16th and 17th Centuries

Africa and the Americas.

Europeans to Asia and Africa in the 1500s -- maritime trade to Asia and Africa

Spain into the Americas, to 1600 -- guns and germs from South America to New Mexico

The Portuguese in America, to 1600 -- Brazil, conquest and slavery

Latin America in the 17th Century -- including New Mexico, Texas and the Portuguese in Brazil

French, Dutch and English to America -- north from Florida, 1550 to 1700

African Empires, Slavery and Europeans: 1550 to 1700 -- empires of blacks and white intrusions

Europe

The Protestant Reformation, to 1600 -- discontent, Luther's protest and spread of the movement

Thirty Years' War -- 1618-48, origins, witches, pogroms, Peace of Westphalia

Dutch against Tradition, to 1700 -- prosperity and a modern liberal order

Stagnation and Decline in Spain -- the landed and their value dominate

England, from James to William and Mary -- from civil war to the Glorious Revolution

Russia, to 1700 -- Ivan the Terrible, Status of Women, Peter the Great

Asia

Iran, the Safavids and Ottoman Expansion -- Shia and Sunni conflict,

Ottoman Empire: Economic and Military Decline -- the Ottoman Empire

India, Mughals, Sikhs and Europeans -- India fragmented and violent

China from Ming to Qing -- integration, rebellion, conquest

Japan, 1333 to 1700 -- the economy and wars for power among landowners

Korea's Joseon Dynasty -- monarchy from the 1390s, Japan's intrusion and independence

The Indonesian Archipelago, to 1700 -- Hindus, Muslims and the Dutch

Science, Philosophy and Literature

European Literature and Science, to Galileo -- 1580 to 1642, from Shakespeare to the astronomers

René Descartes -- a "rationalist" who starts with doubt

Baruch Spinoza -- a "rationalist" among the Dutch

Hobbes, Locke and Newton -- Politics, empiricism and Newton's physics versus spiritualistic magic

More Religion

Notes on Religion in 16th Century Europe -- no admission of atheism; sensuality

Puritan Trials of Anne Hutchinson -- "a woman not fit for our society"

Japan: Religious Diversity into the 1600s -- Sects, sub-sects and restricted freedom

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