The year 1000 When explorers connected the world -- and globalization began

Valerie Hansen, 1958-

Book - 2020

"In history, myth often abides. It was long assumed that the centuries immediately prior to AD 1000 were lacking in any major cultural developments or geopolitical encounters, that the Europeans hadn't yet discovered North America, that the farthest anyone had traveled over sea was the Vikings' invasion of Britain. But how, then, to explain the presence of blonde-haired people in Mayan temple murals in Chichen Itza, Mexico? Could it be possible that the Vikings had found their way to the Americas during the height of the Mayan empire? Valerie Hansen, a much-honored historian, argues that the year 1000 was the world's first point of major cultural exchange and exploration. Drawing on nearly thirty years of research on med...ieval China and global history, she presents a compelling account of first encounters between disparate societies. As people on at least five continents ventured outward, they spread technology, new crops, and religion. These encounters, she shows, made it possible for Christopher Columbus to reach the Americas in 1492, and set the stage for the process of globalization that so dominates the modern era. For readers of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel and Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens, The Year 1000 is an intellectually daring, provocative account that will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about how the modern world came to be. It will also hold up a mirror to the hopes and fears we experience today."--

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Subjects
Published
New York : Scribner 2020.
Language
English
Main Author
Valerie Hansen, 1958- (author)
Edition
First Scribner hardcover edition
Physical Description
xi, 308 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color), maps (some color) ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781501194108
9781501194115
9781982144494
  • Author's Note
  • Prologue
  • 1. The World in the Year 1000
  • 2. Go West, Young Viking
  • 3. The Pan-American Highways of 1000
  • 4. European Slaves
  • 5. The World's Richest Man
  • 6. Central Asia Splits in Two
  • 7. Surprising Journeys
  • 8. The Most Globalized Place on Earth
  • Epilogue
  • Acknowledgments
  • Want to Learn More?
  • Notes
  • Illustration and Photograph Credits
  • Index
Review by Booklist Review

The year 1000 marks a transformative time and the start of globalization, according to renowned historian, Hansen (The Silk Road, 2012) in this meticulous portrayal of the explorers, traders, and rulers who built a complex network which linked a disparate world. Hansen begins with the Vikings, and their voyages in search of a new world. She veers into the history of the Mayans, including the settlement of Chichén Itzá, and their accomplishments in architecture and agriculture. Hansen traces the significance of Asian and Islamic empires and their trade in spices, knowledge, and precious metals. She acknowledges the origins of the human slave trade as territories amassed wealth and militias. While nautical prowess was a key, many empires acquired footholds through land invasion as in the case of the Mongols. Natural resources were not the only commodities to be traded, religion was also disseminated widely in the new areas during this time. Hansen's deeply engrossing work of scholarship builds a foundation for understanding our current iteration of globalization.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The year 1000 CE marked the first chapter in the story of globalization, according to this vivid and edifying account by Yale University history professor Hansen (coauthor, Voyages in World History). Contending that trade networks established during this period set the stage for Europe's age of exploration five centuries later, Hansen highlights Viking voyages to North America, goods and information that traveled 2,000 miles between the Mayan city of Chichén Itzá and Chaco Canyon in present-day New Mexico, and the slave and fur trades that linked the Byzantine Empire to Scandinavia. Hansen also documents the spread of Islam to Africa and central Asia, China's thirst for Middle Eastern aromatics, and the arrival of Malaysian sailors in Madagascar. Noting that travelers who met each other in 1000 CE "were much closer technologically" than 16th-century Europeans were to the indigenous peoples of the New World, Hansen suggests that the period offers a key lesson for today: "Those who remained open to the unfamiliar did much better than those who rejected anything new." She displays a remarkable lightness of touch while stuffing the book full of fascinating details, and easily toggles between the big picture and local affairs. This astonishingly comprehensive account casts world history in a brilliant new light. (Apr.)

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

If any reader still believes that the year 1000 marked the Dark Ages, this insightful history will set them right.Though Hansen (Chinese and World History/Yale Univ.; The Silk Road: A New History With Documents, 2016, etc.) pays some attention to the politics, religion, and culture of the era, she focuses on commerce, making a convincing case that this date "marked the start of globalizationwhen trade routes took shape all around the world that allowed goods, technologies, religions, and people to leave home and go somewhere new." For commerce to circle the globe, traders had to reach the New World, which happened around 1000, although no one knew it at the time. As befits that era's greatest explorers, Hansen begins with the Norse, who, after centuries of raiding around Europe and the Mediterranean, sailed to Iceland, then Greenland, then North America, where later chroniclers and recent archaeological evidence (plus the usual fakes) indicated their arrival around 1000 and some trading but no permanent settlement. Less known but far more significant, the Norse also battled their way east. Known by the locals as "Rus," by 1000, they had reached the Caspian Sea, adopted Christianity, and laid the foundation of Russia. Despite the nearly complete absence of writing, when Columbus reached America in 1492 and Islamic slave traders penetrated Africa well before 1000, they found complex cultures with well-established trade routes. Hansen then moves on to the flourishing, prosperous, technically advanced Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia, ending with superpower China, the center of a massive trading system stretching from the Indies to Arabia and Africa. The author covers a vast amount of territory in a concise, readable manner, making for a welcome contribution to the popular literature on early global trade and geopolitics.A thoroughly satisfying history of a distant era and people. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Chapter One: The World in the Year 1000 Excerpted from The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World--And Globalization Began by Valerie Hansen All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.