Early Modern Period
- the Age of Interaction,
-the First Global Age)
1450-1750
…the point in history where the balance
of power begins to shift.
Periodization…mostly in line
Analyze the changes and continuities in
Western Europe.
 Compare the paths of non-Western
societies in Asia, Africa & the Americas.
 Characterize the world economy during
this period.
 Analyze the impact of technology on this
period.

Questions to Consider
Political organization—Empire Building
 Cultural & Intellectual Movements
 Interaction & its Consequences

◦ Trade
◦ Demographic Shifts
Technology
 Gender Roles

Themes to Consider (most themes
tied heavily into the theme of
interaction)
Analyze the changes and
continuities in Western
Europe.

Key Empires emerge at this time as a
result of:
◦ Revolutions in thought and culture
◦ Exploration
◦ Commercial Revolution

Similarities?

Differences?
Case Studies: Catholic vs.
Protestant Nations, Absolute vs.
Limited Monarchies
Changes






Continuities?
Growth of cities
Middle class
Marriage and
family structure
Questioning spirit
Women’s roles
religion
Changes and Continuities?
Land based Empires: Compare
responses to West

Tokugawa Japan

Aztec/Inca
Don’t forget the outliers…
Cultural and
intellectual
developments,
Dates
Famous People or
Events
Content of Idea or
Movement
Diffusion (Where
did the ideas
spread?)
Scientific Revolution
Copernicus
Galileo Francis Bacon
William Harvey
World could be explained
through natural laws
rather than superstition
Sun was the center of
the universe
Scientific Method
Questions traditional
church teachings
Europe/American
colonies
Enlightenment
John Locke Jean-Jacques
Rousseau Thomas
Hobbes Voltaire
Natural Rights – life,
liberty and property
Right of people to revolt
and overthrow
government
Freedom of speech,
press, and religion
Europe/American
colonies
Neoconfucianism
Zhu Xi
combine elements of
Buddhism and Daoism to
make Confucianism more
accessible for less literate
China, Korea, Japan
Cultural and Intellectual
Movements
Chinese
Exchanges in arts
Italian Renaissance
paintings Mughal
minature paintings Taj
Mahal
celebration of beauty
focus on individual
achievement
Europe and its colonies,
South Asia
Characterize the world
economy during this
period.
The New World Economy/Trade
Slave Systems:
Coercive or
Forced Labor
slave trade (Trans
Saharan and East
Africa)
Locations and
Characteristics
Forced Labor's
Impact on
Demographic
Changes
East Africa
15 to 25 million
slaves transported
to the Americas
Treatment of
Slaves
Status of Slaves
mostly woman
part of kinship
middle passage
silver mining
plantations
maroons/work
stoppages not much
social mobility
plantation slavery
(Atlantic Slave
System)
Carribean North
America South
America
Mamluks/Janissaries
Abbasid(Mamluks)
Ottoman Empire
military service
mobility
serfs
Eastern Europe
Russia
becomes "virtual
slavery"
some mobility
Demographics: coercive labor

Spread of
epidemic
disease
◦ Smallpox,
measles, flu,
STD’s

Population
decreases
dramatically in
Americas,
leading to the
decline of
civilizations in
Mesoamerica and
the Andes.

New racial
hierarchies
More Demography
Degradation of New World
 The Little Ice Age

Human Interactions
w/Environment





Cartography
Compass
Astrolabe
Lateen sails
New ship
designs
Analyze the impact of technology
on this period.
Compare the role of
women in two premodern
societies.

Little change from previous period

Impact of Interaction on Women

Europe: nominal impact of
Renaissance/Reformation
Outside of Europe:

◦ Powerful Exceptions: Elizabeth I, Queen Isabella,
Nur Jahan
◦ Still shared power (except Elizabeth)
◦ Racial miscegenation in Americas
◦ Changes in trade/production
◦ Africa matrilineal but impacted by slave trade
◦ Neoconfucianism in China
Women