The Russian Empire 1450–1801

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

the global nexus of trade that developed between about 1400 and 1800 was specific
and new, a“global early modern”that extended from China to Europe, from
northern Africa to New World colonies. In Bentley’s view, this global world was
united at all the levels of historical change postulated by the great FrenchAnnaliste
historian Fernand Braudel—the level oflongue duréeby shared climate and by
interlinked trade routes, old and new; the level of institutions by merchant
networks, religious systems, and institutions of empire and diplomacy; the quotidian
level by peaceful and violent interactions through trade, travel, conquest, and war.
Bentley’s vision of the global early modern joins a lively discussion about the
nature of early modern globalization. Scholars debate when the world truly became
global, and have generally privileged European overseas empires in these discus-
sions. As Matthew Romaniello notes, some argue for 1571 when Spain gained the
capacity to send its American products (most notably, silver) all the way to Europe
through the founding of its Manila colony; some point to Europeans’introduction
of powerful caravels that exponentially multiplied the amount of goods that could
be shipped expeditiously and cheaply. But others argue that much earlier global
interchange had been possible through long-established overland and regional
maritime trade patterns, and even in early modern centuries all agree that the
Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and English overseas networks joined into local trade,
shipping, and merchant networks as they built their colonial empires and global
shipping patterns.
Romaniello, John F. Richards, and others remind us that the early modern global
economy of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries was also interlinked by increas-
ingly powerful political formations from empires to federations and nascent
nations. Global economy went hand in hand with state building and empire
building. Early modern states all regulated trade to maximize state income, protecting
domestic industry, collecting specie from foreign imports. They used the profits to
build the armies they needed to defend their interests abroad or expand territory for
productive resources or trade depots. Muscovy, as we will see, joined in these early
modern patterns, with protectionistfiscal policy and aggressive military reform.
The costs of the global economy were high, and Russia did not escape them. As
noted, indigenous peoples fell to epidemic wherever imperial conquest ventured,
and the production of consumer goods and specie from Asian and American
markets was built on the backs of slavery. In Russia enserfment, instituted to
support the army, brought such human suffering. Devastating environmental
impact resulted from many colonial economies as well as from demographic
growth. In the Russian empire, David Moon notes that East Slavic peasants
routinely deforested to clearfields for farming or to obtain wood for construction
andfire; in the center, most provinces were becoming deforested in the eighteenth
century, and as East Slavic farmers moved into the steppe prairie lands, they burned
steppe grasses and plowed the earth, eventually causing soil erosion by the nine-
teenth century.
As the leading countries of Europe waxed in global influence from the sixteenth
to eighteenth centuries, Russia rose with them. Eventually a“great divergence”(in
industrialization and global power) arose between Europe and Eurasian empires;


Land, People, and Global Context 33
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