Intro to Part Four: The Early Modern World

Intro to Part Four: The Early Modern World

Contents:

Part 1: Bullet Point Notes

Part 2: Comments

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Part 1: Bullet Point Notes

Debating the Character of an Era

• 1450-1750, the early modern era, is vastly oversimplified

An Early Modern Era?

• The early modern era shows some initial signs of a modernizing world. Examples:
• Genuine globalization. Examples:
• Columbian exchange
• Increasing European presence. Examples:
• Conquest
• Colonial settlement in America
• Entering Asian trade routes
• Missionaries
• Scientific Revolution
• This led to a new approach to knowledge and a new understanding of Christianity
• Modern Population Growth
• In Japan, China, and Europe
• Africans & Native Americans were an exception due to slave trade & European conquest
• Commercialized Economies
• Ex: Japan was one of the most urbanized  societies: Tokyo had over 1 mil inhabitants
• Production was often for a distant market
• Strong States
• Within empires, more resources were consumed and the Earth was ravaged.
• Pastoralists’ lands were taken for farming

A Late Agrarian Era?

• These developments did not suggest that a modern era was definite ^
• European power was limited in the global scene
• Political & military power in Asia and Africa is limited
• China and Japan strictly controlled European merchants and missionaries on their lands
• Islam spread more rapidly than Christianity in Asia and Africa
• No sign of big industry - a revolution later on is unexpected
• Kings and nobles ruled
• Female subordination
• Male aristocrats stayed on top of the social hierarchy
• Some urged a return to earlier ways of thinking and living

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Part 2

I don’t remember the last time my blog was this organized. I hope I can continue to make it

this way throughout the semester. Moving on: in this section, I will talk about the things that

stood out to me and react to some of the notes from above.

The first thing that I found interesting was in the first paragraph of the intro. It describes how

historians often oversimplify history, leaving out the complicated parts so that it is easier to

understand. I thought it was talking about the first four eras that were covered in ONLY 1

SEMESTER (WH1). However, it was actually talking about the time period between the years

1450-1750, the early modern era. The Paleolithic Era lasted for a much greater time and we

only spent maybe 1 or 2 weeks on it in WH1? It just goes to show that you can never truly

get all the details of history. Oversimplifications are everywhere.

Something else I wanted to address was the continuing pressure put on our limited resources.

This information was lumped in with the section “An Early Modern Era”. I don’t quite understand

why that is. This is more of a continuing trend and I thought it belonged to the second section.

I suspect that maybe it’s because of the population growth in the modern era that separates

consumption of resources in the past from modern consumption: it is more intense to keep up

with the lack of resources. We really need to control our numbers to prevent further damage.

Overall, the second section was very expected. It describes all the trends from last semester:

female subordination, social hierarchy, etc.

I very much appreciate that this intro was organized into two very obvious sections: what changed and

what stayed the same. It makes it much easier to understand and remember. Although it wasn’t very

long, there was a significant amount of information packed into it and I appreciate that too.

Thank you for reading and have a wonderful day! :)