Today marks my successful completion of the first 100 days/years of this project! I have learned a huge amount so far by doing this– and yes, I feel I’ve also been getting my writing-well-to-deadline chops back again. (I’ll be working on another “What I’ve learned to date” longform article soon. Did you see my earlier … Continue reading 1620: The Mayflower. Imperial change in China. Etc.
The year 1619 CE is commonly thought of here in the United States as the year slavery first “arrived” in one of the country’s constituent colonies, which in some sense is true. But it is definitely thought-provoking that 1619 is also hailed as marking the (re-)birth of “representative government” in the exact same colonial settlement– … Continue reading 1619: Slavery & ‘democracy’ arrive in Virginia. New Dutch base in E. Indies. Etc…
Well, I am so glad I made a strategic decision yesterday not to pay too much attention in my work on this project to the minutiae of developments within land-based empires. Because this year, 1618 CE, an event happened in Prague that launched the extremely complex series of Central European conflicts that became known ever … Continue reading 1618: Political machinations in Netherlands. A defenestration in Prague.
In 1617 CE, national/imperial power is already clearly emerging as a function of command of global sea-lanes. Now and over the centuries ahead, land-based empires that don’t have a robust and feisty presence in the world’s great oceans will all be falling under the heel of the sea-based European powers. That has already happened to … Continue reading 1617: Spanish empire consolidates; EIC organizes; Ottoman succession & intrigues
The bulletin for 1616 CE was a little challenging to organize as there seem to have been unusually large numbers of developments relevant to our story of the birth and development of Western imperialism. But wrangling them all into something manageable was good practice for what is ahead. I shall present them as follows: (1) … Continue reading 1616: Four European empires expand globally. Etc.
In 1615 CE, the major trend in world history for the coming few decades was clearly turning out to be the arrival of the two new Protestant imperial powers, England and Netherlands, onto the world scene, including both the challenges they posed to the older Catholic empire(s)– Spanish and Portuguese, still joined as one– and … Continue reading 1615: English, Dutch leap into global empire-building. A Japanese envoy in Rome.
I loudly applaud the work of the (presumably automated?) aggregators who roam around English-Wikipedia and pull out, for example, all the significant events of a year like 1614 CE. Those annualized lists are usually my starting point. Then I dive into more specialized lists like Timeline of the Ottoman Empire or Timeline of the Ming … Continue reading 1614: Spanish colonizers expand on 3 continents. Siege in Osaka.
Yesterday, 1612, I quoted English historian William Wilson Hunter as pinpointing the firman that Mughal Emperor Jahangir gave to English sea-captain Thomas Best in January 1613– after Best’s naval victory over a much larger Portuguese at Surat– as being England’s first “legal settlement on the Indian continent.” That sounds as good a starting point as … Continue reading 1613: Dutch in E. Indies, Caribbean. Romanovs, Ottomans, French, English…
1612 CE was an inflection point in the 500-year-long story of the emergence and maintenance of “Western” domination of the world. I am going to tell this story mainly by using the latest useful online source I have discovered, Sir William Wilson Hunter’s The European Struggle for Indian Supremacy in the Seventeenth Century (ESIS), which … Continue reading 1612: England beats Portugal in Surat, India, & Safavids/Ottomans
I have the sense these days of approaching the lip of a volcano. I know that within just the few days/years ahead, the still-young Dutch and English empire-builders are about to burst onto the scene in so many parts of the world. But for now, 1611 CE, there is little of great importance to be … Continue reading 1611: Rebuilding in Safavid Persia; EIC maneuvers; etc.
