The Cambridge World History: Volume 6, The Construction of a Global World, 1400-1800 CE, Part 1, Foundations

"The era from 1400 to 1800 saw intense biological, commercial, and cultural exchanges, and the creation of global connections on an unprecedented scale. Divided into two books, Volume 6 of the Cambridge World History series considers these critical transformations. The first book examines the material and political foundations of the era, including global considerations of the environment, disease, technology, and cities, along with regional studies of empires in the eastern and western hemispheres, crossroads areas such as the Indian Ocean, Central Asia, and the Caribbean, and sites of competition and conflict, including Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Mediterranean. The second book focuses on patterns of change, examining the expansion of Christianity and Islam, migrations, warfare, and other topics on a global scale, and offering insightful detailed analyses of the Columbian exchange, slavery, silver, trade, entrepreneurs, Asian religions, legal encounters, plantation economies, early industrialism, and the writing of history."--Publisher History Front Matter 1 Dedication 7 Contents 9 Figures 12 Maps 14 Tables 15 Contributors 16 Preface 17 1 - Introduction 21 Part 1 - Global Matrices 47 2 - Exhausting The Earth 49 3- Globalization of Disease 74 4 - Technological Transitions 96 5 - Patterns of Urbanization 127 6 - Gender & Sexuality 153 Part 2 - Macro-Regions 177 7 - Eurasia After The Mongols 179 8 - Continuity and Change In the Indian Ocean Basin 202 9 - The Americas in the Age of Indigenous Empires 230 10 - Africa in World History 263 Part 3 - Large-Scale Political Formations 289 11 - The Iberian Empires 291 12 - Imperial Competition in Eurasia 317 13 - The Islamic Empire of the Early Modern World 343 Part 4 - Crossroad Regions 365 14 - Crossroads Region: Central Asia 367 15 - Crossroads Region: Southeast Asia 392 16 - The Caribbean Region 413 17 - Crossreads Region: The Mediterranean 435 Part 5 - Overview 465 18 - Political Trajectories Compared 467 Index 510 "The Cambridge World History is an authoritative new overview of the dynamic field of world history. It covers the whole of human history, not simply history since the development of written records, in an expanded time frame that represents the latest thinking in world and global history. With over two hundred essays, it is the most comprehensive account yet of the human past, and it draws on a broad international pool of leading academics from a wide range of scholarly disciplines. Reflecting the increasing awareness that world history can be examined through many different approaches and at varying geographic and chronological scales, each volume offers regional, topical, and comparative essays alongside case studies that provide depth of coverage to go with the breadth of vision that is the distinguishing characteristic of world history."--Publisher Comprehensive new global history of the intense biological, commercial, and cultural exchanges that took place on an unprecedented scale from 1400 to 1800. Leading scholars examine the environment, disease, technology, cities, migrations, warfare, law, religions, and slavery, along with insightful regional analyses of empires, crossroads areas, and sites of conflict.