The Age of Cross Cultural Interaction

The world had reached a new age. In a matter of a few centuries, from the mid-1300s to the late 1500s, cross cultural interaction had taken root, and the world was trading and communicating with itself. This age of cross cultural interaction was a rebirth of the world, bringing with it new prosperity as well as new woes that would change the world forever. However, we must first understand the domino effect that led to this change.

Genghis Khan as portrayed in a 14th-century Yuna era album

            The Mongols and Turks, two nomadic peoples from the central Eurasian steppe region, conquered much of the known world and created massive empires. The Mongols, under the leadership of Genghis Khan, would conquer much of central Eurasia, East Asia, the Middle East, and even extend into Europe. The Mongol Empire would quickly become the largest land based empire in history. The Turks on the other hand were a people from the same area as the Mongols, but who ended up migrating out of their land and moving to what we know of today as Turkey. Both peoples were nomadic, meaning they could pick up and carry all their belongings at a moment’s notice and thus migration was a key part of their civilization. The migration of the Turks was a slow and gradual process, only coming into the spot light when one of the Turkic groups acquired power, such as the Seljuks. The Turks would end up becoming one of the key aggressors during the Crusades and a large reason for military force being used in the Middle East. Both groups had a profound impact on the world at the time. For the Turks, they encouraged the Crusaders to go to war in the Middle East, while the Mongols built an empire that span the whole known world. These actions had a domino effect on the world; first bringing unification between East and West, which led to the spreading of the plague from East to West, which then led to the Renaissance, and so on.

            In this time, the world also became connected in another way. Suddenly, Sub-Saharan Africa became involved in the world. With Sub-Saharan Africa, success had a different definition. There, conquest was not nearly as profitable as trade and thus many trade based empires sprung up, such as the empire of Ghana. It was from these trade empires that commodities such as gold, salt, and slaves were traded from Africa to the rest of the world. However, east Africa had a different experience as they were also contacted by Arab merchants who brought Islam with them. So from this, places that we know of today as Kenya and Tanzania became introduced to Islam.

            For Sub-Saharan Africa, this integration brought many changes. For one, as mentioned before, trade empires sprung up. These empires would grow fabulously rich from the selling of African gold and salt, as well as slaves. Along with riches from trade, integration brought religion and culture to Sub-Saharan Africa. Islam was brought over to Eastern Africa in modern day Kenya and Tanzania. With the integration of Islam, Africans saw immense change to their culture. Africans were left with a tough struggle of trying to keep their old ways while also integrating the culture that comes with the religion of Islam. This struggle created a unique culture that became prominent in much of Sub-Saharan Africa.

            While Europe, Asia, and Africa were exploding with development from integration, societies in the Americas and Oceania were still falling behind on the technological scale. It was not due to any racial reasons or anything of the sort, but more circumstance. Europe and Asia had all the right pieces fall into place at the right time. For one, there was the plague; for while the New World continued with their life styles with nothing interfering, the plague rocked the rest of the world. For Europe especially, the plagued killed off much of their working force, which then created the downfall of Feudalism because of too few workers. This end in Feudalism would bring about so many other ideas and cultural changes, so many that there are too many to name in this paper. These changes would later be called the Renaissance period. Because of integration, Eurasia had the plague. Because of the plague, Eurasia had the Renaissance. This domino effect is what made Eurasian societies sky rocket in development. The Americas and Oceania did not have this and thus they did not develop nearly as fast. It is not the fault of them that it did not happen, it is merely a world changing coincidence that this series of events struck Eurasia.

The Landing of Columbus by John Vanderlyn

            Perhaps the greatest example of cross cultural interaction that changed the world was the European exploration of the Americas. Here, the Americas’ lack of technological development showed as the European conquerors stormed through and started colonies. This was where the new European exploration efforts differed from previous ones; the Europeans were now exploring the world out of material greed. Where as in previous times, peoples like the Romans and Greeks established colonies because of population expansion and such, the Europeans now wished to expand to establish trade networks and colonies to acquire wealth from.

            The world was interacting with itself. This new age of cross cultural interaction brought both good and bad consequences to the societies around the world. While some prospered, others suffered. This interaction is what shaped out world today and just shows how all of history is a domino effect; one event changing the future to create another event.