Ibn Battuta (1304-1369) was a Moroccan legal scholar and one of the most well-traveled people in the premodern world. Born in Tangier, he studied Islamic law and left Morocco in 1325 for a pilgrimage to Mecca. From there he traveled through Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, and down the east African coast to Kilwa. He served as a qadi (judge) for the sultan of Delhi for eight years, then visited the Maldive Islands, China, the Mali empire, and southern Spain. His travels covered about 117,000 kilometers (73,000 miles), roughly the equivalent of forty-four modern countries.

Marco Polo (1253-1324) was a Venetian merchant whose father and uncle were among the first European merchants to visit China. Between 1260 and 1269 they traveled throughout Mongol lands, and when they returned to China in 1271, seventeen-year-old Marco accompanied them. Khubilai Khan took a liking to Marco, allowing him to pursue mercantile interests and sending him on diplomatic missions. After seventeen years in China, the Polos returned to Venice by sea in 1295. Marco's stories, compiled while he was a prisoner of war in Genoa, influenced European readers by describing the textiles, spices, gems, and goods of the East.

The growth of trading networks and large imperial states created demand for political and diplomatic representation. Khubilai Khan and the Mongol rulers of China did not fully trust their Chinese subjects and regularly appointed foreigners to administrative posts.

Mongol-Christian Diplomacy: The thirteenth century saw active diplomacy between the Mongols and western Europeans, both of whom considered a military alliance against their common Muslim enemies. During the 1240s and 1250s, Pope Innocent IV dispatched envoys inviting the Mongol khans to convert to Christianity. The khans declined, proposing instead that Europeans submit to Mongol rule.

Rabban Sauma: In 1287, the Mongol ilkhan of Persia dispatched Rabban Sauma, a Nestorian Christian priest born in Khanbaliq but of Turkish ancestry, as an envoy to European leaders. He met with the kings of France and England and the pope, but no alliance came of it.

Sufi Missionaries: Islamic values spread through both legal scholars and Sufi mystics. From 1000 to 1500, Sufis ventured to recently conquered or converted lands in India, southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. They did not insist on strict doctrine but emphasized piety and devotion to Allah, even tolerating continuing reverence for traditional deities. This flexible approach helped spread Islam without provoking the resistance that rigid campaigns might have caused.

Christian Missionaries: Roman Catholic missionaries accompanied crusaders and colonizers to the Baltic lands, the Balkan region, Sicily, and Spain. The most ambitious missions sought to convert Mongols and Chinese. John of Montecorvino, an Italian Franciscan, went to China in 1291, became the first archbishop of Khanbaliq in 1307, and died there in 1328. Despite being widely respected, he attracted few Asian converts because east Asian peoples already had well-established religious traditions.

Long-distance travel of all kinds (commercial, political, diplomatic, missionary) encouraged cultural exchanges between different societies. Troubadours in western Europe drew on Muslim poetry and music, while European scientists consulted Muslim and Jewish counterparts in Sicily and Spain.

Spread of Crops: Muslim travelers introduced new food and commercial crops to sub-Saharan Africa, including citrus fruits, rice, and cotton, which enriched diets and economies. Cotton fabrics became popular among west African ruling elites, and by 1500 cotton was the principal textile produced in sub-Saharan Africa. Muslims also facilitated the westward spread of sugarcane. European sugar plantations were often staffed with slave laborers, fueling demand for Muslim war captives and enslaved Africans.

Gunpowder and the Compass: The magnetic compass, invented in China during the Tang or Song dynasty, spread throughout the Indian Ocean basin and reached European mariners by the mid-twelfth century. Mongol invaders learned about gunpowder from Chinese military engineers in the early thirteenth century. By 1214, Chinggis Khan's armies included an artillery unit. By the mid-thirteenth century, gunpowder reached Europe via Mongol-ruled Russia, and Europeans began experimenting with gunpowder-fueled rockets and primitive cannons.

The Little Ice Age: Around 1300 C.E., global temperatures declined significantly. Shorter growing seasons led to famine and starvation in many lands. Norse settlers abandoned their colonies in Greenland.

Origins: Bubonic plague had been endemic in southwestern China (Yunnan) for centuries. The plague bacillus infects rodents such as rats and squirrels; fleas transmit it from rodent to rodent, and sometimes to humans. In the early fourteenth century, Mongol military campaigns helped spread plague from Yunnan into China's interior. An epidemic in 1331 reportedly killed 90% of the population in Hebei province.

Spread: During the 1340s, Mongols, merchants, and travelers spread the disease along trade routes west of China. By 1346 it reached the Black Sea ports of Caffa and Tana. In 1347, Italian merchants fled plague-infected Black Sea ports and unwittingly carried the disease throughout the Mediterranean. By 1348, plague had sparked epidemics in most of western Europe. Victims developed inflamed lymph nodes (buboes) in the neck, armpit, and groin areas, and most died within a few days. Bubonic plague typically killed 60 to 70 percent of those infected.

Population Decline: China's population fell from 85 million (1300) to 75 million (1400). Europe's population dropped from 79 million to about 60 million, a decline of almost 25 percent. Islamic societies in southwest Asia, Egypt, and north Africa also suffered heavy losses; Egypt did not reach preplague population levels until the nineteenth century. India and Scandinavia largely escaped the worst effects.

Social and Economic Effects: Labor shortages generated social unrest. Urban workers demanded higher wages; peasants moved to regions with better terms. Landlords restricted peasant freedom and reimposed serfdom-like conditions. Rebellions rocked both towns and countryside in western Europe.

By the mid-fourteenth century, the Mongol Yuan dynasty was experiencing financial mismanagement, economic difficulties, and political conflicts. In 1368, the Yuan collapsed and the Mongols departed China.

Hongwu came from a poor family and spent much of his youth as a beggar. He entered a Buddhist monastery, rose through military ranks, and in 1368 became Emperor, establishing the Ming ("brilliant") dynasty, which lasted until 1644.

Centralization: Hongwu immediately eliminated all traces of Mongol rule and reestablished the Confucian educational and civil service systems. In 1380, he suspected his chief minister of treason, executed him and his allies, and abolished the position of chief minister altogether. From that point, Ming emperors ruled directly.

Mandarins and Eunuchs: The Ming relied on mandarins, powerful officials sent as emissaries of the central government. They also employed eunuchs more extensively than any previous dynasty, expecting their total loyalty since eunuchs could not build family power bases.

Economic Recovery: Ming rulers conscripted laborers to rebuild irrigation systems, boosting agricultural production. They promoted manufacture of porcelain, lacquerware, and silk and cotton textiles. Private Chinese merchants conducted thriving business in ports from Japan to southeast Asia.

Cultural Revival: Emperor Hongwu tried to eradicate signs of Mongol occupation. His successor Yongle organized the preparation of the Yongle Encyclopedia, a vast compilation of almost twenty-three thousand manuscript rolls covering major works of Chinese history, philosophy, and literature.

State Building: By the late fifteenth century, states in Italy, Spain, France, England, and Russia had developed new techniques of government that strengthened their power. Key elements included new taxes levied directly on citizens and large standing armies equipped with gunpowder weapons.

Italy: City-states like Milan, Venice, Florence, and the papal state financed their needs through direct taxes and long-term treasury bonds. France and England began to levy direct taxes and assemble powerful armies. The Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) between them spurred development of national identity and military technology.

Spain: The marriage of Fernando of Aragon and Isabel of Castile in 1469 united the two wealthiest Iberian realms. Under the Catholic Kings, Christian forces completed the reconquista by conquering Granada, and they sponsored Columbus's quest for a western route to Asia.

Russia: After Mongol power waned, the grand princes of Moscow expanded their territory. Ivan III ("the Great," reigned 1462-1505) stopped paying tribute to the Mongol khan, declared Russian independence, and called himself tsar, a Russianized form of the term caesar.

The Renaissance: Demographic recovery coincided with the Renaissance (meaning "rebirth"), a cultural flowering from the fourteenth to sixteenth century. Renaissance artists like Masaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello, and Michelangelo drew inspiration from classical Greek and Roman art. The architect Filippo Brunelleschi reinvented dome construction for the cathedral of Florence. Humanists like Francesco Petrarca, Desiderius Erasmus, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola drew on classical Greek and Latin values to reconsider medieval ethical teachings and promote an active life in society.

Chinese Reconnaissance, Zheng He: The early Ming emperors sponsored seven enormous naval expeditions between 1405 and 1433. Led by the eunuch admiral Zheng He, a Muslim from Yunnan, these voyages visited southeast Asia, India, Ceylon, the Persian Gulf, Arabia, and the east African coast as far south as Malindi. Zheng He's fleet on the first voyage consisted of 317 ships with nearly 28,000 armed troops. The mammoth "treasure ships" measured up to 124 meters long. The voyages established a Chinese presence throughout the Indian Ocean.

Yet in 1433, Confucian ministers persuaded the Ming emperors to end the expeditions, arguing that resources should go to agriculture and defense against Mongol threats. Imperial officials destroyed most of Zheng He's nautical charts, and the decommissioned treasure ships rotted in harbors.

European Exploration: Europeans acted on two different but complementary motives: the desire to expand Christianity and the desire for commercial profit. Portuguese mariners, led by Prince Henry the Navigator, established trading posts along the west African coast. Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, and Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498. Christopher Columbus, a Genoese mariner, sailed west for Spain in 1492 and reached the Caribbean, believing he had arrived near Asia.

Portuguese Exploration: Prince Henry of Portugal (1394-1460) conquered the Moroccan port of Ceuta in 1415 and sponsored voyages down the west African coast. Portuguese merchants established fortified trading posts like São Jorge da Mina in modern Ghana, trading European goods for African gold and slaves. After Henry's death, Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488.

Vasco da Gama: In 1497, da Gama departed Lisbon with four armed merchant ships. He sailed south to the Cape Verde Islands, then southwest into the Atlantic to catch the westerly winds (using the volta do mar). After rounding the Cape of Good Hope, he worked up the east African coast, picking up a Muslim pilot at Malindi who guided him across the Arabian Sea to India. He arrived at Calicut in May 1498. His cargo of pepper and cinnamon was extremely profitable, and by 1500 Portuguese merchants had established a trading post at Calicut.

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506): The Genoese mariner proposed sailing west to reach Asia. He underestimated the earth's circumference and believed Japan was only about 2,500 nautical miles from the Canaries (the actual distance is more than 10,000). In August 1492, backed by Fernando and Isabel of Spain, Columbus sailed from Palos. On October 12 he made landfall in the Bahamas at an island the native Taíno called Guanahaní (which Columbus renamed San Salvador). He never acknowledged reaching a new hemisphere.

Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521): The Portuguese navigator sailed in service of Spain. He left in September 1519, found a strait at the southern tip of South America (now the Strait of Magellan), and crossed the Pacific. His crew suffered terribly from scurvy and starvation. Magellan was killed in the Philippines in 1521, but one ship with 18 of the original 280 men completed the first circumnavigation of the world.

Captain James Cook (1728-1779): Led three expeditions to the Pacific, charting eastern Australia, New Zealand, Hawai'i, and numerous Pacific islands. He was killed in a violent confrontation with Native Hawaiians in 1779.

Portuguese Trading Posts: The Portuguese did not try to conquer territories. Instead, they controlled trade routes by forcing merchant vessels to call at fortified trading sites and pay duties. By the mid-sixteenth century, they had more than fifty trading posts between west Africa and east Asia. From Goa they organized trade in Indian pepper; at Melaka they oversaw shipping between the South China Sea and Indian Ocean; at Ternate they channeled trade in cloves and nutmeg.

Afonso d'Alboquerque: The commander of Portuguese forces in the Indian Ocean during the early sixteenth century. His fleets seized Hormuz in 1508, Goa in 1510, and Melaka in 1511. He controlled Indian Ocean trade by forcing merchant ships to purchase safe-conduct passes. Ships without passes faced confiscation of their cargoes, and violators were punished by execution or having their hands cut off.

However, Portugal's small population (about one million in 1500) could not sustain the empire long-term. By the late sixteenth century, English and Dutch mariners entered the Indian Ocean.

English and Dutch Trading Posts: English and Dutch merchants built trading posts on Asian coasts. A Dutch fleet conquered Melaka in 1641. English merchants concentrated on India (Bombay, Madras, Calcutta), while the Dutch operated from Cape Town, Colombo, and Batavia (Jakarta). They had two key advantages over the Portuguese: faster, more powerful ships and the joint-stock company model.

Joint-Stock Companies: The English East India Company (founded 1600) and the Dutch VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, 1602) enabled private merchants to pool funds, limiting individual risk while generating enormous profits. In 1601, five English ships returned from Asia with spices worth over one million pounds sterling.

In most of the eastern hemisphere, Europeans were unable to force their will on large Asian populations and powerful centralized states. But in the Philippines and Indonesia, densely populated island regions without powerful central governments, Europeans conquered and imposed their rule.

Philippines: Spanish forces under Miguel López de Legazpi arrived in 1565 and named the islands after King Philip II of Spain. Manila became a bustling multicultural port and the hub of Spanish commercial activity in Asia. Chinese merchants were especially prominent, supplying silk goods for the Manila galleons that traded with Mexico. Spanish missionaries pressured Filipinos to convert to Christianity; by the nineteenth century the Philippines had become one of the most fervent Roman Catholic lands.

Java/Indonesia: Dutch mariners under Jan Pieterszoon Coen established Batavia on Java in 1619 as an entrepot for the VOC. The Dutch concentrated on controlling the spice trade: cloves, nutmeg, and mace. Coen forced small Indonesian islands to deliver spices only to VOC merchants and uprooted spice plants on islands the Dutch did not control. Monopoly profits made the Netherlands the most prosperous land in Europe throughout the seventeenth century.

While western Europeans built maritime empires, Russians were laying the foundations for a vast land-based empire across northern Eurasia. In the mid-sixteenth century, Russian forces took over several Mongol khanates in central Asia, gaining control of the Volga River and opening trade with the Ottoman empire, Iran, and India. Astrakhan, at the Volga delta on the Caspian Sea, became a bustling commercial center.

Siberia: Fur was the commodity that lured Russians eastward. The wealthy Stroganov family hired a freebooter named Yermak to capture the khanate of Sibir in the Ural Mountains. By 1639, Russian explorers had pushed across the entire Eurasian landmass to the Pacific Ocean. Siberia was home to about twenty-six major ethnic groups who lived by hunting, trapping, fishing, or herding reindeer.

Russian settlers included social misfits, convicted criminals, and prisoners of war. By 1763 about 420,000 Russians lived in Siberia, nearly double the number of indigenous inhabitants. Violence, epidemic diseases, and fur tribute demands devastated native Siberian populations. The Yakut people mounted a revolt in 1642 that led to forty years of brutal retribution, reducing their population by an estimated 70 percent.

Exploration and imperial expansion led to conflicts not only between Europeans and Asians but also among Europeans themselves. Mariners competed vigorously for trade in Asia and the Americas, and their efforts to establish markets and monopolies frequently led to clashes.

Dutch vessels were most numerous in the Indian Ocean, enabling the VOC to dominate the spice trade. By the early eighteenth century, trade in Indian cotton and tea from Ceylon had overshadowed the spice trade, and English and French merchants working from Indian trading posts became the dominant carriers in the Indian Ocean.

In the Caribbean and Americas, English pirates and privateers preyed on Spanish silver shipments. English and French forces constantly skirmished over sugar islands and territorial claims in North America.

The Seven Years' War (1756-1763): Commercial rivalries combined with political differences. The war was fought in Europe, India, the Caribbean, and North America (where it merged with the French and Indian War, 1754-1763). British forces fought little in Europe but took control of French colonies in Canada and ousted French merchants from India. Victory placed Britain in a position to dominate world trade and set the stage for the British empire of the nineteenth century.

The Columbian exchange, the global diffusion of plants, food crops, animals, human populations, and disease pathogens after the voyages of Columbus, had consequences far more significant than earlier rounds of biological exchange. Unlike earlier exchanges along the Silk Roads, the Columbian exchange involved lands with very different flora, fauna, and diseases that had evolved along separate lines for thousands of years.

Epidemic Diseases and Population Decline: Beginning in the early sixteenth century, infectious and contagious diseases brought sharp population losses to indigenous peoples of the Americas and Pacific islands. Smallpox was the worst, but measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, and influenza also took heavy tolls. Beginning in 1519, epidemic smallpox ravaged the Aztec empire, and within a century the indigenous population of Mexico declined by as much as 90 percent, from about 17 million to 1.3 million. Between 1500 and 1800, upwards of 100 million people may have died of diseases imported into the Americas and Pacific islands.

Food Crops and Animals: From Eurasia to the western hemisphere traveled wheat, rice, sugar, bananas, apples, cherries, peaches, citrus fruits, horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, and chickens. From the Americas came maize, potatoes, beans, tomatoes, peppers, peanuts, manioc, papayas, guavas, avocados, pineapples, and cacao. Tobacco, introduced from the Americas, was widely and quickly integrated into European and Islamic cultures. Potatoes and maize contributed to sharp increases in Eurasian calorie intake and population growth.

Population Growth: In 1500, world population was about 425 million. By 1600 it had increased 25% to 545 million. By 1750 it reached 720 million, and by 1800 it had reached 900 million, a nearly 50% increase in just one century, largely due to improved nutrition from the global exchange of food crops.

Trading-post empires linked Asian markets with European consumers. European vessels transported Persian carpets to India, Indian cottons to China, southeast Asian spices to India and China, Chinese silks to Japan, and Japanese silver and copper to China and India. By the late sixteenth century, European merchants were as prominent as Arabs in the Indian Ocean trading world.

Transoceanic Trade: As Europeans established colonies in the Caribbean and the Americas, trade networks extended across the Atlantic. European manufactured goods traveled west in exchange for silver from Mexican and Peruvian mines, and agricultural products like sugar and tobacco. The trade in enslaved people was also central to this system. European textiles and manufactured goods went to west Africa, where merchants exchanged them for enslaved Africans who were sent to work on plantations in the western hemisphere.

The Manila Galleons: For 250 years (1565-1815), Spanish galleons regularly crossed the Pacific between Manila and Acapulco, Mexico. From Manila they took Asian luxury goods to Mexico and exchanged them for silver. Most of the silver made its way to China, where a thriving domestic economy demanded increasing quantities of silver as currency.

Environmental Effects: Global trade pressured fur-bearing animals toward extinction. An estimated 200,000-300,000 sable pelts flowed annually from Siberia, and more than 16 million North American beaver pelts fed consumers' demands for fur hats. Overhunting drove many species to near-extinction. By 1750, all parts of the world except Australia participated in global commercial networks.