The Early Modern Cycle, 1350–1700

The Early Modern Cycle, 1350–1700

Lecture 40

The rst and most spectacular change probably of all in this period was in exchange networks. And this has to count as one of the most spectacular changes in all of human history. What happens after the voyages of Columbus is that the four world zones are linked, over the next 200 years, for the rst time in human history.

The “early Modern” Malthusian cycle lasted from about 1350 to about 1700. By 1500, most areas of Afro-Eurasia had recovered from the Black Death and continued to rise. In the 17th century, populations stagnated or declined slightly in some areas, but there was no population crash similar to that of the 14th century. Is this a hint that rates of innovation were beginning to accelerate? How rapidly did commerce and capitalism expand in this period? The evidence is contradictory.

The most spectacular change in this period was the uni cation of all four world zones into a single global network of exchange. This change stimulated commerce and capitalism throughout the world as goods, crops, ideas, and people began to circulate on a larger scale than ever before.

The linking of the four world zones was the work of European mariners, using highly maneuverable ships equipped with cannons and backed by aggressive, commercially minded governments. The rst captain known to have circumnavigated the globe was Juan Sebastian del Cano, a commander in Ferdinand Magellan’s eet who returned to Spain in 1522. The sudden expansion of world markets stimulated commerce and capitalism so decisively that Karl Marx described this as one of the great turning points in human history.

American crops such as maize, potatoes, manioc, and tomatoes stimulated population growth in China, Europe, and Africa, where they could be grown in regions unsuitable for local staples. Between 1400 and 1700, the populations of China, India, and Europe all doubled. Increasing trade stimulated commerce and capitalism. As China’s population and economy

expanded, it sucked in silver for coinage. This bene ted European middlemen who used brutal methods to extract silver by force from American mines such as Potosi in modern Bolivia. Increasing commercialization began to transform the lives of China’s peasants.

The emergence of a global network of exchanges transformed the global geography of wealth and power. For most of the Agrarian era, the Atlantic region was marginal to world history. In Afro-Eurasia, the major centers of economic and political power were in the eastern Mediterranean, North India, and China; in the American world zone, they lay in Mesoamerica and the Andes. Suddenly, Europe found itself at the center of the rst global world system. European merchants not only pioneered the rst transoceanic exchange networks but also maintained control of them for several centuries. A durable pattern of small- or medium-sized states, engaged in constant competition, forced European rulers to seek commercial sources of revenue. So European states were generally more supportive of commerce than the great empires of the Muslim world or China.

With supportive governments and a central position in global commercial networks, European societies became increasingly capitalistic, and their governments became more supportive of entrepreneurial activity. In Britain, these changes are evident from the remarkable statistics assembled by Gregory King (1648–1712), one of the pioneers of modern statistics.

According to King, in 1688, 43% of the British population consisted of “cottagers and paupers” or of “laboring people and out servants.” In other words, almost half of Britain’s population had no land and had to survive entirely from wage labor. Modern studies suggest that in the late 17th century, more than half of British national income came from commercial activities (Christian, Maps of Time, p. 413). By the early 18th century, most of the revenues of the British government came from commercial sources, which ensured that the government would aggressively back commerce. The importance of commerce was evident from the many merchants in the British Parliament.

Between 1400 and 1700, the populations of China, India, and Europe all doubled.

Yet, despite these changes, there was no sharp acceleration in global rates of innovation. There were signi cant improvements in shipping and military technology, and in mining and instrument building. But in general, global rates of innovation remained sluggish. Populations grew less because of signi cant innovations than because of changes such as the introduction of American crops or government backing for the settlement of new lands, from Siberia to South America. The European Scienti c Revolution may have been a product, in part, of the torrent of new information that owed through European societies as Europe found itself at the center of the rst global network of information. But as yet, science had little impact on technological innovation.

In the smaller world zones, the initial results of global uni cation were catastrophic. Globalization exposed the smaller world zones to colonization and brutal exploitation by European invaders. In the silver mines of Potosi, in modern Bolivia, miners (many of them children) were routinely worked to death, or their health was destroyed by the handling of mercury, all to ensure the ows of American silver that drove global commerce.

Europeans brought diseases such as smallpox that decimated indigenous populations. In Afro-Eurasia, the widespread use of domesticated animals allowed diseases to cross species, creating a rich palette of diseases and toughening immune systems. The other world zones had smaller populations, few or no domesticated animals, smaller exchange networks, and a less rich disease environment. As a result, the introduction of Afro-Eurasian diseases such as smallpox was catastrophic, mimicking the impact of Eurasian plagues but on a far larger scale. In the more densely settled regions of Mesoamerica and Peru, populations may have fallen 50%–70% in the course of the 16th century. For Americans, this was an apocalyptic calamity.

How much had the world changed by 1700? Globalization stimulated commerce and capitalism, and it transformed some regions, particularly in Europe and (more destructively) the Americas. Yet most states were still dominated by traditional tribute-taking elites with traditional aristocratic values. Peasants, though increasingly enmeshed in market exchanges, remained the vast majority of the population in most countries. The survival

of traditional social structures may help explain why, on a global scale, innovation remained sluggish.

In the early Modern Malthusian cycle, as in the medieval cycle, there was much change, yet the basic structures of the Agrarian era remained in place, and that may explain why rates of innovation remained low. When, where, and why did the breakthrough to modernity occur?

Essential Reading

Supplementary Reading

Questions to Consider

Bentley and Ziegler, Traditions and Encounters, chaps. 23–26. Christian, Maps of Time, chap. 12.

Crosby, The Columbian Exchange. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power.

1. What were the most important changes during the early Modern

Malthusian cycle?

2. What were the most important consequences of the rst wave of

“globalization” between 1500 and 1700?