The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World – and Globalization Began - Hardcover

Hansen, Valerie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 024135126X ISBN 13: 9780241351260

Publisher: Viking, 2020

Synopsis

When did globalization begin? Most observers have settled on 1492, the year Columbus discovered America. But as celebrated Yale professor Valerie Hansen shows, it was the year 1000, when for the first time new trade routes linked the entire globe, so an object could in theory circumnavigate the world. This was the 'big bang' of globalization, which ushered in a new era of exploration and trade, and which paved the way for Europeans to dominate after Columbus reached America.

Drawing on a wide range of new historical sources and cutting-edge archaeology, Hansen shows, for example, that the Maya began to trade with the native peoples of modern New Mexico from traces of theobromine - the chemical signature of chocolate - and that frozen textiles found in Greenland contain hairs from animals that could only have come from North America.

Introducing players from Europe, the Islamic world, Asia, the Indian Ocean maritime world, the Pacific and the Mayan world who were connecting the major landmasses for the first time, this compelling revisionist argument shows how these encounters set the stage for the globalization that would dominate the world for centuries to come.

'Provocative . . . a smart, broad-ranging survey of the global Middle Ages that is learned, thought-provoking - and perfectly tuned to our times' Dan Jones, Sunday Times

'Typically wide-ranging, informative, and illuminating, Valerie Hansen has written a lovely book that puts together the pieces of the global jigsaw puzzle of a millennium ago' Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

About this title

About the Author

Valerie Hansen is Professor of History at Yale University and has taught on China and world history for thirty years. She is the author of several acclaimed works, including The Open Empire: A History of China to 1600 and The Silk Road: A New History, and co-author of Voyages in World History.

From the Back Cover

When did globalization begin? Most observers have settled on 1492, the year Columbus discovered America. But as celebrated Yale professor Valerie Hansen shows, it was the year 1000, when for the first time new trade routes linked the entire globe, so an object could in theory circumnavigate the world. This was the 'big bang' of globalization, which ushered in a new era of exploration and trade, and which paved the way for Europeans to dominate after Columbus reached America.

Drawing on a wide range of new historical sources and cutting-edge archaeology, Hansen shows, for example, that the Maya began to trade with the native peoples of modern New Mexico from traces of theobromine - the chemical signature of chocolate - and that frozen textiles found in Greenland contain hairs from animals that could only have come from North America.

Introducing players from Europe, the Islamic world, Asia, the Indian Ocean maritime world, the Pacific and the Mayan world who were connecting the major landmasses for the first time, this compelling revisionist argument shows how these encounters set the stage for the globalization that would dominate the world for centuries to come.

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 024135126X
• ISBN 13: 9780241351260
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320