Early modern period

The early modern period is a historical period that is part of the modern period based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There is no exact date that marks the beginning or end of the period and its timeline may vary depending on the area of history being studied. In general, the early modern period is considered to have lasted from the 16th to the 19th centuries (about 1500–1800). In a European context, it is defined as the period following the Middle Ages and preceding the advent of modernity, sometimes defined as the "late modern period". In the context of global history, the early modern period is often used even in contexts where there is no equivalent "medieval" period.

Various events and historical transitions have been proposed as the start of the early modern period, including the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the start of the Renaissance, the end of the Crusades and the beginning of the Age of Discovery. Its end is often marked by the French Revolution, and sometimes also the American Revolution or Napoleon's rise to power.^[1]^[2]

Historians in recent decades have argued that, from a worldwide standpoint, the most important feature of the early modern period was its spreading globalizing character.^[3] New economies and institutions emerged, becoming more sophisticated and globally articulated over the course of the period. The early modern period also included the rise of the dominance of mercantilism as an economic theory. Other notable trends of the period include the development of experimental science, increasingly rapid technological progress, secularized civic politics, accelerated travel due to improvements in mapping and ship design, and the emergence of nation states.

Definition[edit]

The early modern period is a subdivision of the most recent of the three major periods of European history: antiquity, the Middle Ages and the modern period. The term "early modern" was first proposed by medieval historian Lynn Thorndike in his 1926 work A Short History of Civilization as a broader alternative to the Renaissance. It was first picked up within the field of economic history during the 1940s and 1950s and gradually spread to other historians in the following decades and became widely known among scholars during the 1990s.^[4]

Southeast Asia[edit]

At the start of the modern era, the Spice Route between India and China crossed Majapahit, an archipelagic empire based on the island of Java. It was the last of the major Hindu empires of Maritime Southeast Asia and is considered one of the greatest states in Indonesian history.^[46] Its influence extended to states in Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, Borneo and eastern Indonesia, but the effectiveness of their exact influence is the subject of debate.^[47]^[48] Majapahit found itself unable to control the rising power of the Sultanate of Malacca, which grew to stretch from Muslim Malay settlements of Phuket, Satun and Pattani (bordering Ayutthaya) in the north to Sumatra in the southwest. The Portuguese invaded its capital in 1511 and in 1528 the Sultanate of Johor was established by a Malaccan prince to succeed Malacca.

The ancient of the solar system (the planets circle the Earth) was replaced by the heliocentric model (Earth and other planets circle the Sun). Known as the Copernican Revolution, the 1543 publication of Nicolaus Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, which was influenced by Mu'ayyad al-Din al-Urdi and was based on detailed astronomical observations) is often used to mark the beginning of the Scientific Revolution. Heliocentrism was resisted by the Catholic Church because it contradicted the Bible; the Catholic Inquisition imprisoned Galileo Galilei (sometimes called the "father of modern science" for his many empirical discoveries) for promoting this theory.

geocentric model

Armed with detailed observations from , Johannes Kepler found the idea that the planets moved in ellipses rather than on perfect celestial spheres, publishing Kepler's laws of planetary motion. The commonly held idea that the fixed stars are mounted on a large sphere was replaced by the idea that they are distant suns. Astrology and astronomy began to separate into different disciplines, with only astronomy using scientific methods. Telescope technology improved tremendously as did the study of optics.

Tycho Brahe

were demonstrated to be incorrect, and were replaced by Newton's laws of motion and Newton's law of universal gravitation. The 1687 publication of Isaac Newton's 1687 Principia is often used to mark the end of the Scientific Revolution.

Aristotle's laws of motion

A revival of (denied by Aristotle) and corpuscularianism began to undermine the classical elements. Both 8th century Islamic experimenter Jabir ibn Hayyan and 17th century Christian experimenter Robert Boyle have been described as the founders of modern chemistry, both worked as alchemists before the fields were clearly separated. Boyle argued for corpuscularism in the 1661 book The Sceptical Chymist, and discovered Boyle's Law of gases. Phlogiston theory was refuted by empirical discovery of conservation of mass which, among other discoveries, lead to the chemical revolution. The discovery of modern chemical elements would not begin until the 19th century in the late modern period, followed by experimental confirmation of atoms.

atomism

Finally overcoming the difficulties of using human corpses to perform dissections, the anatomical descriptions of the 2nd century were updated by the 1543 publication of De humani corporis fabrica by Andreas Vesalius, considered a foundational text of modern medicine and early modern anatomy. The 1628 work De Motu Cordis by William Harvey was a major advance in the understanding of the circulatory system.

Galen

The field of began with the invention of the microscope and the first observations of microorganisms, famously by Anton van Leeuwenhoek in the 1670s and probably also by Athanasius Kircher in the 1640s. Though microorganisms were (correctly) proposed as the cause of infectious diseases as soon as they were discovered, this theory was generally dismissed. Though scientific investigation undermined humorism in medicine, miasma theory remained dominant throughout the early modern period. The germ theory of disease was not widely accepted until the 1880s, in the late modern period.

microbiology

Modern scientific was founded by Pierre Fauchard.

dentistry

The was invented in the 1770s and popularized by Edward Jenner in the 1790s, though it was unclear at the time how it worked.

smallpox vaccine

published the first modern taxonomy in 1735, replacing Aristotle's Great Chain of Being. Binomial nomenclature was used in publications by Gaspard Bauhin as early as 1622, and by Linnaeus in 1753.

Carl Linnaeus

The ancient theory of remained dominant throughout the early modern period, but the history of evolutionary thought includes some who questioned the strictest form of this dogma. The idea of partial common descent was famously promoted by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. Evolution was not fully articulated and accepted until the 19th century.

spontaneous generation

Modern began to take shape mainly in the 18th and 19th centuries. Early on, Nicolas Steno proposed the law of superposition in 1669, and various writers in the history of geology began to question the notion derived from the Christian Bible that the Earth was only about 6,000 years old and relatively unchanged over time. Steno and James Hutton are often considered founders of the modern field. The study of fossils and rock types became systematic.

geology

Early developments in the during this era include gradual teasing out of the relationships between electricity, magnetism, and lightning; development of the electrostatic generator and Leyden jar for storage; and the discoveries of ferromagnetism, "electrics" and "non-electrics" (conductors and insulators). The now-obsolete fluid theory of electricity was developed to explain electrical phenomena in terms of "vitreous" and "resinous" fluids (later recognized as positive and negative electrical charges). Electrochemistry was born with the discovery of voltaic electricity (which would provide a power source for later experimentation) and pyroelectricity. Around 1784, Coulomb's law mathematically described the strength of electrical attraction. The discovery that electricity could cause muscles to contract was termed "Galvanic electricity".

history of electromagnetism

Death in the early modern period[edit]

Mortality rates[edit]

During the early modern period, thorough and accurate global data on mortality rates is limited for a number of reasons including disparities in medical practices and views on the dead. However, there still remains data from European countries that still holds valuable information on the mortality rates of infants during this era. In his book Life Under Pressure: Mortality and Living Standards in Europe and Asia, 1700–1900, Tommy Bengtsson provides adequate information pertaining to the data of infant mortality rates in European countries as well as provide necessary contextual influences on these mortality rates.^[111]

Cuisine in the early modern world

Early modern warfare

Periodization

Price revolution

Proto-globalization

; Jalal, Ayesha (2003). Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy (2nd ed.). Routledge. ISBN 0-415-30787-2.

Bose, Sugata

fordham.edu

Internet Modern History Sourcebook

from the introduction to the pioneering Cambridge Modern History (1902–1912)