Humans and Other Humans
The most important change affecting the relationships of humans with one another in this period was the transformation in social organization. Important developments included larger and more efficient bureaucratic states, as well as more complex systems of communication and economic exchange. Changes in the scale and complexity of human interactions greatly favored elites, that is people with wealth and power, because they were able to control and manage the new forms of organization and technology. Ordinary people, however, could also use new types of communication to promote social, religious, or political reform.
Far-reaching changes in maritime ship-building and navigation greatly speeded global exchange in Big Era Six. New maritime technology, plus the European innovation of mounting cannons on shipboard, supported the rise of the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, British, and French maritime empires. These empires were larger and more diverse than earlier ones. New firearms technology also contributed to the expansion of Afroeurasian land empires that were better organized for controlling their subjects and collecting taxes than were earlier empires. These states included the Turkish Ottoman, Safavid Persian, Mughal Indian, Chinese, and Russian empires, plus others in Inner Eurasia, West Africa, and Southeast Asia.
By contrast, the Aztec and Inca empires in the Americas, though impressive in size, resembled earlier agrarian states of Afroeurasia, not the new “gunpowder empires.” Their lack of firearms, iron tools and weapons, long-distance transport ships, horse cavalry, and other technologies possessed by Europeans contributed to their sudden collapse. Even so, had there been no gunpowder the Spanish conquests in the Americas would almost certainly have taken longer.
Far-reaching changes in maritime ship-building and navigation greatly speeded global exchange in Big Era Six. New maritime technology, plus the European innovation of mounting cannons on shipboard, supported the rise of the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, British, and French maritime empires. These empires were larger and more diverse than earlier ones. New firearms technology also contributed to the expansion of Afroeurasian land empires that were better organized for controlling their subjects and collecting taxes than were earlier empires. These states included the Turkish Ottoman, Safavid Persian, Mughal Indian, Chinese, and Russian empires, plus others in Inner Eurasia, West Africa, and Southeast Asia.
By contrast, the Aztec and Inca empires in the Americas, though impressive in size, resembled earlier agrarian states of Afroeurasia, not the new “gunpowder empires.” Their lack of firearms, iron tools and weapons, long-distance transport ships, horse cavalry, and other technologies possessed by Europeans contributed to their sudden collapse. Even so, had there been no gunpowder the Spanish conquests in the Americas would almost certainly have taken longer.