Changing the World Balance
CHAPTER 15
Need to know for AP Exam
 Foundations Era: Beginning – 1000 BCE
 Classical Era: 1000 BCE – 500 CE
 Post-Classical Era: 500 - 1450
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 Early-Modern Era: 1450 – 1750
 Modern Era: 1750 - 1914
 Present Era: 1914 – present
Shifts in Power
Groups
Position @ Beginning of
Post-Classical Period
Position at End of PostClassical Period
Arabs
Dominant Global Power
Fallen (1258) but replaced by
Ottoman Turks
Mongols
Minor Steppe People
Declining Masters of Asia
China
Period of Recovery
Dominant Global Power, but
choosing isolation over
expansion
Western
Europe:
-Portugal
-Spain
-Italy
Hmmmmm not so much
Rapidly Rising global power
Decline of the Old Order:
Middle East
 Decline of Arab caliphate
 Prominence of religion and religious leaders over
secular
 Popularity of Sufism
 Move towards a feudal society
 Regional landlords
 Peasants and serfs
 Decline in agricultural production and trade
 Leads to a decline in power
Rise of the Ottomans
 More powerful politically and militarily
 Conquest of Byzantine Empire
 Constantinople falls in 1453
 Provides an even greater challenge to rising
European might
 Lacks the economic dominance of the earlier
caliphate
What about the Mongols?
 Control over central Asia, China, Russia, and
portions of the Middle East and South Asia
 Controlled the largest land-based trading
network
 Responsible for spread of technology and culture
 Decline leads to expansion of ocean trade
 Western Europeans and Chinese
 Land routes for trading reduce
Resurrection of Chinese Control
 Tribute relationship with Korea and Vietnam
 Development of massive trading expeditions
 Led by ZhengHe (Chinese Muslim)
 Voyages to SE Asia, Middle East, Eastern Africa and possible
more
 Controlled the largest navy in the world at the time
 Nearly 4,000 vessels
 Expeditions opposed by bureaucrats
 Considered to be too costly
 Government want to spend money on War and
Luxuries
 Emperor ends Chinese exploration and ocean trade 1433
 Significantly alters course of world history
 HOW
Fringe Groups:
Americas
 Aztecs and Incan societies weakened by
internal conflict
 Resentment by local tribes lays foundation for
their downfall with the arrival of the Spanish
Fringe Groups:
Polynesians & Maori
 Isolated expansion of regional kingdoms to
neighboring islands
 Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti
 Later to Hawaii and New Zealand
 Use of Neolithic technology still allows for
development of complex culture
Fringe Groups:
Sub-Saharan Africa
 No significant changes at the end of the Post-
Classical period
 Fall of Mali
Western Europe: Decline of
Feudal System
 The feudal system declines as the peasantry gains
independence
 Inefficiency of agriculture reduces authority/
power of the feudal lords
 Food production could not keep up with growing
population
 Black Plague
 30% population loss in China and 33% loss in Europe
 Also affects Middle East and India
 Improves status of peasantry
 Hundred Years War: Results in more centralized
political power
Western Europe: Decline of
Religious Authority
 Inability to stop the plague reduces public
opinion in the church
 Why is God not helping us?
 Doubt
 Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther
 Questions the Catholic Church
 Provides alternative forms of worship
Western Europe: Rise of
Religious Authority
 Spain and Portugal repel
Muslims form Iberian Peninsula
 Creation of Spanish Inquisition
to stamp out heresy and
promote Catholicism
 Creation of non-secular
government
 This means religious
 Missionary justification for
exploration
 Creation of the Jesuits
Opportunities for Growth
 Mongol conquest provides access to eastern
world
 Acquisition of technology and learning
 Continued development of European
metalworking
 Weaponry and tools
 Inability to create balance of trade with china
(had nothing they wanted)
 Forces them to look elsewhere for ways to acquire
products
 Drive to compete with rising Muslim threat
(Ottomans)
Italian Renaissance
 Not really as critical as one might think
 Rebirth of classical learning
 Greco-Roman
 Italy serves as center of trade, plus has added
benefit of Roman example
 Early period of rebirth limited primarily to upper
class Italians
Exploration
 Begins as early as 1291
 Promoted by desire to trade with the East
without having to interact with the Muslims
 Rediscovery of the Atlantic islands near Africa
 Creation of plantation system
 Sugar, cotton, tobacco
 Birth of African slave trade  needed labor fro
plantations
 Discovery of compass, astrolabe, creation of
caravel allows for longer ocean voyages