A brief presentation on the nature of human societies and global connections in 1500, to start off the semester

1. The World in 1500
"The Past is a Foreign Country"

2. The World Today

3. Population 2000

4. World Wealth 1990

5. Major Political Territories, c. 1450 CE

6. Population Distribution, 1500

7. Wealth Distribution, 1500

8. Isolation

9. Isolation

10. Expansion

11. Universals
• Monarchy
• Aristocracy
• Slavery
• Patriarchy
• 1-2% urbanization, maybe 4-5% literacy
• 90%+ of population involved in agriculture
• Physical, social, career mobility extremely
limited: vast majority living and working
almost exactly as parents had.

12. Technology
• Engineering & Metallurgy
• Transportation
• Medicine
• Agriculture

13. Cultural Zones
• East Asia
• SE Asia
• Pacific/Oceania
• Ottoman Empire
• Africa
• Russia
• Western Europe
• Americas

14. Sources
• Maps
– Background Image/Isolation 1: Account of the Islands
of the Mediterranean by
Martellus, Henricus, Germanus; Florence, 1489. British
Library
– Isolation 2: Da Ming Hun Yi Tu world map
(1389), Wikipedia Images
– Expansion: Typus Cosmographicus Universalis by
Huttich and Grynaus, American Geographical Society
– http://www.worldmapper.org/
– Stearns, et al., World Civilizations: The Global
Experience, 6th edition, 2011, Pearson.