StudySpace: Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 2 e.

New World silver led to prosperity, especially in China, the Islamic empires, and Europe. New wealth greatly impacted cultural development and the spread of knowledge. Old empire cultures began to compete with new European cultural forms. European leaders tried to manage the cultural output of intellectuals.

Trade and Culture

Culture flourished in areas profiting from the Indian Ocean and China Sea trade. Mixing and adapting became commonplace as cultures encountered each other. European cultural curiosity produced much of this contact. By the late 1700s, voyages for wealth were accompanied by voyages for knowledge of a world waiting to be cataloged, dissected, and understood. The accumulation of data led to the belief that all nature could be understood and that principles derived from it had universal applicability. Expanding long-distance trade may have helped unify the world, but culture still derived from local traditions and political needs.

Culture in the Islamic World

Culture in the Islamic world developed as wealth expanded alongside politics as a legitimizing force for rulers. Therefore, culture in the Islamic empires assumed a degree of autonomy not seen in the Islamic cosmopolitanism of an earlier day.

THE OTTOMAN CULTURAL SYNTHESIS

Ottoman culture was a highly diverse blend that demonstrated flexibility, tolerance, and synthesis. Jews and Christians were allowed to form their own religious communities and paid a special tax for the right to do so. Recognizing that Islamic law did not address the needs of an expanding and increasingly diverse empire, the Ottoman sultans created legal codes for an empire of Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Three educational systems—for bureaucrats, scholars, and religious leaders— provided flexible institutions that helped unify the country as it prepared elites. Ottoman scholars studied religion, history, and the hard sciences, and dabbled in social science inquiry about the decline of the Ottomans. From Europe came studies of science, history, and geography, but these fell into disfavor after 1730 and did not develop a following. Celebrating life, the Ottomans became infatuated with the tulip and luxury items. Prosperity meant an abundance of all.

SAFAVID CULTURE

The Safavid Empire provided Shiism—Islam’s religion of opposition—a home and a champion. To win support, however, the Safavids embraced landowners and orthodox ulama, thus creating a blend of Islamic Sufi brotherhoods and clerical orthodoxy, while educational institutions taught Shiite orthodoxy. With its mosques, palaces, and other buildings, Isfahan became the pinnacle of Safavid culture. Painting, carpet-weaving, tile-making, and calligraphy also reached lofty heights.

POWER AND CULTURE UNDER THE MUGHALS

In Mughal India, Muslims and Hindus alike contributed to the development of high culture, bridging religious differences. Akbar’s interest in universal truth and syncretism resulted in the production of his own religion and a model city at Fatehpur Sikri. The Taj Mahal, another example of Hindu and Muslim cooperation, combined poetry, stone, and design to produce a refined grandeur to soften Mughal military, political, and economic might. Aurangzeb showed less sympathy for non- Islamic architecture and art forms, but Mughal culture continued to thrive. Nobility consumed and enjoyed luxury items from east and west. Military units were augmented with European military personnel and technology even if the Mughals saw little use for most other European knowledge. The Islamic empires looked to China for inspiration, not Europe. Europe was viewed as a source of rivalry, not high culture.

Culture and Politics in East Asia

In China, an expanding population and economy stimulated the spread of ideas and goods while raising new challenges for the imperial court. In Japan, the Tokugawa Shogunate struggled to control the spread of new ideas and goods.

CHINA: THE CHALLENGE OF EXPANSION AND DIVERSITY

Transmission of Ideas Between 1500 and 1700, books and ideas exploded in a publishing revolution as centralized control over printing gave way to autonomous commercialized publishing. The state simply could not control what was produced as the demand for books from elites and urban populations alike could not be satiated and unsanctioned ideas could not be contained. Connoisseurship of the arts expanded. Great libraries on a myriad of subjects grew as books and art both became affordable to a new class of urbanites. Model essays impacted the exam system, leading to complaints that memorizing, rather than learning, had become the focus but others noted the prominent role of women writers as a sign of growth.

Popular Culture and Religion In rural districts, the Ming sought to maintain control over culture and behavior, appointing village elders to ensure laws and cultural norms were followed. Most peasants, however, continued to be more influenced by local Buddhist and Daoist networks or itinerant and market gossip. Thus, Ming authorities failed to monopolize cultural transmission in these networks. The secular state, however, had little reason to challenge Buddhist or Daoist institutions, provided they did not challenge the state. Thus, China enjoyed religious tolerance not seen in the west.

Technology and Cartography Chinese science and technology reached new heights under the Ming. Chinese astronomers excelled, particularly since they were required to inform the emperor precisely when certain rituals had to be conducted. European science was introduced through Jesuit missionaries, who remained frustrated that Chinese did not better appreciate European contributions. Science in China, as indicated by China’s own cartographic traditions, simply had a different purpose than it did in Europe. China remained relatively uninformed and disinterested in foreign lands or peoples and maintained the view that all things Chinese were superior.

CULTURAL IDENTITY AND TOKUGAWA JAPAN

In Japan, Chinese, European, and Japanese culture interacted to stimulate cultural developments reflecting larger changes introduced by global trade. A highly refined and restrained elite culture, informed by the court and samurai class, was joined by an unrestrained, urbanite culture dominated by merchants. Popular culture rejected the principled and disciplined culture of the elites by celebrating entertainers and pleasure. Viewing the more extreme features of this culture as a threat to control and stability, the shogunate restricted it to the pleasure quarters. There, however, money ruled, allowing merchants to trump the class standing of the samurai. Fueled by a commercializing economy and rising literacy among townspeople, publishing exploded. Through books and human contact, Chinese Chan Buddhism (called Zen in Japan) and Confucianism expanded, in part to stabilize social hierarchy and legitimize the shogunate. “Native learning,” intellectual trends derived from Japan’s own traditions, also thrived. Finally, the spread of European knowledge or “Dutch learning” provided Japanese with a new source of science, geography, and medicine. Unlike China or the Islamic empires, Japan showed no hesitation about borrowing ideas, systems, and knowledge from others.

The Enlightenment in Europe

Europeans borrowed readily, but also proved eager to spread their knowledge of God and nature around the globe. This impulse came from Enlightenment views that universal and objective knowledge, gained through scientific investigation, applied to all peoples everywhere.

ORIGINS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

In Europe, economic prosperity and broader cultural awareness opened the way for a new class of nonaristocrats, complete with their own sense of worth and new culture, that challenged both Europe’s nobility and the church. Crises in the seventeenth century led Europe’s disenchanted to seek “objective” knowledge of the world and to form new centers of culture apart from the political realm. Science and the scientific method expanded, and slowly, lower-class Europeans began to gain confidence in their own abilities to create, write, and even rule. Exposed to goods and ideas from all over the globe, European thinkers became convinced that their culture was the only true standard.

THE NEW SCIENCE

Philosophical assertions claimed that the universe operated according to natural laws that could be understood with inductive logic and experimentation. By the end of the seventeenth century, monarchs had even begun to show interest in science as a way to augment their own power and status. Science spread to elites outside the court and eventually to the common people, particularly as its practical value became more widely acknowledged. Even so, much of Europe remained under the influence of Christianity and the court, which had yet to be transformed by scientific “objectivity.”

ENLIGHTENMENT THINKERS

Enlightenment thinkers believed that man could be perfected, rejecting the view that man was inherently corrupt and distanced from God. Corrupted social traditions and institutions of church and state, they asserted, were the source of problems. Flourishing in Europe’s cultural centers, the Enlightenment saw an explosion of printing, libraries, salons, and book clubs. Satire, which often bordered on the pornographic, criticized institutions of church and state. Believing that men of all classes were equally endowed with reason and intelligence, Enlightenment thinkers pushed for a meritocratic system. Government should provide opportunities for all, not just elite classes. They also sought to discover, like natural scientists, the laws governing human behavior. Economic laws, claimed Adam Smith, applied to all peoples, who needed to follow them if they wanted prosperity. Turning their sights on religious practice, Enlightenment advocates demanded that religion be advanced by reason, not force. This view thus opened the way for greater toleration of religion. Spreading ideas through the printed word, exemplified by works such as the Encyclopedia, Enlightenment thinkers championed rationality and commercial growth. Naturally, by this standard “Europe” fared better than most other places, creating a Euro-centric view of the world. Ironically, absolutist governments found that certain Enlightenment views could be turned to their advantage and support absolutist ambitions.

AFRICAN CULTURAL FLOURISHING

Slave trade wealth opened the way for African elites to sponsor cultural flourishing but most activity involved local cultural forms. Art sought to glorify ruling elites by capturing energy of the spiritual realm. Asante’s wealth from gold and slaves led to the production of symbolic gold-covered stools, cloth, symbols of godly power. Yoruba and Benin bronzes stand as some of the most ornate and beautifully crafted in history. In Africa, artistic forms remained relatively insulated from European influence and gained little appreciation in the Americas.

Hybrid Cultures in the Americas

Culture in the Americas transformed as European culture blended with that of the native peoples and African slaves. Given Europe’s military dominance, Amerindians and Africans adapted more of European culture than the other way around. “Civilizing” Christianity spread to Amerindians and Africans, but became hybridized as it was added to earlier religious conceptions. Colonists adapted as well, eventually becoming prosperous enough to imitate European norms even while maintaining their own unique culture.

SPIRITUAL ENCOUNTERS

Christian missionaries in the Americas employed military and political force to win converts. Catholic missionaries in particular studied and then attacked local belief systems. Despite missionary efforts, however, conversion generally meant a form of hybridization between Christianity and local beliefs. Amerindians also had some success in converting captives or frontiersmen to local beliefs. Gender imbalances among Europeans on the frontier greatly contributed to a number of European men embracing Amerindian society, producing new hybrid peoples. Amerindianized Europeans and Christianized Amerindians both characterized and brokered the fuzzy boundary between the two groups. Relations between Africans and Europeans produced much of the same. Catholics in particular sought to Christianize slave communities, producing mixed results. Converted slaves drew inspiration from Christian hymns and stories to condemn slavery or revolt against it.

THE MAKING OF COLONIAL CULTURES

The creoles, Spanish America’s most successful hybrid culture, wrestled with their subordinate status to the “peninsulars.” Discrimination and the spread of Enlightenment ideas led to the growth of creole identity and dissatisfaction with the role of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns. Published materials criticizing court policies in the New World abounded and were embraced by disenfranchised creoles. In British America, colonists moved to emulate their motherland elites by building huge estates embellished with finery from all over the world. Great numbers of books drew Americans into the Enlightenment craze as both consumers and producers of such works as the Declaration of Independence.

Imperialism in Oceania

As Europeans pressed into the far reaches of Oceania, Australia became Anglicized. Largely separate from other world cultures, Australia had developed on its own, home to hunter-gatherers. Parts of Oceania had already been claimed by European colonists. By the late eighteenth century, these people were ready to move to Australia.

THE SCIENTIFIC VOYAGES OF CAPTAIN COOK

Engaging in a form of scientific imperialism—the pursuit of power through the pursuit of knowledge—James Cook opened the South Pacific to Europeans. Armed with scientists and equipment, his expedition studied and recorded flora, fauna, geography, and people, accounts of which were celebrated in Europe. European plans for Australia meant its transformation. Eager to begin, Cook brought European animals and plants to make the land more receptive to European colonists. Eastern Australia was designated as a prison colony and as a supplier of natural resources. As in the Americas, European expansion came at the expense of the native peoples. European knowledge, in like manner, also came at native peoples’ expense, as witnessed by the practice of kidnapping them to show them off in Europe.

CLASSIFICATION AND “RACE”

By the late seventeenth century, science’s classification of nature was applied to humans, and the term “race” entered the vocabulary of Europeans. To each so-called race were attached certain features and characteristics that, often but not always, placed Europeans at the top of a new racial hierarchy and Africans at the bottom. While classifications of the peoples of Oceania originally described them as innocent and peace loving, Cook’s violent death and other incidents led Europeans to depict them as cruel savages.

 

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