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  1. Home
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  3. The Cambridge World History
  • Cited by 2
  • Volume 4: A World with States, Empires and Networks 1200 BCE–900 CE
  • Edited by Craig Benjamin, Grand Valley State University, Michigan
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
May 2015
Print publication year:
2015
Online ISBN:
9781139059251
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139059251
Subjects:
American History: General Interest, British History: General Interest, Regional and World History: General Interest, History, Regional History Before 1500, Global History
Collections:
Cambridge Histories - Global History, Cambridge Histories - Ancient History & Classics, Cambridge Histories - British & European History, Cambridge Histories - American History, Cambridge Histories - Asian History, Cambridge Histories - Middle East & African Studies
Series:
The Cambridge World History
Information

Book description

From 1200 BCE to 900 CE, the world witnessed the rise of powerful new states and empires, as well as networks of cross-cultural exchange and conquest. Considering the formation and expansion of these large-scale entities, this fourth volume of the Cambridge World History series outlines key economic, political, social, cultural, and intellectual developments that occurred across the globe in this period. Leading scholars examine critical transformations in science and technology, economic systems, attitudes towards gender and family, social hierarchies, education, art, and slavery. The second part of the volume focuses on broader processes of change within western and central Eurasia, the Mediterranean, South Asia, Africa, East Asia, Europe, the Americas and Oceania, as well as offering regional studies highlighting specific topics, from trade along the Silk Roads and across the Sahara, to Chaco culture in the US southwest, to Confucianism and the state in East Asia.

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Contents

Page 2 of 2

Contents
  • 19 - Regional study: Pataliputra
    pp 514-536
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Around 1200 BCE, changes began to occur in the Afro-Eurasian world that can be attributed to both technological innovation and the coming of invaders, commonly called the Sea People. In Assyria, the rule of the Middle Assyrian Empire, which rose out of the ashes of the Mitanni Empire, continued throughout the twelfth century. The period after 1050 BCE is often called the Dark Ages in Near Eastern history, mainly because the dearth of records leaves the period rather dark for historians. Urartu was a largely highland kingdom that controlled the mountain passes and trade routes on the eastern Taurus region. In the late eighth century, however, a series of conqueror-builder kings took Assyria to the height of its power and ushered in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Nebuchadnezzar II was the longest ruling and strongest of Chaldean rulers of Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar's reign, in short, constitutes the brief glorious period of the already brief Neo-Babylonian Empire.
  • 20 - The Americas
    pp 537-571
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The country that the Greeks called Baktria with its double-named capital of Baktra-Zariaspa was located on the plain that comprises northern Afghanistan from the Hindu-Kush mountains in the south to the Amudaria River in the north and west, and the Badakhshan mountains in the east. During the Bronze Age, hundreds of desert oasis settlements arose on both sides of the Amudaria. The first written references to Baktria occur after its inclusion in the Achaemenid kingdom. During Alexander the Great's campaign in Persia, a relative of the Persian king, Darius III Commodanus, and satrap of Baktria-Sogdia, Bessos, commanded the Baktrian cavalry at the Battle of Gaugamela. The history of this period is generally viewed as an interlude marking the transition from the end of Greek rule to the beginning of the Kushan Empire. It is generally agreed that the Kushans were one of the several tribes of the Yuezhi, among whom some probably spoke Tokharian, mentioned by the Chinese sources.
  • 21 - Regional study: Chaco Canyon and the US Southwest
    pp 572-602
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The name Mediterranean is derived from Latin and means 'in the middle of the earth', a reference to the fact either that it is almost entirely surrounded by land or that it was deemed to be at the center of the known world by ancient West Afro-Eurasian societies. The fall of the Western Roman Empire shapes the way in which Western history is periodized, as it marks the end of the classical era. The cultural influence of the Assyrians and Egyptians, particularly the Hebrews, Phoenicians, Minoans, and Mycenaeans, who occupied the coasts and islands of the Eastern Mediterranean, was substantial. Within both large political structures, such as the Hellenistic and Roman empires, and smaller cultures and states that did not evolve into large-scale empires, such as those of the Hebrews, Phoenicians, Minoans, and Mycenaeans, expansion invariably led to the emergence of more complex social structures, which explicitly situated various groups, including women and slaves, into more sharply delineated hierarchical structures.
  • 22 - Australasia and the Pacific
    pp 603-630
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Attica, as the area surrounding the city of Athens is called, smaller than many modern US counties, but larger than most of the other Greek poleis. The Athenians enjoyed an advantage of natural resources: rich silver mines at Laurion in southeastern Attica. Athens had not only some advantages in geography and resources but also favorable historical circumstances and remarkable leadership on its side. Interrupted by only two brief periods of oligarchic rule during the fifth century BCE, the Athenian government was characterized by a participatory system that had come to be called demokratia. A key to understanding the reasons for the remarkable expansion of political enfranchisement lies in the connection between political rights and military service. The city of Athens was not just a political and military center; it was also the focus of a commercial empire that controlled trade in the Aegean. Education was key to power and wealth in a litigious, participatory democracy.
  • 23 - Africa: states, empires, and connections
    pp 631-661
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The city of Constantinople, among the most distinctive and consequential European creations of late antiquity, presents itself as a witness to the various transformations that take place between the fourth and the ninth centuries CE. Late antiquity, especially as it relates to Europe, may accordingly be characterized as a period of disruption, transition, and transformation away from a Mediterranean-centered, late Roman imperial political and socioeconomic order. The expansion of the late Roman state apparatus and its increasing claim upon the economy has traditionally been seen as causes of economic crisis and decline. Attempts in the sixth century to regain lost Roman territories in the western Mediterranean achieved limited success. Like the Romans, the Umayyads relied upon local elites for the collection of taxes. In the Roman period, trade in amber led from the southern shores of the Baltic to central Europe and the Black Sea.
  • 24 - Regional study: trans-Saharan trade
    pp 662-686
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The written Chinese language played a critical role in shaping the emergence of a distinctively East Asian cultural zone. The development of writing in Bronze Age China is thus fundamental to both Chinese and East Asian civilization more broadly. Although tantalizing examples of markings that seem to resemble writing have been discovered from earlier periods, the first unmistakable examples of written language in China appear on the 'oracle bones' that were used for divination at the late Shang court. During the fourth and early fifth centuries, Xianbei bands in the northeast established a series of dynasties in the area of southwestern Manchuria and northeastern China proper. In the early sixth century, there was reportedly a steady flow of merchants from the remote west arriving in the Northern Wei dynasty capital at Luoyang, in north-central China. Buddhism was then introduced to Paekche by a Central Asian monk, Malananda, coming from Southern dynasty China in 384.

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