Topic #1Shifting Global Power

500 CE to present

Part I

Impact of Global Power Shifts?

TWO THINGS

1. We seem to be living through one now

1. Each global shift has had a profound impact on world history, shaping the cultural, political, social and economic patterns of societies in the process

Now

Relative decline of the United States?

The Post American World?

Think back to the summer reading

Debate over book

• We will examine Fareed Zakaria’s argument once we’ve traced the shifts in world power up to the present

• We will have a debate focused on Zakaria’sthesis during the 2nd trimester

So we will leave

Point #1 until later, shifting global power now and into the foreseeable future. . .

Second point

What impact have shifts in global power had in the past?

The Classical Empires

• Prior to our time period (500 CE to present) power shifted toward the Roman and Han Empires and shaped world history in the processNote, the rise of such powers has been due to military conquest in most cases (the Roman Legions were the key to Roman power, improvements in mounted cavalry led to victories in Central Asia in the case of the Han)

Rise of Rome

Commonly dated from accession of economically and politically.

Roman unity

From roughly 100BCE to 500 CE, Rome unified the Mediterranean world, culturally, economically and politically

Examples of Roman unity

Roman use and spread of:

• coins, law code, road systems (such as the Appian Way)

• Greco-Roman literature, art and architecture

• Latin, the Roman language

• Christianity (the official religion under Emperor Constantine)

The Fall of Rome

Left a two-fold power vacuum:

• Europe was never unified for very long again (Charlemagne briefly unified it during the 800s CE)—struggles to become the “new“ Rome ensued for centuries (the Romanovs of Russia, the Hapsburgs of Spain and Austria-Hungry, Napoleon, Hitler, etc.)

• In the Middle East, Islam quickly filled the void left by the Romans (see Part II, the next power point)

Pax Romana?

• Ideal of conquest, imperial “greatness”

• This is the legacy of Rome, according to Michael Wood (although he says it began with the Greeks, particularly Alexander the Great)

• The mantle of Roman imperialism rests in the hands of the United States today, he says

Han China

Unified China

• After extended war and unrest, The Han Emperors unified China approximately 200 BCE to 220 CE

• Large zone of cultural, political and economic unity

• Wide economic contacts along the Silk Road brought Buddhism to much of Asia

• Confucianism spread all over South East and East Asia during the Han period

Science and technology during the Han Dynasty

Incredible take-off,

too many to list--Click Here

(we will look more closely at the influence of Chinese technology on world history as part of Topic #2, World Trade, 500CE to present)

The invention of paper is a good example to follow in the mean time . . .

Paper

• Invented during the reign of Han Emperor Wu Di, 140 BCE-86 BCE.

• Easily record ideas/information, easy to transport (think about Cuneiform from Mesopotamia—they used clay tables; picture a dictionary on clay tablets ¼ of an inch think)

• When combined with printing (also a Chinese invention, a few centuries after the Han), it allowed for an explosion of knowledge etc.

Here is one example.Columbus and Printing?

• Christopher Columbus was not the first European to visit the Americas (Vikings under Erik the Red and Leif Erikson visited Greenland and Newfoundland, for example)

• However, the news of Columbus’s discovery spread due to printing and the availability of paper—in today’s terms, the news went “viral”

News of Columbus’s voyage inspired others:

• Hernando Cortez/Francisco Pizzaro/Henry Hudson/Captain James Cook

• Would any of this have happened without paper and printing? Would such breakthroughs (such as the invention of paper) have occurred without the stability fostered by the Han Dynasty?

Conclusion

• shifts in global power (as seen in the case of the Roman and Han Empires) have had a profound impact on world history

• They have shaped the cultural, economic, and political developments of every corner of the globe (by the time we get to the rise of European Empires our scope will be truly global)

Can you summarize this process

Howddid shifts

How have shifts in global power influenced world history?

You should be able to trace this process in the case of the Roman and Han Empires

But what about the rise and fall of Islamic Empires? What impact have they had?

Part IIfocuses on Islam