GLOBALIZATION AND PANDEMICS��IN THE AGE OF SAIL

QUESTIONS

• What is globalization?
• David Held provides a concise definition: a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions – assessed in terms of their extensity, intensity, velocity, and impact – generating transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction, and the exercise of power. Global Transformations: Politics, Economics, and Culture, edited by D.Held, A. McGrew, D. Goldblatt, and J. Perraton, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999, p.55.

​

• How does this emphasis on mobility accommodate TERRITORIALITY? I think the issue of IMPACT may be the key. Think of immigration and acculturation, or migration and domestication: examples – the spread of religions, or of language; or
• THE PLAGUE IN EUROPE …. Was it domesticated? See next slides

​

• Briefly, hypothesis 1 argues that rats and their fleas were the vectors of plague and that after a single introduction from Asia plague was established for 400 y in a currently extinct reservoir in Europe. In contrast, hypothesis 2 suggests multiple reintroductions of plague from Asia—via infected rats or goods—along the commercial routes such as the silk roads or the fur roads and a transmission of plague via human ectoparasites such as body lice (Pediculus humanus humanus) and the human flea (Pulex irritans) (4).

Circulation

​

as a spatially bounded territorial formation: e.g. the plague circulates AROUND the Mediterranean, or around China or India – becoming endemic with periodic epidemic outbreaks (why?– new strains? new arrivals?)

THE MONGOL WATERSHED, �1200-1400

The creation of new spaces of circulation – forming transitions from endemic/epidemic (bounded circulation) to pandemic (unbounded mobility) – transforming territories of pathocoenosis

MONGOL EMPIRE

A MONGOL TEMPLATE FOR ASIAN EMPIRES

IMPERIAL VENICE

BUBONIC PLAGUE

NEW TERRITORIES OF EMPIRE �ON LAND AND SEA: 1400-1600

Territories of circulation

Zheng He

EUROPE AND THE ASIA TRADE

“FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS HISTORY HAD MARCHED FROM EAST TO WEST, AND ON THE EVE OF THE AGE IN THE MIDDLE YEARS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY EUROPE’S GREATEST CITY HAD FALLEN TO ISLAM,OF DISCOVERY ITS DRUMBEAT WAS GETTING FASTER. AND MUSLIM SOLDIERS WERE ONCE AGAIN PREPARING TO ADVANCE INTO THE HEART OF THE CONTINENT ….

​

CHRISTENDOM’S HOPES FOR SALVATION WERE PINNED ON REACHING THE EAST; IN EUROPE’S FRUSTRATED FANTASIES, ASIA HAD BECOME A MAGICAL REALM WHERE AN ALLIANCE AGAINST THE ENEMY COULD BE FORGED ANDTHE DREAM OF A UNIVERSAL CHURCH COULD FINALLY BE FULFILLED.” P.5

ISABELLA AND FERDINAND ARE KNOWN FOR COMPLETING THE RECONQUISTA, ORDERING CONVERSION OR EXILE OF THEIR MUSLIM AND JEWISH SUBJECTS, AND FOR SUPPORTING AND FINANCING CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS'S 1492 VOYAGE THAT LED TO THE OPENING OF THE NEW WORLD AND TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SPAIN AS THE FIRST GLOBAL POWER WHICH DOMINATED EUROPE AND MUCH OF THE WORLD FOR MORE THAN A CENTURY.

EUROPEANS CREATE EMPIRES IN GLOBAL ASIA, FROM VASCO DA GAMA TO AMIR KHAN

THE PORTUGUESE ARMADAS

The Portuguese India Armadas (Armadas da Índia) were the fleets of ships, organized by the crown of the Kingdom of Portugal and dispatched on an annual basis from Portugal to India, principally Goa. These armadas undertook the Carreira da Índia ("India Run"), following the sea route around the Cape of Good Hope first opened up by Vasco da Gama in 1497–1499.

1500S-1600S

PORTUGUESE, DUTCH, AND FRENCH IMPERIAL POSSESSIONS, CIRCA 1800

The Columbian Exchange: food, people, disease

Youtube video

MEASLES AND SMALLPOX

Visualizing globalization

File:1710 First Japanese Buddhist Map of the World Showing Europe, America, and Africa - Geographicus - NansenBushu-hotan-1710.jpg

A seminal map. This is the first Japanese printed map to depict the world, including Europe and America, from a Buddhist cosmographical perspective. Printed by woodblock in 1710 (Hoei 7), this map was composed by the Buddhist monk Rokashi Hotan. Inspired by the 1653 publication of Si-yu-ki, a pilgrimage narrative of the Chinese monk Hsuang-Tsang's (602-604) travels to India in search of sacred Sanskrit writings, Rokashi Hotan's map attempts to update Buddhist mythological cartography, as exemplified in the 1634 manuscript map Gotenjikuzu (Map of the Five Regions of India), to correspond with the Si-yu-ki, as well as with contemporary and ancient religious texts, Chinese annals, travel narratives, and even some European maps. Rokashi Hotan lists these texts, 102 in all, at the top of the map.

​

The consequent product of Rokashi Hotan's work is this magnificent amalgam of disparate ideas and traditions. In essence this is a traditional Buddhist world view in the Gotenjikuzu mold centered on the world spanning continent of Jambu-Dvipa. At its center is Lake Anavatapta, a whirlpool-like quadruple helix lake believed to be the center of the universe. This lake, which is commonly associated with Lake Manasarovar in northern India, is believed in Buddhist mythology to be the legendary site where Queen Maya conceived the Buddha. From the quadrouple beast headed helix (heads of a horse, a lion, an elephant, and an ox) of Manasarovar or Lake Anavatapta radiate the four sacred rivers of the region: the Indus, the Ganges, the Bramaputra, and the Sutlej. South of Jambu-Dvipa, India is recognizable for in its peninsular form. Japan itself appears as a series of Islands in the upper right and, like India, is one of the few recognizable elements - at least from a cartographic perspective.

​

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1710_First_Japanese_Buddhist_Map_of_the_World_Showing_Europe,_America,_and_Africa_-_Geographicus_-_NansenBushu-hotan-1710.jpg

China and Korea appear to the west of Japan and are vaguely identifiable geographically, which itself represents a significant advancement over the Gotenjikuzu map. Southeast Asia also makes one of its first appearances in a Japanese Buddhist map as an island cluster to the east of India. On the opposite side of the map a series of islands is intended to represent Europe, which had no place at all in earlier Buddhist world maps, making this one of the first Japanese maps to depict Europe. Umukari (Hungary), Oranda, Baratan, Komo (Holland or the country of the red hair), Arubaniya (Albania?), Itarya (Italy), Suransa (France) and Inkeresu (England) are all named. Africa appears as a small island in the western sea identified as the Land of Western Women. Of special note is Rokashi Hotan's mapping of the Americas. Prior to this map America had rarely if ever been depicted on Japanese maps, so Rokashi Hotan turned to the Chinese map Daimin Kyuhen Zu (Map of China under the Ming Dynasty and its surrounding Countries), from which he copied both the small island-like form of South America (just south of Japan), and the curious land bridge (the Aelutian Islands?) connecting Asia to what the Japanese historians Nobuo Muroga and Kazutaka Unno conclude must undoubtedly be a reflection of North America (page 63). Whether this represents ancient knowledge from early Chinese navigations in this region, for which there is some literary if not historical evidence, or merely a printing error, we can only speculate. While this map represents a significant step forward in the Japanese attempt to combine religious and contemporary geographic knowledge it remains in essence a Buddhist map. It is likely that Rokashi Hotan was aware important European style maps circulating in China at the time. The Mateo Ricci Map is one such example and copies were known to have reached Japan in the 17th century. It is curious that Rokashi Hotan chose to ignore it and other Eurocentric data in exchange for a religious world view, while at the same time attempting to reconcile Buddhist and modern geography.

Date 1710 (dated)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1710_First_Japanese_Buddhist_Map_of_the_World_Showing_Europe,_America,_and_Africa_-_Geographicus_-_NansenBushu-hotan-1710.jpg