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• Networks of exchange (1200-1450)

  • Geographical range expanded
  • Innovations in commercial practices and technology facilitated expansion
  • Increased connectivity caused growth of powerful states and cities, and collapse of others
• Major networks of exchange

  • Silk Roads
  • Indian Ocean Network
  • Trans-Saharan Trade
• Silk Roads

  • Luxury goods traded, such as Chinese silk and porcelain
  • Expensive and arduous to travel, so merchants specialized in high-value goods
• Innovations facilitating Silk Road expansion

  1. Innovations in transportation technology (Caravanserai)

  2. Innovations in commercial practices (money economies, new forms of credit)
• Powerful trading city on Silk Roads

  • Kashgar
• Indian Ocean Network

  • Traded more common goods like textiles and spices, in addition to luxury goods
  • Facilitated by understanding of monsoon winds
• Innovations facilitating Indian Ocean Network expansion

  1. Improved magnetic compass

  2. Improved astrolabe

  3. New ship designs like Chinese junks
• Powerful state in Indian Ocean Network

  • Swahili city-states
• Establishment of diasporic communities in Indian Ocean Network
• Cultural diffusion through Zheng He's voyages in Indian Ocean Network
• Trans-Saharan Trade was the third major network of exchange
• Cultural intermingle led to the further spread of Islam and that in turn fostered the growth of the Swahili States in East Africa
• Swahili

  A new language that emerged as a mixture of native Bantu languages and Arabic words
• Cultural diffusion in the Indian Ocean Network came from Zheng He
• Zheng He

  • He was sent by China's Ming Dynasty to go throughout the Indian Ocean enrolling States in China's tributary system and he was pretty successful
  • The technological and cultural transfers that occurred because of his voyages were more significant, such as the spread of China's advanced maritime technology especially navigation tools and ship building methods
• The trans-Saharan Trade Network expanded during the period 1200 to 1450 mainly due to innovations in transportation technologies
• Camel saddle

  A new and improved saddle developed for transporting much bigger loads of cargo across the desert
• The Empire of Mali grew stupidly rich through the trade of gold and by taxing merchants traveling to basically all parts of West Africa
• Mali's wealth and influence reached its highest point in the 14th century under the leadership of Mansa Musa, who further monopolized trade between the North and the interior of the continent
• The cultural consequences of increasing connectivity included the transfer of religion or belief systems, significant literary and artistic transfers, and the transfer of scientific and technological innovations
• Transfer of religion

  • The spread of Buddhism from South Asia to China via the Silk Roads
• Transfer of literary and artistic works

  • Islamic scholars in Baghdad's House of Wisdom translating Greek and Roman classics into Arabic and making extensive commentaries, which later formed the basis for the European Renaissance
• Transfer of scientific and technological innovation

  • The spread of gunpowder from China to Muslim empires and Eastern European states
• The environmental consequences of increasing connectivity included the transfer of crops, such as Champa rice, and the spread of diseases, such as the Bubonic plague
• The Mongol Empire facilitated significant increases in trade, communication, and cooperation across Eurasia, leading to an unprecedented period of connectivity known as the Pax Mongolica
• Mongol Empire

  • Replaced powerful empires across Eurasia, such as the Song Dynasty and the Abbasid Empire
  • Encouraged international trade and extracted wealth as facilitators of commerce on the Silk Road
  • Facilitated the transfer of technological and cultural innovations, such as the adoption of the Uyghur script as the language of policy and diplomacy across the empire