2.5 - Cultural Effects of Connectivity

• Cultural diffusion


  The exchange of ideas and cultural trades between connected states
• Every one of these states was connected into a larger network of exchange, and in that way what one did affected the rest
• Cultural transfers along trading routes


  1. Spread of belief systems

  2. Merchants and monks explaining Buddhist teachings in terms of Chinese Daoism, resulting in syncretism and Chan Buddhism

  3. Spread of Islam and its support for merchant activity, leading to conversion of leaders in Africa and Southeast Asia
• Literary and artistic transfers across networks of exchange


  Translation and commentary on classical Greek and Roman philosophy at Baghdad's House of Wisdom, leading to the Renaissance in southern Europe
• Scientific and technological innovations transferred across trade networks


  1. Spread of Chinese paper making technology and movable type to Europe

  2. Spread of gunpowder from China to Islamic empires and European states, fundamentally altering the balance of power
• Increasing connectivity and trade networks


  Led to the increasing wealth and power of trading cities like Hangzhou in China and Samarkand and Kashgar on the Silk Roads
• Increasing connectivity and trade networks


  Led to the decline of cities like Baghdad and Constantinople, which were sacked by the Mongols and Ottomans respectively
• Travelers facilitated by interregional trade routes


  • Ibn Battuta, a Muslim scholar from Morocco who traveled extensively across Dar al-Islam
  • Marco Polo, a European who traveled to China and wrote about its grandeur and wealth
  • Margery Kempe, a Christian mystic who made pilgrimages to holy sites and provided insights on cultural variations of Christianity
• Travelers' writings helped develop an understanding of far-flung cultures across the world