The General Crisis - Global Patterns

Global Patterns

Many historians have argued the 17th century was an era of crisis. Many other historians have rejected the idea. Today there are historians who promote the crisis model, arguing it provides an invaluable insight into the warfare, politics, economics, and even art. The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) focused attention on the massive horrors that wars could bring to entire populations. The 1640s in particular saw more state breakdowns around the world than any previous or subsequent period. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the largest state in Europe, temporarily disappeared. In addition, there were secessions and upheavals in several parts of the Spanish empire, the world's first global empire. In Britain the entire Stuart monarchy (England, Scotland, Ireland, and its North American colonies) rebelled. Political insurgency and a spate of popular revolts seldom equaled shook the foundations of most states in Europe and Asia. More wars took place around the world in the mid-17th century than in almost any other period of recorded history. The crises spread far beyond Europe—for example Ming China, the most populous state in the world, collapsed.

China's Ming dynasty and Japan's Tokugawa shogunate had radically different economic, social, and political systems. However they experienced a series of crises during the mid-17th century that were at once interrelated and strikingly similar to those occurring in other parts of the world at the same time. Wakeman argues that the crisis which destroyed the Ming dynasty was partly a result of the climatic change as well as and China's already significant involvement in the developing world economy. Bureaucratic dishonesty worsened the problem. Moreover, the Qing dynasty's success in dealing with the crisis made it more difficult for it to consider alternative responses when confronted with severe challenges from the West in the 19th century.