The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History

The political, economic, and social dynamics that emerge in Part 5 are clearer in light of a key difference between the Indian religions and the Abrahamic religions, which the authors explain in Part 4 during their discussion of religion: “[A]s a rule the two Indian faiths were less militant than Christianity and Islam, accepting the validity of alternative paths to salvation as a matter of course, and not really expecting rulers [...] to be holy, or even just” (107-08).

The authors support this point about the differences between the religions by demonstrating their relationships to market economies and expansion. Buddhism infused new ideas and market behavior into Chinese society and “adjusted Chinese minds to Buddhist learning, and vice versa” (121). The rise of Confucianism in some ways tempered the openness of Buddhism, and consequently of Chinese people, but even Confucian scholars and officials found it necessary to adjust to Buddhist ideas while remaining suspicious of the increasing wealth and power of merchant and military classes. The authors attribute the Ming dynasty’s policy of conservative withdrawal and internal stability to conflict with the Mongols, but the text’s explanation of China’s dominant religions suggests that the confluence of Buddhist and Confucian ideologies was also a driving force behind the dynasty’s repudiation of commercial-imperial expansion. Buddhism sought to attract, rather than impose, while Confucianism valued insulation, thus creating a thriving internal economy without the need for large-scale and far-flung enterprises.

Islam, conversely, was highly concerned with imposition. The text emphasizes the use of war to spread influence. For example, Muslim conquest of India was characterized by plundering raids and “an irregular flow of fighting men [...] warring against Hindu idolaters” (134). With the rise of the Ottoman Empire, “war against unbelievers at first sanctified raid and rapine; and [...] allowed the early Ottoman sultans to assign estates to their followers, supporting their subsequent campaigns” (134). The authors draw attention to Islam’s creation of a “close-knit cultural community across political and ethnic boundaries” (136). The emergence of cultural similarities across the Muslim empire provides a significant contrast to the interaction between China and smaller nations on the Pacific flank. The “controlling counterweight of the Chinese imperial bureaucracy did not extend to […] the Pacific flank, [so] free, more competitive, and […] sometimes also more innovative forms of society, economy, and culture prevailed among them” (149).

By likening the diversity and innovation of the Pacific flank to that of the Atlantic flank, the authors support their opening assertion that improvements in water transportation are key in driving intensified long-distance exchanges. The authors identify the lack of navigable inland waterways as the principal weakness that prevented Muslim rulers from exploiting rural labor for market production. This, alongside China’s insularity, helped enable Christendom and Western Europe to gain greater power. Although Western Europe was similar to the Ottoman Empire in its expansion of Christendom via military means and to China in its commercialization, the authors point out important dynamics in Western Europe that distinguished the region from its eastern counterparts and supported its emerging dominance in the global sphere.

For example, political authority and military technology became deeply intertwined with and dependent on private entrepreneurship, and Western European society and commercial activities developed along lines of citizenship rather than family ties (140-44). Additionally, Western Europe developed universities, ushering in a massive influx of competing ideas and information (146-47). The authors posit that these characteristics create an unstable society:

Distress and uncertainty were pervasive counterparts of reckless venturing and incessant innovation. In short, every sort of change was out of control in Europe. This distinguished Latin Christendom from other, better-governed Eurasian societies, where concerted efforts to defend traditional ways of thought and conduct continued, for the most part, to prevail (147).

However, as Part 6 and 7 illustrate, the interplay between instability and innovation is precisely what pushed Western Europe to its preeminent position in the cosmopolitan web.