Intro to Part Three & Ch. 7

Intro to Part Three:
The Third Wave Era
The different patterns of development within particular civilizations have made it difficult to define the Third Wave era in a single, all-encompassing fashion. During this time, the world's various regions, cultures, and peoples interacted with one another far more frequently and extensively. The change in human societies was the result of contact with strangers. In places like island Southeast Asia, coastal East Africa, Central Asian cities, parts of Western Europe, the Islamic Middle East, and the Inca Empire were all cosmopolitan regions that emerged in trade, migration, and an empire bringing together different cultures. These were "mini-globalizations" and they were not totally isolated or separate from their neighbors.
- One pattern of interaction was in long-distance trade which grew along the Silk Roads of Eurasia, within the Indian Ocean basin, across the Sahara, and along the Mississippi and other rivers. Another pattern of interaction was in large empires. They incorporated many distinct cultures within a single political system; but their size and stability also provided the security that encouraged travelers and traders to journey long distances from their homelands. And the largest of the empires created the existence of nomadic or pastoral peoples. Technology also diffused widely: in China, there was monopoly on the manufacture of raw silk. But, this technology spread far beyond E. Asia and this allowed the development of the silk industry in the eastern Mediterranean and later in Italy. In India, they had crystallized sugar, a system of numerals and the concept of zero, techniques for making cotton textiles, and many food crops. In the Americas, corn gradually diffused. The Plague, also known as the Black Death, also destroyed many parts of Eurasia and North Africa.

Ch. 7
Commerce & Culture (500-1500)
Trade affected the lives of working people, encouraging them to specialize in producing particular products for sale in distant markets rather than for use in just their own communities. Trade reduced the economic self-sufficiency of local societies as it changed the structure of the societies. Trade also had the capacity to transform political life. With controlling and taxing trade, the wealth available motivated the creation of states in different parts of the world. It helped sustain those states once they had been developed.
- The volume of trade on the Silk Roads was modest and its focus was mainly on luxury goods that were limited to its direct impact on most people. Elite Chines women and their men helped in furnishing the demand for the luxurious fabrics which marked their high status.
- The inhabitants and rulers of the sophisticated and prosperous cities were dependent on long-distance trade; and they were linked to the larger, wealthy, and prestigious civilization of India. As Buddhism progressed and spread across the Silk Roads from India to Central Asia, China, and beyond, it also changed. The original faith had shunned the material world with the emphasis that no material possession is necessary or important. But, Buddhist monasteries in the rich oasis towns of the Silk Roads became wealthy. They received gifts from merchants, artisans, etc. Sculptures and murals in the monasteries portrayed musicians and acrobats as well as women applying makeup and even drinking at parties.
- Diseases like smallpox and measles affected and devastated the Roman Empire and the Han dynasty. And in the Mongol Empire, the dissemination of disease that occurred there facilitated the spread of the Black Death.

General Notes
* Sea-based trade routes connected distant peoples all across the Eastern Hemisphere.
* Sand Road commercial networks made an impact because it helped stimulate the growth and enrichment of the West African civilization and connected it to larger patterns during the third-wave era.
* In the Western Hemisphere, it was a gradual spread of cultural elements.

Commerce and Connection in the Western Hemisphere
The direct connections with the various civilizations and cultures of the Americas were less densely intertwined than in the Afro-Eurasian region. But, the most active and dense networks of communication and exchange in the Americas laid between the regions of Mesoamerica and the Andes. Both the Maya cities in the Yucatan area of Mexico and Guatemala and the huge city-state of Teotihuacan maintained commercial relationships with each other and throughout the region. The Maya conducted a seaborne commerce along with this. Most of this trade was in luxury goods and it was important that they upheld the position and privileges of royal and noble families. Cotton clothing, jewels, and feathers attracted many of the elite groups.

The Economic relationships among the third-wave civilizations were more balanced and multicentered than those of the modern era. Even though tremendous inequalities occurred within certain regions and societies, interactions between major civilizations operated on a more equal stance than in the globalized world of the past several centuries.