chapter 12

Civilizations of the Fifteenth Century: Comparing China and Europe

A. By the fifteenth century C.E., a majority of the world’s population lived within a major civilization.

B. Ming Dynasty China

1. China had been badly disrupted by Mongol rule and the plague
2. recovery under the Ming dynasty (1368– 1644)
• effort to eliminate all signs of foreign rule
• promotion of Confucian learning
• Emperor Yongle (r. 1402–1422)
3. reestablished the civil service examination system
4. created a highly centralized government
• great power was given to court eunuchs
• state restored land to cultivation, constructed waterworks, planted perhaps a billion trees
• was perhaps the best-governed and most prosperous civilization of the
• fifteenth century
5. maritime ventures
• Chinese sailors and traders had become important in the South China Sea and in Southeast Asian ports in the eleventh century
• Emperor Yongle commissioned a massive fleet; launched in 1405

Civilizations of the Fifteenth Century: The Islamic World

A. The long-fragmented Islamic world crystallized into four major states or empires.

B. In the Islamic Heartland: The Ottoman and Safavid Empires

1. Ottoman Empire lasted from fourteenth to early twentieth century
• huge territory: Anatolia, eastern Europe, much of Middle East, North African coast, lands around Black Sea
• sultans claimed the title “caliph” and the legacy of the Abbasids
• effort to bring new unity to the Islamic world
2. Ottoman aggression toward Christian lands

a. fall of Constantinople in 1453

b. 1529 siege of Vienna

c. Europeans feared Turkish expansion

3. Safavid Empire emerged in Persia from a Sufi religious order
• empire was established shortly after 1500
• imposed Shia Islam as the official religion of the state
4. Sunni Ottoman Empire and Shia Safavid Empire fought periodically between 1534 and 1639