Rebecca Lee

I found it important to read about how religion and scientific thinking spread globally during the Early Modern Era. As Christianity started to spread to areas such as Asia, Africa, and the Americas, a more modern scientific outlook was also developing, which challenged these spreading Christian views. In the 1500, "the world of Christendom stretched from Spain and England in the west to Russia in the east, with small and beleaguered communities of various kinds" (Strayer, 644). In the sixteenth century the Protestant Reformation began, with Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses (1517), which began to threaten the unity of the Roman Catholic Church. As Protestantism gained popularity in Europe it added to the class divisions and fractured political system, leading to the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). After the war, the Peace of Westphalia (1648) was constructed. However, the Protestant Reformation helped contribute to a Catholic Reformation, during which the Council of ...

Commerce In People: The Atlantic Slave Trade The Atlantic slave trade impacted the early modern era so greatly that its commercial ties contributed to a global next of exchange. The Atlantic slave trade is the most recent owning and exchange of human beings that existed on a large scale. Between 1500 and 1866, “this trade in human beings took an estimated 12.5 million people from African societies, shipped them across the Atlantic in the infamous Middle Passage, and deposited some 10.7 million of them in the Americas, where they lived out their often-brief lives as slave” (Strayer, 620). The slave trade added African descent into the European and Native American mix of the Americas. Slavery came in many forms, because before the 1500, the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean basins were where most of the Old World slave trade occurred. This means that the slavery practices that grew in the Americas varied greatly from the Old World practices. The first way was the huge size of...

I found it important to read that Europeans, Southeast Asians, Chinese, Indians, Armenians, Arabs, Africans, and Native Americans all play key roles in developing the world economy from the 1450s-1750s. This commerce, along with the growing empires of the time, “gave rise to new relationships, disrupted old patterns, brought distant peoples into contact with one another, enriched some, and impoverished or enslaved others” (Strayer, 602). The Portuguese sailed to India, lead by Vasco da Gama looking for an easier way to get tropical spices and other luxuries. They also used their military advantage to gain access into trading, since European goods were “crude and unattractive in the Asian market” (605). The Portuguese created a trading post empire, which by 1600 was in decline. Spain’s introduction into the Eastern trade was through the Philippine Islands. In the seventeenth century the Dutch and the English joined the Indian Ocean commerce. The Dutch was centered in Indonesia and focus...

I found it interesting to read about how in three centuries, from 1450 to 1750, the world and world relations began to resemble that of the present. It was during this time period that Western Europe began to establish itself as a powerhouse. Countries like Spain, England, Portugal, and France sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to build their empires and colonies. These countries settled on l and in North America, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. This European advantage occurred because the “countries on the Atlantic rim of Europe (Portugal, Spain, Britain, and France) were simply closer to the Americas than were any potential Asian competitors” (Strayer, 554). This was accompanied by innovations in mapping, navigation, sailing techniques, and designs of ships. Differing European countries were also fueled by competing countries. However, was one the leading causes for Western European countries gaining so much control in the Americas is the diseases they br...

I found it surprising to read that what is called the Early Modern Era in a lot of history class is actually more of a “Late Agrarian Era” (Strayer 548). There is only small signs and little evidence suggesting that during this era the world was to becoming classified as modern. Although there was some evidence, such as the the growth of the population starting to increase and explorations of the Atlantic and pacific ocean, which eventually led to the exploration of new lands, the characteristics of what is considered modern weren’t entirely present. Much of the world remained the same. Most of the people in the Early Modern Era still lived lives that were not much different that the Era before. According to Ways of the World , by Strayer, a larger portion of the world population “continued to live in long-established ways, and their societies operated according to traditional principles” (549). Europeans, at this point in time, were not the dominating force of the world,...

All set up and done!