Human history
The human history includes the history of humanity from the Stone Age to the present . The time from the first stone tool to the end of the Early Paleolithic spans more than 90 percent of human history. The development of human forms of society did not take place uniformly, but in manifold temporal, spatial and culture-specific gradations.
The advanced mastery of fire , the increasing transition from hunting and gathering to sedentarism with the development of urban centers and high cultures , the modern discoveries and upheavals, especially in connection with the industrial revolution and colonialism, as well as experience , are to be emphasized as groundbreaking stations for human history as a whole the world wars and accelerated globalization in the present horizon.
Today's multipolar and diverse networked world - into which the term global society has found its way - favors a departure from conventional ways of presenting human history from a Eurocentric perspective.
Incarnation with tools
At the end of a development process of the hominids that extended over about 15 million years, about two million years ago in East Africa , Homo habilis / Homo rudolfensis, which can be regarded as prehistoric man , and subsequently Homo erectus , which was the first to run in the manner of anatomically modern humans , arose has already been proven on Java .
In fact, several human species lived on earth at the same time until around 10,000 years ago. Smashed bones of various large animal species in East Africa and appropriately worked stones refer to the Paleolithic era . Animals also use found objects as tools to achieve certain goals. In contrast to them, however, early humans showed themselves to be able to change the shape and properties of their tools in order to be able to use them even more effectively. "New stone processing techniques led to sharper edges, and the use of ever higher quality, flexibly usable raw materials such as bones, horn and wood to improved tools with a wider range of effects." However, the predominant livelihoods were fruits, roots and small animals. The occupation of caves as dwellings and their defense against wild animals coincide with the late phase of Homo erectus .
Consequential fire control
It is certain that Homo erectus already mastered fire , since the use of fire in a South African cave in layers of the Acheuléen was proven 1.7 million years ago. With the mastery of fire, meat could be made more durable through smoking. Food preparation and utilization was expanded or differentiated through cooking and frying ; meat and collected plants were also more digestible for the human organism after frying and cooking. In addition, the fire offered protection from swarms of insects and was useful for driven hunts.
The heat killed bacteria and parasites; Fruits, nuts, insects and carrion became easier to chew and digest as a result of the fire. The range of edible foods grew. Compared to great apes, for example, food prepared in this way saves time when it comes to eating and makes do with smaller teeth and shorter intestines. “Since long intestines are just as big energy guzzlers as big brains, it is hardly possible to entertain both at the same time. Because cooking, however, made it possible to shorten the digestive tract and thus save energy, it also prepared the ground for the huge brains of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. "
The hunt as a driver of development
The archaic Homo sapiens may have improved its chances of survival considerably through advanced control over the fire and enabled it to spread into colder climates. The beginning of a sustainable further development of human culture and social structures came about through an ever advancing specialization of hunting. The driven hunt presupposes a complex cooperation and linguistic coordination between drivers and hunters, in which the dog was also included to track down the prey. Its domestication began over 30,000 years ago. The spear thrower was developed as probably the oldest machine of mankind, which , according to replicas, enabled the spear to be released at speeds of over 100 km / h and developed corresponding penetrating power.
The dividing up and preservation of the booty, the building of huts and the watch over the fire are likely to have led to the first steps in a society based on the division of labor and to more complex forms of cooperative action, to a new quality of social relationships. With the bone sewing needle perforated on the head, clothing and animal skins could be better sewn and sealed as thermal protection for the dwellings. Early forms of painting, plastic art and music emerged almost simultaneously, the latter initially connected with simple flutes made of tubular bones.
As a result, there was an increasing predominance of humans over the rest of the fauna and a corresponding increase in the human population. The fact that colder climatic zones became accessible favored the spread of humans from Africa to all parts of the world. The process of spreading to all continents was accompanied by the mass extinction of numerous animal species . Of a total of 200 mammal species weighing over 50 kilograms, only about half were left at the beginning of the agricultural revolution in the Neolithic Age.
Sedentary lifestyle and the "neolithic revolution"
The last ice age was associated with extraordinarily profound changes in living conditions all over the world, which required difficult adaptations. At the end of the Ice Age, the dramatic rise in sea level - in the Baltic Sea by 25 meters - resulted in a new coastline between Southeast Asia and Australia. In Central Europe, birch, pine and mixed forests increasingly dominated the landscape. The post-glacial settlement was concentrated here with specialized hunter, fisherman and gatherer communities of the Mesolithic on rivers, lakes and sea coasts.
The beginnings of local agriculture
In the eastern Mediterranean, the mild climate of the Alleröd Interstadial (approx. 12th to 11th millennium BC) temporarily led to a great diversity and density of species , which enabled people to significantly reduce their tail areas and to live longer in one place. Above all, the year-round food supply of gazelles and the wild forms of wheat and barley made it possible to settle down before the systematic cultivation of plants was invented. No later than 11,000 BC. The people of the Levant recognized the advantage of fast-growing wild grain in order to compensate for seasonal bottlenecks caused by the overexploitation of food resources around the settlements. Nevertheless, the people remained primarily hunters and gatherers, as plant cultivation required more time and effort. The more sedentary way of life, however, led to an increased cultural change , which was reflected in much larger possessions, changed social structures and values . When the drastic cold snap of the Younger Dryas around the middle of the 11th millennium led to a rapid decline in food resources, people were no longer willing or able to give up their sedentary lifestyle and return to preying. They were now forced to bridge the frequent seasonal food shortages by intensifying the manufacturing economy. From this point on, organized agriculture and the establishment of permanent settlements and villages could no longer be separated from one another.
Crop plants modified by cultivation are from 9500 BC. Proven. This is considered to be the earliest beginning of the Neolithic . In the course of climate change, the advantages of keeping and taming various wild animals were certainly recognized, so that it was around 8500 to 8000 BC. BC finally came to domesticate sheep, goats and cattle in the fertile crescent . The livestock was originally a pure remote pasture from which the pastoral nomadic cultures emerged.
Agricultural societies emerged independently of one another, first in the fertile crescent and later in Southeast Asia and the South American Andes . While in the Middle East the cultivation of ground crops came into play (besides wheat and barley also peas , olives , viticulture and fruit trees ), Southeast Asia became the first center of the cultivation of tubers under the ground. Soon after, in China , rice and tubers were both cultivated. Wherever appropriate farm animals were available (not in North and South America before the arrival of the Spaniards), the invention of plowing increased around 6500 BC. The agricultural yield was so significant that the term "second agricultural-cultural revolution" was introduced for it. In connection with the Neolithic economy in the Middle East and China, vascular ceramics developed since around 7,000 BC to store food and protect it from small animals. Chr .; they existed for ceremonial purposes before.
From being a hunter to being a farmer
The geochronological term of the Anthropocene , which describes the age of human influence on the planet and today is often related to climate change , can already be applied with a certain justification to this Neolithic period, as humans attacked through irrigation and drainage, selection of seeds and breeding animals as well as agriculture in biological processes, even if initially only selectively and locally.
When speaking of the “ neolithic revolution ” associated with the sedentary lifestyle and domestication of plants and animals and their spread , it must be remembered that this was not a short-term global change. Rather, it was a fundamental development that lasted for thousands of years, which was and remained accompanied by the parallel existence of nomadic tribes and peoples. While the inhabitants of ancient America made the transition to agricultural production with potatoes and corn in suitable regions such as the Mexican plateau or in the Andes , the Aborigines remained in Australia, the inhabitants of the Arctic and Subarctic and many peoples of the tropics up to modern times nomads hunting and gathering European colonization .
According to Hermann Parzinger , drawing a clear line between wild hunting on the one hand and sedentarism in connection with agriculture on the other hand is not always easy , because mixed forms also existed. In the tropical regions of Papua New Guinea and the Amazon, for example, there were migrant horticulturists, i.e. mobile hunters and gatherers who systematically harvested edible plants and in some cases also replanted them.
Yuval Noah Harari sees no life relief for the people in the agricultural revolution. The hunters and gatherers ate healthier and less hungry, worked less and pursued more interesting, less monotonous activities. “When hunters were harassed by a rival group, they could evade. It was difficult and dangerous, but it was possible. On the other hand, when a farming village was threatened by a stronger enemy, the residents could not evade without leaving their fields, houses and sheds behind and risking starvation. Therefore, the farmers stayed and fought to the bitter end. ”According to this, science today assumes that unattractive agriculture had to be intensified in order to be able to continue the established sedentary lifestyle. In the course of time, the increasingly targeted selection of seeds and then technical progress made it possible to produce more and more calories per area. This in turn led to an increase in the number of people never seen before.
High cultures and font development
The transition to sedentarism did not necessarily go hand in hand with the formation of cities or state organization. In the first millennia, there were countless small and relatively autonomous village settlements that were not subject to any central power. But with the onset of rapid population growth, there was a regionally different dynamic to the emergence of complex societies with fortified central locations, the first community institutions, increasing division of labor and specialization as well as technical innovations and organized long-distance trade. According to Parzinger, the establishment of the first villages in Mesopotamia led directly to urban development. In the transition period from the 7th to the 6th millennium BC Chr. One began with irrigation to increase agricultural yields.
During the late 4th and 3rd millennia, the invention of bicycles and carts, as well as the training and use of horses, opened up new possibilities for the transport of goods and the accelerated overcoming of great distances; the use of draft animals and hook plows in turn helped to increase agricultural yields. The first state structures emerged in the 4th millennium BC. In Mesopotamia, Egypt on the Nile and on the South American Pacific coast. Since the 3rd millennium BC The spread of bronze as a material from the Middle East led to the development of extensive long-distance trade networks, since the tin required to alloy the copper had to be imported from distant regions such as Afghanistan.
Written sources on human history are only available from the advanced cultures of the Ancient Near East in Mesopotamia ( Sumer ) and Egypt (from around 3100 BC), on the Indus ( Indus culture from around 2600 BC), on the Yellow River (from 1523 BC). On the one hand, Sumerian writing contained numerals for 1, 6, 60 and 600 - a sexagesimal system based on the number 6 , which is based on the 24 hours of a day or the 360 degrees of a circle. The other group of Sumerian characters represented people, animals, goods and the like. By fixing such characters on clay tablets, large amounts of data could be recorded beyond the memory of the human brain. The oldest high cultures in the area of the fertile crescent moon with their characteristics: cities, statehood and bureaucracy were of far-reaching and lasting importance ; Priesthood and theocracy ; Beginnings of science and technology ; Calendar and timing ; Monetary economy and complex trade relations ; Warfare and empire building . Later and independently of that, from 1000 BC onwards, The advanced cultures of the Maya , Aztec and Inca in America.
In Europe, too, differentiated social structures, complex rulers and larger towns with strong fortifications emerged during the Bronze Age , from which the long-distance trade routes were ruled by petty kings . Tombs such as the prince's grave in Leubingen testify to the wealth and status of the upper classes of the Bronze Age who controlled trade. But broke around 1250 BC. Long-distance trade in the Mediterranean area partly combined as a result of armed conflicts; several high cultures such as the Mycenaean culture , the Hittite Empire , the trading power Ugarit and the Kingdom of Alašija on Cyprus went under. Tin was becoming scarce in Europe, and trade wars broke out here too.
With the spread of iron due to the lack of tin , which around 1500 BC By the Hittites, around 1300 BC. In India, after 1000 BC. In Greece and since about 800 BC. Was used in Central Europe, the settlement and rulership structures changed many times in the sense of a stronger equalization. Many places where near-surface iron existed gained in importance compared to the Bronze Age mansions. No complicated alloying process was necessary for iron smelting using charcoal, so that in many settlements every man could be equipped with iron tools and forged iron weapons - a basis for the formation of local followers of young men who were bound by a kind of loyalty to a leader for war purposes . In China, where iron has been used since around 550 BC. BC could be smelted and cast in the blast furnace at much higher temperatures , this decentralization effect did not occur. In Sub-Saharan Africa, iron production was probably independent of Near Eastern influences from around 500 BC. Practiced in the Chad region .
Formation of world views and religions
Religions of lasting importance emerged from the early high cultures : Zoroastrianism from Persia , Hinduism and Buddhism from India , Judaism , Christianity and Islam from the Middle East . As an era of course-setting in the Eurasian area, the time is around 500 BC. For which Karl Jaspers coined the term " Axial Age ". In China, after the collapse of the empire for centuries, a religious and ideological crisis arose in which Confucius offered new orientation; Buddha's teachings spread in India ; In Iran, Zarathustra had his sphere of activity with the doctrine of light and darkness or good and evil, a dualism which , after the return of the Jews to Jerusalem, co-determined both their religious ideas and later, in specific modifications, those of Christians and Muslims . Among the Greeks, especially in Asia Minor, on the other hand, at about the same time as the transition to the monetary economy, the Ionian natural philosophers took a “secularized and individualized turn”, which laid the foundations for Western philosophy and natural science.
Greek coins
As a “logical consequence of the expansion of the civilizational principle itself”, further cultural centers with their own specific characteristics emerged on the fringes of the Middle Eastern high culture center - in the Aegean , in Asia Minor and Greece . Ancient Greece left humanity with concepts and original models for democracy , politics , philosophy and criticism . In it the foundations for a rational worldview were laid and groundbreaking impulses for mathematics , natural sciences and technology were set. In poetry and literature , in the fine arts and for the theater , works were created that, like the Olympic Games, have developed appeal and effect up to the present day.
Even after the self-assertion of the Greeks in the Persian Wars, the Greek poles and islands remained an unruly nuisance for the then Middle Eastern great power Persia . Peter Frankopan characterizes the Persian Empire as a "land of plenty" that connected the Mediterranean with the heart of Asia . It had an extensive road network, for which "the whole of antiquity envied the Persians." As for all Greeks, the great promises and rewarding dangers for Alexander the Great were in the east, the logical goal of the Alexander march . While Alexander made it a habit to take on traditional titles and to wear Persian clothing in respect of regional customs, conversely he laid the foundations for the Hellenization of the conquered territories, which, among other things, in Greek usage and in the expansion of the Olympic gods - loudly Herodotus as far as India - its effect unfolded.
The Roman Empire in the force field of its eastern neighbors
In the Roman Empire , the cultural heritage of the Greeks was appropriated and preserved as an educational asset. The growth and relative stability of Roman rule were promoted by the extensive granting of Roman citizenship to subjects who were gradually Romanized and became equal. Roman law developed an effect that spanned times and spaces .
With the Roman conquest of Egypt in the run-up to the Augustean Principate , access to the abundant grain harvests in the Nile Delta fell , which reduced the price of grain and eased the burden on the state coffers considerably. The increase in prosperity associated with this and with the consolidation of the Roman Empire formed the basis for Augustus, with a view to the changes in the cityscape of Rome at that time, finally able to balance that he had encountered a city made of bricks, but left it in marble. The flourishing trade relations of the Romans reached in the east as far as India; and Chinese silk also reached Rome.
After the Roman Empire had reached its greatest extent under Trajan , who at times developed ambitions similar to Alexander the Great, after the death of this emperor it was mainly about stabilizing and defending what had been achieved. Persia again became a major power in the east under the Sassanids . The establishment of Constantinople at the beginning of the 4th century, which soon became the largest and most important metropolis in the Mediterranean, meant the shift in emphasis of the Roman rulership to the east, where, on the one hand, profits from the Black Sea trade attracted, and on the other hand, the defense measures seemed increasingly urgent.
Climate change, migration flows and phenomena of decay
A change in the earth's climate in the 5th century, the so-called pessimum of the migration period , which in Europe was accompanied by rising sea levels , on the North Sea with malaria and in Asian steppe areas with droughts and changed vegetation , triggered a famine in China and prompted the emperor to do so Relocation of the ruling seat. Among the newly forming steppe peoples of Central Asia , it was the Huns - driving others before them - who at times exerted devastating pressure on both the Roman and the Sassanid empires. Both otherwise rival powers came together to face this threat in the construction and maintenance of a nearly two hundred kilometer long wall that was supposed to prevent nomadic peoples from penetrating the Caucasus between the Caspian and Black Seas . While the western part of the Roman Empire was subject to the onslaught, the eastern provinces of Asia Minor , Syria and Palestine and Egypt were spared for the time being.
When the Huns invaded the Balkans under their leader Attila in the 5th century, it seemed advisable in the heavily fortified Constantinople to prevent the Huns from further penetrating their own sphere of influence by paying tributes . After Attila's defeat in 451 on the Catalaunian fields , the Huns withdrew to the east; in the area of the fallen Western Roman Empire, however, there were signs of cultural decline: a drastic decline in literacy, hardly any stone buildings left, an insignificant exchange of goods on local markets instead of the abandoned long-distance trade and a sharp decline in iron production.
Medieval constellations and developments
The term Middle Ages has established itself in Western historiography for the period of up to a thousand years between the decline of the ancient Roman Empire and the discovery and conquest of America by European colonists, which began in the modern era . However, this periodization scheme can only be applied to a limited extent to other continents and their inhabitants . In Asia, for example, major events that contributed to the migration of peoples and the end of antiquity date long before the 5th century. However, more and more authors point out that not only in Japan but also in India and Africa there are phenomena in the context of early feudalization that bear strong similarities with the European Middle Ages.
Religion and domination
Although dogma disputes after the end of the persecution of Christians continually called into question the unity of Christians in the faith and ultimately led to the separation into a western-Roman and an eastern-Byzantine church , Christian missions continued to enjoy great success, especially in Asia along the trade routes. Cities like Merw , Gundischapur and the oasis city of Kashgar , for example, had archbishops long before Canterbury . "Even in the Middle Ages," writes Frankopan, "there were more Christians in Asia than in Europe."
In the 7th century in the Arab-Middle Eastern region, alongside the two monotheistic religions of Jews and Christians, Islam was the third one , after its prophet Mohammed, against initial opposition, gained a wide following in Mecca . The conditions at the time for the rapid spread of Islam were favorable: signs of decline in the Sassanid Empire, a further weakening of Eastern Rome and, correspondingly, the willingness of many Jews and Christians to come to terms with the supremacy, who were not too alien to Muslims in matters of faith, as protection.
As a result of the Islamic expansion , the economic heartlands of the Roman Empire and Persia - including Egypt and Mesopotamia - were linked in a power structure that stretched from the Himalayas to the Atlantic in the 8th century . The temptations of trade and riches in the Islamic world also attracted tribes of northern origin such as the Varangians . In the 9th century, bases and trading posts emerged along the rivers Oder , Neva , Volga and Dnepr - and with the Rus as namesake, the state of Russia. The north-south trade flourishing across the river systems of Russia, including wax, amber, honey, swords and silk fabrics, extended over 5,000 kilometers, in the north to Finland and Norway. It is estimated that tens of millions to hundreds of millions of silver coins flowed into the Scandinavian region in this way .
Fight for the "Holy Land" - the Crusades
While the Islamic Caliphate , the spiritual leader was also secular ruler, there was with the Roman papacy and the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire (and other European monarchies) Although in the Christian orientation since Charlemagne related, but at times, especially in the investiture controversy to the establishment of the bishops , institutions that are strongly rivaling power politics.
When the rulership of the Eastern Roman-Byzantine emperors was exposed to increasing pressure from Seljuk potentates in the 11th century , a cry for help was issued to the Catholic powers in the west, which was specifically picked up by Pope Urban II and led to an appeal to Western Christianity and its knighthood to set out for the liberation of the holy city of Jerusalem . At the end of the resulting First Crusade , the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, which ended in a savage bloodbath . The papal appeal said that all sins would be forgiven those who joined the crusade. The idea soon prevailed among those involved in the crusade that whoever fell in battle could be certain of salvation . "The train to the east was a long journey in this life, but also a way to get to paradise in the next life."
The need for supplies of the crusader states established on the east coast of the Mediterranean accelerated the rise of the northern Italian city-states of Genoa , Pisa and above all Venice from regional centers of power to dominant trading powers in the Mediterranean region. While the critical situation in the crusader states, which had intensified several times in the 12th century, gave rise to further crusade undertakings, the maritime trading powers of Italy expanded their economic power and finally carried out their rivalry even in the streets of Constantinople. Christian ties to the Byzantines finally turned into hatred and bitter hostility, which drove the urban population to pogrom-like riots against the Italians.
After Jerusalem had been subjected to Islamic rule again by Saladin since 1187, and the Third Crusade , which was mobilized against it, had largely been unsuccessful, the Fourth Crusade experienced a marked redefinition of the goal in its course: instead of leading to Jerusalem and Egypt as planned, Finally, he directed himself against Constantinople, weakened by the inner-Byzantine power struggles, which was besieged, captured and relentlessly plundered by the Crusaders in 1204: "The riches of Constantinople disappeared in the churches, cathedrals, monasteries and private collections of all of Western Europe."
After the migration of peoples and the fall of the Roman Empire, a state of extensive fragmentation prevailed in which rival feudal powers exercised and sought to expand. Central ambitions to rule quickly reached their limits; for the diversity of the ethnic groups and the state structures stood in the way of the unification of the continent under one central power. On the other hand, this plurality favored a relative political autonomy. When the Renaissance as a spiritual and cultural movement began to take root in Europe in the northern Italian cities , it was also connected with a changed image of man that was suitable to question church dogmas . The Protestant faiths that opposed Catholicism triggered a process that resulted in religious and ideological self-determination as a human right .
Asian empires
India was after the collapse of the Gupta Empire in the 6th century, which represented the classical culture of India, adjacent to its political fragmentation to the object of numerous conquest and domination ambitions peoples, but remained dominated society as a whole by Hinduism and the caste system . While Buddhism was increasingly being ousted from India, Islam found its way into the country with various waves of conquest from the north.
China's unity, which was restored at the end of the 6th century and stabilized under the Tang Dynasty , which began around 300 years ago , remained threatened by the incursions of the Central Asian horsemen. For nearly a century (1279–1368), Mongols ruled China from Kublai Khan . This did not detract from China's leading role in intercontinental trade: China exported silk , tea and porcelain , among other things ; Paper , block printing, and gunpowder also come from China. For about a century (1220–1335) the largest world empire in history under the Mongol Genghis Khan and his successors guaranteed the security of long-distance trade on the Silk Road from Europe to East Asia.
Until the late 11th century, the Mongols were just one of many tribes near the border with China. Clever policy of alliances, tight organization, strategically targeted approach and a personal commitment and loyalty -promoting meritocracy system of item and loot as part of a nearly uninterrupted conquest program enabled Genghis Khan to become the sole ruler of the Mongolian steppe, and then on the one hand to northern China and also to reach for Central Asia. The procedure consisted of the extremely brutal, selective use of force: “The conquest and sacking of a city should get everyone else to surrender quickly and without resistance. […] Nishapur was one of the cities that was completely destroyed. Every living being - from women, children and old people to pets and farm animals - was slaughtered. The corpses were piled in huge pyramids as a horrific warning of the consequences of the resistance against the Mongols. ”Many other cities preferred to lay down their arms and negotiate in the face of this. But the conquered and devastated cities were quickly rebuilt under Mongolian rule, "whereby great importance was attached to the promotion of the arts, crafts and goods production."
After the Mongol rule was shaken off, China pursued an expansive trade and military policy under the Ming Dynasty , which, in view of the continuing uncertainty and the widespread plague along the Silk Road, culminated in large sea expeditions in the 15th century. At the time, China was by far the largest sea power in the world. Between 1417 and 1422 a fleet of the Muslim admiral Zheng He twice reached the coast of East Africa down to Mozambique . In the wake of economic crises and catastrophes, a strategy of conservative self-restraint supported by Confucian ideas emerged: the country reoriented itself towards promoting agriculture. Long-distance trade, the building of large ships and the continuation of the advanced technical development were stopped, and China fell into a policy of isolationism .
The Turkish empires in eastern and western Central Asia had been destroyed by Chinese attacks in the 7th and 8th centuries. As a result, the Turks threatened southern and western centers of civilization from northern India to the eastern Roman capital of Constantinople, which was finally conquered by them in 1453 .
Feudalism or Slavery in Africa
Africa's population south of the Sahara was not affected by these constellations, or initially by the Islamic expansion . Here the centuries- old Bantu migration was the main change, with which peasantry and, since the 6th century, iron technology spread from the Cameroon highlands to the south and east. In contrast to the rural societies of Europe and Asia, in which a thick layer of humus had been created by livestock farming since the Neolithic Age , which had gradually made the land an object of value, in large parts of Africa this layer was often only a few centimeters thick and was always endangered . Therefore, in most of sub-Saharan Africa, the possession of and attachment to land, which was in itself worthless, played a far less important role than control over the people who tilled it. The feudalism in the manner of medieval Europe there was in the early African kingdoms therefore not in the same way. The African empires, such as the Empire of Ghana (around 900–1100), described by Bertaux as hegemony , were mostly organized centrally; There was always a strong direct relationship between kings and chiefs and their subjects. In fact, the enslavement of prisoners of war has always been an important instrument of state rule in Africa. Inner-African slave hunting and slave trading have been widespread since ancient times. Among other things, the slaves were used as forced labor in the open salt mines of the Sahara, but on the other hand they represented the most lucrative export goods of African traders alongside gold . Often the slave hunters were light-skinned desert nomads, their victims mostly black farmers. The pre-agrarian gatherers and hunters ( Pygmies and San ) were pushed into the rainforests and deserts as retreats.
Deadly and innovation-promoting plague
Devastating epidemics have occurred many times in human history and in some cases have been described in detail, for example the "Plague of Thucydides" or the Justinian plague . The historically strongest spread of the plague with the highest number of victims was associated with that plague in the mid-14th century, the horror of which was later remembered as the Black Death .
The area of origin and initial area of distribution of the rampant late medieval plague was the Eurasian steppe with a chain of settlement centers that stretched from the Black Sea to Manchuria . In addition to rats, camels can also be easily infected by the flea-borne pathogen Yersinia pestis , the reproduction of which can be stimulated by a slight climatic warming.
A Mongolian army that besieged the Genoese trading center Caffa in 1346 was almost completely destroyed by the epidemic. Before the leftovers left, the Mongols put some of those who had died of the disease on throwing machines and catapulted them into the city. As a result, the European trade routes "became arteries for the transmission of the Black Death."
Towards the end of the 1340s, the epidemic reached Bavarian and northern French cities and the ports of the British Isles , where an agricultural crisis had already led to famine. According to contemporary reports, hardly a tenth of the population survived in the cities and villages of England, so that not even enough people were left to bury the dead. The plague left similar horrors on the south-eastern edge of the Mediterranean, with roads littered with dead between Cairo and Palestine. When the epidemic gradually subsided in the early 1350s, it had wiped out at least a third of the total population in Europe. In some regions of Europe, under the pressure of the resulting labor shortage and rising wages, one had to switch to extensive agriculture (sheep breeding), which stimulated the export of wool from up-and-coming industrial centers in Flanders and England. Due to immigration to the cities, the compulsory guild had to be relaxed in many places, which stimulated competition and early capitalist development of the trade. England became the first country in Europe to abolish serfdom, which promoted the development of wage labor and a capitalist land lease system.
Modern discoveries and upheavals
In the 13th century, with the development of long-distance trade in the sub-subublics of Venice and Genoa, a momentous “maritime expansion” of competing European powers began, which gave those involved a head start in power politics and fantastic profits in long-distance trade. Venice and Genoa, with their colonies around the Mediterranean, with new navigation methods, forms of business traffic and a network of warehouses and plantations, laid the foundations for a long-lasting European dominance in world trade. The value of the dutiable goods stacked in Genoa alone was three times higher than the income of the French king at the end of the 13th century. The methods of navigation and shipbuilding were considerably improved by the Portuguese and Spaniards using the technology developed in the North Sea region and the knowledge of the Arabs and Chinese. The combination of square sail and Arabian Latin sail led to agile, ocean-going ships that could also cruise against the wind.
With the discoveries of the Portuguese and Spaniards at sea, which served the search for alternative trade routes to the Silk Road, which until then isolated from the rest of the world populations of America fell into the sphere of interest of European maritime powers, which from then on trading bases, colonies and colonial empires them in the accessible areas around the now opened globe and thus came to a power political predominance over the great Asian civilizations in India and China.
While Portugal, with its bases in the Indian Ocean, dominated Indian foreign trade, the establishment of Spanish colonies in Central and South America began in the Caribbean , where Columbus had led his voyage of discovery. The firearms the Spaniards brought with them played a decisive role in the conquest of Mexico . Pathogens introduced from Europe against which there was no immune protection for the residents , namely smallpox , but also measles , flu , typhus and other diseases endemic in Europe , reduced the number of the indigenous population by 95 within the first two centuries after the arrival of Columbus %. Blooming civilizations such as the Mississippi culture collapsed before the conquerors arrived: Their germs traveled faster than they did themselves, as the Indians infected each other. The conquistador Hernando de Soto found deserted areas and recently abandoned settlements in Florida and in the Mississippi Valley . The European conquerors hardly needed to compromise with the natives who were either destroyed or forced into the “wilderness”. Customs and institutions were carried on in the colonial offshoot societies, as were language and religion. It was similar with the colonization of North America by European colonists, which began increasingly in the 17th century and pushed the resident Indian tribes further and further west.
The silver peso minted in Mexico became the first globally accepted currency and an important means of payment in China. However, the export of silver to Spain led to inflation and the economic decline of colonial power - an early example of a resource curse . In the 18th century, a hitherto unknown population growth began in Europe and parts of Asia, which led to an increase in the world population from around 600 million in 1700 to 1 billion in 1804. In Europe and China, the population doubled to almost 200 (approx. 20 percent of the world population) and approx. 300 million people (approx. 30 percent), respectively. The main reasons for this were improvements in agriculture: the replacement of three-field farming with crop rotation and the introduction of the potato as an important foodstuff in Europe contributed to avoiding famine. The winter stable feeding led to an improvement in the supply of animal fat and protein. Proto-industrialization attracted the creation of commercial centers for wool processing - e.g. Partly on the basis of rural housekeeping - and later cotton processing after itself.
In China, too, agriculture and manufactories developed rapidly under the Qing Dynasty : China achieved a share of around 50 percent of the global production of all goods. But after the Seven Years' War , which was in fact a First World War, since it was also fought in the colonies, the integration of more and more regions of America and South Asia - and since the 1820s also China - into the system of colonial trade relations up to partial colonization, So away from the system of private trading bases and monopolies towards “unequal contracts” with extensive restrictions on sovereignty. The consequence was an economic stagnation in large parts of the (partially) colonized world, which were degraded to suppliers of raw materials. B. led to the famine in Bengal in 1770 and revolts in India and China.
The economic and prosperity divergence within Europe between northwestern Europe (especially Great Britain, the Netherlands) and the rest of the continent (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany) as well as the divergence between Europe and Asia (especially India, which has been since the 1770s) strengthened by the trading hegemony of the Netherlands and England, which is symbolic of the rise of Amsterdam and London to global trading and financial centers. Decisive course-setting for globalization took place as early as the 18th century.
North America took a different route. Settlement colonization dominated here from the beginning. In the American War of Independence , however, the colonists emancipated themselves from British rule and founded the United States of America with French support . The French Revolution , which got under way in 1789, also aimed - in line with the guiding principles of the Enlightenment - at human rights guarantees and a power- dividing constitution. In both cases, however, initially nothing changed about the fact that the African slaves and their descendants who came to America in the transatlantic triangular trade remained enslaved. The North American slaves only achieved personal freedom with the support of Abraham Lincoln in the American Civil War . The domination of Napoleon Bonaparte on the European continent resulting from the upheavals of the French Revolution , which, in connection with the continental blockade, should also have eroded British power, ended with the failure of the Grande Armée in the Russian campaign in 1812 .
The period from around 1600 to 1750 can be viewed as a second stage of the early Anthropocene. The spread of sea trade resulted in a global spread as well as a targeted exchange of plant and animal species (e.g. potatoes, sunflowers , tomatoes , peanuts , corn , cocoa trees , brown rats ). Colonization led to intensive agricultural use of previously unused natural resources. In America and parts of Asia, new forms of settlement emerged while indigenous peoples were decimated. The “fossil” Anthropocene in the sense of Paul J. Crutzen , which is initially characterized by the burning of increasing amounts of coal and is also reflected in clear atmospheric changes, began in the following period of industrialization and urbanization .
Industrialization and imperialism
Great Britain not only asserted itself as the world's leading naval power when Napoleon was defeated in the Wars of Liberation , but was also the forerunner of the Industrial Revolution , which is equated with the Neolithic transition to sedentarism and agricultural production in terms of its significance for changing human living conditions. The social and natural prerequisites for the introduction of machine-driven production in factories had existed at the latest since the Glorious Revolution , which had released forces and resources among the gentry and the economically active bourgeoisie. Coal, iron and a cheap transport structure soon to be added to the railways ; India as the largest colony that supplied the cotton raw material for the textile industry that was the first to be established; In addition, sales markets in Europe and in British dominion ensured a superior position of the British economy in the world for a long time.
In more or less rapid succession, the new method of production - especially in connection with coal locations - was adopted outside of England: in Western and Central Europe, in the USA, on the Urals , in India and Japan . The machine-controlled mass production was accompanied by changed social conditions, which came to a head in the contrast between the capitalist economic bourgeoisie and the wage-dependent factory workers. Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto deduced the necessity of a proletarian revolution and a dictatorship of the proletariat from the observation of impoverishment among English factory workers . Other approaches to solving the social question were also used by the state in the establishment of trade unions and in social reform concepts.
Competition and cut-throat competition of business enterprises within the respective economic domestic markets influenced as a result, the political ideas of self-assertion and power of the nation-states on a world scale. Taking possession of colonies was intended on the one hand to control and use raw material stocks, but on the other hand to secure long-term sales markets for their own industrial products. In a "climate of imperialist panic" there was a race, mainly among European powers, for areas of the world that had not yet been colonized. The idea of “world power or downfall” prevailed in the German Empire, which had only existed since 1871 but had become a major industrial power, in the political leadership and triggered a naval arms race with the established world power Great Britain. Under the impression of an annual growth rate of the world population, which doubled on average between 1870 and 1913 compared to half the previous century (1829-1870), the idea of a shrinking living space came up with some contemporaries, so that "fights for land" would arise. In racial teachings , a natural superiority of the white colonial rulers over those they ruled was constructed and propagated. From many quarters, efforts were made to legitimize imperialism on the basis of its supposed missionary-civilizing function or with social Darwinist arguments.
At the Berlin Africa Conference in 1884, practically the entire continent was divided up among the interested powers on the basis of the map without the involvement of those affected; the assigned territories were partly occupied only afterwards. After that, China got into a similar situation, but the powers involved could not agree on its division. They also encountered organized resistance ( Boxer Rebellion ) from the Chinese. In the age of imperialism , the proportion of territories controlled by an overseas colonial government grew from 25 million square kilometers in 1880 to 53 million square kilometers in 1913.
World wars and global networks
After the assassination attempt in Sarajevo , the tensions and assertion of power by the European powers, including Russia , which were fixed in alliance constellations, culminated in the First World War (1914–1918), which triggered mass deaths in trench wars and material battles, including the use of poisonous gas , and which was also fought as aerial warfare and with submarines . About 70 million people were under arms during its course and about 17 million were killed. One of the causes of this was the Russian Revolution in 1917 , which brought about a systemic contrast that shaped the 20th century between the communist Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin and the western industrialized countries based on the capitalist market economy .
After the First World War, the pace and global expansion of industrialization accelerated. The era of mass production and mass consumption first started in the United States and was fueled by the extraction and burning of petroleum . With the help of this energy source, which is much more energetic than coal, the global tendencies towards the desired and unwanted biological, climatic, geological and settlement-geographical transformation of the earth accelerated. Massive individual and air traffic, the industrialization of agriculture, the modern plastics industry and pharmacology and the development of megacities were only possible in this way. The Anthropocene entered a new phase that is now considered critical.
The Paris suburb agreements concluded after the First World War, including the Versailles Treaty , did not achieve a permanent stabilization of international relations on a new basis, especially since the global economic crisis from 1929 counteracted the consolidation tendencies and in Germany resulted in the replacement of the Weimar Republic by the National Socialist dictatorship. Adolf Hitler determinedly led a new war to conquer "living space" for the German people, which ended in the Second World War . In its shadow, the discrimination and persecution of Jews against the Holocaust increased. With the attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States, Japan began a struggle for supremacy in East Asia . The total number of war dead is estimated at 60–70 million. With the dropping of the atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , the Second World War ended and the atomic age began .
Efforts to secure peace and to outlaw war as a means of politics became increasingly popular between and after the world wars. The founding of the League of Nations in 1920 and the founding of the United Nations in 1945 were intended to ensure global institutional security of world peace . The latter are also aimed at the universal protection of human rights. With the end of the Second World War there was also increased decolonization , in which, for example, India gained independence in 1947 under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi . The borders in Africa, fixed on the drawing board by the colonial powers, contributed to the ongoing development problems of the now post-colonial sovereign states of this continent.
With the division of Germany among the victorious powers of the anti-Hitler coalition , a process of bloc formation began, in which the now superpowers USA and USSR exercised the lead on both sides of the “ Iron Curtain ” and persevered in the Cold War through mutual nuclear armament and deterrence . While China, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, became the People's Republic and integrated itself into the socialist-communist world of states, the defeated Japan developed into a global economic power allied with the USA.
As a result of Gorbachev's departure from the Brezhnev doctrine , partly due to economic problems in the Eastern Bloc , the former “satellite states” of the Soviet Union regained their independence. With the fall of the Iron Curtain came the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the overcoming of the division of Europe. The turning point and peaceful revolution in the GDR , the fall of the Berlin Wall , German reunification and the collapse of the Soviet Union are among the follow-up processes that were initiated. In place of the bipolar superpower confrontation, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was replaced by an increasingly multipolar world order in which, in addition to the USA, Russia and a European Union expanded to include Central and Eastern European countries , China, which was particularly populous and strengthened through the inclusion of features of a capitalist market economy, took over Gaining power and influence.
.jpg)
At the same time, public and private debt rose to a previously unknown level in numerous countries, so that the prevention of financial crises has been on the agenda of international institutions almost permanently since the late 1990s. Nevertheless, the world financial crisis 2007-09 occurred . Not least because of strongly fluctuating raw material prices, further debt crises in many emerging countries followed . Since the 1970s, they had been repeatedly affected by growth losses, the impoverishment of large sections of the population and a rise in nationalism and religious fundamentalism . In the Islamic world, a series of uprisings and armed conflicts broke out - most of which were about access to the oil wells - resulting in massive refugee movements.
The approach to a world domestic policy given in the United Nations is founded and expanded by a globalization process affecting almost all areas of human life and activity , but is particularly endangered in crisis situations by setbacks and national-populist movements. Computer technology , the Internet and mobile communication make it possible to establish contact, exchange information and exert direct influence at the same time anywhere in the world. Other technological areas of the early 21st century also include artificial intelligence , robotics , the Internet of Things , 3D printing and autonomous mobility. As a result, the technology assessment deals with the z. B. social opportunities and risks of technological progress. The process of global entanglements and interactions, which is increasingly determining collective and individual human reality, can be seen, among other things, in working life, in leisure activities (including large-scale long-distance tourism), in increasing intra-social multiculturalism as well as in global warming and its consequences .
See also
literature
- Alexander Demandt : Small world history. The whole history of the world in one volume. Beck, Munich 2003; New edition Frankfurt am Main 2007. Review , review
- Fischer world history . 36 volumes. Frankfurt am Main 1965 ff.
- Peter Frankopan : Light from the East: A New History of the World. Berlin 2016 (Original edition in English: London 2015).
- Imanuel Geiss : History at a Glance: Dates and Connections of World History ; revised and expanded new edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2006.
- Ernest Gellner : plow, sword and book. Baselines of human history. Klett-Cotta in Deutsches Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-423-04602-3 .
-
History of the world. Edited by Akira Iriye and Jürgen Osterhammel . 6 volumes, CH Beck, Munich 2012ff. [published in cooperation with Harvard University Press ; complete except for the chronologically second volume]
- Die Welt vor 600th Ed. By Hans-Joachim Gehrke . Munich 2017.
- Empires and oceans 1350–1750. Edited by Wolfgang Reinhard . Munich 2014.
- Paths to the modern world 1750-1870. Edited by Sebastian Conrad and Jürgen Osterhammel. Munich 2016.
- World markets and world wars 1870–1945. Edited by Emily S. Rosenberg. Munich 2012.
- 1945 until today. The globalized world. Edited by Akira Iriye. Munich 2013.
- Yuval Noah Harari : A Brief History of Humanity . Translation from English by Jürgen Neubauer. Munich 2013 (Hebrew original edition 2011).
- Golo Mann , Alfred Heuss (ed.): Propylaea world history. A universal story. 11 volumes, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Vienna 1961–1965.
- Jürgen Osterhammel , Niels P. Peterson: History of globalization. Dimensions, processes, epochs. Beck, Munich 2000 review .
- Hermann Parzinger : The children of Prometheus. A history of mankind before the invention of writing. 2nd Edition. Munich 2015 (first edition 2014).
- Fred Spier: Big History. What holds the story together at its core. (Original title: The Structure of Big History from the Big Bang Until Today). Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2005.
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ Parzinger, 2nd ed. 2015, p. 38. Even if the times were without writing, even prehistoric cultures reaching far back had communication with the help of signs, symbols and images that were understood by those living at the time. "It is we who no longer understand the stories they tell and who can no longer decipher the knowledge that they have preserved and transported." (Ibid., P. 11)
- ↑ With the attempt, so Parzinger in his work The Children of Prometheus. A history of mankind before the invention of writing , to take into account all parts of this one world and from this to "form a coherent overall picture of - counted after thousands of years - the largest part of human history, world history has now also arrived in prehistoric times." (Parzinger, 2nd edition 2015, p. 13)
- ↑ Demandt 2007, p. 19.
- ↑ Harari: A Brief History of Humanity. 28th edition. 2015, p. 16. Harari points out the parallel existence of many species, including foxes, bears and pigs, and explains: “A hundred thousand years ago there were at least six different human species. This diversity is much less astonishing than the fact that we are alone today. "(Ibid.)
- ↑ Parzinger, 2nd edition. 2015, p. 698. "With such scree devices, hominids first appeared as thinking beings more than 2.7 million years ago." (Ibid.)
- ↑ Geiss 2006, p. 34.
- ↑ F. Berna, P. Goldberg, LK Horwitz, J. Brink, S. Holt, M. Bamford, M. Chazan: Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa . In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 109, No. 20, 2012, ISSN 0027-8424 , pp. E1215-E1220. doi : 10.1073 / pnas.1117620109 .
- ↑ Parzinger, 2nd edition. 2015, p. 31 f. and p. 699.
- ↑ Harari: A Brief History of Humanity. 28th edition. 2015, p. 22 f.
- ↑ "In any case, research assumes that the occupation of the northern Alpine regions of Central Europe by Homo heidelbergensis was only possible because he knew how to deal with fire." (Parzinger, 2nd edition. 2015, p. 32)
- ↑ Nikolai D. Ovodov et al. a .: A 33,000-Year-Old Incipient Dog from the Altai Mountains of Siberia: Evidence of the Earliest Domestication Disrupted by the Last Glacial Maximum. In: PLoS ONE 6 (7), 2011 doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0022821.
- ↑ Parzinger, 2nd edition. 2015, p. 71.
- ↑ Parzinger, 2nd edition. 2015, p. 36 f.
- ↑ Parzinger, 2nd edition. 2015, pp. 69, 71 and 107.
- ↑ Parzinger, 2nd edition. 2015, p. 703.
- ↑ Spier 2005, p. 67 and 69 f.
- ↑ Harari, A Brief History of Mankind. 28th edition. 2015, p. 96.
- ↑ Parzinger, 2nd edition. 2015, p. 704 f.
- ↑ Parzinger, 2nd edition. 2015, pp. 113–119.
- ↑ Marion Benz: The Neolithization in the Middle East . Ex oriente, second, hardly changed edition, Berlin 2008. ISBN 3-9804241-6-2 . pdf version , pp. 7, 16, 19-20, 73, 90-21.
- ↑ Parzinger, 2nd edition. 2015, p. 705.
- ↑ Spier 2005, pp. 80-82.
- ↑ Geiss 2006, p. 43.
- ↑ Spier 2005, p. 86.
- ↑ Eckart Ehlers: The Anthropocene: The earth in the age of man. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2008. Other authors start with the extinction of the Ice Age big game fauna or with the beginning of industrialization.
- ↑ Spier 2005, p. 96. So also Parzinger: "The overall process-like course of this development appears to be evolutionary rather than volatile, so that the term" Neolithic Revolution "should be used with the greatest caution, if at all." (Parzinger, 2nd edition. 2015, p. 705)
- ↑ Geiss 2006, p. 60.
- ↑ Parzinger, 2nd edition. 2015, p. 718.
- ↑ Harari, A Brief History of Mankind. 28th edition. 2015, pp. 104 and 108; Quote p. 107.
- ↑ Parzinger, 2nd edition. 2015, pp. 720 and 724 f.
- ^ Fred Spier: Big History and the Future of Humanity . Miley-Blackwell, Malden, Mittelalter 2011, p. 156.
- ↑ Harari, A Brief History of Mankind. 28th edition 2015, p. 156.
- ↑ Eric H. Cline: 1177 BC: The first downfall of civilization. wbg Theiss in Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (WBG), 2nd edition. 2018.
- ↑ Detlef Jantzen, Jörg Orschiedt, Jürgen Piek, Thomas Terberger: Death in the Tollensetal. (= Contributions to the prehistory and early history of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.) Schwerin: State Office for Culture and Monument Preservation, 2014.
- ↑ Geiss 2006, p. 47.
- ↑ Geiss 2006, p. 97 f.
- ↑ Geiss 2006, p. 48.
- ↑ Demandt 2007, p. 47 and 58.
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, p. 24.
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, p. 27 f. and 30 f. Frankopan also sees the Hellenization in the East as a possible reason that "across the great works of world literature, similar motifs can be found." This can be seen in the Iliad and Odyssey in comparison to the Sanskrit epic Ramayana . (Ibid, p. 32)
- ↑ Demandt 2007, p. 63 fu 74; Geiss, p. 120 f.
- ↑ Suetonius 28, quoted from Frankopan 2016, p. 41.
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, pp. 43–46.
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, p. 55.
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, p. 81.
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, pp. 82–86.
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, p. 87.
- ↑ For the sub-Saharan kingdoms since the 6th century cf. François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar: Le rhinocéros d'or. Gallimard, Paris 2013.
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, pp. 94–97; Quote, p. 95.
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, pp. 126-136. “In a world where religion appears to be the cause of conflict and bloodshed, it's easy to forget how much the major denominations have learned and copied from each other. For today's supervisor, Christianity and Islam seem diametrically opposed, but in the first years of coexistence, people were not only peaceful, but even benevolent. The harmony between Islam and Judaism was even more astonishing: Without the support of the Jews in the Middle East, the words of Muhammad would never have spread like that. ”(Ibid., P. 126)
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, p. 141.
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, p. 172 f. and 175.
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, p. 205.
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, p. 230.
- ↑ Geiss 2006, p. 185 f.
- ↑ Demandt 2007, p. 149 fu 163.
- ↑ Geiss 2006, p. 136 fu 160.
- ↑ Geiss 2006, p. 152 and 155.
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, pp. 235–239; Quotations p. 238 f.
- ^ François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar: Le rhinocéros d'or. Gallimard, Paris 2013, p. 34 ff.
- ↑ Kai Vogelsang: China's history. Stuttgart 2012, p. 375 ff.
- ↑ Geiss 2006, p. 148 f.
- ^ Pierre Bertaux : Africa. Fischer Weltgeschichte, Vol. 32, Frankfurt 1966, pp. 12, 19.
- ↑ Jack Goody: Feudalism in Africa? In: The Journal of African History 4 (1963) 1, pp. 1-18. On-line
- ^ Siegfried Ferdinand Nadel : A Black Byzantium: The Kingdom of Nupe in Nigeria. London 1946. In contrast to Nadel, Jack Goody believes the use of the term “feudalism” with reference to Africa is unnecessary, if not incorrect. (Jack Goody: Technology, Tradition and the State in Africa. Oxford University Press 1971, p. 16.)
- ↑ Geiss 2006, p. 142 fu 179-181.
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, p. 275.
- ↑ Frankopan 2016, pp. 276–280.
- ↑ Klaus Bergdolt : The Black Death in Europe: The Great Plague and the End of the Middle Ages. Beck, Munich 2017. In 1349, the King of England, with the Ordinance of Laborers , had to enact the first labor law to secure the cultivation of the fields through the compulsory obligation of people up to 60 years of age, who, however, were guaranteed wages. Nevertheless, as a result of tax increases, peasant revolts such as 1358 (the Jacquerie ) in France and 1381 (the Peasants' Revolt ) in England, in which the lower classes also took part. (Willibald Steinmetz: Encounters in front of the court: A social and cultural history of English labor law (1850-1925). De Gruyter, 2012, p. 50.) However, the permanent rise in wage costs also meant that producers were more involved in the mechanization of the Processes were interested. Examples are letterpress printing and the widespread use of the step loom .
- ↑ Horst founder: A history of European expansion. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt o. J. (2003), p. 22 f.
- ↑ Geiss 2006, p. 250 and 252 f.
- ↑ Jared Diamond : Rich and poor. The fates of human societies . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 252 ff.
- ↑ Osterhammel / Peterson 2003, p. 37 f.
- ↑ Peter Kriedte, Hans Medick, Jürgen Schlumbohm: Proto-industrialization on the test bench of the historical guild. Answer to some reviewers. In: Geschichte und Gesellschaft , 9 (1983) 1, pp. 87-105.
- ↑ Jürgen Osterhammel: Colonialism: History, Forms, Consequences. Beck, Munich 5th ed. 2006, p. 39.
- ^ Jürgen Osterhammel : China and the world society. Beck, Munich 1989, p. 154.
- ↑ Osterhammel 1989, p. 151.
- ^ Paul J. Crutzen: Geology of mankind (PDF) In: Nature , 415, 2002, 23.
- ↑ Geiss 2006, p. 303 u. 305 f.
- ↑ Osterhammel / Peterson 2003, p. 70 f.
- ↑ Osterhammel / Peterson 2003, p. 71 f.
- ↑ Major financial crises since 1970 , Federal Agency for Civic Education, November 15, 2017.
Asia | Africa | America - North America , Central America , South America | Antarctica | Europe | Australia and Oceania .