vs. Thesis of contact
and accommodate.
 Black Death 1347-50 and contrasting impact on Europe and Islamic world

-
Rise in Islamic empire, and the faith united all of the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula to stop
being smushed by all of the other empires
 2 lions??
 geography assisted the spread of islam and arabic language.
o relatively flat territories
o few natural obstacles
o capacity of horses and camels to move rapidly
 the arab conquerors were usually in a minority position, therefore not particularly
interested in imposing ___ on their people.
o urban based
o not interested in impeding trade relations
o not interested in fucking wit the country life
o early centuries had light administration

Why is Islam not an Empire?

 the hold on the regions was not absolute
 the dynasties were unsteady and changing, internal conflicts.
 the idea of a political unity is a stretch
 a cultural and religious unity is good to go, but not political

The explanations for the arab conquest (decades long v rapid) based on conjecture
 v few accounts of battles

Intellectual Global Integration: The Great Translation

 Baghdad and ‘the house of wisdom ca 700-1258 CE
o collected manuscripts printed on sheepskin
o eastern
 Cordoba as the western house of wisdom ca. 800-1236 CE
o western
o collection of manuscripts
 In Baghdad, patronage of philosophy and libraries; harmonizing Greek philosophy and
Islam; al-kindi “no conflict in the work of god and word of god”
 Medical and pharmacological encyclopedia in 900s CE
 Abu Ali ibn Sina (Avicenna) al-Qanun (the canon); all greco-arabic mediccal knowledge
described and classified
  Algebra reached Cordoba from baghdad around early 800s CE (al kinds wrote four
volumes: “On the Use of the Indian Numerals”)

The sphere of Islamic influence is even larger than actual spread of muslim people
the role of arab/muslim scholars in preserving and developing classical greek knowledge that
later forms the basis of the european renaissance (14th-17th CE)

 Belgian historian Henri Pirenne ca. 1930s

 islamic territoried cut off europe and forced trade and artisan development in northern
europe because muslims cut off supply of papyrus, spices, luxury fabrics, gold coins
 problems: items were available; muslims allowed trade; there were alternate routes e.g..
through Russia
 A discredited thesis that obscured the links and connections between islamic world and
europe.

January 28th
Mongols- nomadic horse people good with a composite bow
 because the mongols had come in contact with empires in the west, and monotheism
and messianic leaders and that some of this religious inspired belief in leadership,
infused the mind of ___ khan.
 Obasad dynasty was in contact with the Mongols
 Another feature of the mongol success was the black or white approach to their
diplomatic missions. If a city capitulated, it could be expected to be received into the
empire. ex. kiev pays taxes and is left alone
 either join with mongol hordes, or resist and expect no mercy.
 In China: mongol rule quickly overthrew dynasty in China and took over. Created their
own dynasty.
 In Europe or heading toward the medditerranean, the mongols almost reach the gates of
vienna. on two occasions attempted to invade japan but a naval invasion was a lil too
hard.

-In 1227 and Ghangis Khan’s death, the mongol empire sort of fragmented.

Mongol Empire Chronology

 1206 mongol state is formed
 1215 first attacks on China; Beijing captured
 1219-1223 First attacks on Russia
 1227- Genghis (or Chinggis) Khan dies and Empire split in four
 1234 Mongols take all of North China
 1235-1279 Mongols take all of South China
 1236-1240 Mongol conquest of Russia
 1240-1241 Mongols probe western Europe
 1258 Mongol destruction of Baghdad by CK’s grandson Hulegu
 1260 the tricky three-way diplomacy and ultimate defeat of Hulegu as Ain Jalut by
Mamluk army fromEgypt led by Baybars
 1271-1295 Journey of Marco Polo
 1274,1280 Yuan/Mongol failed invasions of Japan
 1347 Black Death in Europe
 1380s Mongol/Golden Horde loss of control of Russia
  1526 Babur invades north India

 complex array of powers all in the middle east

 here was a real meeting of civilizations that was accompanied by warfare and pillage.
 a sedentary agricultural civilization confronted a nomadic civilization and army and
defeated it. a turning point.
 The Mongols were in charge of the silk road. Trade routes that connected East Asia with
the black sea and therefore the rest of Europe. Over those Mongol controlled trade
routes was the fabled journey of marco polo (some doubt as to whether he did what he
actually did)
 Pax Mongolica: established weigh stations and collected taxes on silk road. Enforced
legal measures as well. They were good administrators of international trade.

Mongol Art
 diversified cultural roots of mongol art
 the mongols themselves as nomadic peoples may not have made the art, was likely the
people under their rule

Horse People or Nomads, not city builders like Byzantine Empire and Arab-Islamic Dynasties.
The Mongol at Karkorum (1220) was modest but has trade and religious enclaves.
Genghis khan was open to a multitude of religions and welcomed lots of people to his capitol.
They had lots of religious compounds in the capitol.

The Legacy:
 changed the practices of warfare
 introduced speed mobility and tactical surprise
 Their stuff was picked up on by other civilizations and adapted
 Effectively managed the silk road and legally controlled world trade

mongols were pragmatic

Fleas and rodents carried the black death, mongols carried it to genoa and there it went.

Apparently, the mongols hurled bodies over the city walls of genoa and that spread the bubonic
plague.

Pestilence and Plague

The “Black Death”

when, who, where, why and how

Why is this event important to world history?

First Outbreak of Bubonic Plague in Europe: 1347-1350

 in the black sea
 timing at least points to the mongols sending dead bodies over the wall into the town of
____?
 Estimated that 40-50% of the population of western Europe died
  Sea ports did not do well at all
 Cities that closed their doors and enforced quarantine got out pretty well, as well as
valleys in switzerland
 death was quick

Why should we learn about the Black Death?

 decline in population
 ruralisation
 higher demand for labour
o workers prospered immensely after the plague
o concentration of wealth and what not
o labour shortages lead to innovation.
 new means of production due to smaller labour force
 social and religious change
o loosened the power of aristocratic landlords
o and gave a little more to farmers and skilled workers
 cultural change

Wealth is originating in a different locale

 northern Europe
 france flanders england based around textile manufacturing
 significant change in the balance of wealth
 around the year 1300 we have the islamic territories and the fading byzantine empire
and europe is meh
 by 1400 everything is changed.

“nothing like a good pandemic to concentrate the family silverware”- J. Weaver on the impacts
of the Bubonic Plague.

February 24th
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Empires in the Americas
Feb. 24th, 2016

1. From reconquista ti New World: The Organization of Labour

 Aztec Defeat: 1519-1540; Inca 153-1540s
 Three parties to the colonization of “South America”: the conquistadors and their heirs;
the Crown; the Church
 requerimiento (the requirement)
 Franciscans and protection of native Americans; Francesco de Vitora (1483 to 1546)
converse ancestry; Dominican priest: native Americans were a sovereign people;
considered a founder of international law
o Amerindians were deemed people, ‘subjects of the crown’. With souls and not to
be slaves.
o Africans were not considered people, to be excluded from considerations and
protections. Could be treated as property.
 Trusteeship or encomienda; a means to move and consolidate the surviving first peoples
o resettlement, left numerous communities almost empty. Set out to make new
spanish towns or mission communites.
o Conscripted Labour!! Legal differences with this & slavery even though the
practical outcome was similar.
 o Idea that indigenous people owed the crown labour much like the peasants of
Europe.
 Cortes, Pizarro and others who marched with them became ecomendaros with Farms
and villages of native labourers. New labour system of repartimeanto (sharing out) :
drafting labour for mines. Was the Spanish project of resettlement dominant? Not
entirely. Andean society endured.
o supposed to be paid fairly, supposed to be protected, and supposed to be
allowed to go home when term was finished.
o This was not slavery, the labourers were not private property because they
theoretically belonged to the crown. At the disposal of the crown, used by
enterprises in the New World. From the Crown’s perspective, this made it legal.
o This then is a world of complex labour world that uses very cheap indigenous
labour.
o This meant very serious problems for indigenous people.
o The labour draft drew off principally an age group that was essential for family
creation.
o The church was confused. They tried some missions, but the crown shut them
down. Tensions between Church & crown over labour arrangements.
 By the 1600s, the Spaniards had taken over the former empires and were managing
them for silver production.
 The roots of slavery in Atlantic Island then in Portuguese Brazil (sugar).

The Solution to the Portuguese Search for Wealth from the ‘New World’: “The Ecological
Imperialism” of Sugar
 plantations
 a degree of mass production never seen before. These were not just plantations (fields
to be harvested) but included an almost industrial element. Machinery and whatnot to
squeeze profits out of the sugar cane.
 Consequences:
o the forerunner of industrial trade
o Extensive trade networks, an integrator of the world economy
o an impact on a variety of world culture
 Europe: diet change
 Africa: slavery
o Plantation system by the 1700s had begun to be applied to a number of other
cash crops. Ex. tobacco, coffee, cocoa, indigo, cotton. Sugar initiates a wrath of
changes in the new world
Territories in the Portuguese Empire oat One Time or Another: Note Islands off West Africa:
Cape Verde, San Tome, Fernando Po
 gov. hired a company to take care of colonization pratices
 refer to map on slideshow.

From Brazil to Angola to Amsterdam: The Slavery Sugar Connection

 Paulo Dias head of private trading company and colonial government for Angola (a
Portuguese colony from 1575 to 1975)
 Luanda
 Imbangala
 Enter the Dutch

Map from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Data Base: Emory University
  West central africa is one of the principal supply region for new world slaves.

Historians can Disagree: The “Williams Thesis” and the “Fogel and Engerman Thesis”
 Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (1966)
 Profits from slave trade financed British industrial revolution
 Williams was later Prime Ministr of Trinidad and Tobago
 Robert Fogel (Nobel Prize in Economics) and Stanley Engerman, Time on a Cross
(1972)
 Slavery was not an inefficient and would have been adapted to capitalism
 Williams thesis now challenged in its details but valid to claim that slavery provided the
resources (food-sugar and cotton) for the industrial revolution
 Ok this is all from the European and New World perspective. What about Africa. In the
1960s the literature focused on the devastating effects of the slave trade, now its more
middle ground because some coastal tribes traded people for european things.

Tropical Imperialism: The Dutch Empire at One Time or Another

February 26
The Dutch Ascendancy and the First Modern Economy, 1600-1700
 Entrepots or Gateway Cities
o chokepoint cities (organize significant international trade)
o Amsterdam!
 Vermeer
o speak to the domestic life and wealth of Amsterdam
o Amsterdam was eventually overtaken by London
 How did the Dutch become so powerful when they were little and sort of irrelevant?
o how did such a small population do it
o the father of capitalism (ew)
o A new country formed by a successful rebellion against the Hapsburg Empire
 The United Provinces or Dutch Republic
 Dutch advantages: location, engrossing, low cost shipping, high productivity farming, the
dutch state, warehousing, religious and patriotic zeal backing enterprise, artisan
industries, toleration and refugees.

The Confident Republic at War

 patriotism
 military abilities yas
 Dutch maximized cargo space and used simple rigging that didn't require a lot of trained
sailors.
 seems silly but they handled it very cleverly.
 Ship ownership in the Netherlands was usually broken into 64 shares, merchants spread
their shares by diversifying the risk. People would own a fraction of the shares, and then
if one goes down they don’t lose everything. Risk was spread and investment in the
Dutch Cargo fleet came ______ geographically and socially. A means of raising capitol
and spreading risk.
 Dutch agriculture in the 1600s was becoming less labour intensive. Stalling cattle,
feeding them fodder crops rather than herding them.
 Trade companies!
 VOC founded in 1602
Dutch fortified towns: one of the expenditures of the Fiscal Military State
Fiscal Military state: Wealth buys Armies
 mostly wars against the french

VOC Arsenal in Amsterdam, c.1700: The Private Dimension…?

Leading Examples of Men (Adventurers) on the Spot: Hernan Cortes, 1485-1547; Francisco
Pizarro, 1471-1541; but other Empires had them too.

Jan Pieterzoon Coen- one of the most ruthless of colonial governors

 made sure the English did not get Nutmeg.
 Allowed the Dutch to control that spice
 The English were keen for that trade and he was like NO, even if that meant massacres

VOC again!!
 a table here indicating the number of conflicts that the VOC was engaged in the east
indies, operating semi-autonomously from the dutch republic
 working with allies as well, should be pointed out that in maintaining a merc. army, it
recruited japanese soldiers out of Nagasaki
 crushing revolts and such, in 1782 British conquest of ??
 for 150 years the Dutch are engaged in conflicts not only against native rulers but also
rivals like the portuguese, spaniards and the english.

Company gardens cape town

- a public park

March 4th
Dutch Empire Continued?

 Transformation of the Dutch Empire in the late 19th Century

o In common with French and British Empires, the Dutch left behind a history of
plunder and profit for an imperialism of cunning administration and agricultural
science (‘green gold’ and botanic gardens)
 African Oil Palm moved to Buitenzorg in 1848: The origins of the Palm Oil Industry:
Check your snack food labels!
o An african tree
o moved by the Dutch to Indonesia
 The Floracrats: ‘Green Gold’ Scientists of the Dutch, British, and French Empires who
developed products from tropical plants. Botanic science has a business dimension
- trade based empire-> business and good extraction based empire

China
 The Dragon in the Room (haha good one weaver)
 The Enduring Presence of China as the World’s Largest Economy (With a few
exceptions)
o If China has not been the biggest world Economic power, then very close to it.
o China’s economy a world leader for a v. long time
 Sample Achievements in China
o Abacus (calculator) 190 CE
o Anatomy Studies
 o Ball Bearings
o Blast Furnace
o Book
o Suspension Bridge
o Gunpowder
o Topographical Maps
o PORCELAIN 3rd century BCE
o Silk
o etc…
 The Needham Project
o Joseph Needham (1900-1992)
o Science and Civilization in China: a multi-volume history
o The Complete collection of illustrations and writings of Ancient and Modern
Times: nearly 6000 volumes in modern edition; reputedly 170 million characters;
commissioned by an early Qing emperor in 1700 and intended to be the sum of
all Chinese knowledge
 The Needham Question
o Why is the Chinese had been so technologically creative for so long did
MODERN science not develop in China but in Europe and the west?
o Why had China not built on it’s early edge?
o Why was there no firm embrace of capitalism? (bc Capitolism is TRASH)
o The challenge to answering this question is not being so eurocentric
o Why was England the home of the first industrial revolution
o The explanation for England’s industrial revolution had to do with geography.
Geographic determinism. Coal.
o Why did china not and England did: London is a cold city. London has an
appetite for fossil fuel, fortunately it is near at hand by New Castle. Lots of coal in
England. The advantage was that the coal sources in England are close to the
coast. Shipping from New Castle to London was v simple. China’s abundant coal
resources are in fairly remote areas, the rivers are difficult to navigate.
Transportation cost was a lot higher. Coal wasn’t economical for China, but it
was for England and so England was motivated and Chinese were not.
o Overconsumption of coal resulted in deeper and deeper mines and flooding
them, then sparked innovation in terms of crude water pumps to keep mines
clear. Impetus for constant improvement in the technology for the water pumps
and steam engines. This was not feasible in China.
o Only in England: once the technology is in place, it migrates. It doesn’t take long
for the steam engine to move to other places. Technology becomes rapidly
portable. Industrial revolution could only have happened in England, but once
established, other locales can be the home of innovation and adaptations of that
basic technology.
o Europeans refined the arts of war

 The Diamond Question

o why, if China had the elements for long distance navigation and trade, did it not
embark on global colonization?
o navies and treasure fleets sailed as far as india and africa, with compass and
maps, but why did they not embark on global colonization?
o complex explanation
 o Just at the moment when they had the naval capacity, there is a political change
in the court and it goes from being expansionary and reaching out, to being wary
and introverted. An outward looking emperor with ambitions to have connections
with the outside world to an introverted one.
o The ultimate cause might be the argument that why should China take an interest
in other parts of the world when there was a strong belief that the empire didn’t
need anything, because China had all it needed. Chinese emperors thought that
there would be no outside profit in expanding. The parts fit together as it was,
and China had all it need. There was no shortage or desire.
o The argument that it is the prevalent philosophy of confucsionism that blunts the
expansionary attitude. No men on the spot. No ambitious adventurers or
anything.

the Needham and Diamond Answers

 China stopped trying
 but why?
 No mercantile class that was highly esteemed or powerfull
o where do merchants and traders fit into Chinese history?
o merchants were not that esteemed in political ?
 A vast almost homogenous empire and no extensive “intramural” military competition
 The stability of dynasties
 The authority of the emperor’s court
 Is the question flawed?
o this is pretty important
o is there not too much of a myth of Chinese inwardness and self-satisfaction?
o Shouldn’t we look for something else. Chinese expansion, but to look for it in a
different format or in a different representation.
 The myth of Chinese inwardness

 Chinese expansion of manchu dynasty

 expansionary in the 18th century
