The World System and the Biological Old Regime, 1400-1750
History as Interpretation	Retrospective vs. Prospective
	Roberts, The History of Europe, introduction to Book 3, chapter 1, “The New Age,” offers an example of the retrospective approach: he notes forces and developments taking root that will lead eventually to great change in Europe and European dominance of the world in the 19^th century.  In other words, he’s looking back from the present to identify the origins of the modern world. He selects those historical characteristics that will become dominant; in so doing, he gives little or no attention to aspects of the early modern period (1500-1750) that were very important in the 1500s but much less important later, such as religion, predominance of agriculture, etc.
	Robert Marks, The Origins of the Modern World. A Global and Ecological Narrative, is also, as the title makes clear, interested in the origins of our world today. But, his first two chapters emphasize the world as it was in the 1400s. He chooses a prospective approach therefore, one that looks at the 1400s and notes the differences between then and now. Not Europe but China and Asia were the great economic regions of the world at the time. He want to “read” history forward and thus makes a differing selection of topics and developments to describe, as compared to Roberts
	Key Concepts in writing a non-Eurocentric narrative history Contingency vs. inevitability Accident vs. foreseen Conjuncture: the interconnection of separate developments that have significance beyond the regions in which they took place. China adopts silver as the basis of its currency Spanish discover vast deposits of silver in Mexico Permits trade between China and Europe Polycentric world economic system: China, India and Indian Ocean, Dar-al Islam, Europe
	Material Conditions and the biological old regime ca. 1350-1600 Rural, agrarian world of peasants producing wealth for elites Population change and levels shaped by food supplies, climate, and epidemic disease (example of the Black Death 1340s-1360s that spread mainly through trade routes from China to Europe and the Mongol expansion). Climate change: the example of “The Little Ice Age,” 1550-1820 and its affects on European agriculture—contraction of vine growing, increased frequency of poor harvests and food shortages, famines, peasant revolts, witchcraft prosecutions, and so forth.
	Population Growth and Land Transformation from the 1400s: A major ecological and environmental shift. Expanding frontiers of agriculture. Imperial China expands into new regions to appropriate land for agriculture—nomads removed. Europe: expansion into parts of Eastern Europe and, above all, into the Americas and Australasia. Intensification of labor intensive agriculture
	The polycentric “World System,” ca. 1400-1750 China: porcelain, silks, highly productive agriculture India (cotton textiles) and the Indian Ocean Dar-al Islam: commonalities of language (Arabic) and religion (Islam) Africa: a few larger empires; mainly small states; wealth based on the control of labor, not landed property. Well-developed internal industry and trade before European arrival in 1400s on the coast lines. Europe: cut off from overland trade routes to Asia by Muslim control of Middle East , Persia, much of India Slavery in nearly all parts of the system.
	Changes introduced with European overseas exploration from ca. 1415 “Armed trading in the India Ocean and Sea of China” after the overseas route discovered in 1497. Up to then, Marks suggests, economic links in the India Ocean were mainly peaceful.