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1616: The World in Motion
The world of 1616 was a world of motion. Enormous galleons carrying silk and silver across the Pacific created the first true global economy, and the first international megacorporations were emerging as economic powers. In Europe, the deaths of Shakespeare and Cervantes marked the end of an era in literature, as the spirit of the Renaissance was giving way to new attitudes that would lead to the age of revolutions. Great changes were also taking place in East Asia, where the last native Chinese dynasty was entering its final years and Japan was beginning its long period of warrior rule. Artists there, as in many parts of the world, were rethinking their connections to ancient traditions and experimenting with new directions. Women everywhere were redefining their roles in family and society. Slave trading was relocating large numbers of people, while others were migrating in search of new opportunities. The first tourists, traveling not for trade or exploration but for personal fulfillment, were exploring this new globalized world.
Thomas Christensen illuminates this extravagant age by focusing on a single riotous year. Woven with color images and artwork from the period, 1616 tells the surprising tales of the men and women who set the world on its tumultuous course toward modernity.
Thomas Christensen illuminates this extravagant age by focusing on a single riotous year. Woven with color images and artwork from the period, 1616 tells the surprising tales of the men and women who set the world on its tumultuous course toward modernity.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published February 14, 2012
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November 30, 2015
A lot of stuff happened in the year 1616. Lots of stuff.
The Turks invaded Persia. England sent its first official ambassador to the Mughal court of Jahangir. Pocohantas came to England. The first African slaves were brought to the Bahamas. Pope Paul met with Galileo and welcomed a samurai in the Vatican. Japan nevertheless restricted most foreigners to the ports of Nagasaki and Hirado that year. The Jesuits were expelled from China. On April 23, 1616, both Shakespeare and Cervantes died (the same date, but different days, since their countries used different calendars). Domenico Belli's L'Orfeo Dolente premiered, perhaps the first true opera. Artemisia Gentileschi was admitted to the Academie del Disegno of Florence. There were revolts in Mexico, beheadings in Germany. Richelieu became secretary of state. On Christmas Day, the English royal court gathered to watch a masque, wherein Father Christmas made his first appearance.
Thomas Christensen says he woke up one day in 2009 with the date 1616 on his mind, come from nowhere. I doubt that, but it makes for a good story. And Christensen certainly has an ear and eye for a good story. Some I knew, some I should have known. This is worth the read, if only for how Christensen tells the Artemisia story. I mean, this is not just an Art book. I looked at her Susanna and the Elders, fresh with her life story in my mind:
Male painters, even Rembrandt, just don't understand the violation:
I had put this down for awhile, just reading other things. Last read before I picked this up again was Lolly Willowes, which, it turned out, was about a woman who decides she's a witch. When I picked 1616 up again, it pretty much opened to a section of Witch Hunters and Truth Seekers. Such are the reading gods. In 1616, Johannes Kepler was using whatever influence he had to keep his mother from the stake. The indictment against her included charges that she gave herbal drinks to sicken neighbors, that children died from her touch, that cattle and pigs fell in her presence, that she questioned the idea of heaven, that she was known to pass through locked doors, and that she attempted to make a drinking vessel out of her own father's skull. That last one, at least, was true.
Rudolph II, Holy Roman Emperor around this time, was a bit eccentric. This was his favorite portrait of himself, painted by Arcimboldo:
He ceded power in 1611 and died within a year. After a series of succession, Christensen tells us, "all hell broke loose." The new emperor was Ferdinand:
Ferdinand was an ardent Catholic. ... Restive Bohemian Protestants called a diet to press the new king for guaranteed religious rights. Ferdinand forbade the diet from meeting. It assembled anyway... A deputation marched to Hradshin Castle and confronted the king's regents, demanding an explanation for the diet having been declared illegal. Dissatisfied with the response, the delegates seized the two regents and their secretary and threw them out an upper-story window. Landing in a mound of manure, all three survived. Catholics subsequently claimed the three men had been saved by the intervention of angels, while Protestants attributed their survival to the horse dung into which they fell. The grotesque incident, know as the Defenestration of Prague, is traditionally marked as the beginning of the Thirty Years War.
Pictures don't lie.
Nor does this one:
We learn that Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah comes in a direct line from Kepler's quest to uncover the secret of celestial harmony - that secret chord which pleased the Lord. Did you know there are at least 1818 covers of Hallelujah? Anybody have a favorite?
I liked that this was not Euro-centric. And certainly not male Caucasian-centric. In fact, my favorite painting in the whole book was Squirrels in a Plane Tree by Abul Hasan, a watercolor showing a fusion of eastern and western styles:
There's much, much more to tell. Lots of stuff. But let me end with this. The painting on the cover is obscured by the up and down title. It's hiding something. We can't see what the man is shooting at. See, the Mughal Emperor Jahangir wanted to kill the former African slave Malik Ambar, who led resistance to Jahangir's expansion plans. Below is Jahangir with a bow, standing above a fish and an ox because he's the self-proclaimed "seizer of the world". Hiding behind the cover title is Malik Ambar. He looks pretty hapless in the painting. But Jahangir's painting would have to remain just his wish:
The Turks invaded Persia. England sent its first official ambassador to the Mughal court of Jahangir. Pocohantas came to England. The first African slaves were brought to the Bahamas. Pope Paul met with Galileo and welcomed a samurai in the Vatican. Japan nevertheless restricted most foreigners to the ports of Nagasaki and Hirado that year. The Jesuits were expelled from China. On April 23, 1616, both Shakespeare and Cervantes died (the same date, but different days, since their countries used different calendars). Domenico Belli's L'Orfeo Dolente premiered, perhaps the first true opera. Artemisia Gentileschi was admitted to the Academie del Disegno of Florence. There were revolts in Mexico, beheadings in Germany. Richelieu became secretary of state. On Christmas Day, the English royal court gathered to watch a masque, wherein Father Christmas made his first appearance.
Thomas Christensen says he woke up one day in 2009 with the date 1616 on his mind, come from nowhere. I doubt that, but it makes for a good story. And Christensen certainly has an ear and eye for a good story. Some I knew, some I should have known. This is worth the read, if only for how Christensen tells the Artemisia story. I mean, this is not just an Art book. I looked at her Susanna and the Elders, fresh with her life story in my mind:
Male painters, even Rembrandt, just don't understand the violation:
I had put this down for awhile, just reading other things. Last read before I picked this up again was Lolly Willowes, which, it turned out, was about a woman who decides she's a witch. When I picked 1616 up again, it pretty much opened to a section of Witch Hunters and Truth Seekers. Such are the reading gods. In 1616, Johannes Kepler was using whatever influence he had to keep his mother from the stake. The indictment against her included charges that she gave herbal drinks to sicken neighbors, that children died from her touch, that cattle and pigs fell in her presence, that she questioned the idea of heaven, that she was known to pass through locked doors, and that she attempted to make a drinking vessel out of her own father's skull. That last one, at least, was true.
Rudolph II, Holy Roman Emperor around this time, was a bit eccentric. This was his favorite portrait of himself, painted by Arcimboldo:
He ceded power in 1611 and died within a year. After a series of succession, Christensen tells us, "all hell broke loose." The new emperor was Ferdinand:
Ferdinand was an ardent Catholic. ... Restive Bohemian Protestants called a diet to press the new king for guaranteed religious rights. Ferdinand forbade the diet from meeting. It assembled anyway... A deputation marched to Hradshin Castle and confronted the king's regents, demanding an explanation for the diet having been declared illegal. Dissatisfied with the response, the delegates seized the two regents and their secretary and threw them out an upper-story window. Landing in a mound of manure, all three survived. Catholics subsequently claimed the three men had been saved by the intervention of angels, while Protestants attributed their survival to the horse dung into which they fell. The grotesque incident, know as the Defenestration of Prague, is traditionally marked as the beginning of the Thirty Years War.
Pictures don't lie.
Nor does this one:
We learn that Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah comes in a direct line from Kepler's quest to uncover the secret of celestial harmony - that secret chord which pleased the Lord. Did you know there are at least 1818 covers of Hallelujah? Anybody have a favorite?
I liked that this was not Euro-centric. And certainly not male Caucasian-centric. In fact, my favorite painting in the whole book was Squirrels in a Plane Tree by Abul Hasan, a watercolor showing a fusion of eastern and western styles:
There's much, much more to tell. Lots of stuff. But let me end with this. The painting on the cover is obscured by the up and down title. It's hiding something. We can't see what the man is shooting at. See, the Mughal Emperor Jahangir wanted to kill the former African slave Malik Ambar, who led resistance to Jahangir's expansion plans. Below is Jahangir with a bow, standing above a fish and an ox because he's the self-proclaimed "seizer of the world". Hiding behind the cover title is Malik Ambar. He looks pretty hapless in the painting. But Jahangir's painting would have to remain just his wish:
March 29, 2012
One morning in September 2009 I woke up in my bedroom in the San Francisco Bay Area with the date 1616 in my head and the resolution to research and write about that year already formed.
So begins Thomas Christensen's sumptuous guide to the year 1616. Christensen is an editor and director of publications at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum; his craft in designing handsome catalogs is evident on every page of his book. More surprising is that it's a pleasure to read. Christensen introduces us to a cast of curious characters – Shah Abbas of Persia; Jahangir the Mughal emperor; a host of wildly eccentric travelers (two discoveries for me are Thomas Coryate and Xi Xiake); pirates, painters and adventurers (even a soldier nun) who pop up repeatedly as the author traverses the globe in search of connections and stories. The scholarship is solid* and often entertaining; the illustrations magnificent.
I was particularly amused by the annotations that accompanied the illustrations in the best tradition of marginalia. Here's a favorite example, a miniature morality tale elucidating a portrait of Lady Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset:
Lady Francis Howard (1590-1632) was already notorious as a woman of purportedly less than sterling virtue when she determined to annul her marriage to her husband, Robert Devereux, Third Earl of Essex, and marry instead Robert Carr, King James's favorite.
A farcical trial ensued after she petitioned for annulment on the grounds that the marriage had not been consummated and that she was still a virgin – a claim regarded by many as preposterous. A team of matrons and midwives was presented with a woman who was veiled "for modesty's sake," and they confirmed her virginity. It was commonly believed the veiled woman a substitute, as expressed in a popular verse:
The dame was inspected but fraud interjected
A maid of more perfection
Whom the midwives did handle
While the knight held the candle
O there was a clear inspection!
Friends of her husband, meanwhile, to demonstrate that that he was sexually capable, reported that once during a chat he had lifted his nightshirt to show off a fine erection.
In defense of his marriage, Devereux asserted that he had managed sex with several other women. Finally the king personally put an end to the proceedings by annulling the marriage himself.
A friend of Carr's, Thomas Overbury, wrote a pedantic poem called "A Wife," which implied that Lady Howard possessed none of a wife's desired virtues. He soon ended up in the Tower of London, where he was murdered by the newlyweds with poisoned drinks and enemas.
What a way to go.
_______________________
* I appreciated Christensen's bibliography and "Source Notes" – evidence of a first-class reader writing for other readers.
So begins Thomas Christensen's sumptuous guide to the year 1616. Christensen is an editor and director of publications at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum; his craft in designing handsome catalogs is evident on every page of his book. More surprising is that it's a pleasure to read. Christensen introduces us to a cast of curious characters – Shah Abbas of Persia; Jahangir the Mughal emperor; a host of wildly eccentric travelers (two discoveries for me are Thomas Coryate and Xi Xiake); pirates, painters and adventurers (even a soldier nun) who pop up repeatedly as the author traverses the globe in search of connections and stories. The scholarship is solid* and often entertaining; the illustrations magnificent.
I was particularly amused by the annotations that accompanied the illustrations in the best tradition of marginalia. Here's a favorite example, a miniature morality tale elucidating a portrait of Lady Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset:
Lady Francis Howard (1590-1632) was already notorious as a woman of purportedly less than sterling virtue when she determined to annul her marriage to her husband, Robert Devereux, Third Earl of Essex, and marry instead Robert Carr, King James's favorite.
A farcical trial ensued after she petitioned for annulment on the grounds that the marriage had not been consummated and that she was still a virgin – a claim regarded by many as preposterous. A team of matrons and midwives was presented with a woman who was veiled "for modesty's sake," and they confirmed her virginity. It was commonly believed the veiled woman a substitute, as expressed in a popular verse:
The dame was inspected but fraud interjected
A maid of more perfection
Whom the midwives did handle
While the knight held the candle
O there was a clear inspection!
Friends of her husband, meanwhile, to demonstrate that that he was sexually capable, reported that once during a chat he had lifted his nightshirt to show off a fine erection.
In defense of his marriage, Devereux asserted that he had managed sex with several other women. Finally the king personally put an end to the proceedings by annulling the marriage himself.
A friend of Carr's, Thomas Overbury, wrote a pedantic poem called "A Wife," which implied that Lady Howard possessed none of a wife's desired virtues. He soon ended up in the Tower of London, where he was murdered by the newlyweds with poisoned drinks and enemas.
What a way to go.
_______________________
* I appreciated Christensen's bibliography and "Source Notes" – evidence of a first-class reader writing for other readers.
June 9, 2012
In the spirit of openness and disclosure, I knew Tom Christensen in high school. He was one of my closest friends, the two of us even appearing together in a theater production. And, speaking of high school, I hated my history classes. They were, for the most part, uninspiring, disengaging sessions consisting of the memorization of names, dates, events and locations with the follow-up of the inevitable quiz (or occasional test) on Friday. In the majority of cases, all the data was completely forgotten by the following Monday! Which facts initially presented me with somewhat of a conundrum: How would I be able to give an unbiased review of a book that an old comrade has written about a subject I loathed?
The solution was surprisingly simple: I read the book.
To my astonishment and joy, I found that 1616: The World in Motion is not at all akin to the dull, pedantic tomes of old. It does not recite history; it exhales it with the clean, unbefouled sweetness of a suitor wooing his intended. There are no lists; there are intricate tapestries, which are woven with threads of pure gold and silver. There is none of the censorship that we used to endure in those earlier texts; there is a candor that dares to express the bold and unabashed facts of the age. Having recently published a novel myself that deals with the subject of rape, I was pleased to read the following forthright passage:
"Workplace rape was common during the Renaissance, and not necessarily considered an especially grave offense, though by the early seventeenth century it was increasingly frowned upon. Servants were especially vulnerable…. Women working in male-dominated trades were another often victimized group, in part because the men they came in contact with often lacked the wherewithal for marriage. Gang rape was not uncommon; it was usually justified by the imputation of a lack of chastity to the victim. In such cases the woman might be forced to take a small sum of money as proof of her harlotry."
I most certainly do not wish to suggest that this book is built upon sensationalism, however. Much of the text is covered in the manner of a master storyteller. For example, covering the topic of the travels of Pietro della Valle, whom he describes as “a tourist, wandering mainly out of curiosity and a desire for new experiences,” Mr. Christensen writes:
"In Istanbul he spent a year partying, seeing the sights, and learning Turkish, which was to be his go-to language throughout his journeys. He discovered there a strange new drink called cahue (coffee) and another called sherbet, as well as an unusual loose-weave fabric called terry cloth and a kind of furniture called a sofa, all of which he resolved to introduce into Italy. He judged coffee to be improved by the addition of sugar, cinnamon, and cloves, and he speculated that it could be made even better by brewing it with wine rather than water."
What a charming vignette depicting but a few of the accomplishments of someone of whom most of us have never heard!
Throughout this book, I encountered countless such charismatic details, all of them expressed in a manner that was both captivating as well as enlightening! As Mr. Christensen writes in his Preface:
"Cathartic events can so dominate an era that they make it difficult to see the deeper forces that drive long-term change. In 1616, on the other hand, it is possible to make out intimations of modernity in developing globalism, militarism, imperialism, diasporism, colonialism, capitalism, rationalism, bureaucratization, urbanization, individualism, and so on."
Through the reading of 1616: The World in Motion, I have achieved a refreshed and renewed delight in those very “intimations”!
The solution was surprisingly simple: I read the book.
To my astonishment and joy, I found that 1616: The World in Motion is not at all akin to the dull, pedantic tomes of old. It does not recite history; it exhales it with the clean, unbefouled sweetness of a suitor wooing his intended. There are no lists; there are intricate tapestries, which are woven with threads of pure gold and silver. There is none of the censorship that we used to endure in those earlier texts; there is a candor that dares to express the bold and unabashed facts of the age. Having recently published a novel myself that deals with the subject of rape, I was pleased to read the following forthright passage:
"Workplace rape was common during the Renaissance, and not necessarily considered an especially grave offense, though by the early seventeenth century it was increasingly frowned upon. Servants were especially vulnerable…. Women working in male-dominated trades were another often victimized group, in part because the men they came in contact with often lacked the wherewithal for marriage. Gang rape was not uncommon; it was usually justified by the imputation of a lack of chastity to the victim. In such cases the woman might be forced to take a small sum of money as proof of her harlotry."
I most certainly do not wish to suggest that this book is built upon sensationalism, however. Much of the text is covered in the manner of a master storyteller. For example, covering the topic of the travels of Pietro della Valle, whom he describes as “a tourist, wandering mainly out of curiosity and a desire for new experiences,” Mr. Christensen writes:
"In Istanbul he spent a year partying, seeing the sights, and learning Turkish, which was to be his go-to language throughout his journeys. He discovered there a strange new drink called cahue (coffee) and another called sherbet, as well as an unusual loose-weave fabric called terry cloth and a kind of furniture called a sofa, all of which he resolved to introduce into Italy. He judged coffee to be improved by the addition of sugar, cinnamon, and cloves, and he speculated that it could be made even better by brewing it with wine rather than water."
What a charming vignette depicting but a few of the accomplishments of someone of whom most of us have never heard!
Throughout this book, I encountered countless such charismatic details, all of them expressed in a manner that was both captivating as well as enlightening! As Mr. Christensen writes in his Preface:
"Cathartic events can so dominate an era that they make it difficult to see the deeper forces that drive long-term change. In 1616, on the other hand, it is possible to make out intimations of modernity in developing globalism, militarism, imperialism, diasporism, colonialism, capitalism, rationalism, bureaucratization, urbanization, individualism, and so on."
Through the reading of 1616: The World in Motion, I have achieved a refreshed and renewed delight in those very “intimations”!
June 27, 2013
I am a nerd, so I found this interesting. It's not particularly heavy reading, and instead provides a fun little journey back and forth across much of the world. What I enjoyed most was the relative focus on India and Persia, which are both civilizations I don't know a whole lot about. (Along the same lines, I found the sections on Europe less interesting.) Christensen also devotes some time (although not as much) to China, Japan, and South America.
It's an interesting and ambitious undertaking, to write a brief overview of the world during one particular (and generally considered uneventful) year. It never gets very in-depth or provides a whole lot of analysis, but it's a good introduction that could pique the reader to find more scholarly texts.
It's an interesting and ambitious undertaking, to write a brief overview of the world during one particular (and generally considered uneventful) year. It never gets very in-depth or provides a whole lot of analysis, but it's a good introduction that could pique the reader to find more scholarly texts.
October 5, 2014
Amazing!! So many bits and pieces of history from around the world placed in context. However, be warned this is an awkward book to read. The thick glossy paper in the paperback edition, is awesome for pictures, but catches glare just wrong when you are trying to read. And the size is not very friendly. All that is lost in the many wonderful new trivia bits that I added to my brain.
August 27, 2024
A fascinating journey around the world as it was in 1616. I found it absorbing, but also hard to retain what I was reading because of the jumps from place to place and person to person. I will likely reread in a couple of years to revisit the panorama!
February 25, 2012
Image and information rich, this is a pleasurable examination of world culture when it first began to be global. Not just China's world or not just Rome's world, this is the time when blackpowder and capital drove the creation of empires.
August 8, 2024
“Cathartic events can so dominate an era that they make it difficult to see the deeper forces that drive long-term change. In 1616, on the other hand, it is possible to make out intimations of modernity in developing globalism, militarism, imperialism, diasporism, colonialism, capitalism, rationalism, bureaucratization, urbanization, individualism, and so on.” (Taken from the Preface to ‘1616: The World in Motion’).
Christiansen has chosen the year with some care, for it was not a happening year in which a new continent was discovered, or a man set foot on the moon. In 1616, nothing happened and everything happened. Many of the -isms above are of course dealt with in detail, but what is really enchanting above are specifics of those details: the stories of silk and opium, of how dyes and wool created a mercantile empire, of the desperate hunt for accurate maps, especially sea-routes, medical discoveries, small in themselves, but which paved the way for the technologies of modern hospitals, of astrology and astronomy, of telescopes, astrolabes and logarithms and longitudes, of witch hunts, religious wars, and the secretive society of the Rosicrucians, of Persian kings and Turkish pashas and Indian queens who inspired monuments and wrote poetry; of coffee and terry cloth or the delight of drinking sherbet seated on a sofa…
“Manila is the equal of any other emporium of our monarchy, for it is the center to which flow the riches of the Orient and the Occident, the silver of Peru and New Spain, the pearls and precious stones of India, the diamonds of Narsinga and Goa, the rubies, sapphires and topazes, and the cinnamon of Ceylon, the pepper of Sumatra and Java, the cloves, nutmegs and other spices of the Moluccas and Banda, the fine Persian silks and wool and carpets from Ormuz and Malabar, rich hangings and bed coverings of Bengal, fine camphor of Borneo, balsam and ivory of Abada and Cambodia, the civet of the Lequios, and from Great China silks of all kinds, raw and woven in velvets and figured damasks, taffetas and other cloths of every texture, design and colors, linens, and cotton mantles, gilt-decorated articles, embroideries and porcelains, and other riches and curiosities of great value and esteem, from Japan, amber, varicolored silks, escritoires, boxes and desks of precious woods, lacquered and with curious decorations, and very fine silverware.”
That seems to sum up this book of everyday wonders in all parts of the world. You will meet with slaves and janissaries, diplomats and pirates, pilgrims and the very first tourist. The first tourist, that is, after Herodotus the classical historian.
All in that one year: 1616. If you hated history in school, try this for size: is it fantasy? Time travel? Science fiction? A book of paintings and curiosities? Non-fiction? Or really history? Whatever it is, it is amusing, amazing and often devastating as men travel across the globe met with wondrous peoples and fearsome dangers.
Christiansen has chosen the year with some care, for it was not a happening year in which a new continent was discovered, or a man set foot on the moon. In 1616, nothing happened and everything happened. Many of the -isms above are of course dealt with in detail, but what is really enchanting above are specifics of those details: the stories of silk and opium, of how dyes and wool created a mercantile empire, of the desperate hunt for accurate maps, especially sea-routes, medical discoveries, small in themselves, but which paved the way for the technologies of modern hospitals, of astrology and astronomy, of telescopes, astrolabes and logarithms and longitudes, of witch hunts, religious wars, and the secretive society of the Rosicrucians, of Persian kings and Turkish pashas and Indian queens who inspired monuments and wrote poetry; of coffee and terry cloth or the delight of drinking sherbet seated on a sofa…
“Manila is the equal of any other emporium of our monarchy, for it is the center to which flow the riches of the Orient and the Occident, the silver of Peru and New Spain, the pearls and precious stones of India, the diamonds of Narsinga and Goa, the rubies, sapphires and topazes, and the cinnamon of Ceylon, the pepper of Sumatra and Java, the cloves, nutmegs and other spices of the Moluccas and Banda, the fine Persian silks and wool and carpets from Ormuz and Malabar, rich hangings and bed coverings of Bengal, fine camphor of Borneo, balsam and ivory of Abada and Cambodia, the civet of the Lequios, and from Great China silks of all kinds, raw and woven in velvets and figured damasks, taffetas and other cloths of every texture, design and colors, linens, and cotton mantles, gilt-decorated articles, embroideries and porcelains, and other riches and curiosities of great value and esteem, from Japan, amber, varicolored silks, escritoires, boxes and desks of precious woods, lacquered and with curious decorations, and very fine silverware.”
That seems to sum up this book of everyday wonders in all parts of the world. You will meet with slaves and janissaries, diplomats and pirates, pilgrims and the very first tourist. The first tourist, that is, after Herodotus the classical historian.
All in that one year: 1616. If you hated history in school, try this for size: is it fantasy? Time travel? Science fiction? A book of paintings and curiosities? Non-fiction? Or really history? Whatever it is, it is amusing, amazing and often devastating as men travel across the globe met with wondrous peoples and fearsome dangers.
November 22, 2020
An overview of world history in the year 1616. The author says they picked 1616 because it wasn't a watershed year like 1066 or 1492, but at the same time, there were many wheels in motion so to speak. Christensen takes a look at events going on in the New World, Japan, China, Vietnam, England, the Levant and India. Already in 1616, there was a seedling of globalism that had emerged and Christensen examines how interconnected the world had already become by then. Decent read, but a lot of information to process
December 9, 2018
Despite all the typos I kept finding in my edition, I'm going to still give this one three stars. Author Thomas Christensen covers the spectrum as well as the globe. With subjects ranging from art, philosophy, natural disasters, trade, religion, women's rights (psst, there weren't any), inhumanity (psst, there was plenty of that), politics, science, fashion, conflicts, and just plain travel for travel's sake. The book is chocked full of pictures (as well as typos).
Read
June 30, 2019A very peculiar book, if compared to many other YEAR-books. A more apposite title would've been "The World In The First Quarter Of The XVII century". Be aware, if you're into one-year-history titles.
December 8, 2016
Here are the stories of empires, kingdoms, colonies, tribes, and people: here is an Ottoman pirate-king born in Manchester, an Ethiopian slave who ruled as an Indian raja, and a Basque maid who dressed like a man and became a dashing conquistador; here are Italians complaining about Muscovites in Persian Isfahan, Mexican villagers writing about Japanese fashion in their native Nahuatl, and samurai merchants in Siam; here are European scientists reading Arabic mathematics, Chinese artists studying European chiaroscuro, and German mystics poring over esoteric Zoroastrian lore; here are Mughal paintings of American turkeys, the fine points of sexual assault trials in the Tuscan Republic, and boxes of severed penises (witches are said to have kept them in their huts). Here is the world as it stood four hundred years ago, in all its difference and sameness.
We call it the early modern period for a reason: most of the currents that direct our world either got their start or a serious kick in the pants around this time. Thomas Christensen's 1616: The World in Motion is a beautifully-printed portrait of a world becoming aware of itself. Advancing anecdote by anecdote, Christensen follows a cast of curious figures and ideas from Europe, Persia, India, China, and Japan (with forays into colonial Latin America and a few peeks into western Africa; southeast Asia, North America, Russia, and central Asia appear only in passing. Poor Australia & Oceania hardly appear at all--we just don't have many records to go on.) In keeping with the title, the focus of each chapter--trade, the status of women, art, science & religion, travel & diplomacy--freely crosses borders and languages.
The book's strengths lie in its stories and its people, which are by turns bizarre, tragic, hilarious, and thrilling. Christensen has brought the footnotes of history textbooks to the fore, like Wamán Poma, the son of Quechua aristocrats who penned a 1,200 page illustrated treatise on Spain's colonial rule in South America and personally addressed it to King Philip III. We meet Pietro della Valle, the happiest traveler of the 17th century, and we meet William Lithgow, the most miserable bastard/traveler of any century. We get the real scoop on the Powhatan woman Matoaka (who the English and their descendants still insist on calling by her childhood name, Pocahontas), meet the first woman admitted to the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence, and hang out with expensive prostitutes in Tokugawa's Edo. You will learn things in this book. A few anecdotes drag, and this unevenness is both a natural result of Christensen's method and the book's only significant flaw.
I can say nothing of the book's many portraits, paintings, engravings, and maps except that they are without exception all exceptionally lovely. Counterpoint Berkeley has designed a beautiful product.
This is not a serious study of history. Christensen advances no arguments, upturns no scholarly consensus, and is consistently unsystematic. It will yield no thinkpieces; no tenure committee will darken anybody's door over this book. It is, thank god, a book for amateurs: that is, people who like to read and look at pictures. The artist Dong Qichang (also in this book) would call it a work of the Southern School, and say that Christensen is clearly an esteemed gentleman who only scribbles little notes on history in his spare time. For Dong, this is the highest possible praise.
We call it the early modern period for a reason: most of the currents that direct our world either got their start or a serious kick in the pants around this time. Thomas Christensen's 1616: The World in Motion is a beautifully-printed portrait of a world becoming aware of itself. Advancing anecdote by anecdote, Christensen follows a cast of curious figures and ideas from Europe, Persia, India, China, and Japan (with forays into colonial Latin America and a few peeks into western Africa; southeast Asia, North America, Russia, and central Asia appear only in passing. Poor Australia & Oceania hardly appear at all--we just don't have many records to go on.) In keeping with the title, the focus of each chapter--trade, the status of women, art, science & religion, travel & diplomacy--freely crosses borders and languages.
The book's strengths lie in its stories and its people, which are by turns bizarre, tragic, hilarious, and thrilling. Christensen has brought the footnotes of history textbooks to the fore, like Wamán Poma, the son of Quechua aristocrats who penned a 1,200 page illustrated treatise on Spain's colonial rule in South America and personally addressed it to King Philip III. We meet Pietro della Valle, the happiest traveler of the 17th century, and we meet William Lithgow, the most miserable bastard/traveler of any century. We get the real scoop on the Powhatan woman Matoaka (who the English and their descendants still insist on calling by her childhood name, Pocahontas), meet the first woman admitted to the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence, and hang out with expensive prostitutes in Tokugawa's Edo. You will learn things in this book. A few anecdotes drag, and this unevenness is both a natural result of Christensen's method and the book's only significant flaw.
I can say nothing of the book's many portraits, paintings, engravings, and maps except that they are without exception all exceptionally lovely. Counterpoint Berkeley has designed a beautiful product.
This is not a serious study of history. Christensen advances no arguments, upturns no scholarly consensus, and is consistently unsystematic. It will yield no thinkpieces; no tenure committee will darken anybody's door over this book. It is, thank god, a book for amateurs: that is, people who like to read and look at pictures. The artist Dong Qichang (also in this book) would call it a work of the Southern School, and say that Christensen is clearly an esteemed gentleman who only scribbles little notes on history in his spare time. For Dong, this is the highest possible praise.
March 8, 2017
This is an awesome book I'm putting on my Bhutan shelf because 1616 is actually the year that the country of Bhutan began! It's an unfortunate omission from the text that can be fixed with a little more reading (I personally recommend Karma Phuntsho's "The History of Bhutan"). The story of the rise of the Gelukpa school of Buddhism, their conflict with the Kagyu school, and the Zhabdrung's flight to Lhomon (what Bhutan was called in those days) would make particularly dramatic reading in Christensen's very intense and creative style of writing history. It would go well, I think, with the theme of religious wars and modernization (the 17th Century was, apparently, called the Century of Religious Wars). He lists many incidents of religious violence - typically among Christians against... well, everyone else. The most famous incident is the Catholic-Protestant Thirty Years War, but this was also the era of the height of the European Witch Hunts (so Christian vs. assumed Witches?), a new era of Turkish/Persian rivalry (Sunni vs. Shia), something between synthesis and antagonism in India between Hindu and Muslim, conflicts with New World paganism by converting Spanish Catholic missionaries, and the problems with the Christian conversion of Japanese Shintos. Phuntsho does an awesome job describing the causes, events, and effects of the wars between Bhutan and Tibet in the course of the seventeenth century, reminding the reader that as much as the personalities were the causes of the violence, the wars took on religious motivations. The personalities involved were as much concerned about land, power, wealth, etc., as they were with the doctrinal influence of the Gelukpas (Tibetans) vs. the Kagyupas (Bhutanese).
Hopefully it'll make it into the second edition. For now, if you're interested in Bhutan or Tibet, this book makes a great complement on what's going on in the rest of the world while the modern forms of Tibet and Bhutan were in their infant stages.
Hopefully it'll make it into the second edition. For now, if you're interested in Bhutan or Tibet, this book makes a great complement on what's going on in the rest of the world while the modern forms of Tibet and Bhutan were in their infant stages.
September 14, 2012
First of all, my sincere apologies to all who really liked this book. I had received this book from Goodreads (Thanks!!!) and was so excited to have it based on the idea of writing a book about one year in world history, but had a hard time reading it. The book is artistically (paper quality, artwork, organization) astounding! Mr. Christensen did a stellar job of putting this book together and choosing to use photographic paper rather than the standard makes the book stand out even more (could even be a coffee table book just for perusing the various pieces of art reproduced for the book). However, I found the written material rather dry. This may derive from my usual interest in military history and faster paced novels, etc., however, try as I did, I had a very hard time getting through the actual reading of the book. The subject matter is quite interesting; I just found it to be rather dry. All together, this is an exquisite book if just based on the artwork and the graphic presentation of the material.
April 26, 2012
I am not even sure where to begin! This is one of my new favorite books. Christensen takes a look at what is going on in the year 1616 (as well as before and after that year) within the context of the greater world. Follow him across the globe and around the world to look at all the amazing events that are leading to and result from this year in motion. I really liked how he weaves the world together and shows all the interaction and activity and ripples that take place during this period in time. Too much in the book to try to relate here. If you like history and want to know to see the world as it is interconnected and interdependent cause-effect-counter-cause read this book.
May 11, 2012
I loved, loved, loved this book, from beginning to end. As a matter of fact I was getting kind of sad when I was almost done with it; no more riveting reading about people long ago who had the most unusual adventures. Their stories were told in such a delightful and funny manner that I completely lost myself in their journeys. It's history at its best. This book is a must for anyone who is interested in history. And besides it being entertaining it was also very informative. I used riveting before and I use it again, just so all you history lovers will get the book.
July 3, 2012
Exquisite book.A-one photo reproduction.Easy reading, very informative,atypical history that fills gaps of standard histories.Not sure that I accept his premise that there were more travelers during this era than others.Weren't there always adventurers and soldiers.The Greeks and Romans certainly traveled the world,but perhaps from a Euro-centric Christian vantage this era was new.Needs tighter proofreading.Too many typos mispellings and repetitions.
October 18, 2013
A bold concept, but the execution is somewhat lacking. In trying to follow the history of the world in a single year, the author is forced to backtrack and skip to the future to explain what's happening and why, or repercussions from events. He attempts to organize things thematically, but the themes aren't always coherent. The book is certainly lavishly presented, with high quality paper and beautiful illustrations, but that doesn't entirely make up for the writing.
March 27, 2013
A wonderful book arose from a quixotic decision. The author notes the apparent randomness of focussing on the year 1616, which is not one that resonates in our brains like 1492, 1976, etc. But Christensen shows how this period was the turning point from localism to globalism. The book itself is gorgeous with color artwork from the period used to illustrate the story.
August 18, 2013
It was A Bad Plan to read this in ebook form -- I gather from the other reviews that it's almost a coffee table book. With the plentiful pictures scaled down to iphone-screen-size, the writing (which managed to be both superficial and fussily detailed) couldn't possibly rate higher than two stars.
April 13, 2012
Good stuff, though lags toward the end.
June 24, 2016
Fascinating look into what was happening ALL over the world in 1616, politically, culturally, science, women, travel. It's a big read but well worth the time. And not dry!
May 27, 2024
Enjoyable, informative and (relatively) quick read.
Want to read
November 14, 2013Beautifully illustrated.
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