Asian Imperial Expansion, 1400 to 1800

During the early modern era, empires around the world expanded their territories, through military conquest and commercial penetration. The story of European expansion into maritime Asia and the new world is most commonly known, but at the same time, Asian empires like Timur in Central Eurasia, the Russians, the Ming and Qing, as well as the Mughals, Ottomans, and Safavids, also grew. What common forces produced these concurrent expansions, and what were their environmental, political, and social consequences? This lecture surveys early modern global expansion by comparing the East Asian, Central Eurasian, and European imperial formations.