HIST 1011 Lecture 2: Roots of European Hegemony *DETAILED NOTES*
Document Summary
Mongols: breakout of the grasslands and have an enormous impact on all the civilization, the conquered china. Created a system that lasted for years, that provides the basis for increase communication in trade across the asian sphere. There are in addition these other world system, that are for the most part completely isolated from one another. Basic point: this all changes after 1500, because of the initiative and drive of the people in western europe. They operate before 1500 in a society, described as a futile system. The other things distinctive: vast majority within this futile system are not only peasants but are serves (legally bound to the land, stuck in place whoever owns that land owns them) they are unfree workers. This is the social system that operates across europe in the middle ages. System that is fragmented and against any form of progress.
