Commerce and Culture, 500-1500

Commerce and Culture,500-1500 Chapter 8 Lecture A.P. World History Ways of the World

Let’s Sing the Dynasty Song!!

What is the is chapter really about? • Long distant trade and its effects

Overall Effects of Trade Systems • Trade alters civilizations: • Less economically independent • Changes within society: • The Rise of the Merchant Class • Introduction and spread of Religion • Sharing of innovation, language, and disease • Political Impact: • Taxes • Who controls trade, the merchants or the government?

The Silk Road • Became a connector of China and the Middle East • Many exchanges were being made by the civilizations that bordered the route, such as: • Agricultural Goods • Manufactured Products • Ideas

Those Who Utilized the Route • Entertainers • Camel guides • Merchants • Monks and pilgrims A Social System!

The Silk Road’s Origins • The trade route began being circa 100 B.C.E. • The Chinese wanted certain Western products. During the pursuit of these products, the Silk Road was born. • Horses was a western good that was highly sought after. • With time, Greeks were wearing Chinese silk

Zhang Jian • During the Han Dynasty, the Emperor Wu sent Zhang Jian out to explore Inner Asia • What he found: • Superior horse breed • New plants and trees

Impact of the Silk Road • Trade became more important in Central Asia • Iranian speaking peoples began settling in trade cities more and more. • Missionaries also began influencing the customs and beliefs of the people along the Silk Road.

The Spread of Ideas • Livestock • New technologies: • Silk making • Paper making and printing • Wine making • Martial arts • Pagoda architecture • gunpowder

Religions That Gained Popularity India China • Buddhism: Buddha changes as Buddhism travels along trade routes. China

The Spread of Buddhism • Buddhism: Spread without any link to ethnicity and or kinship • Monks, missionaries, and pilgrims who were crossing India along the Silk Road brought their Buddhist teachings with them. (diffusion) • Spread to Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan.

The Spread of Christianity Africa Europe Middle East As Christianity Spreads, the image of Jesus changes.

Christianity • Early in the faith’s history it Christianity was being spread throughout Asia and Africa • Islam then spread rapidly thought these regions decreasing the Christian influence. • Jerusalem in Palestine, Antioch in Syria, and Alexandria in Egypt became Christian centers. • The spread into Armenia and Ethiopia exhibits connections between religions, trade and politics

Disease in Transit • The major population centers of the Afro-Eurasian world developed characteristic disease patterns and ways to deal with them. • long-distance trade meant exposure to unfamiliar diseases. • during the Roman and Han empires, smallpox and measles devastated both populations • in 534–750 C.E., bubonic plague from India ravaged Mediterranean world

The Black Death spread during the Mongol Empire’s unification of much of Eurasia13th-14th Centuries could have been bubonic plague, anthrax, or collection of epidemic diseases killed one-third of European population between 1346 and 1350 similar death toll in China and parts of the Islamic world Central Asian steppes were badly affected (undermined Mongol power) disease exchange gave Europeans an advantage when they reached the Western Hemisphere after 1500

Commerce and Culture, 500-1500