Global Connections: The World in the Early Medieval Age, 600-900

The brilliance of the Maya, the radiance of China´s Tang Dynasty, Ghana´s greatness, Charlemagne´s empire, and the emergence of Islamic civilization - all these and more were contemporaneous during the Early Medieval Age. While Polynesians were settling Easter Island and Vikings were colonizing Iceland, Muslims were learning to make paper from the Chinese and a new Mound Builder civilization was developing in the Mississippi Valley. Huge structures, such as the temple of Borubudur, the Great Pyramid at Cholula and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem were being built.

This book connects these and many other seemingly disparate events in a unified narrative of World History for this period. During the fifteen generations of these three centuries, the global population increased, the area of cultivated land expanded, great cities were founded, and the "high civilizations" (Chinese, Indian and Muslim) spread to new peoples and new states.

Much of the Eastern Hemisphere (with the partial exception of some of Africa South of the Sahara) was interconnected through trade, warfare, the spread of religions, crops, technology and peoples. It was one large ecumene.

On the other hand, the Americas, the Pacific Islands and Australia were almost completely isolated from that ecumene. They developed according to their own dynamics and in their own solitudes. But there were some striking parallels and coincidences: Polynesians were crossing the Pacific as Vikings were crossing the Atlantic, and Mayan savants and the philosophers of India independently discovered the concept of zero in the same centuries.

This global tour through the parallel lives of Early Medieval Civilizations is accomplished in seventeen chapters. There are chapters on the Americas, Oceania, Inner Eurasia and Western Europe. Three chapters concern the peoples of the Sahara and Africa South of the Sahara; India and the Indianized states of Southeast Asia are discussed in two chapters as are Tang China and the imitators of Tang in East Asia.

Mohammed was the super star of the A≥ his career and the rise of Islamic Civilization were a mystery and a marvel. How relatively small numbers of camel riding Muslim enthusiasts could defeat larger numbers of trained and disciplined troops, how they could simutaneously destroy one of the world´s greatest empires and nearly fatally weaken another is a great puzzle. The Muslims conquered the most extensive empire the world had known, stretching from Spain to the borders of China and India, and created a new sophisticated urban civilization which has been called the first world civilization which vied with Tang China for the reputation as the central civilization. The rise and spread of Islam and Islamic civilization are the largest topics in the book, requiring four chapters.

The book is organized as a historical tour through the Early Medieval Age, starting with the Dorset Inuit in North America. The section on North America discusses the diffusion of bows and arrows, but spends more time on the transition from Hopewell to Mississippian among the Mound Builder civilizations as well as the emergence of Pueblo civilization in the Southwest. From the Southwest, the book moves to Mesoamerica, where the foci are the destruction of Teotihuacan and the rise of its successors; and the Late Classic Period among the Maya, particularly the wars between Calakmul and Tikal. There are sections on the Circum-Caribbean and Amazonia, but the bulk of the remainder of the section on the Americas centers on the Andean civilizations, particularly the empires of Wari and Tiwanaku.

From the Americas, the narrative follows the sweet potato to Oceania, where the emphasis is on Polynesia (especially Hawaii) and Melanesia.There is a brief discussion of Australia.

After Oceania, the discussion moves to the Eastern Hemisphere. The near simultaneous emerg