The World: A History

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Brief Contents
Contents
Maps
Special Features
Getting the Most Out of the Maps in The World
About Felipe Fernández-Armesto
From the Author to the Reader
Introducing the World
A Note on Dates and Spellings
Part I The Divergent Species: The Beginnings of Diversity, ca. 160,000 to ca. 3,000 Years Ago
1 Of Ice and Mud: From Africa to the World, from Foraging to Farming
1.1 The Beginnings of Divergence: Migration
1.1.1 Peopling the Earth
1.1.2 Explaining Migration
1.1.3 Consequences of Migration
1.2 The Acceleration of Divergence: Different Foraging Cultures
1.2.1 Climatic Fluctuations and Their Consequences
1.2.2 Divergent Responses
1.2.3 The Beginnings of Settled Life
1.3 The Beginnings of Farming
1.3.1 Herders’ Environments
1.3.2 Tillers’ Environments
1.4 The Spread of Agriculture
1.4.1 Europe and Central Asia
1.4.2 India
1.4.3 North America
1.4.4 Africa
1.4.5 The Pacific
1.5 So Why Did Farming Start?
1.5.1 Population Pressure
1.5.2 The Outcome of Abundance
1.5.3 The Power of Politics
1.5.4 Cult Agriculture
1.5.5 Climatic Instability
1.5.6 Agriculture by Accident
1.5.7 Production as an Outgrowth of Procurement
1.5.8 A Conservative Revolution?
In Perspective: Seeking Stability
2 The Great River Valleys: Accelerating Change and Developing States
2.1 Growing Communities, Divergent Cultures
2.1.1 Intensified Settlement and Its Effects
2.2 The Ecology of Civilization
2.3 The Great Floodplains
2.3.1 The Ecology of Egypt
2.3.2 Shifting Rivers of the Indus Valley
2.3.3 Nature in Early Mesopotamia
2.3.4 The Good Earth of Early China
2.4 Configurations of Society
2.4.1 Settlement and Labor
2.4.2 Politics
2.4.3 Expansion
In Perspective: What Made the Great River Valleys Different?
3 The Multiplication of Civilizations: Ambition and Instability
3.1 The Hittite Kingdom
3.1.1 The Growth of Trade
3.1.2 The Rise of the Hittites
3.1.3 Fragility and Fall: The End of Hatti
3.2 Instability and Collapse in the Aegean
3.2.1 Cretan Civilization
3.2.2 Mycenean Civilization
3.3 A General Crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean World?
3.3.1 The Egyptian Experience
3.3.2 The Roots of Instability
3.4 The Extinction of Harappan Civilization
3.4.1 The Evidence of the Rig Veda
3.4.2 The Environment of Stress
3.5 Conflict on the Yellow River
3.5.1 The Rise of Zhou
3.5.2 The Zhou Political System
3.6 State-Building in the Americas
3.6.1 Andean Examples
3.6.2 Developments in Mesoamerica
3.7 Assessing the Damage
3.7.1 Retrenchment in Egypt
In Perspective: The Fatal Flaws
The Big Picture: The World in 1000 B.C.E.
Part II The Age of Empires from 1000 B.C.E. to 200 C.E.
4 Rebuilding the World: Recoveries, New Initiatives, and Their Limits
4.1 Trade and Recovery in the Middle East
4.1.1 The Phoenician Experience
4.1.2 The Assyrian Empire
4.1.3 The Babylonian Revival
4.2 Greece and Beyond
4.2.1 The Greek Environment
4.2.2 Greek Colonialism
4.2.3 Early Greek Society
4.2.4 The Spread of State-Building and City-Building
4.3 Empires and Recovery in China and South Asia
4.3.1 The Zhou Decline
4.3.2 The Indian Ocean: Relocated Centers of Culture
4.4 The Frustrations of Isolation
4.4.1 Developments in North America
4.4.2 New Initiatives in Africa
In Perspective: The Framework of Recovery
5 The Great Schools: New Thinking in the Age of Sages
5.1 The Thinkers
5.1.1 The Jews
5.1.2 Secular Thinking
5.2 The Thoughts
5.2.1 Religious Thinking
5.2.2 Political Thinking
5.2.3 Challenging Illusion
5.3 The Structures of Thought
In Perspective: The Reach of the Sages
6 The Great Empires: Cultural Exchange in Big States
6.1 Routes That Drew the Old World Together
6.1.1 The Sea Routes of the Indian Ocean
6.1.2 Land Routes: The Silk Roads
6.2 Persia
6.2.1 The Persian Heartland
6.2.2 The Persian Government
6.2.3 The Persian–Greek Wars
6.2.4 The Empire of Alexander the Great
6.3 The Rise of Rome
6.3.1 The Roman Frontiers
6.3.2 Ruling the Empire
6.3.3 Imperial Culture and Commerce
6.3.4 The Celts
6.4 The Beginnings of Imperialism in India
6.4.1 Government
6.4.2 Asoka and His Mental World
6.5 Chinese Unity and Imperialism
6.5.1 Unity Endangered and Saved
6.5.2 The Menace from the Steppes
6.6 Beyond the Empires
6.6.1 Japan and Korea
6.6.2 The Western Eurasian Steppe
6.6.3 Mesoamerica
In Perspective: The Legacies
The Big Picture: The World in 200 C.E.
Part III Fitful Transitions from the Third Century to the Tenth Century
7 Postimperial Worlds: Problems of Empires in Eurasia and Africa
7.1 The Western Roman Empire and Its Invaders
7.1.1 Changes in the Roman Empire
7.1.2 The “Barbarian” West
7.2 Steppelanders and Their Victims
7.2.1 China
7.2.2 India
7.3 New Frontiers in Asia
7.3.1 Korea
7.3.2 Funan
7.4 The Rise of Ethiopia
7.5 The Crises of the Sixth and Seventh Centuries
7.6 Justinian and the Eastern Roman Empire
7.7 The New Barbarians
7.8 The Arabs
7.8.1 Islam
7.8.2 The Arabs against Persia and Rome
7.9 The Muslim World
7.10 Recovery and Its Limits in China
7.10.1 Rise of the Tang
7.10.2 Empress Wu
7.10.3 Tang Decline
7.11 In the Shadow of Tang: Tibet and Japan
7.11.1 Tibet
7.11.2 Japan
In Perspective: The Triumph of Barbarism?
8 The Rise of World Religions: Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism
8.1 Commerce and Conflict: Carriers of Creeds
8.1.1 War
8.1.2 Trade
8.2 Monarchs and Missionaries
8.2.1 In Christendom
8.2.2 In the Buddhist World
8.2.3 The Margins of Christendom
8.2.4 Islam and the Turks
8.3 Trickle Down: Christianization and Islamization
8.4 Religious Lives: The World of Monks and Nuns
8.4.1 Christian Monasticism
8.4.2 Buddhist Monks
8.4.3 Sufism
8.4.4 Religious Women
In Perspective: The Triumphs of the Potential World Religions
9 Remaking the World: Innovation and Renewal on Environmental Frontiers in the Late First Millennium
9.1 Isolation and Initiative: Sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas
9.1.1 African Geography
9.1.2 American Geography
9.2 The Islamic World and the Environment
9.3 Frontier Growth in Japan
9.4 India and China
9.4.1 India
9.4.2 China
9.5 Southeast Asia
9.6 The Pacific
9.7 The Frontiers of Christendom
In Perspective: The Limits of Divergence
The Big Picture: The World in 1000 C.E.
Part IV Contacts and Conflicts, 1000 C.E. to 1200 C.E.
10 Contending with Isolation: Initiatives in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
10.1 American Developments: From the Arctic to Mesoamerica
10.1.1 Greenland and the North
10.1.2 The North American Southwest and the Mississippi Region
10.1.3 Mesoamerica
10.2 Around the Indian Ocean: Ethiopia, the Khmer, and India
10.2.1 East Africa: The Ethiopian Empire
10.2.2 Southeast Asia: The Khmer Kingdom
10.2.3 India: Economy and Culture
10.2.4 The Chola Kingdom
10.3 Eurasia’s Extremities: Japan and Western Europe
10.3.1 Japan
10.3.2 Western Europe: Economics and Politics
10.3.3 Western Europe: Religion and Culture
In Perspective: The Patchwork of Effects
11 The Nomadic Frontiers: The Islamic World, Byzantium, and China
11.1 The Islamic World and Its Neighbors
11.1.1 The Steppelanders
11.1.2 The Crusades
11.1.3 The Invaders from the Sahara
11.1.4 The Progress of Sufism
11.2 The Byzantine Empire and Its Neighbors
11.2.1 Byzantium and the Barbarians
11.2.2 Basil II
11.2.3 The Era of Difficulties
11.2.4 Byzantium and the Crusaders
11.2.5 Byzantine Art and Learning
11.3 China and the Northern Barbarians
11.3.1 The End of the Tang Dynasty
11.3.2 The Rise of the Song and the Barbarian Conquests
11.3.3 Economy and Society under the Song
11.3.4 Song Art and Learning
In Perspective: Cains and Abels
The Big Picture: The World in 1200 C.E.
Part V The Crucible: The Eurasian Crises of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
12 The World the Mongols Made: Trans-Eurasian Links
12.1 The Mongols: Reshaping Eurasia
12.1.1 Genghis Khan
12.1.2 The Mongol Steppe
12.2 The Mongol World beyond the Steppes
12.2.1 China
12.2.2 Persia
12.2.3 Russia
12.3 The Limits of Conquest
12.3.1 Mamluk Egypt
12.3.2 Muslim India: The Delhi Sultanate
12.4 Europe
In Perspective: The Uniqueness of the Mongols
13 The Revenge of Nature: Plague and Cold in the Fourteenth Century
13.1 Climate Change
13.2 The Coming of the Age of Plague
13.2.1 The Course and Impact of Plague
13.2.2 Moral and Social Effects
13.2.3 Medicine and Morals
13.2.4 The Jews
13.2.5 Beneficiaries of Plague: Women and Peasants
13.2.6 Peasant Millenarianism
13.3 The Limits of Disaster: Beyond the Plague Zone
13.3.1 India
13.3.2 Southeast Asia
13.3.3 Japan
13.3.4 Mali
13.4 The Pacific: Societies of Isolation
13.4.1 Easter Island
13.4.2 New Zealand
13.4.3 Ozette
13.4.4 Chan Chan
In Perspective: The Aftershock
14 Expanding Worlds: Recovery in the Late Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
14.1 Fragile Empires in Africa
14.2 Ecological Imperialism in the Americas
14.2.1 The Inca Empire
14.2.2 The Aztec Empire
14.3 New Eurasian Empires
14.3.1 The Russian Empire
14.3.2 Timurids and Ottomans
14.4 The Limitations of Chinese Imperialism
14.4.1 The Rise of the Ming
14.4.2 Zheng He
14.5 The Beginnings of Oceanic Imperialism
14.6 The European Outlook: Problems and Promise
In Perspective: Beyond Empires
The Big Picture: The World in 1491
Glossary
Credits
Index
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