Theme 1: The Asian-Centered World

The Eurocentric narrative that Europe "discovered" and dominated the world is wrong for 1750. The wealthiest, most populous, and most technologically sophisticated empires in 1750 were Asian. European wealth depended on access to Asian goods (tea, silk, porcelain, spices) and on silver extracted from the Americas. The dramatic reversal in the next 150 years requires you to first appreciate that it was not inevitable.