StudySpace: Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 2 e.

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1. Trade and culture
1. New wealth from global trade allowed for cultural flowering in much of the world during this time period
1. China, the Islamic world, Africa and Europe were not threatened with foreign takeover and their educated and artistic groups continued to affirm the validities of their own ways
2. Japan, in contrast, was more receptive to some foreign ideas
2. Europeans increasingly colonized the indigenous peoples in the Americas and Oceania, and it was European culture that spread and diversified in these areas during this period with strong influence from Native Americans and African slaves
3. During this era, Europeans increasingly explored the Pacific Ocean and closely examined other cultures. They increasingly analyzed the world using the methods of the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment and found themselves superior
1. Captain Cook's voyages in the Pacific between 1768 and 1779 are a prime example of this development
2. Culture in the Islamic world
1. Muslim elites devoted large resources to cultural development in the three Islamic dynasties of the period-the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal dynasties. Each developed a relatively autonomous form of Muslim culture.
2. The Ottoman cultural synthesis
1. Ottoman culture blended Sufis mysticism and ultra-orthodox ulama, military and administrative traditions, and the dominant Islamic faith and minority Christian and Jewish sects
1. Ottomans permitted dhimmis (followers of religions permitted by law) to organize themselves into millets (minority religious communities) that had cultural, but not political, autonomy
2. The diverse Ottoman world was governed by the kanun (its administrative law)
1. Suleiman the Magnificent oversaw its codification
2. The code included laws on the rights and duties of subjects, what clothes they could wear, and regulations between Muslims and non-Muslims
2. The Ottoman education system tolerated differences
1. Civil and military bureaucrats were educated in one set of schools
2. The ulama emerged from the madrasas
3. Tekkes taught the devotional strategies of various Sufi orders
4. Ottoman education tended to stress law, language, and religion over science and math
3. Scholars tended to focus on the defects and decline in the Ottoman system
4. Ottoman rulers encouraged delight in the world
1. Tulipmania obsessed elites
2. Working classes enjoyed coffeehouses and taverns
5. Ottoman subjects were interested in Europe
1. Many adopted European fashion and décor
2. Some intellectuals took interest in European science but were discouraged by the ulama
3. Safavid culture
1. Because Shiism created a culture of criticism, the Safavids cultivated more conservative elements of Persian society. They created a system based on Shiism and loyalty to the ruling dynasty
1. They used traditional education institutions to inculcate this synthesis
2. Under Shah Abbas, Persia enjoyed a cultural revival
1. He moved the capital to Isfahan and hired artists and architects to create a showpiece for his rule
3. Safavid artists, patronized by the court and the landed and commercial classes, perfected the design of illustrated books
4. Other artists improved carpet-making, mosaics, and calligraphy
4. Power and culture under the Mughals
1. Like the Ottomans, the Mughals ruled over a large non-Muslim population. Mughal culture thus was open and a synthesis of Muslim and Hindu traditions
1. Akbar promoted this open culture
1. Under his rule, Mughal intellectuals cultivated Muslim legacies but also studied the classic Hindu literary works
2. Akbar also valued Hindu art and music
2. Mughal rulers after Akbar continued to patronize intellectuals and artists
3. Emperor Shah Jahan hired architects to beautify Agra, the imperial capital
1. He commissioned the construction of the Taj Mahal, which blended Persian, Islamic, and Hindu motifs
2. Women in the Mughal court pursued the arts, including poetry
2. Mughals participated in foreign trade and adopted some European technologies, especially involving guns and cannons
3. The Mughals, like most Muslims, looked to China for external inspiration, not Europe. Europe was not considered culturally equal
3. Culture and politics in East Asia
1. China: The challenge of expansion and diversity
1. Transmission of Ideas
1. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, China experienced a surge in the publication and circulation of books and ideas
1. Books circulated because economic prosperity made them affordable to many, but not most
2. Demand was especially high for study aids for the civil service exam
3. Some elite women exploited this popularity of books, becoming authors of poetry and other literary arts
4. Despite official attempts to regulate this development, there was no centralized system of censorship. Controversial works circulated freely
2. Popular Culture and Religion
1. Among nonelites, oral communication and rituals continued to transmit cultural norms
1. In the villages, people learned about the outside world through travels to marketplaces and assorted travelers
2. Government officials had no real control over how villagers absorbed or interpreted this information
3. Religion remained syncretic and religious practices were diverse and decentralized
1. Emperors tolerated diverse beliefs so long as they did not challenge the Confucian order
4. The central role of the emperor remained paramount during this time
5. Technology and Cartography
1. Much of Chinese astronomy and calendrical science had been developed to assist the emperor in determining proper dates for agriculture, festivals, mourning periods, and judicial assizes
6. European missionaries and traders were greatly impressed with Chinese art and science but believed their own science was superior
1. Missionaries tried to impress the Chinese with their astronomy and cartography
1. Chinese officials recognized their value, especially in cartography, but were confident in their own methods
1. The Chinese rejected European emphasis on spatial ordering with maps, believing that these did not convey their belief in the centrality of China, and especially the emperor, to the earth's proper order
7. Despite greater contact with Europeans, the Chinese remained rather ignorant of the rest of the world and closed minded
1. Chinese elites clung to their sense of cultural superiority and viewed foreign ideas as a threat to their social order
2. Cultural identity in Tokugawa, Japan
1. Increased trade and political stability fostered a cultural flowering in Japan during this time period that reflected native, Chinese, and European influences
2. The political elites-the imperial court, the shogun, religious institutions, the samurai and the daimyo cultivated N? theater, teahouses, flower arranging, lacquerware production, and screen painting
3. At the same time, a new, rougher, more urban culture emerged, patronized by merchants and artisans.
1. Geishas appeared
2. Kabuki theater emerged
3. This pleasure-oriented urban culture was known as the "floating world" because it distorted official societal norms
4. One-third of the Japanese population was literate during this period, leading to the emergence of booksellers and book lenders
5. In high culture, Chinese influence remained important
1. Confucianism offered the Tokugawa Shogunate a useful ideology
2. The regime required everyone to register at a Buddhist temple
3. Buddhism supplemented but did not replace Shinto¯, the indigenous belief system of ancestor veneration and worshipping gods in nature
6. Chinese authorities tapped other important sources of knowledge
1. "Dutch learning" circulated openly in the eighteenth century
1. Japanese scholars absorbed European texts on science, geography, and medicine
2. Students of European teaching were not numerous, but they had a large influence
3. European teachings never challenged the supremacy of Confucian philosophy
7. The Japanese were far more willing to borrow from Europeans than the Chinese
1. Japan had a history of absorbing foreign ideas, especially Chinese thought and customs
2. The Japanese did not considering learning from overseas sources a sign of cultural inferiority
4. The Enlightenment in Europe
1. Origins of the Enlightenment
1. The Enlightenment flowed from regional traditions and Europe's contacts with the wider world
1. Learning during the Enlightenment was more ambitious and expansive than previous learning
1. Enlightened thinkers aspired to universal and objective principles applicable to all peoples everywhere
1. Most of these thinkers were unaware that European, upper-class male perspectives colored their views
2. Enlightened thinking was shaped by cultural contacts with other groups
2. By the eighteenth century, European thinkers were becoming more critical of other cultures
2. The Enlightenment was also the product of continued social, political, and religious tension
1. Extensive warfare in the seventeenth century gave rise to critics of established religious and political authorities
2. Increased commerce spawned new private wealth that could fund new intellectual and artistic pursuits. Intellectuals and artists no longer had to depend on church or court patronage
2. The New Science
1. The crises of the seventeenth century led many intellectuals to seek objective truths and look beyond established institutions for inspiration
1. Scientists such as Galileo and Newton began to use the philosopher Bacon's approach, which consisted of experimentation and observation
2. Scientists increasingly began to identify "natural laws" governing the universe
3. Expanding commerce furthered these pursuits
1. New wealth funded research
2. Greater exposure to different plants, animals, people, and historical experiences demanded new explanations
4. Many monarchs supported these efforts by funding royal academies of science
5. Increased literacy in Europe spread these ideas and this approach to understanding the world
1. Farmers and military leaders increasingly used the scientific approach to improve their methods
6. The emergence of this scientific worldview was uneven
1. Christian ideas still dominated the thoughts of most people
2. Local customs and traditions prevailed in most areas
3. The poor and most women were illiterate
4. Governments censored views that they found threatening
3. Enlightenment thinkers
1. The scientific approach led many European philosophers to believe in the power of human reason and the perfectibility of mankind
1. While optimistic, they wrote scathing critiques of the flaws in their societies
1. Voltaire attacked the torture of criminals
2. Diderot denounced French absolutism
3. Smith criticized mercantilism
2. Enlightened thinkers trusted nature and human reason but distrusted institutions and traditions
1. Rousseau wrote that "Man is born good; it is society that corrupts him"
2. Enlightened thinkers especially railed against superstition
2. Enlightened thinkers were often incarcerated or exiled for their writings
3. The Enlightenment was an uneven, pan-European movement
1. It was strongest in northwestern Europe and weakest in Iberia, Scandinavia and Poland
2. Its reach extended to the port towns of Britain's North American colonies
3. Overall it had its strongest influence among the literate peoples of commercial cities
1. Book clubs, coffeehouses, and salons helped spread these views
4. Although many aristocrats patronized Enlightenment thinkers, many philosophers rejected social distinctions based on birth
1. John Locke believed that man was born a tabula rasa
2. Few Enlightenment male philosophers believed in gender equality
5. Enlightenment thinkers urged religious toleration
6. Increasingly in the eighteenth century, Enlightenment philosophers "discovered" the laws of human behavior
1. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations described universal economic laws
1. He stressed unregulated markets with minimal government interference
1. The "invisible hand" of the market would guarantee general prosperity and social peace
2. He believed that non-European peoples that he deemed uncivilized would have to imitate Europe and organize themselves according to natural laws
2. Another famous work was the French Encyclopedia, to which nearly two hundred intellectuals contributed essays
1. While criticizing aspects of European society, it generally praised the superiority of European culture over all others
7. Enlightenment thinkers urged a cultural hierarchy that extolled commerce and rationality
1. They ranked societies according to how well they met these standards
1. Although acknowledging other societies' accomplishments, they viewed Europe as taking the lead here
8. Absolutist governments were not entirely hostile to enlightened ideas
1. They appreciated the need for greater social mobility and commerce to enrich the state
5. African Culture Flourishes
1. Africa had strong artisanal traditions dating back centuries, but the slave trade gave African elites money to support new cultural achievements
1. Artisans maintained local forms of cultural production, including woodcarving, weaving and weapon making
2. Arts and crafts could glorify royal power and capture the energy of a universe that was believed to be suffused with spiritual beings
3. The Asante, Oyo, and Benin Cultural Traditions
1. Slave trading states became wealthy and powerful
1. Asante
1. Gold used in crafting seats and stools for royalty
2. Oyo
1. Bronze heads of Ife, crafted by Yoruba artisans
3. Benin
1. Bronze and terra cotta heads
6. Hybrid cultures in the Americas
1. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the mingling between European colonizers and native peoples produced new hybrid cultures, but increasingly this mixing grew unbalanced as Europeans imposed their political and cultural authority
1. From the onset, Indians were under pressure to adapt their cultures to European intrusion
2. Europeans also were culturally imperialistic
1. Missionaries devoted themselves to converting natives and slaves to Christianity
3. Europeans also had to adapt to a new cultural environment
1. As time passed and colonists achieved a level of stability and prosperity, however, they began to deemphasize their past dependency on natives
2. By the eighteenth century, European colonists increasingly looked to Europe for cultural standards
2. Spiritual encounters
1. Christian missionaries, with the backing of governments and armies, were successful at converting indigenous peoples and African slaves
1. Catholic missionaries went to great lengths to learn Native American culture and use that knowledge to promote Christianity
2. The Christianity that emerged among these groups tended to be a hybrid form that incorporated indigenous gods and traditions
1. Some Europeans captured by Indians adopted indigenous faiths and customs
3. Sexual relations between Indian and African women and European men were very common in the Americas, leading to the emergence of new ethnic categories
4. Europeans also tried to convert African slaves
1. Like the Indians, Africans blended Christianity with their native Islamic or other beliefs
1. Christianity often helped inspire resistance among slave communities
3. The making of colonial cultures
1. Iberian colonies
1. The most powerful group were the Creoles, or people of pure European descent born in the Americas.
1. They resented the control that "peninsulars" (European residents born in Europe) had over colonial society
2. They also resented mercantilist regulations
2. Creole identity also emerged from the ideas of the Enlightenment
1. Enlightened ideas justified their resentment of peninsulars and mercantilist restrictions on trade
2. In many cities, reading clubs and salons operated
1. The Spanish and Portuguese crowns tried to limit or censor publications, but ideas still spread
2. British America
1. Wealthy colonists strove to imitate English ways
1. They imported more English goods
2. They modeled their governments after England's
3. They practiced patriarchy
2. In the process of trying to be more English they consumed and produced Enlightenment tracts
1. Thomas Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence" is the most famous Enlightenment document
7. Imperialism in Oceania
1. Europeans increasingly began to explore the Pacific east and south of modern-day Indonesia in the eighteenth century
2. The impact on Australia was profound
1. Until then, Australia had been a world apart, separated by water and distance from other regions
2. 300,000 indigenous hunters and gatherers lived there at the time of European exploration
3. The Scientific Voyages of Captain Cook
1. The voyages of Captain Cook led the English to discover the continent's verdant east coast
1. Cook symbolized his age
1. His voyages opened up the Pacific to European colonization
2. The Royal Society and the British crown sponsored his voyages
3. Popular accounts and engravings of his voyages increased European curiosity about the exotic worlds of the Pacific
4. His voyages opened up the Pacific to cultural colonization
2. Many scientists accompanied Cook during his voyages
1. They made about 3,000 drawings of plants, birds, landscapes, and peoples unknown to Europeans
2. They classified new flora and fauna according to the new Linnaean classificatory system
3. They gave geographical features English names
2. After Cook's voyages, the British hoped to make Australia a trading port and a supplier of raw materials
1. When the local population proved incapable of aiding in this goal, British authorities sent colonists
1. These colonists brought European flora and fauna
3. By 1788, the British controlled the eastern half of Australia
1. They began exporting criminals as well as encouraging free labor migration to the new colony
2. By 1860, there were 1.2 million Anglo-Australians
4. European diseases wiped out much of the indigenous population during this period
4. Classification and "Race"
1. European exploration and colonization of new areas in the Pacific came at a time when Europeans were using race to categorize other peoples they encountered
2. Many Enlightenment figures had begun to use the term race to designate groups of people in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
1. Linnaeus identified five groups among Homo sapiens, classifying people according to their physical characteristics and social qualities
1. Europeans were light-skinned and governed by laws
2. Asians were "sooty-skinned" and regulated by opinion
3. Native Americans were copper-skinned and governed by custom
4. Africans, the lowest rung, were dark-skinned and ruled by personal whim
2. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, the father of modern anthropology, took this view and classified humans into four races-European, Asian, African, and American
1. He introduced the term "Caucasian" to denote Europeans
2. He believed that Pacific Islanders fell somewhere between Caucasian and Ethiopians (whom he considered different from Africans)
3. The death of Cook at the hand of Hawaiians led Europeans to deemphasize this mystique and view the peoples of Oceania as savages
8. Conclusion
1. A global cultural renaissance occurred between 1600 and 1780
1. Book production and consumption soared
2. New monuments arose
3. Knowledge of other cultures increased among the world's educated groups
2. In China, Africa, and the Islamic world, social and cultural forces from within rather from without generated these cultural flowerings
3. This cultural renaissance was uneven, mainly benefiting elite and middle-class men in the Eurasian societies
1. The indigenous peoples of the Americas and Oceania were increasingly subjected to European cultural domination
4. Europeans increasingly gained an expansive view of the world and their place in it.
1. They developed "universal" and "objective" standards with which to analyze the world and to master it
5. The Chinese and Islamic empires rejected these European views
6. Indigenous people in the Americas and Oceania resisted cultural domination
9. Chronology
10. Study Questions
11. Further Readings

 

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