PartVIChapter新编

1、The discovery of America . certainly made a most essential change. By opening a new and inexhaustible market to all the commodities of Europe, it gave occasion to new divisions of labour and improvements of art, which in the narrow sphere of ancient commerce, could never have taken place The silver

2、of the new continent seems in this manner to be one of the principal commodities by which the commerce between the two extremities of the old one is carried on, and it is by meansof it, in great measure, that those distant parts of the world are connected with one another. Adam Smith. The early mode

3、rn period from 1500 to 1763 was one of the more critical periodsin human history. It was at this time that European explorers made the great discoveries that disclosed new continents and thereby heralded the global phase of world history. During this period also the Europeans began their rise to wor

4、ld primacy because of their leadership in overseas activities. Certain global interrelationships that developed during these centuries naturally becamestronger with the passage of time. Hence the years from 1500 to 1763 are the period when global unity got under waythe period of transition from the

5、regional isolationism of the pre-1500 era to the European global hegemony of the nineteenth century. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the precise nature and extent of the global ties that developed in various fields (see map of World of the Emerging West, 1763, p. 382). I. NEW GLOBAL HORIZO

6、NS The first and most obvious result of Europes expansion overseas and overland was an unprecedented widening of horizons. No longer was geographic knowledge limited to one region or continent or hemisphere. For the first time, the shape of the globe as a whole was known and charted (see map of West

7、ern Knowledge of the Globe, 1 to 1800 ., p. 350). This was largely the work of the western Europeans, who had taken the lead in transoceanic exploration. Before the Portuguese began feeling their way down the coast of Africa in the early fifteenth century, Europeans had accurate information only of

8、North Africa and the Middle East. Their knowledge concerning India was vague. It was still vaguer regarding central Asia, east Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. The very existence of the Americas and of Australia let alone Antarctica was, of course, unsuspected. By 1763 the picture was altogether differ

9、ent. The main coastlines of most of the world had become known in varying degrees of detail, including the Atlantic coast of the Americas, the Pacific coast of South America, the whole outline of Africa, and the coasts of south and east Asia. In certain areas European knowledge went beyond the coast

10、lines. The Russians were reasonably familiar with Siberia, and the Spaniards and Portuguese with Mexico, Central America, and parts of South America. North of the Rio Grande the Spaniards had explored considerable areas in their futile search for gold and fabled cities, and further north the French

11、and English ranged widely, using the canoes and the river-lake routes known to the Indians. On the other hand, the Pacific coast of North America was largely unknown, and Australia, though sighted on its west coast by Dutch navigators, was almost wholly uncharted. Likewise, the interior of sub-Sahar

12、an Africa was almost completely blank, and so was central Asia, about which the main source of information still was the thirteenth-century account of Marco Polo. In general, then, the Europeans had gained knowledge of most of the coastlines of the world during the period to 1763. In the following p

13、eriod they were to penetrate into the interior of continents and also to explore the polar regions. II. GLOBAL DIFFUSION OF HUMANS, ANIMALS, AND PLANTS The European discoveries led not only to new global horizons but also to a new global distribution of races. Prior to 1500 there existed, in effect,

14、 worldwide racial segregation. The Negroids were concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and a few Pacific islands; the Mongoloids in central Asia, Siberia, east Asia, and the Americas; and the Caucasoids in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and India. Today this pattern has been fundamentally alter

15、ed to the point where half the people of African descent live outside of Africa. By 1763 this radically different racedistribution was clearly discernible. The Russians had begun their slow migration across the Urals into Siberia. Much more substantial was the mass migration to the Americas voluntar

16、y in the case of the Europeans, involuntary for the Africans. The influx changed the Americas from purely Mongoloid continents to the most racially mixed regions of the globe. Immigration of Africans continued to the mid-nineteenth century, reaching a total of 10 million slaves. European immigration

17、 also steadily increased, reaching a high point at the beginning of the twentieth century when nearly 1 million arrived each year. The net result is that the New World today is peopled by a majority of whites, with substantial minorities of blacks, Indians, mestizos, and mulattoes, in that order (se

18、e Chapter 35, Section I, and map of Racial Distribution in the World, p. 384). The new global pattern that resulted from these depopulations and migrations has become so familiar that it is now taken for granted and its extraordinary significance generally overlooked. What happened in the period to

19、1763 is that the Europeans staked out claims to vast new regions, and in the following century they peopled those territories not only the Americas but also Siberia and, eventually, Australia. We can see the vital importance of the redrawing of the world racial map if we imagined that the Chinese ra

20、ther than the Europeans first reached and settled the underpopulated continents. In that case the proportion of Chinese to the total World population would probably be closer to three out of six rather than one out of six, as it is now. The intermixture of human races was accompanied inevitably by a

21、 corresponding intermixture of plants and animals. With a few insignificant exceptions, all plants and animals being utilized today were domesticated by prehistoric humans in various parts of the world. Their diffusion from their places of origin had proceeded slowly until 1500, when globe-spanning

22、Homo sapiens began transplanting them back and forth among continents. An important contribution of the Old World were the various domesticated animals, especially horses, cattle, and sheep. The New World had nothing comparable. The llama and alpaca were of relatively little value. Of course the New

23、 World did have huge bison herds, estimated to have totaled 40 to 60 million animals. The Indians had hunted them for food and hides but had killed only about 300,000 a year, well below the natural replacement rate. Europeans began killing them at first for meat, and after 1871 for hides to be made

24、into commercial leather. The slaughter rose to 3 million a year, which decimated the herds to the point of extinction by the end of the nineteenth century. Now bison survive in a few carefully managed herds, which are beginning to compete with cattle as a meat source for the American consumer. The A

25、merindians also contributed their remarkable store of food plants, particularly corn and potatoes, but also cassava, tomatoes, avocados, sweet potatoes, peanuts, and certain varieties of beans, pumpkins, and squashes. So important are these Indian plants that today they are responsible for about one

26、-half of the worlds total plant-food production. In addition to these food plants, the American Indians were responsible for two major cash crops: tobacco and cotton, as well as several native American drugs that are prominent in modern pharmacology. They contributed coca for cocaine and novocaine,

27、curare used in anesthetics, cinchona bark (the source of quinine), datura used in pain relievers, and cascara for laxatives. The interchange of animals and plants was not, of course, confined to Eurasia and case strikingly in the was entire globe involved, as is illustrated the Americas. The of Aust

28、ralia. Australia is now a leading world exporter of primary products such as wool, mutton, beef, and wheat, all commodities from species that were transplanted and coffee, tea, Indonesia with its great rubber, true from elsewhere. The same is of tobacco production, and of Hawaii with its sugar and p

29、ineapples. at plants, and animals continues, though humans, Today the global intermixture of an accelerating pace as steamships and jet planes replace canoes and sailboats. are repercussions and with that sometimes Frequently the mixing occurs accidentally, routinely transferred are being creatures

30、disastrous. For example, marine of all types every day from one end of the world to another in the ballast tanks of ships. Dumped sometimes organisms spread out, ships into new habitats when the make port, billions of cargo Japanese tanks replacing native species. Scientists sampling the ballast of

31、159 ships arriving at Coos Bay, Oregon, discovered in their ballast waters 367 different types of plants and animals, mostly in larval form. We found shrimps, crabs, fish, complete the snails, really jellyfish, barnacles, sea urchins, starfish, worms, clams, Perhaps 5 to 10 percent of species introd

32、uced to a new spectrum of marine life. . . . environment become established there. Ballasts are by no means the only problem in controlling species diffusion. The rapidly increasing volume of global trade and travel probably is the most important diffusion force today. Species are spreading everywhe

33、re along with live animals, plants, and seeds, and also with the ships, planes, and trucks on which they are the United outward from diffusion, transported. The of course, is a two-way process the from limpet The slipper was inadvertently exported the States as well as reverse. moth a North American

34、 shipment the to Europe in 1880s with a of oysters; States United currently is defoliating trees in a large area in central China; and a pinewood nematode from the southeastern United States is killing black pines in Japan. III. GLOBALECONOMIRCELATIONBSy the latter part of the eighteenth century a l

35、arge intercontinental trade had developed for the first time in history. Before 1500, Arab and Italian merchants spices, goods such as Eurasia transported mostly luxuries from one part of to another luxury the limited eighteenth silk, precious stones, and perfumes. By the late century trade had been

36、 transformed into a mass trade based on the exchange of new, bulky necessities. Atlantic commerce especially became enormous since the New World plantations produced huge quantities of tobacco, sugar, and, later, coffee, cotton, and other commodities that were sold in Europe. Because the plantations

37、 practiced metal and such to import all necessities as grain, fish, cloth, monoculture, they had products. They also had to import their labor. This led to the flourishing triangle trade: rum, cloth, guns, and other metal products from Europe to Africa; slaves from Europe. and bullion from the New W

38、orld to tobacco, Africa to the New World; and sugar, exchange was the of this era global Another important aspect of the new mass trade of products between western and eastern Europe. Here again western Europe received raw materials, especially bread grains, which were in great demand because of pop

39、ulation increase and because much arable land had been converted into pasture. At Danzig, chief port for the Baltic grain trade, rye prices between 1550 and 1600 rose increase a great oats 185 percent. This stimulated 247 percent, barley 187 percent, and in the export of grains and other raw materia

40、ls, so that the value of Polish and imports. of usually was double that exports Hungarian to the West during these decades Poland, Hungary, Russia, and ultimately the Balkans received textiles, arms, metal stores, cattle, hides, ship goods, and in return provided grain, colonial products, and and fl

41、ax. They also provided furs, which were obtained by the Russians in Siberia in exploiting by World; the New namely, bullion that the same way the Spaniards obtained in native labor. Europes trade with Asia was not equal to the trade with the Americas or eastern two principal reasons. The first was t

42、hat the European textile industries Europe for opposed the importation of cotton goods from various Asiatic countries. Foreign cottons were immensely popular in Europe because they were light, bright, inexpensive, and above all, washable, and they began to be imported in large quantities. Soon objec

43、tions were raised by native textile interests and by those who feared that national security was endangered by the loss of the bullion that was drained away to pay for the textiles. These interests brought sufficient pressure to bear on their respective governments to secure the passage of laws forb

44、idding or reducing the importation of Indian cottons. finding of the difficulty second factor limiting European commerce with Asia was The classical back to This sell in the Asiatic market. problem dated something that would Indian silkand of its gold to pay for Chinese times, whenthe Roman Empire w

45、as drained textiles. Likewise in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, Asia remained uninterested in European goods, and Europe was reluctant to send bullion to with trade did not solve this problem of Europe pay for the Asiatic produce it wanted. Asia until it developed power machin

46、ery at the end of the eighteenth century. Then cheap, with reversed, for it was Europe that was able to flood Asia the situation was machine-made textiles. But until that time, East-West trade was hampered by the fact that Asia was willing to accept little else but bullion from Europe. foremost, Fir

47、st and the significance of the new worldwide economic ties? What was significant a time had been achieved on international division of labor for the first eastern and economic unit. The Americas The world was on the way to becoming an scale. Europe (with Siberia) produced raw materials, Africa provi

48、ded labor, Asia an operations global western Europe directed these assortment of luxury commodities, and and concentrated more and more on industrial output. big a how to get new global economy raised the question of of The requirements the plantations The New World in the regions producing raw mate

49、rials. supply enough labor populations Hence African slaves on a large scale. African met this need by importing are most numerous today in precisely those areas that had formerly been devoted to northern Brazil, the West Indies, and the southern United plantation agriculture legacy. bitter was to l

50、eave a Europeans States. The early solution to their labor needs colonial the back to dating day are wracked by basic problems the These areas to present the problems of race discrimination and of underdevelopment. The current periodracial conflict in American ghettos and on Caribbean islands is the

51、 end result of over four centuries of transatlantic slave trade. Likewise, the underdevelopment of all Latin America is simply a continuation of the economic dependency on northwestern Europe of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies (and of Spain and Portugal themselves). Whereas the price for the par

52、ticipation of the Americas in the new global economy was slavery, the price for eastern Europe was serfdom. The basic reason was the namely, the need for a plentiful and reliable supply of cheap labor to produce samegoods for the lucrative west European market. Heretofore the nobles in Poland and fo

53、r three to six days a year Hungary had required minimal labor from the peasants there was no incentive to increase output. But when production for market became to one the labor obligations responded by drastically raising profitable, the nobles day a week, and by the end of the sixteenth century to

54、 six days a week. To make sure their passed limiting remain to perform this labor, laws were that the peasants would movement more and more strictly. Eventually they were completely bound to freedom of the soil, thereby becoming serfs, denied freedom of movement and subject to the exactions of the n

55、obles. Africa also was vitally affected by the new global economy, serving as the source of slave labor for the American plantations. Slavery existed in Africa before the were also Slaves used as soldiers and farmers. with transatlantic trade, slaves being exported, along with gold, over ancient tra

56、de routes across the Sahara to the estimated East. An mostly to the Middle they Mediterranean coast, whence were shipped million to 10 million Africans were sold in this fashion prior to the Atlantic slave trade. selling by transatlantic trade, began the The Portuguese, who were pioneers in the Afri

57、cans in Spain, Italy, and Portugal, where they were used for domestic and farm labor. Their numbers were small, however, compared to the multitudes that soon were being shipped to work on New World plantations. Local Indians could not be used for victims of European diseases. The that purpose becaus

58、e they were disappearing plantation owners at first tried to get along with the indentured European workers, but they proved to be too expensive and undisciplined. So African slaves were substituted, the first ones being shipped soon after Columbuss first voyage. Their numbers rose sharply after the

59、 discovery of silver in Peru in the 1520s and the establishment of sugar plantations in Brazil in the 1540s and soared still more as new plantations were established in Mexico and the Caribbean islands for other crops widely; vary number total of slaves Estimates tobacco, such as rice, and coffee. o

60、f the the most recent studies indicate between 12 million and 20 million being forcibly shipped from Africa between 1500 and 1867. Consequently, by 1850 there were three or four enslaved Africans in the Americas for every white person. other. the to Africa of part one from greatly varied trade slave