The Year 1000 When Explorers Connect The World And Globalization Began Sparknotes

The book, “The Year 1000, When Explorers Connected the World - and Globalization Began” by Valerie Hansen, is a Yale professor that teaches Chinese and world history. In the first three chapters, Hansen talks about the exploration of the land including the Vikings, and the silk road, and how they came to be. With all of the trading, craftsmen had to figure out how to get their product to many different places, “As always the case, geography played a role. The dense jungle of Panama posed a major geographical obstacle for those going overland.” (Hansen, 76), Although going on the sea route was not much easier considering the rivers could be rough. Next, she talks about slavery and the rich people at the time and how that contributed to the

Readers will not feel confused after reading the book, but, as they are reading along some information will get lost in translation and hard to interpret. Compared to the book The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millenlium, An Englishman’s World by Robert Lacey, Hansen’s version focuses on more dates, trade, and geogrpahicla locations, Lacey seems to focus more on the health, cloths, and food. Hansen gives a more in-depth book about how country’s and cities acted with one another, including trade and war. With this said there is not much about the inside life of a person in each time frame Hansen talks about, this includes anything having to deals with medicine, and clothing, along with what food people ate. This the book brings to the table the fact that it gets a point across easily and will not overwhelm the reader with to much information, while still allowing them to fully understand and feel they know what they are talking about. The audience will feel confident with what they are talking about after reading the book because it is easy to understand and put into a person’s own words.

Christiane Bird the author of the book The Sultan’s Shadow: One Family’s Rule at the Crossroads of East and West, which was recently published. She gives a brief overview of the book and what is itg is about. “Time and Time again,” Bird states, “Hansen shows, leaders converted their peoples to the religion of a more powerful neighbor in the hopes of gaining commercial and political advantages.” (Bird, 4). Bird gives some more background into Hansen as well explaing that Hansen spent 30 years researching the book for it to the best it could be. Bird states that the work is “highly impressive, deeply researched, lively, and imaginative work.” (Bird, 6). With this Bird suggest the book to readers that are interested about the year 1000 for a good and very researched