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226 PERIOD 2 • The Early Modern World, 1450–1750

®
AP But this European-oriented and Christian state had also become an Asian
CONTINUITY AND power, bumping up against China, India, Persia, and the Ottoman Empire. It was on
CHANGE the front lines of the encounter between Christendom and the world of Islam. This
How did Russia’s straddling of Asia and Europe was the source of a long-standing identity problem
westward expansion
change Russia? What that has troubled educated Russians for 300 years. Was Russia a backward European
continuities remained country, destined to follow the lead of more highly developed Western European
despite these changes? societies? Or was it different, uniquely Slavic or even Asian, shaped by its Mongol
®
AP legacy and its status as an Asian power? It is a question that Russians have not com-
ARGUMENTATION pletely answered even in the twenty-first century. Either way, the very size of that
What evidence from the empire, bordering on virtually all of the great agrarian civilizations of outer Eurasia,
text might you use to turned Russia, like many empires before it, into a highly militarized state, “a soci-
support the claim that ety organized for continuous war,” according to one scholar. It also reinforced
19
Russia was a “society
organized for continuous the highly autocratic character of the Russian Empire because such a huge state
war”? arguably required a powerful monarchy to hold its vast domains and highly diverse
peoples together.
®
AP Clearly, the Russians had created an empire, similar to those of Western
COMPARISON Europe in terms of conquest, settlement, exploitation, religious conversion, and
Compare the processes
by which the Russians feelings of superiority. Nonetheless, the Russians had acquired their empire under
and Western Europeans different circumstances than did the Western Europeans. The Spanish and the British
built their empires. had conquered and colonized the New World, an ocean away and wholly unknown
to them before 1492. They acquired those empires only after establishing themselves
as distinct European states. The Russians, on the other hand, absorbed adjacent
territories, and they did so at the same time that a modern Russian state was tak-
ing shape. “The British had an empire,” wrote historian Geoffrey Hosking. “Russia
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was an empire.” Perhaps this helps explain the unique longevity of the Russian
Empire. Whereas the Spanish, Portuguese, and British colonies in the Americas
long ago achieved independence, the Russian Empire remained intact until the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. So thorough was Russian colonization that
Siberia and much of the steppes remain still an integral part of the Russian state.

Into Central Asia: The Making of a Chinese Empire

AP ® EXAM TIP Among the most significant of the expanding civilizations of the early modern
As you read this section, era was that of China. That civilization had been greatly disrupted by a century of
compare the expansion Mongol rule, and its population had been sharply reduced by the plague. During
of land-based empires the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), however, China recovered. In the early decades of
such as Russia and
China to the expansion that dynasty, the Chinese attempted to eliminate all signs of foreign rule, discourag-
of sea-based empires ing the use of Mongol names and dress while promoting Confucian learning and
such as Spain in the traditional gender roles. Emperor Yongle (YAHNG-leh) (r. 1402–1424) sponsored
Americas.
an enormous Encyclopedia of some 11,000 volumes that sought to summarize or
compile all previous writing on history, geography, philosophy, ethics, government,
and more. Yongle also relocated the capital to Beijing, ordered the building of a
magnificent imperial residence known as the Forbidden City, and constructed the
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