The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-first Century

After the collapse of the Mongolian Empire, the Ming dynasty came to power in China. Following the death of the first Ming emperor, one of his sons, the Prince of Yan, seized power from his nephew after a civil war and made himself emperor under the name of Yongle. The new Emperor Yongle, trying to revitalize China’s ailing economy, switched China’s currency from paper to silver. Abroad, he extended Chinese power by conquering Mongolian territory to the north and west, demanding subservience from Central Asian rulers and exerting influence over Annam (northern Vietnam). Additionally, he sent a massive expedition of ships into the Indian Ocean led by Admiral Zheng He. In a series of voyages, the fleet reached as far as Mozambique and the Spice Islands of Southeast Asia. Zheng He was himself a Muslim and established diplomatic relations with Islamic governments in Egypt and East Africa. However, China did not sustain this large navy. After Emperor Yongle’s death, China focused on protecting its northern border against the Mongolians rather than on patrolling the Indian Ocean and further ocean explorations. This change in Chinese policy likely made it easier for Europeans to take control of the Indian Ocean and colonize several coastal areas.

Trade in the Indian Ocean by 1400 was dominated by Indian, Arab, and Chinese merchants who controlled their own trading “zones” and coexisted peacefully. These zones encouraged the growth of large trading cities in Indonesia. From 1500 to 1750, European ships began to regularly appear. Because these ships were armed, they forced the other traders to also arm themselves or pay for protection. Until then, however, during the 1400s, China and the various Indian states dominated the lucrative trade in the Indian Ocean. China’s demand for silver (because of its currency reforms) and India’s large textile manufacturing industry drove foreign trade in the region, and “Indian textiles [were] traded as far as Poland and the Mediterranean.”

Friendly political relations and trade followed the spread of Islam across the Middle East, North Africa, and much of west Asia. This area was called dar al-Islam, or “the abode of Islam.” Marks highlights the exploits of Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta, who traveled from his home in modern-day Morocco to Persia, East Africa, the Maldives, and possibly south China. Islam helped make these trips easier because the people across all these territories had shared cultural norms and knew Arabic. The spread and preservation of literature became important, and “the largest libraries in the world from the eighth to the fifteenth century were in Islamic lands.” After the decline and fall of the first Muslim state (the Islamic Caliphate), three new Islamic empires eventually rose to power: the Ottomans in the Middle East and eastern Europe, the Safavids in Persia, and the Mughals in India. The Ottomans invaded the Byzantine Empire and conquered its capital of Constantinople, which was a major gateway between Europe and Asia, and prevented Europeans from directly accessing the trade routes from China and the Indian Ocean into the eastern Mediterranean. This drove European explorers to search for other routes to Asia and led to their eventually discovering the Americas.

In addition, Africa had wealthy Islamic states that were the centers of wide trading networks. These included the kingdom of Ghana and the Mali Empire in West Africa. Mali was rich in gold, so much so that it was said the emperor Mansa Musa in the 1300s gave away so much gold during a visit to Cairo that the international value of gold dropped 25%. Merchants from as far away as Persia, Indonesia, and China also reached East Africa, which was home to major trade cities like Mogadishu, Mombasa, and Kilwa. However, unlike in India, Europe, and China, wealth in Africa came from labor, not land, which was usually not privately owned. This is why, Marks argues, African states (except for empires like Mali) tended to be small and why slavery became such a major driver of African economies. From 750 to 1500, as many as 10,000 Africans were enslaved annually, often as a result of wars between African states. Because of the number of large, predatory animals, the poor soil, and diseases, population density in Sub-Saharan Africa outside major coastal cities was low. As a result, Africa in 1400 had less influence on the global economy than China or India.

Europe’s impact on the world economy was likewise marginal. Europe was “divided among hundreds of political units” (61), largely resulting from the fall of the Roman Empire and the subsequent lack of trade that would otherwise enrich one city or state over others. Instead, European economies and societies were built around nobles controlling land and offering protection to peasants forced by law to work the land. By at least 1327, European states, which were frequently at war with each other, began to use gunpowder and canons, technology that originally came from China and the Mongolians. Nevertheless, no state was strong enough to unite all of Europe under one empire.

At this time, Europe was “relatively poor” and dependent on spices, especially pepper, from India. This made control of the trade route to Asia a major source of conflict. The Italian city-state of Venice managed to dominate the Mediterranean trade in textiles and spices from Asia through Egypt. Eventually, however, the Ottoman Empire blocked European trade. As a result, individuals like the Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator and the explorer Bartholomeu Dias sought alternative routes to Asia around the African coast. The Spanish monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand likewise commissioned the Genoese sailor Christopher Columbus to try to find a route to India across the Atlantic. Columbus instead discovered the Caribbean, but he was convinced he had found India. Meanwhile, the Portuguese continued attempting to sail around Africa, eventually reaching and passing the Cape of Good Hope at the southernmost tip of the African continent. Marks points out that this voyage could have easily been made by the Chinese fleet of Admiral Zheng He, which might have resulted in the Chinese taking control of that route and preventing Europeans from expanding into the Indian Ocean at all: “Rather than encountering a formidable Chinese navy that could have turned them back with little difficulty, the Portuguese in 1498 instead sailed into an Indian Ocean remarkably free from naval power or port cities protected by walls or bastions, a contingent outcome they neither understood nor appreciated” (65).

The Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean, which was solidified when they took territories like the island of Hormuz and the coastal region of Melaka, led to conflict. They created a “protection racket” over the sea trade, which led to what Marks describes as “armed trade.” This gave Europeans a needed advantage, since they had little to trade with the rest of the world apart from wool and firearms. Meanwhile, other parts of the world, especially India and China, had large trading advantages that allowed them to dominate world trade. Specifically, they had a “technological advantage” that helped them cheaply manufacture industrial goods like silk, cotton, and porcelain, while “climatic and geographic constraints” were another contributing factor: For example, certain spices came only from Indonesia. Additionally, “consumer tastes and social conventions” (67) drove consumer demand for luxury items like silk and gems.