Intro to Part 5 & Chapter 16 (1st 2 sections)

Western people have enjoyed their worldwide primacy for at most two centuries, but other people had cultural flowering as well. These people included Greeks, Indians, South Asia, Arabs, Chinese, Incas and Aztecs. The rise of Europe occurred within an international context. It was the withdrawal of the Chinese naval fleet that allowed Europeans to enter the Indian Ocean in the 16th and 17th centuries. Native Americans lacked the immunity of European diseases. The industrial revolution also benefited from the New World resources and markets. The rise of Europe to a position of global dominance was not an easy automatic process. Europeans had to modify their policies like the British control in India. People in the world made active use of Europeans ideas for their own purposes. Seeking to gain advantage over local rivals or benefit from them. By the 1730s the Safavid dynasty that ruled Persia for several centuries had completely collapsed, Mughal Empire governing India fragmented, Wahhabi movement in Arabia seriously threatened the Ottoman Empire, religious ideals informed major political upheavals in Central Asia. The Russian Empire and China had rebellions of the peasants. In Africa Islamic revolutions and migrations known as Mfecane, had violent disruptions and creation of new states.

In desperate effort to raise taxes, Louis XVI called into the session the Estates General: The Clergy, the Nobility and the Commoners. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen launched the French Revolution and radicalized many participants of National Assembly. French Assembly ended all feudalism and slavery was abolished in France. King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed. The country became a Republic and passed universal suffrage.

The French Revolution echo was heard the loudest by the French Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue. With a slave force of 500,000 made up vast majority of the population. A former slave overcame internal resistance and defeated an attempt by Napoleon to reestablish French control. A revolution unique in the Atlantic world, it had become the first type of revolution by a slave.

The final revolutions took place in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Latin America. Spanish colonies were offended and insulted by Spanish monarchy's effort to exercise greater power over its colonies with heavier taxes. Spanish colonies had been long governed in an authoritarian fashion, sharply divided by class.

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