Sublime

The history presented here is divided into four periods. The first covers the longest period, roughly three hundred years from the early seventeenth century to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. In addition to the rise of the modern international state system, this period spans the colonial period, the demise of several empires, the opening of

The period from 3000 to 1000 BCE was transformative for the major civilizations of Eurasia. Three profound technological breakthroughs were most decisive: the domestication of the horse, the development of writing systems, and the breakthroughs in metallurgy. These were accompanied by dramatic advances in public administration, religion, and

Columbus stumbled upon the Americas (figure 6.2), though he still believed he had reached India. Vasco da Gama, for his part, sailed from Lisbon and made it to India and back in 1498–99 (figure 6.3). The race was now on, initially between Portugal and Spain, to earn the spoils from these two historic breakthroughs. More fundamentally, these two