The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World—And Globalization Began

In 1000 AD, the world was waking from its most recent Dark Age, a period long thought to have been devoid of any major cultural developments or geopolitical encounters. Europeans wouldn't discover the West for another four hundred years, and the farthest it was thought anyone had traveled over sea was the Vikings' invasion of Britain. But how, then, to explain the presence of blonde-haired, blue-eyed people in Mayan temple murals in Chichen Itza, Mexico? Could it be possible that the Vikings had found their way to the Americas during the height of the Mayan empire? Celebrated Yale history professor Valerie Hansen argues that the year 1000 was the world's first point of major cultural exchange and exploration. Drawing on nearly thirty years of research on medieval China and global history, she presents a compelling account of first encounters between disparate societies. Hansen refers to the year 1000 as the "big bang" of globalization, which ushered in a new era of cross-cultural exchange, exploration, and global trade that exists to this day. As civilizations on at least five continents ventured outward, they spread technology, agriculture, and religion. These encounters, she shows, made it possible for Christopher Columbus to reach the "New World" in 1492, and set the stage for the process of globalization that so dominates the modern era. This was an age defined not only by civilized collaboration, but also by intense cultural collision and fear. According to Hansen, people debated the merits of discovering new lands and they agonized over the effect it would have on their "pure societies." They were apprehensive about cultural erosion, trade disruption, economic dislocation, and violence. Yet the process of intermingling and cross-pollination proved relentless. The Year 1000 is an intellectually daring, provocative account that will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about how the modern world came to be. It will also hold up a mirror to the hopes and fears we experience today.