Description: The era from 1400 to 1800 saw intense biological, commercial, and cultural exchanges, and the creation of global connections on an unprecedented scale. Divided into two books, Volume 6 of the Cambridge World History series considers these critical transformations. The first book examines the material and political foundations of the era, including global considerations of the environment, disease, technology, and cities, along with regional studies of empires in the eastern and western hemispheres, crossroads areas such as the Indian Ocean, Central Asia, and the Caribbean, and sites of competition and conflict, including Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Mediterranean. The second book focuses on patterns of change, examining the expansion of Christianity and Islam, migrations, warfare, and other topics on a global scale, and offering insightful detailed analyses of the Columbian exchange, slavery, silver, trade, entrepreneurs, Asian religions, legal encounters, plantation economies, early industrialism, and the writing of history.
Brief description: Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks is a Distinguished Professor and Chair of the History Department at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She began her scholarly career as a historian of early modern Europe, with a particular focus on women and gender, and remains a leader in that field, serving as the president of three scholarly societies and since 1996 as the Senior Editor of the Sixteenth Century Journal. Since 2000 she has also moved into world and global history, and now serves as one of the editors of the Journal of Global History. She is the author or editor of twenty books and many articles that have appeared in English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Greek, Chinese, Turkish, and Korean. These include Early Modern Europe 1450-1789, 2nd edition (Cambridge, 2013), Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 3rd edition (Cambridge, 2008), Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World: Regulating Desire, Reforming Practice, 2nd edition (2010) and Gender in History: Global Perspectives, 2nd edition (2010). Her research has been supported by grants from the Fulbright and Guggenheim Foundations, among others.