Interactions and encounters

world history is less about what happened within particular civilizations or cultures than about the interactions/encounters among them

don’t think about particular peoples/civilizations as self-contained or isolated

each was part of a network of relationships with neighboring and distant peoples

networks grew more dense/complex over time

Empires

large states often incorporated vast range of peoples

provided opporunities for communicating/borrowing between them

exchange of products, foods, ideas, religions, disease

Commercial exchange

interaction of distant peoples

typically chain of separate transactions—goods travel farther than merchants

networks all across Afro-Eurasian world, and Americas/Oceania formed

altered consumption habits, changed working lives, enabled class distinction, stimulated/sustained creation of states, helped diffuse religion, technology, disease

began well before 1200, persisted well after it

Silk Roads

reference to most famous product (silk)

began around 200 BCE, operated to varying degrees for over 1,500 years

linked China and Mediterranean world and numerous places in between

Sea Roads

Indian Ocean and South China Sea

linked people living between southern China and East Africa

Sand Roads

aka trans-Saharan trade routes

linked North Africa and Mediterranean with interior West Africa

Americas

less densely woven than in Afro-Eurasia

still many linkages

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