Modern history

Main articles: Modern history

Modern history (the "modern period," the "modern era," "modern times") refers to the history of the period following the Middle Ages, spanning from about 1500 to the present day. In contrast, "Contemporary history" is history that covers events from around 1945 to the present day.

## Early modern period

Main articles: Early modern period
"Early modern period" is a term used by historians to refer to the period between the Middle Ages (Post-classical history) and the Industrial Revolution—roughly 1500 to 1800. The Early Modern period is characterized by the rise of science, and by increasingly rapid technological progress, secularized civic politics, and the nation state. Capitalist economies began their rise, initially in northern Italian republics such as Genoa. The Early Modern period also saw the rise and dominance of the mercantilist economic theory. As such, the Early Modern period represents the decline and eventual disappearance, in much of the European sphere, of feudalism, serfdom, and the power of the Catholic Church. The period includes the Protestant Reformation, the disastrous Thirty Years' War, the Age of Discovery, European colonial expansion, the peak of European witch-hunting, the Scientific revolution, and the Age of Enlightenment.

### Renaissance

Main articles: Renaissance
Europe's Renaissance, meaning "rebirth," referring to the rebirth of classical culture, beginning in the 14th century and extending into the 16th, consisted of the rediscovery of the classical world's scientific contributions, and of the economic and social rise of Europe. The Renaissance also engendered a culture of inquisitiveness which ultimately led to Humanism and the Scientific Revolution. Although it saw social and political upheaval and revolutions in many intellectual pursuits, the Renaissance is perhaps known best for its artistic developments and the contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term "Renaissance man."

### European expansion

Further information: History of Europe, Age of Discovery, Colonialism, 16th century, 17th century
During this period, European powers came to dominate most of the world. Although the most developed regions of European classical civilization were more urbanized than any other region of the world, European civilization had undergone a lengthy period of gradual decline and collapse. During the Early Modern Period, Europe was able to regain its dominance; historians still debate the causes.

Europe's success in this period stands in contrast to other regions. For example, one of the most advanced civilizations of the Middle Ages was China. It had developed an advanced monetary economy by 1000 CE. China had a free peasantry who were no longer subsistence farmers, and could sell their produce and actively participate in the market. According to Adam Smith, writing in the 18th century, China had long been one of the richest, most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious, most urbanized, and most prosperous countries in the world. It enjoyed a technological advantage and had a monopoly in cast iron production, piston bellows, suspension bridge construction, printing, and the compass. However, it seemed to have long since stopped progressing. Marco Polo, who visited China in the 13th century, describes its cultivation, industry, and populousness almost in the same terms as travelers would in the 18th century.

One theory of Europe's rise holds that Europe's geography played an important role in its success. The Middle East, India and China are all ringed by mountains and oceans but, once past these outer barriers, are nearly flat. By contrast, the Pyrenees, Alps, Apennines, Carpathians and other mountain ranges run through Europe, and the continent is also divided by several seas. This gave Europe some degree of protection from the peril of Central Asian invaders. Before the era of firearms, these nomads were militarily superior to the agricultural states on the periphery of the Eurasian continent and, as they broke out into the plains of northern India or the valleys of China, were all but unstoppable. These invasions were often devastating. The Golden Age of Islam was ended by the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258. India and China were subject to periodic invasions, and Russia spent a couple of centuries under the Mongol-Tatar yoke. Central and western Europe, logistically more distant from the Central Asian heartland, proved less vulnerable to these threats.

Geography contributed to important geopolitical differences. For most of their histories, China, India, and the Middle East were each unified under a single dominant power that expanded until it reached the surrounding mountains and deserts. In 1600 the Ottoman Empire controlled almost all the Middle East, the Ming dynasty ruled China, and the Mughal Empire held sway over India. By contrast, Europe was almost always divided into a number of warring states. Pan-European empires, with the notable exception of the Roman Empire, tended to collapse soon after they arose. Another doubtless important geographic factor in the rise of Europe was the Mediterranean Sea, which, for millennia, had functioned as a maritime superhighway fostering the exchange of goods, people, ideas and inventions.

Nearly all the agricultural civilizations have been heavily constrained by their environments. Productivity remained low, and climatic changes easily instigated boom-and-bust cycles that brought about civilizations' rise and fall. By about 1500, however, there was a qualitative change in world history. Technological advance and the wealth generated by trade gradually brought about a widening of possibilities.

Many have also argued that Europe's institutions allowed it to expand, that property rights and free-market economics were stronger than elsewhere due to an ideal of freedom peculiar to Europe. In recent years, however, scholars such as Kenneth Pomeranz have challenged this view. Europe's maritime expansion unsurprisingly—given the continent's geography—was largely the work of its Atlantic states: Portugal, Spain, England, France, and the Netherlands. Initially the Portuguese and Spanish Empires were the predominant conquerors and sources of influence, and their union resulted in the Iberian Union, the first global empire on which the "sun never set". Soon the more northern English, French and Dutch began to dominate the Atlantic. In a series of wars fought in the 17th and 18th centuries, culminating with the Napoleonic Wars, Britain emerged as the new world power.

### Regional developments

Persia came under the rule of the Safavid Empire in 1501, succeeded by the Afsharid Empire in 1736, the Zand Empire in 1751, and the Qajar Empire in 1794. Areas to the north and east in Central Asia were held by Uzbeks and Pashtuns. The Ottoman Empire, after taking Constantinople in 1453, quickly gained control of the Middle East, the Balkans, and most of North Africa.

In Africa, this period saw a decline in many civilizations and an advancement in others. The Swahili Coast declined after coming under the Portuguese Empire and later the Omani Empire. In west Africa, the Songhai Empire fell to the Moroccans in 1591 when they invaded with guns. The South African Kingdom of Zimbabwe gave way to smaller kingdoms such as Mutapa, Butua, and Rozvi. Ethiopia suffered from the 1531 invasion from neighbouring Muslim Adal Sultanate, and in 1769 entered the Zemene Mesafint (Age of Princes) during which the Emperor became a figurehead and the country was ruled by warlords, though the royal line later would recover under Emperor Tewodros II. The Ajuran Sultanate, in the Horn of Africa, began to decline in the 17th century, succeeded by the Geledi Sultanate. Other civilizations in Africa advanced during this period. The Oyo Empire experienced its golden age, as did the Kingdom of Benin. The Ashanti Empire rose to power in what is modern day Ghana in 1670. The Kingdom of Kongo also thrived during this period. European exploration of Africa reached its zenith at this time.

In China, the Ming gave way in 1644 to the Qing, the last Chinese imperial dynasty, which would rule until 1912. Japan experienced its Azuchi–Momoyama period (1568–1603), followed by the Edo period (1603–1868). The Korean Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) ruled throughout this period, successfully repelling 16th- and 17th-century invasions from Japan and China. Japan and China were significantly affected during this period by expanded maritime trade with Europe, particularly the Portuguese in Japan. During the Edo period, Japan would pursue isolationist policies, to eliminate foreign influences.

On the Indian subcontinent, the Delhi Sultanate and the Deccan sultanates would give way, beginning in the 16th century, to the Mughal Empire. Starting in the northwest, the Mughal Empire would by the late 17th century come to rule the entire subcontinent, except for the southernmost Indian provinces, which would remain independent. Against the Muslim Mughal Empire, the Hindu Maratha Empire was founded on the west coast in 1674, gradually gaining territory—a majority of present-day India—from the Mughals over several decades, particularly in the Mughal–Maratha Wars (1681–1701). The Maratha Empire would in 1818 fall under the control of the British East India Company, with all former Maratha and Mughal authority devolving in 1858 to the British Raj.

In 1511 the Portuguese overthrew the Malacca Sultanate in present-day Malaysia and Indonesian Sumatra. The Portuguese held this important trading territory (and the valuable associated navigational strait) until overthrown by the Dutch in 1641. The Johor Sultanate, centred on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, became the dominant trading power in the region. European colonization expanded with the Dutch in the Netherlands East Indies, the Portuguese in East Timor, and the Spanish in the Philippines. Into the 19th century, European expansion would affect the whole of Southeast Asia, with the British in Myanmar and Malaysia and the French in Indochina. Only Thailand would successfully resist colonization.

The Pacific islands of Oceania would also be affected by European contact, starting with the circumnavigational voyage of Ferdinand Magellan, who landed on the Marianas and other islands in 1521. Also notable were the voyages (1642–44) of Abel Tasman to present-day Australia, New Zealand and nearby islands, and the voyages (1768–1779) of Captain James Cook, who made the first recorded European contact with Hawaii. Britain would found its first colony on Australia in 1788.

In the Americas, the western European powers vigorously colonized the newly discovered continents, largely displacing the indigenous populations, and destroying the advanced civilizations of the Aztecs and the Incas. Spain, Portugal, Britain, and France all made extensive territorial claims, and undertook large-scale settlement, including the importation of large numbers of African slaves. Portugal claimed Brazil. Spain claimed the rest of South America, Mesoamerica, and southern North America. Britain colonized the east coast of North America, and France colonized the central region of North America. Russia made incursions onto the northwest coast of North America, with a first colony in present-day Alaska in 1784, and the outpost of Fort Ross in present-day California in 1812. In 1762, in the midst of the Seven Years' War, France secretly ceded most of its North American claims to Spain in the Treaty of Fontainebleau. Thirteen of the British colonies declared independence as the United States of America in 1776, ratified by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, ending the American Revolutionary War. Napoleon Bonaparte won France’s claims back from Spain in the Napoleonic Wars in 1800, but sold them to the United States in 1803 as the Louisiana Purchase.

In Russia, Ivan the Terrible was crowned in 1547 as the first Tsar of Russia, and by annexing the Turkic khanates in the east, transformed Russia into a regional power. The countries of western Europe, while expanding prodigiously through technological advancement and colonial conquest, competed with each other economically and militarily in a state of almost constant war. Often the wars had a religious dimension, either Catholic versus Protestant, or (primarily in eastern Europe) Christian versus Muslim. Wars of particular note include the Thirty Years' War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years' War, and the French Revolutionary Wars. Napoleon came to power in France in 1799, an event foreshadowing the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century.

## Late Modern period

### 1750–1914

Main articles: 18th century, 19th century, Long nineteenth century
Further information: Age of Imperialism, Age of Revolution, Diplomatic Revolution, Industrial Revolution

The Scientific Revolution changed humanity's understanding of the world and led to the Industrial Revolution, a major transformation of the world's economies. The Scientific Revolution in the 17th century had had little immediate effect on industrial technology; only in the second half of the 18th century did scientific advances begin to be applied substantially to practical invention. The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain and used new modes of production—the factory, mass production, and mechanization—to manufacture a wide array of goods faster and using less labour than previously required. The Age of Enlightenment also led to the beginnings of modern democracy in the late-18th century American and French Revolutions. Democracy and republicanism would grow to have a profound effect on world events and on quality of life.

After Europeans had achieved influence and control over the Americas, imperial activities turned to the lands of Asia and Oceania. In the 19th century the European states had social and technological advantage over Eastern lands. Britain gained control of the Indian subcontinent, Egypt and the Malay Peninsula; the French took Indochina; while the Dutch cemented their control over the Dutch East Indies. The British also colonized Australia, New Zealand and South Africa with large numbers of British colonists emigrating to these colonies. Russia colonized large pre-agricultural areas of Siberia. In the late 19th century, the European powers divided the remaining areas of Africa. Within Europe, economic and military challenges created a system of nation states, and ethno-linguistic groupings began to identify themselves as distinctive nations with aspirations for cultural and political autonomy. This nationalism would become important to peoples across the world in the 20th century.

During the Second Industrial Revolution, the world economy became reliant on coal as a fuel, as new methods of transport, such as railways and steamships, effectively shrank the world. Meanwhile, industrial pollution and environmental damage, present since the discovery of fire and the beginning of civilization, accelerated drastically.

The advantages that Europe had developed by the mid-18th century were two: an entrepreneurial culture, and the wealth generated by the Atlantic trade (including the African slave trade). By the late 16th century, silver from the Americas accounted for the Spanish empire's wealth. The profits of the slave trade and of West Indian plantations amounted to 5% of the British economy at the time of the Industrial Revolution. While some historians conclude that, in 1750, labour productivity in the most developed regions of China was still on a par with that of Europe's Atlantic economy, other historians like Angus Maddison hold that the per-capita productivity of western Europe had by the late Middle Ages surpassed that of all other regions.

### 1914–1945

Main articles: 20th century
Further information: Interwar period, Roaring Twenties, Great Depression

The 20th century opened with Europe at an apex of wealth and power, and with much of the world under its direct colonial control or its indirect domination. Much of the rest of the world was influenced by heavily Europeanized nations: the United States and Japan. As the century unfolded, however, the global system dominated by rival powers was subjected to severe strains, and ultimately seemed to yield to a more fluid structure of independent nations organized on Western models.

This transformation was catalysed by wars of unparalleled scope and devastation. World War I destroyed many of Europe's empires and monarchies, and weakened Britain and France. In its aftermath, powerful ideologies arose. The Russian Revolution of 1917 created the first communist state, while the 1920s and 1930s saw militaristic fascist dictatorships gain control in Italy, Germany, Spain and elsewhere.

Ongoing national rivalries, exacerbated by the economic turmoil of the Great Depression, helped precipitate World War II. The militaristic dictatorships of Europe and Japan pursued an ultimately doomed course of imperialist expansionism, in the course of which Nazi Germany orchestrated the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust and of millions of Poles, Russians, and other Slavs, while Imperial Japan murdered millions of Chinese. An earlier, World War I model of genocide had been provided by Turkey's mass murder of Armenians. The World War II defeat of the Axis Powers opened the way for the advance of communism into Central Europe, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, China, North Vietnam, and North Korea.

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