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Contents
maps xii Preface xv
Environment + technology xiii About the Authors xix
diversity + dominance xiii Note on Spelling and Usage xx
Material culture xiii INTRODUCTION xxi
Issues in World History xiii
16 The Maritime Revolution, to 1550 386

Conclusion 409
Key Terms 410 • Suggested Reading 411
Global Maritime Expansion Before 1450 388 ● E

NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: Vasco da Gama’s
The Indian Ocean 388 • The Pacific Ocean 391 • The Fleet 398
Atlantic Ocean 392 ● D
IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: Kongo’s Christian King 402
European Expansion, 1400–1550 394 ● I ssues in World History: Climate and Population
Motives for Exploration 394 • Portuguese to 1500 412
Voyages 394 • Spanish Voyages 396
Encounters with Europe, 1450–1550 399
Western Africa 399 • Eastern Africa 401 • Indian Ocean
States 402 • The Americas 406
Part V The Globe Encompassed, 1500–1750 414
17 Transformations in Europe, 18 The Diversity of American Colonial

1500–1750 416 Societies, 1530–1770 444
Culture and Ideas 418 The Columbian Exchange 446

Early Reformation 418 • The Counter-Reformation and Demographic Changes 446 • Transfer of Plants and
the Politics of Religion 420 • Local Religion, Traditional Animals 446
Culture, and Witch-Hunts 422 • The Scientific Spanish America and Brazil 448
Revolution 424 • The Early Enlightenment 425 State and Church 449 • Colonial Economies 452 • Society
Social and Economic Life 426 in Colonial Latin America 455
The Bourgeoisie 426 • Peasants and English and French Colonies in North
Laborers 428 • Women and the Family 431
America 459
Political Innovations 431 Early English Experiments 459 • The South 459 • New
State Development 432 • The Monarchies of England England 461 • The Middle Atlantic Region 462 • French
and France 434 • Warfare and Diplomacy 435 • Paying America 463
the Piper 439
Colonial Expansion and Conflict 466
Conclusion 442 Imperial Reform in Spanish America and
Key Terms 442 • Suggested Reading 443 Brazil 466 • Reform and Reorganization in British
America 467
● E
NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: Mapping the
World 429 Conclusion 468
● D
IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: Commercial Expansion Key Terms 469 • Suggested Reading 469
and Risk 436 ● E
NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: A Silver Refinery at
Potosí, Bolivia, 1700 453
● D
IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: Race and Ethnicity in the
Spanish Colonies: Negotiating Hierarchy 456
vi
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Contents vii
19 The Atlantic System and Africa,

The Russian Empire, 1500–1725 514
The Drive Across Northern Asia 514 • Russian Society and
1550–1800 470 Politics to 1725 516 • Peter the Great 516
The Maritime Worlds of Islam,
Plantations in the West Indies 472 1500–1750 518
Colonization Before 1650 472 • Sugar and Slaves 473 Muslims in Southeast Asia 519 • Muslims in Coastal
Plantation Life in the Eighteenth Africa 519 • European Powers in Southern Seas 521
Century 474 Conclusion 522
Technology and Environment 475 • Slaves’
Lives 476 • Free Whites and Free Blacks 480
● D
IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: Islamic Law and Ottoman
Creating the Atlantic Economy 482 Rule 504
Capitalism and Mercantilism 482 • The Atlantic
Circuit 483 ● E
NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: Tobacco and
Waterpipes 508
Africa, the Atlantic, and Islam 487
The Gold Coast and the Slave Coast 487 • The Bight of
Biafra and Angola 489 • Africa’s European and Islamic
Contacts 490
21 East Asia in Global Perspective 524
CONCLUSION 495 East Asia and Europe 526

Key Terms 496 • Suggested Reading 496 Trading Companies and Missionaries 526 • Chinese
Influences on Europe 527 • Japan and the Europeans 528
● E
NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: Hurricanes and the
Caribbean Plantation Economy 477 The Imjin War and Japanese Unification 529
● IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: Slavery in West Africa and
D Tokugawa Japan and Choson Korea
the Americas 492 to 1800 531
Japanese Reunification and Economic Growth 531
20
• Japanese Elite Decline and Social Crisis 532
Between Europe and China, • Choson Korea 533
1500–1750 498 From Ming to Qing 534
Ming Economic Growth, 1500–1644 534 • Ming Collapse
The Ottoman Empire, to 1750 500 and the Rise of the Qing 536 • Emperor Kangxi 537
Expansion and Frontiers 500 • Central Institutions 502 Tea and Diplomacy 537 • Population Growth and
• Crisis of the Military State, 1585–1650 503 • Economic Environmental Stress 540
Change and Growing Weakness 506 Conclusion 542
The Safavid Empire, 1502–1722 508 Key Terms 543 • Suggested Reading 543
Safavid Society and Religion 508 • A Tale of Two Cities: ● E
NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: East Asian
Isfahan and Istanbul 510 • Economic Crisis and Political
Porcelain 532
Collapse 511
● M
ATERIAL CULTURE: Four-Wheeled Vehicles 535
The Mughal Empire, 1526–1739 512
● D IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: Korean Envoys Meet with
Political Foundations 512 • Hindus and Muslims 513
Hideyoshi Toyotomi 538
• Central Decay and Regional Challenges 513
● I ssues in World History: The Little Ice Age 544
Part VI Revolutions Reshape the World, 1750–1870 546
22 The Early Industrial Revolution,

The Technological Revolution 554
Mass Production: Pottery 554 • Mechanization: The
1760–1851 548 Cotton Industry 555 • The Iron Industry 558 • The Steam
Engine 559 • Railroads 560 • Communication over
Causes of the Industrial Revolution 550 Wires 561
Population Growth 550 • The Agricultural Revolution 550 The Impact of the Early Industrial
Trade and Inventiveness 551 • Britain and Continental Revolution 562
Europe 552 The New Industrial Cities 562 • Rural
Environments 564 • Working Conditions 564 • Changes
in Society 567
viii Contents
New Economic and Political Ideas 568 The Russian Empire 610
Laissez Faire and Its Critics 568 • Protests and Russia and Europe 610 • Russia and Asia 611 • Cultural
Reforms 569 Trends 611
The Limits of Industrialization Outside The Qing Empire 613
the West 570 Economic and Social Disorder 613 • The Opium War and
Egypt 570 • India 571 • China 571 Its Aftermath, 1839–1850 613 • The Taiping Rebellion,
1850–1864 616 • Decentralization at the End of the Qing
Conclusion 572
Empire, 1864–1875 619
Conclusion 622
● D
IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: Adam Smith and the Division
of Labor 556 Key Terms 623 • Suggested Reading 623
● E
NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: Gas Lighting 566 ● E
NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: The Web of War 609
● IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: Chinese Responses to
D
Imperialism 620
23 Revolutionary Changes in the
Atlantic World, 1750–1850 574
25 Nation Building and Economic
Prelude to Revolution: Transformation in the Americas,
The Eighteenth-Century Crisis 576 1800–1890 624
Colonial Wars and Fiscal Crises 576 • The Enlightenment
and the Old Order 576 • Folk Cultures and Popular Independence in Latin America,
Protest 578 1800–1830 626
The American Revolution, 1775–1800 580 Roots of Revolution, to 1810 626 • Spanish South America,
Frontiers and Taxes 580 • The Course of Revolution, 1810–1825 626 • Mexico, 1810–1823 628
1775–1783 581 • The Construction of Republican • Brazil, to 1831 630
Institutions, to 1800 583 The Problem of Order, 1825–1890 630
The French Revolution, 1789–1815 584 Constitutional Experiments 631 • Personalist
French Society and Fiscal Crisis 585 • Protest Leaders 631 • The Threat of Regionalism 634 • Foreign
Turns to Revolution, 1789–1792 586 • The Terror, Interventions and Regional Wars 636 • Native Peoples and
1793–1794 588 • Reaction and the Rise of Napoleon, the Nation-State 637
1795–1815 589 The Challenge of Social and Economic
Revolution Spreads, Conservatives Change 639
Respond, 1789–1850 592 The Abolition of Slavery 639 • Immigration 641
The Haitian Revolution, 1789–1804 593 • The Congress • American Cultures 643 • Women’s Rights and the
of Vienna and Conservative Retrenchment, 1815–1820 596 Struggle for Social Justice 644 • Development and
• Nationalism, Reform, and Revolution, 1821–1850 596 Underdevelopment 645 • Altered Environments 648
Conclusion 598 Conclusion 649
Key Terms 598 • Suggested Reading 599 Key Terms 650 • Suggested Reading 651
● E
NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: The Guillotine 589 ● D
IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: The Afro-Brazilian
● IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: Robespierre and
D Experience, 1828 632
Wollstonecraft Defend and Explain the Terror 590 ● E
NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: Industrializing Sugar
Agriculture in Cuba 646
24 Land Empires in the Age

● I ssues in World History: State Power, the Census,
and the Question of Identity 652
of Imperialism, 1800–1870 600
The Ottoman Empire 602

Egypt and the Napoleonic Example 602 • Ottoman Reform
and the European Model, 1807–1853 603 • The Crimean
War and Its Aftermath 607
Contents ix
Part VII Global Diversity and Dominance, 1750–1945 654
26 Varieties of Imperialism in Africa,

Nationalism and the Rise of Italy,
Germany, and Japan 698
India, Southeast Asia, and Latin Language and National Identity in Europe Before 1871 698 •
America, 1750–1914 656 The Unification of Italy, 1860–1870 698 • The Unification of
Germany, 1866–1871 699 • The West Challenges Japan 700
• The Meiji Restoration and the Modernization of Japan,
Changes and Exchanges in Africa 658
1868–1894 702 • Nationalism and Social Darwinism 704
Southern Africa 658 • West and Equatorial
Africa 661 • The Berlin Conference 662 • Modernization The Great Powers of Europe, 1871–1900 706
in Egypt and Ethiopia 664 • Transition from the Slave Germany at the Center of Europe 706 • The Liberal
Trade 665 • Secondary Empire in Eastern Africa 666 Powers: France and Great Britain 706 • The Conservative
Powers: Russia and Austria-Hungary 707
India Under British Rule 666
East India Company 667 • Political Reform and Industrial China, Japan, and the Western Powers 708
Impact 668 • Indian Nationalism 670 China in Turmoil 708 • Japan Confronts China 709
Southeast Asia and the Pacific 670 Conclusion 710
Australia 671 • New Zealand 671 • Hawaii and the Key Terms 710 • Suggested Reading 711
Philippines, 1878–1902 673
● E
NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: Railroads and
Imperialism in Latin America 674 Immigration 692
American Expansionism and the Spanish-American War, ● M
ATERIAL CULTURE: Cotton Clothing 695
1898 674 • Economic Imperialism 674 • Revolution and
● D
IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: Giuseppe Mazzini on
Civil War in Mexico 675 • American Intervention in the
Revolutionary Nationalism 702
Caribbean and Central America, 1901–1914 678
The World Economy and the Global
Environment 678 28 The Crisis of the Imperial Order,
Expansion of the World Economy 679 • Free Trade 679
• New Labor Migrations 681
1900–1929 712
Conclusion 682 Origins of the Crisis in Europe

Key Terms 682 • Suggested Reading 683 and the Middle East 713
● D
IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: Two Africans Recall the The Ottoman Empire and the Balkans 713 • Nationalism,
Arrival of the Europeans 662 Alliances, and Military Strategy 714
● E
NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: Imperialism and The “Great War” and the Russian
Tropical Ecology 680 Revolutions, 1914–1918 715
Stalemate, 1914–1917 715 • The Home Front and the War
Economy 717 • The Ottoman Empire at War 719 •
27 The New Power Balance, Double Revolution in Russia 720 • The End of the War in
Western Europe, 1917–1918 721
1850–1900 684
Peace and Dislocation in Europe,
New Technologies and the World 1919–1929 721
Economy 686 The Impact of the War 721 • The Peace Treaties 722
Railroads 686 • Steamships and Telegraph Cables 686 • • Russian Civil War and the New Economic Policy 723
The Steel and Chemical Industries 687 • Environmental • An Ephemeral Peace 724
Problems 688 • Electricity 688 • World Trade and China and Japan: Contrasting
Finance 689 Destinies 725
Social Changes 690 Social and Economic Change 725 • Revolution and War,
Population and Migrations 690 • Urbanization and Urban 1900–1918 727 • Chinese Warlords and the Guomindang,
Environments 691 • Middle-Class Women’s “Separate 1919–1929 727
Sphere” 693 • Working-Class Women 694 The New Middle East 728
Socialism and Labor Movements 696 The Mandate System 728 • The Rise of Modern Turkey 728
Revolutionary Alternatives 696 • Labor Unions and • Arab Lands and the Question of Palestine 729
Movements 697 Conclusion 734
x Contents
● D
IVERSITY + DOMINANCE:
War I 730
The Middle East After World
30 The Collapse of the Old Order,
● E
NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: Oil and War 734 1929–1949 762
The Stalin Revolution 764

29 Revolutions in Living, 1900–1950 736 Five-Year Plans 764 • Collectivization of Agriculture 764
• Terror and Opportunities 766
New Technology Outside the The Depression 766
Industrialized World 738 Economic Crisis 767 • Depression in Industrial
Urbanization 738 • Electricity 739 • New Media 741 Nations 767 • Depression in Nonindustrial Regions 768
New Ways of Living in the Industrialized The Rise of Fascism 770
World 742 Mussolini’s Italy 770 • Hitler’s Germany 770 • The Road
Identity 742 • Women’s Lives 743 • Revolution in to War, 1933–1939 771
the Sciences: The New Physics 743 • The New Social
Sciences 744 • New Technologies and Activities 744 •
East Asia, 1931–1945 772
The Manchurian Incident of 1931 772 • The Long
Technology and the Environment 746
March 773 • The Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1945 774
A New India, 1905–1947 748
The Land and the People 748 • British Rule and
The Second World War 775
The War of Movement 775 • War in Europe and North
Indian Nationalism 749 • Mahatma Gandhi and
Africa 776 • War in Asia and the Pacific 778 • The End of
Militant Nonviolence 751 • India Moves Toward
War 778 • Collapse of the Guomindang and Communist
Independence 752 • Partition and Independence 754
Victory 780
Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil, 1917–1949 754
The Cárdenas Reforms 755 • The Transformation of
The Character of Warfare 781
The Science and Technology of War 782 • Bombing
Argentina 755 • Brazil and Argentina, to 1929 755 •
Raids 782 • The Holocaust 782 • The Home Front in
The Depression and the Vargas Regime in Brazil 756 •
Europe and Asia 784 • The Home Front in the United
Argentina After 1930 757
States 784 • War and the Environment 785
Sub-Saharan Africa, 1900–1945 757
Colonial Africa: Economic and Social Changes 758 •
Conclusion 785
Religious and Political Changes 759 • Africa and the New Key Terms 786 • Suggested Reading 787
Media 760 ● D
IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: Women, Family Values,
Conclusion 760 and the Russian Revolution 768
Key Terms 761 • Suggested Reading 761 ● E NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: The Magnetophon 783
● M
ATERIAL CULTURE: Bells, Gongs, and Drums 740 ● I ssues in World History: Famines and Politics 788
● NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: New Materials 747

E
● IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: Gandhi and the Media 752
D
PART VIII Perils and Promises of a Global Community, 1945 to the Present 790
31 The Cold War and Decolonization,

Beyond a Bipolar World 810
The Third World 810 • Japan and China 811 • The Middle
1945–1975 792 East 813 • The Emergence of Environmental Concerns 815
Conclusion 816
The Cold War 794
The United Nations 794 • Capitalism and
Communism 795 • West Versus East in Europe and ● E
NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: The Green
Korea 798 • The United States and Vietnam 800 • The Revolution 796
Race for Nuclear Supremacy 801 ● D
IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: Race and the Struggle for
Decolonization and Nation Building 802 Justice in South Africa 808
New Nations in South and Southeast Asia 802 • The
Struggle for Independence in Africa 804 • The Quest for
Economic Freedom in Latin America 807
Contents xi
32 The End of the Cold War and the

● D
IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: The Struggle for Women’s
Rights in an Era of Global Political and Economic
Challenge of Economic Development Change 826
and Immigration, 1975–2000 818 ● NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: Connected 841
E
● ATERIAL CULTURE: Fast Food 842
M
Postcolonial Crises and Asian Economic
Expansion 820
Revolutions, Repression, and Democratic Reform in 33 New Challenges in a New
Latin America 820 • Islamic Revolutions in Iran and Millennium 848
Afghanistan 823 • Asian Transformation 825 • China
Rejoins the World Economy 826 Globalization and Economic Crisis 850
The End of the Bipolar World 828 An Interconnected Economy 850 • Global Financial
Crisis in the Soviet Union 828 • The Collapse of the Crisis 852 • Globalization and Democracy 855 • Regime
Socialist Bloc 829 • Africa in the Era of Global Political Change in Iraq and Afghanistan 856
Change 830 • The Persian Gulf War 830 The Question of Values 858
The Challenge of Population Growth 831 Faith and Politics 858 • Universal Rights and Values 859
Demographic Transition 832 • The Industrialized • Women’s Rights 865
Nations 834 • The Developing Nations 834 • Old and Global Culture 866
Young Populations 835 The Media and the Message 866 • The Spread of Pop
Unequal Development and the Culture 867 • Emerging Global Elite Culture 868
Movement of Peoples 835 • Enduring Cultural Diversity 870
The Problem of Inequality 837 • Internal Migration: The ● D
IVERSITY + DOMINANCE: Conflict and Civilization 860
Growth of Cities 838 • Global Migration 839 ● NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: Global Warming 864
E
Technological and Environmental Key Terms 871 • Suggested Reading 871
Change 839
New Technologies and the World Economy 840
INDEX I-1
• Conserving and Sharing Resources 841 • Responding to
Environmental Threats 843
Conclusion 845
Maps
16.1 Exploration and Settlement in the Indian and Pacific 25.4 The Expansion of the United States, 1850–1920 647
Oceans Before 1500 392 26.1 Africa in the Nineteenth Century 660
16.2 Middle America to 1533 393 26.2 Asia in 1914 672
16.3 European Exploration, 1420–1542 397 26.3 The Mexican Revolution 676
17.1 Religious Reformation in Europe 421 27.1 Unification of Italy, 1860–1870 699
17.2 The European Empire of Charles V 433 27.2 Unification of Germany, 1866–1871 701
17.3 Europe in 1740 438 27.3 Expansion and Modernization of Japan,
18.1 Colonial Latin America in the Eighteenth 1868–1918 704
Century 450 28.1 Europe in 1913 716
18.2 European Claims in North America, 1755–1763 465 28.2 The First World War in Europe 718
19.1 The Atlantic Economy 484 28.3 Territorial Changes in Europe After
19.2 The African Slave Trade, 1500–1800 486 World War I 723
19.3 West African States and Trade, 1500–1800 488 28.4 Territorial Changes in the Middle East After
20.1 Muslim Empires in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth World War I 732
Centuries 502 29.1 The Partition of India, 1947 748
20.2 The Expansion of Russia, 1500–1800 515 30.1 Chinese Communist Movement and the
20.3 European Colonization in the Indian Ocean, Sino-Japanese War, to 1938 774
to 1750 520 30.2 World War II in Europe and North Africa 777
21.1 The Qing Empire, 1644–1783 536 30.3 World War II in Asia and the Pacific 779
21.2 Climate and Diversity in the Qing Empire 541 31.1 Cold War Confrontation 799
22.1 The Industrial Revolution in Britain, ca. 1850 553 31.2 Decolonization, 1947–1990 803
22.2 Industrialization in Europe, ca. 1850 563 31.3 Middle East Oil and the Arab-Israeli Conflict,
23.1 The American Revolutionary War 583 1947–1973 814
23.2 Napoleon’s Europe, 1810 594 32.1 The End of the Soviet Union 831
23.3 The Haitian Revolution 595 32.2 World Population Growth 836
24.1 The Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1829–1914 604 32.3 Fresh Water Resources 844
24.2 Conflicts in the Qing Empire, 1839–1870 615 33.1 Global Distribution of Wealth 853
25.1 Latin America by 1830 629 33.2 Regional Trade Associations, 2004 854
25.2 Dominion of Canada, 1873 634 33.3 World Religions 862
25.3 Territorial Growth of the United States,
1783–1853 635
xii
Features
E N VIR ON ME N T + TE C HN O LO GY
Vasco da Gama’s Fleet 398 Industrializing Sugar Agriculture in Cuba 646
Mapping the World 429 Imperialism and Tropical Ecology 680
A Silver Refinery at Potosí, Bolivia, 1700 453 Railroads and Immigration 692
Hurricanes and the Caribbean Plantation Economy 477 Oil and War 734
Tobacco and Waterpipes 508 New Materials 747
East Asian Porcelain 532 The Magnetophon 783
Gas Lighting 566 The Green Revolution 796
The Guillotine 589 Connected 841
The Web of War 609 Global Warming 864
D IVE R S IT Y + D OMIN AN C E
Chinese Responses to Imperialism 620
Kongo’s Christian King 402 The Afro-Brazilian Experience, 1828 632
Commercial Expansion and Risk 436 Two Africans Recall the Arrival of the Europeans 662
Race and Ethnicity in the Spanish Colonies: Negotiating Giuseppe Mazzini on Revolutionary Nationalism 702
Hierarchy 456 The Middle East After World War I 730
Slavery in West Africa and the Americas 492 Gandhi and the Media 752
Islamic Law and Ottoman Rule 504 Women, Family Values, and the Russian Revolution 768
Korean Envoys Meet with Hideyoshi Toyotomi 538 Race and the Struggle for Justice in South Africa 808
Adam Smith and the Division of Labor 556 The Struggle for Women’s Rights in an Era of Global
Robespierre and Wollstonecraft Defend and Explain Political and Economic Change 826
the Terror 590 Conflict and Civilization 860
Material C ultu re
Four-Wheeled Vehicles 535
Cotton Clothing 695
Bells, Gongs, and Drums 740
Fast Food 842
I ss u es in World History
Climate and Population to 1500 412
The Little Ice Age 544
State Power, the Census, and the Question of Identity 652
Famines and Politics 788
xiii
Preface
In preparing the sixth edition of this book, we examined the flow of they could. We believe that our efforts will help students see where
topics from chapter to chapter and decided that certain rearrange- their world has come from and learn thereby something useful for
ments within chapters and in the order of chapters would accommo- their own lives.
date the needs of instructors and students better than the template
they had followed since the first edition. The first change was revers-
ing the order of the third and fourth chapters to have early Mediter- CENTRAL THEMES AND GOALS
ranean and Middle Eastern history directly follow the discussion of
the origins of civilization in the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia. We subtitled The Earth and Its Peoples “A Global History” because
The second change addressed the problem of when and how to the book explores the common challenges and experiences that
discuss the history of pre-Columbian America. The time span to be unite the human past. Although the dispersal of early humans to
covered, ranging from roughly 1500 b.c.e. to 1500 c.e., was too long every livable environment resulted in a myriad of different eco-
to fit easily into the book’s division into eight parts. The new struc- nomic, social, political, and cultural systems, all societies displayed
ture we have adopted relocates the long pre-Aztec and pre-Inka analogous patterns in meeting their needs and exploiting their
narrative from Part III, Growth and Interaction of Cultural Com- environments. Our challenge was to select the particular data and
munities, to the end of Part II, The Formation of New Cultural Com- episodes that would best illuminate these global patterns of human
munities. This change puts the status of the earliest civilizations in experience.
the Western Hemisphere on the same footing as the civilizations of To meet this challenge, we adopted two themes for our history:
early Greece, China, and South and Southeast Asia. It has the added “technology and the environment” and “diversity and dominance.”
benefit of making the history of East Asia in the Tang and Song peri- The first theme represents the commonplace material bases of all
ods directly precede the history of the Mongol empire, which allows human societies at all times. It grants no special favor to any cultural
instructors to have an uninterrupted focus on East Asia. The his- group even as it embraces subjects of the broadest topical, chrono-
tories of the Aztecs and Inkas have been shifted to the chapter on logical, and geographical range. The second theme expresses the
tropical history located in Part IV, Interregional Patterns of Culture reality that every human society has constructed or inherited struc-
and Contact. This allows for a discussion of the overall influence of tures of domination. We examine practices and institutions of many
tropical environments and places them in close proximity to our sorts: military, economic, social, political, religious, and cultural,
treatment of the coming of Europeans to the New World. as well as those based on kinship, gender, and literacy. Simultane-
A third structural change has shortened the length of the book ously we recognize that alternative ways of life and visions of soci-
from 34 to 33 chapters. To lessen the impression that Europe’s domi- etal organization continually manifest themselves both within and
nation of the world should always be the primary focus of student in dialogue with every structure of domination.
attention between the eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries we With respect to the first theme, it is vital for students to under-
have combined the two separate chapters on European imperial- stand that technology, in the broad sense of experience-based
ism, Chapters 26 and 28 in previous editions, into one. We feel that knowledge of the physical world, underlies all human activity. Writ-
this change provides a better balance between the saga of European ing is a technology, but so is oral transmission from generation to
imperialism, accounts of resistance to imperialism, and the rise of generation of lore about medicinal or poisonous plants. The mag-
independence movements in different parts of the world. netic compass is a navigational technology, but so is Polynesian
In a related change, we have relocated the chapter dealing with mariners’ hard-won knowledge of winds, currents, and tides that
the histories of India, Latin America, and Africa in the first half of made possible the settlement of the Pacific islands.
the twentieth century from after World War II, the old Chapter 31, All technological development has come about in interac-
to a position between the world wars. The aim of this chapter, titled tion with environments, both physical and human, and has, in
“Revolutions in Living,” is to portray that period not only as a time of turn, affected those environments. The story of how humanity has
political change in parts of the world subjected to European impe- changed the face of the globe is an integral part of our first theme.
rialism, but also as one of transformation of daily lives of people in Yet technology and the environment do not explain or underlie all
both the industrialized and nonindustrialized worlds. The added important episodes of human experience. The theme of “diversity
focus of the chapter fills a gap between discussion of the Indus- and dominance” informs all our discussions of politics, culture, and
trial Revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the society. Thus when narrating the histories of empires, we describe a
advent of major technological changes in the post-World War II era. range of human experiences within and beyond the imperial fron-
Finally in this new edition, contributor and East Asian specialist tiers without assuming that imperial institutions are a more fit topic
Michael Wert of Marquette University brought a fresh perspective to for discussion than the economic and social organization of pastoral
many of our chapters dealing with East Asia, helping ensure that our nomads or the lives of peasant women. When religion and culture
coverage is at the forefront of emerging scholarship. occupy our narrative, we focus not only on the dominant tradition
The authors believe that these changes, along with myriad but also on the diversity of alternative beliefs and practices.
smaller changes detailed below, significantly enhance the over-
all goal of The Earth and Its Peoples, namely, to be a textbook that
speaks not only for the past but also to today’s student and teacher. ORGANIZATION
Students and instructors alike should take away from this text a
broad, and due to the changes, more flowing impression of human The Earth and Its Peoples uses eight broad chronological divisions to
societies beginning as sparse and disconnected communities react- define its conceptual scheme of global historical development.
ing creatively to local circumstances; experiencing ever more inten- In Part One: The Emergence of Human Communities, to 500
sive stages of contact, interpenetration, and cultural expansion and b.c.e., we examine important patterns of human communal orga-
amalgamation; and arriving at a twenty-first-century world in which nization primarily in the Eastern Hemisphere. Small, dispersed
people increasingly visualize a single global community. human communities living by foraging spread to most parts of the
Process, not progress, is the keynote of this book: a steady pro- world over tens of thousands of years. They responded to enor-
cess of change over time, at first experienced differently in various mously diverse environmental conditions, at different times in
regions, but eventually connecting peoples and traditions from all different ways, discovering how to cultivate plants and utilize the
parts of the globe. Students should come away from this book with products of domestic animals. On the basis of these new modes of
a sense that the problems and promises of their world are rooted in sustenance, population grew, permanent towns appeared, and
a past in which people of every sort, in every part of the world, con- political and religious authority, based on collection and control of
fronted problems of a similar character and coped with them as best agricultural surpluses, spread over extensive areas.
xvi Preface
Part Two: The Formation of New Cultural Communities, 1000

b.c.e.–400 c.e., introduces the concept of a “cultural community,” in FEATURES AND NEW
the sense of a coherent pattern of activities and symbols pertaining to
a specific human community. While all human communities develop
PEDAGOGICAL AIDS
distinctive cultures, including those discussed in Part One, historical As with previous editions, the sixth edition offers a number of valu-
development in this stage of global history prolonged and magnified able features and pedagogical aids designed to pique student interest
the impact of some cultures more than others. In the geographically in specific world history topics and help them process and retain key
contiguous African-Eurasian landmass, as well as in the Western information. Historical essays for each of the eight parts called Issues
Hemisphere, the cultures that proved to have the most enduring in World History are specifically designed to alert students to broad
influence traced their roots to the second and first millennia b.c.e. and recurring conceptual issues that are of great interest to contem-
Part Three: Growth and Interaction of Cultural Communi- porary historians; this feature has proved to be an instructor and stu-
ties, 300 b.c.e.–1200 c.e., deals with early episodes of technologi- dent favorite. Six in-chapter essays on Material Culture call particular
cal, social, and cultural exchange and interaction on a continental attention to the many ways in which objects and processes of everyday
scale both within and beyond the framework of imperial expansion. life can play a role in understanding human history on a broad scale.
These are so different from earlier interactions arising from more Thus essays like “Bells, Gongs, and Drums” and “Lamps and Candles”
limited conquests or extensions of political boundaries that they are not only interesting in and of themselves but also suggestive of
constitute a distinct era in world history, an era that set the world on how today’s world historians find meaning in the ordinary dimen-
the path of increasing global interaction and interdependence that it sions of human life. The Environment and Technology feature, which
has been following ever since. has been a valuable resource in all prior editions of The Earth and Its
In Part Four: Interregional Patterns of Culture and Contact, Peoples, serves to illuminate the major theme of the text by demon-
1200–1550, we look at the world during the three and a half cen- strating the shared material bases of all human societies across time.
turies that saw both intensified cultural and commercial contact Finally, Diversity and Dominance, also core to the theme of the text,
and increasingly confident self-definition of cultural communities is the primary source feature that brings a myriad of real historical
in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The Mongol conquest of voices to life in a common struggle for power and autonomy.
a vast empire extending from the Pacific Ocean to eastern Europe Pedagogical aids include the following:
greatly stimulated trade and interaction. In the West, strengthened Chapter Opening Focus Questions These questions are keyed to
European kingdoms began maritime expansion in the Atlantic, every major subdivision of the chapter and serve to help students
forging direct ties with sub-Saharan Africa and entering into con- focus on the core chapter concepts.
flict with the civilizations of the Western Hemisphere. Section Reviews Short bullet-point reviews summarize each
Part Five: The Globe Encompassed, 1500–1750, treats a period major section in every chapter and remind students of key
dominated by the global effects of European expansion and contin-
information.
ued economic growth. European ships took over, expanded, and Chapter Conclusions Every chapter ends with a comparative
extended the maritime trade of the Indian Ocean, coastal Africa,
conclusion that helps students better synthesize chapter material
and the Asian rim of the Pacific Ocean. This maritime commercial
and understand how it fits into the larger picture.
enterprise had its counterpart in European colonial empires in the
Marginal Key Term with Definitions Students can handily find
Americas and a new Atlantic trading system. The contrasting capac-
ities and fortunes of traditional land empires and new maritime key term definitions on the same page where the term first appears.
Pronunciation Guide Hard-to-pronounce words are spelled pho-
empires, along with the exchange of domestic plants and animals
between the hemispheres, underline the technological and environ- netically for students throughout the text.
mental dimensions of this first era of complete global interaction.
In Part Six: Revolutions Reshape the World, 1750–1870, the
word revolution is used in several senses: in the political sense of gov-
CHANGES IN THIS EDITION
ernmental overthrow, as in France and the Americas; in the meta- In addition to the pedagogical aids outlined above, numerous chap-
phorical sense of radical transformative change, as in the Industrial ter-by-chapter changes have been made, including new illustrations,
Revolution; and in the broadest sense of a perception of a profound new maps, streamlining of the textual discussion, and updates to
change in circumstances and worldview. Technology and environ- many of the boxed feature essays. Here are a few highlights:
ment lie at the core of these developments. With the rapid ascendancy In Chapter 1 the feature on “Cave Art” has been expanded.
of the Western belief that science and technology could overcome all Chapter 4 descriptions of early civilizations in the Western Hemi-
challenges—environmental or otherwise—technology became an sphere have been shifted to Chapter 8 in order to facilitate a more
instrument not only of transformation but also of domination, to the unified discussion of Pre-Columbian America.
point of threatening the integrity and autonomy of cultural traditions Chapter 4 also contains a substantial new section on pastoral
in nonindustrial lands and provoking strong movements of resistance.
nomadism in the Eurasian steppe. Chapter 6 has a new Diversity
Part Seven: Global Diversity and Dominance, 1750–1945,
and Dominance feature, “Socioeconomic Mobility: Winners and
examines the development of a world arena in which people con-
Losers in Imperial Rome and Han China,” and a new Environ-
ceived of events on a global scale. Imperialism, international eco-
nomic connections, and world-encompassing ideological tenden- ment and Technology feature, “Ancient Glass.” A Material Culture
cies, such as nationalism and socialism, present the picture of a essay, “Lamps and Candles,” has also been added.
Chapter 8 has been extensively revised. Discussion of the Olmec
globe becoming increasingly involved with European political and
ideological concerns. Two world wars arising from European rival- and Chavín have been moved from Chapter 3 and the discussion of
ries provide a climax to these developments, and European exhaus- the Toltec, Tiwanaku, Wari, and Chimú civilizations expanded. Dis-
tion affords other parts of the world new opportunities for indepen- cussion of the Aztec and Inka civilizations appears in Chapter 15.
dence and self-expression. Chapter 9 includes discussion of early Egyptian archaeological
For Part Eight: Perils and Promises of a Global Community, site of Nabta Playa.
1945 to the Present, we divide the period since World War II into three Chapter 12 contains expanded coverage of Korea.
time periods: 1945–1975, 1975–2000, and 2000 to the present. The Chapter 13 contains expanded coverage of Vietnam and Yunnan
challenges of the Cold War and postcolonial nation building domi- province in southwest China.
nate much of the period and unleash global economic, technological, Chapter 14 has expanded coverage of eastern Europe and the
and political forces that become increasingly important in all aspects Ottoman empire.
of human life. With the end of the Cold War, however, new forces come Chapter 15 bears a new title, “Southern Empires, Southern Seas,”
to the fore. Technology is a key topic in Part Eight because of its inte- and includes treatment of the Aztec and Inka empires that were
gral role in both the growth and the problems of a global community. previously covered much earlier in the book.
However, its many benefits in improving the quality of life become Chapter 16 reflects new research on South Asian and Polynesian
clouded by negative impacts on the environment. maritime cultures.
Preface xvii
Chapter 17 includes a new feature devoted to the first joint stock com- student effort and engagement. Founded by a professor to enhance
pany and foreign trade. Coverage of early capitalism is expanded to his own courses, Aplia provides automatically graded assignments
include a discussion of stock markets and speculative bubbles like with detailed, immediate explanations on every question. The
the Tulip, South Sea, and Mississippi Company frenzies. interactive assignments have been developed to address the major
Chapter 19 includes a new feature, “Hurricanes and the Carib- concepts covered in The Earth and Its Peoples and are designed to
bean Plantation Economy.” promote critical thinking and engage students more fully in learn-
Chapter 20 has expanded to include the history of Russia, hence a ing. Question types include questions built around animated maps,
new opening that features a Russian popular hero and the change of primary sources such as newspaper extracts, or imagined scenarios,
title to “Territorial Empires Between Europe and China.” like engaging in a conversation with a historical figure or finding a
Chapter 21 has a new discussion of Korean history and the diary and being asked to fill in some blanks; more in-depth primary
Imjin War. source question sets address a major topic with a number of related
Chapters 22–23 have been reversed in sequence to provide better primary sources and questions that promote deeper analysis of his-
continuity to discussions of revolutions in Europe and parallel torical evidence. Many of the questions incorporate images, video
changes in the Americas. clips, or audio clips. Students get immediate feedback on their work
Chapter 22 includes a new discussion of proto-industrialization (not only what they got right or wrong, but why), and they can choose
as well as augmented discussions of the spread of industrializa- to see another set of related questions if they want more practice. A
tion to continental Europe and North America and the early searchable eBook is available inside the course as well so that stu-
dents can easily reference it as they work. Map-reading and writing
career of Karl Marx. The section “Protest and Reform” has been
tutorials are also available to get students off to a good start.
broadly revised to include machine breaking in the textile sector
Aplia’s simple-to-use course management interface allows
and rural resistance to mechanization in the Captain Swing riots.
instructors to post announcements, upload course materials, host stu-
Chapter 25 has a new feature: “Industrializing Sugar Agriculture
dent discussions, e-mail students, and manage the gradebook; a knowl-
in Cuba.” edgeable and friendly support team offers assistance and personalized
Chapter 26 combines accounts of European imperialism that support in customizing assignments to the instructor’s course sched-
were previously contained in this chapter and in Chapter 28. ule. To learn more and view a demo for this book, visit www.aplia.com.
Chapter 27 features a revised discussion of early Japanese indus-
trialization as well as an expanded treatment of Marx and Marx- MindTap Reader for The Earth and Its Peoples is an eBook specifi-
ism and a new discussion of Mikhail Bakunin and anarchism. cally designed to address the ways students assimilate content and
The chapter also includes a new feature: “Giuseppe Mazzini on media assets. MindTap Reader combines thoughtful navigation
Revolutionary Nationalism.” ergonomics, advanced student annotation, note-taking, and search
Chapter 29 combines in a new chapter a discussion of technol- tools, and embedded media assets such as video and MP3 chapter
ogy and lifestyle changes that occurred between 1900 and 1945 summaries, primary source documents with critical thinking ques-
with accounts of political movements in India, Latin America, tions, and interactive (zoomable) maps. Students can use the eBook
and Africa that were previously located in Chapter 31. Highlights as their primary text or as a multimedia companion to their printed
include a Diversity and Dominance feature, “Gandhi and the book. The MindTap Reader eBook is available within the MindTap
Media,” an Environment and Technology feature, “New Materi- and Aplia online offerings found at www.cengagebrain.com.
als,” and a Material Culture essay, “Bells, Gongs, and Drums.” Online PowerLecture with Cognero® [ISBN: 9781285455013]
Chapter 30 includes a new Environment and Technology feature, This PowerLecture is an all-in-one online multimedia resource for
“The Magnetophon.” class preparation, presentation, and testing. Accessible through
Chapter 31 includes an updated discussion about the Cold War Cengage.com/login with your faculty account, you will find avail-
confrontation between West and East plus a revised discussion of able for download: book-specific Microsoft® PowerPoint® presenta-
apartheid and South Africa’s struggle for independence. tions; a Test Bank in both Microsoft® Word® and Cognero® formats; an
Chapter 32 contains a thoroughly updated feature, “Connected” to Instructor Manual; Microsoft® PowerPoint® Image Slides; and a JPEG
include discussion and pictures of the latest technology. The best Image Library.
current data are included in the demographic tables and discussion. The Test Bank, offered in Microsoft® Word® and Cognero® for-
Chapter 33 updates world affairs through the first half of 2013 and mats, contains multiple-choice and essay questions for each chapter.
incorporates new statistical information on maps. Cognero® is a flexible, online system that allows you to author, edit,
and manage test bank content for The Earth and Its People, sixth edi-
FORMATS tion. Create multiple test versions instantly and deliver through your
LMS from your classroom, or wherever you may be, with no special
installs or downloads required.
To accommodate different academic calendars and approaches to The Instructor’s Manual contains for each chapter: an out-
the course, The Earth and Its Peoples is available in three formats. line and summary; critical thinking questions; in-class activities;
There is a one-volume hardcover version containing all 33 chap- lecture launching suggestions; a list of key terms with definitions;
ters, along with a two-volume paperback edition: Volume I: To 1550 and suggested readings and Web resources. The Microsoft® Power-
(Chapters 1–16) and Volume II: Since 1500 (Chapters 16–33). For Point® presentations are ready-to-use, visual outlines of each chap-
readers at institutions with the quarter system, we offer a three- ter. These presentations are easily customized for your lectures and
volume paperback version: Volume A: To 1200 (Chapters 1–12), offered along with chapter-specific Microsoft® PowerPoint® Image
Volume B: From 1200 to 1870 (Chapters 12–25), and Volume C: Since Slides and JPEG Image Libraries. Access your Online PowerLecture
1750 (Chapters 22–33). Volume II includes an Introduction that at www.cengage.com/login.
surveys the main developments set out in Volume I and provides a
groundwork for students studying only the period since 1500. History CourseMate Cengage Learning’s History CourseMate
brings course concepts to life with interactive learning, study tools,
ANCILLARIES and exam preparation tools that support the printed textbook. Use
Engagement Tracker to monitor student engagement in the course
and watch student comprehension soar as your class works with the
A wide array of supplements accompany this text to assist students printed textbook and the textbook-specific website. An interactive
with different learning needs and to help instructors master today’s eBook allows students to take notes, highlight, search, and interact
various classroom challenges. with embedded media (such as quizzes, flashcards, primary sources,
and videos). Learn more at www.cengage.com/coursemate.
Instructor Resources CourseReader CourseReader is an online collection of primary
Aplia™ [ISBN: 9781285768113] is an online interactive learning and secondary sources that lets you create a customized electronic
solution that improves comprehension and outcomes by increasing reader in minutes. With an easy-to-use interface and assessment
xviii Preface
tool, you can choose exactly what your students will be assigned— ate for writing and research methods courses in other departments.
simply search or browse Cengage Learning’s extensive document Barzun and Graff thoroughly cover every aspect of research, from the
database to preview and select your customized collection of read- selection of a topic through the gathering, analysis, writing, revision,
ings. In addition to print sources of all types (letters, diary entries, and publication of findings, presenting the process not as a set of rules
speeches, newspaper accounts, etc.), their collection includes a but through actual cases that put the subtleties of research in a useful
growing number of images and video and audio clips. context. Part One covers the principles and methods of research; Part
Each primary source document includes a descriptive headnote Two covers writing, speaking, and getting one’s work published.
that puts the reading into context and is further supported by both crit-
Rand McNally Historical Atlas of the World, second edition
ical thinking and multiple-choice questions designed to reinforce key
[ISBN: 9780618841912] This valuable resource features over 70
points. For more information visit www.cengage.com/coursereader.
maps that portray the rich panoply of the world’s history from prelit-
Cengagebrain.com Save your students time and money. Direct them erate times to the present. They show how cultures and civilization
to www.cengagebrain.com for choice in formats and savings and a were linked and how they interacted. The maps make it clear that
better chance to succeed in your class. Cengagebrain.com, Cengage history is not static. Rather, it is about change and movement across
Learning’s online store, is a single destination for more than 10,000 time. The maps show change by presenting the dynamics of expan-
new textbooks, eTextbooks, eChapters, study tools, and audio supple- sion, cooperation, and conflict. This atlas includes maps that display
ments. Students have the freedom to purchase a-la-carte exactly what the world from the beginning of civilization; the political develop-
they need when they need it. Students can save 50% on the electronic ment of all major areas of the world; expanded coverage of Africa,
textbook, and can pay as little as $1.99 for an individual eChapter. Latin America, and the Middle East; the current Islamic World; and
the world population change in 1900 and 2000.
Reader Program Cengage Learning publishes a number of read-
ers, some containing exclusively primary sources, others a combina-
tion of primary and secondary sources, and some designed to guide
students through the process of historical inquiry. Visit Cengage.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
com/history for a complete list of readers. In preparing the sixth edition, we benefited from the critical readings
Custom Options Nobody knows your students like you, so why not of many colleagues. Our sincere thanks go in particular to contributor
give them a text that is tailor-fit to their needs? Cengage Learning Michael Wert of Marquette University who lent his fresh perspective
offers custom solutions for your course—whether it’s making a small to our coverage of East Asia. We thank Beatrice Manz of the History
modification to The Earth and Its Peoples to match your syllabus or Department at Tufts University who provided guidance on the new
combining multiple sources to create something truly unique. You Pastoral Nomads section in Part I. We are also indebted to the follow-
can pick and choose chapters, include your own material, and add ing instructors who lent their insight over various editions: Hedrick
additional map exercises along with the Rand McNally Atlas to cre- Alixopuilos, Santa Rosa Junior College; Hayden Bellenoit, U.S. Naval
ate a text that fits the way you teach. Ensure that your students get Academy; Dusty Bender, Central Baptist College; Cory Crawford, Ohio
the most out of their textbook dollar by giving them exactly what University; Adrian De Gifis, Loyola University New Orleans; Peter de
they need. Contact your Cengage Learning representative to explore Rosa, Bridgewater State University; Aaron Gulyas, Mott Community
custom solutions for your course. College; Darlene Hall, Lake Erie College; Vic Jagos, Scottsdale Com-
munity College; Adrien Ivan, Vernon College; Andrew Muldoon, Met-
ropolitan State College of Denver; Percy Murray, Shaw University;
Student Resources Dave Price, Santa Fe College; Anthony Steinhoff, University of Ten-
nessee-Chattanooga; Anara Tabyshalieva, Marshal University; Susan
Writing for College History, first edition [ISBN: 9780618306039] Autry, Central Piedmont Community College; Christopher Cameron,
Prepared by Robert M. Frakes, Clarion University. This brief hand- University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Anna Collins, Arkansas
book for survey courses in American history, Western Civilization/ Tech University; William Connell, Christopher Newport University;
European history, and world civilization guides students through Gregory Crider, Winthrop University; Shawn Dry, Oakland Commu-
the various types of writing assignments they encounter in a his- nity College; Nancy Fitch, California State University, Fullerton; Chris-
tory class. Providing examples of student writing and candid assess- tine Haynes, University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Mark Herman,
ments of student work, this text focuses on the rules and conventions Edison College; Ellen J. Jenkins, Arkansas Tech University; Frank Kar-
of writing for the college history course. piel, The Citadel; Ken Koons, Virginia Military Institute; David Long-
The History Handbook, second edition [ISBN: 9780495906766] fellow, Baylor University; Heather Lucas, Georgia Perimeter College;
Prepared by Carol Berkin of Baruch College, City University of New Jeff Pardue, Gainesville State College; Craig Patton, Alabama A & M
York and Betty Anderson of Boston University. This book teaches University; Amanda Pipkin, University of North Carolina at Charlotte;
students both basic and history-specific study skills such as how Linda Scherr, Mercer County Community College; Robert Sherwood,
to read primary sources, research historical topics, and correctly Georgia Military College; Brett Shufelt, Copiah-Lincoln Community
cite sources. Substantially less expensive than comparable skill- College; Peter Thorsheim, University of North Carolina at Charlotte;
building texts, The History Handbook also offers tips for Internet Kristen Walton, Salisbury University; Christopher Ward, Clayton State
research and evaluating online sources. University; William Wood, Point Loma Nazarene University.
When textbook authors set out on a project, they are inclined to
Doing History: Research and Writing in the Digital Age, second edi- believe that 90 percent of the effort will be theirs and 10 percent that
tion [ISBN: 9781133587880] Prepared by Michael J. Galgano, J. of various editors and production specialists employed by their pub-
Chris Arndt, and Raymond M. Hyser of James Madison University. lisher. How very naïve. This book would never have seen the light of
Whether you’re starting down the path as a history major, or simply day had it not been for the unstinting labors of the great team of profes-
looking for a straightforward and systematic guide to writing a suc- sionals who turned the authors’ words into beautifully presented print.
cessful paper, you’ll find this text to be an indispensible handbook to Our debt to the staff of Cengage Learning remains undiminished in the
historical research. This text’s “soup to nuts” approach to research- sixth edition. Brooke Barbier, product manager, has offered us firm but
ing and writing about history addresses every step of the process, sympathetic guidance throughout the revision process. Tonya Lobato,
from locating your sources and gathering information, to writing senior content developer, offered astute and sympathetic assistance as
clearly and making proper use of various citation styles to avoid pla- the authors worked to incorporate many new ideas and subjects into
giarism. You’ll also learn how to make the most of every tool avail- the text. Carol Newman, senior content project manager, moved the
able to you—especially the technology that helps you conduct the work through the production stages to meet a challenging schedule.
process efficiently and effectively. Abbey Stebing did an outstanding job of photo research.
The Modern Researcher, sixth edition [ISBN: 9780495318705] We thank also the many students whose questions and concerns,
Prepared by Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff of Columbia Univer- expressed directly or through their instructors, shaped much of this
sity. This classic introduction to the techniques of research and the art revision. We continue to welcome all readers’ suggestions, queries, and
of expression is used widely in history courses, but is also appropri- criticisms. Please contact us at our respective institutions.
About the Authors
RICHARD W. BULLIET Professor of Middle Eastern History at STEVEN W. HIRSCH Steven W. Hirsch holds a Ph.D. in Clas-
Columbia University, Richard W. Bulliet received his Ph.D. from sics from Stanford University and is currently Associate Profes-
Harvard University. He has written scholarly works on a number of sor of Classics and History at Tufts University. He has received
topics: the social and economic history of medieval Iran (The Patri- grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the
cians of Nishapur and Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Massachusetts Foundation for Humanities and Public Policy. His
Iran), the history of human-animal relations (The Camel and the research and publications include The Friendship of the Barbar-
Wheel and Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers), the process of con- ians: Xenophon and the Persian Empire, as well as articles and
version to Islam (Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period), and reviews in the Classical Journal, the American Journal of Philology,
the overall course of Islamic social history (Islam: The View from the and the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. He is currently com-
Edge and The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization). He is the edi- pleting a comparative study of ancient Greco-Roman and Chinese
tor of the Columbia History of the Twentieth Century. He has pub- civilizations.
lished four novels, coedited The Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle
East, and hosted an educational television series on the Middle East. LYMAN L. JOHNSON Professor Emeritus of History at the Uni-
He was awarded a fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memo- versity of North Carolina at Charlotte, Lyman L. Johnson earned
rial Foundation and was named a Carnegie Corporation Scholar. his Ph.D. in Latin American History from the University of Con-
necticut. A two-time Senior Fulbright-Hays Lecturer, he also
PAMELA KYLE CROSSLEY Pamela Kyle Crossley received her has received fellowships from the Tinker Foundation, the Social
Ph.D. in Modern Chinese History from Yale University. She is cur- Science Research Council, the National Endowment for the
rently the Robert and Barbara Black Professor of History at Dart- Humanities, and the American Philosophical Society. His recent
mouth College. Her books include The Wobbling Pivot: An Inter- books include Workshop of Revolution: Plebeian Buenos Aires
pretive History of China Since 1800; What Is Global History?; A and the Atlantic World, 1776-1810; Death, Dismemberment, and
Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology; Memory; The Faces of Honor (with Sonya Lipsett-Rivera); After-
The Manchus; Orphan Warriors: Three Manchu Generations and shocks: Earthquakes and Popular Politics in Latin America (with
the End of the Qing World; and (with Lynn Hollen Lees and John W. Jürgen Buchenau); Essays on the Price History of Eighteenth-
Servos) Global Society: The World Since 1900. Century Latin America (with Enrique Tandeter); and Colonial
Latin America (with Mark A. Burkholder). He also has published
DANIEL R. HEADRICK Daniel R. Headrick received his Ph.D. in in journals, including the Hispanic American Historical Review,
History from Princeton University. Professor of History and Social the Journal of Latin American Studies, the International Review
Science, Emeritus, at Roosevelt University in Chicago, he is the of Social History, Social History, and Desarrollo Económico. He
author of several books on the history of technology, imperialism, has served as president of the Conference on Latin American
and international relations, including The Tools of Empire: Tech- History.
nology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century; The
Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperial- DAVID NORTHRUP David Northrup earned his Ph.D. in African
ism; The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International and European History from the University of California, Los Ange-
Politics; Technology: A World History; Power Over Peoples: Tech- les. He has published scholarly works on African, Atlantic, and
nology, Environments and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Pres- world history. His most recent books are How English Became the
ent; and When Information Came of Age: Technologies of Knowl- Global Language, the third edition of Africa’s Discovery of Europe,
edge in the Age of Reason and Revolution, 1700–1850. His articles 1450–1850, and the Diary of Antera Duke, an Eighteenth-Century
have appeared in the Journal of World History and the Journal African Slave Trader. He taught at a rural secondary school on
of Modern History, and he has been awarded fellowships by the Nigeria, Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, Boston College, and Ven-
National Endowment for the Humanities, the John Simon Guggen- ice International University and is a past president of the World
heim Memorial Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. History Association.
Note on Spelling and Usage
Where necessary for clarity, dates are followed by the letters c.e. Before 1492 the inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere had no
or b.c.e. The abbreviation c.e. stands for “Common Era” and is single name for themselves. They had neither a racial consciousness
equivalent to a.d. (anno Domini, Latin for “in the year of the Lord”). nor a racial identity. Identity was derived from kin groups, language,
The abbreviation b.c.e. stands for “before the Common Era” and cultural practices, and political structures. There was no sense that
means the same as b.c. (“before Christ”). In keeping with our goal physical similarities created a shared identity. America’s original
of approaching world history without special concentration on one inhabitants had racial consciousness and racial identity imposed on
culture or another, we chose these neutral abbreviations as appro- them by conquest and the occupation of their lands by Europeans
priate to our enterprise. Because many readers will be more famil- after 1492. All of the collective terms for these first American peoples
iar with English than with metric measurements, however, units are tainted by this history. Indians, Native Americans, Amerindians,
of measure are generally given in the English system, with metric First Peoples, and Indigenous Peoples are among the terms in com-
equivalents following in parentheses. mon usage. In this book the names of individual cultures and states
In general, Chinese has been Romanized according to the pinyin are used wherever possible. Amerindian and other terms that sug-
method. Exceptions include proper names well established in Eng- gest transcultural identity and experience are used most commonly
lish (e.g., Canton, Chiang Kaishek) and a few English words borrowed for the period after 1492.
from Chinese (e.g., kowtow). Spellings of Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, There is an ongoing debate about how best to render Amerin-
Persian, Mongolian, Manchu, Japanese, and Korean names and terms dian words in English. It has been common for authors writing in
avoid special diacritical marks for letters that are pronounced only English to follow Mexican usage for Nahuatl and Yucatec Maya
slightly differently in English. An apostrophe is used to indicate when words and place-names. In this style, for example, the capital of the
two Chinese syllables are pronounced separately (e.g., Chang’an). Aztec state is spelled Tenochtitlán, and the important late Maya city-
For words transliterated from languages that use the Arabic state is spelled Chichén Itzá. Although these forms are still com-
script—Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, Persian, Urdu—the apostrophe mon even in the specialist literature, we have chosen to follow the
indicating separately pronounced syllables may represent either of scholarship that sees these accents as unnecessary. The exceptions
two special consonants, the hamza or the ain. Because most English- are modern place-names, such as Mérida and Yucatán, which are
speakers do not hear the distinction between these two, they have accented. A similar problem exists for the spelling of Quechua and
not been distinguished in transliteration and are not indicated when Aymara words from the Andean region of South America. Although
they occur at the beginning or end of a word. As with Chinese, some there is significant disagreement among scholars, we follow the
words and commonly used place-names from these languages are emerging consensus and use the spellings khipu (not quipu), Tiwa-
given familiar English spellings (e.g., Quran instead of Qur’an, Cairo naku (not Tiahuanaco), and Wari (not Huari). In this edition we
instead of al-Qahira). Arabic romanization has normally been used have introduced the now common spelling Inka (not Inca) but keep
for terms relating to Islam, even where the context justifies slightly Cuzco for the capital city (not Cusco), since this spelling facilitates
different Turkish or Persian forms, again for ease of comprehension. locating this still-important city on maps.
Introduction The World Before 1500
Antiquity: Humans, Cultures, and Conquests, to 400 c.e.

Growth and Interaction, 400–1200
Interregional Conquests and Exchanges, 1200–1500
H
istory occurs in a continuous stream. Because new events are the
products of their past, each historical period is intimately linked
to what preceded it. As a Roman historian put it, “History doesn’t
make leaps.” Nevertheless, modern historians find it useful to divide the
past into eras or ages to make sense of the sweep of history. The longest
historical eras are antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times. Volume II
of The Earth and Its Peoples is devoted to the third of these—modern world
history, the five centuries since about 1500.
World historians largely agree that the intensity of interaction around
the world during the modern period distinguishes it from all earlier times.
European maritime exploration opened up or intensified these contacts.
The modern era is also characterized by the steady expansion of European
political, economic, and cultural leadership in every part of the world.
How and when different parts of the world felt the impact of the West
varied. By 1500 parts of the Americas were already reeling under the impact
of their first contacts with Europeans, but in most other parts of the world
the West did not make a big difference until the century after 1750 or even
later. Thus, while in hindsight Western ascendancy seems to be a defining
theme of modern history, for the people of Asia, Africa, and elsewhere the
modern era was a time in which the internal patterns of historical change
only gradually became altered by the growing influence of Westerners and
by their own reactions to these influences.
In order to explain how the modern era came into being, the first chap-
ter of Volume II of The Earth and Its Peoples (Chapter 16) begins in about
1450. To help the reader understand the broader sweep of history, this
Introduction provides an overview of earlier eras. The Introduction reviews
three periods of decreasing temporal length. The first is the very long
period from human origins until the end of ancient history in about 400
c.e. Next comes the early medieval period down to about 1200; and, finally,
the three hundred years immediately preceding 1500. Because the centuries
after 1200 were most important for shaping the transition to the modern
era, they receive the most detailed treatment. xxi
xxii Introduction
Antiquity: Humans, Cultures,

and Conquests, to 400 c.e.
All historical periods were shaped by natural environment and human technology (whether
simple tools, techniques, or complex machines). The paramount role played by environmen-
tal forces is apparent when historians seek to explain how human beings—and thus history—
began. Like all other living creatures, early humans were products of biological adjustments to
changing environments. Over millions of years, our ancestors in eastern and southern Africa
evolved biologically to enhance their chances for survival. The evolution of an upright posture
enabled early people to walk and run on two legs, thereby freeing their hands for tool making.
The evolution of larger brains gave them the capacity to learn and understand all sorts of new
things and devise techniques for putting them to use. Finally, evolutionary changes in the throat
gave humans the capacity for speech, which, as language developed, had the dual effect of mak-
ing complex social relations easier and fostering the development of intellectual culture.
With these physical traits in place, humans were able to develop in a direction taken by no
other creature. Instead of relying on the glacially slow process of biological evolution to adapt
their bodies to new environments, our ancestors used their minds to devise technologies for
transforming nature to suit their needs. By the standards of today, these early technologies may
seem crude—stone tools for cutting and chopping, clothing made from plants and animal skins,
shelters in caves and huts—but they were sufficient to enable humans to survive environmental
changes in their homelands. They also enabled bands of humans to migrate to new environ-
ments in every part of the world. Through trial and error Stone Age people learned what could
safely be eaten in new environments. Other primates acted primarily by instinct; humans acted
according to the dictates of culture. The capacity to create and change material and intellectual
culture marked the beginning of human history.
Agricultural Civilizations
Beginning about 10,000 years ago, the transition from food gathering to food production marked
a major turning point in history. Human communities in many different parts of the world
learned to alter the natural food supply. Some people promoted the growth of foods they liked
by scattering seeds on good soils and restricting the growth of competing plants. In time some
people became full-time farmers. Other communities tamed wild animals whose meat, milk,
fur, and hides they desired, and they controlled their breeding to produce animals with the
most desired characteristics. Promoted by a warmer world climate, these agricultural revolu-
tions slowly spread from the Middle East around the Mediterranean. People in South and East
Asia, Africa, and the Americas domesticated other wild plants and animals for their use. Just as
humans had ceased to rely on evolution to enable them to adjust to new surroundings, so too
they had bypassed evolution in bringing new species of plants and animals into existence (see
Map I.1).
The agricultural revolutions greatly enhanced people’s chances for survival in two ways.
One was a rapid increase in population fostered by the ability to grow and store more food (see
Issues in World History: Climate and Population, to 1500). A second change was taking place in
the composition of human communities. The earliest communities consisted of small bands of
biologically related people and their spouses from other bands. However, more complex societ-
ies made their first appearances as more and more unrelated people concentrated in lush river
valleys, where the soils, temperatures, and potential to irrigate with river water produced condi-
tions suitable for farming.
In the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, Egypt, India, and China the existence of a regular
food surplus enabled a few people to develop highly specialized talents and tools that were not
tied to food production. Some talented military leaders became rulers of large areas and headed
government with specialized administrators. Specialists constructed elaborate irrigation sys-
tems, monumental palaces, and temples. Others made special metal tools and weapons, first of
bronze, then of iron. Because of the value of their talents these specialists acquired privileges. It
was grandest to be a king, queen, or head priest. For the average person, life was harder in com-
plex societies than in parts of the world where such specialization had not yet occurred.
Introduction xxiii
Scene from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, ca. 1300 B.C.E.
The mummy of a royal scribe named Hunefar is approached
by members of his household before being placed in the
tomb. Behind Hunefar is jackel-headed Anubis, the god
who will conduct the spirit of the deceased to the afterlife.
The Book of the Dead provided Egyptians with the instruc-
tions they needed to complete this arduous journey and
gain a blessed existence in the afterlife.
The Trustees of the British Museum / Art Resource, NY

Culture and Civilization
Complex and populous agricultural societies developed
specialists who dealt with abstract and unseen forces. This
development was not entirely new. For tens of thousands
of years before the first settled societies, humans had used
their minds to think about the meaning of life. The remains
of elaborate burials and sites of worship suggest that some
early societies had clear beliefs in an afterlife and in spiri-
tual forces that controlled their lives. Many cultures believed the sun, moon, and nature had
supernatural powers.
Another form of intellectual activity was the collection of technical knowledge about the
environment. Cultural communities learned what plants were best for food, clothing, or build-
ing materials and passed this knowledge along to later generations. Most specialized was the
knowledge of how to make medicines and poisons. Assigning names for all these facilitated the
transmission of this knowledge. In the absence of written records, very little specific informa-
tion about these early treasuries of knowledge exists, but the elaborate and beautiful paintings
in caves dating to tens of thousands of years before the emergence of early agricultural societies
provide the clearest evidence of the cultural sophistication of early humans.
Cultural change surged as settled agricultural communities became more specialized.
Temple priests devised elaborate rituals and prayers for the gods who protected the community,
and they studied the movements of stars, planets, and the moon for signs of the progress of the
seasons or the will of the gods. In Mesopotamia, Egypt, and elsewhere a new class of scribes
used written symbols to preserve administrative and commercial records, laws, and bodies of
specialized knowledge. Thoughtful people recorded the myths and legends passed down orally
from earlier days, systematizing them and often adapting them to new social conditions, as
well as creating new literary forms. Communications could now be sent unchanged over long
distances. Some of these works were lost for millennia only to be rediscovered in recent times,
allowing us to know much more about the lives, thoughts, and values of ancient peoples.
Empires and Regional

In time governments weakened or fell victim to conquest. Egypt, for example, fell to Nubians
from up the Nile then to the Assyrians from Mesopotamia. Some conquerors created vast new
empires. Late in the fourth century b.c.e., Alexander the Great brought everything from the
eastern Mediterranean to India and Egypt under his sway, spreading Greek culture and lan-
guage. After the collapse of Alexander’s empire, the first of a series of Indian empires arose. In
the second and first centuries b.c.e., Latin-speakers spread their rule, language, and culture
throughout the Roman Empire, which encompassed the Mediterranean and reached across
the Alps into Gaul (France) and Britain. At much the same time, the Han consolidated control
over the densely populated lands of China, and successive rulers extended the sway of imperial
China over much of East Asia. In the isolated continents of the Americas, advanced agricultural
societies were also building larger states in late antiquity.
Essential to empire formation was the significant enhancement of old technologies and the
development of new ones. In many parts of the world iron replaced bronze as the preferred metal
60°N Barley
Lentils
Wheat
Cattle
Dog
EUROPE Goat
Pig
NORTH Sheep
ASIA
AMERICA
CENTR A L
WESTER N A SI A
A SIA EAST ASIA
30°N Millet
Rice
SAHARA Soybeans
Tropic of SOUTH
Cancer Pearl millet Pig?
Sorghum ASIA PACIFIC
M ESOAM ER I C A Rice
SOUTH
OCEAN
Beans ASIA
Maize WEST A F R IC A AFRICA Finger millet
Squash Manioc Sesame
Sweet potato Yam Sorghum
Turkey Tef Banana
LOW L AN D Cattle Rice
0° Equator Yam
SO UTH Water buffalo
Beans AM ER IC A Chicken
AND
Peanuts Zebu cattle
ES
Potato
Quinoa
Guinea pig SOUTH AT L A N T I C
Llama AMERICA INDIAN
PACIFIC OCEAN
OCEAN
OCEAN
Tropic of Capricorn
AUSTR ALIA
30°S
N Spread of agriculture
By 8,000 B.C.E.
By 6,000 B.C.E.
0 1,500 3,000 Km.
By 4,000 B.C.E.
0 1,500 3,000 Mi.
By 3,000 B.C.E.
By 500 B.C.E.
60°S
Antarctic Circle
120°W 90°W 60°W 30°W 0° 30°E 60°E 90°E 120°E 150°E 180°
© Cengage Learning
Map I.1 Early Centers of Plant and Animal Domestication Many different parts of the world made original contributions to
domestication during the Agricultural Revolutions that began about 10,000 years ago. Later interactions helped spread these domes-
Cengage Learning
ticated animals and plants to new locations. In lands less suitable BROADSIDE MAP
for crop cultivation, pastoralism and hunting remained more impor-
Ms00003a
supplying
tant for Early food. Map bleeds top, left, right
Agriculture
Align top map trim at left page trim
Trim 65p6 x 39p6
Center map left and righrt on top and bottom of page trim
Final: 9/3/08
Hansen 1e, Lockard WORLD, Bulliet variant
Rev. for Lockard, Bulliet: move Peanuts from Africa to Andes

Introduction xxv
for tools and weapons. In the Middle East and China soldiers on horseback played important
military roles. In most places there were advances in the fighting techniques and in defensive
strategies and fortifications.
Empires encouraged the growth of cities to serve as administrative, economic, and cultural
centers. Temples, palaces, monuments, markets, and public amenities advertised the glory of
these imperial centers. Large states regularly mobilized large pools of labor for massive con-
struction projects. By late antiquity, a few cities had populations in the hundreds of thousands—
Alexandria in Egypt, Rome in Italy, Chang’an in China, Pataliputra in India—though such large
numbers strained cities’ capacities to supply food and water and dispose of waste. Such archi-
tectural monuments established “classical” styles that were frequently imitated and affected
wide areas even after the empires were gone.
Other imperial building projects were more practical. The Roman and Chinese govern-
ments built thousands of miles of paved roads for moving troops and communication; long bar-
rier walls and strings of forts defended frontier areas from invasion. Trade often flourished on
these political frontiers, and good roads further encouraged trade. Improvements in shipping
also encouraged the movement of goods over long distances and allowed transport of bulkier
goods. Much long-distance trade in antiquity was in luxury goods for the privileged classes
in urban civilizations. The search for exotic items tied remote parts of the world together and
gave rise to new specialists both within the urban civilizations and in less stratified parts of the
world. Gold, ivory, animal pelts, and exotic feathers from inner Africa reached Egypt. Phoeni-
cian mariners marketed lumber, papyrus (for paper), wine, and fish around the Mediterranean
Sea. Other merchants carried silk from China across arid Central Asia to the Middle East and
lands to the west. The advent of coinage in the first millennium b.c.e. stimulated local and
regional economies.
The routes that carried goods also helped spread religions, inventions, and ideas. The Zoro-
astrian religion of the Persians became one of the great ethical creeds of antiquity. The dias-
pora of Jews from Palestine after their southern kingdom was destroyed by the Neo-Babylonian
Empire in the seventh century b.c.e. also helped spread monotheistic beliefs. The beliefs and
culture of the Greeks and Romans spread throughout their empires, largely because many of
their subjects saw the advantages in adopting the ways of the ruling elite. Similarly, Indian trad-
ers introduced Hinduism and Buddhism to Southeast Asia.
Growth and Interaction, 400–1200

During the Early Middle Ages expanding political and commercial links drew regions closer
together. In addition, the growth of interregional trade and the spread of new world religions
helped unite and redefine the boundaries of cultural regions, though divisions within religions
undercut some of this cultural unity. All of these factors were interrelated, but let’s begin with
the one that left the most enduring impression on the course of history: the spread of world
religions.
World Religions
The first religious tradition to experience widespread growth in this period was Buddhism,
which spread from the Indian homeland where it had arisen around 500 b.c.e. One direction
of growth was eastward into Southeast Asia. After 500 c.e. there were particular strongholds of
the faith on the large islands of Ceylon, Sumatra, and Java, whose kings supported the growth of
schools and monasteries and constructed temple complexes. Traders also carried Buddhism to
China and from there to Korea, Japan, and Tibet. In some places Buddhism’s growing strength
led to political reactions. In China the Tang emperors reduced the influence of the monasteries
in 840 by taking away their tax exemption and by promoting traditional Confucian values. A
similar effort by the Tibetan royal family to curtail Buddhism failed, and Buddhist monks estab-
lished their political dominance in mountainous Tibet. In India, however, Buddhism gradu-
ally lost support during this period and by 1200 had practically disappeared from the land of its
origin.
Meanwhile, people in western Eurasia were embracing two newer religious systems. In
the fourth century, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, adding new
xxvi Introduction
Armored Knights in Battle This painting from around 1135

shows the armament of knights at the time of the Crusades.
Chain mail, a helmet, and a shield carried on the left side
protect the rider. The lance carried underarm and the sword
are the primary weapons. Notice that riders about to make
contact with lances have their legs straight and braced in
the stirrups, while riders with swords and in flight have bent
legs. Pierpont Morgan Library/ Art Resource, NY
followers all around the Mediterranean to this once per-

secuted faith. But when the western half of the empire col-
lapsed under the onslaught of “barbarian” invasions in the
late fifth century, the Latin Church had to shoulder alone
the tasks of converting these peoples to Christianity and pre-
serving the intellectual, political, and cultural heritage of
Roman antiquity. In its religious mission the Latin Church
was quite successful. One by one Frankish, German, Eng-
lish, Irish, Hungarian, and other leaders were converted,
and their subjects gradually followed suit. Preserving other
Roman achievements was more difficult. The church contin-
ued to use the Latin language and Roman law, and Christian
monasteries preserved manuscripts of many ancient works.
But the trading economy and urban life that had been the
heart blood of ancient Rome became only a memory in most
of the Latin West.
In the eastern Mediterranean, Byzantine Roman emper-
ors continued to rule, and the Greek-speaking Christian
church continued to enjoy political protection. Greek monks
were also active Christian missionaries among the Slavic peo-
ples of eastern Europe. The conversion of the Russian rulers
in the tenth century was a notable achievement. However, by the middle of the next century,
cultural, linguistic, and theological differences led to a deep rift between Greek and Rus sian
Christians in the east and Latin Christians in the west.
Meanwhile, prophetic religion founded by Muhammad in the seventh century was spread-
ing like a whirlwind out of its Arabian homeland. With great fervor Arab armies introduced
Islam and an accompanying state system into the Middle East, across North Africa, and into
the Iberian Peninsula. Over time most Middle Eastern and African Christians and members of
other religions chose to adopt the new faith. Muslim merchants helped spread the faith along
trade routes into sub-Saharan Africa and across southern Asia. Like Christianity, Islam eventu-
ally split along cultural, theological, and political lines as it expanded. Beginning in 1095, Latin
Christians launched military Crusades against Muslim dominance of Christian holy places in
Palestine. In later Crusades, political and commercial ends became more important than reli-
gious goals, and the boundaries between Christianity and Islam changed little.
Commercial and Political Contacts

In many other parts of the world empires played a fundamental role in defining and unifying
cultural areas. Under the Tang and Song dynasties (618-1279) China continued to have stability
and exhibited periods of remarkable economic growth and technological creativity. Ghana, the
first notable empire in sub-Saharan Africa, emerged to control one end of the trans-Saharan
trade. In the isolated continents of the Americas a series of cultural complexes formed in the
Andes, among the Maya of the Yucatán, along the Mississippi, and in the arid North American
southwest. But despite efforts by Christian northern Europeans to create a loosely central-
ized “Holy Roman Empire,” a very decentralized political system prevailed in most of western
Europe. In Japan development was moving in a similar direction.
Introduction xxvii
Political and religious expansion helped stimulate regional and long-distance trade. The
challenge of moving growing quantities of goods over long distances produced some important
innovations in land and sea travel. Two of the most important land-based, long-distance routes
in this period depended on pack animals, especially the camel. One was the Silk Road, a cara-
van route across Central Asia. On the other trade route, between sub-Saharan Africa and North
Africa, camels carried goods across the Sahara, the world’s largest desert.
The Silk Road took its name from the silk textiles that were carried from eastern China to
the Mediterranean Sea. In return, the Chinese received horses and other goods from the West.
In existence since about 250 b.c.e., this series of roads nearly 6,000-miles (9,000-kilometers) in
length passed through arid lands whose pastoral populations provided guides, food, and fresh
camels (specially bred for caravan work).
After 900 c.e. the Silk Road declined for a time. By coincidence, the trans-Saharan caravan
routes were growing more important during the period from 700 to 1200. Here, too, horses were
an important trade purchased by African rulers to the south in return for gold, slaves, and other
goods. The pastoralists who controlled the Saharan oases became essential guides for the camel
caravans.
Since ancient times sea travel had been important in moving goods over relatively short dis-
tances, usually within sight of land, as around the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Persian
Gulf, and among the islands of the East Indies. During this period the water links around and
through the Indian Ocean were increasing enough to make it an alternative to moving goods
from China to the Middle East. Shipments went from port to port and were exchanged many
times. Special ships known as dhows made use of the seasonal shifts in the winds across the
Indian Ocean to plan their voyages in each direction. These centuries also saw remarkable mar-
itime voyages in the Pacific (see Chapter 16).
Interregional Conquests
and Exchanges, 1200–1500
Between 1200 and 1500, cultural and commercial contacts grew rapidly across wide expanses
of Eur asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Indian Ocean. In part, the increased contacts were the
product of an unprecedented era of empire building around the world. The Mongols conquered
a vast empire spanning Eurasia from the Pacific to eastern Europe. Muslim peoples created new
empires in India, the Middle East, and sub- Saharan Africa. Amerindian empires united exten-
sive regions of the Americas. Most of Europe continued to lack political unity, but unusually
powerful European kingdoms were expanding their frontiers.
Empires stimulated commercial exchanges. The Mongol conquests revived the Silk Road
across Central Asia, while a complex maritime network centered on the Indian Ocean stretched
around southern Eurasia from the South China Sea to the North Atlantic, with overland con-
nections in all directions (see Map I.2). Trade in the Americas and Africa also expanded. In the
fifteenth century, Portuguese and Spanish explorers began an expansion southward along the
Atlantic coast of Africa that by 1500 had opened a new all-water route to the riches of the Indian
Ocean and set the stage for transoceanic routes that for the first time were to span the globe.
Mongol, Muslim, and European expansion promoted the spread of technologies. Printing,
compasses, crossbows, gunpowder, and firearms—all East Asian inventions found broader
applications and new uses in western Eurasia. Both the Ottomans and the kingdoms of western
Europe made extensive use of gunpowder technologies. However, the highly competitive and
increasingly literate peoples of the Latin West surpassed all others of this period in their use of
technologies that they borrowed from elsewhere or devised themselves. Europeans mined and
refined more metals, produced more books, built more kinds of ships, and made more weapons
than did people in any other comparable place on earth.
Why was so much change taking place all at once? Historians attribute many of the changes
in South and Central Asia directly or indirectly to the empire building of the Mongols. But other
changes took place far from that area. The role of simple coincidence, of course, should never be
overlooked in history. And some historians believe that larger environmental factors were also
at work—changes in climate that promoted population growth, trade, and empire building.
xxviii Introduction
0° 20°E
40°E
60°E 80°E
Extent of Islamic world in 850
Kazan
N
Islamic areas reconquered by
E U ROPE
Dni e
Antwerp R .
Christian kingdoms by 1500
R
hin
a
Kiev rR
pe
lg
eR
. 1330–1333
Vo
Growth of Islamic world by 1500
.
Azov
F R AN CE
Genoa Venice Dan Aral Long-distance trade routes
ube R. Astrakhan
Marseilles Sea
lack Se A S I A Ibn Battuta’s routes
Ca
KH
B a TR Tashkent
AR AN
spi
W
Constantinople ARMENIA SOX 100°E 120°E
IZ Beijing
an
SPAIN M IANA 40°N
ANATOLIA
Sea
Córdoba Me Ti
Lisbon dite KHORASAN
gr
rrane Balkh T U R KI STAN
is R
Tangier Sea an
MAGHRIB Kabul
.
Fez Damascus
Marrakech Sijilmasa Tunis Baghdad Lahore .
INDUS R
Euphrates gzi Hangzhou
Cairo R. VALLEY Delhi Yan
Basra CHINA
.
Hormuz
HE
sR
1325–
Persian
du
1327 EGYPT Guangzhou
JA
Fuzhou
In
Gulf (Canton)
Z
Taghaza
Tropic of Cancer
Mecca Muscat Cambay
SAH ARA Chittagong
R.
1349–1354 INDIA 1341–1349
ile
N 20°N
1333–1341
M
Awdaghost Red
ek
Sea Arabian
a
Gao Lake YEMEN
ong .
Se
Chad Aksum Aden Sea Bay
Jenne Timbuktu
ina
R
N Calicut of
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Bengal
Ch
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h
AFR ICA
ut
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Pasai Melaka
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I Equator
N 0°
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A
D
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Mombasa 1327–1330 I A
L
PEMBA N
A
N
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0 500 1,000 Km. O C
T
E A
IC
N
Zambezi 0 500 1,000 Mi.
R
MADAGASCAR
.
Sofala 20°S
O
E
C
A Tropic of Capricorn
N
AUSTR ALIA
© Cengage Learning
Map I.2 Arteries of Trade and Travel in the Islamic World, to 1500 I bn Battuta’s journeys across Africa and Asia made use
of land and sea routes along which Muslim traders and the Islamic faith had long traveled.
Bleeds top, right, left.
Cengage Learning Ms00059
Align top at page trim
Major Trade Routes, ca 1500 C.E.
Align right and left at page trims
Ms00059
Trim 51p0 x 36p0 Mongols and Turks
Final proof 4/15/08
Revised to correct Muscat: 4/18/08—cm The earliest and largest of the new empires was the work of the Mongols of northeastern Asia.
Using their extraordinary command of horses and refinements in traditional forms of military
and social organization, Mongols and allied groups united under Genghis Khan overran north-
ern China in the early thirteenth century and spread their control westward across Central Asia
to eastern Europe. By the later part of the century, the Mongol Empire stretched from Korea to
Poland. It was ruled initially in four separate khanates: one in Russia, one in Iran, one in Central
Asia, and one in China.
By ensuring traders protection from robbers and excessive tolls, the Mongol Empire revi-
talized the Silk Road. Never before had there been such a volume of commercial exchanges
between eastern and western Eurasia. Easier travel also helped Islam and Buddhism spread to
new parts of Central Asia.
The strains of holding such vast territories together caused the Mongol Empire to disinte-
grate over the course of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The Ming rulers of China
overthrew Mongol rule in 1368 and began an expansionist foreign policy to reestablish China’s
predominance and prestige. Their armies repeatedly invaded Mongolia, reestablished dominion
over Korea, and occupied northern Vietnam (Annam). One by one the other khanates collapsed.
The Mongols left a formidable legacy, but it was not Mongolian. Instead, Mongol rulers tended
to adopt and promote the political systems, agricultural practices, and local customs of the
peoples they ruled. Their encouragement of local languages helped later literary movements to
xxviii
Introduction xxix
Inner Asian Combat A uniform style of fighting was

more important than ethnic identity in many Inner
Asian armies. The soldiers shown here have bows and
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France/The Bridgeman Art Library

arrows in holsters at their waists but are using swords
and a spear for close combat. Note that of the four war-
riors whose faces are shown, three look East Asian and
have small beards while the fourth has red hair and a
closely trimmed full beard.
flower. The political influence of the administrations

the Mongols established in China, Iran, and Russia
lingered even after locals had overthrown their rule,
creating the basis for new national regimes.
At about the same time as the early Mongol expansion, Turkic war leaders from what is now
Afghanistan were surging through the Khyber Pass and established a Muslim empire centered
at Delhi. In short order, they overwhelmed the several Hindu states of north and central India
and established a large empire ruled from the city of Delhi. The subsequent migration of large
numbers of Muslims into India and the prestige and power of the Muslim ruling class brought
India into the Islamic world. After their conquests in the Middle East, Mongols had recruited
other Turkic-speaking Muslims from Central Asia to serve as their agents. In the decades after
1250, a large Turkic community in Anatolia (now Turkey) known as Ottomans took advantage of
the weakness of the Byzantine Empire to extend their base in Anatolia. They then crossed into
the Balkan Peninsula of southeastern Europe.
In the late 1300s, the Central Asian conqueror Timur (Tamerlane) shattered the Delhi Sul-
tanate and stopped the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. The conquest and pillage of Timur’s
armies left the Delhi Sultanate a shadow of its former self, but the Ottoman Turks were able to
reconstitute their empire in the fifteenth century. Ottoman conquerors swept deep into south-
eastern Europe (taking Constantinople, the last surviving remnant of the Byzantine Empire, in
1453) and southward into the Middle East, establishing a stable presence that was to endure into
the twentieth century.
Indian Ocean Exchanges

In the wake of the Mongol Empire’s collapse, the Indian Ocean assumed greater importance in
the movement of goods across Eurasia. Alliances among Muslim merchants of many nationali-
ties made these routes the world’s richest trading area. Merchant dhows sailed among the trad-
ing ports, carrying cotton textiles, leather goods, grains, pepper, jewelry, carpets, horses, ivory,
and many other goods. Chinese silk and porcelain and Indonesian spices entered from the east,
meeting Middle Eastern and European goods from the west. It is important to note that Muslim
merchant networks were almost completely independent of the giant Muslim land empires.
As a consequence of the Islamic world’s political and commercial expansion, the number
of adherents to the Muslim faith also grew. By 1500 Islam had replaced Buddhism as the sec-
ond most important faith in India and was on its way to displacing Hinduism and Buddhism
in Southeast Asia. The faith was also spreading in the Balkans. Meanwhile, raids by Arab pas-
toralists undermined ancient Christian states along Africa’s upper Nile, leaving Ethiopia as the
only Christian-ruled state in Africa. In the trading cities below the Sahara and along the Indian
Ocean coast where Islam had established itself well before 1200, the strength and sophistication
of Islamic religious practice was growing.
Mediterranean Exchanges
The Mediterranean Sea, which since antiquity had been a focus of commerce and cultural
exchange for the peoples of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, saw increased activity in the
later Middle Ages. Part of the Mediterranean’s importance derived from its trading links to the
xxx Introduction
Indian Ocean by land and water routes. Another area that contributed to expanded trade was
northern Africa. Camel caravans brought great quantities of gold and large numbers of slaves
to the Mediterranean from the lands below the Sahara. This trade facilitated the growth of the
powerful empire of Mali, which controlled some of the main gold-producing regions of West
Africa. The rulers of Mali became rich and Muslim. Their wars and those of other states pro-
duced the captives that were sold north. In the fourteenth century the disruption of supplies of
slaves from the eastern Mediterranean led to more slaves being purchased in southern Europe.
Another part of the expansion of Mediterranean trade was tied to the revival of western Europe.
In 1204 the Italian city-state of Venice had shown its determination to be a dominant player in the
eastern Mediterranean by attacking the Greek city of Constantinople and ensuring access to the
Black Sea. Trade routes from the Mediterranean spread northward to the Netherlands and con-
nected by sea to the British Isles, the Baltic Sea, and the Atlantic. The growth of trade in Europe
accompanied a revival of urban life and culture. Both the cities and the countryside saw increased
use of energy, minerals, and technologies from printing to gunpowder. Despite a high level of war-
fare among European states and devastating population losses in the fourteenth century, much of
Europe was exhibiting cultural and economic vitality that was to have great consequences for the
entire world in the centuries that followed.
The Aztecs and Inca

In the continents of the Western Hemisphere, American peoples were also creating impor-
tant empires in the period from 1200 to 1500, although they had more limited resources with
which to do so. For thousands of years their cultures had developed in isolation from the rest
of humanity and thus had been unable to borrow any plants, animals, or technologies. Amerindian
conquests were made without the aid of riding animals like the Mongols’ horses, without the iron
weapons all Old World empire builders had been using for many centuries, and without the new
gunpowder weaponry that some Eurasians were employing in their conquests in this period.
In the wake of the collapse of the Toltec Empire, a martial people known as the Aztecs
pushed southward into the rich agricultural lands of central Mexico. At first the Aztecs placed
The Mesoamerican Ball Game From Guatemala to Arizona, archaeologists have found evidence of an ancient ball game
played with a solid rubber ball on slope-sided courts shaped like a capital T. Among the Maya the game was associated with
a creation myth and thus had deep religious meaning. There is evidence that some players were sacrificed. In this scene from
a ceramic jar, players wearing elaborate ritual clothing—which includes heavy, protective pads around the chest and waist—
play with a ball much larger than the ball actually used in such games. Some representations show balls drawn to suggest a
human head. Chrysler Museum of Art/Justin Kerr
Introduction xxxi
themselves at the service of strong indigenous residents, but after 1300 they began to build their
own empire. Relying on their military skills, members of the Aztec warrior elite were able to con-
quer territories and reduce peasants to their ser vice. The growth of a servile class at the bottom
of society was paralleled by the growth of a powerful ruling class housed in well-constructed
two-story dwellings in the Aztec capital cities. The servile laborers supplied the food needs of
the growing cities and were impressed into building elaborate canals and land reclamation proj-
ects. Underpinning the power of the Aztec rulers were religious rituals that emphasized human
sacrifice, mostly captives of the armies. By 1500 the Aztecs ruled a densely populated empire of
subject and allied peoples.
Meanwhile, in the Andean highlands of western South America another powerful Amerin-
dian empire was forming. Like central Mexico this region already had a rich agricultural base
and a dense population when, in the fifteenth century, the Inca began using military skills to
expand from a chiefdom into an empire. The Inca rulers, like the Aztecs, built impressive cities,
promoted irrigation projects, and relied on religious rituals to bolster their authority. Tribute in
goods and labor from their subject peoples supported their projects, and a network of mountain
roads tied together the pieces of an empire that stretched for more than 3,000 miles (nearly 5,000
kilometers) north to south.
Both empires were cultural and commercial centers as well as political ones. In the Aztec
Empire, well-armed private merchants controlled a long-distance trade in luxuries for the elites,
including gold, jewels, feathered garments, and animal skins. There was also a network of local
markets, large and small, that supplied the needs of more ordinary folks. State direction fea-
tured more prominently in Inca-ruled areas and promoted a vast exchange of specialized goods
and a huge variety of foodstuffs grown at different altitudes.
Suggested Reading
A fuller treatment of all these topics can be found in the first (1990); John E. Kicza, The Peoples and Civilizations of the
volume of The Earth and Its Peoples. Richard Bulliet pro- Americas Before Contact (1998); Xinru Liu, The Silk Road:
vides a brief overview of world history both before and Overland Trade and Cultural Interactions in Eur asia (1998);
after 1500 in “Themes, Conquerors, and Commerce,” in Sarah Shaver Hughes and Brady Hughes, Women in Ancient
Heidi Roupp, ed., World History: A Resource Book (1997). Civilizations (1998); Jonathan S. Walters, Finding Buddhists
For summaries of the latest scholarship on some select topics in Global History (1998); Peter B. Golden, Nomads and
see these pamphlets in the American Historical Associa- Sedentary Societies in Medieval Eurasia (1998); and Janet
tion’s series “Essays in Global and Comparative History”: Lippman Abu-Lughod, The World System in the Thirteenth
John A. Mears, Agricultural Origins in Global Perspective Century: Dead-End or Precursor? (1993). Sarah Hughes and
(2003); Christopher Ehret, Sudanic Civilization (2003); Brady Hughes have also edited a useful work correcting
Stanley M. Burstein, The Hellenistic Period in World History the dominance of patriarchal themes: Women in World
(1996); Richard M. Eaton, Islamic History as World History History, vol. 1 (1995).
CHAPTER
16 Chapter Outline
Global Maritime Expansion Before 1450
➤ What were the objectives and major accomplishments of the voyages of exploration
undertaken by Chinese, Polynesians, and other non-Western peoples?
European Expansion, 1400–1550
➤ In this era of long-distance exploration, did Europeans have any special advantages over
other cultural regions?
Encounters with Europe, 1450–1550
➤ What explains the different nature of Europe’s interactions with Africa, India, and the
Americas?
Conclusion
● ENVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY Vasco da Gama’s Fleet
● DIVERSITY + DOMINANCE Kongo’s Christian King
INTERFOTO/Alamy
Ferdinand Magellan Navigating the Straits Connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans This late-
sixteenth-century print uses fanciful representations of native peoples and creatures to embellish Magel-
386 lan’s circumnavigation of the globe.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI
Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

the Newala of to-day does; there was once another Newala in a lovely
valley at the foot of the plateau. I visited it and found scarcely a trace
of houses, only a Christian cemetery, with the graves of several
missionaries and their converts, remaining as a monument of its
former glories. But the surroundings are wonderfully beautiful. A
thick grove of splendid mango-trees closes in the weather-worn
crosses and headstones; behind them, combining the useful and the
agreeable, is a whole plantation of lemon-trees covered with ripe
fruit; not the small African kind, but a much larger and also juicier
imported variety, which drops into the hands of the passing traveller,
without calling for any exertion on his part. Old Newala is now under
the jurisdiction of the native pastor, Daudi, at Chingulungulu, who,
as I am on very friendly terms with him, allows me, as a matter of
course, the use of this lemon-grove during my stay at Newala.
FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER”
(Sarcopsylla penetrans)
The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

some 1,600 feet lower down. The way is not only long and fatiguing,
but the water, when we get it, is thoroughly bad. We are suffering not
only from this, but from the fact that the arrangements at Newala are
nothing short of luxurious. We have a separate kitchen—a hut built
against the boma palisade on the right of the baraza, the interior of
which is not visible from our usual position. Our two cooks were not
long in finding this out, and they consequently do—or rather neglect
to do—what they please. In any case they do not seem to be very
particular about the boiling of our drinking-water—at least I can
attribute to no other cause certain attacks of a dysenteric nature,
from which both Knudsen and I have suffered for some time. If a
man like Omari has to be left unwatched for a moment, he is capable
of anything. Besides this complaint, we are inconvenienced by the
state of our nails, which have become as hard as glass, and crack on
the slightest provocation, and I have the additional infliction of
pimples all over me. As if all this were not enough, we have also, for
the last week been waging war against the jigger, who has found his
Eldorado in the hot sand of the Makonde plateau. Our men are seen
all day long—whenever their chronic colds and the dysentery likewise
raging among them permit—occupied in removing this scourge of
Africa from their feet and trying to prevent the disastrous
consequences of its presence. It is quite common to see natives of
this place with one or two toes missing; many have lost all their toes,
or even the whole front part of the foot, so that a well-formed leg
ends in a shapeless stump. These ravages are caused by the female of
Sarcopsylla penetrans, which bores its way under the skin and there
develops an egg-sac the size of a pea. In all books on the subject, it is
stated that one’s attention is called to the presence of this parasite by
an intolerable itching. This agrees very well with my experience, so
far as the softer parts of the sole, the spaces between and under the
toes, and the side of the foot are concerned, but if the creature
penetrates through the harder parts of the heel or ball of the foot, it
may escape even the most careful search till it has reached maturity.
Then there is no time to be lost, if the horrible ulceration, of which
we see cases by the dozen every day, is to be prevented. It is much
easier, by the way, to discover the insect on the white skin of a
European than on that of a native, on which the dark speck scarcely
shows. The four or five jiggers which, in spite of the fact that I
constantly wore high laced boots, chose my feet to settle in, were
taken out for me by the all-accomplished Knudsen, after which I
thought it advisable to wash out the cavities with corrosive
sublimate. The natives have a different sort of disinfectant—they fill
the hole with scraped roots. In a tiny Makua village on the slope of
the plateau south of Newala, we saw an old woman who had filled all
the spaces under her toe-nails with powdered roots by way of
prophylactic treatment. What will be the result, if any, who can say?
The rest of the many trifling ills which trouble our existence are
really more comic than serious. In the absence of anything else to
smoke, Knudsen and I at last opened a box of cigars procured from
the Indian store-keeper at Lindi, and tried them, with the most
distressing results. Whether they contain opium or some other
narcotic, neither of us can say, but after the tenth puff we were both
“off,” three-quarters stupefied and unspeakably wretched. Slowly we
recovered—and what happened next? Half-an-hour later we were
once more smoking these poisonous concoctions—so insatiable is the
craving for tobacco in the tropics.
Even my present attacks of fever scarcely deserve to be taken
seriously. I have had no less than three here at Newala, all of which
have run their course in an incredibly short time. In the early
afternoon, I am busy with my old natives, asking questions and
making notes. The strong midday coffee has stimulated my spirits to
an extraordinary degree, the brain is active and vigorous, and work
progresses rapidly, while a pleasant warmth pervades the whole
body. Suddenly this gives place to a violent chill, forcing me to put on
my overcoat, though it is only half-past three and the afternoon sun
is at its hottest. Now the brain no longer works with such acuteness
and logical precision; more especially does it fail me in trying to
establish the syntax of the difficult Makua language on which I have
ventured, as if I had not enough to do without it. Under the
circumstances it seems advisable to take my temperature, and I do
so, to save trouble, without leaving my seat, and while going on with
my work. On examination, I find it to be 101·48°. My tutors are
abruptly dismissed and my bed set up in the baraza; a few minutes
later I am in it and treating myself internally with hot water and
lemon-juice.
Three hours later, the thermometer marks nearly 104°, and I make
them carry me back into the tent, bed and all, as I am now perspiring
heavily, and exposure to the cold wind just beginning to blow might
mean a fatal chill. I lie still for a little while, and then find, to my
great relief, that the temperature is not rising, but rather falling. This
is about 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. I find, to my unbounded astonishment,
that it has fallen below 98·6°, and I feel perfectly well. I read for an
hour or two, and could very well enjoy a smoke, if I had the
wherewithal—Indian cigars being out of the question.
Having no medical training, I am at a loss to account for this state
of things. It is impossible that these transitory attacks of high fever
should be malarial; it seems more probable that they are due to a
kind of sunstroke. On consulting my note-book, I become more and
more inclined to think this is the case, for these attacks regularly
follow extreme fatigue and long exposure to strong sunshine. They at
least have the advantage of being only short interruptions to my
work, as on the following morning I am always quite fresh and fit.
My treasure of a cook is suffering from an enormous hydrocele which
makes it difficult for him to get up, and Moritz is obliged to keep in
the dark on account of his inflamed eyes. Knudsen’s cook, a raw boy
from somewhere in the bush, knows still less of cooking than Omari;
consequently Nils Knudsen himself has been promoted to the vacant
post. Finding that we had come to the end of our supplies, he began
by sending to Chingulungulu for the four sucking-pigs which we had
bought from Matola and temporarily left in his charge; and when
they came up, neatly packed in a large crate, he callously slaughtered
the biggest of them. The first joint we were thoughtless enough to
entrust for roasting to Knudsen’s mshenzi cook, and it was
consequently uneatable; but we made the rest of the animal into a
jelly which we ate with great relish after weeks of underfeeding,
consuming incredible helpings of it at both midday and evening
meals. The only drawback is a certain want of variety in the tinned
vegetables. Dr. Jäger, to whom the Geographical Commission
entrusted the provisioning of the expeditions—mine as well as his
own—because he had more time on his hands than the rest of us,
seems to have laid in a huge stock of Teltow turnips,[46] an article of
food which is all very well for occasional use, but which quickly palls
when set before one every day; and we seem to have no other tins
left. There is no help for it—we must put up with the turnips; but I
am certain that, once I am home again, I shall not touch them for ten
years to come.
Amid all these minor evils, which, after all, go to make up the
genuine flavour of Africa, there is at least one cheering touch:
Knudsen has, with the dexterity of a skilled mechanic, repaired my 9
× 12 cm. camera, at least so far that I can use it with a little care.
How, in the absence of finger-nails, he was able to accomplish such a
ticklish piece of work, having no tool but a clumsy screw-driver for
taking to pieces and putting together again the complicated
mechanism of the instantaneous shutter, is still a mystery to me; but
he did it successfully. The loss of his finger-nails shows him in a light
contrasting curiously enough with the intelligence evinced by the
above operation; though, after all, it is scarcely surprising after his
ten years’ residence in the bush. One day, at Lindi, he had occasion
to wash a dog, which must have been in need of very thorough
cleansing, for the bottle handed to our friend for the purpose had an
extremely strong smell. Having performed his task in the most
conscientious manner, he perceived with some surprise that the dog
did not appear much the better for it, and was further surprised by
finding his own nails ulcerating away in the course of the next few
days. “How was I to know that carbolic acid has to be diluted?” he
mutters indignantly, from time to time, with a troubled gaze at his
mutilated finger-tips.
Since we came to Newala we have been making excursions in all
directions through the surrounding country, in accordance with old
habit, and also because the akida Sefu did not get together the tribal
elders from whom I wanted information so speedily as he had
promised. There is, however, no harm done, as, even if seen only
from the outside, the country and people are interesting enough.
The Makonde plateau is like a large rectangular table rounded off
at the corners. Measured from the Indian Ocean to Newala, it is
about seventy-five miles long, and between the Rovuma and the
Lukuledi it averages fifty miles in breadth, so that its superficial area
is about two-thirds of that of the kingdom of Saxony. The surface,
however, is not level, but uniformly inclined from its south-western
edge to the ocean. From the upper edge, on which Newala lies, the
eye ranges for many miles east and north-east, without encountering
any obstacle, over the Makonde bush. It is a green sea, from which
here and there thick clouds of smoke rise, to show that it, too, is
inhabited by men who carry on their tillage like so many other
primitive peoples, by cutting down and burning the bush, and
manuring with the ashes. Even in the radiant light of a tropical day
such a fire is a grand sight.
Much less effective is the impression produced just now by the
great western plain as seen from the edge of the plateau. As often as
time permits, I stroll along this edge, sometimes in one direction,
sometimes in another, in the hope of finding the air clear enough to
let me enjoy the view; but I have always been disappointed.
Wherever one looks, clouds of smoke rise from the burning bush,
and the air is full of smoke and vapour. It is a pity, for under more
favourable circumstances the panorama of the whole country up to
the distant Majeje hills must be truly magnificent. It is of little use
taking photographs now, and an outline sketch gives a very poor idea
of the scenery. In one of these excursions I went out of my way to
make a personal attempt on the Makonde bush. The present edge of
the plateau is the result of a far-reaching process of destruction
through erosion and denudation. The Makonde strata are
everywhere cut into by ravines, which, though short, are hundreds of
yards in depth. In consequence of the loose stratification of these
beds, not only are the walls of these ravines nearly vertical, but their
upper end is closed by an equally steep escarpment, so that the
western edge of the Makonde plateau is hemmed in by a series of
deep, basin-like valleys. In order to get from one side of such a ravine
to the other, I cut my way through the bush with a dozen of my men.
It was a very open part, with more grass than scrub, but even so the
short stretch of less than two hundred yards was very hard work; at
the end of it the men’s calicoes were in rags and they themselves
bleeding from hundreds of scratches, while even our strong khaki
suits had not escaped scatheless.
NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAHUTA
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.
MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

This is the general way of closing a house. The Makonde at Jumbe
Chauro, however, have a much more complicated, solid and original
one. Here, too, the door is as already described, except that there is
only one post on the inside, standing by itself about six inches from
one side of the doorway. Opposite this post is a hole in the wall just
large enough to admit a man’s arm. The door is closed inside by a
large wooden bolt passing through a hole in this post and pressing
with its free end against the door. The other end has three holes into
which fit three pegs running in vertical grooves inside the post. The
door is opened with a wooden key about a foot long, somewhat
curved and sloped off at the butt; the other end has three pegs
corresponding to the holes, in the bolt, so that, when it is thrust
through the hole in the wall and inserted into the rectangular
opening in the post, the pegs can be lifted and the bolt drawn out.[50]
MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY
With no small pride first one householder and then a second

showed me on the spot the action of this greatest invention of the
Makonde Highlands. To both with an admiring exclamation of
“Vizuri sana!” (“Very fine!”). I expressed the wish to take back these
marvels with me to Ulaya, to show the Wazungu what clever fellows
the Makonde are. Scarcely five minutes after my return to camp at
Newala, the two men came up sweating under the weight of two
heavy logs which they laid down at my feet, handing over at the same
time the keys of the fallen fortress. Arguing, logically enough, that if
the key was wanted, the lock would be wanted with it, they had taken
their axes and chopped down the posts—as it never occurred to them
to dig them out of the ground and so bring them intact. Thus I have
two badly damaged specimens, and the owners, instead of praise,
come in for a blowing-up.
The Makua huts in the environs of Newala are especially
miserable; their more than slovenly construction reminds one of the
temporary erections of the Makua at Hatia’s, though the people here
have not been concerned in a war. It must therefore be due to
congenital idleness, or else to the absence of a powerful chief. Even
the baraza at Mlipa’s, a short hour’s walk south-east of Newala,
shares in this general neglect. While public buildings in this country
are usually looked after more or less carefully, this is in evident
danger of being blown over by the first strong easterly gale. The only
attractive object in this whole district is the grave of the late chief
Mlipa. I visited it in the morning, while the sun was still trying with
partial success to break through the rolling mists, and the circular
grove of tall euphorbias, which, with a broken pot, is all that marks
the old king’s resting-place, impressed one with a touch of pathos.
Even my very materially-minded carriers seemed to feel something
of the sort, for instead of their usual ribald songs, they chanted
solemnly, as we marched on through the dense green of the Makonde
bush:—
“We shall arrive with the great master; we stand in a row and have
no fear about getting our food and our money from the Serkali (the
Government). We are not afraid; we are going along with the great
master, the lion; we are going down to the coast and back.”
With regard to the characteristic features of the various tribes here
on the western edge of the plateau, I can arrive at no other
conclusion than the one already come to in the plain, viz., that it is
impossible for anyone but a trained anthropologist to assign any
given individual at once to his proper tribe. In fact, I think that even
an anthropological specialist, after the most careful examination,
might find it a difficult task to decide. The whole congeries of peoples
collected in the region bounded on the west by the great Central
African rift, Tanganyika and Nyasa, and on the east by the Indian
Ocean, are closely related to each other—some of their languages are
only distinguished from one another as dialects of the same speech,
and no doubt all the tribes present the same shape of skull and
structure of skeleton. Thus, surely, there can be no very striking
differences in outward appearance.
Even did such exist, I should have no time
to concern myself with them, for day after day,
I have to see or hear, as the case may be—in
any case to grasp and record—an
extraordinary number of ethnographic
phenomena. I am almost disposed to think it
fortunate that some departments of inquiry, at
least, are barred by external circumstances.
Chief among these is the subject of iron-
working. We are apt to think of Africa as a
country where iron ore is everywhere, so to
speak, to be picked up by the roadside, and
where it would be quite surprising if the
inhabitants had not learnt to smelt the
material ready to their hand. In fact, the
knowledge of this art ranges all over the
continent, from the Kabyles in the north to the
Kafirs in the south. Here between the Rovuma
and the Lukuledi the conditions are not so
favourable. According to the statements of the
Makonde, neither ironstone nor any other
form of iron ore is known to them. They have
not therefore advanced to the art of smelting
the metal, but have hitherto bought all their
THE ANCESTRESS OF
THE MAKONDE
iron implements from neighbouring tribes.
Even in the plain the inhabitants are not much
better off. Only one man now living is said to
understand the art of smelting iron. This old fundi lives close to
Huwe, that isolated, steep-sided block of granite which rises out of
the green solitude between Masasi and Chingulungulu, and whose
jagged and splintered top meets the traveller’s eye everywhere. While
still at Masasi I wished to see this man at work, but was told that,
frightened by the rising, he had retired across the Rovuma, though
he would soon return. All subsequent inquiries as to whether the
fundi had come back met with the genuine African answer, “Bado”
(“Not yet”).
BRAZIER
Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

came across in the bush near Akundonde’s. This man is the favourite
of women, and therefore no doubt of the gods; he welds the glittering
brass rods purchased at the coast into those massive, heavy rings
which, on the wrists and ankles of the local fair ones, continually give
me fresh food for admiration. Like every decent master-craftsman he
had all his tools with him, consisting of a pair of bellows, three
crucibles and a hammer—nothing more, apparently. He was quite
willing to show his skill, and in a twinkling had fixed his bellows on
the ground. They are simply two goat-skins, taken off whole, the four
legs being closed by knots, while the upper opening, intended to
admit the air, is kept stretched by two pieces of wood. At the lower
end of the skin a smaller opening is left into which a wooden tube is
stuck. The fundi has quickly borrowed a heap of wood-embers from
the nearest hut; he then fixes the free ends of the two tubes into an
earthen pipe, and clamps them to the ground by means of a bent
piece of wood. Now he fills one of his small clay crucibles, the dross
on which shows that they have been long in use, with the yellow
material, places it in the midst of the embers, which, at present are
only faintly glimmering, and begins his work. In quick alternation
the smith’s two hands move up and down with the open ends of the
bellows; as he raises his hand he holds the slit wide open, so as to let
the air enter the skin bag unhindered. In pressing it down he closes
the bag, and the air puffs through the bamboo tube and clay pipe into
the fire, which quickly burns up. The smith, however, does not keep
on with this work, but beckons to another man, who relieves him at
the bellows, while he takes some more tools out of a large skin pouch
carried on his back. I look on in wonder as, with a smooth round
stick about the thickness of a finger, he bores a few vertical holes into
the clean sand of the soil. This should not be difficult, yet the man
seems to be taking great pains over it. Then he fastens down to the
ground, with a couple of wooden clamps, a neat little trough made by
splitting a joint of bamboo in half, so that the ends are closed by the
two knots. At last the yellow metal has attained the right consistency,
and the fundi lifts the crucible from the fire by means of two sticks
split at the end to serve as tongs. A short swift turn to the left—a
tilting of the crucible—and the molten brass, hissing and giving forth
clouds of smoke, flows first into the bamboo mould and then into the
holes in the ground.
The technique of this backwoods craftsman may not be very far
advanced, but it cannot be denied that he knows how to obtain an
adequate result by the simplest means. The ladies of highest rank in
this country—that is to say, those who can afford it, wear two kinds
of these massive brass rings, one cylindrical, the other semicircular
in section. The latter are cast in the most ingenious way in the
bamboo mould, the former in the circular hole in the sand. It is quite
a simple matter for the fundi to fit these bars to the limbs of his fair
customers; with a few light strokes of his hammer he bends the
pliable brass round arm or ankle without further inconvenience to
the wearer.
SHAPING THE POT
SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB
CUTTING THE EDGE

FINISHING THE BOTTOM
LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

BURNING
FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

LIGHTING THE FARTHER SIDE OF
THE PILE
TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL
NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

Pottery is an art which must always and everywhere excite the
interest of the student, just because it is so intimately connected with
the development of human culture, and because its relics are one of
the principal factors in the reconstruction of our own condition in
prehistoric times. I shall always remember with pleasure the two or
three afternoons at Masasi when Salim Matola’s mother, a slightly-
built, graceful, pleasant-looking woman, explained to me with
touching patience, by means of concrete illustrations, the ceramic art
of her people. The only implements for this primitive process were a
lump of clay in her left hand, and in the right a calabash containing
the following valuables: the fragment of a maize-cob stripped of all
its grains, a smooth, oval pebble, about the size of a pigeon’s egg, a
few chips of gourd-shell, a bamboo splinter about the length of one’s
hand, a small shell, and a bunch of some herb resembling spinach.
Nothing more. The woman scraped with the
shell a round, shallow hole in the soft, fine
sand of the soil, and, when an active young
girl had filled the calabash with water for her,
she began to knead the clay. As if by magic it
gradually assumed the shape of a rough but
already well-shaped vessel, which only wanted
a little touching up with the instruments
before mentioned. I looked out with the
MAKUA WOMAN closest attention for any indication of the use
MAKING A POT. of the potter’s wheel, in however rudimentary
SHOWS THE a form, but no—hapana (there is none). The
BEGINNINGS OF THE embryo pot stood firmly in its little
POTTER’S WHEEL
depression, and the woman walked round it in
a stooping posture, whether she was removing
small stones or similar foreign bodies with the maize-cob, smoothing
the inner or outer surface with the splinter of bamboo, or later, after
letting it dry for a day, pricking in the ornamentation with a pointed
bit of gourd-shell, or working out the bottom, or cutting the edge
with a sharp bamboo knife, or giving the last touches to the finished
vessel. This occupation of the women is infinitely toilsome, but it is
without doubt an accurate reproduction of the process in use among
our ancestors of the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
There is no doubt that the invention of pottery, an item in human
progress whose importance cannot be over-estimated, is due to
women. Rough, coarse and unfeeling, the men of the horde range
over the countryside. When the united cunning of the hunters has
succeeded in killing the game; not one of them thinks of carrying
home the spoil. A bright fire, kindled by a vigorous wielding of the
drill, is crackling beside them; the animal has been cleaned and cut
up secundum artem, and, after a slight singeing, will soon disappear
under their sharp teeth; no one all this time giving a single thought
to wife or child.
To what shifts, on the other hand, the primitive wife, and still more
the primitive mother, was put! Not even prehistoric stomachs could
endure an unvarying diet of raw food. Something or other suggested
the beneficial effect of hot water on the majority of approved but
indigestible dishes. Perhaps a neighbour had tried holding the hard
roots or tubers over the fire in a calabash filled with water—or maybe
an ostrich-egg-shell, or a hastily improvised vessel of bark. They
became much softer and more palatable than they had previously
been; but, unfortunately, the vessel could not stand the fire and got
charred on the outside. That can be remedied, thought our
ancestress, and plastered a layer of wet clay round a similar vessel.
This is an improvement; the cooking utensil remains uninjured, but
the heat of the fire has shrunk it, so that it is loose in its shell. The
next step is to detach it, so, with a firm grip and a jerk, shell and
kernel are separated, and pottery is invented. Perhaps, however, the
discovery which led to an intelligent use of the burnt-clay shell, was
made in a slightly different way. Ostrich-eggs and calabashes are not
to be found in every part of the world, but everywhere mankind has
arrived at the art of making baskets out of pliant materials, such as
bark, bast, strips of palm-leaf, supple twigs, etc. Our inventor has no
water-tight vessel provided by nature. “Never mind, let us line the
basket with clay.” This answers the purpose, but alas! the basket gets
burnt over the blazing fire, the woman watches the process of
cooking with increasing uneasiness, fearing a leak, but no leak
appears. The food, done to a turn, is eaten with peculiar relish; and
the cooking-vessel is examined, half in curiosity, half in satisfaction
at the result. The plastic clay is now hard as stone, and at the same
time looks exceedingly well, for the neat plaiting of the burnt basket
is traced all over it in a pretty pattern. Thus, simultaneously with
pottery, its ornamentation was invented.
Primitive woman has another claim to respect. It was the man,
roving abroad, who invented the art of producing fire at will, but the
woman, unable to imitate him in this, has been a Vestal from the
earliest times. Nothing gives so much trouble as the keeping alight of
the smouldering brand, and, above all, when all the men are absent
from the camp. Heavy rain-clouds gather, already the first large
drops are falling, the first gusts of the storm rage over the plain. The
little flame, a greater anxiety to the woman than her own children,
flickers unsteadily in the blast. What is to be done? A sudden thought
occurs to her, and in an instant she has constructed a primitive hut
out of strips of bark, to protect the flame against rain and wind.
This, or something very like it, was the way in which the principle
of the house was discovered; and even the most hardened misogynist
cannot fairly refuse a woman the credit of it. The protection of the
hearth-fire from the weather is the germ from which the human
dwelling was evolved. Men had little, if any share, in this forward
step, and that only at a late stage. Even at the present day, the
plastering of the housewall with clay and the manufacture of pottery
are exclusively the women’s business. These are two very significant
survivals. Our European kitchen-garden, too, is originally a woman’s
invention, and the hoe, the primitive instrument of agriculture, is,
characteristically enough, still used in this department. But the
noblest achievement which we owe to the other sex is unquestionably
the art of cookery. Roasting alone—the oldest process—is one for
which men took the hint (a very obvious one) from nature. It must
have been suggested by the scorched carcase of some animal
overtaken by the destructive forest-fires. But boiling—the process of
improving organic substances by the help of water heated to boiling-
point—is a much later discovery. It is so recent that it has not even
yet penetrated to all parts of the world. The Polynesians understand
how to steam food, that is, to cook it, neatly wrapped in leaves, in a
hole in the earth between hot stones, the air being excluded, and
(sometimes) a few drops of water sprinkled on the stones; but they
do not understand boiling.
To come back from this digression, we find that the slender Nyasa
woman has, after once more carefully examining the finished pot,
put it aside in the shade to dry. On the following day she sends me
word by her son, Salim Matola, who is always on hand, that she is
going to do the burning, and, on coming out of my house, I find her
already hard at work. She has spread on the ground a layer of very
dry sticks, about as thick as one’s thumb, has laid the pot (now of a
yellowish-grey colour) on them, and is piling brushwood round it.
My faithful Pesa mbili, the mnyampara, who has been standing by,
most obligingly, with a lighted stick, now hands it to her. Both of
them, blowing steadily, light the pile on the lee side, and, when the
flame begins to catch, on the weather side also. Soon the whole is in a
blaze, but the dry fuel is quickly consumed and the fire dies down, so
that we see the red-hot vessel rising from the ashes. The woman
turns it continually with a long stick, sometimes one way and
sometimes another, so that it may be evenly heated all over. In
twenty minutes she rolls it out of the ash-heap, takes up the bundle
of spinach, which has been lying for two days in a jar of water, and
sprinkles the red-hot clay with it. The places where the drops fall are
marked by black spots on the uniform reddish-brown surface. With a
sigh of relief, and with visible satisfaction, the woman rises to an
erect position; she is standing just in a line between me and the fire,
from which a cloud of smoke is just rising: I press the ball of my
camera, the shutter clicks—the apotheosis is achieved! Like a
priestess, representative of her inventive sex, the graceful woman
stands: at her feet the hearth-fire she has given us beside her the
invention she has devised for us, in the background the home she has
built for us.
At Newala, also, I have had the manufacture of pottery carried on
in my presence. Technically the process is better than that already
described, for here we find the beginnings of the potter’s wheel,
which does not seem to exist in the plains; at least I have seen
nothing of the sort. The artist, a frightfully stupid Makua woman, did
not make a depression in the ground to receive the pot she was about
to shape, but used instead a large potsherd. Otherwise, she went to
work in much the same way as Salim’s mother, except that she saved
herself the trouble of walking round and round her work by squatting
at her ease and letting the pot and potsherd rotate round her; this is
surely the first step towards a machine. But it does not follow that
the pot was improved by the process. It is true that it was beautifully
rounded and presented a very creditable appearance when finished,
but the numerous large and small vessels which I have seen, and, in
part, collected, in the “less advanced” districts, are no less so. We
moderns imagine that instruments of precision are necessary to
produce excellent results. Go to the prehistoric collections of our
museums and look at the pots, urns and bowls of our ancestors in the
dim ages of the past, and you will at once perceive your error.
MAKING LONGITUDINAL CUT IN
BARK
DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG
REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

BEATING THE BARK
WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

SOFT
MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

To-day, nearly the whole population of German East Africa is
clothed in imported calico. This was not always the case; even now in
some parts of the north dressed skins are still the prevailing wear,
and in the north-western districts—east and north of Lake
Tanganyika—lies a zone where bark-cloth has not yet been
superseded. Probably not many generations have passed since such
bark fabrics and kilts of skins were the only clothing even in the
south. Even to-day, large quantities of this bright-red or drab
material are still to be found; but if we wish to see it, we must look in
the granaries and on the drying stages inside the native huts, where
it serves less ambitious uses as wrappings for those seeds and fruits
which require to be packed with special care. The salt produced at
Masasi, too, is packed for transport to a distance in large sheets of
bark-cloth. Wherever I found it in any degree possible, I studied the
process of making this cloth. The native requisitioned for the
purpose arrived, carrying a log between two and three yards long and
as thick as his thigh, and nothing else except a curiously-shaped
mallet and the usual long, sharp and pointed knife which all men and
boys wear in a belt at their backs without a sheath—horribile dictu!
[51]
Silently he squats down before me, and with two rapid cuts has
drawn a couple of circles round the log some two yards apart, and
slits the bark lengthwise between them with the point of his knife.
With evident care, he then scrapes off the outer rind all round the
log, so that in a quarter of an hour the inner red layer of the bark
shows up brightly-coloured between the two untouched ends. With
some trouble and much caution, he now loosens the bark at one end,
and opens the cylinder. He then stands up, takes hold of the free
edge with both hands, and turning it inside out, slowly but steadily
pulls it off in one piece. Now comes the troublesome work of
scraping all superfluous particles of outer bark from the outside of
the long, narrow piece of material, while the inner side is carefully
scrutinised for defective spots. At last it is ready for beating. Having
signalled to a friend, who immediately places a bowl of water beside
him, the artificer damps his sheet of bark all over, seizes his mallet,
lays one end of the stuff on the smoothest spot of the log, and
hammers away slowly but continuously. “Very simple!” I think to
myself. “Why, I could do that, too!”—but I am forced to change my
opinions a little later on; for the beating is quite an art, if the fabric is
not to be beaten to pieces. To prevent the breaking of the fibres, the
stuff is several times folded across, so as to interpose several
thicknesses between the mallet and the block. At last the required
state is reached, and the fundi seizes the sheet, still folded, by both
ends, and wrings it out, or calls an assistant to take one end while he
holds the other. The cloth produced in this way is not nearly so fine
and uniform in texture as the famous Uganda bark-cloth, but it is
quite soft, and, above all, cheap.
Now, too, I examine the mallet. My craftsman has been using the
simpler but better form of this implement, a conical block of some
hard wood, its base—the striking surface—being scored across and
across with more or less deeply-cut grooves, and the handle stuck
into a hole in the middle. The other and earlier form of mallet is
shaped in the same way, but the head is fastened by an ingenious
network of bark strips into the split bamboo serving as a handle. The
observation so often made, that ancient customs persist longest in
connection with religious ceremonies and in the life of children, here
finds confirmation. As we shall soon see, bark-cloth is still worn
during the unyago,[52] having been prepared with special solemn
ceremonies; and many a mother, if she has no other garment handy,
will still put her little one into a kilt of bark-cloth, which, after all,
looks better, besides being more in keeping with its African
surroundings, than the ridiculous bit of print from Ulaya.
MAKUA WOMEN

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eTextbook 978-1285436968 The Earth

and Its Peoples: A Global History,

16 The Maritime Revolution, to 1550 386

Global Maritime Expansion Before 1450 388 ● E

Part V The Globe Encompassed, 1500–1750 414

17 Transformations in Europe, 18 The Diversity of American Colonial

Culture and Ideas 418 The Columbian Exchange 446

19 The Atlantic System and Africa,

CONCLUSION 495 East Asia and Europe 526

Part VI Revolutions Reshape the World, 1750–1870 546

22 The Early Industrial Revolution,

24 Land Empires in the Age

The Ottoman Empire 602

Part VII Global Diversity and Dominance, 1750–1945 654

26 Varieties of Imperialism in Africa,

Conclusion 682 Origins of the Crisis in Europe

The Stalin Revolution 764

●  NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: New Materials 747

31 The Cold War and Decolonization,

32 The End of the Cold War and the

Part Two: The Formation of New Cultural Communities, 1000

Antiquity: Humans, Cultures, and Conquests, to 400 c.e.

Antiquity: Humans, Cultures,

The Trustees of the British Museum / Art Resource, NY

Empires and Regional

Rev. for Lockard, Bulliet: move Peanuts from Africa to Andes

Growth and Interaction, 400–1200

Armored Knights in Battle ​ ​This painting from around 1135

followers all around the Mediterranean to this once per-

Commercial and Political Contacts

Inner Asian Combat ​ A​ uniform style of fighting was

Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France/The Bridgeman Art Library

flower. The political influence of the administrations

Indian Ocean Exchanges

The Aztecs and Inca

Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY

With no small pride first one householder and then a second

Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB

CUTTING THE EDGE

LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL

NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG

REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

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Part V The Globe Encompassed, 1500–1750 414

Part VI Revolutions Reshape the World, 1750–1870 546

Part VII Global Diversity and Dominance, 1750–1945 654

● NVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY: New Materials 747

Armored Knights in Battle This painting from around 1135

Inner Asian Combat A uniform style of fighting was