Afro-Eurasia Before Modernity
Fall 2021
Hist-UA 70. Tues Thursday 8:00-9:15, Silver 509
David Ludden
Professor of History
Global Asia is a space of mobility forever shaping and changing the form and content of human territory. Asian societies, cultures, and political economies have always been shaped by complex, dynamic, mobile historical processes, which expand human connectivity and transform territories of culture, power, and authority. Global Asia’s mobile space stretches from Russia and the Mediterranean to the Bering Sea and South Pacific, and spans regions all around the so-called Silk Road and Indian Ocean, from Africa to Polynesia, from ancient times; it extends around the world, after 1500.
This course explores Global Asia over two millennia up to the onset of industrial modernity in the nineteenth century. Students acquire a view of History in the long run that throws new light on our world of nation states. During this semester, we will travel by land and sea around the Silk Road and Indian Ocean, from ancient times, and around the world, after 1500, to study changing spaces of human mobility where people create cultural territories for economic development and politics. We analyze the long-term spatial expansion of travel, communication, connectivity, exchange, and territoriality, focusing particularly on mobile groups, social forces, and strategic sites along routes where people weave distant cultures together: we study nomads, migrations, religions, empires, armies, merchants and trade, sailors, port cities, and learned elites.
Travels of Buddhism and Islam provide a compelling spatial frame for social, political, economic, and cultural history in Afro-Eurasia before 1850. To enhance our course work, we visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Rubin Museum to appreciate Buddhist and Islamic art and architecture as mobile territorial technologies. Students can focus their own course work on subjects of personal concern and student projects can be tailored to student interests.
Policies
READING:
All required reading is online and averages about 100 pages per week.
POWERPOINTS:
All class PowerPoint Presentations (with enhancements and additions) are in our GoogleDrive PPT Folder.
DISCUSSION:
We continue class discussion in our GoogleDrive Discussion Page
WRITING:
all student writing goes into their personal GoogleDoc Student folders
Writing Assignments:
- Five 1-page papers. Students write six one-page (double spaced) papers based on readings, presentations, and a prompt, due at the start of class, at the second meeting in weeks 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10.
- Three 5-page papers. Students write three five-page (double spaced) essays, based on all cumulative course material and approved outside sources, responding to prompts on the syllabus and discussed in class. They are due at the start of class in the second meeting in weeks 6, 11, and 15.
Grading is on a point system. One-page writing assignments are worth 5 points each (6 x 5 = 30) and five-page papers are 20 points each (3 x 20 = 60). Attendance and participation are worth 10 points. (Total: 30+60+10 = 100).
Final grade point equivalents: A = 94-100; A- = 90-93; B+ = 85-89; B = 80-84; B- = 75-79; C+ = 70-74; C = 65-69; C- = 60-64; D=50-59; F=<50.
Midterm grades are calculated proportionately on the basis of grades at the end of Week 7, including grades for four 1-page weeklies and one 5-page paper.
Visiting the Met
I want like to replace some class meetings with at least one class trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is a wonderful resource for this course, where we will pay a lot of attention to art and architecture. We will try to arrange visits according to student schedules.
MOSES CENTER FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
New York University is committed to providing equal educational opportunity and participation for students with disabilities. CSD works with NYU students to determine appropriate and reasonable accommodations that support equal access to a world-class education. Confidentiality is of the utmost importance. Disability-related information is never disclosed without student permission. https://www.nyu.edu/students/communities-and-groups/students-with-disabilities.html. Contact: mosescsd@nyu.edu
RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS
Students need to make sure they are familiar with the provisions and obligations of The University Calendar Policy on Religious Holidays, which states, in part: “Students who anticipate being absent because of any religious observance should, whenever possible, notify faculty in advance of such anticipated absence.”
Course Organization
Course Organization:
- Each week consists of two class meetings.
- The first meeting is a lecture/discussion based on course reading.
- The second meeting is for Q&A discussion with student presentations
- This course is part of a two-part Global Asia sequence. These two courses overlap chronologically, but their content is distinct. Each course can be taken separately.
AN EPIC TALE IN FIVE ACTS
Act I. circa 300BCE-600CE. Circuits of mobility emerge that would shape everyday life all around the Old World. An Asian Circulatory System begins to emerges in travels by land and sea.
Act II. 600s-900s. Militant empires connect circuits of mobility. Nomad horse warrior steppe migrations dismantle old empires in East, South, and West Asia, and set up new warrior regimes around the Silk Road, stimulating Abbasid-Tang trade expansion across the Indian Ocean.
Act III. 900s-1200s. “Medieval Warm Period” economic development produces new routes of opportunity connecting the Indian Ocean and Central Asia through India. Trade and imperial power expanded in South India and Southeast Asia, increasing connectivity around the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea, East Africa, and Persian Gulf.
Act IV. 1200s-1500s. Mongol conquest and related migratory militarism integrate and expand the Asian Circulatory System, extending around the Black Sea into Russia and Europe, laying mobile militant territorial frames for commercial expansion by land and sea, embracing Europe, stimulating European investments to control Eurasian trade by sea.
Act V. 1500s-1800s. The largest-ever Asian empires generate massive wealth; their coastal regions sustain militant European trade extending around Atlantic and Pacific. A global economy of seaborne networks anchored in port-cities enrich Asian territories and European imperial powers that expands inland from coastal port cities.
Weekly Schedule
PART ONE. (Weeks 1-6)
Mobile Space and Cultural Territory, to circa 1200: Featuring Travels of Buddhism
Week 1
Thursday 2 Sept + Tues-Thurs 7-9 Sept
Spatial Histories and Natural Environments
Read
David Ludden, “Maps in the Mind and the Mobility of Asia,” Journal of Asian Studies, 62, 4, 2003, 1057-78. (online PDF)
John Brooke and Henry Misa, “Earth, Water, Air, and Fire: Toward an Ecological History of PremodernInner Eurasia,” (Online Research Encyclopedia of Asian History (hereafter: OREAH). (25pp)
Study
The Asian Monsoon – The World’s Largest Weather System (GeoDiode, Yutube 16:56).
View video
(you need to be signed into NYU Zoom) “Environments: Monsoon Asia.”
No writing assignment this week. In class: Tuesday: introduction to the course
Thursday: How natural environments stimulate mobility and territoriality, focusing specifically on nomadism and sedentarism, and agro-pastoral interactions.
Week 2. Sept 14-16
No class Sept 14, 2021 (I am in NYUAD, remotely)
Nomads, Merchants, and Farmers: Kushanas, Turks, and Bedouins
Read
Peter Golden, Central Asia in World History. (NYU Ebook Central), pp.1-37.
Nicolai Kradin, “Ancient Nomad Steppe Societies,” (OUP Online Research Encyclopedia of Asian History OREAH) (10pp).
Michal Biran, “Introduction: Nomadic Culture (pp.1-9), Anatoly M. Khazanov, “The Scythians and their Neighbors,” (pp.32-49), and William Honeychurch, “From Steppe roads to Silk Roads: Inner Asian Nomads and Early Inter-regional Exchange,” (pp.50-88) in Nomads As Agents of Cultural Change: The Mongols and Their Eurasian Predecessors, edited by Reuvan Amitai, Michael Biran, and Anand A.Yang, University of Hawaii Press, 2014)
Recommended
Nicola Di Cosmo, Ancient China and its Enemies : The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History, p.313-339.
Nicola Di Cosmo & M. Maas (Editors.). (2018). Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity: Rome, China, Iran, and the Steppe, ca. 250–750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2018 (Cambridge Core ebook).
Lorenzo Crescioli,. “The Scythians and the Eastern Limits of the Greek Influence: The Pazyryk Culture and Its Foreign Artistic Influences,” in With Alexander in India and Central Asia: Moving East and Back to West, edited by Claudia Antonetti and Paolo Biagi, Oxbow Books, Philadelphia, 2017, pp. 122–151.
Assignment
1-page paper #1 due by Thursday afternoon. (Strategy: each week, your response papers should consider how readings and class presentations and discussion contribute to the five page paper due at the end of each part of the course. For Part One, see Prompt in Week 5.
Week 3. Sept 21-23
Travels of Buddhism: The Tropics
Merchants, Monks, and Rulers
Read
Richard Davis, Global India circa 100CE, pp. 6-44.
Liu Xin Ru, “Early Buddhism,” (OREAH) (10pp).
Tansen Sen, “Buddhism and the Maritime Crossings.” (16pp)
Buddhism and Buddhist Art. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Essays, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, edited by John Guy, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014, pp. 3-24, 11-121 (also study maps and browse catalogue, p.74)
UNESCO: Sacred City of Anuradhapura
Recommended
Jason Emmanuel Neelis, Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks : Mobility and Exchange Within and Beyond the Northwestern Borderlands of South Asia, Brill, 2010. (online PDF), Chap 1-3, pp.1-228.
Angela Schottenhammer, editor. Early Global Interconnectivity Across the Indian Ocean World, Volume I : Commercial Structures and Exchanges. Springer International Publishing, 2019, Introduction pp 1-17.
Jean Deloche, “Roman Trade Routes in South India.” Indian Journal of History of Science, 45,1, 2010, 33-46.
Étienne de la Vaissière,. Sogdian Traders : A History. Brill, 2005
Primary Sources
Slides for Class, Weeks 3-4
Assignment
1-page paper #2 due by Thursday afternoon.
Week 4. Sept 28-30
Travels of Buddhism: Northern Circuits
Nomads, Merchants, Monks, and Patrons
Read
PC Bagchi, “The Beginnings of Buddhism in China,” in India and China: Interactions through Buddhism and Diplomacy: A Collection of Essays by Professor Prabodh Chandra Bagchi, edited by Bangwei Wang and Tansen Sen, Anthem Press, 2011, pp. 13–24.
Tansen Sen, editor. Buddhism Across Asia: Networks of Material, Intellectual and Cultural Exchange. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2014, Introduction, pp.xi-xxiii.
Max Deeg, “Chinese Buddhist Travelers” (OREAH) (12pp)
Natasha Heller, “Buddhist Religious Practice in Imperial China,” (OREAH) (12pp)
Liu, Xinru. “A Silk Road Legacy: The Spread of Buddhism and Islam.” Liu, Xinru. “Journal of World History, vol. 22, no. 1, Mar. 2011, pp. 55–81.
Valerie Hansen, “The Devotional Use of Buddhist Art in Ennin’s Diary,” Orientations, 45, 3, 2014, 77-82.
Recommended
Buddhism in Korea, at the Met.
Brown Library Tibetan Buddhism Website.
Rubin Museum, “Faith and Empire: Art and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism.”
Jason Emmanuel Neelis, Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks : Mobility and Exchange Within and Beyond the Northwestern Borderlands of South Asia, Brill, 2010. (online PDF), Chap 4-7, pp.228-320.
Tansen Sen, “Itineraries of Images as Agents of Integration in the Buddhist Cosmopolis,” in Pamela Smith ed. Entangled Itineraries: Materials, Practices, and Knowledge across Eurasia. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019, pp.182-201.
Assignment
1-page paper #3 due by Thursday afternoon
Week 5. Oct 5-7
Territorial Buddhism, 900-1500: Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana
Religious Belief, Patronage, and State Power
Read
Charles Keyes, “Theravada Buddhism and Buddhist Nationalism: Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Thailand.” The Review of Faith and International Affairs, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 41–52. (Online PDF).
David Ludden, “The Decline of Buddhism, Revisited: The Rise of Hindu Territorial Hegemony, c.950-1250,” in Clio and Her Descendants: Essays for Kesavan Veluthat, edited by Manu V. Devadevan, Delhi: Primus Books, 132-162.
Jacob Dalton, The Taming of the Demons: Violence and Liberation in Tibetan Buddhism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011, pp.1-22 (and anything else you like)
Michael Aung-Thwin. Pagan: The Origins of Modern Burma. University of Hawaii Press, 1985, pp.30-68.
Recommended (and for lecture)
Francois Houtart, “Theravada Buddhism and Political Power -Construction and Destructuration of its Ideological Function,” Social Compass, 24, 2-3, 1977, 207-246. (PDF online)
Johannes Bronkhorst. Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism. E.J. Brill, 2011, pp.12-25, 99-130.
Giovanni Verardi, Hardships and Downfall of Buddhism in India. Manohar, 2011.
Slides for Class
Assignment
In class, Thursday: discuss 5-page paper #1 assignment.
1-page paper #4 due by Thursday afternoon.
PROMPT FOR 5-Page paper#1: In no more than five double spaced pages, describe the historical spread of Buddhism: keep in mind its geography, timing, and major actors.
Week 6. Oct 14
(No class TUES Oct 12, when classes meet on Monday Schedule.)
Assignment
5-page paper #1 due Friday (see assignment in Week 5).
Saturday October 16 — visit Rubin Museum (see discussion page for details)
HERE is the link to the Rubin Museum and GATEWAY TO HIMALAYAN ART EXHIBITION, JUNE 11, 2021 – JUNE 5, 2023
Asia’s Circulatory System, to circa 1600: Featuring Travels of Muslims and Mongols
Week 7. Oct 19-21
Migration, Trade, Islam, and Empire, 600-1200: Abbasid, Tang-Song, Rashtrakuta, Srivijaya, Chola
Expanding Mobility and Territorial Power, after 600CE (Ref Week 5)
Read
Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empires in world History: Power and the Politics of Difference, Princeton, 2010, Chapter 3. “After Rome: Empire, Christianity, and Islam, pp. 61-92 (PDF online)
Michael R. Drompp, “The Kök Türk Empires,” OREAH. (10pp.)
Michael R. Drompp, “The Uyghur Empire (744-840),” OREAH. (10pp.)
Philippe Beaujard, “Islam: The Conquest of Lands and Oceans.” In The Worlds of the Indian Ocean: A Global History (pp. 42-71). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019 (online PDF)
Video on Abbasid-Tang conflict at the Battle of Talas, 751. 12:22
Lynda Shaffer, “Southernization.” Journal of World History, 5, 1, 1994, 1–21.
Song Dynasty Website: “the most advanced society in the world.”
Tamara Bently, “Trade in the East and South China Seas.” (OREAH). (20pp)
Recommended
Michael McCormick, et al. “Climate Change during and after the Roman Empire: Reconstructing the Past from Scientific and Historical Evidence.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 43, no. 2, 2012, pp. 169–220. (online PDF).
Hsueh-man Shen, “The China–Abbasid Ceramics Trade during the Ninth and Tenth Centuries,” in A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture, First Edition. Edited by Finbarr Barry Flood and Gülru Necipoğlu, New York: Wiley and Sons, 2017, pp.197-217. (PDF onine)
Richard Von Glahn, The Economic History of China, Chapter 6. pp. 208-255.
John Chaffee, The Muslim Merchants of Premodern China: The History of a Maritime Asian Trade Diaspora, 750-1400, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2018, pp. 1-75.
John Miksit, “Chinese Ceramic Production and Trade” (OREAH)
Burton Stein, “South India: Some General Considerations of the Region and its Early History.” In The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. I, c.1200 – c.1750. Edited by Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib, editors. Cambridge University Press, 1982 pp. 14-42). (online PDF 29pp)
Viola Allegranzi, “The Medieval Urbanism of Ghazni (Afghanistan, 10th-12th Centuries). A Cross-Reading of Textual and Material Evidence,” Afghanistan, 4,1, 2021, 1-18. (PDF online)
Simon Digby, “Economic Conditions before 1200,” in The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. I, c.1200 – c.1750. Edited by Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib, editors. Cambridge University Press, 1982, pp. 43-47). (Online PDF 5pp)
Timothy May, “Nomadic Warfare Before Firearms,” OREAH. (10pp)
Class PPT
Week 8. Oct 26-28
Chinggis Khan’s Family Empire, 1162-1294
Timeline PDF | timeline1 | timeline2
Transformative Historical Conjuncture. Mongols expand across and beyond old nomad territorial domains using old techniques with innovative efficiency, building on Turkic imperial expansion
Read
The Mongol Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia, Edited by Timothy May, ABC-CLIO, 2017, Introduction and Chronology, pp.xv-xxvii. (PDF online)
Michal Biran, “The Mongol Transformation: From the Steppe to Eurasian Empire.” (PDF), in Medieval Encounters, 10, 1-3, 2004, pp.339-61
Michal Biran, “The Mongol Empire and inter-civilizational exchange” (PDF), Chapter 20 in The Cambridge World History, pp.534-558 (Cambridge Core Link).
Recommended
Timothy May, “Nomadic Warfare Before Firearms,” OREAH. (10pp)
Peter Golden, Central Asia in World History. (Ebook), pp.69-91.
Viewing: “The Mongol Empire and Kublai Khan,” History Channel, 47:18. The Mongol Invasion of Japan, 1274 and 1281. (online slideshow). Mongol Invasion of Russia
Bettine Birge, Marriage and the Law in the Age of Khubilai Khan: Cases from the Yuan Dianzhang. Harvard university Press, 2017. (Ebook) Chapter One, “Historical Context” (online PDF) 20pp
Jack Fairey and BrianP. Farrell, editors. Empire in Asia: A New Global History: Volume One, From Chinggisid to Qing. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.
Primary Sources: The Secret History of the Mongols. Juvaini, The History of the World-Conqueror. Rashid al Din, The Successors of Genghis Khan.
Lawrence Krader, “Principles and Structures in the Organization of the Asiatic Steppe-Pastoralists.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, vol. 11, no. 2, 1955, pp. 67–92. (online PDF)
Jos Gommans, “The Warband the Making of Eurasian Empires.” (PDF) Chapter 4 in Prince, Pen, and Sword: Eurasian Perspectives, edited by Maaike van Berkel and Jeroen Duindam, Brill, Leiden, 2018, pp.297-383. (JSTOR Link)
Barry Cunliffe, By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean : The Birth of Eurasia. Oxford University Press, 2017, Chapter 11, pp.415-450.
Mongols in World History (Columbia University Website).
Pederson et al, “Pluvials, Droughts, The Mongol Empire, and Modern Mongolia.” (PDF), PNAS, 2014, 111, 12, 4375-79.
Michael Brose, “Medieval Uyghurs from the 8th to 14th Century,” (OREAH).
Thomas Allsen, “The rise of the Mongolian empire and Mongolian rule in north China,” Cambridge History of China, Edited by H.Franke, and D.C.Twitchett, Cambridge University Press, 1994 (online 2008), pp. 321-413. (online PDF)
Morris Rossabi, Eurasian Influences in Yuan China.
China Under Mongol Rule, edited by John D. Langlois.
Bruno, De Nicola, Bruno. “Women and Politics from the Steppes to World Empire.” Women in Mongol Iran: The Khatuns, 1206-1335, Edinburgh University Press, 2017, pp. 34–64, (PDF online)
Class PPT and video
Week 9. Nov 2-4
Military Commercialism in the Integration of Afro-Eurasia (Midterm grades due)
Commercial Space and Imperial Territory: The World of Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta
Read
The Travels of Ibn Battuta. Berkeley ORIAS (10pp.)
The Travels of Marco Polo (1907 John Masefield Translation on the Internet Archive).
Peter Bozian, “The Role of Ortoy Merchants in the Mongolian Court: From the Rise of the Mongol Empire to the Fall of the Yuan Dynasty,” in Emory Endeavors in World History, Volume 6, 2015, pp.90-106.
Barry Cunliffe, By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia, Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 452-471
Nicola Di Cosmo, Black Sea Emporia, Journal of the Economic and
Social History of the Orient, 53, 2010, 83-108.
John Chaffee, “Cultural Transmission by Sea: Maritime Trade Routes in Yuan China” in Eurasian Influences on Yuan China, edited by Morris Rossabi, 2016, pp. 41-59
Primary sources
Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1354, Fordham University Medieval Sourcebook, and Ibn Battuta “Travels” Translation by Samuel Lee (1829)
Recommended
Virgil Ciociltan. The Mongols and the Black Sea Trade in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Brill, 2012, (Ebook), pp.37-60.
Thomas Allsen, “Mongol Princes and their Merchant Partners 1200-1260,” (PDF), Asia Major, 3rd Series, 2, 2, 1989, 83-126 (JSTOR link).
James A Millward, Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang, Columbia University Press, 2007. (PDF online), pp. 40-78.
Angela Schottenhammer, editor. Early Global Interconnectivity Across the Indian Ocean World, Volume I : Commercial Structures and Exchanges. Springer International Publishing, 2019, pp. 53-95.
Tansen Sen, “The Formation of Chinese Maritime Networks to Southern Asia, 1200-1450,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 49, 4, 2006, 421-453.
Tansen Sen, “The Yuan Khanate and India: Cross-Cultural Diplomacy in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” Asia Major, 19, 1/2, 2006, 299-326.
In the Service of the Khans: Elites in Transition in Mongol Eurasia, Edited by Michal Biran, Asiatische Studien, 71, 4, 2017, Editor’s Introduction, pp. 1051-1057 (Each chapter is a case study.)
John Masson Smith. “Mongol and Nomadic Taxation.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 30, 1970, pp. 46–85.
George Lane, “The Ilkhanate: Mongol Rule in Medieval Western Asia, 1256-1335,” OREAH (33pp)
“From Mongols to Safavids,” Encyclopedia Iranica.
John Masson Smith. “Mongol and Nomadic Taxation.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 30, 1970, pp. 46–85.
The Cambridge History of Inner Asia: The Chinggisid Age. Edited by Nicola Di Cosmo, A. Frank, and P. Golden, Cambridge University Press, 2009.
John Chaffee, The Muslim Merchants of Premodern China: The History of a Maritime Asian Trade Diaspora, 750-1400, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2018, pp.76-161.
The Mongol Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia, Edited by Timothy May, ABC-CLIO, 2017.
Historical Dictionary of the Mongol World Empire by Paul D. Buell and Francesca Fiaschetti. Rowman & Littlefield, 2018-04-06.
Hosung Shim, “The Postal Roads of the Great Khans in Central Asia under the Mongol-Yuan Empire,” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies, 44, 2014, 405-469 (JSTOR).
Prajakti Kalra, The Silk Road and the Political Economy of the Mongol Empire, (Ebook; University of Toronto Press, 2016).
Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Amilcare Iannucci, Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West (Ebook University of Toronto Press, 2016).
Michael Hope, “Bukhara under the Mongols,” (OREAH).
The Silk Road and the cities of the Golden Horde, G. A. Fedorov-Davydov and Jeannine Davis-Kimball. Zinat Press, Berkeley 2001.
Enerelt Enkhbold, The role of the ortoq in the Mongol Empire in forming business partnerships, Central Asian Survey, 38, 4, 2019, 531-547.
Thomas Conlon, In Little Need of Divine Intervention: Takezaki Suenaga’s Scrolls of the Mongol Invasions of Japan. East Asia Program, Cornell University 2001. (Bobst DS861.C66. 2001)
James Waterson, Defending Heaven: China’s Mongol Wars, 1209-1370. London: Frontline Books, 2013. Bobst DS731.M64.W38.2013
Bettine Birge, Marriage and the Law in the Age of Khubilai Khan: Cases from the Yuan Dianzhang. Harvard university Press, 2017. (Ebook) Chapter One, “Historical Context” (online PDF) 20pp.
David Farquhar,”Structure and Function of the Yuan Imperial Government,” in China Under Mongol Rule, Edited by John. D. Langlois, Princeton, 1981.pp.24-54.
Week 10. Nov 9-11
The Great Asian Empires
Post-Mongol Political Economy and Cultural Territory
Read
Thomas Allsen, “Eurasia after the Mongols” and Jos Gommans, “Continuity and Change in the Indian Ocean Basin,” in The Cambridge World, edited by Jerry H. Bentley, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, and Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 159-181, and 182-209.
Tansen Sen, “The Formation of Chinese Maritime Networks to Southern Asia, 1200-1450,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 49, 4, 2006, 421-453.
Richard M. Eaton, “The Persian Cosmopolis,” OREAH, 21pp.
Johan Elverskog, “Buddhist and Muslim Interaction in Asian History,” (OREAH). (10pp)
1-page paper #6 due by Thursday afternoon. This paper serves as the starting point for 5-page paper#2, due next Friday Nov. 19. Wednesday Office Hours, 12-2 by appointment.
Recommended
Catherine B. Asher and Cynthia Talbot. India before Europe, Cambridge University Press, 2006. ProQuest Ebook Central, .
“From Mongols to Safavids,” Encyclopedia Iranica.
Johan Elverskog, Our Great Qing : The Mongols, Buddhism, and the State in Late Imperial China. University of Hawaii Press, 2006.
Finbarr Barry Flood, “Between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm, and the Museum,” The Art Bulletin , 84, 4, 2002, 641-659. (PDF online)
On Taṣawwuf in Encyclopedia of Islam. (est.5pp)
Randal L. Pouwels, “Ibn Battuta in Africa and Asia,” (OREAH) (12pp.)
Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion, Yale University Press, 2017, pp.328-80.
Hyunhee Park, Mapping the Chinese and Islamic Worlds : Cross-Cultural Exchange in Pre-Modern Asia, Cambridge University Press, 2012, (Ebook), Conclusion, pp. 221-232, and optional 121-221.
Liu Xin Ru, “A Silk road Legacy: The Spread of Buddhism and Islam,” Journal of World History, 22, 1, 2011, 55-81 (PDF online)
Afghanistan’s Islam: From Conversion to the Taliban, Edited by Nile Green, Berkeley: U Cal Press, 2017, Open Access. JSTOR LINK. Chapters 1-5.
Guy Burak, “The Second Formation of Islamic Law: The Post-Mongol Context of the Ottoman Adoption of a School of Law,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 55, 3, 2012, 579-602. (online PDF)
Mounia Chekhab-Abudaya, “Traveling Manuscripts: Understanding Pilgrimage in Central and Eastern Islamic Lands,” in Asia Inside Out III: Itinerant People, Eric Tagliacozzo, Editor, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019, pp.146-178. (Ebook)
James Pickett, “The Darker Side of Mobility: Refugees, Hostages, and Political Prisoners in Persianate Asia,” in Asia Inside Out III: Itinerant People, Eric Tagliacozzo, Editor, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019, pp.201-223. (Ebook)
Pickett, James. Polymaths of Islam : Power and Networks of Knowledge in Central Asia. Cornell University Press, 2020.
Andre Wink, Al-Hind, the making of the Indo-Islamic world. Volume 3, Brill, 2003, (Ebook), pp.119-169.
Dionisius A. Agius, Classic Ships of Islam: From Mesopotamia to the Indian Ocean, Brill, 2007. (Ebook)
Nile Green, Bombay Islam : The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, 1840–1915, Cambridge University Press, 2011. (Ebook).
Thomas T. Allsen, The Steppe and the Sea: Pearls in the Mongol Empire. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019. Bobst NK7680.A45.2019
Jahfar Shareef Pokkanali, “Sailing across Duniyāv: Sufi Ship–Body Symbolism from the Malabar Coast, South India,” South Asian Studies, August, 2018 (online PDF) 15pp.
Class PPT
Assignment
One-page paper#5: Write a short synopsis of 5-page paper#2, DUE NEXT WEEK. Here is the Prompt: Describe the Mongol Empire as an important part of spatial transformations in Afro-Eurasia in the six centuries of the second millennium of the Common Era, using specific examples, such as, for instance, travels of Islam.
Week 11. November 16-18
No additional reading. Presentation and discussion focusing on 5-page paper #2. 5-page paper #2 due by Friday. Discussion of paper ideas in class based on feedback for 1-page paper #5.
Port City Networks and Commercial Militarism
Week 12. Nov 23
No Class on Thursday, Happy Thanksgiving!
European Renaissance in Afro-Eurasia: Mapping Connections, Port Cities and Coastal Environments
Read
Thomas Asbridge, Traders and Crusaders, BBC History magazine.
Matthew Romaniello, “Transregional Trade in Early Modern Eurasia,” OREAH. (12pp)
Tamara Bently, “Trade in the East and South China Seas.“(10pp)
Jerry Brotton, The Renaissance Bazaar: From the Silk Road to Michelangelo, Oxford University Press, 2002, pp.33-60.
Eric Tagliacozzo, “An Urban Ocean: Notes on the Historical Evolution of Coastal Cities in Greater Southeast Asia.” Journal of Urban History, 33, 6, 2007, 911–932. (Online PDF)
Tansen Sen, “The Impact of Zheng He’s Expeditions on Indian Ocean interactions,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 79, 3, 2016, 609-636. (online PDF)
Recommended
Giorgio Riello, Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World. Cambridge University Press, 2013. (Ebook), p.59-86.Columbia University Mongols in World History Website
Celine Dauverd, Imperial Ambition in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Genoese Merchants and the Spanish Crown. Cambridge University Press, 2014. (Here is online PDF of useful Conclusion, pp.248-261)
Social History of the Orient, 53, 2010, 83-108.
“Historical Diffusion of Paper Making,” (online PDF) Chapter 3 in Mobilities of Knowledge, edited by Heike Jöns, et al., Springer, 2017 (ebook link to chapter), pp.51-66.
Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680. Yale University Press, 1990.
Rosamund Mack, Bazar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300-1600, Berkeley; UCal Press, 2002.
Roxann Prazniak: The Mongol Turn in Commerce, Belief, and Art, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2019. Bobst DS19.p73.2019.
Elizabeth Lambourn, “Towards a connected History of Equine Cultures in South Asia: Bahri (Sea) Horses and ’Horsemania’ in Thirteenth Century South India,” The Medieval Globe, 2, 1, 2016, in pp.57-100 (PDF online)
Levi, Scott C. The Bukharan Crisis: A Connected History of 18th Century Central Asia. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020.
Kenneth R. Hall, “European Southeast Asia Encounters with Islamic Expansionism, circa 1500-1700: Comparative Case Studies of Banten, Ayutthaya, and Banjarmasin in the Wider Indian Ocean Context.” Journal of World History, 25: 2,3, 2014, 229–62.
Week 13. Nov 30-Dec 2
Port City Networks and Colonial Travels Inland
Class PPT
Read
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, “Empires in their Global Context, c.1500-c.1800,” Chapter 6 (19pp) in The Atlantic in Global History, 1500-2000, edited by Jorge Canizares-Esguerra, Erik R Seeman, Routledge, 2018
Peter Perdue, “The Rise and Fall of the Canton Trade System -1: China in the World (1790s-1860s)” (5pp)
Watch: BBC video on Opium Trade and Opium Wars
A.C.S. Peacock, “The Ottoman Empire and the Indian Ocean,” (OREAH). (10pp)
M. van Rossum, “The Dutch East India Company and Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago Worlds, 1602-1795” (OREAH). (12pp)
Tirthankar Roy, “Origins of British India.” (OREAH). (10pp)
Kenneth Pomeranz and Steven Topik, The World That Trade Created : Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400 to the Present, Routledge, 2017, (Ebook) Introduction, pp.1-6, and Chapter 5 “The Economics of Violence” pp.162-202
Week 17. Dec 7-9
Pandemics of Imperial Capital Accumulation
Class PPT
Read
James L. A. Webb, “Globalization of disease, 1300 to 1900,” in The Cambridge World History, edited by Jerry H. Bentley, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, and Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, Cambridge University Press, 2015. pp 54-75.
Sheldon Watts, “Cholera and Civilization: Great Britain and India, 1817-1920, Chapter 5, in Sheldon Watts, Epidemics and History, Yale University Pres, 1997, pp.167-212.
Webpage: Opium Wars in China. The Asia-Pacific Curriculum, Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada
Assignment
Discussion of 5-page paper #3. Here is the prompt: Discuss the changing quality of interactions between the territorial power and authority of Great Asia Empires and expanding European mobility in Asia before 1850. You can focus on any region.
Week 15. Dec 14
Final Discussion. Last day Fall classes.
5-page paper #3 due by Friday
