Greg Pinto

The Grand Tour: Europe The world of 1492, soon to be connectedinto a global system, comprised a host ofdisparate societies with leaders of varyingabilities. Europe swarmed with small states,some of which were coalescing into larger units.

Portugal experienced a lull in exploration

Spain Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile

Italy Genoa and Venice

France Charles VIII of France to invade the peninsula

Russia Golden Horde, as the Mongol rulers ofRussia were known

The Grand Tour: Turkey to Africa Turkey The Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II'svast Muslim domains stretched across NorthAfrica, and from Persia to Serbia and theSouthern Ukraine. Ottoman capital at Istanbulformerly the Christian city of Constantinople,had ended the Byzantine Empire, last remnant ofThe ancient Roman Empire.

Africa Turks and other Islamic peoplesdominated a great swath of land from the southof Spain across North Africa and down intoAfrica as far as Mozambique

The Grand Tour: South Asia India In 1492 most of India was underMuslim domination, except for the HinduKingdom of Vijayanagar in the south.

In the countries of southeast Asia, the peoplewere Theravada (the "lesser wheel")Buddhists, who venerated their leaders as gods.

The Grand Tour: China and Japan China Fifteenth-century had the

potential to expand greatly its geographical horizons, In the sixteenth century, Chinese merchants would be forbidden to travel abroad.Extensive trade routes covered all regions along the China Sea and the Indian Ocean as well as nearby islands in the Pacific China lacked incentive to round Africa and directly contact Europe, the dwarf kingdoms would visit the giant, not the reverse.

Japan In the Japan that Columbus hoped to visit, not only was there no Great Lord but the ruling clan was also dissolving.

The Grand Tour: The Western Hemisphere In 1492 the Reverend Speaker Ahuitzotl,

eighth leader of the Aztecs, was extendingthe confederation of the Triple Alliance through Mesoamerica.

The destruction of Mayan culture prevents us from learning of their society'sintellectual accomplishments.

The Incas, much as did the Aztecs, underwent an explosive expansion toward the endof the fifteenth century. Under the rule of Tupac Inca Yupan-qui, who succeeded hisfather Pachacuti in 1471, they consolidated a unified empire from the presentColumbia-Ecuador border to central Chile-a coastal distance of over 2,500 mile

The Staff of life By 1492 the planet had already reached the

end of the long warming trend that hadencouraged the Norse exploration half a millennium before.As cultivated in Europe, wheat (along with barley, oats, and rye) was a low-yield cropgrown on individual plots that required the cooperative labor of humans and animalsto turn the soil.

Europeans developed into aggressive individuals. Their life was always insecurebecause the yield per seed was very low, and their crops constantly were at the mercyof the weather or the caprices of long-distance transportation. Thus famine alternated with plenty. The annual killing of field animals that were unlikely to survive winter inured Europe's peasants to blood-letting on a massive scale

The Great Traditions Four major forms of civilization flourished in

the broad landmass of Eurasia. All four great centers of civilization had

elaborate bureaucratic structures, significantcities, iron implements, writing, and a high technology.

These characteristics createdstable societies which, even if they might be overthrown, would prove difficult foroutsiders to change. From the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, successive waves ofaggressive Turks and Mongols had pressed their way into China, India, North Africa,and north- eastern Europe

The European Challenge By maintaining contact with each other,

societies in the ecumene enjoyed an enormous

head start over portions of the world that were relatively isolated. Western Europe

made better use of these contacts than did any other part of Eurasia. This was due to

the historical developments in western Europe that fused intense local rivalries to an

aggressive form of commerce and an expansionistic religion

The Portuguese (rather than the Spanish) ruling house made the first moves in theearly 1400s to break out of Europe's isolation.