History of Asia

• 1. Introduction

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  The history of Asia begins beside rivers. Along the fertile valleys of the Indus, the Yellow River, the Tigris and Euphrates, and the Nile, the world's first civilizations took root because the land was conducive to agriculture. Asia is home to two of the world's oldest continuous civilizations, Chinese and Indian, and to the Mesopotamian, Ancient Egyptian, and Indus Valley cultures that grew alongside them. These early peoples shared similarities and likely traded technologies and ideas, including mathematics and the wheel. Other inventions, such as writing, cities, states, and empires, probably arose independently in more than one place. From this scattered beginning came an immense and tangled story. How did mounted nomads on the open steppe reshape settled empires from China to Persia? Why did so many of the world's great religions, from Judaism and Islam to Hinduism and Buddhism, emerge on this single continent? What bound a Han silk merchant, a Baghdad scholar, and a Korean printer into one connected world? The answers reach across thousands of years and a dozen civilizations, each with its own golden age and its own collapse.

• 2. Riders Of The Steppe

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  The Eurasian steppe had long been inhabited by nomads who, from the central steppes, could reach every part of the Asian continent. Their reach was vast, but it was not total. The dense forests and tundra of Siberia in the north stayed beyond them, and those areas remained very sparsely populated.

  Natural barriers shaped where the riders could and could not go. The Caucasus, the Himalayas, the Karakum, and the Gobi Desert formed walls of rock and sand against the steppe nomads. Urban centers were more advanced in technology and culture, yet they could do little militarily against the mounted hordes that came out of the grass.

  The lowlands held a hidden defense of their own. They did not contain enough open grassland to support a large horse-mounted force. So the nomads who conquered states in West Asia were soon forced to adopt local customs, swallowed by the very places they had seized. This same tension would echo for centuries, from the Great Wall built to keep raiders out to the steppe leaders who later ruled as emperors over the people they had defeated.

• 3. Cradles In The Mud

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  An archaeologist named Rakesh Tewari reported new carbon-14 datings at Lahuradewa in India, ranging between 9000 and 8000 BC and associated with rice. That makes Lahuradewa the earliest Neolithic site in all of South Asia. Settled life appeared on the subcontinent along the western margins of the Indus River alluvium roughly nine thousand years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BC.

  Gobekli Tepe, in the Anatolia of Turkey, dates to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic between about 9500 and 8000 BC. Its large circular structures rest on massive stone pillars, the world's oldest known megaliths. Far to the east, the Beifudi site near Yixian in Hebei Province, China, holds relics contemporaneous with the Cishan and Xinglongwa cultures of about 8000 to 7000 BC. Its excavated area covers more than 1,200 square meters and fills an archaeological gap between two northern Chinese cultures.

  Around 5500 BC the Halafian culture appeared across modern Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Anatolia, and northern Mesopotamia, built on dryland agriculture. In southern Mesopotamia lay the alluvial plains of Sumer and Elam, where little rain fell and irrigation systems became necessary. The Ubaid culture flourished there from 5500 BC, and the age of metal was about to follow.

• 4. Bronze And The Vedas

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  The Chalcolithic period began about 4500 BC, and the Bronze Age followed around 3500 BC, replacing the older Neolithic cultures. The Indus Valley civilization, dated 3300 to 1300 BC with a mature period from 2600 to 1900 BC, centered on the western part of the Indian subcontinent. An early form of Hinduism is thought to have been performed there. Its great cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, showed a high level of town planning and arts before destruction came around 1700 BC, possibly through natural disasters such as flooding.

  The Vedic period in India lasted from roughly 1500 to 500 BC. During this time the Sanskrit language developed and the Vedas were written, epic hymns telling tales of gods and wars. This formed the basis of the Vedic religion, which would sophisticate and develop into Hinduism.

  China and Vietnam were also centers of metalworking. The first bronze drums, the Dong Son drums, have been found in and around the Red River Delta regions of Vietnam and southern China, tied to the prehistoric Dong Son Culture. In Ban Chiang, Thailand, bronze artifacts date to 2100 BC, and in Nyaunggan, Burma, bronze tools have been excavated alongside ceramics and stone, though their dating remains broad between 3500 and 500 BC.

• 5. Empires Of The Iron Age

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  The Achaemenid Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great, ruled a vast area stretching from Greece to the Indus River near the Aral Sea during the 6th to 4th centuries BC. Persian politics combined tolerance for other cultures, a highly centralized government, and significant infrastructure. Under Darius I the territories were integrated, a bureaucracy developed, nobility were given military positions, tax collection was organized, and spies ensured the loyalty of regional officials. The faith of this Persia was Zoroastrianism, developed by the philosopher Zoroaster, which introduced an early monotheism along with spiritual salvation through personal moral action, an end time, and judgment leading to a heaven or hell.

  Alexander the Great conquered this dynasty in the 4th century BC, creating a brief Hellenistic period. He could not set stability, and after his death his empire fragmented into successor states, including the Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic Kingdom under Ptolemy I Soter. Persia itself broke into weaker dynasties, passed through the Parthian Empire, and was finally reconsolidated into the Sassanid Empire, known as the second Persian Empire.

  In India by 600 BC the subcontinent was politically fragmented into numerous states, including the sixteen major Mahajanapadas. In 327 BC Alexander advanced through Bactria and crossed into northwestern India, campaigning across the Punjab to the Beas River. His army refused to march farther east into the Ganges basin, forcing his retreat and weakening Greek control. Shortly afterward, around 321 BC, Chandragupta Maurya, with the counsel of Chanakya, overthrew the Nanda dynasty and established the Maurya Empire. It became one of the world's largest empires of its time, stretching to the Himalayas, into what is now Assam, and west beyond modern Pakistan into Balochistan and Afghanistan. His grandson Ashoka, who ruled from 268 to 232 BC, expanded control across almost the entire subcontinent, then converted to Buddhism and promoted dhamma, non-violence, and public welfare through his famous edicts.

• 6. Dynasties Of Heaven

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  Since 1029 BC the Zhou dynasty had existed in China, and it would continue until 258 BC. The Zhou used a feudal system, giving power to local nobility and relying on their loyalty, which made the central government decentralized and weak. To hold its position it created the Mandate of Heaven, which marked an emperor as divinely chosen to rule. The Zhou discouraged the human sacrifice of earlier eras, unified the Chinese language, and encouraged settlers into the Yangtze River valley. As stability declined after 500 BC, philosophical movements rose with the life of Confucius, whose writings on respect for elders and the state would later flourish, while Laozi's Taoism brought the ideas of yin and yang.

  Qin Shi Huang overthrew the last Zhou emperor and established the Qin dynasty, the first ruling dynasty of Imperial China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. He abolished the feudal system and appointed a bureaucracy that relied on him alone. His reign brought a uniform tax system, a national census, regulated road and cart widths, standard measurements, standard coinage, and an official language, and began the construction of the Great Wall of China to keep out nomadic raiders. Infamous for tyranny, he oppressed Confucians and promoted Legalism, the belief that people were inherently evil and needed a strong, forceful government.

  The Han dynasty, from 206 BC to 220 AD, was the second imperial dynasty and is considered a golden age. China's majority ethnic group still calls itself the Han Chinese. Emperor Wu of Han established a peace comparable to the Pax Romana and promoted Confucianism, building shrines to Confucius and teaching his philosophy to all who entered the bureaucracy. An examination system selected scholars of high merit, and the resulting imperial bureaucracy would last over 2,000 years. The Han traded silk along the Silk Road with the Persian Empire and the Romans. Decline came by 100 AD through corruption and heavy taxation, and the Taoist Yellow Turban Rebellion of 184 weakened the government. Disease and invaders killed up to half the population and ended the Han by 220, opening three centuries of chaos known as the Six Dynasties.

• 7. The Crescent And The Caliphs

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  In the 5th century the Middle East was split into small, weakened states, the most prominent being the Sassanian Empire and the Byzantine Empire in Anatolia. The two fought continually, reflecting the long rivalry between the Roman and Persian empires across the previous five hundred years. Their fighting in the Byzantine-Sasanian War of 602 to 628 left both severely weakened. Meanwhile the nomadic Bedouin tribes of the Arabian desert saw tribal stabilization, expanding trade, and growing familiarity with Abrahamic religions.

  Into this opening came Islam under Muhammad in Medina. The Rashidun army, led by Caliphs and commanders such as Khalid ibn al-Walid, swept through much of the Middle East, taking Syria and Egypt from the Byzantines and engulfing Persia. The succeeding Caliphates, the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and later the Seljuq Empire, unified much of the Middle East and North Africa and fostered a broader Arab cultural identity.

  The Islamic Golden Age followed, marked by developments in architecture, the preservation of classical knowledge, and innovations in medicine, algebra, geometry, astronomy, and anatomy. Scholars in centers such as Baghdad and Cairo transmitted knowledge that later influenced Western Europe. In the mid-11th century the Seljuq Turks arrived from Central Asia and conquered Persia, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and parts of Anatolia. Then in 1099 the knights of the First Crusade captured Jerusalem and founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which survived until 1187 when Saladin retook the city. Smaller crusader states endured until 1291. In the early 13th century the Mongol Empire sacked Baghdad in the Siege of Baghdad in 1258, then was halted by the Mamluk Sultanate at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260.

• 8. Kingdoms Of The Far East

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  The three Kingdoms of Korea, Goguryeo in the north, Baekje in the southwest, and Silla in the southeast, acted as a bridge of cultures between China and Japan. Prince Shotoku of Japan was taught by two teachers, one from Baekje and one from Goguryeo. Baekje reached its heyday in the 5th century with its capital at Seoul, founding overseas colonies in Liaodong, China, and Kyushu, Japan. Goguryeo was the strongest, expanding north under King Gwanggaeto and south under his son King Jangsu, who occupied Seoul and moved the capital to Pyeongyang. After the Tang dynasty betrayed Silla and invaded, the people of fallen Baekje and Goguryeo helped Silla beat China and unify the peninsula, an event that helped Korean people unite mentally. Later the general Wang Geon founded Goryeo, from which the name Korea derives, and produced the first metal-type printed book, Jikji, and the Tripitaka Koreana of 81,258 books, now a UNESCO world heritage.

  Japan's medieval history began with the Asuka period, from around 600 to 710. In 603 Prince Shotoku of the Yamato dynasty began political and cultural changes, issuing the Seventeen-article constitution in 604 to centralize power under the emperor, titled tenno. The Nara period, from about 710 to 794, saw Chinese-style writing and architecture culminate, and after the smallpox epidemic of 735 to 737 Buddhism became the state religion. In the Heian period, from 794 to 1185, imperial power declined and court culture flourished, producing The Tale of Genji, written by the lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu. Provincial warriors rose into the samurai class with the katana and the code of bushido. The Genpei War of the early 1180s ended with the Minamoto clan establishing a shogunate at Kamakura, beginning the Kamakura period in 1185.

  The Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous land empire in history, was founded by Genghis Khan in 1206. In 1271 Kublai Khan declared himself Emperor of China and established the Yuan dynasty, ruling from a new capital at Khanbaliq, modern Beijing. His wife Chabi advised him to respect and treat the Chinese well to make them easier to rule. The Black Death, which would later ravage Western Europe, began in Asia and wiped out large populations in China in 1331. In the south, Jayavarman II declared himself chakravartin, or universal ruler, in 802, and the Khmer Empire dominated mainland Southeast Asia until the 15th century, building the monumental architecture at Angkor.