Skip to ContentGo to accessibility pageKeyboard shortcuts menu
OpenStax Logo

Menu
Table of contents
  1. Preface
  2. Early Human Societies
    1. 1 Understanding the Past
      1. Introduction
      2. 1.1 Developing a Global Perspective
      3. 1.2 Primary Sources
      4. 1.3 Causation and Interpretation in History
      5. Key Terms
      6. Section Summary
      7. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
    2. 2 Early Humans
      1. Introduction
      2. 2.1 Early Human Evolution and Migration
      3. 2.2 People in the Paleolithic Age
      4. 2.3 The Neolithic Revolution
      5. Key Terms
      6. Section Summary
      7. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
    3. 3 Early Civilizations and Urban Societies
      1. Introduction
      2. 3.1 Early Civilizations
      3. 3.2 Ancient Mesopotamia
      4. 3.3 Ancient Egypt
      5. 3.4 The Indus Valley Civilization
      6. Key Terms
      7. Section Summary
      8. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
    4. 4 The Near East
      1. Introduction
      2. 4.1 From Old Babylon to the Medes
      3. 4.2 Egypt’s New Kingdom
      4. 4.3 The Persian Empire
      5. 4.4 The Hebrews
      6. Key Terms
      7. Section Summary
      8. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
    5. 5 Asia in Ancient Times
      1. Introduction
      2. 5.1 Ancient China
      3. 5.2 The Steppes
      4. 5.3 Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia
      5. 5.4 Vedic India to the Fall of the Maurya Empire
      6. Key Terms
      7. Section Summary
      8. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
  3. States and Empires, 1000 BCE–500 CE
    1. 6 Mediterranean Peoples
      1. Introduction
      2. 6.1 Early Mediterranean Peoples
      3. 6.2 Ancient Greece
      4. 6.3 The Hellenistic Era
      5. 6.4 The Roman Republic
      6. 6.5 The Age of Augustus
      7. Key Terms
      8. Section Summary
      9. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
    2. 7 Experiencing the Roman Empire
      1. Introduction
      2. 7.1 The Daily Life of a Roman Family
      3. 7.2 Slavery in the Roman Empire
      4. 7.3 The Roman Economy: Trade, Taxes, and Conquest
      5. 7.4 Religion in the Roman Empire
      6. 7.5 The Regions of Rome
      7. Key Terms
      8. Section Summary
      9. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
    3. 8 The Americas in Ancient Times
      1. Introduction
      2. 8.1 Populating and Settling the Americas
      3. 8.2 Early Cultures and Civilizations in the Americas
      4. 8.3 The Age of Empires in the Americas
      5. Key Terms
      6. Section Summary
      7. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
    4. 9 Africa in Ancient Times
      1. Introduction
      2. 9.1 Africa’s Geography and Climate
      3. 9.2 The Emergence of Farming and the Bantu Migrations
      4. 9.3 The Kingdom of Kush
      5. 9.4 North Africa’s Mediterranean and Trans-Saharan Connections
      6. Key Terms
      7. Section Summary
      8. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
  4. An Age of Religion, 500–1200 CE
    1. 10 Empires of Faith
      1. Introduction
      2. 10.1 The Eastward Shift
      3. 10.2 The Byzantine Empire and Persia
      4. 10.3 The Kingdoms of Aksum and Himyar
      5. 10.4 The Margins of Empire
      6. Key Terms
      7. Section Summary
      8. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
    2. 11 The Rise of Islam and the Caliphates
      1. Introduction
      2. 11.1 The Rise and Message of Islam
      3. 11.2 The Arab-Islamic Conquests and the First Islamic States
      4. 11.3 Islamization and Religious Rule under Islam
      5. Key Terms
      6. Section Summary
      7. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
    3. 12 India, the Indian Ocean Basin, and East Asia
      1. Introduction
      2. 12.1 The Indian Ocean World in the Early Middle Ages
      3. 12.2 East-West Interactions in the Early Middle Ages
      4. 12.3 Border States: Sogdiana, Korea, and Japan
      5. Key Terms
      6. Section Summary
      7. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
    4. 13 The Post-Roman West and the Crusading Movement
      1. Introduction
      2. 13.1 The Post-Roman West in the Early Middle Ages
      3. 13.2 The Seljuk Migration and the Call from the East
      4. 13.3 Patriarch and Papacy: The Church and the Call to Crusade
      5. 13.4 The Crusading Movement
      6. Key Terms
      7. Section Summary
      8. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
  5. A Global Middle Ages, 1200–1500 CE
    1. 14 Pax Mongolica: The Steppe Empire of the Mongols
      1. Introduction
      2. 14.1 Song China and the Steppe Peoples
      3. 14.2 Chinggis Khan and the Early Mongol Empire
      4. 14.3 The Mongol Empire Fragments
      5. 14.4 Christianity and Islam outside Central Asia
      6. Key Terms
      7. Section Summary
      8. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
    2. 15 States and Societies in Sub-Saharan Africa
      1. Introduction
      2. 15.1 Culture and Society in Medieval Africa
      3. 15.2 Medieval Sub-Saharan Africa
      4. 15.3 The People of the Sahel
      5. Key Terms
      6. Section Summary
      7. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
    3. 16 Climate Change and Plague in the Fourteenth Century
      1. Introduction
      2. 16.1 Asia, North Africa, and Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century
      3. 16.2 Famine, Climate Change, and Migration
      4. 16.3 The Black Death from East to West
      5. 16.4 The Long-Term Effects of Global Transformation
      6. Key Terms
      7. Section Summary
      8. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
    4. 17 The Ottomans, the Mamluks, and the Ming
      1. Introduction
      2. 17.1 The Ottomans and the Mongols
      3. 17.2 From the Mamluks to Ming China
      4. 17.3 Gunpowder and Nomads in a Transitional Age
      5. Key Terms
      6. Section Summary
      7. Assessments
        1. Review Questions
        2. Check Your Understanding Questions
        3. Application and Reflection Questions
  6. A | Glossary
  7. B | World History, Volume 1, to 1500: Maps and Timelines
  8. C | World Maps
  9. D | Recommended Resources for the Study of World History
  10. Index
An image painted on a lightly striped mustard yellow background is shown. Cracks run throughout the image. Five people are shown sitting on horses and a small, thin, brown dog is shown in the right foreground corner looking at the people. At the left, a figure on a light black horse looks up at the sky, aiming a bow and arrow up. He wears a light blue long robe over a red long sleeved shirt and red stockings. His shoes are red and a beige and brown decorated arrow sheath hangs at his left side as well as a light brown sword sheath. His hair is pulled into a tight ponytail at the top of his head and encased in a red cloth. In the middle, three figures sit on horses looking at the figure at the left. The first figure wears a long beige robe with brown and beige boots and a white cap with red projections on three sides and a red topper. He holds a white flag rolled up on a pole and holds the reins of the horse tightly. He has a white beard, thick cheeks, a black and blue sheath of arrows at his right side, and sits atop a brown horse with its teeth baring. The figure in the middle of this group wears a long, thick white coat with black wavy dashes all over and a thick black collar and black trim over a maroon highly decorated robe. He has a round face, tiny facial features that are barely visible, wears a red and white cap and sits atop a black horse with a decorated blue saddle. The third figure in this group has a very pale face, tiny black eyes and red lips, and black hair in pigtails under a brown flat hat. They wear a white robe and sit atop a brown horse with decorative blue reins and red heart tassels on their snout and hanging from the reins. A figure in the right corner is a large dark skinned person sitting atop a gray and white horse. The horse looks down while the figure holds on to the reins. He is dressed in a gold decorated red robe, green undershirt, red boots, and red and beige hat. His face shows thick cheeks, white eyes, and a large nose. He holds a whip in his right hand in the air.
Figure 14.1 Kublai Khan. This image is from a silk scroll painting made in 1280 CE by Liu Guandao, known as Zhongxian, an artist of Kublai Khan’s court. It depicts Kublai (center in a white fur coat) with his wife and others on a traditional hunt, demonstrating the value the Mongols continued to place on their origins even after their empire spread far from their ancestral steppe lands. (credit: modification of work “Kublai Khan on a hunting expedition, painted on a silk handscroll (fragment)” by Cambridge Illustrated History of China (1999) by Patricia B. Ebrey/National Palace Museum/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)

The years between 1000 and 1350 CE were a time of extreme highs and lows for the people living in the Eurasian land mass. China came close to industrializing and creating a Confucian meritocracy. An increasing percentage of Eurasia’s population converted to Islam, even as Christian military forces pushed Islamic civilization to the southern tip of Iberia and tried to wrest the eastern Mediterranean—the territory viewed by Jews, Christians, and Muslims as “the Holy Land”—from Muslim rule. Europeans grappled with creating governments strong enough to protect the population but with robust enough checks on centralized authority to keep at least the elites from being abused. Enslaved people revolted and began to rule in the Nile delta and Indian subcontinent.

Nowhere, however, was change more dramatic and consequential than among the scattered seminomadic people of the Inner Asian Steppe. One of their number, written off and enslaved as a child, emerged to unite and lead a large faction of them into such a potent force that his descendants, who included Kublai Khan (Figure 14.1), marched as conquerors through the palaces of the Chinese Son of Heaven, the Caliph of God’s messenger, and countless cities. This leader was known to the world as Chinggis (Genghis) Khan. Uniting a million or so of the world’s 400 million people into the Mongol Empire, he not only altered the trajectory of their lives, he also unleashed forces that swept many old ways aside and laid the foundations for the modern world to emerge.

A map of the world  is shown, land highlighted in white and water in blue.  A white line runs through the middle of the map. The middle part of Asia is highlighted orange, including southern Russia, Mongolia, China, North and South Korea, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Iran, and parts of Iraq and Syria as well as a small area at the northeast of Africa in Egypt.
Figure 14.2 Timeline: Pax Mongolica: The Steppe Empire of the Mongols. (credit “1112”: modification of work “Auspicious Cranes” by Liaoning Provincial Museum/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain; credit “1198”: modification of work “Pope Innocent III wearing a Y-shaped pallium” by Fresco at the cloister Sacro Speco/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain; credit “1206–1227”: modification of work “Emperor Taizu of Yuan, better known as Genghis Khan” by National Palace Museum/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain; credit “1215”: modification of work “King John of England signing Magna Carta” by The Granger Collection, New York/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain; credit “1236–1240”: modification of work “Sultana Razia Begum” by Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad/Museums of India, Public Domain; credit “1252”: modification of work “Pope Innocent IV” by The Lives and Times of the Popes by Chevalier Artaud de Montor, New York: The Catholic Publication Society of America, 1911/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
A map of the world is shown, land highlighted in white and water in blue. A white line runs through the middle of the map. Southern mainland Asia, and Egypt are highlighted orange.
Figure 14.3 Locator Map: Pax Mongolica: The Steppe Empire of the Mongols. (credit: modification of work “World map blank shorelines” by Maciej Jaros/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
Citation/Attribution

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Attribution information
  • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a print format, then you must include on every physical page the following attribution:
    Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/1-introduction
  • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a digital format, then you must include on every digital page view the following attribution:
    Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/1-introduction
Citation information

© Mar 31, 2023 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.