This is lecture 14, we call it Asian empires and the shogunate; our theme here is the early-modern
period.
Let’s characterize it.
This a complex time; things are in flux across Eurasia.
Generalizations are getting harder to come by.
We have a long-term pattern here, of western rise and eastern decline, two big developments.
First – increasing prosperity as a result of local production for world markets.
Remember that American silver is now pouring into China and into East Asia.
Merchants and governments are enriched.
Export-based manufacturing, again, producing for a world market – and of course, the
silver makes it possible for Europeans to now purchase and to trade in a more equitable
fashion with the Chinese.
A second big development here is the emergence of gunpowder empires.
We see this in Russia.
We see it with the Ottoman Turks in the Eastern Mediterranean.
We see it with the Mughal Empire in India, and of course, with the Sufavid Empire in
what today we call Persia, or Iran.
Now let’s look at China specifically for a moment.
Of course, Chinese imperial tradition is long established – from the Ming Dynasty in the
15th century all the way to the Manchu Dynasty of the 20th.
China remains an outsider, to a degree.
Its products still remain in high demand, but the Chinese are increasingly wary of foreigners.
China is not as dynamic as Western Europe as we move into the 16th century.
The East now begins a slow decline as technological leadership moves westward.
China remains vigorous until about 1830 when the balance of payment problem with Europe
is now reversed.
Of course, it was the Europeans who had long had the problem of how to pay for Chinese
goods; now the situation is reversed.
China ceased to be a source of technological innovation.
In China, there’s an excessive, sort of top-heavy bureaucracy that does not increase
efficiency; it tends to diminish it.
This of course, is the opposite of what a bureaucracy is supposed to do.
As you may recall, a bureaucracy is, its’ purpose is to extend the emperor’s authority
to the local level.
China does not imitate the western pattern, and China turns increasingly away from the
west.
Now the Ottoman Turks, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, the Ottomans solidified
Turkish influence over this whole region in North Africa, the Middle East, Asia Minor
– or what today we call Turkey.
The Turks encouraged the spread of Islam; this is a unifying factor.
Christian slaves are forcibly converted to Janissary soldiers for the Turks.
Mehmed the Conqueror, 1432 to 1481, promoted lenient treatment of Christians and Jews.
Ottomans were less tolerant of the Shia Muslims because this minority branch of Islam posed
a genuine challenge Ottoman power, unlike Christians and Jews, who did not.
We see here a blend of the old Byzantine styles combined with the newer Islamic styles.
The Ottomans reach a high point in the late 17th-early 18th centuries, and then Ottoman
central rule begins to weaken as local power centers emerge in the empire.
The Ottoman Empire is not as vibrant now as we move into the 18th and 19th centuries.
European opinion turns against the Ottomans, and the Ottomans increasingly try to avoid
contact with the west – even to the extent that private printing presses are banned until
the mid-18th century so that the central government could monopolize information.
We’ll talk about orientalism probably in our next lecture, whereby Western perception
of the Arabic; Muslim; and Turkish world becomes a reality.
Let’s move a little bit east and talk about the Mughal Empire for a moment.
Here, of course, we have a mixture of Hindus and Muslims.
We should mention Akbar, a prominent historical figure here in the Mughal Empire remembered
today mainly for his religious toleration.
He provided lands to scholars of different religious faiths.
He abolished the standard tax that Muslims levied on Christians and other non-Muslims.
He commissioned translations of religious texts, both Persian and Hindu.
He even hired a Jesuit to tutor his son; so you can see he’s quite tolerant of a variety
of religious faiths.
Now Akbar’s successor, Aurangzeb, had a sense of being surrounded by enemies and because
of this he clamped down on religious – what I guess you would regard as heresies, at this
point – and tried to force everyone to adhere to official religion.
Artistic innovation continues here in the Mughal Empire and India.
Traditional Indian cuisine dates from the Mughal period.
When we think of – I just mentioned artistic traditions – when we think of architecture,
of course, all of you have seen photographs of the famous Taj Mahal.
An ancient Indian tradition, sati, is not eliminated by the Mughals.
Sati is where the widow throws herself on her husband’s, her dead husband’s, funeral
pyre – as his death leaves her a dependent and a burden on society.
A couple of words here about the Safavids in what in antiquity we’d call Persia, what
today we call Iran.
The Safavid Empire, the Safavid leaders thought of themselves as reviving the ancient Persian
Empire.
Shia Islam became the official faith in Iran after 1501, following military victories.
Iran remains a potential challenge to Sunni authority everywhere, and of course, that
continues right up to today.
Shah Abbas the First, from 1588 to 1629, promoted a policy of religious toleration.
Farsi is spoken.
Iran – Persia – is not Arabic; they do not speak Arabic language.
They’re kind of squeezed between the Arabs to the West and the Hindus to the East.
A couple of words here about the decline of these gunpowder empires, late 17th-early 18th
centuries – Safavid and Mughal Empires are weakened.
For the Mughals, we can look at two major mistakes.
First, Akbar’s earlier policy of religious toleration is now dropped.
This is going to create dissention in society.
Muslim’s are favored over Hindus.
And then second, there’s an overexpansion with vast armies and great expenses to maintain
these armies.
This weakens the imperial structure.
There’s an overreach here.
This weakening of the center gives rise to local power.
Local centers of power are now going to emerge and challenge the center.
And then of course, there’s another factor, and that’s the European powers; they’re
increasingly aggressive and they begin to interfere in India.
Think of the British East India Company.
And then, let’s go to the very Eastern edge of Eurasia and make a few comments here about
the Japanese shogunate.
Again, we’re in the early-modern period.
The Tokugawa shogunate closed off contact with the West, and this is a kind of a reoccurring
theme in Japanese history.
From feudalism to a central state served by its own bureaucrats instead of feudal vassals,
there’s going to be a transition here in how the Japanese govern themselves.
There’s cultural change; the Japanese turned increasingly toward Confucianism, alongside
Shintoism and Buddhism.
Japanese culture is increasingly secularized.
Confucianism led to a higher state of literacy, better and more widespread education.
The population did not outrun its resources.
And then by the 18th century Japan becomes more open now to Western influence, and we’ll
talk about this more later.
So let’s draw some conclusions here.
Across Eurasia, the interconnections of the human web favored portable religions at the
expense of local ones.
Portal religions, those like Christianity; Islam; Buddhism – religious that travel;
religions that have missionaries and proselytizers.
Membership in a larger religious community conferred practical and perhaps psychological
benefits.
You feel part of a larger community that you fancy yourself sharing a faith with.
Strict adherence to local traditions and beliefs left one isolated, and invited political annihilation
whenever militant Christians or Muslims were nearby.
So this is a brief survey of Eurasia, or at least more Asia than Eurasia in this case,
in the early-modern period.
Thank you for your attention.