Eary+Modern+Period

Image: http://bms.westport.k12.ct.us/lmc/images/AgeExpMap.jpg The image show the existing trade routes we're familiar with that remained significant during the early modern period. It also shown new trade routes that are overseas starting from Europe to Africa and from Africa across the Pacific Ocean to the Americas. The Americas were, for the fist time, included in the exchange. International trade increased during this period.

__Notes on pg. 342-347__ -formation of new empires replacing smaller political units characteristic of the postclassical period -oceangoing routes across the Pacific and particularly the Atlantic became increasingly important / Indian Ocean sea routes remained significant
 * The World Map Changes **
 * European countries acquired overseas empires
 * New land-based empires arose in Asia & eastern Europe
 * Russian and Ottoman empires extended over European and Asian territory / Mughal Empire ruled much of Indian subcontinent
 * Recognition of the Americas

-revival of empire building -explorations by Europeans along the Atlantic coast of Africa -new military technologies; played vital role in defining the new framework for this period
 * Triggers for Change **
 * Compasses, sailing ships, guns, gunpowder, and other navigational devices contributed to the Europeans dominant of overseas routes and establish of their new overseas empires

-A new Global Economy -Biological Exchange -New Empires
 * The Big Changes (Colombian exchange) **
 * International trade increased including the Americas in the exchange for the first time
 * International influences
 * Corn and potato from the Americas began to be grown in Asia and Europe causing increase in population
 * Europeans brought diseases into the Americas and Pacific island territories, destroying the native population resulted in migration; slave trade
 * The gunpowder empires formed large political units
 * Patterns of inequality began to characterize some of the societies that supplied foods and raw materials to western Europe
 * Europe became wealthier and powerful as it supplied finished goods and commercial services to those same regions

-existing trade routes were still important -spread of world religions continued -gender relation remained the same with no systematic changes occurred -traditional political structures were kept in several societies; China and Africa
 * Continuity **
 * Islam reaching southeast Asia and parts of southeastern Europe / conversions to Christianity in the Americas

-European and Africa immigrants brought diseases like smallpox and measles to the Americas à many Indians in the Americas died -Europeans used silver for exchange with the Chinese à Chinese gov’t began collecting taxes in silver resulted in many Chinese fell ever deeper into poverty -Africans encounter their dark future; slavery -growing pressure to work harder
 * Impact on Daily Life: Work **
 * Child labor increased; indentured laborers

__In Depth: Caussation and the West's Expansion pg.354__ If I had to choose a single determinism as basic to social change, I would pick economic. Based on my understanding of Marxism, I believe that the economy of a country shapes its social structures. As the economic system become more complex, people’s functions within that economic system become differentiated causing social changes The professed motives of Western explorers and colonists might have been differed from their real motives in a way that their original goal was to explore new regions for knowledge and new lands. It was not to create a triangular trade that went on for many years and resulted in the Civil War or to kill thousands of native Indians with their diseases. They were not completely aware of the discrepancy because their original goals were to explore the world through testing out new technologies, such as the improved sailing ships, but somewhere along these explorations, they were establishing new empires under their control.