THE WEST AND THE CHANGING WORLD BALANCE

1. THE WEST AND THE CHANGING WORLD BALANCE

2. Introduction • By 1400 there was a shifting balance between world civilizations • The international role of the Islamic world, with the fall of the Abbasids and other Mongol disruptions, was in decline.

3. The Ming Dynasty of China attempted for a time to expand into the vacuum • They won’t stay • But the most dynamic contender was Europe.

4. Decline of the Old Order • In the Middle East and North Africa the once powerful civilizations of Byzantium and the Abbasids had crumbled • The Byzantine Empire was replaced by the Ottoman Turks when Constantinople fell in 1453 • The Abbasids had fallen to the Mongols in 1258.

5. Social and Cultural Decline in the Middle East • By 1300 Islamic religious leaders had won dominance over poets, philosophers, and scientists • Islamic scholarship focused upon religion and legal traditions…

6. …although the Sufis continued to emphasize mystical contacts with God.

7. Changes occurred in economic and social life as landlords established hegemony over the peasantry • From 1100 peasants became serfs on large estates, bound to the land • Results: • Agricultural productivity fell • Tax revenues decreased

8. Middle Eastern merchants lost ground to European competitors • The Islamic decline was gradual and incomplete • Muslim merchants remained active in the Indian Ocean, and the Ottoman Turks were beginning to build one of the world’s most powerful empires.

9. Power Vacuum and International Leadership • The rise of the Ottomans did not restore Islam’s international vigor • The Turkish rulers focused on conquest and administration • They awarded less attention to commerce • The result was a power vacuum beyond Ottoman borders.

10. The Mongol dominions in Asia provided a temporary international alternative, but their decline opened opportunities for China and Western Europe.

11. CHINESE THRUST AND WITHDRAWAL

12. The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) replaced the Yuan and pushed to regain former Chinese borders • The Ming established their influence in Mongolia, Korea, Vietnam, and Tibet • In a new policy, the Ming mounted state sponsored trading expeditions to India, the Middle East, and Eastern Africa.

13. The fleets, led by Chinese Admiral Zheng He, and others, were technologically superior to all other fleets.

14. Ming rulers halted the expeditions in 1433 for a variety of reasons:

15. Reason #1 • The Chinese government had an inadequate system for collecting taxes and spending greatly exceeded the tax revenue collected.

16. Reason # 2 • In the mid-1400’s, the Mongols began frequent attacks on China’s northern border.

17. Reason # 3 • Neo-Confucian scholars held many important posts. • Neo-Confucian philosophy advocated the suppression of desire for worldly goods. • The influence of the Neo-Confucians grew in the later Ming dynasty.

18. Reason # 4 • The Chinese believed that each person had a duty to care regularly for the tombs of his ancestors.

19. Reason # 5 • Most Chinese believed… • that their civilization was superior to all others • foreign goods were inferior to Chinese goods • there was little to be learned from foreigners

20. Chinese merchants, however, remained active in southeast Asian waters.

21. Chinese merchants would establish permanent settlements in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, but China had lost a chance to become a dominant world power.

22. The Chinese from their viewpoint, had ended an unusual experiment, returning to their accustomed inward looking policies. • Since internal economic development flourished, there was little need for foreign products.

23. The withdrawal opened opportunities for European expansion.

24. The Rise of the West • The small states of the West were still a backward region during the 14th and 15th century.

25. The staples of medieval culture, including the Christian Church, were under attack: • Philosophy had passed its creative phase • Warrior aristocrats lost their military focus and indulged in courtly rituals • The economic activities of ordinary Europeans were in disarray • Growing populations outstripped food supplies • Famine was a recurrent threat after 1300

26. Sources of Dynamism: Medieval Vitality • The West, despite the problems, remained a dynamic society • Strengthened feudal monarchs provided effective government

27. War stimulated military innovation • In Spain and Portugal, regional rulers drove back Muslim occupiers • Urban economic growth continued to spur commerce, and the church began to adjust its thinking and accepted key capitalistic principles.

28. Technology, especially in ironworking and timekeeping, continued to progress.

29. Imitation and International Problems • New opportunities for imitation occurred when the rise of the large and stable Mongol Empire provided access to: • Asian knowledge • Asian technology

30. Western elites sought Asian luxury products, paying for them by exporting raw materials • The unfavorable balance of trade had to be made up in gold • By 1400, a gold shortage threatened the European economy with collapse.

31. The rise of the Ottoman Empire and other Muslim successes further threatened Europe’s balance of trade with Asia.

32. The reaction included expansion in the Adriaticcity–state of Venice…

33. … and the beginning of explorations to bypass Muslim dominated routes to Asia • But this expansion brought a problem… • A very tiny problem!