Western Civilization_ Volume B_ 1300 to 1815 - Jackson J. Spielvogel [169]
In less than three hundred years, the European age of exploration had changed the shape of the world. In some areas, such as the Americas and the Spice Islands in Asia, it led to the destruction of indigenous civilizations and the establishment of European colonies. In others, such as Africa, India, and mainland Southeast Asia, it left native regimes intact but had a strong impact on local societies and regional trade patterns. Japan and China were least affected.
At the time, many European observers viewed the process in a favorable light. They believed that it not only expanded wealth through world trade and exchanged crops and discoveries between the Old World and the New, but also introduced “heathen peoples” to the message of Jesus. No doubt, the conquest of the Americas and expansion into the rest of the world brought out the worst and some of the best of European civilization. The greedy plundering of resources and the brutal repression and enslavement were hardly balanced by attempts to create new institutions, convert the natives to Christianity, and foster the rights of the indigenous peoples. In any event, Europeans had begun to change the face of the world and increasingly saw their culture, with its religion, languages, and technology, as a coherent force to be exported to all corners of the world.
CHAPTER REVIEW
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Upon Reflection
How did the experiences of the Spanish and Portuguese during the age of exploration differ from those of their French, Dutch, and English counterparts?
What role did religion play as a motivation in the age of exploration? Was it as important a motive as economics? Why or why not?
Why and how did Japan succeed in keeping Europeans largely away from its territory in the seventeenth century?
Key Terms
portolani
conquistadors
encomienda
viceroy
audiencias
triangular trade
Middle Passage
Columbian Exchange
price revolution
joint-stock company
mercantilism
Suggestions for Further Reading
GENERAL WORKS For general accounts of European discovery and expansion, see G. V. Scammell, The First Imperial Age: European Overseas Expansion, c. 1400–1715 (London, 1989); D. Arnold, Age of Discovery, 2nd ed. (London, 2002); and G. J. Ames, The Globe Encompassed: The Age of European Discovery, 1500–1700 (Upper Saddle River, N.J., 2007). On European perceptions of the world outside Europe, see M. Campbell, The Witness and the Other World: Exotic European Travel Writing, 400–1600 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1991). On the technological aspects, see R. C. Smith, Vanguard of Empire: Ships of Exploration in the Age of Columbus (Oxford, 1993).
CHAPTER TIMELINE
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PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH EXPANSION On Portuguese expansion, see M. Newitt, A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion (London, 2004). On Columbus, see W. D. Phillips and C. R. Phillips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus (Cambridge, 1992). On the Spanish Empire in the New World, see H. Kamen, Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763 (New York, 2003). For a theoretical discussion of violence and gender in America, see R. Trexler, Sex and Conquest: Gendered Violence, Political Order, and the European Conquest of the Americas (Ithaca, N.Y., 1995). On the destructive nature of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, see D. E. Standard, American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World (New York, 1993). For a revisionist view of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, see M. Restall, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (Oxford, 2003).
MERCANTILE EMPIRES AND WORLDWIDE TRADE The subject of mercantile empires and worldwide trade is covered in J. D. Tracy, The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350–1750 (Cambridge, 1990); J.