The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe

by James Belich

Overview

A groundbreaking history of how the Black Death unleashed revolutionary change across the medieval world and ushered in the modern age

In 1346, a catastrophic plague beset Europe and its neighbours. The Black Death was a human tragedy that abruptly halved entire populations and caused untold suffering, but it also brought about a cultural and economic renewal on a scale never before witnessed. The World the Plague Made is a panoramic history of how the bubonic plague revolutionized labour, trade, and technology and set the stage for Europe’s global expansion.

James Belich takes readers across centuries and continents to shed new light on one of history’s greatest paradoxes. Why did Europe’s dramatic rise begin in the wake of the Black Death? Belich shows how plague doubled the per capita endowment of everything even as it decimated the population. Many more people had disposable incomes. Demand grew for silks, sugar, spices, furs, gold, and slaves. Europe expanded to satisfy that demand—and plague provided the means. Labour scarcity drove more use of waterpower, wind power, and gunpowder. Technologies like water-powered blast furnaces, heavily gunned galleons, and musketry were fast-tracked by plague. A new “crew culture” of “disposable males” emerged to man the guns and galleons.

Setting the rise of Western Europe in global context, Belich demonstrates how the mighty empires of the Middle East and Russia also flourished after the plague, and how European expansion was deeply entangled with the Chinese and other peoples throughout the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691219165
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	06/25/2024
Pages:	640
Sales rank:	279,414
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

James Belich is the Beit Professor of Global and Imperial History at the University of Oxford and cofounder of the Oxford Centre for Global History. His books include Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Anglo-World, 1783–1939.

Table of Contents

List of Maps ix

Introduction: Plague Paradoxes 1

Prologue: Globalising Europe 7

I Rethinking Globalisation and Divergence 7

II The Equine Revolution 12

III Super-Crops, Super-Crafts 15

IV Resetting Europe 19

Part I A Plague of Mysteries 27

1 The Black Death and the Plague Era 33

I The Black Death 33

II Bringing in the Dead 37

III Where Was the Black Death? 45

IV The Plague Era 47

2 The Origins and Dynamics of the Black Death 53

I Plague Prehistory 53

II Mongols and Marmots versus Gerbils and Camels 56

III Rats on Trial 63

IV Immunity and Resistance 73

V Plagues Endings 76

Part II Plague and Expansionism in Western Europe 79

3 A Golden Age? Economy and Society in the Early Plague Era 83

I A Plagued Economy 86

II A Golden Age for Whom? 94

III Mass Consumption? 98

4 Expansive Trades 106

I The Northern Hunt Trades 107

II Southern Trades: Sugar, Spice, Silk-and Slaves 113

5 Plague Revolutions? 123

I A Late Medieval Industrial Revolution? 123

II The Print Revolution and the Scribal Transition 129

III A Gunpowder Revolution? 132

6 Expansive Labour: Castas, Race Mothers, and Disposable Males 140

I Race and Reproduction 141

II Race Mothers and the Settler Divergence 149

III Disposable Males: European "Crew Culture" 158

7 States, Interstates, and the European Expansion Kit 170

I Warfare States 170

II Transnationalisms, Networks, and Shape-Shifters 174

III The Western European Expansion Kit 180

Part III Western Europe or West Eurasia? 189

8 Plague's Impact in the Muslim South 191

I The Mamluk Empire and the Maghreb 193

II Ottoman Heartlands: The Balkans and Anatolia 202

III Greater Persia 207

IV Shared Revolutions? 210

9 Early Modern Ming-Muslim Globalisation 220

I Early Modern Muslim Mercantile Expansion 222

II Chinese Outreach 229

III Joint Ventures in Southeast Asia 234

10 Entwined Empires: The Genoese Paradox and Iberian Expansion 241

I Genoese Imperialisms 243

II Genoese Plague Responses: The Origin of Modern Capitalism? 248

III Iberian Entanglements: Portugal 255

IV Iberian Entanglements: Spain 260

11 The Ottomans and the Great Diversion 268

I The Recovery State 268

II Ottoman Urban Colonisation and Slavery 275

III The Ottomans and Expansion beyond West Eurasia 282

12 The Dutch Puzzle and the Mobilisation of Eastern Europe 289

I Plague and Empire in Eastern Europe 292

II Plague, Institutions, and the Rise of Holland 300

III Dutch Expansion 308

IV Amsterdam's Empires 312

13 Muslim Colonial Empires 319

I The Moroccan Colonial Empire 320

II The Omani Colonial Empire 323

III The Mughals: A West Eurasian Colonial Empire? 327

14 Plague and Russian Expansion 341

I Novgorod: "Rome of the Waterways" 344

II Muscovite Expansion to 1500 348

III Hybridity and Empire on the Steppes 353

IV Trade, Settlement, and Hunting in Siberia, 1390-1800 358

V Russia, China, and Global Hunting 367

Part IV Expansion, Industry, and Empire 373

15 Empire? What Empire? European Expansion to 1800 377

I Africans 380

II The Americas 385

III India 392

IV China's World 399

V Entwined Empires 403

16 Plaguing Britain 408

I England's Plague Era 410

II Peculiar Institutions? 414

III London's Empires 419

IV Peripheral Peripheries? 424

V Transposing Lancashire and Bengal 434

Conclusion 441

Acknowledgments 449

Notes 451

Index 609

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A truly major piece of historical writing and revisionism.”—Linda Colley, author of The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World

“A work of magisterial ambition, magisterially fulfilled.”—Tom Holland, author of Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind

“The great plague of the fourteenth century reshaped human existence. Drawing on a wealth of sources, James Belich shows brilliantly that the globe was reshaped by the effects of the terrible disease, from economic relations to the rise of Europe to hegemony. This is global history at its most serious and thrilling.”—Rana Mitter, University of Oxford

“In this learned and lucid book, Belich turns his remarkable powers of synthesis and insight to the long shadow of the Black Death. He traces its rippling effects in every direction, finding impacts on developments as disparate as naval warfare and printing, all in support of a provocative central thesis linking the plague disaster to the rise of modern Europe.”—J. R. McNeill, coauthor of The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene since 1945

Editorial Reviews

07/04/2022

In this sweeping study, University of Oxford historian Belich (Replenishing the Earth) contends that the bubonic plague was crucial to the emergence of the modern world and the rise of western Europe as an economic and political power. Although the Black Death claimed a 50% morality rate in many places, it also led to a “plague boom” from 1350 to 1500, as the same natural resources were now essentially available to half as many people. The collapse of the feudal system because of labor shortages and urban migration led to a sharp increase in real wages, the transformation of the desperate poor “from a large majority into a large minority,” and a building spike in London, Paris, and other metropolises. Belich also examines the plague’s effects on Russia, the Ottoman Empire, eastern Europe, and the Muslim world, yet as he travels nearly five centuries from the emergence of the Black Death in the Black Sea/Volga region in 1345, his arguments for its central role in the establishment of racial castes in Latin America, the development of Siberia, and other far-flung matters grow more tenuous. Readers may also find themselves overwhelmed by the deluge of economic and other data. Still, this is a provocative and impressive history of an earth-shattering event. (July)

Publishers Weekly

A Spectator Book of the Year

"A Prospect Best History Book of the Year"

A FiveBooks Best Economic History Book of the Year

Finalist for the PROSE Award in European History, Association of American Publishers

"Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize"

"An Australian Most Anticipated Book"

From the Publisher

06/01/2022

Historian Belich (Replenishing the Earth) makes the bold claim in this sweeping work of revisionist history that the Black Death, often called the bubonic plague, was the catalyst for Europe's dramatic rise to greatness. The Beit Professor of Imperial and Commonwealth History at the University of Oxford uses an approach he terms an "intensive global history." He posits that the successive strikes or waves of the bubonic plague in 1346 and beyond were the main drivers behind technological innovation, industrial advances, and massively expanded trade networks that enriched Europe materially and culturally. For example, the ripple effects of massive depopulation had immediate impact upon survivors, as disposable income doubled and labor shortages created an increased demand for goods and services that societies rushed to meet. Based upon an exhaustive array of sources and the latest information and scientific data on the infection, Belich asks the essential question: "Why Europe?" He explores the answer within a global framework that reveals how the empires of the Middle East and Russia also reaped benefits from the plague's terrible scythe. VERDICT Densely detailed but rich in erudition and startling new insights, this fresh look at the impact of the Black Death upon world history is a must for history lovers and plague afficionados alike.—Peggy Kurkowski

Library Journal