What’s the Significance?
Big Picture Questions
Assume for the moment that the Chinese had not ended their maritime voyages in 1433. How might the subsequent development of world history have been different? What value is there in asking this kind of “what if” or counterfactual question?
How does this chapter distinguish among the various kinds of societies that comprised the world of the fifteenth century? What other ways of categorizing the world’s peoples might work as well or better?
What common patterns might you notice across the world of the fifteenth century? And what variations in the historical trajectories of various regions can you identify?
Looking Back: What would surprise a knowledgeable observer from 500 or 1000 C.E., were he or she to make a global tour in the fifteenth century? What features of that earlier world might still be recognizable?
Next Steps: For Further Study
Terence N. D’Altroy, The Incas (2002). A history of the Inca Empire that draws on recent archeological and historical research.
Edward L. Dreyer, Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty (2006). The most recent scholarly account of the Ming dynasty voyages.
Halil Inalcik and Donald Quataert, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914 (1994). A classic study of the Ottoman Empire.
Robin Kirkpatrick, The European Renaissance, 1400–1600 (2002). A beautifully illustrated history of Renaissance culture as well as the social and economic life of the period.
Charles Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus (2005). A review of Western Hemisphere societies and academic debates about their pre-Columbian history.
J. R. McNeill and William H. McNeill, The Human Web (2003). A succinct account of the evolving webs or relationships among human societies in world history.
Michael Smith, The Aztecs (2003). A history of the Aztec Empire, with an emphasis on the lives of ordinary people.
“Ming Dynasty,” http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ming/hd_ming.htm. A sample of Chinese art from the Ming dynasty from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“Renaissance Art in Italy,” http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHrenaissanceitaly.html. An extensive collection of painting and sculpture from the Italian Renaissance.