A History of the World (92 page)

1
 John Julius Norwich,
The Popes: A History
(Chatto & Windus 2011), ch. V.

2
 John Keay,
China: A History
, p. 231.

3
 Ian Morris,
Why the West Rules – For Now
(Profile Books 2010), p. 337.

4
 Norman Davies,
Europe: A History
(Oxford University Press 1996), pp. 222ff.

5
 Quoted by Jonathan Lyons,
The House of Wisdom
(Bloomsbury 2010), p. 15.

6
 Lyons, op. cit., ch. 3.

7
 Lyons, op. cit. My account of al-Khwarizmi and Averroës rests heavily on his book.

8
 Jonathan Clements,
The Vikings
(Robinson 2005), p. 103.

9
 Geoffrey Hosking,
Russia and the Russians
(Allen Lane 2001), p. 31.

10
 Clements, op. cit., pp. 12–13.

11
 Jonathan Shepard in Maureen Perrie (ed.),
The Cambridge History of Russia
, vol. 1, pp. 54–6.

12
 Diarmaid MacCulloch,
A History of Christianity
(Allen Lane 2009), p. 507.

13
 A.J.H. Goodwin, ‘The Medieval Empire of Ghana’,
The South African Archaeological Bulletin
, vol. 12, no. 47, pp. 108–12.

14
 Nehemia Levtzion,
Ancient Ghana and Mali
(Holmes & Meier 1980), pp. 125–6.

15
 See Felix Chami and Paul Msemwa, ‘A New Look at Culture and Trade on the Azanian Coast’,
Current Anthropology
, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 673ff.

16
 Al-Umari, quoted in
Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History
, ed. and tr. J.F.P. Hopkins (Cambridge University Press 1981), pp. 266–8.

17
 Ibn Battuta, quoted in Hopkins (ed.),
Corpus
, pp. 283ff.

18
 J.D. Fage,
A History of West Africa
(Cambridge University Press 1969), p. 24.

19
 See for instance, John Reader,
Africa: A Biography of the Continent
(Penguin 1997), who also provided my source for the difficulty of arousing camels.

20
 Ibn Khaldun, quoted in Roland Oliver (ed.),
The Cambridge History of Africa
, vol. 3 (Cambridge University Press 1977), p. 379.

21
 Oliver (ed.),
The Cambridge History of Africa
, vol. 3, p. 391.

22
 Felipe Fernandez-Armesto,
Civilisations
(Pan Books 2000), p. 98.

23
 Ivan Hrbek in Oliver (ed.),
The Cambridge History of Africa
, vol. 3, p. 90.

24
 Charles Hercules Read, quoted in Neil MacGregor,
A History of the World in 100 Objects
(Allen Lane 2010), p. 501.

25
 See John Man,
Genghis Khan: Life, Death, and Resurrection
(Bantam 2004), p. 34.

26
 Man, op. cit., pp. 15–17.

27
 John Keay,
China: A History
, p. 357.

28
 See Orlando Figes,
Natasha’s Dance
(Penguin 2002), ch. 6.

29
 Morris, op. cit., p. 392.

30
 Man, op. cit., p. 137.

31
 Richard Humble,
Marco Polo
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1975), p. 209.

32
 Frances Wood,
Did Marco Polo Go to China?
(Secker & Warburg 1995).

33
 Bamber Gascoigne,
The Dynasties of China
(Robinson 2003), p. 128.

34
 William J. Bernstein,
A Splendid Exchange
(Grove Press 2008), p. 75.

35
 Wood, op. cit., p. 104.

36
 Wood, op. cit., p. 43.

37
 See John Julius Norwich,
A History of Venice
(Penguin Books 1983), pp. 215–16.

38
 See Morris, op. cit., pp. 396–8.

39
 See Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson,
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty
(Profile Books 2012), pp. 100–10.

40
 See John Julius Norwich,
Byzantium: The Decline and Fall
(Viking Books 1995), p. 171, and Judith Herrin,
Byzantium
(Penguin Books 2007), p. 250.

41
 John Julius Norwich,
Byzantium: The Early Centuries
(Penguin Books 1990), p. 25.

42
 John Julius Norwich,
Byzantium: Decline and Fall
(Viking 1995), p. 182; and the previous quotation is from Nicetas Choniates, in Norwich,
Decline and Fall
, p. 179.

43
 Zhou Jiahua, ‘Gunpowder and Firearms’, in
Ancient China’s Technology and Science
(Chinese Academy of Sciences, Foreign Language Press 2009), pp. 185–9.

44
 See Judith Herrin,
Byzantium
(Allen Lane 2007), p. 142.

45
 See Norwich,
Byzantium: The Apogee
, p. 323, and Norwich,
Byzantium: Decline and Fall
, p. 420.

46
 Norwich,
Byzantium: Decline and Fall
, p. 429.

47
 
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
(Oxford World Classics, 2008).

48
 See David Gilmour,
The Pursuit of Italy
(Penguin 2011), ch. 3.

49
 For a good explanation of this, and the workshop system, see Patricia Lee Rubin and Alison Wright,
Renaissance Florence: The Art of the 1470s
(National Gallery Publications 1999).

50
 Giorgio Vasari,
Lives of the Artists
(Penguin 1965), p. 233.

51
 See the essays by Martin Kemp and Jane Roberts in
Leonardo da Vinci
(South Bank Publications/Hayward Gallery 1989).

1
 James Wilson,
The Earth Shall Weep
(Grove Press 1998), p. 20, working from Russell Thornton’s figures.

2
 Wilson, op. cit., p. 21.

3
 Hugh Thomas,
Rivers of Gold
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2003), p. 63 and notes on Toscanelli.

4
 Thomas, op. cit., p. 124.

5
 See Norman Cantor,
The Sacred Chain
(HarperCollins 1995), p. 190.

6
 See the opening chapters of Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson,
Why Nations Fail
(Profile 2012), which follow this argument in greater detail.

7
 Ian Morris,
Why the West Rules – For Now
(Profile Books 2010), pp. 460–3.

8
 David Landes,
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations
(Harvard 1998), ch. 12.

9
 Gerhard Benecke,
Society and Politics in Germany, 1500–1750
(Routledge & Kegan Paul 1974).

10
 For Gutenberg, see Stephan Fussel,
Gutenberg and the Impact of Printing
(Ashgate 2005), tr. Douglas Martin; for Luther and printing, see Thomas Robisheaux,
Rural Society and the Search for Order in Early Modern Germany
(Duke University Press 1989).

11
 Diarmaid MacCulloch,
Reformation
(Allen Lane 2003), p. 152.

12
 Malcolm Pasley,
Germany: A Companion Guide to Social Studies
(Methuen 1972).

13
 MacCulloch,
Reformation
, p. 160.

14
 These figures come from Robert C. Davis, ‘Counting Slaves on the Barbary Coast’,
Past and Present
, vol. 172, August 2001, and from his
Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters
(Palgrave Macmillan 2003).

15
 Quoted in Donald Ostrowski, ‘The Growth of Muscovy’, in Maureen Perrie (ed.),
The Cambridge History of Russia
, vol. 1 (2006), p. 227.

16
 Yuri Semyonov,
The Conquest of Siberia
, tr. E.W. Dickes (George Routledge & Sons 1944), p. 11.

17
 R.G. Skrynnikov, quoted in Alan Wood,
Russia’s Frozen Frontier
(Bloomsbury Academic 2011), p. 28.

18
 Neil Rhodes (ed.) and others,
King James VI and I: Selected Writings
(Ashgate 2003).

19
 Antony Farrington (ed.),
The English Factory in Japan
, vol. 1 (British Library 1991), p. 296.

20
 See R.H.P. Mason and J.G. Caiger,
A History of Japan
(Tuttle Publishing 1997), and John Whitney Hall (ed.),
The Cambridge History of Japan
, vol. 4 (1991).

21
 Morris, op. cit., p. 451.

22
 Quoted in Farrington, op. cit., p. 75.

23
 Larry Neal,
The Rise of Financial Capitalism
(Cambridge University Press 1990), ch. 1.

24
 For comparative prices, see Mike Dash,
Tulipomania
(Victor Gollancz 1999), pp. 123, 183. In this section I have relied heavily on his book and that of Anne Goldgar,
Tulipmania
(University of Chicago Press 2007). For a general view of the Dutch Republic at the time, no book has bettered Simon Schama’s
The Embarrassment of Riches
(Knopf 1987).

25
 Dash, op. cit., p. 134.

1
 James Reston Jr,
Galileo: A Life
(Cassell 1994), p. 69.

2
 Reston, op. cit., p. 74.

3
 J.L. Heilbron,
Galileo
(Oxford University Press 2010), p. 358.

4
 Quoted in Lisa Jardine,
Going Dutch
(HarperPress 2008), pp. 56–7.

5
 N.A.M. Rodger,
The Command of the Ocean
(Allen Lane 2004), p. 151.

6
 See David Starkey,
Crown and Country
(HarperPress 2010), p. 394.

7
 Heilbron, op. cit., p. 258.

8
 John Keay,
India: A History
, p. 251.

9
 Keay, op. cit., p. 322.

10
 See Roger Pearson,
Voltaire Almighty
(Bloomsbury 2007), ch. 13.

11
 Pearson, op. cit.

12
 These stories can all be found in Roger Pearson, op. cit. – a splendid introduction to Voltaire’s world as well as his life.

13
 Christopher Clark,
Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia
(Penguin Books 2006), ch. 7; the description of Katte’s execution comes from the same source.

14
 Clark, op. cit., ch. 8.

15
 John Ferling,
Independence: The Struggle to Set America Free
(Bloomsbury Press 2011), ch. 2.

16
 Figures from the Economic History Association/ Jenny B. Wahl.

17
 Ronald Takaki,
A Different Mirror
(Little, Brown 1993), p. 31.

18
 Takaki, op. cit., p. 45.

19
 Takaki, op. cit., p. 45.

20
 See Thomas Keneally,
Australians: Origins to Eureka
(Allen & Unwin 2010), p. 127.

21
 Jared Diamond,
Guns, Germs and Steel
(Vintage Books 2005), p. 155.

22
 Watkin Tench,
A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson
(published on the Internet by Project Gutenberg).

23
 Keneally, op. cit., p. 18.

24
 
Captain Cook’s Voyages
, ed. Glyndwr Williams (Folio Society 1997), p. 125.

25
 See Richard Gott,
Britain’s Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt
(Verso 2011), p. 84.

26
 Richard Holmes,
The Age of Wonder
(HarperPress 2008), p. 37.

27
 V. Gatrell,
The Hanging Tree
(Oxford University Press 1994).

28
 Gott, op. cit., p. 85.

29
 See Keith Smith, ‘Bennelong among His People’,
Aboriginal History
, 33, p. 10.

30
 Tench, op. cit.

31
 C.L.R. James,
The Black Jacobins
(Vintage Books 1989), ch. IV. Though this was written by the West Indian Marxist in 1938 and contains some now outdated material about the brilliance of Lenin and the coming African revolution, it remains the essential and superbly researched account of the Haiti revolt.

32
 Marcus Rediker,
The Slave Ship
( John Murray 2007), p. 5.

33
 Matthew White,
Atrocitology
(Canongate 2011), p. 161.

34
 James, op. cit., p. 140.

35
 James, op. cit., p. 197.

36
 Arthur Allen,
Vaccine
(W.W. Norton 2007), pp. 36–49.

37
 For these and other figures see Allan Chase,
Magic Shots
(W. Morrow, New York 1983), pp. 42–9.

38
 Chase, op. cit.

1
 J.R. McNeill,
Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World
(W.W. Norton 2000), ch. 3.

2
 McNeill, op. cit., ch. 5.

3
 Joyce Appleby,
The Relentless Revolution
(W.W. Norton 2011), p. 60.

4
 J. Steven Watson,
The Reign of George III
(Oxford University Press 1960), p. 33.

5
 Appleby, op. cit., pp. 80–3, and Joel Mokyr,
The Enlightened Economy: Britain and the Industrial Revolution 1700–1850
(Yale University Press 2009), ch. 1.

6
 Mokyr, op. cit., ch. 1.

7
 Christopher Hill,
The Century of Revolution, 1602–1715
(Edinburgh University Press 1961), p. 32; also quoted in Appleby, p. 40.

8
 Arthur Herman,
The Scottish Enlightenment
(Fourth Estate 2001), p. 142.

9
 John Lord,
Capital and Steam Power
(London 1923), ch. IV.

10
 See Herman, op. cit., p. 306.

11
 By Lord, op. cit.

12
 See Jenny Uglow’s brilliant book about them,
The Lunar Men
(Faber and Faber 2002).

13
 Mokyr, op. cit., ch. 7.

14
 See Gregory L. Freeze,
Russia: A History
(Oxford University Press 1997), p. 201.

15
 This story is brilliantly told in Orlando Figes,
Natasha’s Dance
(Allen Lane 2002), pp. 96ff. It is an indispensable guide to the time, and unlike so many books of Russian history, very well written.

16
 Rosamund Bartlett,
Tolstoy: A Russian Life
(Profile Books 2010), ch. 6.

17
 Figes, op. cit., p. 238.

18
 See A.N. Wilson,
Tolstoy
(Hamish Hamilton 1988), p. 334.

19
 Carl Sandburg,
Abraham Lincoln: The War Years
, vol. IV (Harcourt, Brace, New York 1939), pp. 176–7.

20
 Sandburg, op. cit., vol. III, p. 441.

21
 Herbert Mitgang,
Abraham Lincoln: A Press Portrait
(Quadrangle 1971), pp. 476–8.

22
 See James M. McPherson,
Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War
(Oxford University Press 1996), part II, ch. 5.

23
 Esmond Wright,
An Empire for Liberty
(Blackwell 1995), pp. 472–3.

24
 Wright, op. cit., p. 466.

25
 David Reynolds,
America: Empire of Liberty
(Allen Lane 2009), ch. 6.

26
 Quoted in McPherson, op. cit., ch. 1.

27
 Eugene D. Genovese,
The Political Economy of Slavery
(New York 1965), quoted in McPherson, op. cit., ch. 1.

28
 H.W. Brands,
American Colossus
(Random House 2010), pp. 145–6.

29
 These details are taken from Mark Ravina,
The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori
( John Wiley 2004), the first and last chapters.

30
 A good account of Samurai history can be found in Charles J. Dunn,
Everyday Life in Traditional Japan
(Tuttle Publishing 1969), ch. 2.

31
 Aizawa Yashushi, quoted by Andrew Gordon,
A Modern History of Japan
(Oxford University Press 2009), pp. 20–1.

32
 Ravina, op. cit., ch. 1.

33
 Ravina, op. cit., p. 196.

34
 See Stephen Turnbull,
Samurai: The World of the Warrior
(Osprey Publishing 2003), ch. 9.

35
 Adam Hochschild,
King Leopold’s Ghost
(Macmillan 1999), p. 233. My account relies both on this book and on John Reader’s
Africa: A Biography of the Continent
(Penguin Books 1998).

36
 The accounts of Lin and the early stages of the First Opium War are taken from W. Travis Hanes III and Frank Sanello,
The Opium Wars
(Sourcebooks 2002); and Jack Beeching,
The Chinese Opium Wars
(Harvest/HBJ 1975).

37
 See John Keay,
China: A History
(HarperPress 2009), pp. 446–9.

38
 Barbara Tuchman,
The Zimmermann Telegram
(Viking Press 1958), p. 107.

39
 Tuchman, op. cit., p. 108.

40
 Tuchman, op. cit., pp. 183–7.

41
 Tuchman, op. cit., p. 200.

42
 See Ronald W. Clark,
Lenin: The Man behind the Mask
(Faber and Faber 1998), pp. 196–210.