Chapter 10 begins by summarising the conclusions from the case studies in terms of the model of ruler conversion, but its main aim is to adopt a global perspective on ruler conversions and on conversion more generally at times. It first underscores how vanishingly rare ruler conversions between Islam and Christianity are in the historical record and yet how open to monotheism immanentist regions, such as the Pacific and, to a lesser extent, Africa have been. Some scholars have already noticed the resilience of Buddhist, Hindu and Confucian societies to the proselytising drives of Christianity and Islam. The chapter summarises why this makes sense in terms of the mechanism of transcendentalist intransigence. It then offers a brief overview of how this affected Eurasian history by reference to the Ottoman, Mughal, Manchu and Mongol empires. The second half of the chapter offers a more detailed appraisal of the fortunes of Christianity and Islam in attempting to secure ruler conversions in South Asia, East Asia and both maritime and mainland Southeast Asia. Even though missionaries developed some of their most sophisticated strategies in these regions, the result was largely a failure. The conclusion to the chapter, and the book, reflects on the role of culture and the question of scale in historical analysis.

Prior to the Opium War China was central to Pacific Asia, but it was not in control of its neighborhood. The mobility of the various nomadic groups threatened China’s northern and western frontiers, and Vietnam’s successful resistance to Ming annexation set a southern boundary-stone. While China’s centrality was not hegemonic, its location, demographic preponderance, and artisanal production made China the center of regional attention. Conversely, because of China’s demographic and production centrality, China was more interested in defending what it had than in imperial adventures abroad. Its foreign policy was one of controlling exposure in relationships—thin connectivity. By the Ming Dynasty this evolved into the tribute system, whose core was a ritualized exchange of deference by the neighbor for acknowledgement of autonomy by China.

Volume 1 of The Cambridge History of Global Migrations documents the lives and experiences of everyday people through the lens of human movement and mobility from 1400 to 1800. Focusing on the most important typologies of preindustrial global migrations, this volume reveals how these movements transformed global paths of mobility, the impacts of which we still see in societies today. Case studies include those that arose from the demand for free, forced, and unfree labor, long- and short-distance trade, rural/urban displacement, religious mobility, and the rise of the number of refugees worldwide. With thirty chapters from leading experts in the field, this authoritative volume is an essential and detailed study of how migration shaped the nature of global human interactions before the age of modern globalization.

In the middle of the eighteenth century, the Qing empire’s invasion of what is now Xinjiang resulted in the destruction of Zünghar Mongol society and their almost complete extermination as a people. The policy of mass killing represented the failure of the first Qing military campaigns into the steppe to incorporate the fragmenting Zünghar polity. Continuing violence, exacerbated by famine and disease, drove the Qianlong emperor to issue instructions to exterminate the ‘mahachin’, i.e. Zünghar Mongols who had sought refuge from the invasion and/or were still holding out. This chapter charts the historical background to this conflict, situates it in a wider Inner Asian context, and offers a close analysis of the events and imperial decrees that triggered the descent into indiscriminate killing. Despite the ferocity of the campaign, the Zünghars were not entirely wiped out, and I conclude by discussing the resettlement of survivors and their fate during the remainder of the Qing Dynasty.

This chapter examines the rise of the Mughal and Qing empires, which together forged a template for rule that would define Asian and Western approaches to empire in the Old World down to the twentieth century. Mughal and Manchu conquest elites succeeded in establishing and maintaining rule over vastly more prosperous, populous and culturally sophisticated subject populations during the early modern era. They did so through strategies of define and conquer and define and rule, entailing the extensive customization and repurposing of indigenous normative and institutional resources for imperial ends. Imperial elites creatively remixed these resources, both to create local constituencies in favour of ‘barbarian’ rule, and also to generate the coercive reserves of hard power needed to defend their empires from internal and external hard challenges. Finally, rulers in both empires then stabilized their power through the establishment of distinct diversity regimes, which institutionalized existing practices of define and rule, while blocking the potential rise of anti-imperial coalitions.

This chapter offers an overview of Chinese warfare, c. 1500–1800, with an emphasis upon the way in which state-sponsored violence was deployed to counter the multitude of strategic threats faced by the Ming and Qing dynasties. It highlights the role of violence in maintaining and extending the power and legitimacy of the imperial Chinese state. For even if Chinese dynasties were wont to extol Confucian values of benevolence and pacifism, the harsh reality was that state-sponsored violence was generally the key to maintaining authority, both domestically and in the broader East Asian world. The chapter shows how recent secondary studies have explored many dimensions of China’s martial culture and how these studies in turn illuminate the array of military challenges that faced all Chinese dynasties. It offers a typology of military threats and situates them specifically within the late imperial Chinese context. Central to this analysis is the massive size and ethnic diversity of the empire, which posed unique challenges to the rulers and their military establishments. The chapter also offers suggestions for future work and comparative studies.