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1. DefinitionThe term Columbian Exchange describes the process of interaction between Europe and the Americas that took place following the voyages of discovery of Christopher Columbus (1492), the extent of which went unnoticed by contemporaries. In 1972, the American historian Alfred W. Crosby Jr. showed that Columbus' expeditions to the New World had just as profound an impact in biological as in cultural respects, if not greater [2]; cf. [1].Since then, the expression Columbian Exchange has been used to describe the enormous and diverse exchange between…

1. Concept and terminologyViolence (Latin violentia, “violence,” “impetuosity”;  vis, “hostile force”) is the use of force to inflict injury or damage or to intimidate. To use force is to exercise physical power to overcome resistance (although from the perspective of the victim, it represents an infringement of or interference with the physical integrity of the person). Modern discussions among scholars of social and cultural science thus treat specific acts of violence in the sense of Latin vis. There is increasing criticism of extensions of the concept of violence…

1. Concept and introductionAny narrative giving an account of factual or fictional events as a contribution to the construction and cohesion of a nation may be called a national myth. Every ruling organization produces “consolidated histories” (“fundierende Geschichten”) [13. 52] attesting to its heroic origins and a past marked by tough challenges successfully passed, and prophesying a great future. In this way, power structures acquire the appearance of a higher necessity, and rulers and ruled become integrated into a unique and…

1. Introduction 1.1. Concept The global exchange of knowledge is a diffuse concept that first and foremost depends on what is meant by knowledge. Exchange relations can affect very different spheres, from scientific knowledge of high specialization to the practical everyday knowledge of a broad population. Global exchange of knowledge thus includes several complexes of exchange and transfer, including technology transfer and industrial espionage, which cannot always be clearly distinguish…

1. DefinitionsThe term  world system is used to denote major historical units of an economic and political nature, with geographical and historical boundaries. They need not embrace the entire world in the geographical sense, but represent a self-contained world with a special self-perception. Clearly several “worlds” of this sort can exist side by side (e.g the Atlantic world, Chinese world, Southern African world). The system constitutes a self-contained unit – that is, a zone or large reg…

1. Concept While in the German language there is a verbal noun Zivilisierung in addition to the term  Zivilisation (Civilization), other languages comprise only the latter term (e.g. Engl. civilis/zation, French civilisation). The program of civilization stands for the evolution of “barbaric” or “savage” societies, progressing to a condition of a more advanced “civilized quality”, especially in a world history of successive civilizations; it also refers to the result of this development in the sense of culture, humanity, Bildung, urbanity and so on. Zivilisierung, on the other…

1. Forcible territorial acquisition Conquest (French  conquête, German  Eroberung), in international law and general usage alike, denotes the forcible acquisition of territory from another state by warlike means [7]. The forcible acquisition of territory by organized communities is one of the most constant and frequent phenomena of history, not only in Europe, but also on other continents. Voluntary transfers of territory were the exception rather than the rule. Conquests of enemy territory accompanied and followed wars throughout early modern history [5. 49–72] (Example…

1. Definition and state of researchIn discussing the  Newe Zeitungen – print media that emerged around 1480 in German-speaking Europe – we must distinguish between the contemporary generic term and the use of the phrase as a title. The former refers to non-periodic news sheets of the 16th and 17th centuries, which appeared with news of specific events. The noun Zeitung (“Newspaper”) was already in use in the sense of news or tidings;  Newe Zeitung thus means “new news” or “new tidings.” In generic usage, it is not absolutely necessary for the title to contain th…

1. IntroductionThe Latin American Wars of Independence (1808/10-1826/30) belong to the context of the revolutions and liberation movements of the 18th and 19th centuries [17]. They grew out of an interaction between the growing alienation of members of colonial elites born in the Americas - American Spanish and American Portuguese (the so-called Creoles) - from their ancestral European countries, the development of a patriotism focused on the local region in the colonies rather than on the distant “homeland,” and …

1. Europe 1.1. Definition and international lawIn the early modern period, the term tribute (from Latin  tributum; “contribution,” “levy”) was used to describe a variety of situations, reflecting its heterogeneous use in classical Latin sources. Zedler’s Universal-Lexicon (1745) cites first the general meaning  Anlage, Schatzung, Land-Steuer (outlay, taxation, land tax), then a reference to the origin of the term in Roman constitutional law: tribute as levy imposed on Roman citizens primarily to meet the demands of an emergency [1]. The term was also common in its bi…

1. Overview 1.1. Separate lines of developmentThe formation of states that took place in Central and Western Europe [3] and was summarized as an ideal-typical prototype by Max Weber (State; Authority) [1] was completed in its major variants by the end of the 19th century at the latest, but it became the model for the construction of many subsequent states. But there were formations of states and sovereignties outside Europe parallel to early modern Europe, which followed the logic of corresponding social and religious proce…

1. ConceptLike “Orient” (cf. Orientalism), the term “Occident” shifted in meaning in the course of early modern global cultural contact and encounters between the so-called Christian West and Islam, and of European expansionism and colonialism, from a geographical term without political freight to a value category of cultural politics. Derived from the Latin  occidens [ sol] (“setting [sun]”), it originally denoted the evening and those regions lying towards evening, that is in the west or a westerly direction, in accordance with the Roman co…

1. Introduction During their expansion drive (Expansionism) into the New World the Europeans did not discover an uninhabited continent. They came across unknown civilizations which seemed to be different not only from those of any peoples then known, but were also socially, culturally and linguistically divergent among themselves and were located in regions that were characterized by varying climates as well as geographical features (American peoples, indigenous).To the Europeans all of them appeared to be equally alien, weird, even barbaric (Barbarian). The t…

1. Concept and meaningThe term “world perception(s)” is used here to describe how people in the period of European expansionism that began in the late 15th century conceived of the world, and in particular how they apprehended it and integrated new and strange discoveries into the context of what they already knew. “World perception” is thus an artificial analytical term, and unlike “world view” (Latin  imago mundi), it was not used by people at the time. Whereas “world view” denotes a comprehensive concept of the world based on philosophical and scientific learning [32], and whe…

1. Introduction 1.1. Early modern and modern colonialismAnalysing early modern colonialism within the context of European expansionism is of necessity an attempt to highlight the differences between early modern colonialism and its successors of the late nineteenth and early 20th centuries. As a rule the term colonialism tends to be more widely associated with its varieties of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.This kind of colonialism, especially its late 19th and early 20th century brands, differed from the early modern type as a result of the increa…

1. Definition The term Haitian Revolution refers to the 1791 slave revolt in the French colony of Saint-Domingue and the events that followed it (Slavery). After the American Revolution of 1776, it was the second such uprising in the New World, and its outcome, in 1804, was the foundation of the first independent modern state in Latin America [6]. The constitution of this state, called Haiti, by former slaves had a fateful impact on the direction of the Latin American wars of independence.Hans-Joachim König 2. Racial conflicts Ever since the Treaty of Rijswijk (1697), whic…

1. ConceptThe “lines of amity,” in the context of European overseas expansion and the emergence of the Atlantic world, were demarcation lines between Europe and overseas. In 1634, Richelieu wrote in a memorandum of “lines of the amities and alliances” (French  lignes des amitiés et des alliances) [4. 187]. A better name, however, would have been “lines of enmity,” as they dated from the 16th and 17th centuries when far-reaching legal disputes over the status of overseas regions were played out by force or the threat of force. English te…

1. ConceptThe Spanish term conquista in general means “conquest,” and in particular, in the context of early modern history (specifically of European expansionism), the violent conquest of vast territories and empires in the Americas by the Spaniards, the so-called Conquistadors, who followed immediately in the wake of the discovery of America (America, Discovery of) in 1492, to some extent even overlapping with it. Conquista in general use (especially outside Spain) is associated with the thirst fo…

1. Definition and backgroundThe Requerimiento (Spanish “demand,” “admonition”) was a document composed by the Spanish crown jurist Juan López de Palacios Rubios in 1513 on the legal status of Spanish rule in America.The violent Conquista of the newly discovered territories in the New World by the Spanish conquistadors and the brutal treatment of the Indigenous population (the so-called Indios) by the first colonists on the one hand and the Spanish claim to be the bearers of civilization (Civilization process) on the other tri…

1. Introduction The term “free-trade imperialism” was coined to reflect the fact that European expansionism in the first half of the 19th century was motivated by the desire not so much to acquire colonies as to establish informal control on the basis of superior production of goods in the Age of Industrialization, the resultant financial muscle, and modern naval and military technology. This policy of informal control was pursued outside Europe by Great Britain in particular, but also by other European Great Powers.The most important instruments were trade agreements (whic…