Unit 1: Global Tapestry
This dynasty worried that merchant activity could disrupt moral order.
What is the Song Dynasty?
This empire’s security policies made the Silk Road safer than ever.
What are the Mongols?
This empire used the timar system, granting revenue to cavalry in exchange for service.
What is the Ottoman Empire?
This demographic trend occurred because Afro-Eurasian diets gained American crops.
What is population growth?
This West African city became a major scholarly center under Mansa Musa, known for its Sankore Mosque.
What is Timbuktu?
This West African empire gained influence because it controlled trans-Saharan trade.
What is Mali?
These two oasis cities thrived at major crossroads of overland routes.
What are Samarkand and Kashgar?
This Mughal ruler built stability by bringing Hindu and Muslim elites into government.
Who is Akbar?
This European power forced access to Indian Ocean trade using ship cannons.
What is Portugal?
These seasonal wind patterns allowed merchants to travel predictably across the Indian Ocean.
What are the monsoon winds?
This empire used the mit’a system to unify its subjects through labor obligations.
What is the Inca Empire?
This financial innovation let merchants avoid traveling with heavy coins.
What is credit / bills of exchange?
This dynasty ordered coastal evacuations to stop locals from aiding foreign rivals.
What is the Qing Dynasty?
This labor shift was caused by Indigenous population collapse in the Americas.
What is the increased use of enslaved African labor?
This elite Ottoman infantry corps was recruited through the devshirme system.
Who are the Janissaries?
These East African city-states prospered as middlemen in Indian Ocean trade.
What are the Swahili city-states?
Crops like sugarcane and citrus spread via this important trade network.
What is the Indian Ocean trade network?”
or “Islamic trade networks.
This Eurasian empire expanded using gunpowder weapons against steppe rivals.
What is Russia?
This empire built territorial colonies, while its neighbor built trading-post networks.
What are Spain and Portugal?
This American crop sparked major population growth in China, Africa, and Europe due to its high caloric yield.
What is the potato?
This sultanate stayed stable by allowing regional customs to continue under imperial oversight.
What is the Delhi Sultanate?
These Muslim trading communities established permanent settlements in Indian Ocean port cities, spreading commercial practices like sharia-based contract law that allowed merchants from different regions to trust one another.
What are Muslim diasporic communities?
This gunpowder empire declined due to internal divisions and outdated military tech.
What is the Safavid Empire?
This early modern shift reshaped world commerce when a single export from the Americas became essential for Asian tax systems and European trade ambitions.
What is the rise of a global silver economy?
This group of warrior elites helped the Russian state expand across Siberia.
Who are the Cossacks?