Early Modern Times

The 13th century was a time of cultural synthesis in many parts of the world. When Islam met Hinduism in India as Mamluk Turks established the Delhi Sultanate, when Chinggis Khan and his tribes conquered part of China, and when the Italian trader Marco Polo returned west from his sojourn in Imperial China, a potent mixing of cultures occurred. The fusion of Indian and Muslim cultures with the Mamluks fostered a cultural renaissance in India, affecting music and literature, art and architecture, and language and religion, while the Chinese achievements that Marco Polo told of—for instance, encyclopedias, paper currency, and the use of coal for fuel—were at first disbelieved and later emulated.

In Asia, the early modern period was one of upheaval. This period saw the fading of the Khmer Empire (Cambodia), which encompassed parts of modern Thailand and stretched to the borders of Burma (Myanmar) and into southern Malaya, as the Thais, tribal people from southern China, took over. The Thais established two kingdoms, one in the north and one in what is now central Thailand. Thais also ruled some kingdoms in what is now modern Laos.

Vietnam emerged as a state toward the end of this period, a merging of the neighboring states of Annam and Champa (analogous to northern Vietnam and southern Vietnam respectively). Both states had a history of conflict with each other. The conflict between Annam and Champa was won at last by Annam. By 1500, the modern state of Vietnam (still called Annam at that point) arose.

In Japan during this era, an aesthetic code derived from Zen Buddhism became established in architecture and landscape gardening, and in the theater, with Noh, a combination of music, dance, and drama featuring stylized masks. By the 1400s, the period of peace ceded to regional wars, and in 1477, the great Onin war saw Kyoto devastated and the Ashikaga shogunate become a central government in name only.

Much of the cultural synthesis of this era resulted from trade, but trade exacted a terrible price in the 14th century, when ships, carrying rats infested with the bubonic plague, returned from China to Italy, the trade center of its day and the perfect jumping-off point from which the plague could spread to the rest of Europe. By 1350, approximately one-third of Europe's populace had died from the plague. The resulting labor shortage hastened the end of serfdom in many areas. Also resulting was an improved standard of living, at least for a while, since the victims' possessions (including in some cases entire estates) were available to survivors, either by looting or inheritance.