Free Unit Notes

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I. Empires Expand (Topic 3.1)

A. Historical setting and causes of expansion

1. From about 1450 to 1750, rulers expanded large land-based empires, which controlled connected territories and many ethnic and religious groups. Governing these populations required more than winning battles.
   a. After earlier Mongol empires fragmented, competing states grew across Eurasia. Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal rulers drew on Turkic, Mongol, Persian, and Islamic political traditions.
   b. Most subjects were farmers, so control of agricultural land and peasant labor remained the foundation of imperial wealth.

2. Rulers sought farmland, labor, tribute, valuable resources, and control of trade routes. Weakened neighboring states created opportunities for conquest.

3. Gunpowder, developed in China and spread through exchange networks, strengthened armies using muskets and cannons. Cannons helped break fortified walls.
   a. The term gunpowder empires commonly refers to the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires. Russia and the Qing also used firearms to expand.
   b. Firearms required equipment, training, and supplies. They usually worked alongside cavalry, infantry, siegecraft, and skilled leadership.

4. Expensive weapons and trained soldiers favored rulers with reliable revenue. Conquest increased resources, which could finance further expansion.

5. Armed trade used military force to secure commerce, trading routes, and revenue. Forts and soldiers supported Russia’s expansion into Siberian fur-producing regions.
   a. Ottoman control of major cities and routes between Europe and Asia provided customs revenue. Safavid rulers sought income from silk and Persian Gulf trade.
   b. Land empires also used naval power. In 1622, Safavid forces cooperated with English ships to expel the Portuguese from Hormuz.

6. Weapons alone did not determine victory. Military organization, alliances, supplies, and opponents’ weaknesses also mattered.

B. Ottoman Empire

1. The Ottomans ruled from Anatolia and expanded into southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Their rulers supported Sunni Islam.

2. Mehmed II captured Constantinople in 1453, using cannons during the siege. The city became the Ottoman capital, commonly known as Istanbul.

3. Selim I conquered Syria and Egypt in 1516–1517. Ottoman control extended to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

4. Suleiman I expanded Ottoman power into Hungary during the 1500s and supported lawmaking and major building projects. Ottoman advances met Habsburg resistance in central Europe.
   a. The failed siege of Vienna in 1529 showed that strong fortifications, supply problems, and opposition could limit expansion.
   b. Ottoman subjects included Muslims, Orthodox Christians, other Christians, and Jews. Policies for managing religious diversity helped sustain the empire.

C. Safavid Empire

1. Shah Ismail I established the Safavid state in 1501 in Iran. He made Twelver Shi’a Islam the state religion, distinguishing it from neighboring Sunni states.

2. Early Safavid rulers depended on Qizilbash, tribal warriors whose independent power could threaten the shah.

3. Shah Abbas I strengthened the monarchy with gunpowder troops and soldiers and officials recruited from the Caucasus. He promoted trade and developed the capital at Isfahan.

4. Safavid authority combined Persian administrative traditions with an Islamic monarchy. Support for Shi’a scholars strengthened religious institutions as well as the shah’s legitimacy.

D. Mughal Empire

1. Babur founded the Mughal Empire after defeating the Delhi Sultanate at Panipat in 1526. Artillery and effective battlefield organization helped his victory.

2. The Mughals expanded from northern India across much of South Asia. Muslim rulers governed a population that was largely Hindu.

3. Akbar combined conquest with alliances and cooperation with Hindu elites. Aurangzeb extended Mughal territory into the Deccan, but prolonged campaigns strained resources.
   a. Akbar used marriage alliances and government appointments to incorporate Rajputs, powerful Hindu warrior elites, into imperial service.
   b. Mughal wealth rested on productive agriculture, a large taxable population, and manufacturing and trade, especially textiles. Rulers needed cooperation from local landholders.

E. Manchu expansion and the Qing

1. The Manchus, from northeast of China, established the Qing dynasty in China in 1644 after Ming rule collapsed amid rebellion and fiscal problems.
   a. The Ming had ruled since 1368. Crop failures, costly warfare, tax difficulties, and peasant rebellion weakened the dynasty before the Manchu conquest.
   b. Nurhaci united Manchu groups and developed the banner organization before the conquest. Taking Beijing in 1644 began a longer process of subduing Ming resistance.

2. Banner armies organized Manchu military power. Qing forces used cavalry, firearms, and artillery while incorporating other groups into their armies.

3. Under Kangxi, Qing rule expanded to Taiwan in 1683 and strengthened control in Mongolia. Qing forces established authority in Tibet in 1720.

4. Qing rulers governed both Chinese agricultural regions and Inner Asian territories. Their major conquest of Xinjiang under Qianlong occurred in the 1750s, just beyond this unit’s approximate endpoint.

5. The Qing combined Chinese administrative practices with distinct Manchu identity. Different frontier populations were not all governed through the same institutions used in China proper.

F. Russia and other expanding states

1. Ivan IV, a Russian tsar, conquered Kazan and Astrakhan in the 1550s, extending control along the Volga River.

2. Cossacks, frontier military groups, helped Russia expand across Siberia. Forts supported fur collection, and Indigenous communities were required to pay yasak, tribute often paid in furs.

3. Russia reached the Pacific during the 1600s. Peter the Great later strengthened the military and gained access to the Baltic Sea through war with Sweden.
   a. Eastward expansion brought resources and subjects under Russian rule, while warfare in Europe focused partly on access to ports and strategic territory.
   b. Russia’s Orthodox Christian monarchy ruled increasingly diverse Muslim, Christian, and Indigenous populations.

4. The Mexica and Inca expanded through armies, alliances, and control of subject peoples without gunpowder. European conquests in the Americas later combined weapons with Indigenous alliances and devastating disease.

G. Rivalries and limits of expansion

1. Territorial ambition, valuable trade routes, and religious disputes created conflicts between states. Religion could justify wars whose causes also included wealth and political power.

2. Ottoman–Safavid rivalry combined competition over Anatolia and Iraq with Sunni–Shi’a differences. Ottoman firearms helped defeat Safavid forces at Chaldiran in 1514.

3. Safavid–Mughal conflict centered on Kandahar, a strategic city connecting trade routes between Iran and India. Both states were Muslim-led, showing that shared religion did not prevent war.

4. Morocco defeated Songhai in 1591 with a gunpowder-equipped army seeking control of West African trade. Songhai fragmented, but Morocco struggled to maintain lasting control.
   a. At Tondibi, Moroccan firearms helped defeat Songhai’s larger forces. The conflict illustrates both the advantages of military technology and the difficulty of ruling distant conquests.

5. Ottoman and Habsburg rulers competed over Hungary and the Mediterranean. Catholic and Muslim identities helped justify the conflict, but control of territory and strategic routes also mattered.

II. Empires: Administration (Topic 3.2)

A. Centralizing authority

1. Centralization concentrates authority in the ruler and central government. A bureaucracy is a body of officials who administer laws, revenue, and government decisions.

2. Officials and professional soldiers helped rulers govern large populations and reduce dependence on powerful hereditary nobles. Salaries, training, and promotion could encourage loyalty.
   a. A professional military includes soldiers whose regular occupation is military service. Rulers could rely less on temporary forces supplied by independent nobles.
   b. Bureaucrats assessed taxes, recorded obligations, enforced decisions, and supervised provinces. Written records made resources easier to track.

3. Legitimizing power means presenting rule as rightful. Consolidating power means strengthening actual control through institutions, revenue, and force.

4. Central control remained uneven. Rulers often relied on local elites, whose cooperation helped govern distant regions but could also limit royal authority.

B. Recruiting officials and military professionals

1. The Ottoman devshirme forcibly recruited Christian boys, mainly from the Balkans, converted them to Islam, and trained them for service to the sultan.

2. Some recruits became officials; others entered the Janissaries, elite salaried infantry associated with gunpowder warfare. Recruitment outside established noble families initially strengthened the sultan’s control.
   a. Devshirme was coercive even though some recruits gained wealth and high office. Administrative advancement did not make recruitment voluntary.
   b. Over time, Janissaries developed their own political interests and could resist reforms or challenge sultans. Institutions created to strengthen rulers could later constrain them.

3. Ming and Qing rulers used civil service examinations based on Confucian learning to recruit scholar-officials. Qing rulers retained Chinese institutions while protecting Manchu military and political privileges.
   a. The scholar-gentry were educated elites associated with landownership and government service. Exams offered advancement, but wealthy families had greater access to preparation.
   b. Retaining Confucian officials helped minority Manchu rulers gain the cooperation of Han Chinese elites. Important central posts could have both Manchu and Han officeholders.
   c. The imposed queue hairstyle, with the front of the head shaved and the remaining hair braided, marked male submission to Qing rule and provoked resistance.

4. Safavid rulers used Persian administrators and ghulams, soldiers and officials often recruited through enslavement from the Caucasus, to counter powerful tribal leaders.

5. Mughal mansabdars held ranked military and administrative positions. Rank determined obligations and rewards; transferable revenue assignments helped limit permanent local power.
   a. Many received a jagir, the right to collect revenue from an assigned area, rather than permanent ownership of that territory.
   b. Mansabdars were ranked imperial officers; zamindars were local landholding and revenue intermediaries. Their roles could overlap, but the terms do not mean the same thing.

6. In Tokugawa Japan, many samurai received rice stipends and served as officials. Their income depended on their lords rather than independent control of farmland.

7. The Tokugawa shogunate, established in 1603, required daimyo, regional lords, to alternate residence between their domains and Edo. Their families remained in Edo, discouraging rebellion.
   a. Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu successively advanced Japanese unification after prolonged warfare among regional lords. Nobunaga used firearms obtained through Portuguese contact.
   b. Under alternate attendance, or sankin-kotai, travel and maintaining two households consumed daimyo resources. Family residence in Edo gave the shogun additional political leverage.
   c. The shogun held military and political authority while the emperor retained symbolic prestige. Daimyo continued to govern domains, so Tokugawa Japan combined central supervision with regional administration.

8. France used royal officials called intendants to enforce policies and supervise revenue. They helped monarchs bypass some established noble power.

9. Russia’s boyars, hereditary landowning nobles, could challenge tsars. Ivan IV used confiscation and violence against perceived rivals; Peter’s Table of Ranks (1722) later linked advancement to military and civil service.
   a. Peter promoted Western military techniques, shipbuilding, and administrative reforms. His new capital, St. Petersburg, expressed Russia’s European ambitions.
   b. In 1721, Peter replaced the independent patriarchate with a Holy Synod supervised by the state, increasing royal control over the Orthodox Church.
   c. Modernizing the army and government did not end coercion. Conscription, taxation, and serfdom, which bound many peasants to estates, supported elite and state power.

C. Religion as a source of legitimacy

1. Divine right was the claim that a monarch’s authority came from God. European rulers used it to defend strong royal power.

2. Qing emperors presented themselves as Confucian rulers with the Mandate of Heaven while also drawing on Manchu and Buddhist traditions to appeal to different subjects.

3. Askia Muhammad of Songhai supported Islam, Islamic scholars, and pilgrimage to Mecca to strengthen his standing among Muslim merchants and educated elites. Many subjects retained local religions.

4. Mexica rulers sponsored human sacrifice as a duty to the gods. Public ceremonies connected political power to cosmic order and displayed dominance over conquered peoples.

5. Inca rulers claimed descent from Inti, the sun god. State support for sun worship reinforced the emperor’s sacred authority.

D. Art and monumental architecture

1. Large buildings and royal images displayed wealth, sacred authority, and the ability to command labor and resources.

2. Versailles, Louis XIV’s palace, celebrated royal power and drew nobles into court life, increasing their dependence on royal favor.
   a. Elaborate ceremonies, royal imagery, and luxurious surroundings presented the king as the center of political life. Court attendance also reduced nobles’ time at their estates.
   b. Versailles combined legitimization, through displays of magnificence, with consolidation, through supervision and competition for royal favor.

3. Mughal mausoleums and mosques, including Shah Jahan’s Taj Mahal, displayed dynastic wealth and combined Persian, Islamic, and Indian artistic traditions.

4. The Inca sun temple at Cuzco, also called the Coricancha, connected the imperial capital to state religion and the emperor’s claimed divine ancestry.

5. Qing imperial portraits showed emperors as Confucian sovereigns, warriors, and Buddhist patrons. Different images supported authority among different populations.
   a. Imperial art is evidence of how rulers wished to be seen. It does not, by itself, prove that all subjects accepted their claims.

6. Ottoman mosques and Safavid building projects at Isfahan connected imperial power to Islamic patronage and prosperous capitals.

E. Revenue and state power

1. Taxes and tribute funded armies, officials, construction, and further conquest. Heavy demands could provoke resistance or make local collectors more powerful.

2. Ottoman tax farming, called iltizam, gave collectors the right to collect specified revenues in exchange for payments to the state. Collectors kept a share, creating incentives to extract more from taxpayers.
   a. The state gained revenue without employing a large direct collection staff. The tradeoff was dependence on intermediaries who could enrich themselves or pressure peasants.

3. Mughal zamindars were local landholders and intermediaries who collected agricultural taxes. The government relied on their local influence but risked losing revenue and authority to them.

4. Akbar’s administration assessed land and agricultural production to organize taxation. Agricultural revenue supported military and administrative officials.

5. Mexica tribute lists recorded goods owed by conquered communities, including food, cloth, and luxury products. Tribute supported the capital and ruling elites while generating resentment among subject peoples.

6. Ming reforms increasingly required taxes in silver, a form of hard currency. The late-1500s Single Whip reforms combined many tax and labor obligations into silver payments.
   a. Hard currency has value associated with its material, unlike paper currency whose acceptance depends on confidence and state authority. Silver often circulated by weight.
   b. Silver payments simplified some state collection tasks but required farmers to obtain silver, often by selling produce. This exposed them to market changes.

7. Chinese silver demand connected taxation to trade with Japan and the Americas. Changes in silver availability could make tax payments harder to meet.

8. Inca rulers used mit’a, rotating labor obligations, for state projects and services. Roads, storehouses, provincial officials, and quipu, knotted recording devices, helped organize resources.

9. Russia collected fur tribute in Siberia, while Peter introduced a head tax, assessed per taxable person, on much of the male taxpaying population.

10. Tribute expresses submission by transferring goods, labor, or wealth to a dominant ruler. It could support indirect control, as in Mexica rule over many communities, rather than uniform direct administration.

F. Absolutism and limits on monarchy

1. Absolutism is a system in which a monarch claims broad authority over government without a representative body exercising comparable control. Louis XIV is a major example.

2. Absolute rulers still faced practical limits, including local privileges, resistance, finances, and dependence on officials. A claim to unlimited authority did not create unlimited control.

3. English monarchs also sought stronger royal power, but conflict with Parliament produced a different outcome from France. The Civil War and the Glorious Revolution limited monarchy.

4. The English Bill of Rights (1689) strengthened Parliament’s role and restricted unilateral royal taxation and maintenance of a standing army in peacetime. England developed a constitutional monarchy, with royal power limited by law and institutions.

5. English constitutional limits did not establish universal democracy. Political participation remained restricted, and the settlement favored Protestants.

III. Empires: Belief Systems (Topic 3.3)

A. Causes of the Protestant Reformation

1. The Protestant Reformation divided Western Christianity as reformers challenged Catholic teachings and papal authority during the 1500s.
   a. Earlier critics, including John Wycliffe and Jan Hus, had questioned church practices and authority. Reform did not begin with Luther, but his movement spread more widely.
   b. Church wealth, clerical abuses, and disputes over authority gave religious criticism social and political appeal. Humanist interest in original texts also encouraged examination of scripture.

2. Critics opposed corruption, including the sale of church offices and abuses involving indulgences, remissions of punishment for sins. Indulgences were not official permission to commit future sins.

3. Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 challenged indulgence practices. He emphasized salvation through faith and the Bible’s authority over conflicting church traditions.
   a. Justification by faith means that a person is made right with God through faith, rather than earning salvation through religious works.
   b. Sola scriptura, or scripture alone, made the Bible the highest religious authority. This challenged the pope’s power to define Christian belief.

4. The printing press spread pamphlets and vernacular Bible translations quickly. Some rulers supported reform to gain control over religious institutions, church property, or political decisions.

B. New Protestant traditions

1. Lutheranism rejected papal supremacy and emphasized justification by faith. Local rulers supported Lutheran churches in parts of the Holy Roman Empire and northern Europe.

2. John Calvin emphasized predestination, the belief that God had already determined who would receive salvation. Reformed communities spread beyond Geneva.

3. Henry VIII broke with Rome after the pope refused to annul his marriage. The English crown became head of the Church of England; later reforms made Anglican worship and doctrine more Protestant.

4. Protestant traditions differed, but generally emphasized scripture and reduced the authority of Catholic institutions. Christianity’s shared beliefs in God, Jesus, and scripture continued across the divide.
   a. Many Protestant churches used local languages in worship, permitted clergy to marry, and recognized fewer sacraments than Catholicism. Not every Protestant group followed identical practices.
   b. Rulers sometimes closed monasteries and took church lands. Religious change therefore redistributed wealth and authority as well as changing belief.
   c. Reading scripture encouraged literacy, but Protestant reform did not eliminate patriarchy or social hierarchy.

C. Catholic reform and Christianity’s expansion

1. The Catholic Reformation, also called the Counter-Reformation, addressed abuses, strengthened clergy training, and defended Catholic authority and teaching.

2. The Council of Trent (1545–1563) reaffirmed Catholic doctrines, including the importance of faith and works, seven sacraments, and church tradition alongside scripture. It also supported institutional reform.
   a. The council upheld the importance of the clergy and Catholic teaching authority while addressing abuses and improving priestly preparation.
   b. Catholic reform renewed the existing Church rather than accepting Protestant rejection of its core institutions.

3. The Jesuits, founded by Ignatius of Loyola, promoted Catholic education and missionary activity. Church authorities also used censorship and inquisitions to enforce religious boundaries.
   a. The Index of Prohibited Books restricted works considered dangerous to Catholic belief. Inquisitions investigated and punished suspected heresy.
   b. Francis Xavier carried missionary work to parts of Asia, including Japan. Matteo Ricci learned Chinese and engaged educated elites in China.

4. Catholic missionaries expanded Christianity in the Americas and parts of Asia alongside Spanish and Portuguese imperial networks. Protestant communities spread through migration and colonial settlement.

5. Missionaries sometimes adapted teaching to local cultures. Conversion could also involve coercion, and communities sometimes blended Christian and Indigenous practices.

D. Religious and political conflict in Europe

1. Conflicts over religious authority became entangled with struggles between monarchs, nobles, and rival states.

2. The Peace of Augsburg (1555) allowed rulers of participating German territories to choose Catholicism or Lutheranism. It did not establish general individual religious freedom.

3. The Edict of Nantes (1598) granted limited rights to French Huguenots, or Protestants. Louis XIV revoked it in 1685, encouraging persecution and emigration.

4. The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) began within the Holy Roman Empire and widened into an international conflict. Catholic France opposed the Catholic Habsburgs, showing the importance of political rivalry.

5. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) ended the war and reinforced the autonomy of imperial states while recognizing Calvinism alongside Catholicism and Lutheranism within the settlement.

E. Sunni–Shi’a rivalry and imperial policy

1. Sunni and Shi’a Islam had divided long before this period over leadership after Muhammad. Ottoman–Safavid wars intensified the existing split rather than creating it.
   a. Sunni traditions accepted the legitimacy of the early caliphs and emphasized the authority of the Muslim community and established scholarship.
   b. Shi’a traditions emphasized rightful leadership through Ali and the Prophet’s family. Twelver Shi’ism, promoted by the Safavids, recognizes a succession of twelve Imams.
   c. Both traditions share central Islamic beliefs, including one God, the Qur’an, and Muhammad’s prophethood. The distinction is not belief in different gods.

2. Sunni Ottoman rulers and Shi’a Safavid shahs linked religious identity to state loyalty. Safavid promotion of Twelver Shi’ism transformed Iran’s religious landscape and sharpened rivalry with the Ottomans.
   a. Safavid rulers sponsored Shi’a scholars and institutions and used coercion against some Sunni opponents. Over time, Iran became predominantly Shi’a.
   b. Ottoman authorities persecuted some groups suspected of Safavid allegiance. Religious labels could become tests of political loyalty on both sides.

3. Ottoman authorities allowed many Christian and Jewish communities to maintain religious institutions under imperial oversight. Such accommodation involved unequal status and taxes, including jizya on eligible non-Muslim subjects.
   a. Arrangements often described as the millet system gave religious leaders roles in community affairs. Their organization developed over time and was not identical everywhere.
   b. Sultans used sharia, Islamic law, alongside kanun, regulations issued by the ruler. Imperial administration was not based on religious law alone.

4. Akbar abolished jizya, welcomed religious discussion, and appointed Hindu elites. Cooperation helped a Muslim dynasty govern a largely Hindu population.
   a. His principle of sulh-i kul, often translated as universal peace, encouraged accommodation across religious communities.
   b. His small court spiritual fellowship, often called Din-i Ilahi, drew on several traditions but attracted few followers. It did not become a mass religion or replace Hinduism and Islam.

5. Aurangzeb restored jizya in 1679 and pursued policies that alienated some Hindu and Sikh communities. Religious tensions interacted with costly warfare and regional ambitions to weaken Mughal unity.
   a. Some temple destruction and conflicts with Sikh leaders increased hostility. His government nevertheless continued to employ Hindu officials; policy and practice were not uniformly exclusionary.
   b. Maratha resistance and other regional struggles had political and economic causes as well as religious dimensions. Religious policy alone does not explain Mughal weakening.

F. Sikhism and religious interaction in South Asia

1. Guru Nanak founded Sikhism in Punjab around the late 1400s and early 1500s, in a setting shaped by Hindu and Muslim interaction, including bhakti devotion and Sufism.
   a. Bhakti traditions emphasized personal devotion to a deity; some teachers challenged caste barriers and ritual formalism.
   b. Sufism is an Islamic mystical tradition emphasizing spiritual closeness to God. Sufi teachers and devotional communities helped connect religious and cultural groups.
   c. Sikhism developed its own teachings and institutions. Describing its historical setting does not mean Sikhs simply combined two existing religions.

2. Sikhism developed as a distinct religion. It teaches devotion to one God, honest work, service, and human equality, while rejecting caste hierarchy and empty ritual.

3. Sikh teachings include karma and rebirth. The langar, a shared community meal, expresses equality across social divisions.

4. Later Gurus developed Sikh institutions and scripture. Guru Arjan compiled the Adi Granth in 1604 and was executed under the Mughal emperor Jahangir in 1606.

5. Further conflict, including the execution of Guru Tegh Bahadur under Aurangzeb, encouraged a stronger defensive military role. Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa in 1699, a disciplined community committed to Sikh practice and defense.

G. Scientific thought and changing intellectual authority

1. The Scientific Revolution of the 1500s and 1600s increased the use of observation, experiments, and mathematics to explain nature. It drew on earlier scholarship from several societies.

2. Copernicus proposed a heliocentric model with Earth orbiting the sun, challenging the established Earth-centered model. Galileo’s telescopic observations supported challenges to older astronomy.

3. Francis Bacon advocated empiricism, knowledge built from observation and evidence. Isaac Newton’s Principia (1687) explained motion and gravitation mathematically.

4. Scientific academies and printed works helped scholars share and challenge findings. Some conclusions conflicted with church authorities, but many scientists remained religious.

5. These changes helped prepare the intellectual setting for the Enlightenment. They did not immediately end religious belief or replace divine-right monarchy.

IV. Comparison in Land-Based Empires (Topic 3.4)

A. Comparing expansion and military power

1. Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal, Qing, and Russian rulers combined military force with administrative and financial resources. Their armies incorporated gunpowder without abandoning older methods such as cavalry.

2. Ottoman conquest focused heavily on strategic cities and agricultural regions, while Russian expansion into Siberia relied heavily on frontier forts and fur extraction.
   a. Constantinople illustrates siege warfare and strategic urban conquest; Siberian yasak illustrates how military occupation could support resource extraction.
   b. Both expanded imperial revenue, but their different environments and economic opportunities shaped their methods.

3. Mexica and Inca expansion demonstrates that large empires also developed without firearms. European victories in the Americas depended on alliances and disease as well as military technology.

B. Comparing administration and revenue

1. Ottoman devshirme recruitment and Chinese examinations both supplied officials for imperial government. They differed in recruitment: forced selection and conversion versus examination in Confucian learning.

2. Ottoman tax farmers and Mughal zamindars connected central rulers to local taxpayers. Both provided revenue while creating opportunities for intermediaries to gain independent power.
   a. Tax farming involved contracted revenue rights, while zamindars often possessed established local status and landholding interests. Similar functions did not make the institutions identical.

3. Ming silver taxes, Mexica goods tribute, and Inca labor obligations all supported the state but required different resources from subject populations.

4. France’s court and Russia’s service requirements constrained nobles, while Tokugawa alternate attendance constrained regional lords. Centralization used dependence and supervision as well as military force.

C. Comparing legitimacy and religious policy

1. Divine right in Europe and sacred kingship among the Inca and Mexica linked rulers to supernatural authority. Their religious traditions and rituals differed.

2. Versailles, Mughal monuments, and Qing portraits made political claims through art. Explain what each work communicated about the ruler, rather than treating it only as decoration.

3. Akbar’s accommodation and Safavid promotion of Shi’ism represent different approaches to religious diversity. Both aimed to secure authority; their effects depended on local conditions and political relationships.
   a. Accommodation could enlist local elites and reduce opposition. Enforcing a state religion could strengthen a shared ruling identity while alienating excluded groups.
   b. Neither tolerance nor coercion automatically guaranteed stability. Financial resources, succession, military pressures, and regional interests also mattered.

4. Expanded imperial and trading networks spread religions, produced cultural blending, and sometimes intensified conflict. Religion could support unity within a state while sharpening hostility toward rivals.

D. Explaining continuity, change, and historical evidence

1. Sacred authority, agricultural taxation, and reliance on elites continued from earlier periods. Wider firearm use, new religious divisions, and expanding bureaucracies changed how power operated.

2. Expansion did not produce equal outcomes everywhere. Safavid rule collapsed in the early 1700s, Mughal central authority weakened, and Qing and Russian power continued to grow.
   a. Afghan forces captured Isfahan in 1722; the Safavid dynasty formally ended in 1736. Political weakness and military pressure undermined its authority.
   b. Mughal succession struggles, Deccan warfare, regional resistance, and competition over revenue weakened central control after Aurangzeb’s death in 1707.
   c. Ottoman setbacks, including the failed siege of Vienna in 1683 and territorial losses in 1699, did not mean immediate collapse. The empire remained a major state beyond 1750.
   d. A single story of inevitable decline cannot explain all empires. Avoid projecting nineteenth-century European dominance backward onto the entire 1450–1750 period.

3. A strong comparison makes a defensible claim, identifies a shared feature or difference, and explains it with specific evidence from each empire.

4. Contextualize a policy by connecting it to a broader situation: devshirme recruitment, for example, helped Ottoman rulers govern expanding territories while limiting established elites.

5. When reading a source, explain how its author’s position, purpose, audience, and historical situation shape its account. A royal portrait promotes legitimacy; a religious reformer’s criticism reflects reform goals.
   a. A ruler’s memoir may emphasize the ruler’s skill and justify conquest. A foreign observer may misunderstand institutions or select details relevant to readers at home.
   b. An interested perspective does not make a source useless. Evaluate the claim and compare it with other evidence rather than rejecting it simply as biased.

6. Support arguments by explaining how evidence proves the claim. Versailles and alternate attendance show different ways rulers supervised elites and reduced their ability to challenge central authority.

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