AP World History Unit 2: Networks of Exchange and Their Global Impact

all right buckle up cuz I'm about to help you cram everything you need to know about AP World History unit 2 right

into your brain fold so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked let's get to it first let me just drop the big

picture on you we're still in the time period 1200 to 1450 and we're still considering many of the same States and

Empires that we got cozy with in unit one but here in unit 2 the whole emphasis is on how all these various

states were connected to one another through networks of exchange and I know it would be easier just to call these

Networks trading routes because that's exactly what they were but the AP World History overlords aren't interested in

making things easy for you so we call them networks of exchange because not only were Merchants carrying goods for

sale across these routes but they also brought their religion and their languages and their technology and so

the point to remember here is that these networks did not only create the occasion for economic interaction across

the world but just as importantly they facilitated cultural diffusion and transfers as well now there are three

major networks of exchange that you need to get familiar with the Silk Roads the Indian Ocean Network and the transar and

train and before we get into the details of each you need to know a few General developments that apply to all of them

but hey before I tell you what they I should mention that this video is part of a larger resource called the AP World

History heimler review guide and if you're feeling spicy you should check it out in the link below it's got whole

unit review videos like this one that are not here on YouTube note guides to follow along practice questions practice

exams and answer keys for all of it it is the fastest way to study for your class and for your exam in May so you

know have a look and now back to General developments among the major networks of exchange first in the period 1200 to

1450 the geographical range of all these networks expanded and to be clear all three of these networks existed for a

long time before for 1200 but the thing to remember is that during this time each of these networks increased in

Geographic scale and that led to further connections among states in this part of the world second the range of these

networks expanded due to Innovations and Commercial practices and technological innovations you might have no idea what

those words mean but put it in your pocket and we'll come back to it third The increased connectivity between these

places caused various states to grow wealthy and Powerful due to their participation in these networks and

fourth The increased interconnectivity caused the rise of powerful states and cities while also causing the collapse

of others okay so that's what all the major networks of exchange have in common so now let's talk about some of

the distinct features on each route and I reckon we ought to start with the Silk Road now this network stretched across

eurasion it was mainly luxury goods that were traded along these routes and the big ones to remember are Chinese silk

and Porcelain now the reason the Silk Road Merchants specialize in trading luxury goods is because it was expensive

and arduous to travel from one side of the stinking world to the other and it didn't make sense to carry more common

items that wouldn't sell for a premium and that reality was illustrated by a common proverb among Silk Road Merchants

namely if it don't make the boom boom I ain't got the room room to carry it on my camel that's just a rough translation

anyway the expansion of these routes during this period reflected the growing demand for these luxury items and so

that increased demand caused an increase in the production of these Goods by Chinese Indian and Persian Artisans so

for example the focus on the production of luxury goods for distant markets LED peasants in the Yi River delta to scale

back on food production in order to produce more luxury goods destined for trade across the Silk Roads and that was

kind of a risky move because you know you can't eat porcelain you can't eat silk but I'll show you why that didn't

matter that much in a moment now you're also going to need to know a few of the innovations that facilitated the

expansion of these networks and they fall into two categories first were Innovations in transportation

Technologies and you only need to know one of these namely the Caravan Sur these were a series of ins and guest

houses that sprang up along the Silk Roads about a Day's Journey apart additionally the Caravan Sarai provided

safety along the Route I mean don't forget that these Merchants were mainly hauling luxury goods across these routes

and so that meant they were targets for theft but just as important Caravan Sarai brought Merchants from all

different cultures and backgrounds together and that created the occasion for significant transfers whether it was

cultural or technological all right the second development that caused the expansion of the Silk Roads were

Innovations of commercial practices and that just means buying and selling things became way easier and here you

need to know two of those practices first was the development of money economies and wasn't the fresh heck does

that means well a money economy uses paper money to facilitate exchange unlike a barter economy which uses Goods

as currency and this was first developed in China and the development of money economies was huge for facilitating

trade I mean think about it metal-based money is heavy in merchant selling luxury Goods would be none too happy

about hauling that money all across Asia but with the introduction of paper money to facilitate trade a merchant could

deposit bills in one location and then withdraw that same amount in another location thus increasing the ease of

travel and the security of transaction and if you want a term for this and I know you do the Chinese called it the

flying money system and then another commercial practice that expanded trade was the introduction of new forms of

credit again the Chinese pioneered this but eventually this practice spread all the way to Europe where they introduced

banking houses to handle all these exchanges there a merchant could present a bill of exchange which had the name

name of a merchant and the amount of money owed to him and then he would receive that amount of money from the

banking house kind of like using a check but you know now that I'm saying that I'm realizing that you Apple paying

venmo using youngans probably don't even know what a check is so just you know ask your grandparents they'll tell you

all about it but the point is these commercial Innovations May getting paid a lot easier and that led to an increase

in trade along the Silk Roads okay now the last thing you need to know about the Silk Roads is that this increase in

trade led to the rise of powerful trading cities that grew and flourish precisely because they were located

along these routes and there are several you could know but you need to know one so let me introduce you to cashar it was

located at the convergence of two major routes of the Silk Roads which before and after pass through exceedingly

inhospitable terrain but cashar was built around a river and its Lush Valley made it an attractive stop for traveling

merchants and it's trade along the Silk Road expanded so too did cashar grow and power and wealth okay now let's get into

the details of the Indian Ocean Network just like the Silk Roads this Maritime Trade Network existed for centuries

before 1200 but during this period the scope of these routes expanded significantly now what made trade along

this network possible was a thorough understanding of monsoon winds and really all you need to know about that

here is that Indian Ocean Merchants developed an understanding over time that winds predictably blew in One

Direction or the other depending on the season now in contrast with the Silk Roads a large bulk of what was traded

along these routes included more common goods like textiles and spices and that's because the hull of a ship could

hold way more cargo than you know the back of a camel but to be fair they also traded luxury goods along these routes

but when contrasting these two routes that's the big difference so what caused the expansion of the Indian Ocean

Network a fine question and again like on the Silk Roads the answer is Tech technological innovations and

Innovations and Commercial practices under technological innovations I'll give you three that you need to know

first is the Improvement of the magnetic compass which helped Merchants know what direction they were going on that giant

honking Ocean second was an improved astrola which was a tool for measuring the stars and then comparing them with

Star Charts which helped them wreck in latitude and longitude which was not easy on that giant honking ocean and

then third were new ship designs like the Chinese junk these were massive ships with enormous cargo holdes that

could transport metric buttloads of goods across the ocean but then there were Innovations in commercial practices

that facilitated trade as well and these were essentially the same practices that were introduced on the Silk Roads

practices like various forms of credit and then just like on the Silk Roads the expansion of the Indian Ocean Network

fostered the growth of states and there are a lot of examples here but you only need to know one so meet the Swahili

city state now this was a collection of independent city states along Africa's East Coast that acted as Brokers for

goods originating from the African interior things like gold and ivory and enslaved people and by playing this role

these city states grew significantly in power and wealth and then under the influence of Muslim merchants the

Swahili States became Islamic and got connected to the larger trading world of Dar al- Islam and that only increased

their power and economic prosperity and then another effect of the expansion of these routes was the establishment of

diaspora communities and since I'm guessing you don't throw words like that around in normal conversation let me

Define it a diaspora Community is a settlement of ethnic people in a location other than their Homeland for

example Arab and Persian communities were established in East Africa which led to intermarriage with the women

there and I know that sounds really romantic but it was done to ensure that trading partners in different states

were trustworthy anyway that cultural intermingling led to the further spread of Islam and that in turn fostered the

growth of the Swahili States in East Africa because of that influence an entirely new language emerged called

Swahili which began as a mixture of native banto languages and Arabic words and finally one more example of cultural

diffusion in the Indian Ocean Network came from our boy junga now there's a lot of notable things we could say about

this guy not least the ginormous size of his Fleet but you don't need to know any of that what you need to know is that

Jung ha was sent by China's Ming Dynasty to go throughout the Indian Ocean en rolling States in China's tributary

system and he was pretty successful but even that secondary to the technological and cultural transfers that occur

because of his voyages for example China's Advanced Maritime technology especially in navigation tools and ship

building methods were spread to the various places that junga visited and then the final major network of

connection you need to know is the trans Saharan Trade Network over here in Africa just like the other major routes

this network expanded during the period 1200 to 1450 and that was mainly due to Innovations in transportation technology

the big one to know here is the new and improved camel saddle and yes Saddles were used for riding camels but more

significantly Saddles were developed for transporting way bigger loads of cargo across the desert and just like the

other route's participation in this network led to the increasing wealth and power of various States and here you

just need to know the Empire of mly now a big turning point for mly was the conversion of its leadership to Islam in

the 9th century which again folded the state into the exceedingly prosperous Merchant Network throughout Dar Al Islam

but by our period Molly grew stupid Rich through the trade of gold and by taxing Merchants traveling to basically all

parts of West Africa and Molly's wealth and influence reached its highest point in the 14th century under the leadership

of our boy Mansa Musa who further monopolize trade between the North and the interior of the continent both

increasing the wealth of Molly and facilitating the growth of existing trade networks okay now that you have a

sense of what these individual networks were all about let's settle in and talk directly about the effects or

Consequences of all this increasing connection during that time and those consequences basically fall into two

categories cultural and environmental and just for poops and Giggles let's begin with cultural consequences the

first cultural consequence was the transfer of religion or belief systems across these networks and here we could

talk about the spread of Islam but we've already touched on that or we could talk about Hinduism spreading into southeast

Asia but since you only need to know one example let's make it Buddhism now recall from unit one that Buddhism

originated in South Asia but here we need to emphasize that this belief system entered China via the Silk Roads

carried by merchants and missionaries the second cultural consequence of connectivity included significant

literary and artistic transfers across the world for example Islamic scholars in baghdad's House of Wisdom translated

Greek and Roman Classics into Arabic and made extensive commentaries on them including their own developments in

philosophy and medical practices these Works were then later transferred to Europe where they created the basis for

a cultural Awakening known as the Renaissance which we're going to talk all about in unit four and then third

under this heading were the transfer of scientific and technological innovation and arguably the most significant of

these transfers was Gunpowder now this stuff was invented in China but through networks of exchange it spread to Muslim

empires and then later Eastern European States encountered this explosive powder when the Mongols came knocking on their

door trying to take over all their crap and once they figured out how to use this stuff to blow other people up the

harnessing of gunpowder would fundamentally alter the balance of power across the world okay now the second

consequence of of connectivity was the rise and fall of cities and I'll give you an example of each a good example of

the rise of cities is hongo in China it was situated at one end of China's Grand Canal which facilitated all kinds of

trade and as a result hung Joe became increasingly wealthy and increasingly urbanized which is to say more and more

people organized their lives around the city but other cities did not Faire as well as connections increased and that's

because not only did merchants travel across these networks but so did military so for example Baghdad had the

unfortunate opportunity to get utterly destroyed in 1258 by Mongol armies and we'll talk more about them in a moment

and then the last cultural consequence you need to know is that increased interconnectivity facilitated Travelers

who wrote about their experiences and here it would be fun to talk about Marco Polo or Marjorie Kemp but since you only

need to know one let me introduce you to ibben batuta he was a young Muslim scholar from Morocco who over the course

of about 30 years traveled all over Dar al- Islam and wrote detailed notes about the places that he visited and the

people and the rulers that he met and the cultures that hosted him and all of his expansive travels were made possible

because of trade routs now to be fair there were a lot of people that traveled around the Known World during this

period but what makes iban Tuda important is that he actually wrote about his travels which gave later

Scholars a firsthand account of Life all over darl Islam okay now the second category of consequences of connectivity

is environmental and here we'll talk about crops that were transferred and diseases that were transferred and an

example of the transfer of crops over networks of exchange was Champa rice now remember that this new strain of rice

was introduced to China via the Champa Kingdom who offered it to China as part of the tribute system when the Chinese

harnessed this new grain It produced way more food for their growing population than was possible before and that led to

even more population growth so never never forget more food equals more babies and then second disease was

transferred due to increasing connectivity and the granddaddy of all of them was the Bubonic plague this

nasty disease first erupted in China in 1331 and though people didn't know it at the time it was carried by rats and

fleas and those fleas unceremoniously attached themselves to camels and Merchants traveling along the Silk Roads

and those rats found hidden corners and Merchant ships traveling along the Indian Ocean when you look at the spread

of this disease it is almost entirely in line with trading routs and when the plague showed up it was uh deadly as

heck and killed giant swats of the popul in the Middle East and Europe all because of connectivity or maybe we

could say all because of the Mongols and that leads us to our final section for the unit so let's talk about the Mongol

Empire but wait if you're paying attention it's a little weird that we're talking about the Mongol Empire in a

unit that's all about connectivity through trade networks like should we have talked about the Mongols in unit

one when we were getting all cozy with the various states around the world well here's where I tell you that of all the

juicy things we could talk about with respect to the Mongols the most important and juicest of them is that

their giant stinking Empire facilitated all these connections that we've been talking about and they did it uh big

time so you really only need to know three things about the Mongols first as they established the largest land-based

Empire of all time it replaced powerful Empires across Eurasia the Song Dynasty fell to the Mongols the Abbasid Empire

in the Middle East fell to the Mongols and by the second half of the 14th century Mongols ruled this entire area

through foron which is the term that describes States ruled by the con and the second thing you need to know is

that under Mongol rued networks of exchange increase significantly for example throughout history the Silk

Roads flourished the most when large Empires controlled the routes because they could provide safety and continuity

along them and so in basically the entire territory over which the Silk Roads fell under the Mongol control that

is exactly what happened I mean the Mongols themselves produced no sellable Goods nor did they participate in

long-distance trade but as the entire Eurasian world came under their domination they vigorously encouraged

international trade and extracted great wealth as facilitators of Commerce on the Silk Road for example Mongols paid

high prices for goods from other countries which encouraged trade and they took pains to increase the safety

of merchants making the long tracks across those trading routes and because of this the Mongols also facilitated an

unprecedented increase in Comm communication and cooperation across their empire for example Persian and

Chinese courts often work together and send emissaries and Artisans to each other because of these connections trade

increased between both sides of the Mongol Empire and they both got plenty wealthy as a result and this big

interconnected hugfest was made possible because of Mongol rule and that's why they call it the PA mongolica or the

piece of the Mongols and then the final thing you need to know about the Mongols is that they facilitated significant

technological and cultural transfer on the technological side Mongols created the conditions for the transfer of Greek

and Islamic medical knowledge to Western Europe on the cultur side was the Mongol adoption of the weager script now in the

beginning the Mongols didn't have a written language but as they started conquering literate societies they

decided to adopt the weager script from one of the Turkish Muslim groups they conquered in Central Asia this written

language became common among all parts of their empire as the language of policy and diplomacy and exchange Okay

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