Oh Strayer, don't act like Africans were not already engaged in an internal slave trade. They live in an underpopulated continent where the biggest lacking resource is labor. They're capturing and selling each other.
The Atlantic slave trade wasn't the only slave trade. In addition to an internal slave trade there was also a Muslim slave trade that transported just as many people out of Africa as the Atlantic did. It also went on for much longer than the Atlantic.
I don't know why the author didn't keep talking about pastoralists in the last chapter. That could have been done without adding the Black Death in randomly.
When is China not looking to its past? What did China do before it could look to its past on the proper way rulers should rule?
I don't know how I feel about sea-faring on giant Chinese treasure ships being viewed as a past time for the emperor of that period. Is that really all he decided he would do for fun? Am I the only one who thinks Strayer makes China sound SUPER arrogant with the 'if there's anything of value outside this country, it will be brought to us'. What? Where is your sense of adventure and curiosity? No interest in the world beyond? None? I don't buy that.
What's amazing is that however silly that map looks on page 571, it's clear the cartographer knows how small Europe is in the scheme of things. Also, the Portuguese should get some points for their work around Africa, because that's a pretty accurate outline of the continent.
Can we talk about the fab hats the Ottoman Janissaries are wearing? One of them has a plume of black feathers, two of them are wearing giant squirrel tails and that last two have bushy white brooms. I want to know who designed those.
I don't know about Strayer's snide remarks about how other historians ignore pastoralists and Paleolithic-like peoples in exchange for civilizations when he barely mentions them and they're all clumped together. So he gets brownie points for putting down two paragraphs that describes three different groups simply because everyone else ignores them?
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